tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/labor-289/articlesLabor – The Conversation2024-03-27T03:24:35Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2267132024-03-27T03:24:35Z2024-03-27T03:24:35ZThe consequences of the government’s new migration legislation could be dire – for individuals and for Australia<p>The Albanese government came to power with <a href="https://twitter.com/AlboMP/status/1154510763433684992?lang=en">a promise</a> to be “strong on borders without being weak on humanity”. </p>
<p>But there was little humanity in parliament yesterday as the government tried to force through some of the most draconian migration laws this country has seen in decades. The draft legislation was distributed to MPs and introduced in the lower house for debate <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-26/government-suddenly-brings-on-legislation-deportation-powers/103632704">just hours</a> later.</p>
<p>Today, the senate <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-27/coalition-wont-support-immigration-legislation/103638462">stopped the bill</a> in its tracks, referring it to a committee instead of passing it just before a parliamentary break.</p>
<p>In a radical departure from the existing framework, the government is seeking to further criminalise the migration system. The consequences could be disastrous.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-government-is-fighting-a-new-high-court-case-on-immigration-detainees-whats-it-about-and-whats-at-stake-226120">The government is fighting a new High Court case on immigration detainees. What's it about and what's at stake?</a>
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<h2>What would the laws do?</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r7179">Migration Amendment (Removal and Other Measures) Bill</a> proposes amendments to the Migration Act to deal with situations where non-citizens subject to removal are not cooperating with government authorities, or where their own government refuses to take them back. </p>
<p>It is widely understood to be a response to the High Court’s ruling in <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-high-court-has-decided-indefinite-detention-is-unlawful-what-happens-now-217438">November 2023</a> that found indefinite immigration detention to be unlawful. </p>
<p>It’s also considered an attempt to pre-empt <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/government-sweats-on-critical-new-court-challenge-on-immigration-detainees-20240315-p5fcro.html">further litigation</a> scheduled in the High Court. The case of an Iranian man refusing to cooperate in his deportation is due before the court <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-government-is-fighting-a-new-high-court-case-on-immigration-detainees-whats-it-about-and-whats-at-stake-226120">next month</a>.</p>
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<p>However, the amendments introduced in the bill go far beyond addressing this issue. They have wide-ranging impacts for how non-citizens are treated in Australia, and indeed for Australia’s relationship with governments around the world. </p>
<p>As such, it is particularly concerning the government tried to rush the bill through parliament without the opportunity for proper scrutiny or review. While a senate committee hearing is a welcome development, it won’t fix everything. </p>
<h2>Criminalising non-cooperation</h2>
<p>The bill gives the minister new powers to compel people who have exhausted their options to stay in Australia to cooperate and take steps towards their own removal. This would apply not only to people affected by the High Court’s ruling last year, but also to certain bridging visa holders. </p>
<p>Extraordinarily, it would also apply to “any other non-citizens” the minister might seek to designate through the migration regulations. </p>
<p>The powers include directing individuals to sign and submit documents to facilitate their departure, attend appointments, and provide any other information as required. In the case of families, if the parents are affected non-citizens, they can be directed to help facilitate the removal of their children, irrespective of whether it is in the child’s best interests.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/government-rushing-through-bill-to-crack-down-on-uncooperative-non-citizens-it-is-trying-to-remove-226615">Government rushing through bill to crack down on 'uncooperative' non-citizens it is trying to remove</a>
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<p>Anyone who fails to comply with these directions without a “reasonable excuse” will face a mandatory jail term of between one and five years, a A$93,900 fine, or both. The fact that someone faces a real risk of persecution or other serious harm will not be considered a reasonable excuse. </p>
<p>These are extraordinary provisions without precedent in Australia. Even in the context of terrorism offences, a failure to comply with a direction does not result in mandatory imprisonment. </p>
<p>The closest comparisons are offences under various state laws concerning failure to disclose identity, which may be punished by up to 12 months’ imprisonment. In some states, reportable offenders, such as child sex offenders, who fail to produce electronic devices when directed by police, may face up to five years in prison. </p>
<p>However, in all these cases, these are maximum sentences, not a mandatory minimum sentence. As the Law Council of Australia President <a href="https://lawcouncil.au/media/media-releases/removal-bill-causes-rule-of-law-and-human-rights-concerns">put it</a>: “In effect, this Bill will implement mandatory sentencing”.</p>
<h2>Concerns for fast-track asylum seekers</h2>
<p>Section 199D of the bill attempts to ensure that the new powers are not used to remove individuals to a country where they would face a real risk of persecution or other serious harm. </p>
<p>But there is a risk the bill could still lead to people who do have protection claims being forced to return to countries where their life or freedom is threatened. There are particular concerns for people assessed under Australia’s fast-track asylum processes. </p>
<p>The Labor party has acknowledged these processes have not been <a href="https://alp.org.au/media/2594/2021-alp-national-platform-final-endorsed-platform.pdf">“fair, thorough and robust”</a>, meaning people with genuine refugee claims may have been denied protection. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-governments-preventative-detention-bill-heres-how-the-laws-will-work-and-what-they-mean-for-australias-detention-system-219226">What is the government's preventative detention bill? Here's how the laws will work and what they mean for Australia's detention system</a>
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<p>Others could also be at risk of removal contrary to Australia’s protection obligations if their personal circumstances or the situation in their home country has changed since their original protection claim was determined. </p>
<p>The Refugee Council of Australia has warned about these risks and shared its <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/new-legislation-puts-refugees-failed-by-fast-track-process-at-risk/">concerns</a> that “those who do have strong claims, but have not had a fair hearing or review, will be sent back to real harm.” </p>
<h2>Countries can be blacklisted</h2>
<p>The bill also gives the minister a new power to “blacklist” entire countries and prevent their citizens from applying for Australian visas.</p>
<p>This is a discretionary power that requires little consultation and is unlikely to be subject to administrative or judicial review. The only limitations on this power are that the minister first consults with the prime minister and minister for foreign affairs. The immigration minister must also detail why they think it is in the national interest to make such a decision.</p>
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<p>The travel bans are intended to force targeted countries to cooperate and accept the return of their own nationals. But in practice, they will prevent people who may wish to work, study in or visit Australia from leaving – through no fault of their own. </p>
<p>Travel bans could also have unintended consequences. Diplomatic relations between countries may sour following such decisions, and countries may opt to <a href="https://sgp.fas.org/crs/homesec/IF11025.pdf">retaliate</a> in other ways, whether through trade, tourism or other matters of international concern. </p>
<p>The issue of international cooperation concerning the return of nationals to their home country is a diplomatic one that should be negotiated in good faith between political leaders. It is quite likely that inducements rather than threats would work better. </p>
<p>Other countries may also simply be unmoved to take any further steps to facilitate returns, or may even welcome their citizens not being able to visit Australia. It is important to remember that not all countries wish for their citizenry to be able to leave.</p>
<h2>Walking the walk</h2>
<p>At a time when the immigration minister has <a href="https://minister.homeaffairs.gov.au/AndrewGiles/Pages/refugee-communities-assoc-aust-conf-21092023.aspx">emphasised</a> the “importance of lived experience in shaping national and international dialogue and policy” and claimed that the “government walk the walk on meaningful participation for refugees”, it is disappointing to see attempts to rush this bill through parliament without any consultation with refugee communities and other stakeholders, and very limited scrutiny. </p>
<p>The Albanese government is continuing the tradition of governments before it by attempting to ram legislation through parliament that severely curtails human rights and is disproportionate to its stated objectives. Both the government and the opposition have a vested interest in passing laws that further expand the minister’s discretionary powers, which are already ill-suited to a liberal democracy. </p>
<p>But the changes will have far-reaching consequences for both our migration program and our foreign policy objectives, and demand further democratic scrutiny.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/226713/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jane McAdam receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is a member of the expert sub-committee of the Ministerial Advisory Council on Skilled Migration. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Ghezelbash receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the NSW Government. He is a member of the management committee of Refugee Advice and Casework Services and Wallumatta Legal, and a Special Counsel at the National Justice Project.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Madeline Gleeson and Tristan Harley do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The government has failed in its attempt to ram unprecedented changes to the migration act through parliament. The laws, now being reviewed by a senate committee, could be disastrous.Jane McAdam, Scientia Professor and Director of the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW SydneyDaniel Ghezelbash, Associate Professor and Deputy Director, Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW Law & Justice, UNSW SydneyMadeline Gleeson, Senior Research Fellow, Andrew & Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW SydneyTristan Harley, Senior Research Associate, Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2257762024-03-23T22:26:23Z2024-03-23T22:26:23ZTasmanians have voted in a hung parliament. What now?<p>The votes have been cast, but the helter skelter race to form the next Tasmanian government is just beginning. </p>
<p>While the results aren’t likely to be formalised for a couple of weeks, the island state’s voters <a href="https://theconversation.com/liberals-will-win-most-seats-in-tasmanian-election-but-be-short-of-a-majority-226398">haven’t given</a> Labor or the Liberals the 18 lower house seats needed to form a majority government. Overall, there has been a significant swing against the Liberal government, with the Greens and the Jacqui Lambie Network (JLN) likely to be the main beneficiaries.</p>
<p>The Liberals are likely to secure the most seats in the next Tasmanian parliament. Premier Jeremy Rockliff <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-23/tas-state-election-results-live-blog/103619024">declared it</a> “the fourth consecutive win” for the Liberal party. </p>
<p>However, it remains to be seen whether they can secure the support of the three or four crossbenchers they will need to form government. What is clear is that negotiations to form the next Tasmanian government will take days, or even weeks. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/liberals-will-win-most-seats-in-tasmanian-election-but-be-short-of-a-majority-226398">Liberals will win most seats in Tasmanian election, but be short of a majority</a>
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<h2>What do the numbers show so far?</h2>
<p>The next parliament looks like it will have 14 Liberals, ten from Labor, four Greens, two from the JLN, and two independents – with the remaining three seats too close to call. The final numbers will be confirmed once preferences have been distributed.</p>
<p>As expected, many Tasmanians turned away from the two major parties. The primary vote swing against the Liberal government looks to be around 12%, but Labor appears to have gained less than 1% statewide. Almost 34% of voters opted for minor parties and independents. It was a particularly strong result for the Greens, who are in with a chance of picking up the final undecided seats in at least three electorates. </p>
<p>The JLN did not perhaps do as well as expected. Their lack of a “lead” candidate in each seat meant their candidates pulled votes away from each other. </p>
<p>Both of the MPs that defected from the Liberal Party last year – leading Rockliff to call the election – failed to win back their seats as independents.</p>
<p>All this means that the process of forming the next Tasmanian government is likely to be full of twists, turns and controversy.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-jacqui-lambie-network-is-the-latest-victim-of-cybersquatting-its-the-tip-of-the-iceberg-of-negative-political-ads-online-225774">The Jacqui Lambie Network is the latest victim of 'cybersquatting'. It's the tip of the iceberg of negative political ads online</a>
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<h2>What now?</h2>
<p>During the campaign, Labor and the Liberals both ruled out offering ministries or policy concessions to independents, the JLN or the Greens in exchange for their support. Now, they may find themselves backtracking on this and coming to the negotiating table instead.</p>
<p>The two leaders struck markedly different tones in their speeches late on Saturday night. </p>
<p>Rockliff claimed victory, stating bullishly that “Tasmanians have not voted for a change of government” and that he will seek to lead a Liberal minority government. This would represent the continuation of the unstable situation he called the election to escape, depending on how the crossbench views his assumption of the Liberals’ right to continued rule. Some of the Liberal party’s <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-14/jacqui-lambie-slams-liberals-over-website/103581992">tactics</a> during the campaign will not have endeared them to crossbenchers – particularly those from the JLN.</p>
<p>Rebecca White did not concede defeat, but was more conciliatory. She acknowledged that minority government is likely to be the norm in Tasmania, and said that “Labor will be ready to work with the parliament to implement our agenda […] if that is the will of the people”. </p>
<p>All this is a bit ambiguous – will she go to the crossbench and attempt to cobble together a coalition? There were rumours throughout the night from journalists’ sources that this was a possibility, but nothing has been confirmed yet. Given Labor may only end up with ten seats, they’d need the support of eight crossbenchers, which would be no mean feat. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-power-prices-to-chocolate-fountains-the-tasmanian-election-campaign-has-been-a-promise-avalanche-225783">From power prices to chocolate fountains, the Tasmanian election campaign has been a promise avalanche</a>
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<p>Adding a bit of spice to the mix is the potential for both leaders to face challenges from within their own ranks. </p>
<p>Labor’s very small improvement on its disappointing 2021 result will be a concern for party strategists, although there is no obvious successor to White. Rockliff claimed to be “just getting started”, but may well be privately concerned about former federal senator Eric Abetz’s barnstorming entry into Tasmanian parliament. </p>
<p>On the ABC’s coverage, Abetz was quick to point out the swing against the Liberals, and highlight the need for the party to review some of its policies and decision making. </p>
<h2>And for the nation?</h2>
<p>The 2024 Tasmanian election leaves us with a couple of things to think about ahead of the next federal election. </p>
<p>Tasmania’s new parliament is just the latest piece of evidence that two-party dominance <a href="https://search.informit.org/doi/pdf/10.3316/informit.136288830999916">is waning</a> across Australia. </p>
<p>It’s true that Tasmania’s <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-21/hare-clark-electoral-system-explained/100062736">Hare-Clark voting system</a> makes it easier for independents and minor party candidates to get elected. However, the poor Liberal and Labor primary votes will worry federal party strategists who hoped that the 2022 <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-narrow-labor-win-and-a-teal-bath-all-the-facts-and-figures-on-the-2022-election-183359">Teal-bath</a> was a one off. </p>
<p>Certainly Bridget Archer and Andrew Wilkie will take comfort from the result where authentic, independent-minded candidates did well. It’s also clear that federal Labor have a lot of work to do in regional Tasmania if they are to retain Lyons and win back Braddon. </p>
<p>State election results haven’t always been the best predictor of federal election outcomes. However, that doesn’t mean that national party strategists will ignore what has happened in each of Tasmania’s five seats. </p>
<p>Another simmering issue is fixed parliamentary terms. Independents and <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Electoral_Matters/2019Federalelection/Report/section?id=committees%2Freportjnt%2F024439%2F75701">minor parties</a> often argue that “snap” elections disadvantage them, because they lack the ongoing resources and campaign apparatus’ of the major parties. Rockliff’s early election call <a href="https://www.themercury.com.au/news/tasmania/parties-candidates-using-ai-to-help-them-gain-an-advantage-in-2024-tasmanian-election/news-story/1954579a993971d5e30d9de1a1c333da">caused grumbling</a> to this effect from independents and minor parties in Tasmania, who felt cheated out of time to prepare. </p>
<p>All other <a href="https://theconversation.com/as-tasmanians-head-to-the-polls-liberal-premier-peter-gutwein-hopes-to-cash-in-on-covid-management-159526">states and territories</a> have fixed term parliaments. If the fallout from the Tasmanian election sparks further debate on this topic, it might <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-24/why-would-we-want-four-year-fixed-term-elections/8736832">reignite</a> the issue at the federal level.</p>
<p>But for now, let’s hope that the major parties can swallow their pride, accept that they didn’t convince Tasmanians of the need for majority government and negotiate an agreement with the crossbench. Doing so would show respect for the democratic will of the Tasmanian people and demonstrate willingness to put aside the politics and get on with addressing the state’s many challenges.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225776/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Eccleston is an appointed a member of two public advisory boards providing advice to the Tasmanian government.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Hortle does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Despite a swing against it, the Liberal party has likely won the most seats, but will fall short of a majority. While the vote counting will continue, the political fight is now to form government.Robert Hortle, Research Fellow, Tasmanian Policy Exchange, University of TasmaniaRichard Eccleston, Professor of Political Science; Director, Tasmanian Policy Exchange, University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2263982024-03-23T11:16:56Z2024-03-23T11:16:56ZLiberals will win most seats in Tasmanian election, but be short of a majority<p>Tasmania has five electorates that each return seven members using the proportional <a href="https://www.tec.tas.gov.au/info/Publications/HareClark.html">Hare-Clark system</a>, for a total of 35 seats. A quota is one-eighth of the vote, or 12.5%. In previous elections, the quota was 16.7%, with five members per electorate.</p>
<p>With over 60% of enrolled voters counted in all seats, the <a href="https://pollbludger.net/tas2024/Results/">Poll Bludger’s current projections</a> are that the Liberals will win 3.1 quotas in Bass, 3.7 in Braddon, 2.2 in Clark, 2.7 in Franklin and 3.0 in Lyons. Adding the likely wins in Braddon and Franklin gives them 15 of the 35 seats, three short of the 18 needed for a majority.</p>
<p>Labor is projected to win 2.3 quotas in Bass, 2.0 in Braddon, 2.4 in Clark, 2.2 in Franklin and 2.6 in Lyons, for a total of ten with a possible eleventh in Lyons. </p>
<p>The Greens are projected to win 1.0 quotas in Bass, 0.6 in Braddon, 1.6 in Clark, 1.6 in Franklin and 0.8 in Lyons, and would probably achieve a total of five with two more possible.</p>
<p>The Jacqui Lambie Network appears to have a strong chance to win the final seats in Bass and Braddon, and independent Kristie Johnston is likely to win the final seat in Clark. Former Labor MP David O'Byrne, running as an independent in Franklin, is in a contest with the Greens.</p>
<p>Overall vote share projections are currently 36.9% Liberals (down 11.8% since the 2021 election), 28.7% Labor (up 0.5%), 13.8% Greens (up 1.4%), 6.7% JLN (new) and 9.5% for independents.</p>
<p>Labor and the Greens appear to have performed a bit better than expected from pre-election polls and independents worse. This is likely to make it harder for the Liberals to form a government.</p>
<p><strong>Sunday morning update:</strong> Tasmanian <a href="https://kevinbonham.blogspot.com/">analyst Kevin Bonham</a> expects three Liberals, two Labor, one Green and one JLN in Bass, three Liberals, two Labor, one JLN and one undecided contest between the Liberals and independent Craig Garland in Braddon, with the Liberals currently ahead.</p>
