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How is the so-called creative class faring in the ongoing economic crisis? In three books published in the first decade of this century, Richard Florida argued that America’s future lay in metropolitan regions with a high density of “sexually diverse,” cultural, professional, and high-tech workers whose creativity would attract capital and spur future economic development. Recently, in articles in magazines like Salon.com and The Atlantic, critics have been debating whether the creative class is undergoing the same economic transformations as the working class.

Undaunted by the economic crisis and the subsequent, continuing jobless recovery, Florida continues to suggest that the answer to post-industrialization lies in the continued migration of the so-called creative class to a few cosmopolitan urban areas. The transformation in economic geography would produce winners and losers both individually and regionally based on the ability of communities to develop and attract human capital. His Martin Prosperity Institute has contributed to a report ranking nations on the basis of their investment in innovation and technology.  Of course, all of this reflects Florida’s neo-liberal view that such changes are part of the “natural economic order,” and he has consistently attempted to normalize the new emerging economic order.

But despite Florida’s claims, the creative class is not necessarily winning in the current economy. Like industrial workers before them, they are being affected by the past 30 years of neo-liberal economic reforms characterized by deregulation, marketization, and liberal trade policy that yielded significant corporate profits from the subcontracting, outsourcing, and the casualization of work in unskilled and semi-skilled industries. As the past decade has made clear, corporations and governments have used those same strategies to make employment for skilled workers, including those in the “knowledge industries,” increasingly precarious.

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A few weeks ago, England erupted with protests that many saw as tied to the global economic crisis.  What began as a peaceful protest against the police, who had shot dead a suspect in Tottenham North London on August 6, rapidly spread across London and then to other parts of the country. Over the space of the next five days, Birmingham, Liverpool, and Manchester all experienced a wave of rioting and looting.

Politicians and commentators proceeded down a well-worn path of analysis and political point scoring. Most politicians were quick to blame “mindless thugs,” “gangs,” and “feral youth.”  They pointed to the lack of moral values in contemporary society, and the Conservatives, who are the senior partners in our coalition government, saw the riots as yet more evidence of their narrative of “Broken Britain” (conveniently ignoring the fact that other parts of Britain, such as Wales and Scotland, suffered no problems).

What was lacking, initially at least, was any mention of class. It appeared only in references to an underclass. Rhetorically this is a really useful piece of shorthand for the political classes in Britain, as I guess it is in the US. Talk of the underclass allows critics to blame society’s troubles on an ill-defined amorphous band of cultural stereotypes and folk demons.  It also allows for a wider sidestepping of questions of class and inequality that has been rising for the last three decades or more and is sure to increase further in the age of austerity. In this narrative, the riots are defined as the work of the work shy, the amoral, and the feckless; looting represents a mindless opportunism of those lacking a basic ethic of responsibility. (more…)

Last fall, I had the opportunity to interview Chris Hedges for my radio show, just after he’d delivered a powerful but incredibly discouraging talk about how Americans are becoming less able to think critically (based on his book Empire of Illusion) and how the Democratic party can longer be counted on to support the interests of working people (Death of the Liberal Class).  I asked him what he thought we ought to do about this depressing state of affairs.

His response: work on promoting locally-grown, sustainable agriculture.  Even though I serve on the board of an organization engaged in that kind of work, his response surprised me.

But lately –in part because of a terrific panel at the Working-Class Studies Association conference in June – I’ve been thinking about the potential power of food justice as an alternative to traditional leftist organizing.  I still believe in unions, but the American labor movement has been struggling for a long time, and much as I’d like to believe that unions can be the driving force for social justice, I simply can’t muster high expectations anymore.  I still believe that how we vote matters, despite knowing that many of those we elect either won’t or can’t do enough to support progressive policies.  I see more potential in the work of community organizers, though as the authors of Contesting Community suggest, such work is too often limited by public policy that promotes a neoliberal, privatization-oriented approach. (more…)

The word “boss” traces its roots to the Dutch word “baas,” meaning master, and some have argued that it caught on in the Americas as a way for workers to avoid the word master and thus the pairings of “master and servant,” or worse, “master and slave.” As a slang word for “awesome” or “excellent,” boss took on an added positive meaning as early as the 1880s. It was used in that way throughout the 20th century, as the character Michael Scott observed on The Office:

Remember when people used to say “boss” when they were describing something really cool. Like, “those shoulder pads are really boss man.” “Look at that perm, that perm is so boss!” It’s what made me want to become a boss. And I looked so good in a perm and shoulder pads. But now, boss is just slang for jerk in charge.

