Building Bridges: Roll Back Low Wages: Stories of New Labor Organizing with Sarah Jaffe - 27:59

Roll Back Low Wages: Nine Stories of New Labor Organizing in the United States 
with 
Sarah Jaffe, labor journalist, author of Roll Back Low Wages Albert Scharenberg, co-Director Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, NY Office  

The Fight for $15 Campaign comes against a backdrop of the mass incarceration and other forms of state violence against people of color and immigrants, stagnating wages, chronic unemployment, underemployment and starvation pay, and Building Bridges will drill down deeper to examine the economic conditions behind the Fight for $15 Campaign and the coalescence of workers groups stimulating these campaigns and new forms of organization for interest of the working class.  If we were to select one word to best describe the most important current trend in the economy of the United States, “precarity” would be a leading candidate.  America’s middle class is shrinking and recent polls suggest that possibilities for merit-based advancement are at their lowest point ever. A growing number of people work low-wage jobs under precarious circumstances, often without long-term job security, health care, or possibilities for advancement or retirement. Many quite literally find them- selves one sick day away from being fired and replaced by another person desperate to feed her or his family.Precarity in our working lives, or in those of our neighbors, our friends, or our loved ones, has increasingly become the new norm. With inequality on the rise, the U.S. government largely beholden to corporate interests, and austerity the economic recipe du jour, the implications are significant for the future of working people

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