"We can't delude our way out of climate change & the effects of using land to feed large amounts of cattle...-though some people are certainly trying." Timely piece for this moment, & if we're going to do old school steakhouse nostalgia, I vote for the 🍸🍸 lunch.

Fruit & veg growing is a multi-billion $ industry. There's a lack of enforcement of worker protections-& those caught abusing get less than a slap on the wrist. The only thing missing from this excellent investigation is naming the brands & supermarkets that profit. www.latimes.com/california/s...

New! Earlier this year, it made headlines when private equity drove JoAnn Fabrics to bankruptcy. @manpreetkalra.bsky.social & I discuss how it happened & talk about fast fashion, sewing, & women's work in society. Also: Elvis, billionaire budgeting tips, & more www.artofcitizenry.com/podcast/priv...

Looking to ditch Spotify? @janus.bsky.social wrote this up for @fightforthefuture.org and it's an easy step-by-step guide for how to do it in the least painless way possible touchgrass.fightforthefuture.org/how-to-ditch...

Nearly 2k affordable apartment units sit empty in Portland, according to data crunched by the O. A chief reason: Rising rents have closed the gap between market rate & so-called "affordable" housing, keeping subsidized units out of reach for low-income renters.

Coffee, Silicon Valley & George W. Bush’s former roommate? Philz Coffee made headlines when it was bought by a private equity firm & cancelled all employee stock — @manpreetkalra.bsky.social & @annacanning.bsky.social unpack what really went down! 🎙️Tune in: www.artofcitizenry.com/podcast/priv...

Remember a few months ago when a private equity firm bought Philz Coffee & wiped out workers' stock? In a new project with @manpreetkalra.bsky.social, we delve into that & how it's a symptom of a larger system built to siphon $ at every step. www.artofcitizenry.com/podcast/priv...

For all the Gap does to talk about "Empowering Women," they won't even do the bare minimum: stop the illegal firing of women union leaders & pregnant workers. It's not like corporate hypocrisy is surprising, but the demand is so basic. dignityandrights.org/2025/11/gap-...

How is AI *really* impacting jobs? Henley Chiu, the CTO of Revealera, a jobs data analysis firm, analyzed 180 million jobs listings in 2024 and 2025, in an effort to find out. Chiu found an: -8% drop in all jobs postings -~30% drop in art, photography, writing jobs -22% drop in journalism jobs

Join me for this starting at noon ET! We'll hear from leaders in the Guatemalan workers' union as well as advocates in the US about how we took on an opaque, private equity-backed fashion brand - & won! Consider it your dose of good news for the day. us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Rainforest Alliance announced a new regenerative coffee certification with Nestle's Nespresso as the first company. This piece does a great job contrasting the latest corporate spin w/ the small farmer co-ops who have long made the connection, "If the soils are rich, farmers will have abundance”

91% of people living outside say they need rental assistance. Instead, they're getting criminal charges-& the mayor is ramping up enforcement the same day SNAP benefits cut off. These are the kind of policy choices that drive people to do desperate things. www.portlandmercury.com/news/2025/10...

"It's good to be reminded we all have skin in the game...But the freedom to keep buying off-season strawberries on the East Coast is very different from the freedom to walk outside & not fear ICE chasing you, or to stand up for your rights as a worker" [email protected] ambrook.com/offrange/per...

When Industrial Hana, a subcontractor for several major brands, abruptly shuttered in October 2023, nearly 250 workers were left without $1.5 million in owed severance.

Excellent news!! An important reminder that workers need the pay and severance they have built up after a factory closes and that brands are responsible for unpaid workers in their supply chain. #PayYourWorkers

Good news! Lucky Brand to pay $500,000 to garment workers. This case has immediate impact ($$$ in people's hands) & sets a precedent: No matter the layers of opaque ownership, brands are ultimately responsible for the consequences of their purchasing practices. dignityandrights.org/2025/09/toge...

I want to do a little breakdown of this investigation I published today for @prismreports.org about gender-based violence in the H-2A agricultural visa program.

Starting soon! We'll be hearing from women who sorted frankincense in doTERRA's supply chains, as well as the advocates who pursued the forced labor import ban because the abuses were so egregious. Register to join - & share with the essential oil fans in your life : bit.ly/HealingForWhom

Essential oil MLM doTERRA has built a $2B brand on women's health & empowerment. By now, we're all used to corporate hypocrisy, but the human trafficking & forced labor documented here is next level. & so far, doTERRA's solution has been to cut & run. dignityandrights.org/2025/08/dote...

This is the shame-the-consumer ploy that the fossil industry has been running for years: 'You need to use stuff more efficiently...' But it was the packaging industry that invented it, long before that: 'The problem is that you (personally) don't recycle...'

Good news: there's an AI solution for everyone's main Excel use case: summarizing a survey of how people feel about their office coffee. Bad news: it shouldn't be used for anything "high stakes" like the financial reporting that most people actually use Excel for www.theverge.com/news/761338/...