Have you ever had a horrible boss? Have you ever fantasized about doing something to get rid of your boss that was, ummmm, kind of extreme? Like….MURDER? If so, you might enjoy this summer’s latest popcorn comedy, Horrible Bosses, in which three white (and white collar) workers played by Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis, and Charlie Day come together with the help of a black conman (Jamie Fox) to kill each other’s bosses. Their bosses are each horrible in their own special way: there is the “Psycho” boss, played by Kevin Spacey, the “Maneater,” a sexually aggressive dentist played by Jennifer Anniston, and the “Tool,” an impossibly ugly, sleazy boss, played by Colin Ferrell outfitted with a paunch, a comb-over, and the classic short-sleeve-shirt-with-a-tie-look. (more…)

In response to a letter by Youngstown State University President Dr. Cynthia Anderson defending her neutrality toward Ohio Senate Bill 5 (a right-wing attack on the right for public sector workers to organize and bargain collectively) and support for the  Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber of Commerce political activities (historically anti-union, including support for SB5), YSU professors Gabriel Palmer-Fernandez and John Russo have provided the below statement, “Expediency vs Human Rights.”

By Gabriel Palmer-Fernandez (left) & John Russo (right)
Professors at Youngstown State University

Throughout the debate over Ohio Senate Bill 5, we have argued that the bill raises moral issues because it violates human rights.  It seems likely that for Youngstown State University President Cynthia Anderson, her cabinet and YSU’s Board of Trustees, the issue seems more pragmatic.  That is, as leaders in a public institution in a Republican-controlled state, it seems politically unwise to stand in opposition on a bill that does not seem to present a dramatic threat to the lives of Ohio’s workers.  They might stand up in opposition to a bill legalizing slavery, but limiting workers’ collective bargaining rights may not seem like a moral issue. (more…)

By John Russo
Co-Director, Center for Working-Class Studies at Youngstown State University

It’s graduation season, and while commencement speakers encourage graduates to work hard and pursue their dreams, most new grads are worried about finding a decent job.  All their professors can suggest that students use internships to gain valuable work experience and be prepared to have five jobs by the time they are 35.

Here’s the reality, grads: things are worse than you fear.  When you’re 35, you could still be looking for a good job. You’ll have a family to support, your salary could well be lower than you expect, and you’ll receive little or no pension contributions or health care benefits. Taken together, episodic work with little opportunity for advancement and poor wages and benefits reflect the characteristics of work life once found largely in the informal economy but now becoming all too common in the formal economy. (more…)

By Leo Jennings
Political consultant with Rubenstein Associates

Cardinal Rule: A fundamental rule, upon which other matters hinge. _Wiktionary

If you’re engaged in any type of activity that involves the development and implementation of a strategic plan you run into them all the time: Cardinal Rules.  Know them, abide by them, and your strategy may well succeed.  Ignore or violate them, and your plan will almost certainly crash and burn.  In football, for instance, avoiding turnovers is a cardinal rule. In warfare the rules warn against being outflanked by the enemy and outrunning supply lines.  Those of us who plan and execute political campaigns live by this one: “Don’t write the other guy’s commercial.”

Apparently GOP Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the architect of a plan that will supposedly reduce the federal budget deficit by six trillion dollars over the next ten years, missed that page in the political strategists’ handbook.  And Democrats everywhere, essentially messageless since November of 2008, are rejoicing, because in calling for the privatization of Medicare the Chair of the House Budget Committee didn’t give them fodder for one ad, he handed them enough material to make a couple thousand.

