Read on Twitter
I think about this kind of thing a lot. When I started at the Voice, I earned $35K/yr (2009). In NYC. At a union mtg 2 yrs later, found a white writer 10 years younger than me started at 55K. Worked many jobs & went w/o saving to subsidize a company that eventually laid me off. https://twitter.com/scoutstout/status/1352264937679286273
My union got my pay raised, but not until we went to a bargaining session. One of the best things unions can do is to raise the lowest pay. They'd been unaware of mine bc—SURPRISE!—I'd been hired under a "fellowship" that facilitated exploitation of underrepresented writers.
I come back to my point from last week—unless a wage pays for all the below, it is NOT a minimum wage, but a wage theft sending money upwards.
There is NO justification for writers' labour (& debt) subsidizing a company like Conde Nast(y)! https://twitter.com/thrasherxy/status/1350654248812498947
There is NO justification for writers' labour (& debt) subsidizing a company like Conde Nast(y)! https://twitter.com/thrasherxy/status/1350654248812498947
Some useful things about the New Yorker situation, which may sound very posh:
1) Hiring at $45K assures only those will be hired w family money (or, like me, who will forgo savings and/or take on debt)
2) ALL WORKERS need a truly livable wage, incl so-called "professionals"
1) Hiring at $45K assures only those will be hired w family money (or, like me, who will forgo savings and/or take on debt)
2) ALL WORKERS need a truly livable wage, incl so-called "professionals"
I make plenty of money now and have a pathway to, hopefully not having to work until literally the second I drop dead (like my dad). But I've had to work multiple jobs just to survive, saved nothing in my 20s, became a PhD in my 30s/40s to get to this point.
When Conde Nast(y) and the New Yorker pay such a low wage, they
1) Keep out poor ppl/cast them into debt
2) Create economic conditions which will affect them for the rest of their lives
3) Privilege ppl w wealth for whom such petty issues as a "salary" don't really matter
1) Keep out poor ppl/cast them into debt
2) Create economic conditions which will affect them for the rest of their lives
3) Privilege ppl w wealth for whom such petty issues as a "salary" don't really matter
Speaking of labor, please follow @jewish_worker, one of the best voices on here for labor justice (& how labor connects to other matters), which seems to be back online after shamefully being banned but without their once large following https://twitter.com/jewish_worker
And companies like Conde Nast(y) which cry poverty, spare us. If you can't afford to be in the business, don't pay Anna Wintour her millions while trying to get writers, editors, janitors and clerical staff to work for peanuts.
I wish the New Yorker staff well in this effort, even though the one time I had a piece commissioned there (which ran elsewhere) I found the entire process to be a racist, insensitive, homophobic clusterfuck. Every work place should be unionized...
...and when high profile "professional" unions do well, the only kind of good trickle-down economics happens. It helps other workplaces do better, too.