Trump's Executive Order promises to “Democratize Access to Alternative Assets for 401(k) Investors.” Nothing about this EO supports democracy. It’s pure kleptocracy, granting the wealthiest billionaires new opportunities to pick working people's pockets. dignityandrights.org/2025/08/anot...

Salsa season is here.

Food stamp cuts will hit food system workers hard. Not sure which is more grotesque: *Work reqs for people who live where there are no jobs to apply for *Walmart & corporations paying workers so little they rely on food stamps *Like 10 other facts in this story www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

The AI infrastructure build-out is so gigantic that in the past 6 months, it contributed more to the growth of the U.S. economy than /all of consumer spending/ The 'magnificent 7' spent more than $100 billion on data centers and the like in the past three months *alone* www.wsj.com/tech/ai/sili...

This isn't a list of jobs that A.I. can easily replace. It's a list of jobs that techno fascists don't think are worthwhile or meaningful and that they want to eliminate. They don't want humans to try to make sense of the world, they want us to believe whatever we're told.

"If employers have easy access to workers who don’t really have rights, it makes it harder to push for better wages or safety... The real solution, then, is not deportations but full rights for all workers. That means not only citizenship rights but labor rights too" inthesetimes.com/article/farm...

The Tel Aviv stock exchange has surged 179% since the start of Israel’s military assault on Gaza. I spoke with Lydia de Leeuw @somoamsterdam.bsky.social on the corporate architecture that sustains and profits from occupation. 🎧Tune in: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/g...

The @foodchainworkers.bsky.social just sent out a newsletter and it is clear that the ICE raids are also an attack on organized labor.

BREAKING: 7 directors from Chiquita Brands convicted in Colombian courts over financing paramilitary groups Initial sentence: 11 years and 3 months in prison

These changes include cutting overtime & minimum wages for home health workers & protections from retaliation for guest workers reporting abuses. They're critical protections for some of the lowest wage & most vulnerable workers. Basic rights & dignity are not "obsolete." apnews.com/article/labo...

"The point of these raids is to demonstrate that no one, no matter what they contribute to the community, will be spared arrest... Ultimately, neither “good” immigrants nor “good” protestors can use their goodness as a shield from ICE’s violence."  newrepublic.com/article/1980...

Wrote about how restaurants are redoing their menus to get around tariffs, and how for some cuisines that's basically impossible www.eater.com/restaurant-n...

New law cuts budget at agency that enforces American employees' rights to safe and healthy workplaces: $ cut 8% & staff cut 12%. Now it would take OSHA 266 years to inspect all U.S. workplaces, up from 185 years before budget law & 84 years in 1991. insideclimatenews.org/news/1607202...

For decades, immigration authorities have been required by policy to avoid making arrests near churches, hospitals, courthouses and schools, except in urgent situations involving threats such as terrorism or pursuit of a dangerous felon. That policy was rescinded this year.

The Working-Class Studies Association aims to develop and promote multiple forms of scholarship, teaching, and activism related to working class life and cultures. This is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or their institution.

Starting at the top of the hour! RSVP to join

Happening tomorrow! We'll be talking about the industry that's helping the likes of Amazon & Nike dodge accountability for abuses in their supply chains. Join worker leaders & advocates from 3 continents. From the RSVPs, looks like it should be a lively conversation us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

The debt, deportation, and death bill has passed. Congress further decimates care work to fund violence work. Vital services eviscerated and ICE becomes the highest-funded federal law enforcement agency ever known. It hasn’t been sold this way, but it’s a massive public jobs program for fascists.

Elon Musk casually, and illegally, dismantled USAID. According to a new study in the Lancet, that action will lead to *14 million* premature deaths between 2025 and 2030. Again: Elon Musk is directly responsible for 14 million coming deaths. 4.5 million will be children.

Yet another way the current budget bill would extract money from communities - historically $$ for rural communities has been a key part of the argument for logging

I've been talking about this for years but the fossil fuel industry has five key narratives, they haven't changed much in decades, and they just shift between them/combine them depending on what is happening in the world. Made a quick and dirty flow chart to illustrate it:

Trump’s Budget Bill Just Passed the Senate: It's a massive pay-off to ICE The organization is now one of the most well-funded LEO's on the planet LATEST at PWS www.piratewireservices.com/p/trumps-bud...

These are not enemy combatants in a war zone, but people living and working in America’s second largest city. In the last three weeks, federal agents have swarmed Los Angeles County, rounding up 1,600 people, where they work, where their children play, where they shop calmatters.org/investigatio...

New report: lots has been said about how social auditing firms fail to detect even some of the most worst abuses. My new report builds on that, examining 3 case studies & showing how social auditors are actually helping cover abuses & delay remedy for workers. dignityandrights.org/resources/ch...

Check out this site if you're interested in viewing where your state's portion of the ~60 million acres of Forest Service roadless lands being opened up for logging and road building. www.fs.usda.gov/managing-lan...

I updated this piece from February with new guidance on what workers and owners can do if ICE shows up at your restaurant www.eater.com/24364171/ice...

I know everything is on fire but PLEASE contact your representatives about the selloff of public lands. It's a heartbreaking proposal that will destroy the soul of America.