May 2020

May 29, 2020

Sidney's Picks: A Death at Amazon, OSHA's Indifference, CNN Crew Arrested on the Air

The Best of the Week’s News:

Employers have a legal duty to protect their workers from hazards including coronavirus, but Trump’s OSHA refuses to enforce the law. (TNR)
Harry Sentoso took a job at Amazon’s warehouse in Irvine to bank some quick cash before retirement, 2 weeks later he was dead of COVID-19. (LA Times)
George Floyd, the 46-year-old black man killed by a Minneapolis police officer, was a beloved member of his community. (Buzzfeed)
How Wendi C. Thomas built MLK50, a non-profit newsroom dedicated to the low-wage workers of Memphis. (NYT)
A CNN camera crew was arrested live on the air in Minneapolis as they covered the aftermath of last night’s protests against the killing of George Floyd by a police officer. (CNN)

May 22, 2020

Photo credit:

The Best of the Week’s News

These 11 women organize nationwide strikes, but they’ve never met. (Next City)
The president of the Utility Workers of America says his members are terrified of catching COVID-19 on the job and asks OSHA for safety standards. (EE News)
Meatpacking plants ignore OSHA’s safety recommendations…because they can. (WCNC)
Coronavirus is killing the middle class. (New Yorker)
Flight: the antiviral super-power of bats. (Phys.Org)

May 15, 2020

Photo credit:

Screencap from WDSU-6 via PayDay Report

Sidney’s Picks:

How Virginia is juking its COVID-19 stats. (The Atlantic)
Sanitation workers in New Orleans were demanding hazard pay and PPE, they were fired and replaced with prisoners making $1.33/hr. (PayDay Report)
How the Indian state of Kerala beat COVID-19. (The Guardian)
Ohio workers got a reprieve thanks to hackers who crashed the state’s snitching website. (Vice)
Remembering Celso Mendoza a Mississippi chicken processor and labor leader who died of COVID-19. (Clarion Ledger)

May 8, 2020

“ ‘Essential worker’ just means you’re on the death track,” a slaughterhouse worker who caught coronavirus speaks out. [USA Today]
The “Tiger King” park reopens to huge crowds, raising concerns that cubs are being exposed to COVID-19, which tigers can catch. [National Geographic]
How to talk about racial disparities in COVID-19 without reinforcing racism. [New England Journal of Medicine]
A new federal investigation has found that Indiana officials improperly exonerated Amazon after a worker was crushed by a forklift. [Reveal]
Hillman’s own Jelani Cobb on why Stacey Abrams would like to be Vice-President. [New Yorker]
The Supreme Court is making it easier for police officers to kill people and get away with it. [Reuters]

May 1, 2020

Sidney’s Picks:

Thanks to everyone who joined us last night to watch host Danny Glover introduce our 2020 Hillman Prize winners! ICYMI here’s the link to the video recording.
Essential workers from Amazon, Instacart, FedEx, and Walmart will walk off the job today in a historic coordinated May Day strike. (Vice)
Florida gags its medical examiners, who were releasing Covid-19 death tolls higher than the state’s health department’s. (Tampa Bay Times)
Inside the Diamond Princess cruise from hell. (GQ)
Republican officials allowed armed protesters to storm the Michigan legislature, threatening the governor’s life and assaulting a reporter. [Michigan Advance]