<p>In Clark, Bonham expects two Liberals, two Labor, one Green and independent Kristie Johnston, with the final seat a contest between Labor and the Greens, and the Greens ahead currently. In Franklin, three Liberals, two Labor, one Green and independent David O'Byrne are expected winners. In Lyons, three Liberals, two Labor, one Green, with the final seat a contest between Labor and JLN.</p>
<p>Adding this up gives a total outcome of 14 Liberals out of 35, ten Labor, four Greens, two JLN, two independents and three undecided. </p>
<p>Incumbent Liberal premier Jeremy Rockliff last night <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-23/tas-state-election-results-live-blog/103619024">claimed victory</a>, but we need to wait for final results and for the decisions of the crossbenchers to be known before we know whether the Liberals have retained government in Tasmania.</p>
<h2>How does Hare-Clark work?</h2>
<p>Tasmania uses Robson rotation, where candidate names within a group are randomised for each ballot paper, to prevent one candidate from benefiting from being the top candidate from their group. This means parties can’t order their candidates.</p>
<p>For a formal vote, electors need to number at least seven preferences, but can keep numbering beyond seven if they wish. The process of formally electing candidates won’t start until all votes have been counted. </p>
<p>This is likely to occur on April 2, the <a href="https://www.tec.tas.gov.au/house-of-assembly/elections-2024/ways-to-vote/postal-voting.html">deadline for receipt</a> of postal votes.</p>
<p>Any candidate with more votes than the quota is declared elected, and their surplus votes will be passed on to remaining candidates at a fractional value. </p>
<p>After surpluses are distributed, remaining candidates will be excluded starting with the one with the lowest vote, and their votes transferred as preferences to remaining candidates. </p>
<p>This process continues until all seven vacancies in each electorate are filled. Owing to “exhausted” votes that have no preference between the final candidates, it is common for the last winners to have less than a quota.</p>
<h2>Labor gains Dunstan in SA state byelection</h2>
<p>With 48% of enrolled voters counted in the Liberal-held South Australian <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/dunstan-by-election-2024">Dunstan state byelection</a>, Labor has defeated the Liberals by a 52.9–47.1 margin, a 3.4% swing to Labor since the March 2022 state election. This seat was previously held by former Liberal premier Steven Marshall. This is a government gain from an opposition at a byelection.</p>
<p>Primary votes were 40.0% Liberals (down 6.7%), 32.3% Labor (down 2.9%), 22.4% Greens (up 8.8%) and 3.3% Animal Justice (new).</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/226398/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adrian Beaumont does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Hours into the count in the Tasmanian election, the state can expect a hung parliament. Meanwhile, Labor is succeeding in a South Australian state byelection.Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2243702024-03-07T19:24:18Z2024-03-07T19:24:18ZPolitical power in Australia is still overwhelmingly male. But beneath the despair, there’s reason for hope<p>It’s 2024, but power still looks like a man. Despite Australia’s claim to egalitarianism, achieving equal political participation and representation remains a formidable challenge for women. Concerningly, the persistent and ingrained obstacles in women’s way are affecting the aspirations of the next generation of female leaders. </p>
<p>According to 2022 <a href="https://plan-international.org/uploads/2022/10/SOTWGR-2022-EN-Final-SD.pdf">research</a> spanning 29 countries, including Australia, satisfaction among young females aged 15-24 with their leaders’ decisions on issues they care about stands at a mere 11%. An overwhelming 97% acknowledged the importance of political participation. Yet, only 24% of those aspiring to engage in politics could see themselves running for office. </p>
<p>Worse still, 20% have been personally discouraged from political involvement. This is often because they’re either considered to be <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/05_women_lawless_fox.pdf">less qualified</a> or that they will inevitably <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2015/01/27/the-female-political-career-women-members-of-parliament-still-face-obstacles-to-elected-office">face discrimination</a> and gendered violence. </p>
<p>I crunched the numbers to assess the situation in Australia. While much has been said about the <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjBo7vTp9SEAxU3amwGHUFXBH8QFnoECAYQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fiview.abc.net.au%2Fshow%2Fms-represented-with-annabel-crabb&usg=AOvVaw1oHrBbmWBZQhhBmxEIv6gA&opi=89978449">mistreatment</a> of female leaders, how does this play into the psyche of female constituents? </p>
<p>I found gender gaps have persisted in almost every political measure over the past 20 years. But there’s a glimmer of hope, mostly found online. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-the-secret-to-attracting-more-women-into-politics-give-them-more-resources-222159">What's the secret to attracting more women into politics? Give them more resources</a>
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<h2>Politics still unwelcoming and unrepresentative</h2>
<p>Using the <a href="https://australianelectionstudy.org/">Australian Election Study</a>, I examined the gender gaps in political attitudes and behaviours across generations between 2001 and 2022.</p>
<p>The pathway to power for women in politics has never been easy, and it doesn’t get easier once elected. The prevalent discrimination, <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiVwpWMp9SEAxW8UWcHHb4eCPAQtwJ6BAg4EAI&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dz8asUgiCjw0&usg=AOvVaw2_nNYywdfZNl9-qQxzlqys&opi=89978449">gender deafness</a>, sexism and overt abuse not only <a href="https://theconversation.com/expect-sexism-a-gender-politics-expert-reads-julia-gillards-women-and-leadership-142725">force women to abandon</a> their leadership aspirations, but also act as signals that discourage young women from corridors of power. </p>
<p>It is therefore not surprising younger generations of Australian women display a diminished interest in politics, more so than older generations.</p>
<p><iframe id="4MuvN" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/4MuvN/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>I found they’re less represented than men in traditional participatory practices, such as discussing politics or attending political meetings. They’re also less likely to contribute money to a party or campaign. Girls in various Western democracies reported <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249019872_Good_Girls_Go_to_the_Polling_Booth_Bad_Boys_Go_Everywhere_Gender_Differences_in_Anticipated_Political_Participation_Among_American_Fourteen-Year-Olds">similar</a> disinterest. </p>
<p><iframe id="P7Jrx" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/P7Jrx/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Young Australian women are also less satisfied with democracy than men. They report lower trust in government than their male counterparts and are more likely to believe government is run for few big interests rather than for all. </p>
<p><iframe id="7PvXV" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/7PvXV/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Discouragement is everywhere</h2>
<p>Politics continues to be off-putting because sexism is normalised in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-australian-media-womens-voices-are-still-not-heard-172060">media</a>. </p>
<p>Numerous studies show young Australian women <a href="https://www.plan.org.au/publications/she-can-lead/">think</a> female leaders receive unfair treatment from the media. The gendered media coverage is often characterised by negative portrayals of “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0146167210371949">power-seeking</a>” ambitions, scrutiny of fashion choices, judgement based on reproductive decisions, and a <a href="https://theconversation.com/theres-a-big-problem-with-the-murdoch-media-no-one-is-talking-about-how-it-treats-women-leaders-149986">failure to recognise</a> the mistreatment of female leaders (gender blindness). It all serves as a stark reminder of entrenched sexism in our national mindset.</p>
<p>Moreover, there’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-missing-women-of-australian-politics-research-shows-the-toll-of-harassment-abuse-and-stalking-168567">scepticism</a> in the personal circles of women aspiring to political roles. Friends and family can express concerns about their loved one’s safety working in parliament or for a political party. This undermines the progress of women in political leadership. </p>
<p>Women also hesitate to <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-missing-women-of-australian-politics-research-shows-the-toll-of-harassment-abuse-and-stalking-168567">encourage</a> others to pursue political careers due to the potential for facing abuse.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/online-abuse-could-drive-women-out-of-political-life-the-time-to-act-is-now-214301">Online abuse could drive women out of political life – the time to act is now</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>If the political landscape discourages the pool of potential female leaders, it’s understandable gender quotas have had <a href="https://hir.harvard.edu/equal-representation-the-debate-over-gender-quotas-part-1/">mixed success</a>. Labor’s quotas have not been a panacea for attracting young women to politics. </p>
<p>The reality is women <a href="https://theconversation.com/women-politicians-pay-too-high-a-personal-cost-for-their-leadership-201028">pay too high</a> a personal price in leadership positions. Competing work and family roles create high levels of stress and burn-out. This particularly <a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-the-secret-to-attracting-more-women-into-politics-give-them-more-resources-222159">deters</a> young women from running for local government, for example – more so than older women and men of all ages. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580075/original/file-20240306-20-s0fb71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman uses her smartphone on public transport." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580075/original/file-20240306-20-s0fb71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580075/original/file-20240306-20-s0fb71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580075/original/file-20240306-20-s0fb71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580075/original/file-20240306-20-s0fb71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580075/original/file-20240306-20-s0fb71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580075/original/file-20240306-20-s0fb71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580075/original/file-20240306-20-s0fb71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Young women are increasingly engaging in political discussion online.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/young-woman-using-smartphone-subway-1060222451">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Bottom-up quest for parity</h2>
<p>Despite these challenges, the 2022 federal election emerged as a pivotal moment in Australian politics, highlighting a <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-explained-the-seismic-2022-federal-election-the-australian-election-study-has-answers-195286">significant shift</a> in the engagement of women and young people. These two social bases turned away from major parties, signalling a growing disenchantment with the established political order. </p>
<p>Young women are actively challenging traditional power structures, leveraging their access to higher education and social media to redefine the political narrative. They are not hesitant to explore political alternatives to the two major parties. </p>
<p>Young women have also been challenging the established political order through getting involved in politics online. They are participating in political discussions, sharing and blogging political information, accessing election information and creating and joining political groups on social media platforms.</p>
<p><iframe id="Dais0" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/Dais0/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/jacinda-arderns-resignation-shows-that-women-still-face-an-uphill-battle-in-politics-an-expert-on-female-leaders-answers-5-key-questions-198197">Jacinda Ardern's resignation shows that women still face an uphill battle in politics – an expert on female leaders answers 5 key questions</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This has ushered in younger generations of Australian women who are unwilling to accept abuse and harassment as the inevitable costs of political engagement. With increasing education levels and a <a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-young-people-are-moving-to-the-left-though-young-women-are-more-progressive-than-men-reflecting-a-global-trend-222288">more progressive</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/28/australian-voters-are-increasingly-driven-by-issues-rather-than-party-loyalty-and-thats-bad-news-for-the-old-political-order">issue-based mindset</a>, young women are raising their demands and expectations.</p>
<p>This is heartening. We’re starting to see a generation of women who refuse to accept the limitations imposed on them. This development signals a promising shift towards a more inclusive and representative political landscape.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224370/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Intifar Chowdhury does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Data show young Australian women are less politically engaged than men. Given the negative experiences of female politicians, that’s hardly surprising. But there’s a glimmer of hope.Intifar Chowdhury, Lecturer in Government, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2201922024-03-07T13:32:14Z2024-03-07T13:32:14ZA Barbie dollhouse and a field trip led me to become an architect − now I lead a program that teaches architecture to mostly young women in South Central Los Angeles<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578670/original/file-20240228-7861-7ydzy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=30%2C10%2C6669%2C4426&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Do dollhouses possess the potential to inspire young girls to design and build?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/curious-playful-girl-arranging-her-doll-house-while-royalty-free-image/1267317545?phrase=girl+dollhouse+purple&adppopup=true">Kosamtu via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As a kid growing up in the suburbs of St. Louis, Missouri, in the ’80s, my sister and I spent a lot of time playing with Barbie in the basement of our single-family home. I loved dressing her and imagining her life. But the best part about Barbie was her house.</p>
<p>I learned recently that the Barbie house I had was the Dreamhouse A-frame <a href="https://creations.mattel.com/products/barbie-dreamhouse-an-architectural-survey-limited-run-edition-hvy37">designed in 1979</a>. The house takes its name from the fact that the front view of the steep roof looks like the capital letter “A.”</p>
<p>I clearly remember the distinctive yellow, orange and white color scheme and the sloping roof. But the best part was that the house could be configured in different ways. The house opened and closed, and walls and rooms could switch places. I could change Barbie’s whole world by changing her space. That was a powerful discovery. </p>
<p>Perhaps for many girls who grew up playing with a Barbie doll, it was doing her hair that might be the most memorable. But for me looking back – and as Barbie enthusiasts celebrate <a href="https://www.nationaldaycalendar.com/national-day/national-barbie-day-march-9#:%7E:text=On%20March%209th%2C%20National%20Barbie,Toy%20Fair%20in%20New%20York.">National Barbie Day</a> on March 9, 2024, the iconic doll’s 65th year – it was playing with Barbie’s house that stands out. It was probably the first time I realized that the places where we live, work and play all serve to shape who we are.</p>
<p>Today, I am an <a href="https://arch.usc.edu/error">architect and professor</a>. I lead a program for high school students in South Central Los Angeles at the University of Southern California School of Architecture. The program, called the <a href="https://arch.usc.edu/a-lab">A-LAB Architecture Development Program</a>, provides a pathway for young people – and especially for young women – into architecture as a field.</p>
<p>Only 25% of people working as architects in the U.S. are women. For comparison, 36% of lawyers are women and 41% of physicians and surgeons are women. This figure, and other facts about women in architecture, can be found in “<a href="https://www.acsa-arch.org/resource/where-are-the-women-measuring-progress-on-gender-in-architecture-2/">Where are the Women? Measuring Progress on Gender in Architecture</a>,” written by <a href="https://www.acsa-arch.org/leadership/staff/">Kendall A. Nicholson</a>, director of research, equity and education at Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture. </p>
<h2>Having fun at work</h2>
<p>A few years after my Barbie house experience, I took a school field trip to visit an architecture office in St. Louis. There I saw people who seemed like they were having fun at work. </p>
<p>Everywhere I looked, I saw pencils, markers, scissors, glue, cardboard and plenty of other tools I had never seen before. The office was full of creative people making drawings and models of new buildings and landscapes. The energy I felt there was exciting and palpable. These people had purpose. I decided that day that I would become an architect.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two women look at a miniature model of a building." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578674/original/file-20240228-24-172pg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578674/original/file-20240228-24-172pg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578674/original/file-20240228-24-172pg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578674/original/file-20240228-24-172pg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578674/original/file-20240228-24-172pg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578674/original/file-20240228-24-172pg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578674/original/file-20240228-24-172pg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Only 25% of architects are women.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/shoreditch-office-royalty-free-image/549776575?phrase=architectural+firm&adppopup=true">Kelvin Murray via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I didn’t realize it then, but looking back, I can connect the fun I had with Barbie’s Dreamhouse to the work people were doing in the architecture firm. We were both using architecture and design to shape the world around us. </p>
<h2>Providing practical experience</h2>
<p>In the A-LAB program that I run, students spend time learning how to see, draw and design. They use those skills to develop conceptual design projects in their own neighborhoods in South Central Los Angeles.</p>
<p>Students are asked to think about and research the needs of their communities and to propose a new project that fulfills a need that has not yet been met. One student proposed an outdoor community pool with a shade structure. The shade structure is for fresh air, exercise and a place for people of all ages to hang out. Another student proposed a small theater with a stage and snack bar, where students in bands could practice in the evening when the high school is closed. Yet another proposed a homework and day care hub, so that students and younger siblings could have a safe place to go after school. Overall, each of these design projects aim to emphasize architecture’s role in positively shaping culture and community. </p>
<p>So far, over 80 local students have participated in A-LAB. They also earned four units of college credit in the process. </p>
<p>The majority of students tell us that A-LAB has changed the way they see the buildings and places we use to live our lives. The program attracts both young men and women, yet with each new A-LAB cohort, we see an increase in the percentage of young women participating. Over the past three years, 65% of A-LAB students have been young women. And this semester alone, a whopping 85% of A-LAB students are young women.</p>
<p>This trend could be part of the <a href="https://www.acsa-arch.org/resource/where-are-the-women-measuring-progress-on-gender-in-architecture-2/">steady increase</a> in women entering architecture schools. Or it could be that successful female students are sharing their experiences with younger female students and encouraging them to apply. </p>
<p>I also think it doesn’t hurt that I show up to the schools and talk about the program and invite students to consider joining it. I think there is really something about a female representing the outward face of A-LAB that makes it seem more welcoming to young women. And to think it all started with a little girl playing with a Barbie dollhouse in her basement some 40 years ago.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220192/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lauren Matchison does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Women are underrepresented in architecture, occupying just 25% of jobs in the field. An architecture professor shares insights from her childhood on how those numbers can be turned around.Lauren Matchison, Associate Professor of Practice, University of Southern CaliforniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2233072024-03-01T13:36:06Z2024-03-01T13:36:06ZRemembering the 1932 Ford Hunger March: Detroit park honors labor and environmental history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579009/original/file-20240229-25-snzdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Dearborn policeman knocked unconscious was the first casualty of the 1932 Ford Hunger March in Detroit and Dearborn.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wayne.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/vmc/id/35955/rec/1">Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University/Detroit News Burckhardt.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The intersection of Fort Street and Oakwood Boulevard in southwest Detroit today functions mostly as a thoroughfare for trucks and commuters. </p>
<p>However, as you sit idling at the stoplight waiting to cross the bridge over the Rouge River, you might glance to the side and see something unexpected in this heavily industrialized area: A sculpture of weathered steel reaches toward the sky alongside a spray of flowers and waves of grasses and people fishing. </p>
