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Tidbits - April 24, 2014

Portside
Reader Comments - 2014 Moral Freedom Summer Organizer Fellowship (Correction); Jews Speak Out against censorship bans; Auto Parts Strike; Carl Bloice remembered; Charlie Chaplin Legacy; Chris Christie; Announcements - Harlem Celebrates-Duke Ellington's 115th; May Day Rally in New York; Third Annual NYC Film Festival - Global Labor Solidarity; Cuba travel; Volunteer opportunities in El Salvador

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With Farm Robotics, the Cows Decide When It’s Milking Time

Jesse McKinley NY Times
Robotic milkers not only do the milking - like the machines that have been around for decades - but they do away with the need for farmers to connect and disconnect the machines to and from their cows' utters. These machines permit the cows to decide when they want to be milked - the "milkbot" does the rest.

labor

With Farm Robotics, the Cows Decide When It’s Milking Time

Jesse McKinley NY Times
Robotic milkers not only do the milking - like the machines that have been around for decades - but they do away with the need for farmers to connect and disconnect the machines to and from their cows' utters. These machines permit the cows to decide when they want to be milked - the "milkbot" does the rest.

`Jobs vs. the Environment': How to Counter This Divisive Big Lie

Jeremy Brecher The Nation
We can, and must, create common ground between the labor and climate movements. To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, if God had intended some people to fight just for the environment and others to fight just for the economy, he would have made some people who could live without money and others who could live without water and air. There are not two groups of people, environmentalists and workers. We all need a livelihood and we all need a livable planet to live on.

Earth Day, Labor, and Me

Joe Uehlein z-net
When it comes to the environment, organized labor has two hearts beating within a single breast.

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Challenges of the Tech Revolution - Two Stories

Jacob Goldstein, Kemal Dervis
In the long-term, the Technological Revolution may prove to be a giant leap forward in freeing humans from being chained to jobs that are unsafe, unhealthy, physically taxing, and mentally unsatisfying. In the short-term, new technologies are contributing to structural unemployment, rising inequality, job insecurity, and micro-management of workers as these two news stories illustrate.

Tidbits - April 17, 2014

Portside
Cecily McMillan Trial Update; Reader Comments - Palestinian-Israeli Talks; Walmat, Living Wage, Minimum Wage of $15; Syria; Turkey; Pulitzer and Snowden; Paul Robeson; Russia, Ukraine, Crimea; Immune Systems; New book - What Did You Learn at Work Today? Announcements - Howard Zinn Symposium - Apr 24 - New York; 78th Celebration Abraham Lincoln Brigade & ALBA/Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism - Apr. 27 - New York; 45th Contingent of the Venceremos Brigade

Why Do Bosses Want Their Employees’ Salaries to Be Secret?

Michelle Chen The Nation
In a narrow vote this week, the Senate politely smothered the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would have protected workers’ rights to compare and discuss their wages at work. Aimed at dismantling workplace “pay secrecy” policies, the legislation built on the 2009 Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which strengthens safeguards for women and other protected groups against wage discrimination.

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Not Your Grandpa’s Labor Union

Leon Neyfakh The Boston Globe
As ‘employee’ and ‘employer’ become hazy categories, experiments in worker advocacy are replacing unions as we’ve known them.
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