Work Futures Update | One Step Beyond Logic

| Labor Reporting | Tech Unions | Real Estate Bust? | Gigification of Knowledge Work | Returning Oldsters? |

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

Beacon NY 2020–06–05| The pervasive surreality of events — coronavirus, George Floyd, and the suppression of constitutional rights by militarized police — has left me shell shocked. So the Frank Herbert quote hits the mark.

Quote of the Moment

Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.

Frank Herbert, Dune

America’s labor crises hit a depleted beat | Luke Ottendorf studies the paradox of increased interest in labor issues while newsrooms are shrinking:

LABOR REPORTING — “business reporting from the perspective of human beings,” as Nolan puts it — has traditionally been a critical check on power and exploitation. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, labor journalists such as Mary Heaton Vorse and Eva McDonald Valesh reported on poor working conditions in factories and participated in historic strikes both as journalists documenting the action and as allies standing with workers.

That tradition continues today, though in a diminished form. “Many newspapers have cut back on, or…