<p>This inconspicuous corner, now the home of the <a href="https://www.motorcities.org/fortstreet">Fort Street Bridge Park</a>, has several stories to tell: of a river, a region, a historic conflict and an ongoing struggle. </p>
<p>If you pull over, you’ll enter a place that attempts to pull together threads of history, environment and sustainable redevelopment.</p>
<p>Signs explain why this sculpture and park are here: to honor the memory of <a href="https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/hunger-march-ford/">protesters who met on this very spot on March 7, 1932</a>, before marching up Miller Road to the massive Ford Rouge River Complex located in the adjacent city of Dearborn. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=K9xPsDgAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">sociology professor</a>, I have a strong interest in how the history of labor and industrial pollution have influenced Detroit. </p>
<p>I’m also interested in the potential for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-018-0765-7">environmental restoration</a> or “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2019.05.002">green reparations</a>” to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2019.05.002">offer a new way forward</a>.</p>
<p>To understand this potential future, we must first recognize and honor the past.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An iron sculpture commemorates industry and sits as the centerpiece of the Ford Street Bridge Park." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577974/original/file-20240226-24-rb9wdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577974/original/file-20240226-24-rb9wdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577974/original/file-20240226-24-rb9wdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577974/original/file-20240226-24-rb9wdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577974/original/file-20240226-24-rb9wdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577974/original/file-20240226-24-rb9wdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577974/original/file-20240226-24-rb9wdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Fort Street Bridge Park is located along the banks of the Rouge River in southwest Detroit.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paul Draus</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>14 demands</h2>
<p>In their book “<a href="https://www.ueunion.org/labors-untold-story#:%7E:text=Extensively%20researched%2C%20yet%20highly%20readable,conflict%20from%20the%20workers'%20perspective.">Labor’s Untold Story</a>,” published in 1955, journalist Richard Boyer and historian Herbert Morais quote a contemporary account of the Hunger March: </p>
<p><em>It was early, it was cold when the first of the unemployed Ford workers (many of whom had been laid off the day before) arrived at Baby Creek Bridge. They were a small gray group and they stood slapping their sides, warding off the cold, and wondering if they alone would come.</em></p>
<p>Others soon joined them: Black and white, men and women, immigrants and American-born. They united to deliver a list of 14 demands to the auto tycoon <a href="https://corporate.ford.com/articles/history/henry-ford-biography.html">Henry Ford</a>, whose US$5 daily wage for his workers was once considered revolutionary. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Police with bats follow Hunger March marchers on March 7, 1932." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579052/original/file-20240229-30-qh3912.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579052/original/file-20240229-30-qh3912.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579052/original/file-20240229-30-qh3912.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579052/original/file-20240229-30-qh3912.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579052/original/file-20240229-30-qh3912.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579052/original/file-20240229-30-qh3912.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579052/original/file-20240229-30-qh3912.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hunger March protesters demanded better pay and working conditions at the Ford Rouge plant.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wayne.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/vmc/id/37798/rec/1">Detroit News Staff via Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Among the marchers’ demands: jobs for laid-off workers, a seven-hour workday without a pay reduction, two 15-minute rest periods a day, an end to discrimination against Black workers and the right to organize. </p>
<p>This crowd of several thousand marched up the road on one of the coldest days of winter. They were greeted at the Dearborn border with clouds of tear gas, jets of cold water and a shower of bullets. </p>
<p>It was then that the Ford Hunger March became the Ford Massacre. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HFEskpjPbfE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Detroit Workers News Special 1932: Ford Massacre via Workers Film & Photo League International.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The seeds of a labor movement</h2>
<p>Beth Tompkins Bates, in her book “<a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469613857/the-making-of-black-detroit-in-the-age-of-henry-ford/">The Making of Black Detroit in the Age of Henry Ford</a>,” wrote that “The response of the Ford Motor Company on that day shot holes in the myth that Ford cared about his workers, that he was different from other businessmen.” </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Black and white portrait of a young man with wavy hair" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578741/original/file-20240228-32-57ksmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578741/original/file-20240228-32-57ksmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578741/original/file-20240228-32-57ksmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578741/original/file-20240228-32-57ksmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578741/original/file-20240228-32-57ksmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=926&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578741/original/file-20240228-32-57ksmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=926&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578741/original/file-20240228-32-57ksmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=926&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Portrait of Joe Bussell, killed by Ford Servicemen during the 1932 Ford Hunger March in Detroit. Bussell’s relatives contributed to the Fort Street Bridge Park.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://reuther.wayne.edu/node/7269">Walter P. Reuther Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the end of the day, four marchers lay dead, while many others were injured and hospitalized. A fifth would die months later of his wounds. </p>
<p>More than 30,000 people showed up for the dead marchers’ funerals. The violent reactions of Ford security and Dearborn police during the march were widely condemned. </p>
<p>In an effort to address the stain on its public image, the Ford family first commissioned then expanded a major work by <a href="https://www.nps.gov/places/detroit-industry-murals-detroit-institute-of-arts.htm">Mexican muralist Diego Rivera</a> that was to become the centerpiece of the Detroit Institute of Arts, known as the Detroit Industry Mural. Rivera, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X0800678X">a known communist</a>, depicted both ruthless efficiency and the racialized inequality of the industrial process. </p>
<p>Ford’s battle against unions was ultimately a failure. Five years after the Hunger March, the so-called “<a href="https://reuther.wayne.edu/ex/exhibits/battle.html">Battle of the Overpass</a>” led to the organization of the Rouge plant by the United Auto Workers. </p>
<p>The Ford Hunger March, long forgotten by many, is now <a href="https://www.workers.org/2022/03/62190/">acknowledged as an important catalyst</a> in the growth of the union movement. </p>
<h2>Struggle for sustainability and justice</h2>
<p>The fight for sustainability and environmental justice is another major theme of the park, which chronicles the history of the Rouge River, including the day in 1969 when the <a href="https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2019/10/rouge-river-fire-anniversary-great-lakes-moment/">oily water infamously caught fire</a>. </p>
<p>The hellish image of burning rivers helped motivate the signing of the <a href="https://www.boem.gov/air-quality-act-1967-or-clean-air-act-caa">Clean Air</a> and <a href="https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-clean-water-act">Clean Water acts</a>, as well as <a href="https://www.epa.gov/history">the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency</a>. </p>
<p>The air and water in and around Detroit are <a href="https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2023/05/once-beset-industrial-pollution-rouge-river-slow-path-recovery/">much cleaner today</a> than they were 1969. But this doesn’t change the fact that the area where the park sits bears a disproportionate burden of the pollution generated by the region’s industrial production, which includes cement plants, gypsum and aggregates processors, salt mining and asphalt storage, as well as a steel mill and petroleum refinery.</p>
<p>Another <a href="https://www.marathonpetroleum.com/content/documents/Citizenship/2018/Sustainability_Report_10_21.pdf">donor to the park</a> is Marathon Petroleum Corporation whose Detroit Refinery occupies the adjoining neighborhood. Though Marathon has invested in the development of green spaces on its own property, the refinery has also expanded in recent years, <a href="https://wdi-publishing.com/product/marathon-petroleum-and-southwest-detroit-the-intersection-of-community-and-environment/">further degrading the local environment</a>.</p>
<p>Research shows that workers <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pmedr.2021.101502">benefit from unionization</a> in myriad ways, not only directly but indirectly. But <a href="https://theconversation.com/2023s-historic-hollywood-and-uaw-strikes-arent-labors-whole-story-the-total-number-of-americans-walking-off-the-job-remained-relatively-low-219903">recent labor victories</a> by the UAW, Hollywood writers and other organizers stand in stark contrast to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/1-in-10-us-workers-belong-to-unions-a-share-thats-stabilized-after-a-steep-decline-221571">long-term erosion of union membership</a>.</p>
<p>Today, the Fort Street Bridge Park in southwest Detroit serves to remind us of the complexities of history and how apparent progress in one area may be followed by a setback somewhere else. It also represents how the spirit of community, unbroken, keeps pushing for something better.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223307/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Draus is affiliated with Friends of the Rouge and Downriver Delta CDC, two nonprofit organizations involved with the Fort Street Bridge Park. He is also the facilitator of the Fort-Rouge Gateway (FRoG) Partnership, a coalition of representatives from nonprofit, community-based, academic and industry that is focused on the sustainable redevelopment of the industrial Rouge region. </span></em></p>On March 7, workers at the Ford Rouge River plant marched for better working conditions, sparking America’s labor movement. Almost a century later, a quiet park honors their memory.Paul Draus, Professor of Sociology; Director, Master of Science in Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Michigan-DearbornLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2210812024-02-13T13:23:15Z2024-02-13T13:23:15ZWhy is free time still so elusive?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574720/original/file-20240209-18-ge59pz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C0%2C5946%2C3943&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Massive gains in productivity haven't led to more time free from work.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/time-flies-conceptual-image-royalty-free-image/1743874416?adppopup=true">J Studios/DigitalVision via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There have been massive gains in productivity over the past century. </p>
<p>So why are people still working so hard for so long? </p>
<p>Output per worker <a href="https://stacker.com/business-economy/how-us-labor-productivity-has-changed-1950">increased by almost 300% between 1950 and 2018</a> in the U.S. The standard American workweek, meanwhile, has remained unchanged, at about 40 hours. </p>
<p>This paradox is especially notable in the U.S., where the <a href="https://data.oecd.org/emp/hours-worked.htm">average work year is 1,767 hours compared with 1,354 in Germany</a>, a difference largely due to Americans’ <a href="https://www.justworks.com/blog/average-vacation-days-by-country#which-country-has-the-least-vacation-days-how-the-us-compares">lack of vacation time</a>.</p>
<p>Some might argue that Americans are just more hardworking. But shouldn’t more productive work be rewarded with more time free from work? </p>
<p>This is the central theme of my new book, “<a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479813087/free-time/">Free Time: The History of an Elusive Ideal</a>.” </p>
<h2>Keynes misses the mark</h2>
<p>Many economists <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/business/9806schor-overworked.html">see the status quo mostly as a choice</a>: People would simply rather have more money. So they prioritize work over free time. </p>
<p>However, in the past, many economists assumed that people’s need for more stuff would eventually be met. At that point, they would choose more free time. </p>
<p>In fact, one of the most famous economists of the 20th century, John Maynard Keynes, <a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/files/content/upload/Intro_and_Section_I.pdf">confidently predicted in 1930</a> that within a century, the normal workweek would decrease to 15 hours. Yet Americans in their prime working age are still on the job 41.7 hours per week. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Man with white mustache and thinning hair sits for a portrait." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574715/original/file-20240209-24-kbpzmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574715/original/file-20240209-24-kbpzmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574715/original/file-20240209-24-kbpzmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574715/original/file-20240209-24-kbpzmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574715/original/file-20240209-24-kbpzmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574715/original/file-20240209-24-kbpzmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574715/original/file-20240209-24-kbpzmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Maynard Keynes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/british-economist-and-financier-john-maynard-keynes-news-photo/640460459?adppopup=true">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Why was Keynes wrong?</p>
<p>Obviously, people’s needs or wants were not fully met. In the first half of the 20th century, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-manipulation-of-the-american-mind-edward-bernays-and-the-birth-of-public-relations-44393">advertising shifted</a> in ways that emphasized emotions over utility, making consumers feel like they needed to buy more stuff; <a href="https://daily.jstor.org/the-birth-of-planned-obsolescence/">planned obsolescence</a> shortened how long products remained functional or fashionable, spurring more frequent purchases; and new, exciting – but costly – goods and services kept consumerism churning. </p>
<p>So workers continued to labor for long hours to earn enough money to spend. </p>
<p>Furthermore, as wages rose, the opportunity cost of time spent away from work also grew. This made more free time less economically appealing. In a consumption-saturated society, time spent neither producing nor consuming goods increasingly appeared as wasted time. </p>
<p>Interest in slower, cheaper activities – reading a book, meeting a friend to catch up over coffee – started to seem less important than buying a pickup truck or spending an hour at the casino, pursuits that demand disposable income.</p>
<h2>Forced labor</h2>
<p>It’s still important to consider whether there’s even any choice to be made. </p>
<p>Almost everyone who works 40 hours a week or more does so because they have to. There are bills to pay, health insurance coverage to maintain and retirement to squirrel away money for. Some jobs are more precarious than others, and many workers even forego <a href="https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20211209-why-its-so-hard-for-some-workers-to-ask-for-time-off">earned vacation time for fear of losing promotions</a>.</p>
<p>This hardly makes for a free choice.</p>
<p>But the 40-hour week isn’t the result of a personal calculation of costs and benefits. Rather, it’s the result of a hard-fought political battle that culminated in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Labor_Standards_Act_of_1938">Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938</a>, which established the standard 40-hour workweek, along with a minimum wage. </p>
<p>Pressed by a labor movement <a href="https://theconversation.com/1-in-10-us-workers-belong-to-unions-a-share-thats-stabilized-after-a-steep-decline-221571">that was far more powerful than today’s</a>, the government implemented a range of progressive economic policies during the 1930s to help the nation emerge from the Great Depression.</p>
<p>Many government officials viewed setting a standard workweek as a way to curtail exploitation and unfair competition among employers, who would otherwise be motivated to push their employees to work for as long as possible. It was an emergency measure, not a choice of more time over more personal income. Nor was it a step toward the progressive reduction of hours worked, as Keynes had envisioned. </p>
<p>In fact, it was hardly a radical measure.</p>
<p>Labor leaders had initially proposed a 30-hour week, which government officials resoundingly rejected. Even New Deal liberals saw a shortening of working hours as a <a href="https://tupress.temple.edu/books/work-without-end">potential threat to economic growth</a>. </p>
<p>So the 40-hour week ended up as the compromise, and the standard hasn’t been updated since.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Young women raise their fists and smile. Two of them hold a sign reading 'SIT-DOWN STRIKE - HELP US WIN 40 HOUR WEEK.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574714/original/file-20240209-24-2ol17u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574714/original/file-20240209-24-2ol17u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574714/original/file-20240209-24-2ol17u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574714/original/file-20240209-24-2ol17u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574714/original/file-20240209-24-2ol17u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574714/original/file-20240209-24-2ol17u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574714/original/file-20240209-24-2ol17u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Woolworth’s employees strike for a 40-hour workweek in 1937.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/female-employees-of-woolworths-holding-a-sign-indicating-news-photo/140427674?adppopup=true">Underwood Archives/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For most Americans, this was an acceptable trade-off. They might be working long hours, but they could afford television sets, cars and homes in the suburbs. Many families could live on the wages of the full-time work of the father, making the 40-hour week seem reasonable, since the mother had time to care for the family and home. </p>
<p>But this consensus has long since been undermined. Since the 1970s, inflation-adjusted <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/">wages haven’t risen with economic growth</a>. In many households that include married or partnered couples, a single wage earner has been replaced by two earners, both of whom find themselves working at least 40 hours per week.</p>
<p>It’s almost as if the 40-hour week has been replaced by an 80-hour week – at least in <a href="https://gitnux.org/two-income-families-statistics/">terms of hours worked per household</a>. </p>
<p>Who has time to raise kids? Who can afford them? It’s no wonder <a href="https://www.vox.com/23971366/declining-birth-rate-fertility-babies-children">the birth rate has declined</a>.</p>
<h2>Separating economic growth from well-being</h2>
<p>For decades, the amount of work we do has been talked about as “just the way things are” – an inevitability, almost. It doesn’t seem possible for society to take a different tack and, like flipping a switch, work less.</p>
<p>To me, this resignation points to a need to reconsider the social contracts of the past. Most Americans will not abandon their work ethic and their insistence that most people work. Fair enough. </p>
<p>Many people prefer working over having vast stores of free time, and that’s OK. And there’s still immense value in work that doesn’t produce a paycheck – caregiving and volunteering, for example.</p>
<p>But reducing the standard workweek, perhaps by transitioning to a four-day week, could ease stress for overworked families.</p>
<p>These changes require political action, not just individuals making the personal choice to arrive at a better work-life balance. And yet a national reduction in the standard workweek seems almost impossible. Congress can’t even <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/12/politics/inflation-reduction-children-families/index.html">pass legislation for paid family leave</a> or guaranteed vacation time.</p>
<p>It doesn’t help that elected leaders continue to insist that well-being be measured mostly by economic growth, and when the U.S. media breathlessly reports quarterly economic growth data, with increases deemed “good” and decreases deemed “bad.” </p>
<p>Why shouldn’t free time and its benefits be included in the equation? Why aren’t figures on the social costs of unlimited growth publicized? Does it even matter that <a href="https://www.wsj.com/finance/stocks/the-dow-jones-industrial-average-is-back-these-are-the-stocks-driving-it-to-new-highs-a7d01b17">the Dow Jones Industrial Average</a> has doubled in less than a decade when economic security is so fragile and <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/4162682-americas-in-a-united-state-of-stress-and-disillusionment/">so many people are overstressed</a>?</p>
<p>The idea that stratospheric increases in productivity can allow for more time for life is not simply a romantic or sentimental idea. Keynes viewed it as entirely reasonable.</p>
