“Are you having an ultrasound?” the midwife asked, at my first appointment. I thought there had been a miscommunication: nobody had told me whether I would have one. “Well, it’s up to you,” she said. She could explain the pros and cons, but the decision was mine. Welcome to the midwifery model of care.
Alber Elbaz’s dismissal at Lanvin last week is quickly becoming one of the most interesting fashion news stories in years; as it’s developed, the story has highlighted the swiftly shifting nature of the industry and labor issues therein through the lens of one of fashion’s most celebrated geniuses. Today, it just got…
Since beloved Lanvin creative director Alber Elbaz was ousted last week, employees at the French design house have been demanding accountability from its owner, Shaw-Lan Wang. Today, though, WWD reports that their requests have been denied by management, and communications have devolved so far that a labor inspector…
I went to the White House this week, for the first and likely last time. Here is what I saw.
At 10 a.m. on Tuesday, October 6, a large crowd of nail salon owners and workers gathered outside the Manhattan offices of the New York Times. They came demanding apology and retribution for a two-part exposé by Sarah Maslin Nir, which, they say, has caused “grievous harm to our reputations and to our small shops.”
The Supreme Court begins its fall term today, and it’s already shaping up to be a doozy. Its docket includes public employee unions, affirmative action, the death penalty, and—oh, hell, why not?— probably abortion and birth control, too. While all of these are politically contentious issues with the potential to shape…
The contingent faculty at Barnard College have voted overwhelmingly to unionize. Barnard is a women’s college, and women also make up more than 60 percent of the faculty. So, a pretty good choice, then, considering that union women earn, on average, 13 percent more than their non-union counterparts.
While Labor Day is traditionally an excellent time to eat 15 hot dogs, try to swim in a lake, then cry because your cramps are too intense, it’s also a fine day to consider who’s revitalizing the American labor movement. Women, particularly black women, now make up the majority of newly organized workers and are…
Things are most definitely not going well at American Apparel, a notion rendered bizarrely concrete by a demonstration held last week in which a piñata likeness of CEO Paula Schneider was hacked apart by workers wearing “I <3 Dov” t-shirts outside the company’s headquarters.
While Gov. Cuomo has brought about significant changes in New York following the New York Times “Unvarnished” series on nail salon worker exploitation, including a push for new legislation, an inspection task force, and a public education campaign requiring salons to post a “manicurist’s bill of rights,” nail salons…
The New York Times has issued a rebuttal to former Times journalist and current spa owner Richard Bernstein, who wrote in the New York Review of Books that nail salons can’t possibly be as bad as the NYT suggested in their series “Unvarnished.” The Times says they are standing by the series and that Bernstein is…
The New York Review of Books ran a rebuttal this weekend to the much-talked about New York Times series “Unvarnished,” Sarah Maslin Nir’s yearlong investigation into the horrendous labor practices at many New York nail salons. The rebuttal, written by former reporter and current nail salon owner Richard Bernstein,…
On Wednesday afternoon, Gov. Jerry Brown approved a bill that officially classifies professional cheerleaders as employees entitled to minimum wage, sick leave, and overtime pay. That feels like it should already have been a thing, right?
In years past, Lululemon has made the news most frequently in matters related to founder Chip Wilson, a man prone to tone-deaf statements who brought his company into permanent association with strange health claims, Ayn Rand devotion, and an aversion to large bodies. After Wilson vacated his management role in 2012…
Wisconsin governor Scott Walker sacrificed a leisurely Fourth of July weekend of grill-outs and fireworks in order to sneak a variety of harmful provisions into his state’s budget. Buried in the omnibus budget bill: a law that limits the information released to the public during police shootings, as well as a…
On Tuesday morning, the Department of Labor released an overtime policy proposal that would substantially raise the base wages of workers who are classified as “managers”—and thus ineligible for time-and-a-half—despite receiving pay as low as $23,000 per year.
Hot Girls Wanted, the newish documentary produced by actress Rashida Jones, is making headlines and earning some rave reviews—as well as getting panned by people in the adult industry and advocates for sex workers—for its depiction of one tiny sliver of the wide world of porn, a fly-by-night talent agency called…
