Labor Archives - Public Seminar

Interviews

Fresh Hope for Labor

A conversation with labor historian Dave Kamper on the growing strength of American unions, as recounted in his new book, Who’s Got the Power?

March 12, 2026 • by Shea Dean and Dave Kamper

In his new book Who’s Got the Power? The Resurgence of American Unions (The New Press, 2025), labor writer and organizer Dave Kamper delivers a bit of good news in a dark time. “Much of the last half century has, for the labor movement, sucked beyond the telling,” he writes. ...

Migration

Immigration Is Imperative

Without migrants, the US would be in dire economic straits

September 25, 2025 • by Purushottam Bhandare and Katerina Canyon

Donald Trump's accusation, in the 2024 presidential debate, that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were "eating pets" may have quickly proven false, but it still led to sweeping policy action. Soon after Trump was inaugurated, the administration abruptly terminated the Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan (CHNV) humanitarian parole programs, pulling the ...

Activism

Rent Is the Crisis

Framing it as a “housing crisis” ignores that from the perspective of its winners, the system works just fine

March 21, 2025 • by Tracy Rosenthal and Leonardo Vilchis

Every first of the month, we hand over a share of our wages to meet our human need for housing. Our rents rise faster than our incomes, and inequality grows. Every first of the month, more tenants go without food, medication, and basic necessities to pay this tribute. More people ...

Body & Mind

The Fashion for Baiting, Brainwashing, and Bullying

How does Brandy Melville continue to tap into the most desperate impulses of being a teenage girl?

December 10, 2024 • by Hannah McIntyre

“From the beginning of the supply chain to the end, we’re all being exploited by the same system” says Chloe Asaam, who represents the Or Foundation. She’s speaking in Brandy Hellville & the Cult of Fast Fashion, an HBO documentary that explores the toxicity of the international brand Brandy Melville. The ...

The Fashion for Baiting, Brainwashing, and Bullying

Capitalism

Who Gets to Retire?

An excerpt from Work, Retire, Repeat

October 17, 2024 • by Teresa Ghilarducci

For the first time in modern American history, gains in retirement time are concentrated at the economic top. ...

Economy

You Are Entitled to Live Your Own Life—If Your Employer Allows It

How the business of cobbling together a living became a new form of unpaid labor

October 17, 2024 • by Phyllis Jeffrey

I know someone, a nurse, who doesn’t have health insurance. His employer, a staffing agency, bounces him from assignment to assignment—sometimes with only a day’s notice. Engaged in skilled care work that is profoundly dependent on the ability to maintain human relationships, he often finds himself treated more like a ...

You Are Entitled to Live Your Own Life—If Your Employer Allows It

Economy

Low-Paid Industries Rely on Gig Workers. Are They Actually Employees?

A new survey sheds light on the working conditions of New York City’s “independent contractors”

October 16, 2024 • by Lina Moe

Ask any organizer and you’ll hear how hard it is to reach gig workers. These workers typically lack a physical place of work or regular schedule (though many work all the time), and their work is poorly measured in Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics datasets. The gig workers ...

Low-Paid Industries Rely on Gig Workers. Are They Actually Employees?

Capitalism

Biden’s Green Protectionism

Behind rhetoric about jobs and green energy is a bid for a $650 billion industry

September 16, 2024 • by Yannis Bougiatiotis

Domestic economic commentators tend to describe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the rise of American green industrial policy along three lines. Lawrence Summers, former United States secretary of the treasury under Clinton, has criticized Biden’s protectionist policies as a “manufacturing-centered economic nationalism.” Nobel laureate Paul Krugman has supported Biden’s ...

Podcast

It’s Good Work—If You Can Get It

A conversation with Alexandrea Ravenelle about Side Hustle Safety Net: How Vulnerable Workers Survive Precarious Times

February 27, 2024 • by Claire Potter

As the world of work sagged and collapsed, University of North Carolina sociologist and W-2 worker Alexandrea Ravenelle decided to document this economic shock in real time....

Podcast

Inflation, the Labor Market, and Inequality: Two Interviews

Unproductive Labor Podcast, Episode 16

November 10, 2022 • by Pete Sinnott and Luke Mergner

This week a double episode, first a discussion about inflation and the labor market with Brian Callaci, chief economist at the Open Market Institute. Then an interview with political scientist David Lay Williams about inequality today and its place in the history of western political thought....

Inflation, the Labor Market, and Inequality: Two Interviews

Podcast

Violence and Class Solidarity: How Employers Organized to Fight Unions in the Nineteenth Century, an Interview with Chad Pearson

Unproductive Labor Podcast, Episode 15

November 3, 2022 • by Pete Sinnott and Luke Mergner

In this episode, Pete interviews Chad Pearson about his new book, Capital's Terrorists: Klansmen, Lawmen, and Employers in the Long Nineteenth Century (University of North Carolina Press, 2022). They talk about the use of violence to discipline workforces, labor battles in the long nineteenth century, the need to study the ...

Violence and Class Solidarity: How Employers Organized to Fight Unions in the Nineteenth Century, an Interview with Chad Pearson

War

Personal Reflections on War and Peace

A response to James Carroll

October 24, 2022 • by Frida Berrigan

The history of nonviolent successes is underreported, understudied, and under-understood. ...

Labor

Fresh Hope for Labor

A conversation with labor historian Dave Kamper on the growing strength of American unions, as recounted in his new book, Who’s Got the Power?

Immigration Is Imperative

Without migrants, the US would be in dire economic straits

Rent Is the Crisis

Framing it as a “housing crisis” ignores that from the perspective of its winners, the system works just fine

The Fashion for Baiting, Brainwashing, and Bullying

How does Brandy Melville continue to tap into the most desperate impulses of being a teenage girl?

Who Gets to Retire?

An excerpt from Work, Retire, Repeat

Low-Paid Industries Rely on Gig Workers. Are They Actually Employees?

A new survey sheds light on the working conditions of New York City’s “independent contractors”

Biden’s Green Protectionism

Behind rhetoric about jobs and green energy is a bid for a $650 billion industry

It’s Good Work—If You Can Get It

A conversation with Alexandrea Ravenelle about Side Hustle Safety Net: How Vulnerable Workers Survive Precarious Times

Inflation, the Labor Market, and Inequality: Two Interviews

Unproductive Labor Podcast, Episode 16

Violence and Class Solidarity: How Employers Organized to Fight Unions in the Nineteenth Century, an Interview with Chad Pearson

Unproductive Labor Podcast, Episode 15

Personal Reflections on War and Peace

A response to James Carroll

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