<p>Opportunities like the one that led to the 40-hour workweek in the 1930s rarely appear. But some sort of paradigm shift is urgently needed.</p>
<p>Something has to give.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221081/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gary Cross does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In 1930, economist John Maynard Keynes famously predicted that within a century, the normal workweek would decrease to 15 hours. Why was he wrong?Gary Cross, Distinguished Professor of Modern History, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2210782024-02-08T13:40:56Z2024-02-08T13:40:56ZThe myth of men’s full-time employment<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572004/original/file-20240129-25-80mw1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C46%2C5114%2C3478&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">He's not alone.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/businessman-made-redundant-royalty-free-image/643678742">Image Bank/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Men’s employment in the U.S. reached a 20-year high in 2023, with <a href="https://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/publications/economic-letter/2023/october/mens-falling-labor-force-participation-across-generations/">nearly 90%</a> of men ages 25 to 54 in the workforce, according to <a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2023/labor-force-participation-rate-for-people-ages-25-to-54-in-may-2023-highest-since-january-2007.htm#:%7E:text=Among%20men%20ages%2025%20to,pandemic%20level%20in%20April%202023.">the Bureau of Labor Statistics</a>. This supports the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243216649946">broad expectation</a> – some might say stereotype – that full-time employment is the norm for American men. </p>
<p>Yet examining employment at a single point in time leaves out important information about whether people are able to maintain stable work. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/23780231231197031">Our recent study</a> of male baby boomers’ working lives – spanning more than two decades – tells a very different story. </p>
<p>In fact, men’s labor force participation has been <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300001">steadily declining</a> since the 1970s, and workers are experiencing greater labor market precarity – that is, shorter job spells, greater job insecurity and more long-term unemployment. </p>
<p>In our research <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=VoDOQ44AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">as experts</a> in the study of <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=zTqwiBYAAAAJ&hl=en">people’s employment</a> over time, we have <a href="http://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-016-0464-z">previously challenged the myth</a> that most women “opt out” of the workforce, establishing that the majority of women work steadily and full time. That led us to suspect that the picture of men’s employment could also be incomplete.</p>
<p>To understand these long-term trends, we studied data from about 4,500 men collected over more than 25 years. We were looking for patterns in the amount of time these men spent employed, unemployed and looking for work, and out of the workforce and not looking for work. </p>
<p>We were surprised to find that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/23780231231197031">only 41%</a> of late baby boomer men – those who were between 14 and 21 years old in 1979 – worked steadily and continuously, which we defined as working almost every week of the year between ages 27 and 49. This is a cohort of men who were widely thought to have taken a “<a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Career_Mystique/dIDgkBiqMO8C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=phyllis+moen+roehling&pg=PP13&printsec=frontcover">lockstep</a>” approach to work: entering the labor market when they finished their schooling and remaining employed until retirement.</p>
<p>We found most men didn’t fit this stereotype. About a quarter didn’t reach steady employment until they were nearly 50. Another quarter either found themselves increasingly unemployed and out of work as they aged or able to find only intermittent work. Finally, a smaller group of men left the labor market entirely – some leaving paid work at relatively young ages, while others leaving as they reached middle age.</p>
<p><iframe id="fh9kX" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/fh9kX/5/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Problems with precarity</h2>
<p>We don’t know exactly why these men followed such a wide range of work patterns during what economists call their “prime earning years.” But we think increasing labor market precarity – which researchers say is driven in large part by <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_State_of_Working_America/WdM77z0HUcAC?hl=en&gbpv=0">increases in layoffs</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjab012">decreases in unionization</a> – played a big role. </p>
<p>For example, we found that men who worked as “<a href="https://usa.ipums.org/usa/volii/occ1980.shtml#operator">operators, fabricators and laborers</a>” or in “<a href="https://usa.ipums.org/usa/volii/occ1980.shtml#precision">precision production, craft and repairs</a>” were at greater risk of unemployment. These are jobs that provided our own grandfathers with good, well-paying work, but they are also jobs that have become <a href="https://arnekalleberg.web.unc.edu/books/good-jobs-bad-jobs/">increasingly rare</a> since the 1970s.</p>
<p>We also found that men were at greater risk if they lived in counties with a higher unemployment rate or in states with more unionized jobs when they first entered the labor market. That latter point likely put them at greater risk of job loss <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/2378023116656847">when those jobs went overseas</a> in the 1980s and 1990s.</p>
<p>Men who experienced unemployment, more job turnover before the age of 25 or transportation barriers to finding a good job also followed less steady work patterns, suggesting that they may have been forced to take “bad jobs” that provided fewer opportunities to move up the ladder or to earn a living wage.</p>
<p>Our findings paint a troubling portrait of employment in America. If this kind of unsteady employment characterizes the work patterns of the baby-boom generation, what awaits those of us who follow them? Is there anything we can do about it?</p>
<h2>Ideas for improvement</h2>
<p>The good news is there are solutions for workers, employers and the federal government. Our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/23780231231197031">research</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/07308884231162949">shows</a> that a college degree could protect men from the risk of unemployment or time out of work. The government can support this goal by <a href="https://www.amacad.org/sites/default/files/academy/multimedia/pdfs/publications/researchpapersmonographs/CFUE_Economic-Impact/CFUE_Economic-Impact.pdf">making college more affordable for workers</a>, as the current administration has <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/10/29/a-proclamation-on-national-college-application-month-2021/">proposed doing</a>. </p>
<p>For employers, our findings suggest that making work less precarious – in other words, making it more stable, with better pay and more schedule control – would be a win-win proposition. Research suggests that employers consistently <a href="https://hbr.org/2019/06/the-financial-case-for-good-retail-jobs">underestimate the costs</a> of losing employees. Given how hard it’s been for employers to stay fully staffed – especially in retail and service work – making jobs more appealing to workers could pay off in terms of retention. </p>
<p>Walmart, for instance, has <a href="https://hbr.org/2017/12/the-right-thing-to-do">increased pay and schedule control</a> for its workers. Such moves have been shown to benefit both the employers, through the <a href="https://equitablegrowth.org/improving-u-s-labor-standards-and-the-quality-of-jobs-to-reduce-the-costs-of-employee-turnover-to-u-s-companies/">reduction in employee turnover costs</a>, and the employees, through improved work conditions and work benefits.</p>
<p>The government could also implement policy changes, such as the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/20">Protecting the Right to Organize Act</a>, to promote workers’ right to unionization, since unionization is consistently linked to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eeh.2017.08.003">higher wages</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122411414817">lower levels of inequality</a>. </p>
<p>We don’t think the U.S. needs the jobs that our grandfathers held to return; instead, it needs to turn today’s available jobs into good jobs. The recent National Labor Relations Board “<a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/sites/default/files/attachments/pages/node-9558/joint-employer-fact-sheet-2023.pdf">joint employer</a>” ruling, for example, should do this by making it easier for workers at national chains to unionize across franchises, which could improve the working conditions of millions of people in the service industry.</p>
<p>Finally, government can take action to make unemployment a less miserable experience. Our findings, both here and elsewhere, suggest that unemployment does considerable harm to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/07308884231162949">workers’ careers</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/08982643221091775">and health</a>. <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/section-5-benefit-levels-increase-ui-benefits-to-levels-working-families-can-survive-on/">Reforming the current unemployment insurance</a> system by expanding eligibility and creating progressive wage replacement rates may make it easier for workers to <a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w27574">find jobs that better fit their skill set</a>, which <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Tolls_of_Uncertainty/DkgHEAAAQBAJ?hl=en">our research</a> suggests could help them return to stable employment.</p>
<p>Our findings are the canary in a coal mine. They suggest that for future generations, steady employment may be a thing of the past. But the good news is that we can heed the warning and take steps to give everyone access to better jobs and more stable employment.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221078/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Damaske receives/has received funding from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National Science Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, the American Sociological Association, and the Pennsylvania State University and its Population Research Institute.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adrianne Frech has received funding from the National Institutes of Health.</span></em></p>Think the norm is to join the workforce straight after school, work for five decades and then retire? Think again.Sarah Damaske, Professor of Sociology and Labor and Employment Relations, Penn StateAdrianne Frech, Associate Professor of Population Health, Ohio UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2180282024-02-06T13:30:14Z2024-02-06T13:30:14ZDriving the best possible bargain now isn’t the best long-term strategy, according to game theory<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572022/original/file-20240129-15-8tbwf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=40%2C10%2C6669%2C4456&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There is such a thing as a win-win deal.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/employee-people-at-modern-office-royalty-free-image/1302423098">nortonrsx/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Conventional wisdom says that you should never leave money on the table when negotiating. But research in my field suggests this could be exactly the wrong approach. </p>
<p>There’s <a href="https://hbr.org/2019/09/a-new-approach-to-contracts">mounting evidence</a> that a short-term win at the bargaining table can mean a loss in terms of overall trust and cooperation. That can leave everyone – including the “winner” – worse off.</p>
<p>As a former executive, I’ve managed large contracts as both a buyer and a seller. Now, as a <a href="https://haslam.utk.edu/people/profile/kate-vitasek">business professor</a>, I study these trading partner relationships, exploring what works in practice. My work supports what economic theorists and social scientists have been <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-493X.2008.00051.x">arguing for years</a>: The best results come when people collaborate to create long-term value instead of fighting for short-term wins.</p>
<h2>What game are you playing?</h2>
<p>Research into art, science and practice of collaborative approaches dates <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691130613/theory-of-games-and-economic-behavior">back to the 1940s</a> when the mathematician John von Neumann and economist Oskar Morgenstern used mathematical analysis to model competition and cooperation in living things. </p>
<p>Interest in collaborative approaches grew when researchers John Nash, John C. Harsanyi and Reinhard Selten won a <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1994/summary/">Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences</a> in 1994. Their work inspired academics around the world to delve deeper into what’s known as <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/game-theory/">game theory</a>.</p>
<p>Game theory is the study of the outcome of strategic interactions among decision makers. By using rigorous statistical methods, researchers can model what happens when people choose to cooperate or choose to take an aggressive, power-based approach to negotiation.</p>
<p>Many business leaders are taught strategies focusing on <a href="https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/shift-of-power-balance-in-business">using their power</a> and playing to win – often at the other party’s expense. In game theory, this is known as a <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/zero-sum">zero-sum game</a>, and it’s an easy trap to fall into.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Kate Vitasek lays out five rules for developing a value creation strategy.</span></figcaption>
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<p>But not every game has a clear winner or loser. In economics, a win-win game is called a nonzero-sum game. In this sort of situation, people aren’t fighting over whose slice of a pie will be larger. They’re working to grow the pie for everyone.</p>
<p>A second dimension of game theory is whether people are playing a one-shot or a repeated game. Think of a one-shot game as like going to the flea market: You probably won’t see your trading partner again, so if you’re a jerk to them, the risk of facing the consequences is low.</p>
<p>An interesting twist uncovered by studying repeated games is that when one party uses their power in a negotiation, it creates the urge for the other party to retaliate. </p>
<p>The University of Michigan’s Robert Axelrod, a mathematician turned game theorist, coined this a <a href="https://ee.stanford.edu/%7Ehellman/Breakthrough/book/pdfs/axelrod.pdf">“tit-for-tat” strategy</a>. His research, perhaps best known in the book “<a href="https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/robert-axelrod/the-evolution-of-cooperation/9780465005642">The Evolution of Cooperation</a>,” uses statistics to show that when individuals cooperate, they come out better than when they don’t. </p>
<h2>The case for leaving money on the table</h2>
<p>Another Nobel laureate, American economist <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2009/williamson/facts/">Oliver Williamson</a>, has offered negotiating <a href="https://www.vestedway.com/unpacking-oliver/">advice</a> that most would call a paradigm shift – and some, a heresy. </p>
<p>That advice? Always leave money on the table – especially when you’ll be returning to the same “game” again. Why? According to Williamson, it sends a powerful signal of trustworthiness and credibility to one’s negotiating partner when someone consciously chooses to cooperate and build trust. </p>
<p>The opposite approach leads to lost trust and what the Nobel laureate economist Oliver Hart calls “shading.” This is <a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/hart/files/contractsasreferencepointsqje.pdf">a retaliatory behavior</a> that happens when a party isn’t getting the outcome it expected from a deal and feels the other party is to blame. </p>
<p>Simply put, noncollaborative approaches cause distrust and create friction, which adds transaction costs and inefficiencies.</p>
<p>The million-dollar question is whether collaborative approaches work in practice. And from my vantage point as a scholar, the answer is yes. In fields as diverse as <a href="https://www.vestedway.com/island-health/">health care</a> to <a href="https://www.vestedway.com/intel/">high-tech</a>, I see growing real-world evidence backing up the insights of game theory.</p>
<p>The lessons are simple yet profound: Playing a game together to achieve mutual interests is better than playing exclusively with self-interest in mind.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218028/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate Vitasek works for the University of Tennessee where she studies and teaches organizations how to create win-win collaborative contracts. Her original research between 2003 and 2009 was funded by the United States Air Force.</span></em></p>‘Winning’ in negotiations isn’t always the best approach.Kate Vitasek, Professor of supply chain management, University of TennesseeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2157452024-01-09T13:26:06Z2024-01-09T13:26:06ZLGBTQ+ workers want more than just pride flags in June<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563397/original/file-20231204-22-q8cyee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=65%2C40%2C5398%2C3571&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Recognition helps. Benefits may help more.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/worried-woman-in-lgbt-organisation-office-royalty-free-image/618025276">Kosamtu/iStock/Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Every year, more and more companies seem to recognize <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/pride-month-54582">Pride Month</a>. But a recent analysis shows that LGBTQ+ workers expect more than this once-a-year acknowledgment from their employers. In fact, some employees actually criticize such behavior as <a href="https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/07/what-is-pinkwashing/">mere pinkwashing</a>.</p>
<p>So, what do LGBTQ+ workers want? In 2023, the jobs website Indeed conducted a <a href="https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/news/lgbtq-legislation-affect-work">survey of LGBTQ+ full-time workers</a> from across the U.S., and the results provide a clear picture of their needs.</p>
<p>As a lesbian transgender woman and a <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/dorian-rhea-debussy-517479">queer studies scholar</a>, I wasn’t surprised by what Indeed found. Even so, non-LGBTQ+ workers – particularly managers – can learn a lot from this survey. It may help them realize what LGBTQ+ workers already know: Employers must do better if they want to retain talent.</p>
<p>Workers are troubled by three big issues, the survey found: the impact of new anti-LGBTQ+ laws, workplace discrimination, and benefits packages that don’t meet their needs.</p>
<h2>Workers say anti-LGBTQ+ laws derail careers</h2>
<p>With a <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/03/31/650-anti-lgbtq-bills-introduced-us/11552357002/">historic rise in anti-LGBTQ+ legislation</a>, 2023 proved to be a particularly challenging year for LGBTQ+ rights – <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/04/17/anti-trans-bills-map/">especially transgender rights</a>. In its survey, Indeed found that nearly two-thirds of respondents were concerned about how anti-LGBTQ+ laws could hurt their work opportunities. </p>
<p>In fact, more than three-quarters of respondents said they would hesitate to apply for a new job in a state with anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. More than half said they would never apply for a position in such a state.</p>
<p>With anti-LGBTQ+ bills now becoming law across the country, their impact on states’ economies is still uncertain. However, we’ve long known that discrimination is <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-costly-business-of-discrimination/">bad for business</a>. In fact, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco recently found that systemic racial and gender wage gaps – which distort labor markets, reduce productivity and harm job satisfaction – have cost the U.S. economy <a href="https://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/publications/working-papers/2021/11/">nearly US$71 trillion</a> since 1990. </p>
<p>Whatever effects this rise in anti-LGBTQ+ legislation will have, history suggests it <a href="https://time.com/6297323/malaysia-1975-matty-healy-lgbt-economic-costs/">won’t be good</a>. </p>
<h2>LGBTQ+ people face workplace discrimination</h2>
<p>Along with anti-LGBTQ+ laws, discrimination continues to harm LGBTQ+ workers. Sixty percent of respondents reported that they lost a promotion because of anti-LGBTQ bias, while a similar number said they were targeted with a performance improvement plan because of their identity. More than half said that they’re paid less than their similarly qualified cisgender and straight colleagues.</p>
<p>The reality is that LGBTQ+ people do encounter <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/article/discrimination-and-barriers-to-well-being-the-state-of-the-lgbtqi-community-in-2022/">workplace discrimination</a>. For instance, transgender people face bias at work at <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/being-transgender-at-work">alarming rates</a>. And while all LGBTQ+ workers are statistically likely to <a href="https://www.hrc.org/resources/the-wage-gap-among-lgbtq-workers-in-the-united-states">encounter a wage gap</a>, transgender people – especially women and people of color – face <a href="https://19thnews.org/2022/01/transgender-workers-wage-gap-lowest-paid-lgbtq/">even wider disparities</a>.</p>
<h2>Culturally responsive benefits are crucial</h2>
<p>More than half of survey respondents said that it was important for employers to offer LGBTQ-specific benefits such as family planning support and comprehensive transition-related health care coverage. However, less than one-quarter said their own employer did so. In terms of transgender-specific benefits, nearly three-quarters of respondents said they worked for a company that didn’t offer any.</p>
