Blue Collar Workers

How COVID-19 Showed America’s Dependence on Blue-Collar Workers

At the start of each shift, Eric Jarvis takes a handful of anti-bacterial wipes and sanitizes the equipment he uses at the Packaging Corporation of America mill in Valdosta, Georgia. He worries about getting the coronavirus every time he leaves for work, but knows the nation depends on paper workers like him to produce the …

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“Hardhats vs. Hippies”: How the Media Misrepresents the Debate Over the Green New Deal

A recent Politico article about the Green New Deal resolution put forward in February by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) features many grumblings from blue-collar union members about the potential economic disruption and the loss of jobs—even though the resolution calls for union rights and a federal jobs guarantee for workers. The article opens …

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The Blue-Collar Hellscape of the Startup Industry

On November 13, Marcus Vaughn filed a class-action lawsuit against his former employer. Vaughn, who’d worked in the Fremont, California factory for electric automaker Tesla, alleged that the manufacturing plant had become a “hotbed for racist behavior.” Employees and supervisors, he asserted, had routinely lobbed racial epithets at him and his fellow Black colleagues.  Vaughn …

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More Than a Number: Troubling Trends Behind the Dropping Unemployment Rateo

So the unemployment rate’s drop last month means we’re heading out of this tunnel, right? If only it were as simple as that. There’s more to the nation’s unemployment situation than December’s decline to 8.5 percent joblessness. The fact is, the economy we live in today has become far too complex to be measured the …

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Madeline Messa

Madeline Messa is a 3L at Syracuse University College of Law. She graduated from Penn State with a degree in journalism. With her legal research and writing for Workplace Fairness, she strives to equip people with the information they need to be their own best advocate.