Last week, on September 2, radical anthropologist and Occupy Wall Street organizer David Graeber passed away at a hospital in Venice at the age of 59. In their obituary, the New York Times called him a “caustic critic of inequality.” Today we remember David by re-airing our Labor Day interview with him from two years […]
Labor Day Union Update
Monday, September 2, 2019 is Labor Day in the United States. The last several decades have been tough ones for organized labor, as union membership and revenues have declined across the country. Here in Wisconsin, it’s been eight years since former governor Scott Walker “dropped the bomb” on public workers, stripping them of collective bargaining […]
A Labor Day Conversation with David Graeber, author of Bullshit Jobs
A 2015 YouGov survey revealed that 37% of working British adults think their jobs do not make a meaningful contribution to the world. Similarly, 40% of workers in the Netherlands reported that their jobs had no good reason to exist. Why are so many 21st century workers trapped in useless, meaningless jobs? On today’s special […]
Annual Laborfest Brings Together Unions, Workers
For many, Labor Day means a break from work, an opportunity to see family and to grill out. Another Madison tradition?Laborfest on Madison Labor Temple grounds. Labor leaders, union members and supporters of labor from the area gathered yesterday for the annual festival. WORT student reporter Casey McCabe was there.
May Day Is Labor Day–Roots to Chicago Haymarket Square
Today is May Day, which to many may bring visions of maypoles, baskets of flowers and dancers. But in everywhere else except the United States, May Day is Labor Day, alternatively known as International Worker’s Day, or the Day of the Martyrs of the Revolution. Ironically, since the holiday is not officially celebrated here, International […]
Labor Day Showdown: Obama vs. Walker
MADISON (WORT) –On Labor Day, President Barack Obama argued for the continued importance of labor unions and joked about the 2016 GOP presidential hopefuls, including Governor Scott Walker. Darien Lamen reports.