<p>When asked to share what benefits they looked for in a job posting, respondents cited health care services with LGBTQ+ friendly medical providers and fertility assistance, among others. Transgender respondents said they looked for two specific benefits: health insurance plans with coverage for gender-affirming surgical treatments, and financial assistance for gender-affirming treatments that insurers often deem “cosmetic.”</p>
<p>In this survey, LGBTQ+ workers were quick to share what benefits appealed most to them. But the fact remains that many employers don’t offer such benefits. In fact, the Human Rights Campaign’s <a href="https://www.hrc.org/resources/corporate-equality-index">2022 Corporate Equality Index</a> notes that more than one-third of Fortune 500 companies still don’t offer trans-inclusive benefits. They also report that only about 72% of Fortune 500 companies require LGBTQ+ competency training.</p>
<p>However, LGBTQ+ employees increasingly expect more of their employers, as organizations such as the Society for Human Resource Management <a href="https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/benefits/pages/employer-support-lgbtq-workers-employee-benefits.aspx">have observed</a>. And on the heels of the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/03/09/majority-of-workers-who-quit-a-job-in-2021-cite-low-pay-no-opportunities-for-advancement-feeling-disrespected/">“great resignation,”</a> employers would be wise to take notice. At this <a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/tools-and-strategies/anti-lgbtq-bills-are-impacting-children-families-and-schools">fraught moment</a> for LGBTQ+ rights in the U.S., workers aren’t likely to be content with pinkwashed companies that won’t offer real support.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215745/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dorian Rhea Debussy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Less hype and more health care, please.Dorian Rhea Debussy, Lecturer of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, The Ohio State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2135352024-01-03T13:46:21Z2024-01-03T13:46:21ZWorkers in their teens and early 20s are more likely to get hurt than older employees<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565551/original/file-20231213-23-vn4jgp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=149%2C223%2C2777%2C1763&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Some teens get tendinitis from scooping ice cream.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/morgan-jackson-18-of-scarborough-scoops-ice-cream-while-news-photo/958440620?adppopup=true">Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Think about your first job. Maybe it was delivering pizza, bagging groceries, busing tables or doing landscaping work. Did you get enough training to avoid potential injuries? Chances are, you didn’t – and your boss or supervisor <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shaw.2018.12.003">just told you to get to work</a>.</p>
<p>Employing young people helps them in many ways. They can learn a trade, develop job skills, become more responsible and earn money. But there’s danger, too: Americans between 15 and 24 years old are up to <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6935a3">2.3 times more likely</a> to get injured on the job than workers who are 25 and over.</p>
<p>In 2021, <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cfoi.pdf">398 workers under 25</a> died after getting injured on the job. </p>
<p>In my research about the unique <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=cI_ixlIAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">occupational safety hazards young workers face</a>, I’ve identified <a href="http://doi.org/10.1007/s11011-014-9565-9">three common causes of this susceptibility to injury</a>: their lack of experience, developing bodies and brains, and reluctance to speak up. </p>
<h2>Physical and cognitive limitations</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.epi.org/blog/class-of-2023-young-people-see-better-job-opportunities/">19 million young people employed</a> today make up <a href="https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/civilian-labor-force-summary.htm">approximately 13% of the U.S. workforce</a>. </p>
<p>Work is more dangerous for young people because they’ve simply had less time to become aware of many common workplace hazards than their older co-workers.</p>
<p>And yet this problem isn’t typically addressed during onboarding: Even those who have been trained to do a specific job may not be <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shaw.2018.12.003,%20https://doi.org/10.1002/ajim.10304">taught ways to avoid common injuries</a>. These include tendinitis from scooping ice cream for hours on end, burns from operating a deep fryer, lacerations from sharp objects, and slips, trips and falls.</p>
<p>It’s also important to remember that <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2892678/">bodies and brains continue to develop</a> well into adulthood – up to age 25. This can make some tasks riskier before that point for the <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/youth.pdf">55% of individuals between the ages of 16 and 24</a> who work.</p>
<p>For example, workers in their teens and early 20s may be smaller and weaker than older workers. Furthermore, some safety equipment, such as gloves and masks, may not properly fit.</p>
<p>In addition to physical changes that occur during adolescence, <a href="https://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/933-the-adolescent-brain-a-second-window-of-opportunity-a-compendium.html">the brain is</a> also <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2016.04.012">developing and restructuring into early adulthood</a>. The frontal cortex, which is used for decision-making and helps you to think before you act, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3177">continues to develop into adulthood and can lead to risky behaviors</a>.</p>
<p>Young people are inclined to seek approval and respect, which influences their decision-making. </p>
<p>They also <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jphysparis.2010.08.007">engage in risky behaviors</a> both on and off the job that may affect their performance at work. </p>
<p>Finally, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-018-0847-0">many young workers are reluctant to speak up</a> if they have concerns, or to ask questions if they don’t know what to do, because they don’t want to lose respect from their boss or supervisor. To avoid appearing unqualified, they may not want to admit that they need help. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563427/original/file-20231204-29-26qjf9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A Baskin-Robbins shop in a strip mall with its trademark pink branding." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563427/original/file-20231204-29-26qjf9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563427/original/file-20231204-29-26qjf9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563427/original/file-20231204-29-26qjf9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563427/original/file-20231204-29-26qjf9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563427/original/file-20231204-29-26qjf9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563427/original/file-20231204-29-26qjf9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563427/original/file-20231204-29-26qjf9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Like many Americans, President Barack Obama scooped ice cream in his youth. He was employed at this Honolulu Baskin-Robbins.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ObamaFirstJob/626981cdb54c4a11aefeb5a48e487ce5/photo?Query=(renditions.phototype:horizontal)%20AND%20(category:a%20OR%20%20category:i)%20AND%20%20(teen%20jobs)%20&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=81&currentItemNo=34">AP Photo/Marco Garcia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Weaker protections in some states</h2>
<p>Despite these inherent risks, <a href="https://theconversation.com/states-are-weakening-their-child-labor-restrictions-nearly-8-decades-after-the-us-government-took-kids-out-of-the-workforce-205175">Arkansas, Iowa and other states have recently weakened labor laws</a>, loosening restrictions about the kinds of work teens can do and increasing the number of hours they can work. </p>
<p>This is happening at a time when the number of child labor violations are rising and more children are <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/25/us/unaccompanied-migrant-child-workers-exploitation.html">dying or getting injured</a>, especially when they do tasks that <a href="https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/whd/whd20230217-1">violate federal labor laws</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://news.yahoo.com/16-old-worker-killed-meat-203946508.html">Duvan Tomas Perez</a>, for example, died on the job while cleaning machinery in the Mar-Jac Poultry plant in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, in August 2023. Perez was 16. So was <a href="https://apnews.com/article/wisconsin-boy-dies-sawmill-child-labor-8ae0c9fc09b9355dd7f12640eaefff2d">Michael Schuls</a>, who died in June 2023 while attempting to unjam a wood-stacking machine at Florence Hardwoods, a Wisconsin lumber company. <a href="https://www.kake.com/story/49078450/16yearold-boy-dies-in-workplace-accident-at-kansas-cityarea-landfill">Will Hampton</a>, another 16-year-old, also died that month in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, while working at a landfill.</p>
<p>Teachers at a Nebraska middle school figured out that students who had trouble staying awake at school were working night shifts at a slaughterhouse, doing dangerous cleaning work that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/09/nebraska-slaughterhouse-children-working-photos-labor-department">caused chemical burns</a>.</p>
<p>Enacted in 1938, the <a href="https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/compliance-assistance/handy-reference-guide-flsa">Fair Labor Standards Act</a> established federal standards to ensure workplace safety for workers under 18 and bars employers from interfering with their educational opportunities. This law sets 14 as a minimum age for formal employment, restricts when and how many hours children may work, and outlines the type of work children may safely perform. </p>
<p>Some of the new state labor laws <a href="https://www.iowadivisionoflabor.gov/child-labor">allow children to work in more dangerous jobs</a> and limit their employers’ liability for <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/child-labor-laws-under-attack/">injury, illness or even death on the job</a>.</p>
<p>When state labor laws are less restrictive than the federal law, however, the <a href="https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/youthrules/young-workers">federal standards apply</a>.</p>
<p>The federal government is also ramping up enforcement efforts. The <a href="https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/osec/osec20230727">Labor Department found 4,474 children employed in violation</a> of federal child labor laws between Oct. 1, 2022, and July 20, 2023. Employers, including McDonald’s and Sonic fast-food franchisees, owed more than $6.6 million in penalties as a result.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">In an interview with “60 Minutes,” a Labor Department investigator relayed how the government determined that Packers Sanitation Services Inc. employed more than 100 children in violation of child labor laws.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>3 steps employers can take</h2>
<p>In addition to following the law, I believe that employers and supervisors need to address the unique risks to young workers by <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare4030055">taking these necessary steps</a>: </p>
<p>• Provide training on how to do tasks safely and supervise young workers until key tasks have been mastered. Training should not only occur right before a new employee gets ready for their first shift, but whenever new tasks are assigned, when there is a new hazard in the workplace, and after an injury or near miss occurs in the workplace. </p>
<p>• Model safe behaviors. Remember that young workers often learn by watching their bosses and co-workers, whose actions can reinforce safety expectations and build a <a href="https://psnet.ahrq.gov/primer/culture-safety">culture of safety</a>. </p>
<p>• Take into account a worker’s abilities when assigning tasks, and check in on them regularly, especially when switching tasks. Ask open-ended questions, such as, “What are the steps you are going to take when you do this task?” as opposed to questions that can be answered with a yes or no, like, “Do you know how to do this task?” Be sure to let workers know how to report concerns and who they can talk to if they have questions about workplace procedures and policies. </p>
<p>These strategies are easy to implement and cost little to follow.</p>
<p>And they surely make it safer for workers in their teens and early 20s to gain the valuable work experience they want and need, while helping their employers to maintain safe, productive workplaces that nurture the workers our <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/productiveaging/default.html">economy will increasingly depend upon</a> in the years ahead.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213535/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Diane Rohlman receives funding from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. </span></em></p>Better training and supervision make younger workers less vulnerable to injuries.Diane Rohlman, Associate Dean for Research, Professor and Endowed Chair of Rural Safety and Health, University of IowaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2199032023-12-20T13:15:44Z2023-12-20T13:15:44Z2023’s historic Hollywood and UAW strikes aren’t labor’s whole story – the total number of Americans walking off the job remained relatively low<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566377/original/file-20231218-27-2y9ix7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=53%2C502%2C5470%2C3511&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">SAG-AFTRA captain Mary M. Flynn rallies fellow striking actors on a picket line outside Netflix studios in November 2023. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/APTOPIXHollywoodStrikes/5dfb21d54c2f4414bd9f4adde9a2a0e1/photo?Query=hollywood%20strike&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=2120&currentItemNo=33">AP Photo/Chris Pizzello</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.wsj.com/business/unions-workers-2023-strikes-companies-da09de12">More than 492,000 workers</a> – including nurses, actors, screenwriters, autoworkers, hotel cleaners, teachers and restaurant servers – walked off their jobs <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/03/us/california-labor-strikes.html">during the first 10 months of 2023</a>.</p>
<p>That includes about <a href="https://theconversation.com/united-auto-workers-union-hails-strike-ending-deals-with-automakers-that-would-raise-top-assembly-plant-hourly-pay-to-more-than-40-as-record-contracts-216432">46,000 autoworkers who</a> went on strike for about six weeks, starting in mid-September. The United Auto Workers union won historic gains that have the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/31/business/economy/uaw-labor.html">potential to transform the industry</a> in its contracts with General Motors, Ford and Stellantis – the company that includes Chrysler.</p>
<p>In addition, more than <a href="https://theconversation.com/health-care-workers-gain-21-wage-increase-in-pending-agreement-with-kaiser-permanente-after-historic-strike-215864">75,000 Kaiser Permanente workers</a> took part in the largest strike of U.S. health care workers to date.</p>
<p>This crescendo of labor actions follows a relative <a href="https://www.umass.edu/lrrc/strikes">lull in U.S. strikes</a> and a <a href="https://www.umass.edu/lrrc/union-membership">decline in union membership</a> that began in the 1970s. Today’s strikes may seem unprecedented, especially if you’re under 50. While this wave constitutes a significant change following <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm">decades of unions’ losing ground</a>, it’s far from unprecedented.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=w6GUu_EAAAAJ">We’re sociologists</a> who <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=69FEXj0AAAAJ&hl=en">study the history of U.S. labor movements</a>. In our new book, “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/union-booms-and-busts-9780197539859?cc=us&lang=en&">Union Booms and Busts</a>,” we explore the reasons for swings in <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/union2.pdf">the share of working Americans in unions</a> between 1900 and 2015. </p>
<p>We see the rising number of strikes today as a sign that the balance of power between workers and employers, which has been tilted toward employers for nearly a half-century, is beginning to shift. </p>
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<span class="caption">Maryam Rouillard raises her fist on Aug. 8, 2023, while taking part in a one-day strike by Los Angeles municipal workers to protest contract negotiations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/view-of-a-hearse-on-5th-avenue-with-a-sign-that-reads-new-news-photo/1311461424?adppopup=true">Apu Gomes/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Millions on strike</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.umass.edu/lrrc/strikes">number of U.S. workers who go on strike in a given year</a> varies greatly but generally follows broader trends. After World War II ended, through 1981, between 1 million and 4 million Americans went on strike annually. By 1990, that number had plummeted. In some years, it fell below 100,000.</p>
<p>Workers by that point were clearly on the defensive for several reasons. </p>
<p>One dramatic turning point was the showdown between President Ronald Reagan and the country’s air traffic controllers, which culminated in a 1981 strike by their union – the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2006/08/03/5604656/1981-strike-leaves-legacy-for-american-workers">Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization</a>. Like many public workers, air traffic controllers did not have the right to strike, but they called one anyway because of safety concerns and other reasons. Reagan depicted the union as disloyal and ordered that all of PATCO’s striking members be fired. The government turned to supervisors and military controllers as their replacements and <a href="https://libraries.uta.edu/news-events/blog/1981-patco-strike">decertified the union</a>.</p>
<p>That episode sent a strong message to employers that permanently replacing striking workers in certain situations would be tolerated.</p>
<p>There were also many <a href="https://www.mheducation.com/highered/product/labor-relations-striking-balance-budd/M9781260260502.html">court rulings and new laws</a> that favored big business over labor rights. These included the passage of so-called <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/labor-and-employment/right-to-work-resources">right-to-work laws</a> that provide union representation to nonunion members in union workplaces – without requiring the payment of union dues. Many conservative states, like South Dakota and Mississippi, have these laws on the books, along with states with more liberal voters – such as Wisconsin.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/19/union-membership-drops-to-record-low-in-2022-00078525">union membership plunged</a> from <a href="https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/R47596.html">34.2% of the labor force in 1945</a> to around 10% in 2010, workers became less likely to go on strike.</p>
<p>Wages kept up with productivity gains when unions were stronger than they are today. Wages increased 91.3% as productivity grew by 96.7% between 1948 and 1973. That changed once union membership began to tumble. <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/">Wages stagnated</a> from 1973 to 2013, rising only 9.2% even as productivity grew by 74.4%.</p>
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<h2>Prime conditions</h2>
<p>In general, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/001979398203500402">strikes grow more common when economic conditions change</a> in ways that empower workers. That’s especially true with the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/unemployment-benefits-jobless-claims-layoffs-labor-47d74791145f0224280ffe908b6e820a">tight labor markets</a> and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/inflation-wholesale-federal-reserve-interest-rates-consumers-1838b302c99045749b0597853886d32c">high inflation</a> seen in the U.S. in recent years.</p>
<p>When there are fewer candidates available for every open job and prices are rising, workers become bolder in their demands for higher wages and benefits.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/800649">Political and legal factors</a> can play a role, too. </p>
<p>In the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s <a href="https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/united-states-history-primary-source-timeline/great-depression-and-world-war-ii-1929-1945/labor-unions-during-great-depression-and-new-deal/">New Deal enhanced unions’ ability to organize</a>. During World War II, unions agreed to a no-strike pledge – although some workers continued to go on strike.</p>
<p>The number of U.S. <a href="https://www.umass.edu/lrrc/strikes">workers who went on strike peaked in 1946</a>, a year after the war ended. Conditions were ripe for labor actions at that point for several reasons. The economy was no longer so dedicated to supplying the military, pro-union New Deal legislation was still intact and <a href="https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/podcasts/best-my-ability-podcast/season-2-archive/episode-5-strike-wave">wartime strike restrictions</a> were lifted.</p>
<p>In contrast, Reagan’s crushing of the PATCO strike gave employers a green light to permanently replace striking workers in <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/strikes">situations in which doing that was legal</a>.</p>
<p>Likewise, as we describe in our book, employers can take many steps to discourage strikes. But labor organizers can sometimes overcome management’s resistance with creative strategies.</p>
<h2>New economic equations</h2>