Speculation abounds as to why Mr. Ryan, a savvy politician who played a key role in the Republican takeover of the U.S. House, proposed a policy sure to raise hackles and howls among seniors and those who soon will be.  Conservative pundits and commentators explain it by saying he’s courageous and laud the plan as bold and groundbreaking.  Liberals question his sanity. (more…)

By Jack Metzgar
Emeritus Professor of Humanities at Roosevelt University in Chicago

After years of teaching numeracy to undergraduate college students, I’ve developed a few rules-of-thumb to try and help students stop reading around numbers and instead read into them.  One of the rules goes like this: “If somebody gives you an absolute number (like $112 billion), ask them for a relative number, like a percentage or ratio, or some other point of comparison.”

$112 billion is the total deficit of the 50 United States of America – that is, the gap between what all the states are spending and how much revenue they expect in the next fiscal year.  That’s a huge amount of money in most contexts.  It’s larger than the Gross Domestic Products (GDPs) of most of the 227 countries listed in the CIA Fact Book, for example.  But it’s only 6/10ths of 1 percent of the GDP of the U.S.

For want of $112 billion the nation’s classrooms are being stripped of teachers as students are piled on top of one another.  Potholes, bridges, and sewer systems can’t be fixed. Sick people can’t be treated. State and local government workers lose either their jobs or a chunk of their wages.  Firefighters get to fires 90 seconds (and who knows how many lives) later, and police forces adopt “innovative” rotations to make it appear they could actually protect people from crime and mayhem.  All for the lack of $112 billion, a tiny piece of the total amount of goods and services we produce each year. (more…)

By Tim Francisco
Faculty Affiliate at the Center for Working-Class Studies

In a March 10 op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker set the record straight on why he is fighting public unions, and in so doing he evoked a frame that could easily have appeared in any of the many “recession” stories that have proliferated in media over the past few years:

For example, my brother works as a banquet manager at a hotel and occasionally works as a bartender. My sister-in-law works at a department store. They have two beautiful kids. They are a typical middle-class Wisconsin family. At the start of this debate, David reminded me that he pays nearly $800 per month for his family’s health-insurance premium and a modest 401(k) contribution. He said most workers in Wisconsin would love a deal like the one we are proposing.

The example is compelling, and like the countless other similar accounts, it invites readers to ask “Why should ‘they’ have what I don’t have?”

Walker’s “frame” parallels much of the coverage of workers’ issues that, in an earlier post, I criticized for failing to address the complexities and the realities behind the eye-catching and heart-tugging “working class” frames like his.  For example, rather than simply accepting as unassailable inevitability the plight of Walker’s brother, why aren’t we asking why his health-care premiums are so high, or why the important work that he and his wife do to support their family is so undervalued at a time when corporate profits and worker productivity are at all-time highs?

Imagine the impact of a story that, after describing the plight of Walker’s sibling, actually examined the profit margin of the hotel and department store that employ the couple to let readers discern whether or not the couple is being asked to “sacrifice” because their employers are exploiting the recession to squeeze more out of employees.

This lack of information is equally troubling in the portrayal of public school teachers, which often consists of a comparison between the “perks” of the teacher, with those of the private sector. Missing from these stories is the harsh reality that based on the cost of earning and maintaining their credentials, public school teachers are one of the lowest paid groups, according to a CBS Money Watch study.

Moreover, many media too often repeat the easy opposition between taxpayers and public workers, as in a recent Christian Science Monitor piece that sports the headline, “Who Will Win the Battle Between Teachers and Taxpayers?” Too few note that public workers are taxpayers as well, and in many cities, such as Youngstown, these workers pay much of tax burden that keeps city services functioning.

In a smart analysis for tax.com, “Really Bad Reporting in Wisconsin: Who Contributes to Public Workers Pensions?” Pulitzer Prize Winning reporter David Cay Johnston explains that public pensions are actually deferred compensation, and he faults “pack” journalists for accepting as gospel the Scott Walker version, without seeking to understand how pension systems actually work.

