Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
On Tuesday you may notice new Facebook and Twitter avatars on Washington Post employees’ profiles. They’re a sign of a day of “social media action” organized by the Post‘s Guild, or union, which is eight months into negotiations with Post management over a new contract. The next negotiation session is planned for Wednesday, and the…
Is the world’s largest online retailer underpaying its employees? WHEN Amazon announced in 2010 that it would build a distribution centre in Lexington County, South Carolina, the decision was hailed as a victory for the Palmetto State. Today the e-commerce giant employs thousands of workers at the centre. Just 3.5% of the local workforce is…
Getty The narrative casting Jeff Bezos as a transformative media baron reached new heights in 2017. His Washington Post consistently set the political narrative while claiming two straight years of profitability. Bezos himself glowed on the red carpet as an improbable journalism hero when Steven Spielberg’s The Post, a fictionalized account of the newspaper’s publication…
Image: Jim Cooke/GMG Slate editorial employees voted to unionize on Tuesday after a 10-month battle that saw staffers at the magazine run up against stiff resistance from management. Voters from the proposed 54-person bargaining unit voted to organize by a margin of 45-7. Their union, Writers Guild of America-East, also represents Gizmodo Media Group, which…
AP Amazon Go, the company’s new Seattle-based automated convenience store that opened up to the public on Monday, allows customers to zoom on in, grab whatever their hearts desire, and get out, all without having to deal with a checkout line or a human manning the register. It’s the latest innovation in convenience from the…
An advertisement for a Black Friday sale is seen on the front page of the Los Angeles Times in November in downtown Los Angeles. PHOTO: ROBYN BECK/AFP/GETTY IMAGES By Benjamin Mullin Jan. 19, 2018 2:30 p.m. ET 0 COMMENTS Employees at the Los Angeles Times have voted to unionize, a historic shift for a publication long resistant to…
Chinese employees eat dinner during a midnight work break at a tech company in Beijing. In China it is quite usual for managers to have working dinners followed by two or three meetings © Reuters Michael Moritz January 17, 2018 The declaration by Didi, the Chinese ride-hailing company, that delivery business Meituan’s decision to launch…
For Indian techies, 2017 was the stuff of nightmares. One of the top employment generators until a few years ago, India’s $160 billion IT industry laid off more than 56,000 employees this year. Some analysts believe this spree was worse than the one during the 2008 financial crisis. Meanwhile, hiring plummeted, with entry-level openings having…
When Meredith Heller adopted Bodie, a young Beagle mix, she knew shelter dogs often have trouble settling in. But she wasn’t worried. Among the benefits offered by her Manhattan employer, customer data platform provider mParticle: two weeks paid “pawternity leave” for workers adopting a rescue dog. Ms. Heller and Bodie, who turned out to be…
via Getty Last week, BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti held an off-the-record company meeting, parts of which were tweeted by the company’s media reporter, Steven Perlberg. Responding to a question about unions, Peretti reiterated to his Stateside staff that while he is not “personally anti-union,” he does not believe unionization is right for his particular shop….