<p>Between 1983 and 2022, the share of U.S. <a href="https://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet">workers who belonged to unions fell by half, from 20.1%</a> to <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/19/majorities-of-adults-see-decline-of-union-membership-as-bad-for-the-u-s-and-working-people=">10.1%</a>. The COVID-19 pandemic didn’t reverse that decline, but it did change the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/state-job-vacancies-pay-raises-wage-war-74d1689d573e298be32f3848fcc88f46">balance of power between employers and workers</a> in other ways.</p>
<p>The “<a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/03/09/majority-of-workers-who-quit-a-job-in-2021-cite-low-pay-no-opportunities-for-advancement-feeling-disrespected/">great resignation</a>,” a surge in the number of workers quitting their jobs during the pandemic, now seems to be over, or at least cooling down. The number of <a href="https://www.bls.gov/charts/job-openings-and-labor-turnover/unemp-per-job-opening.htm">unemployed people for every job opening</a> reached 4.9 in April 2020, plummeted to 0.5 in December 2021, and has remained low ever since. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, many workers have become more dissatisfied with their wages. The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/25/teachers-strikes-us-low-pay-covid">strikes by teachers</a> that ramped up in 2018 responded to that frustration. <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FPCPITOTLZGUSA">U.S. inflation, which soared to 8% in 2022</a>, has eroded workers’ purchasing power while <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-25/us-corporate-profits-soar-taking-margins-to-widest-since-1950">company profits</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-inequality-is-growing-in-the-us-and-around-the-world-191642">economic inequality</a> have continued to soar. </p>
<p>Technological breakthroughs that leave workers behind are also contributing to today’s strikes, as they did in other periods.</p>
<p>We’ve studied the role technology played in the <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/union-booms-and-busts-9780197539859?cc=us&lang=en&">printers’ strikes</a> of the 1890s following the introduction of the linotype machine, which reduced the need for skilled workers, and the <a href="https://depts.washington.edu/dock/1971_strike_history.shtml">longshoremen strike of 1971</a>, which was spurred by a drastic workforce reduction brought about by the <a href="https://www.marineinsight.com/maritime-history/the-history-of-containerization-in-the-shipping-industry/">introduction of shipping containers</a> to transport cargo.</p>
<p>Those are among the precedents for the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/actors-strike-ends-hollywood-5769ab584bca99fe708c67d00d2ec241">actors and screenwriters</a> strikes of 2023, which hinged on the financial implications of <a href="https://apnews.com/article/residuals-hollywood-strike-actors-writers-7c32f386c910a11db4324875d99dc366">streaming in film and television</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-are-hollywood-actors-and-writers-afraid-of-a-cinema-scholar-explains-how-ai-is-upending-the-movie-and-tv-business-210360">artificial intelligence in the production</a> of movies and shows.</p>
<p>Working conditions, including <a href="https://apnews.com/article/ups-teamsters-strike-labor-logistics-delivery-a94482dbff7bfb67ad82f607ab127672">health and safety concerns and time off</a>, have also been at the root of many recent strikes.</p>
<p>Health care workers, for example, are going on strike over safe <a href="https://apnews.com/article/nurses-strike-new-jersey-394eb774eea0add0a60c272c5b7819ac">staffing levels</a>. In 2022, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/railroad-paid-sick-time-negotiations-norfolk-southern-70327831f881dcf86a43e05d22a5bdd5">rail workers</a> voted to strike over sick days and time off, but were blocked from walking off the job by a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-signs-bill-block-us-railroad-strike-2022-12-02/">U.S. Senate vote and President Joe Biden’s signature</a>.</p>
<p>Time and again, when the conditions have been right, U.S. workers have gone on strike and won. Sometimes more strikes have followed, in waves that have the potential to transform workers’ lives. But it’s still too early to know when this wave will crest. </p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an article originally published <a href="https://theconversation.com/waves-of-strikes-rippling-across-the-us-seem-big-but-the-total-number-of-americans-walking-off-the-job-remains-historically-low-210673">Aug. 24, 2023</a>, with nearly complete data for the number of strikers in 2023 and additional details about several strikes.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219903/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Judith Stepan-Norris received funding from the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jasmine Kerrissey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Two labor scholars argue that the balance of power between workers and employers, which has been tilted toward employers for nearly a half-century, is beginning to shift.Judith Stepan-Norris, Professor Emerita of Sociology, University of California, IrvineJasmine Kerrissey, Associate Professor of Sociology; Director of the Labor Center, UMass AmherstLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2201372023-12-19T04:50:22Z2023-12-19T04:50:22ZNorthern Territory Chief Minister Natasha Fyles has resigned. How did we get here?<p>When it was announced this afternoon that the Northern Territory’s Chief Minister Natasha Fyles had resigned, few could say it was unexpected.</p>
<p>She has been under increasing pressure on several fronts, chief among them the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-16/nt-chief-minister-divests-woodside-shares-after-scrutiny/103114812">failure to disclose</a> shares she held, prompting accusations of having a conflict of interest.</p>
<p>In the role for around 18 months, Fyles’ Labor government has been in the spotlight for everything from <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-18/a-dangerous-game-youth-crime-crisis-alice-springs/101735492">increased crime rates</a> in Alice Springs to the controversial decision to <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-03/beetaloo-basin-fracking-given-go-ahead-explainer/102295840">approve fracking</a> in the Beetaloo Basin.</p>
<p>So what’s behind Fyles quitting the territory’s top job, and what’s next for the government?</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/high-court-then-what-nt-remote-housing-reforms-need-to-put-indigenous-residents-front-and-centre-216908">High Court, then what? NT remote housing reforms need to put Indigenous residents front and centre</a>
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<h2>A surprise ascent to leadership</h2>
<p>Fyles was sworn in as chief minister in May 2022, following <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/may/10/northern-territory-chief-minister-michael-gunner-resigns-saying-head-and-heart-no-longer-in-job">the resignation</a> of Michael Gunner.</p>
<p>She won the leadership against expectations, despite being Gunner’s protege. The right faction, which has a majority of two in the party caucus, had backed Nicole Manison. But two members defected and voted for Fyles instead, securing her victory in the leadership ballot.</p>
<p>Fyles has been the member for Nightcliff since 2012 and held a range of important portfolios before her promotion, including health and Attorney-General.</p>
<p>Her leadership style has been not unlike most of the new generation of politicians: speaking in short, sharp sentences with authoritative confidence.</p>
<p>But she’s overseen some odd and sometimes unpopular decisions.</p>
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<p>The $11 million Nightcliff Police Station was built in her electorate, despite being just a seven-minute drive from Casuarina station. Allegations of <a href="https://www.ntnews.com.au/subscribe/news/1/?sourceCode=NTWEB_WRE170_a_GGL&dest=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ntnews.com.au%2Fnews%2Fnorthern-territory%2Fnew-nightcliff-police-station-operating-at-half-planned-capacity%2Fnews-story%2Fda28cb3fb239b5f4f80589f1471af90d&memtype=registered&mode=premium">pork-barrelling</a> were quick to follow, especially after reports emerged of the facility having half the staff promised.</p>
<p>There was also the matter of the Palmerston Hospital, which opened in 2018, when Fyles was health minister. It’s since been plagued by <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-07/nt-health-darwin-apology-for-letter-junior-doctors/100519640">understaffing</a> and <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-05/palmerston-regional-hospital-budget-attorney-general/10201108">underfunding</a>.</p>
<h2>Two key undoings</h2>
<p>Smaller controversies aside, there have been two main pressure points for Fyles’ leadership.</p>
<p>The first is crime in remote communities, especially the much-publicised plight of Alice Springs.</p>
<p>While the issue is hardly unique to the city, the national interest generated by the removal and reinstatement of the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jun/23/incredibly-noticeable-alcohol-bans-have-cut-family-violence-and-in-alice-springs-advocates-say">alcohol bans</a> shone a large and often unflattering light on crime rates across the Northern Territory.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cheap-police-four-corners-shows-the-dangers-of-private-policing-in-the-nt-and-why-first-nations-people-are-more-at-risk-216442">'Cheap police': Four Corners shows the dangers of private policing in the NT and why First Nations people are more at risk</a>
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<p>The fact the federal government <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-24/pm-albanese-announces-appointment-of-central/101889078">intervened</a> to create the role of the Regional Controller – a role the Commonwealth funds and manages – shows how little confidence they had in the territory government.</p>
<p>The second, more recent problem is the revelations around Fyles’ potential conflicts of interest.</p>
<p>It was revealed earlier this week the chief <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-18/nt-chief-minister-natasha-fyles-south32-shares-gemco-mine/103243578">owns shares</a> in South32, a company that owns a manganese mine on Groote Eylandt. She hadn’t disclosed this, despite appearing to have owned them since 2015.</p>
<p>Locals have been lobbying for years for the mine <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-18/nt-government-air-monitoring-manganese-mine-groote-eylandt-dust/102130316">to be tested</a> for its potential impact on human health, but to no avail.</p>
<p>It wasn’t even the first instance in the past month of undisclosed shares coming to light. In November, Fyles divested her <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-16/nt-chief-minister-divests-woodside-shares-after-scrutiny/103114812">minor stake</a> in gas company Woodside Energy.</p>
<p>But the final nail in the coffin came last week, when matters swirling around Fyles were referred to the territory’s corruption watchdog.</p>
<p>One of her senior political advisors, Gerard Richardson, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-13/natasha-fyles-referred-to-icac-by-mark-turner/103220822">co-owns a company</a> that lobbied on behalf of mining company Tamboran – a company that has <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2023-06-09/middle-arm-precinct-tamboran-resources-fortescue/102461860">large stakes</a> in multiple projects in the NT.</p>
<p>While she dug her heels in, the news went down like a lead balloon in the electorate, and likely in the party room too.</p>
<h2>A salvagable government?</h2>
<p>Politics in the Top End is a strange beast. Fyles stepping down as leader doesn’t necessarily mean she takes the government down with her.</p>
<p>The way politics plays out in the territory has long been down to the happiness or unhappiness of key interest groups.</p>
<p>With some electorates containing just 5,000 people or so, the blessing (or lack thereof) of recreational fishers or the police association, for example, can have a disproportionate affect.</p>
<p>So in choosing its next leader, the Labor party will be considering who appeals most to the most important groups.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-havent-got-anybody-new-research-reveals-how-major-parties-are-dying-in-remote-australia-203124">'We haven't got anybody': new research reveals how major parties are dying in remote Australia</a>
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<p>That’s why the current Minister for Recreational Fisheries (among many other things), Joel Bowden, might be in with a shot. The former Richmond footballer might have the right appeal with those who are most electorally influential. </p>
<p>But the government will have to contend with an increase in environment-focused politics in the lead-up to the next election in 2024.</p>
<p>Conservationist issues have gathered momentum in the past few years and their potential impact should not be underestimated. Greens and conservationists appear to be gaining increasing Indigenous support.</p>
<p>The next leader will need to be agile enough to deal with these newer forces, but compelling enough to win the party a third term in government.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220137/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rolf Gerritsen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The leader has been under increasing pressure on a number of fronts, chief among them the failure to disclose shares she held, prompting accusations of having a conflict of interest.Rolf Gerritsen, Professorial Research Fellow, Northern Institute, Charles Darwin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2197012023-12-12T05:09:32Z2023-12-12T05:09:32ZWho is Queensland’s next premier, Steven Miles?<p>When Queensland’s Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk resigned <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-10/qld-premier-palaszczuk-announces-resignation/103211206">over the weekend</a>, she indicated her preferred successor would be her deputy, Steven Miles. </p>
<p>He promptly nominated for the leadership. He <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-12/steven-miles-premier-of-queensland-shannon-fentiman-withdraws/103214566">avoided a leadership contest</a> between himself, Health Minister Shannon Fentiman and Treasurer Cameron Dick.</p>
<p>A compromise between Miles’ left faction and Dick’s right has negotiated Miles as Queensland’s 40th premier and Dick as his deputy. It’ll be made official when the party caucus meets on Friday.</p>
<p>But who is Steven Miles, and what kind of premier can we expect him to be as Queensland heads toward an election in 2024?</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/with-annastacia-palaszczuk-gone-can-labor-achieve-the-unachievable-in-queensland-219573">With Annastacia Palaszczuk gone, can Labor achieve the unachievable in Queensland?</a>
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<h2>A union man with a PhD</h2>
<p>In some ways, Miles’ journey closely resonates with some broader trends for Queensland Labor in recent years. </p>
<p>Very rarely for a politician, Miles has completed a PhD, seeking to understand how trade unions motivate their memberships through workplace activism. </p>
<p>Following this he worked as a consultant helping improve the campaigns of progressive causes, as state director of a public sector union and as a political advisor to Labor politicians. </p>
<p>Miles fits the mould of someone who has made progressive, union-affiliated politics their career. </p>
<p>However, like many union members in contemporary society, he is a highly educated professional, rather than the blue-collar rabblerouser of yesteryear. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1734336898888565150"}"></div></p>
<p>His political ambitions go back to 2009, where he unsuccessfully tried for pre-selection for the state election. He ran at the <a href="https://results.aec.gov.au/15508/Website/HouseDivisionFirstPrefs-15508-177.htm">2010 federal election</a> for the seat of Ryan, which encompasses the area of Brisbane’s leafy inner-north-west. He fell short again.</p>
<p>Miles’ first success came when he won the state seat of <a href="https://results.ecq.qld.gov.au/elections/state/state2015/results/district56.html">Mt-Cootha</a> for Labor from the LNP in 2015. </p>
<p>However, following a redistribution of boundaries in 2017, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-27/state-boundary-changes-prompt-steven-miles-to-plan-seat-change/8306146">he relocated</a> to the outer-metropolitan seat of Murrumba, north of Brisbane. In this way he was like an increasing number of young professionals and working families pushed outward by rising house prices. </p>
<p>With the recent <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/may/22/how-knocking-on-90000-doors-delivered-queensland-labor-heartland-to-the-greens">success of the Queensland Greens</a> in inner city electorates, and changing demographics in previously rural areas, Queensland Labor’s heartland and basis of support have moved outward. </p>
<p>The perceived priorities and everyday needs of young families and working people in these areas of population growth will likely guide how he governs and campaigns.</p>
<h2>Recognisable, for better or worse</h2>
<p>Miles, who has the backing of the powerful <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/shannon-fentiman-to-declare-leadership-plans-within-hours/news-story/273e76c8640d3b5b8ad0eb6dd8467460">United Workers Union</a>, has previously served in a number of ministerial portfolios including state development, environment and heritage protection.</p>
<p>Most famously, he served as health minister in the first year of the COVID pandemic. Given his appearances in daily press conferences, he likely has a high degree of recognition in the electorate. </p>
<p>Whether this is an asset for appealing to a broad cross-section of the Queensland public is debatable, given Miles also has a reputation as a party <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/feeding-the-chooks/attack-dog-steven-miles-raises-eyebrows-as-he-lays-into-andrew-laming/news-story/5d73df76f39e46131ad81d979b54c320">“attack dog”</a>. He caused controversy by appearing to use <a href="https://7news.com.au/sunrise/on-the-show/queensland-deputy-premier-steven-miles-appears-to-call-prime-minister-scott-morrison-a-ct-c-2750603">uncivil language</a> when criticising former Prime Minister Scott Morrison. </p>
<p>Similiarly to Jackie Trad, whom he replaced as deputy premier following <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-09/jackie-trad-queensland-treasurer-corruption-investigation/12231356">her resignation</a> over alleged integrity issues and electoral defeat in 2020, Miles has been an outspoken advocate for progressive causes such as the environment and equitable access to education. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/even-if-her-leadership-is-now-doomed-annastacia-palaszczuk-will-still-be-a-labor-legend-in-queensland-212446">Even if her leadership is now doomed, Annastacia Palaszczuk will still be a Labor legend in Queensland</a>
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<h2>A battle on the bread and butter</h2>
<p>When declaring his intent to step forward as premier, Miles flagged his desire to address ongoing issues which dominate recent political debate in Queensland. </p>
<p>They’re issues familiar to people across the country, including the need to improve the public health system, addressing a lack of affordable housing for renters and buyers and ongoing problems with the cost of living. </p>
<p>With the 2032 Olympics and Paralympics also in the pipeline, large-scale infrastructure developments will be on the cards.</p>
<p>He will also look to manage the politics and implementation of Queensland’s transition to a <a href="https://www.treasury.qld.gov.au/investment/investment-programs-and-support/low-emissions-investment-partnerships/#:%7E:text=The%202023%E2%80%9324%20Queensland%20Budget,net%20zero%20by%202050.">low-emmission economy</a>: a potentially fraught process given the power of the mining lobby and concerns over losses of jobs in regional areas. </p>
<p>Interestingly, these are the same issues Opposition Leader David Crisafulli recently laid out as <a href="https://dclnp.org.au/2023/10/30/the-right-priorities-for-queenslands-future/">his priorities</a>, bar a couple of exceptions. </p>
<p>Miles will therefore have to manage the tension between defending the Labor government’s record on these “bread and butter” issues, and trying to present as a fresh, new leader who understands the concerns of everyday people. </p>
<p>Also similarly to Crisafulli, who avoided being drawn on conservative social issues like abortion during his campaign launch, Miles will likely downplay more contentious progressive reforms. This may prove a disappointment for left-leaning voters wanting more action on climate change, or the continued concerns around the <a href="https://humanrights.gov.au/about/news/media-releases/national-childrens-commissioner-slams-shocking-new-qld-youth-justice-laws">detention of children</a> and minors in custody. </p>
<p>Instead, for the next year we will likely see a contest based on trust over the basics: economic management and delivery of public services under strain. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-myth-of-the-queensland-voter-australias-trust-deficit-and-the-path-to-indigenous-recognition-115569">The myth of 'the Queensland voter', Australia's trust deficit, and the path to Indigenous recognition</a>
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<p>His first test as leader comes in the form of a <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-12/tropical-cyclone-jasper-flash-flooding-weather-warning-watch/103214862">cyclone</a> in the state’s north, which he was keen to address yesterday, rather than speculation about his rise to premier. </p>
