I've been quiet for a while but a new project is brewing. I made a Substack about it:

We looked at enslaved women last week, reading a chapter from @alexfinley.bsky.social's fantastic book alongside a piece from Harriet Jacobs, some runaway ads, etc., and these students just ran with it

Happy to share a new article in the latest issue of Labor where I use emotional labor as a lens for historical analysis

More ways to support Tim Alter - register here

BREAKING: A historic coalition of national & California labor unions led by the AAUP filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration challenging the illegal & coercive use of civil rights laws to attack the University of California system & the rights of their members.

Do what you can to help Dr. Alter. An injury to one is an injury to all

When our institutions won't stand up, faculties will have to come together to do so.

Petition for Professor Alter:

LAWCHA Statement on the Unjust Firing of Professor Thomas Alter

say it again: 4 million people work in higher ed, the largest employer in 10 states, second largest employer in 10 more, and in 60 of the 100 biggest cities demolishing higher education is economic sabotage

“That may seem like an unfair question to ask of any union, any local, but when history calls our number, fairly or unfairly, it is the duty of every person of conscience to answer the call”

This Day in Labor History: August 3, 1913. The Wheatland Riot took place in California, leading to four deaths, including two workers and two law enforcement agents. This was caused by the cops violently busting a farmworkers strike where some IWW members were working. Disgusting, typical.

The minimum wage is still $7.25

Boards of Trustees ***LIKE*** the Trump demands. They ***AGREE*** with them. They like the idea of putting the screws on activist, lefty, and Muslim students. They like the idea of a whiter student body and conservative curriculum. They want these things and think $200 million is a fair price.

94% of teachers have had to dip into their own pockets to buy school supplies. An estimated 1 in 6 have second jobs during the school year to make ends meet. The average Wall Street employee got a record $244,700 bonus last year. Something has gone terribly wrong.

Google's AI summaries are - killing traffic to legitimate sites - producing summaries that can be wrong - in the long run probably making you a dumbass www.404media.co/googles-ai-i...

Pittsburgh history: I.W.W. meetings held at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Smithfield, 1907

The bill to restore federal workers’ union rights has bipartisan support from a majority of members in Congress! Tell your rep to sign the discharge petition for the Protect America’s Workforce Act to reverse Trump’s union-busting executive order! act.aflcio.org/call_campaig...

Use this time to build community, invest in mutual aid, educate yourself & your family, hammer your "representatives" with strong opinions, be in the streets taking up space & using your voice. We'll beat these fascist fucks & build something better than the status quo we had. Keep doing The Work

The Full 'I Do Solemnly Swear' Audio Series is out NOW as well as an exclusive from @axios.com! WATCH: youtube.com/playlist?lis... READ: www.axios.com/2025/07/16/d... TAKE ACTION: linktr.ee/FedsSpeakOut

“What are your policies but simply obeying orders? By whom are the orders issued? The capitalist class.” From The Industrial Worker, 1/1906

"i asked grok" "i asked chatgpt" yeah well i asked carl sagan and he said the greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge 🧪

Alexandra Finley’s (@alexfinley.bsky.social) review of Laboring Mothers: Reproducing Women and Work in the Eighteenth Century (@uvapress.bsky.social) by Ellen Malenas Ledoux doi.org/10.1215/1547...

Misogyny is core to the American fascist project and feminism must be core to its opposition.

A reminder to reporters, when historians look back on this moment with the president throwing himself a military parade and the people throwing No Kings rallies across America, the media sources raving about the former and sneering at the latter are going to be quoted by name. This is your legacy!

If you're heading to a protest tomorrow, it's important to know your rights. Consult this information from the ACLU. Be peaceful. Be safe. Be careful. Be strong.

-chefs can use ready meals to save time on cooking -zoos can use stuffed toys to save money on animals -bars can serve piss and cut out the middle man

Don't be so angry about the Mexican flags. It's heritage, not hate.

CNN’s Jason Carroll was zip-tied and escorted away—for reporting the news. But they claimed he wasn’t under arrest? Why are they shooting rubber bullets at and silencing journalists? We still have a First Amendment.

SEIU California President David Huerta has apparently been charged with a federal crime--conspiracy to impede an officer. This is a felony that carries a sentence of six years in federal prison.

Corporate profits have hit record highs. CEOs are paid 290x as much as a typical worker. We're subsidizing huge corporations that pay lousy wages through food stamps and Medicaid. But instead of cracking down on corporate greed, Republicans want to punish the working poor.

DOGE is now reviewing every NIH grant that goes out, I reported last week. That review is AI-driven and is screening for DEI, trans health, China, vaccine hesitancy, and the institutions to whom Trump has blocked funding, @hannahnatanson.bsky.social reports. Gift link: wapo.st/3HhnPSt

My view from lying like a lizard on the porch after the sun reappeared in Pittsburgh after 40 days.

1/ We’ve been sounding the alarm for months and now the Congressional Budget Office has confirmed it. This budget would gut Medicaid and SNAP, saddle states with new costs, and do real harm to working people. Let’s break it down 🧵

From Aug. 1 to Dec. 13, 2024, an algorithm canceled at least 70 Louisiana prisoners’ parole hearings, deeming them ineligible. One prisoner said he felt “betrayed.” “People in jail have … lost hope in being able to do anything to reduce their time.” With @veritenews.org ‬

Just stating what should be obvious, but won’t be to the industries embracing AI: the solution here is not to train the bots to refer only to real things. It is for us to agree that nobody should want vacant advice from a non-sentient language generator.

Lawmakers slipped a provision into the budget deal that blocks states from regulating AI for 10 years. That means no worker safeguards, no limits on surveillance, and no accountability for tech companies. It’s reckless and puts lives & livelihoods at risk.

Rarely does an academic conference give me hope for the world, but this was no ordinary conference!

Georgia forcing the family of a brain dead Black woman to pay for her to remain on life support so the state can gestate her fetus is why we need pro-birth accountability laws that force a state to pay for all costs attending a forced birth. www.11alive.com/article/news...

Good lord just what the hell is up today. A potential ban on any regulation for AI for the next 10 years? This includes good bills like AB 412 of legislation protecting folks from Deepfakes! Wtf?! Call your congressmen and women asap to tell them to take this down! www.404media.co/republicans-...

Join LAWCHA in Chicago! Let me know if you’re attending and want to meet up!

Guess investing in baristas IS important... if only SOMEONE had ideas that could, say, be put into a union contract......... oh wait

Penn State is still moving forward w/ plans to shut down one or more (up to 12) of its smaller campuses, including the one where I teach just outside of Pittsburgh. This is an open letter to the Board, asking the university to re-consider its decision. Please sign and share:

Increase in productivity since 1979: 86% Increase in hourly pay since 1979: 31% Just so happens that ~25% of workers were unionized in 1979. Today? 10%. As unions declined, the super-rich have taken a larger share of wealth generated by labor. We must build back union power.

Happy May Day!

IWW Summer starts now

If you're in Pittsburgh, please come out and hear Dr. Mccoy's talk today!

Labor history event in Pittsburgh today! @austinmccoy.bsky.social