Johnston’s thoughtful piece reveals the dangers of reporting that, in the rush to get the story out, fails to fully tell the entire story, to dig for the facts. Subscribing to an easy objectivity that equates “balance” with the transcription of spin from both sides of an issue, reporting on the assault on unions has failed to truly inform. I’m reminded here of the late great Molly Ivins, who famously observed that

The very notion that on any given story all you have to do is report what both sides say and you’ve done a fine job of objective journalism debilitates the press…The smug complacency of much of the press—I have heard many an editor say, “Well, we’re being attacked by both sides so we must be right”—stems from the curious notion that if you get a quote from someone on both sides, preferably in an official position, you’ve done the job. In the first place, most stories aren’t two-sided, they’re 17-sided at least. In the second place, it’s of no help to either the readers or the truth to quote one side saying, “Cat,” and the other side saying “Dog,” while the truth is there’s an elephant crashing around out there in the bushes. Getting up off your duff and going to find out for yourself is still the most useful thing a reporter can do.

Ivins’s point was that, in an age of instant news gratification, reporters often are lulled into becoming merely stenographers, recording two sides of every argument, even when the facts clearly prove one side wrong. Too often reporters shy away from this duty because they have been conditioned to avoid what might appear as advocacy journalism at all costs, but in shying away from the duty of fully reporting and even disputing shaky facts cloaked in political hyperbole, we abdicate the all important “watchdog” function of the press.

And the perils of neutering the watchdog press, are today more dubious than ever. Last week, Sherry Linkon and John Russo argued that a coalition is needed to combat the multi-pronged assault on unions and public employees:

We need to build a movement that crosses boundaries – between public- and private-sector unions, the traditional working class of industrial, blue-collar workers and the new working class of retail and service workers, between the working class and the middle class, cities and suburbs, and among diverse types of organizations.

The need for this type of collaboration is clear, but the challenges of achieving it in the current media moment are enormous, and will require much more substantive and thoughtful reporting than has been dominating mainstream coverage to date.

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Tim Francisco is an assistant professor of English at Youngstown State University, where he also teaches journalism.

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This piece was first published on the Center for Working-Class Studies blog Working-Class Perspectives.

By Kathy M. Newman
Professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University

The story has been told, and told, and told again.  A century ago this week, on March 25^th, 2011, more than 500 sewing machine operators, mostly Jewish and Italian immigrants, were working on the 9^th floor of the Asch building in New York City, near Washington Square Park.. A fire started on the eighth floor.  By the time the fire reached the 9^th floor some workers were able to make it out using the building’s one elevator, while others escaped via one of the building’s stairwells before it collapsed under the weight of hundreds of panicked workers.  But the 9^th floor workers who were left behind discovered that the door leading to the Washington Square stairway was locked—a common practice, designed to keep the young seamstresses from stealing factory goods or taking unauthorized breaks.  Trapped in the fire, many workers died in the flames; still others jumped from the 9^th floor and died from their injuries.

146 workers died, most of them Jewish and Italian women in their teens and twenties. In the immediate aftermath of the fire, 400,000 New Yorkers, 10% of the city’s residents, assembled to watch the workers’ funeral procession, which took place in a pelting rainstorm.  Moreover, after the fire, city and state representatives went on to pass more than 30 pieces of labor and safety legislation—legislation that could have prevented the Triangle Factory Fire if it had been in place and enforced that day.

As we approach the centennial of the Triangle fire this Friday, the work of hundreds of artists, filmmakers, activists, and historians of the last few years is culminating in a flurry of cultural documents and events.  PBS produced a stunning documentary about the fire that can be seen on their website, and HBO’s documentary, which is also very good, airs on the cable channel this week (beginning March 21).  An entire organization has been created to commemorate the day, the Coalition to Remember the Triangle Fire, which is sponsored by City Lore, a New York City organization that helps to preserve New York’s “living cultural heritage.” (more…)