Retail workers get little attention in major discussions about employment in America. In part, this is because the jobs are widely seen as low-skill, temporary ones done by young people like Aguilera, on their way to something more prestigious. Why make the jobs better if they're just done by kids, or women who are looking for pocket money, or the unskilled? . . . Indeed, when retail workers have pushed themselves into public consciousness in recent years it has been because they have been organizing. Retail workers have been at the heart of the Fight for $15, which pushed wages higher in places like Emeryville, Seattle, San Francisco, New York, and a host of other cities as low-wage workers struck and rallied for raises. Retail workers too have organized for paid sick time, passed into law in Emeryville in 2015, and now more and more have begun to demand some control over their schedules. Rather than hope for a Make America Great Again–style renaissance of manufacturing, retail workers are demanding that their existing jobs improve.
I confess I read this headline and could not help thinking “Fuck you” but of course the article is very interesting and I guess I just get defensive sometimes
“Although my main characters find themselves in difficult circumstances, they are not passive. They resist, confront, and sometimes arrive at moments of transcendence.”
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