Metropolitics

Navigating Jefes Fantasmas in New York City's Urban Platform Economy

Jackson Todd — 2023-03-03T06:00:00Z

How has the “platform economy” altered urban life, infrastructure, and labor? Jackson Todd examines New York City's deliveristas and the coercive practices employed by food delivery applications. What is the future of labor rights in the new economy?
The logistics of the so-called platform economy have reshaped our cities and communities. Urbanites can now get everything from groceries, toiletries and pet supplies to prescription medications, flowers and fast food delivered to their doors in

- Essays / work, labor, tech economy, tech sector, new economy, precarity, New York, United States, trade unions, food

Teacher Unionism and the Bargain for the Common Good

Claire Cahen — 2021-07-06T05:00:00Z

Rank-and-file teachers across the United States challenge their unions to embrace social democratic ideals, and fight for equal access to social goods, such as quality public schools and safe tap water. Drawing on the case of Newark, New Jersey, this essay questions the liberal democratic norms and policies that continue to treat teacher unions as narrow economic organizations.
A decade ago, teacher unions were minor political players in US cities, focused primarily on negotiating educator

- Essays / Newark, New Jersey, United States, trade unions, activism, teaching, education, public education, water, common good

Swept Away: Public Work and the Politics of Employment in New York City's Parks

John Krinsky & Maud Simonet — 2017-09-06T04:36:46Z

Upwards of 4,000 unionized civil-service workers once cleaned and maintained New York City's parks. Today about 1,800 such workers share this task with volunteers, employees of nonprofit organizations on contract with the city, community-service sentencees, and former welfare recipients doing temporary parks work in hopes of obtaining permanent positions. John Krinsky and Maud Simonet trace the evolving political economy of parks work in New York, demonstrating its impact on workers. They also

- From the Field / parks, civil service, green spaces, employment, work, New York, sexual harassment, trade unions, community service, volunteers, workfare