<p>His next test may come at the election in October 2024, as Labor weathers storms on two fronts. In inner Brisbane, the Greens will be looking to consolidate their recent gains. In the regions and outer metropolitan growth areas, the government will be judged on its ability to address cost of living pressures not necessarily in their power to solve.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219701/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Pandanus Petter receives funding for his work from the Australian Research Council as part of the Discovery project Understanding the Antipodean 'Fair Go' with Associate Professor Dr. Cosmo Howard, Professor Jennifer Curtin and Professor Juliet Pietsch.</span></em></p>Following the resignation of Annastacia Palaszczuk, the selection of her successor is a one-horse race. What do we know about the incoming premier, Steven Miles?Pandanus Petter, Research Fellow Centre for Governance and Public Policy, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2176572023-12-04T13:26:31Z2023-12-04T13:26:31ZWith the end of the Hollywood writers and actors strikes, the creator economy is the next frontier for organized labor<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560585/original/file-20231121-21-zja6ti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=59%2C51%2C4883%2C3238&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">YouTuber Matthew Smith, who posts under the name DangMattSmith, takes a selfie with fans at VidCon Anaheim in June 2023.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/dangmattsmith-takes-selfie-with-fans-at-vidcon-anaheim-2023-news-photo/1501722144?adppopup=true">Unique Nicole/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Hollywood <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sag-aftra-contract-deal-agreement-actors-ai/">writers and actors recently proved</a> that they could go toe-to-toe with powerful media conglomerates. After going on strike in the summer of 2023, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sag-aftra-contract-deal-agreement-actors-ai/">they secured</a> better pay, more transparency from streaming services and safeguards from <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-are-hollywood-actors-and-writers-afraid-of-a-cinema-scholar-explains-how-ai-is-upending-the-movie-and-tv-business-210360">having their work exploited or replaced by artificial intelligence</a>.</p>
<p>But the future of entertainment extends well beyond Hollywood. <a href="https://www.adobe.com/express/learn/blog/content-creator">Social media creators</a> – otherwise known as influencers, YouTubers, TikTokers, vloggers and live streamers – entertain and inform a vast portion of the planet.</p>
<p>For the past decade, we’ve mapped the contours and dimensions of the <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479846894/">global social media entertainment industry</a>. Unlike their Hollywood counterparts, these creators struggle to be seen as entertainers worthy of basic labor protections. </p>
<p>Platform policies and government regulations have proved capricious or neglectful. Meanwhile, creators’ bottom-up initiatives to collectively organize have sputtered.</p>
<h2>Living on the edge</h2>
<p>Industry estimates regarding the size and scale of the creator economy vary. But <a href="https://ir.citi.com/gps/7PUfiT7fJPblL%2FqpQla8YnPTu1opFVW5Qb5fu0LPwJGLKt4p0HcsDxN87TOJ%2F6kA%2FbMcrnTJTn8SFOdAlpoihg%3D%3D">Citibank estimates</a> there are over 120 million creators, and an April 2023 Goldman Sachs report predicted that the creator economy would double in size, <a href="https://www.goldmansachs.com/intelligence/pages/the-creator-economy-could-approach-half-a-trillion-dollars-by-2027.html">from US$250 billion to $500 billion</a>, by 2027. </p>
<p>According to Forbes, the “<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2023/09/26/top-creators-2023/?sh=719659204c0c">Top 50 Creators</a>” altogether have 2.6 billion followers and have hauled in an estimated $700 million in earnings. The list includes <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/12/magazine/mrbeast-youtube.html">MrBeast</a>, who performs stunts and records giveaways, and makeup artist-cum-true crime podcaster <a href="https://www.youtube.com/baileysarian">Bailey Sarian</a>.</p>
<p>The windfalls earned by these social media stars are the exception, not the norm.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.signalfire.com/blog/creator-economy">venture capitalist firm SignalFire</a> estimates that less than 4% of creators make over $100,000 a year, although <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/creativegroup/youtube/meet-the-creator-middle-class/">YouTube-funded research</a> points to a rising middle class of creators who are able to sustain careers with relatively modest followings.</p>
<p>These are the users who find themselves most vulnerable to opaque changes to platform policies and algorithms.</p>
<p>Platforms like to “<a href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/move-fast-break-things-facebook-motto/">move fast and break things</a>,” to use Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s infamous expression. And since the creator economy relies on social media platforms to reach audiences, creators’ livelihoods are subject to rapid, iterative changes in platforms’ features, services and agreements. </p>
<p>Yes, various platforms have introduced business opportunities for creators, such as YouTube’s advertising partnership feature or Twitch’s virtual goods store. However, <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/21/twitch-subcription-revenue-share-changes/">the platforms’ terms of use can flip on a switch</a>. For example, in September 2022, Twitch changed its fee structure. Some streamers who were retaining 70% of all subscription revenue generated from their accounts saw this proportion drop to 50%.</p>
<p>In 2020, TikTok, facing rising competition from YouTube Shorts and Instagram reels, launched its billion-dollar Creator Fund. The fund was supposed to allow creators to get directly paid for their content. Instead, <a href="https://www.engadget.com/tiktok-stars-creator-fund-payouts-222006327.html">creators complained</a> that every 1,000 views only translated to a few cents. TikTok <a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/tiktok-is-ending-reviled-creator-fund-says-replacement-offers-bigger-income/">suspended the fund</a> in November 2023.</p>
<h2>Bias as a feature, not a bug</h2>
<p>The livelihoods of many fashion, beauty, fitness and food creators depend on deals brokered with brands that want these influencers to promote goods or services to their followers.</p>
<p>Yet throughout the creator economy, people of color and those identifying as LGBTQ+ have encountered bias. Unequal and unfair compensation from brands is a recurring issue, with <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/msl-study-reveals-racial-pay-gap-in-influencer-marketing-301437451.html?tc=eml_cleartime">one 2021 report</a> revealing a pay gap of roughly 30% between white creators and creators of color.</p>
<p>Along with brand biases, platforms can exacerbate systemic bias. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051211003066">Creator scholar Sophie Bishop</a> has demonstrated how nontransparent algorithms can categorize “desirability” among influencers along lines of race, gender, class and sexual orientation. </p>
<p>Then there’s what creator scholar Zoë Glatt calls the “<a href="https://zoeglatt.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Glatt-2023-The-intimacy-triple-bind-Structural-inequalities-and-relational-labour-in-the-influencer-industry.pdf">intimacy triple bind</a>”: Marginalized creators are at higher risk of trolling and harassment, they secure lower fees for advertising, and they are expected to divulge more personal details to generate more engagement and revenue.</p>
<p>Couple these precarious conditions with the whims and caprices of volatile online communities that can turn beloved creators <a href="https://www.insider.com/mrbeasts-curing-disability-videos-upsetting-reputation-2023-5">into villains in the blink of a text or post</a>, and even the world’s most successful creators live on a precipice of losing their livelihoods. </p>
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<img alt="Large Black man hunches over a meal of fried seafood as he holds his smartphone." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560537/original/file-20231120-26-tp4qis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560537/original/file-20231120-26-tp4qis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560537/original/file-20231120-26-tp4qis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560537/original/file-20231120-26-tp4qis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560537/original/file-20231120-26-tp4qis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560537/original/file-20231120-26-tp4qis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560537/original/file-20231120-26-tp4qis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Food influencer Larry Mcleod, 47, better known on social media as Big Schlim, reviews the restaurant Shellfish Market in Washington, D.C.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/washington-dc-larry-mcleod-of-greenbelt-better-known-on-news-photo/1718277220?adppopup=true">Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Rumblings of solidarity</h2>
<p>Unlike their counterparts in the legacy media industries, creators have neither taken easily nor well to collective action as they operate from their bedrooms and fight for more eyeballs.</p>
<p>Yet some members of this creator class recognize that the bedroom-boardroom power imbalance is a bottom line matter that requires bottom-up initiative. </p>
<p>The Creators Guild of America, or CGA, <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/28/creators-guild-america-influencer-labor-rights-nonprofit/">which launched in August 2023</a>, is but one of many successors to the original Internet Creators’ Guild, <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/11/20688929/internet-creators-guild-shutting-down-hank-green-youtube-copyright-claims-monetization">which folded in 2019</a>. Paradoxically, CGA describes itself as a “professional service organization,” not a labor union, yet claims to offer benefits “similar to those offered by unions.” </p>
<p><a href="https://dot.la/tiktok-creators-labor-union-2658380734.html">There are other movements afoot</a>: A group of TikTok creators formed a Discord group in September 2022 to discuss unionizing. There’s also the <a href="https://blog.twitch.tv/en/2023/04/12/announcing-new-twitch-unity-guild-leaders-and-our-call-for-members/">Twitch Unity Guild</a>, a program launched in December 2022 for networking, development and celebration and includes a dedicated Discord space. In response to the rampant bias in influencer marketing, creator-led firms like “<a href="https://www.theverge.com/22684237/fuck-you-pay-me-lindsey-lee-lugrin-decoder-interview">F–k You Pay Me </a>” are demanding greater fairness, transparency and accountability from brands and advertisers. </p>
<p>Twitch streamers are already seeing some of their organizing efforts pay off. In June 2023, after a year of repeated changes in streamer fees and brand deals, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2023/06/15/twitch-introduces-7030-revenue-split-for-some-streamers-through-new-program-with-some-caveats/?sh=44fe992d6759">the company capitulated</a> in response to the backlash of their top streamers threatening to leave. </p>
<p>None of these initiatives has yet attained the legal status of unions such as the Writers Guild of America. Meanwhile, efforts by the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists to recruit creators have proved limited. <a href="https://lawecommons.luc.edu/lclr/vol34/iss2/4/">Legal scholar Sara Shiffman</a> has written about how SAG-AFTRA provides creators with health and retirement benefits, but offers no resources to ensure fair and equitable compensation from platforms or advertisers. Nonetheless, <a href="https://time.com/6301824/influencers-sag-strike/">while on strike</a>, SAG-AFTRA threatened creators that partnered with studios with a lifetime ban from joining the union.</p>
<p>And despite these bottom-up efforts, the tech behemoths refuse to recognize creators’ fledgling organizations. When a union for YouTubers formed in Germany in 2018, <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/26/20833315/youtube-union-youtubers-negotiate-germany-meeting">YouTube refused to negotiate with it</a>. Nonetheless, you’ll see companies trot out their biggest stars when they find themselves under regulatory scrutiny. That’s what happened when <a href="https://www.tubefilter.com/2023/03/20/tiktok-project-texas-restrict-act-ban-congress-shou-zi-chew/">TikTok sponsored creators to lobby politicians</a> who were debating banning the platform.</p>
<h2>An invisible class of labor</h2>
<p>Meanwhile, most governments have failed to provide support for – or even recognition of – creator rights. </p>
<p>Within the U.S., creators “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/10/26/creator-economy-influencers-youtubers-social-media/">barely exist</a>” in official records, as technology reporters Drew Harwell and Taylor Lorenz recently pointed out in The Washington Post. The U.S. Census Bureau makes no mention of social media as a profession; it is invisible as a distinctive class of labor. </p>
<p>To date, the Federal Trade Commission is the only U.S. agency <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/plain-language/1001a-influencer-guide-508_1.pdf">to introduce regulation</a> tied to the work of creators, and it’s limited to disclosure guidelines for advertising and sponsored content. </p>
<p>Even as the European Union has operated at the forefront of tech and platform policy, creators rate scant mention in the body’s laws. Writing about the EU’s 2022 Digital Services Act, legal scholars <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0267364923000808">Bram Duivendvoorde and Catalina Goanta</a> criticize the EU for leaving “influencer marketing out of the material scope of its specific rules,” a blind spot that they describe as “one of its main pitfalls.” </p>
<p>The success of the 2023 Hollywood strikes could be just the beginning of a larger global movement for creator rights. But in order for this new class of creators to access the full breadth of their economic and human rights – to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I91DJZKRxs&ab_channel=Movieclips">borrow from the movie “Jaws”</a> – we’re gonna need a bigger boat.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217657/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stuart Cunningham receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Craig does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Even the world’s most successful creators can see their livelihoods threatened by social media companies that routinely change their algorithms and policies with impunity.David Craig, Clinical Associate Professor of Communication, USC Annenberg School for Communication and JournalismStuart Cunningham, Distinguished Professor of Media and Communication, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2186962023-11-28T01:56:20Z2023-11-28T01:56:20Z‘Father of Reconciliation’ Pat Dodson to quit parliament<p>Labor senator Pat Dodson, often dubbed “the father of reconciliation”, is quitting parliament due to ill health. </p>
<p>Dodson, 75, told the Labor caucus on Tuesday he would resign as a senator for Western Australia, effective from January 26, Australia Day. </p>
<p>“Regrettably, my recent treatment for cancer means that my health, although slowly improving, has left me physically unable to fulfil satisfactorily my duties as a senator,” Dodson said in a statement. </p>
<p>Anthony Albanese paid tribute to Dodson at the meeting. The Indigenous caucus members stood with Dodson at the lectern, and there was a long standing ovation for him. </p>
<p>Albanese said in a statement: “You would gladly follow him into battle yet he’s made it his life’s work to make peace.”. </p>
<p>“There are few more reassuring sights in parliament than seeing Patrick and his hat coming down a corridor towards you.”</p>
<p>Priest, activist, academic, politician, Dodson was born in Broome.
The family subsequently moved to Katherine in the Northern Territory because of Western Australia’s laws against mixed race families. </p>
<p>In 1960 he and his siblings (including brother Mick, who also became a leading Indigenous figure) were orphaned when their parents died, months apart.</p>
<p>His early experiences had a lifelong impact on Dodson. He said in his first parliamentary speech: “I was hiding in the long grass in the Northern Territory town of Katherine and watched my age-mates being taken by welfare and police. </p>
<p>"In Katherine I also watched in fear as white people were bussed in to the town hall meeting, where they vented their hatred and anger against Aboriginal stockworkers for walking off Wave Hill Station and for demanding justice and equal wages. The Australian law at that time was unarguably founded on a social outlook that was highly ethnocentric, even racist.”</p>
<p>At school at Monivae College in Hamilton Victoria, Dodson became head prefect. He studied for the priesthood, and was ordained as the first Aboriginal Catholic priest in 1975. Later he quit the priesthood, unable to reconcile Catholicism with Aboriginal spiritual beliefs. </p>
<p>Dodson was director of the Central and Kimberley Land Councils, and negotiated the return of Uluru (Ayers Rock) to the traditional owners. </p>
<p>He served on the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, was the founding chair of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation (1991-97), and co-chair of the Expert Panel for Constitutional Recognition of Indigenous Australians (2010-16). </p>
<p>He filled a casual Senate vacancy in 2016. In Tuesday’s statement he thanked former leader Bill Shorten for nominating him for the vacancy. </p>
<p>In the Albanese government he has been Special Envoy for Reconciliation and Implementation of the Uluru Statement from the Heart. </p>
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<p>His serious illness prevented him from all but minimal campaigning in the Voice referendum. </p>
<p>When parliament was debating the bill for the referendum, Dodson was too unwell to attend in person – Senate leader Penny Wong read a message from him. </p>
<p>His message said: “This move to recognise the First Peoples of Australia in the Constitution is part of an action of restorative justice. Doing this will give a sense of honour for all Australians, as we collectively stand with courage to face these past legacies and ensure that they are not bequeathed to future generations. This is one commitment our generation can make.” </p>
<p>Dodson in his statement placed on the record his “high regard” for Albanese’s decision to proceed with the referendum. </p>
<h2>UPDATE: Dodson says referendum defeat leaves ‘an Australian problem’</h2>
<p>Dodson told a news conference the referendum’s defeat left “a problem for Australia”. </p>
<p>“That 60-40 spread of that vote makes it an Australian problem. It’s not an Aboriginal problem,” he said.</p>
<p>“We need to seriously think now of the way in which our civil society knits together with this diversity and differences.”</p>
<p>Asked how the country should chart a way forward, Dodson pointed to three things in Indigenous affairs. </p>
<p>One was closing the gap in relation to the social inequities First Peoples suffered as citizens. The second was to go back and look at the human rights declaration on Indigenous people’s rights. </p>
<p>“The third matter that we should seriously start to look at […] is how to enable First Peoples to create the economic independence that they can do by leveraging up their asset bases, and that’s not only those physical asset bases they hold, but also those ones that have been alienated from them.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218696/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Labor Senator Pat Dodson, will retire on Australia Day next year at age 75 due to ongoing cancer treatment affecting his health.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2168192023-11-05T23:32:49Z2023-11-05T23:32:49ZAlbanese and Labor slump to worst position in Newspoll since 2022 election<p>A national <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/coalition-leading-on-primary-vote-as-dutton-closes-in-on-albanese/news-story/9e2c3b2e95123cbcfc8ad1604239b39a">Newspoll</a>, conducted October 30 to November 3 from a sample of 1,220 people, gave Labor a 52–48% lead over the Coalition, a two-point gain for the Coalition since the final Newspoll before the October 14 Voice referendum. This is Labor’s narrowest lead in Newspoll since the 2022 federal election. </p>
<p>Primary votes were 37% Coalition (up two percentage points), 35% Labor (down one), 12% Greens (steady), 6% One Nation (steady) and 10% for all others (down one).</p>
<p>Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s ratings were 52% dissatisfied (up six points) and 42% satisfied (down four), for a net approval of -10, down ten points. This is easily his lowest net approval in Newspoll since becoming PM. This graph shows the continued decline in Albanese’s Newspoll ratings since late 2022.</p>
<p>Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s net approval improved five points to -13. Albanese’s lead over Dutton for preferred prime minister narrowed to 46–36%, from 51–31% previously. This is also Albanese’s smallest lead since the election. Newspoll and Redbridge figures are from <a href="https://www.pollbludger.net/2023/11/05/newspoll-52-48-to-labor-open-thread/">The Poll Bludger</a>.</p>
<p>The slumping polls show how damaging the heavy defeat of the Voice referendum and continuing cost of living pressures have been to Albanese and Labor.</p>
<h2>Redbridge national poll: Labor’s lead holds steady</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/nsw/voice-focus-stirs-blue-collar-revolt-against-anthony-albanese-and-the-labor-party/news-story/2c59d527389c7fbdf0283d2ecb456ff7">Herald Sun</a>
reported Sunday that a Redbridge national poll, conducted October 25 to November 2 from a sample of 1,205 people, gave Labor a 53.5–46.5% lead over the Coalition, a 0.6-point gain for the Coalition since <a href="https://redbridgegroup.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Federal-Poll-Sept-2023.pdf">early September</a>. </p>
<p>Primary votes were 35% Coalition (down one point), 34% Labor (down three), 14% Greens (up one) and 17% for all others (up three).</p>
<p>The Herald Sun emphasised large primary vote swings against Labor among those with lower educational attainment, but these would be based on small subsamples of the overall sample, and are thus not reliable.</p>
<h2>Voice referendum final results</h2>
<p>All of the votes in the October 14 referendum on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament have now been counted and the final results are in.</p>
<p>Nationally, “no” won the <a href="https://tallyroom.aec.gov.au/ReferendumNationalResults-29581.htm">referendum</a> by a 60.06–39.94% margin, or 20.1 points. “No” also won every state, by 8.3 percentage points in Victoria, 17.9 points in New South Wales and Tasmania, 26.5 points in Western Australia, 28.3 points in South Australia and 36.4 points in Queensland.</p>
<p>For the referendum to be successful, it needed a majority in at least four of the six states, as well as a national majority. The territories are counted towards the national total, but not the majority of states. The “no” vote won in the Northern Territory by 20.6 percentage points, while “yes” came out ahead in the ACT by 22.6 points.</p>
<p>Nationally, 34 of the 151 <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/referendum/2023/results?filter=all&sort=yes&state=all&party=all">House of Representatives electorates</a>
voted “yes” while 117 voted “no”. In NSW, 11 of 47 seats voted “yes”, in Victoria 13 of 39, in Queensland three of 30, in WA two of 15, in SA none of ten, in Tasmania two of five, in the ACT all three seats and in the NT none of two.</p>
