The Power At Work Blog is Taking a Break . . . So You Can Catch Up!

We're Taking a Break . . .

It's that time of year. The Burnes Center for Social Change team that produces the Power At Work Blog is taking a well-deserved break from December 22 through January 1 to reset, recover, and recharge for a powerful year in 2024. Since many of you also will take time off from work or school during this holiday season, you should have bountiful time to catch up with all the great worker-power-focused content produced for the Power At Work Blog over the last (almost) 13 months.

The goal of this post is to provide you with a reader/viewer/listener's guide to accessing all our content, the most popular content, and some underappreciated gems you might have missed.

Finding Great Content on the Power At Work Blog and Beyond

Here are the basics:

You can find all the Power At Work Blog's more than 210 published posts by clicking on "View All" in the front page's "Posts" section (use the hyperlink here and throughout for easier access).
If you want to watch a blogcast, click on "View All" in the front page's "Blogcasts" section and you find all of them.
If you would like to listen to one of the Power At Work Blog's blogcasts in podcast form, you have two choices:
1. You can find the Power At Work podcasts in the "Posts" section. Click "View All" under "Posts." Then, simply click the "Podcast" tag and you will find all of them.
2. You can listen to and download Power At Work podcasts on every commercial podcast provider, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts. Click on these hyperlinks or search "Power At Work." If you use a commercial podcast provider, please give the Power At Work Blog's podcasts a five-star rating to help others find our podcasts.

If you are interested in all the Power At Work Blog's content about a particular topic, click on "View All" in the "Posts" section and choose a tag. For example, if you have a strong interest in our analyses of the Bureau of Labor Statistics's monthly jobs and unemployment report, click on the "Numbers Day" tag. If you have an interest in what has been said about President Biden on the Power At Work Blog, simply click on the "President Biden" tag. You get the point.

Finally, The Weekly Download is the easiest item to find on our web site. Look at the tabs at the top of the home page. You will find "The Weekly Download" on the right of that list of tabs. You can't miss it. But you should subscribe to the Power At Work Blog (go to the bottom of the home page) so that you will receive The Weekly Download in your inbox every week. We will publish our next issue of The Weekly Download during the first week of the New Year.

In addition to subscribing, you should follow us on your preferred social media channels as an easy way to keep up with all our content:

The Power At Work Blog's Most Popular Content So Far

Some Power At Work Blog posts, especially those addressing breaking news, get a lot of views quickly and then fade into the distance. Some posts take a while to find an audience, but then slowly grow. Some posts start popular and remain popular. Some posts, most obviously some of my early economic analyses, garnered little attention at all. Oh well. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

To help you choose the content you will consume during the next two weeks, this is a brief guide to the most popular posts published on the Power At Work Blog in our two largest categories of content: written posts and blogcasts.

Written Posts

Most Popular (by a lot): "How New Prevailing Wage Regulations Will Build Worker Power"

Second Most Popular: "Workers by the Numbers: Understanding Union Density's Tough Math" (watch for a new version of this post right after the New Year!)

Blogcasts (not including podcasts)

A Short List of Underappreciated Gems For Your Consideration

As you might expect, the Power At Work Blog team loves all the content we publish. In my post celebrating the Power At Work Blog's First Anniversary, I highlighted the wide variety of content we have produced. Review that post to help you decide what you are going to read, watch, and listen to over the coming days.

We think a handful of items deserve even more attention than they originally gained, even though some of the items on the following list were quite popular at the time of publication. I limited myself to 10 such items so that this post would not occupy too much of your time. Please read or watch these published items, which are drawn largely from the Power At Work Blog's earlier days. All remain relevant today. They are listed in chronological order:

1. "Power At Work Blogcast #2: Non-Compete Agreements and Worker Power" (from January 13, 2023) - This blogcast with then-Federal Trade Commission policy chief Elizabeth WIlkins and Professor Sanjukta Paul addressed a topic that remains alive and important today: the FTC's proposed regulation strictly limiting employer-mandated non-compete agreements in employment contracts.

2. I wrote a lead-in post to the above blogcast entitled "Death to Non-Compete Agreements," but I offered a sharp point of view.

3. "'It Was Everybody Standing Together for the First Time': The Case for Union Organizing in the Cannabis Industry" (from April 23, 2023) - This written post by Northeastern University student and Power At Work team member Lexi Anderson helped us to understand the urgency and importance of cannabis workers' organizing, and explained why unions already have had some success in the industry. It also provided a better understanding of the workers in the industry and the seriousness of their jobs.

4. "Power At Work Blogcast #4: An Interview with Tony Clark" (from May 2, 2023) - Tony Clark, a former baseball player, is the Executive Director of the Major League Baseball Players Association. The MLBPA pulled off a large and important organizing and collective bargaining victory when it brought minor league baseball players into the union. Tony's discussion of that success, the issues players encounter, and the MLBPA's new relationship with the AFL-CIO and other unions is well worth your time.

5. "The Critical Difference Between Choice and Power for Workers" (from May 29, 2023) - As I noted in the first paragraph of this think-piece: "Choice and power are connected, but very different, concepts when they are used to describe workers’ circumstances. These two terms are often confused or treated as synonyms, which they are not. The resulting confusion contributes to a public discourse that undermines workers and weakens their position in the labor market and the workplace. . . ." My goal was to clear up the confusion and strengthen workers' position in the process.

6. "What the Supreme Court's Affirmative Action Decision Means for Unions and Employers" (from July 5, 2023) - This Supreme Court's deeply reactionary and dishonest decision in Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) v. University of North Carolina and SFFA v. Harvard College raised important questions about whether affirmative action, equal employment opportunity, and diversity and equity strategies in workplaces could survive. I sought to answer those questions in this still-relevant post.

7. "TikTokers, Don't Be a Scab for Hollywood Studios" (from July 23, 2023) - While the SAG-AFTRA and Writers Guild of America strikes are over, this important piece by Burnes Center Research Fellow Dane Gambrell discusses how and why workers can and should show solidarity across industries and occupations by refusing to engage in new forms of strikebreaking activity.

8. "Labor Day 2023: Organizing is Optimistic" (from Labor Day 2023) - The title says it all. I find much of the discourse around worker organizing to be depressingly negative. It sometimes feels like endless, unrelenting economic combat. This post makes the case that organizing is an act of optimism, and the pro-worker-power movement in America should embrace and communicate its optimism.

9. "The Role of Unions and Collective Bargaining as Temperatures Rise" (from September 14, 2023) - Northeastern University student and Power At Work Blog team member Asia Simms took on the gross failures of too many employers to protect their workers from climate change and the record breaking-extreme heat it has produced. The result was numerous injuries and, in extreme cases, death. However, as Asia explained, unions and the power workers build with them have provided some workers with safe havens.

10. "Will Worker Activism Survive an Increase in Unemployment?" (from October 27, 2023) - This post was my answer to the suggestion buzzing in some economic circles that the strike wave of 2023 was only possible because of low unemployment. As soon as unemployment rises, the argument goes, the strike wave will disappear. I explained why I think that's partially wrong and partially right.

That's All, Folks

Well, we're off. A special thanks to our sponsors who have made our success in 2023 possible. We look forward to working with all of you again soon. Thank you again to the entire Power At Work Blog team for its excellent work. Finally, a very special thank you to our readers, viewers, and listeners. However you access and consume the Power At Work Blog's content, we hope it has informed, challenged, entertained, and empowered you.

Happy holidays and a very happy, healthy, and powerful New Year!