Rethink Work

Changing how we think about work

US

There are currently 43 articles in this category    RSS

  • faviconElectronically monitoring your employees? It’s impacting their mental health — Results show 45% of those monitored report their workplaces have a negative impact on their mental health compared with 29% who are not monitored [2023]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Technofeudalism   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: Various    

  • faviconYour boss is watching — Monitoring technology is increasing the power imbalance between companies and workers. Protections lag far behind [2025]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Technofeudalism, Workplace Dictatorship   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: MIT Technology Review    

  • faviconWe Shouldn’t Have to Work This Hard — We can reclaim our time for pursuits that give life meaning: creativity, connection, contemplation, and labors of love. To do it, we’ll need to confront the economic elites who preside over the rat race [2025]
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: Worker Rights, Workism   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: Jacobin    

  • faviconExtraordinary Labor Market Developments and the 2022-23 Disinflation — How remote work contributed to the unexpected economic recovery of the U.S. post-COVID, keeping unemployment low and managing inflation [2024]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Remote Working, Research   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: National Bureau of Economic Research (US)    

  • faviconBillionaire backlash shows the power of basic income — Simply put, poverty and wealth are both about power – historical and contemporary – and how this plays out in people’s everyday lives. The idea behind basic income is to rebalance that power, redistributing it from those who have plenty to ensure that all have enough [2024]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: UBI   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: Al Jazeera    

  • faviconHow Musk, Trump, and Your Boss Learned to Hate Democracy — when you consider that businesses are run by dictators—that a firm is not a democracy—it makes sense why a series of rich guys at the top of the capitalist world think government can be run without following any laws [2025]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Workplace Dictatorship   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: Mother Jones    

  • faviconPro-Woman, Anti-Worker — broadly speaking, the feminist movement hasn’t always operated in an inclusive way; even with the stakes so very high, some nominally feminist organizations have failed to extend a baseline measure of respect to the workers that make their mission possible [2020]
    In: Trade unions    
    Topics: Feminism, Worker Rights   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: The Baffler    

  • faviconAnalysis Shows ‘Quiet Fleecing’ of US Workers—Not ‘Quiet Quitting’—Is the Real Problem. “Workers are more productive than ever, but their pay hasn’t kept pace while top 1% wages have skyrocketed,” says the Economic Policy Institute [2018]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: Research, Wage Slavery   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: Common Dreams    

  • faviconOf Course We Should All be Working Less — There’s a lot about work in our society that is undesirable and harmful. The fact that we have to earn a wage in order to have our basic human needs met — housing, food, water, electricity, transportation, education — is coercive. And if we’re not independently wealthy, we must work or starve [2023]
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: Leisure, Workplace Dictatorship   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: Current Affairs    

  • faviconCounty workers wanted a pay hike, but got a 4-day workweek instead, saving the county ~$1 million, increasing job applications by 85%, decreasing turnover rates by 43%, and having a positive effect on employee happiness [2025]
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: 4 Day Week   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: Various    

  • faviconGen Z are over having their work ethic questioned: ‘Most boomers don’t know what it’s like to work 40+ hours a week and still not be able to afford a house’ [2025]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: Protestant Work Ethic, Wage Slavery   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: Fortune    

  • faviconMore rural school districts are moving to a four-day week to attract and retain teachers — The extended weekend is a draw because it gives teachers more work-life balance [2024]
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: 4 Day Week   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: CNN    

  • faviconThe People in the Shop; David Montgomery and the vitality of labor history — Many of the service-sector workers who have started to organize in recent years see their freedom at work and their sense of power to do it well threatened by the arbitrary power of their bosses [2024]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Books, Workplace Dictatorship   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: The Nation    

  • faviconAmericans Work Hundreds of Hours More a Year Than Europeans — In developing countries, workers are putting in these long hours because wages are low and they’re trying to make ends meet, the report says
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: Research   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: Various    

  • faviconAmerica is facing a spiritual crisis. More leisure time is the cure — We haven’t made meaningful adjustments to the workweek in the 85 years since, and a reckoning is long overdue [2023]
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: 4 Day Week, Leisure   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: MSNBC    

  • faviconFour Days a Week: This Labor Day, Let’s Talk About Laboring Less — Keynes speculated that people would still want to work, but perhaps only 15 hours a week. Then the rest of the time, each human would have to figure out “how to occupy the leisure, which science and compound interest will have won for him, to live wisely and agreeably and well” [2023]
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: 4 Day Week   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: The Intercept    

  • faviconOlder Workers Deserve Rest—but the Country Isn’t Letting Them Have It — Millions of Americans are working well past the retirement age, not because they “simply don’t want to quit” but because they just can’t afford to do so [2024]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: Wage Slavery   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: The Nation    

  • faviconWorkers want unions, but the latest data point to obstacles in their path — more than 50 years of efforts to block access to unions have taken a heavy toll on workers’ rights. Employers have been exploiting weaknesses in U.S. labor law for decades, and federal and state policy have failed to prevent this [2024]
    In: Trade unions    
    Topics: Research, Worker Rights   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: EPI    

  • faviconThe humanizing power of worker-owned cooperatives — Applying principles from the Mondragon cooperative in Spain, Co-Op Cincy’s network reinforces that cooperatives are not just good for people and the planet, they are good for business [2024]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: How to be Human, Worker Ownership   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: Various    

  • faviconApple accused of silencing workers, spying on personal devices — new lawsuit says company was illegally monitoring its workers’ personal devices and iCloud accounts while also barring them from discussing their pay and working conditions [2024]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: Technofeudalism, Workplace Dictatorship   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: Reuters    

  • faviconHow San Juan, a cash-strapped US county found success with a 32-hour workweek; employees have used their extra time off to spend less money on childcare, volunteer in their kids’ schools, and contribute to the community [2024]
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: 4 Day Week   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: CNN    

  • faviconWorker Co-ops: A Pathway to Good Jobs for Immigrant Workers – As New York City struggles to accommodate an influx of people prohibited from employment, worker coops present a way to earn a livable income and build wealth [2024]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Co-ops, Worker Ownership   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: Labor Notes    

  • faviconThe Pinkertons Have a Long, Dark History of Targeting Workers — In recent times, they have tried to leave behind their thuggish image and pivoted toward more white-collar efforts, like “corporate investigations” and “comprehensive risk management,” though they’re called in sometimes to handle security during strikes [2020]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: Technofeudalism, Worker Rights   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: Teen Vogue    

  • faviconLabor Organizing in the Age of Surveillance — Labor law’s approach to policing workplace surveillance is woefully inadequate, as new surveillance methods yield much more and much better information for employers aiming to nip workers’ concerted activity in the bud (PDF) [2018]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Research, Technofeudalism   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: Scientific Journals    

  • faviconSupport for Unions Hits 70-Year High as US Workers See Power of Organized Labor — The upswing in support for organized labor—which paradoxically comes even as U.S. union membership remains near an all-time low—has been attributed to a wave of successful organizing in recent years [2024]
    In: Trade unions    
    Topics: Worker Rights   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: Common Dreams