All over the country, employees – and managers – are trying to figure out how we work now. Past the initial years of the pandemic, many of us are still scattered, working at home, hybrid, in a constant state of lugging laptops back and forth, signing up for a hoteling spot, or sharing space with partners and pets.
It’s complicated, to say the least. While some of us are saving on parking fees, others are losing commercial tenants. I personally am enjoying being home when a kid gets back from school, but I miss talking in hallways with colleagues. In the office I’m liking our new brainstorming whiteboards, but they are hard to use when half of us are on a screen.
But it’s been fascinating to see as we individual workers are more diffuse, a reemergence and reenergization of a different kind of working team – the labor union. If we aren’t banding together in offices, we can converge in groups of co-workers in our industries – auto workers, teachers, Hollywood actors and writers, and journalists. Unions are finding they are more relevant and perhaps more needed than ever. As of Oct. 9, 2023, about 453,000 workers have been part of 312 strikes this year, compared to 180 strikes with 43,700 workers two years ago over the same time period, according to a CNBC report citing data from Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. That feels like we’re working together.
It could be a “hinge point,” a moment that philosopher Nancy Fraser describes as a crisis so severe it might present an opportunity. Anne has been spending time interviewing Fraser over the past few years, and this week we re-air our show that brings you their conversations about cultural theories and Fraser's work “Against Capitalism.”
– Shannon