Robert Kuttner wrote the following for The American Prospect, which he co-founded and where he is co-editor. It is “the authoritative magazine of liberal ideas.” I urge you to subscribe.
As the EU provides rules for gig workers, young people foul up Kellogg’s strikebreaking plans.
The certification of one Starbucks out of the thousands in the U.S. is getting an appropriate amount of attention—the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single latte. My colleague Harold Meyerson has further thoughts on how to organize fed-up workers who haven’t been reached before. But that wasn’t the only interesting development in worker organizing this week.
After 1,400 striking workers at four Kellogg plants rejected the latest contract offer, the company made plans to hire replacement scabs. There was just one problem: organized discontent. A poster on the popular Reddit community r/antiwork, which has 1.3 million members, got members to surge fake applications to the online hiring portal. Then a young TikTok user created a codeto automatically fill out fake applications for the jobs perpetually. Kellogg may find it impossible to distinguish the real applications from the bogus ones. The kids are all right.
Meanwhile, in Brussels, the EU has proposed regulations that will give gig workers, an estimated four million in the 27-nation federation, most of the same rights as payroll workers. That would include minimum-wage protections, vacation pay, unemployment benefits, and protections against misclassification.
If it can happen there, it can happen here. Biden’s Labor Department has begun a major offensive against employers who try to classify regular workers as contractors to deny them benefits and the right to unionize. And if the platform model of exploiting workers can be shown to be vulnerable in Europe, that makes it easier to restore worker rights here.
Europe, incidentally, is not experiencing a Great Resignation, because workers there are treated better to begin with. Credit the pandemic or credit a shift in consciousness, but we are seeing definite gains to worker power on both sides of the Atlantic.
~ ROBERT KUTTNER
Diane Ravitch's blog 
One explanation for the high inflation in the US is that unlike most of the EU, the USA furloughed many more workers during the pandemic. Many EU countries where there is greater union membership were required to keep workers on the payroll longer and continue to provide benefits to labor. US employers were more likely to pass the burden of keeping people afloat during a pandemic to the government, particularly non-union employees. As a result the US has had to pay out more in unemployment claims than most members of the EU. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/11/24/inflation-has-risen-around-the-world-but-the-u-s-has-seen-one-of-the-biggest-increases/
Looks more like monopsony enabled price gouging than inflation.
Wages would be rising faster if it were inflation.
Thanks for the info., Left Coast Teacher
The direct dollar support to workers when you subtract lost wages is a fraction of the shift in demand from services (Leisure hospitality travel) to goods . Americans according to Mark Zandi have spent 2.7 trillion less in that sector leaving them flush with cash to chase after goods constrained by the Pandemic and the bottleneck in the supply chain.
By comparison Bidens American Rescue plan allocated a bit over 600 billion to people between Stimulus checks,400 billion , Supplemental Unemployment 197 Billion and the Child tax credit. 43 billion.
A worker on unemployment insurance is collecting far less in almost every state . Thus there is a decline in demand (deflation) the Federal Subsidies added to the incomes of the unemployed. Depending on income some would be making more than if employed others less. I have not seen how that broke down . But the bottom line is that Government Payments were at best a 1/4 the size as the decline in spending in the service sector.
Further if you think that low wage workers put money in the bank in 2020 to spend in the summer and fall of 2021 I am still selling that bridge built by Roebling
Good news, all this. More of it!!!!
Interesting view from a journalism professor- “news outlets should be openly pro-democracy.”
Me adding-
If American churches engage in politics they should be openly pro-democracy.
a young TikTok user created a codeto automatically fill out fake applications for the jobs [at Kellogg company] perpetually”
Such methods are undoubtedly destined to be known as “Kellogging”
Not to be confused with clogging.
The Prime age worker participation rate (25-54)is now where it was in 2017 and rising . 1.2% below its peak in 2019 . The worker participation rate 55+ is down 1.9% and not rising . That is not a great resignation. Its a Pandemic induced “great retirement” .