<p>All seven seats won by “teal” independents and all four won by Greens at the 2022 election voted “yes”, as did 21 of the 78 Labor-held seats. Bradfield in NSW was the only one of 57 Coalition-held seats to vote “yes”.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/indigenous-australians-supported-voice-referendum-by-large-margins-labor-retains-large-newspoll-lead-215663">Indigenous Australians supported Voice referendum by large margins; Labor retains large Newspoll lead</a>
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<p>ABC election analyst Antony Green <a href="https://antonygreen.com.au/some-graphs-on-the-voice-referendum-result/">has a chart showing</a> the “yes” and “no” split by vote type. Pre-poll ordinary votes were far worse for “yes” than polling day ordinary votes, and postals were even worse. But both polling day absent votes and declaration pre-poll votes were better for the “yes” side than polling day ordinary votes.</p>
<p>Turnout for the referendum was 89.9%, higher than the 89.8% turnout recorded for the House at the last federal election.</p>
<h2>How did the polls do?</h2>
<p>The graph below shows the “yes” lead or deficit in all polls conducted this year, culminating with the final result (“no” by 20.1 points). Newspoll’s final poll was the most accurate, showing a 20-point “no” lead. YouGov’s final poll had an 18-point “no” lead, while Focaldata’s poll suggested a 22-point defeat.</p>
<p>Other pollsters did not perform as well, such as Morgan, whose final poll showed “no” with just a seven-point lead, and Essential, which had given “no” a six-point lead. Essential has <a href="https://essentialreport.com.au/methodology">altered its methodology</a> since the referendum to weight results by education level.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/indigenous/voice-referendum-newspoll-late-swing-for-yes-campaign-but-nation-poised-to-say-no/news-story/7096dcf9234291d496ba016ccaa5142c">Newspoll’s state breakdowns</a> were also good at the state level, with the exception of WA. “No” led in the final Newspoll by 13 points in NSW, eight points in Victoria, 35 points in Queensland, 27 points in SA, 37 points in WA and 17 points in Tasmania.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/voice-support-falls-in-newspoll-to-new-low-but-is-up-in-resolve-though-still-well-behind-215156">Resolve poll</a> had “yes” ahead in Tasmania by 56–44% in its final poll, which was a large error given “no” won in the state by almost 18 points.</p>
<p>Newspoll was administered by YouGov until mid-July, but is now managed by Pyxis. Both the new Newspoll and YouGov performed well.</p>
<h2>Victorian Mulgrave byelection</h2>
<p>A byelection will occur on November 18 in the Victorian state seat of <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/mulgrave-by-election-2023">Mulgrave</a>, previously held by former Labor Premier Daniel Andrews. At the 2022 state election, Andrews defeated independent Ian Cook after preferences by 60.8–39.2%, and the Liberals by 60.2–39.8%. </p>
<p>Cook is running for the seat again. He will face nine other candidates, including Labor’s Eden Foster and the Liberals’ Courtney Mann.</p>
<h2>Argentine legislative results</h2>
<p>I covered the Argentine legislative results from the October 22 election in my article for <a href="https://www.pollbludger.net/2023/11/03/new-zealand-election-results-finalisation-12pm-aedt-today/">The Poll Bludger</a>. The combined right-wing parties won control of the lower house in Argentina, but failed in the Senate owing to a system similar to first-past-the-post.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216819/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adrian Beaumont does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The slumping polls show how damaging the heavy defeat of the Voice referendum and continuing cost of living pressures have been to the prime minister and Labor.Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2148122023-10-31T12:33:47Z2023-10-31T12:33:47ZWorkplace discrimination saps everyone’s motivation − even if it works in your favor<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554087/original/file-20231016-17-idklp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C36%2C4851%2C3554&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">If your boss is biased, this is a logical response.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/businessman-sleeping-on-computer-keyboard-royalty-free-image/85406503">Robert Daly/OJO Images via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When people work for discriminatory managers, they put in less effort. That’s true both when managers are biased against them and when they’re biased in their favor, according to <a href="https://rdcu.be/dmIdQ">a new paper</a> that Nicholas Heiserman of Oklahoma State University <a href="https://sc.edu/study/colleges_schools/artsandsciences/sociology/our_people/faculty_staff_directory/simpson_brent.php">and I</a> have published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour. </p>
<p>To demonstrate this, we placed nearly 1,200 research participants in several experiments designed to mimic work settings, where they and other “workers” made decisions about how much effort to dedicate to a task. </p>
<p>In some experiments, we had participants complete number searches – by counting how many times “3” appeared in a large table of numbers, for example. The more searches a participant completed, the higher their effort was rated. Participants, working in pairs or in small groups, were told that their manager would award a bonus to one person based on how many number searches the workers completed. </p>
<p>To create a discriminatory situation, participants were told that there were two types of employees: blue and red. Participants were always assigned to be blue. One-third of the participants were told that the manager had a bias against blue employees, while another third were told that the manager was biased in their favor. The rest didn’t receive any information one way or the other.</p>
<p>We found that those workers who knew their managers discriminated – whether it was for them or against them – completed fewer number searches than participants in the control group. </p>
<p>By measuring workers’ expectations that they would receive a bonus, our experiments also help show that discrimination reduces work productivity by separating effort from rewards. </p>
<p>This makes intuitive sense: If you know your boss is biased against people like you, you’ll have less incentive to work hard, since you know you’re unlikely to get promoted regardless. Similarly, if your boss is biased in favor of people like you, you’ll probably get promoted anyway. So, again, why work hard?</p>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>It’s well established that workplace discrimination leads to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/511799">reduced earnings</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01400">advancement opportunities</a> for members of disadvantaged groups. </p>
<p>But our results suggest that it can lower productivity of all workers, even those advantaged by it – which means discrimination may hurt firms’ bottom lines more than has been assumed. </p>
<p>Another of our key findings helps explain why the effects of discrimination on work effort can worsen over time. Specifically, we found that even though working for a discriminatory boss made everyone put in less effort, the disadvantaged showed the largest decline. </p>
<p>We suspect this could lead to a vicious cycle, where targets of discrimination respond by putting in less effort than advantaged workers. In turn, their managers may come to see them as lazier, less competent or less deserving of promotions – which can strengthen their original biases.</p>
<p>To test this, we ran an additional study with participants who had managerial experience. We showed them the work effort of two groups of participants from our experiments: one group that had been discriminated against, and one that benefited from discrimination against others. The latter group had higher productivity. </p>
<p>We labeled these groups generically as “red types” and “blue types,” and while the managers knew that one group had put in more effort, they didn’t know discrimination was the reason why. </p>
<p>We found that managers readily stereotyped both groups, perceiving members of the advantaged group as warmer and much more competent. Further, they said they would strongly prefer to hire, work with, promote and give bonuses to members of the advantaged category. </p>
<p>These findings show how discrimination can lead to behavior by employees that strengthens the negative stereotypes underlying the original act of discrimination, or even spread discriminatory stereotypes to new managers. </p>
<h2>What’s next</h2>
<p>Studying discrimination based on invented categories in simulated work environments can help us understand the basics of how it works, but it ignores differences in how bias operates when it comes to, for instance, race versus gender, or sexuality versus parental status. An important goal for future research is to better understand how the processes we observe play out for these real-world bases of discrimination. </p>
<p>For instance, following a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjx006">related study</a>, future research might measure racial biases of managers in organizations and the productivity of employees who work for them. Based on our research, we would expect employees whose managers are racially biased to be less productive than employees whose managers aren’t.</p>
<p>But we may expect different effects if, rather than racial discrimination, we studied the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.12031">well-established</a> pattern of discrimination against mothers in the workplace. That’s because, as we have shown in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2021.102642">our prior work</a>, some mothers don’t interpret clearly biased treatment of them in the workplace as discriminatory. So what happens when people work for biased managers but don’t recognize it? That’s an important question to address in future work. </p>
<p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/research-brief-83231">Research Brief</a> is a short take on interesting academic work.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214812/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brent Simpson receives funding from the National Science Foundation and Army Research Office. </span></em></p>Having a biased manager lowers productivity across the board – even for workers who aren’t targeted.Brent Simpson, Professor of Sociology, University of South CarolinaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2155592023-10-18T12:31:19Z2023-10-18T12:31:19ZWhat do a Black scientist, nonprofit executive and filmmaker have in common? They all face racism in the ‘gray areas’ of workplace culture<p>American workplaces talk a lot about diversity these days. In fact, you’d have a hard time finding a company that says it doesn’t value the principle. But despite this – and despite the <a href="https://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/5519706/diversity-and-inclusion-dandi-global-strategic">multibillion-dollar diversity industry</a> – Black workers continue to face significant hiring <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691175102/making-the-cut">discrimination</a>, stall out at middle management levels and remain <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/16/black-workers-face-promotion-and-wage-gaps-that-cost-the-economy-trillions.html">underrepresented in leadership roles</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://sociology.wustl.edu/people/adia-harvey-wingfield">As a sociologist</a>, I wanted to understand why this is. So I spent more than 10 years interviewing over 200 Black workers in a variety of roles – from the gig economy to the C-suite. I found that many of the problems they face come down to organizational culture. Too often, companies elevate diversity as a concept but overlook the internal processes that disadvantage Black workers.</p>
<p>I tell several of these individuals’ stories in my new book, “<a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/gray-areas-adia-harvey-wingfield?variant=41006208876578">Gray Areas: How the Way We Work Perpetuates Racism and What We Can Do to Fix It</a>.” While racial disparities were once the result of law and explicit policy – think of “Whites Only Need Apply” signs – today, <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Systemic-Racism-A-Theory-of-Oppression/Feagin/p/book/9780415952781">subtle cultural processes lead to unequal racial outcomes</a>. It’s in these “gray areas” that racism lurks.</p>
<h2>Three professionals, one frustrating reality</h2>
<p>Take “Constance,” for example – not her real name – who is a Black female chemical engineering professor at a major research university. Her university proclaims its commitment to diversity and inclusion, with several offices and initiatives dedicated to this goal.</p>
<p>Yet she told me that most leaders at her school are uncomfortable trying to achieve racial diversity. They’d rather be “colorblind” – that is, they’d rather not acknowledge or address racial disparities or the institutional rules and norms that perpetuate them. So their attempts to pursue diversity translate into attempts to hire more women faculty but not more Black faculty. </p>
<p>This isn’t surprising, as women generally <a href="https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf23315/report/the-stem-workforce">are underrepresented in STEM fields</a>. But the emphasis on gender means that the racial issues Constance <a href="https://www.diverseeducation.com/opinion/article/15295726/does-anyone-see-us-disposability-of-black-women-faculty-in-the-academy">encounters as a Black woman</a> – openly racist teaching evaluations, colleagues’ casual stereotyping, additional barriers to mentorship – go ignored.</p>
<p>“Kevin” offers another instructive example. He’s a Black man who works at an education nonprofit that <a href="https://www.apa.org/monitor/2016/11/cover-inequality-school#:%7E:text=For%2520decades%252C%2520black%2520students%2520in,the%2520rate%2520was%252073%2520percent.">aims to help kids</a> – a laudable goal. His workplace touts its culture of collaboration and says that it demonstrates its commitment to diversity by supporting children from all backgrounds.</p>
<p>But in practice, Kevin found that the organization often shunned and patronized Black parents, treating them disrespectfully. And despite his employer’s stated support for diversity, Kevin says his efforts to highlight these problems usually went ignored.</p>
<p>And then there’s “Brian.” A film producer with extensive Hollywood experience, Brian was excited about taking a job with a major studio. He thought it would give him an opportunity to bring more films about the variety of Black experience to audiences. And since studio leaders talked a big game about innovation, creativity and original thinking, this seemed like a reasonable assumption.</p>
<p>But once he started in this role, Brian learned that the studio was dominated by a market-driven culture, which leaders <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479847877/the-hollywood-jim-crow/">used to justify</a> not investing in films by and about Black people. Importantly, the same logic around Black filmmakers rarely seemed to apply to white ones, Brian said – those who directed flops were still given multiple chances to keep working. Pointing out this hypocrisy failed to change minds or practices, Brian found.</p>
<h2>When a DEI statement isn’t enough</h2>
<p>What do these three people, working in very different industries, have in common? They all work for employers that have a stated commitment to diversity – and an organizational culture that belies and even undermines it.</p>
<p>When these companies commit to diversity but fail to tackle racial diversity specifically, it becomes easy for workers like Constance, Kevin and Brian to find that the issues they experience get overlooked and that there’s no effective way to bring them forward. They get stuck in the gray areas.</p>
<p>However, it doesn’t have to be this way. There are <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674276611">practical steps</a> companies can take to address racial diversity: creating <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeshumanresourcescouncil/2022/12/02/four-ways-mentorship-programs-can-meaningfully-promote-workplace-diversity-and-inclusion/?sh=581f7cbc98db">mentoring programs</a> for everyone, setting goals and <a href="https://libguides.stanford.edu/library/business-diversity">collecting data to measure progress</a>, and investing in <a href="https://hbr.org/2004/09/diversity-as-strategy">diversity task forces</a>, for example. </p>
<p>My research suggests smart organizations will do just that – moving toward a culture where “diversity” is a driver of solutions, not just a buzzword.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215559/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adia Harvey Wingfield is the President-elect of the American Sociological Association. </span></em></p>A sociologist interviewed more than 200 Black workers about their experiences. Here’s what she found.Adia Harvey Wingfield, Professor of Sociology, Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. LouisLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2156622023-10-14T12:31:58Z2023-10-14T12:31:58ZView from The Hill: Anthony Albanese promises to continue to ‘advance reconciliation’ despite sweeping defeat of referendum<p>Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has pledged to continue to battle Indigenous disadvantage and promote reconciliation, in the wake of the sweeping defeat of his referendum to put a Voice in the Constitution.</p>
<p>“We intend as a government to continue to do what we can to close the gap, to do what we can to advance reconciliation, to do what we can to listen to the First Australians,” he told a late night news conference at Parliament House. </p>
<p>Flanked by an emotional Linda Burney, the Minister for Indigenous Australians, Albanese invoked Winston Churchill’s words, “Success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts’.” </p>
<p>“I want to say that while tonight’s result is not one that I had hoped for, I absolutely respect the decision of the Australian people and the democratic process that has delivered it”. </p>
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<p>He said that “as prime minister I will always accept responsibility for the decisions I have taken, and I do so tonight. But I do want Australians to know that I will always be ambitious for our country, ambitious for us to be the very best version of ourselves.” </p>
<p>Opposition leader Peter Dutton said Australians in their millions had rejected “the Prime Minister’s divisive Referendum”. </p>
<p>“What matters tomorrow is that this result doesn’t divide us as a people. What matters is that we all accept the result in this great spirit of our democracy.” </p>
<p>Dutton repeated his commitment to a royal commission into child sexual abuse in Indigenous communities and an audit into spending on Indigenous programs “so we can get the money where it is needed”. </p>
<p>The referendum’s defeat was clear early after the polls closed, and the result was definitive. By 11pm the “no” vote nationally was about 59% and “no” was ahead in every state and the Northern Territory. The ACT recorded a solid “yes” vote. </p>
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<p>While the result is a major rebuff to Albanese, it is a devastating blow for the many Indigenous Australians who had invested their hopes in what was always – given the history of referendum failures – a long shot. </p>
<p>Many reacted angrily or sadly. A group of Indigenous people who supported the Voice called for “a week of silence” to “grieve the outcome” and urged that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags be lowered to half mast. </p>
<p>Megan Davis, a leader of the “yes” campaign, turned her X account black. University of Canberra chancellor Tom Calma lashed out at Dutton, questioning “how accurate he is in the information that he has provided to the Australian population”. </p>
<p>Some Aboriginal leaders said they must just press on.</p>
<p>The balance of the reaction among Indigenous people over coming days will be crucial in the extent to which the referendum’s defeat sets back reconciliation. </p>
<p>If history provided a pointer to the loss, there were a number of specific factors. Once Dutton declared in April that the Liberals would oppose the Voice being put into the Constitution, the referendum was doomed. No referendum has been carried without bipartisan support. As well, the “no” side started with an advantage because it was easier to argue a negative. The “yes” campaign was not convincing enough to counter it, especially because the detail of the Voice was to be left to parliament. </p>
<p>The Indigenous people in the Uluru Statement from the Heart insisted the Voice should be enshrined in the Constitution. That put up the highest hurdle for enacting it. </p>
<p>The more modest alternative would have been a legislated Voice, but Indigenous leaders rejected that because it could always be abolished by a hostile government, as had happened before.</p>
<p>Albanese could have gone down either of two compromise paths. He could have had a constitutional convention, seeking a bipartisan way forward (which he may or may not have been able to achieve). </p>
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<p>Alternatively, he could have argued to Indigenous leaders that he would not be able to deliver a constitutional change and attempted to persuade them to accept a legislated voice, perhaps with an undertaking of a later referendum. </p>
<p>But he had locked himself into the full Uluru statement before the election.</p>
<p>He defended his determination to run the referendum at his news conference, declaring that as “a conviction politician” he had a “duty” to put the request from Indigenous people.</p>
<p>Broad patterns of yes/no voting are notable in the result. Younger and older voters split. More highly educated and wealthier voters were more progressive. Regional and rural people went to the “no” side. No also found more favour among outer-suburban voters.</p>
<p>Most Labor seats voted “no”, including Barton, held by Burney. Western Sydney was dominated by “no”, including the seats held by ministers Chris Bowen, Tony Burke and Jason Clare. </p>
<p>There were strong “yes” votes among progressive voters in inner city seats. “Yes” was favoured in teal seats, a likely guide to the difficulty Dutton will have in regaining these seats. Not all booths in areas of high Indigenous enrolment were in by late Saturday night, but those that had been counted showed a strong “yes” vote, according to a Guardian analysis. </p>
<p>The ABC’s Antony Green pointed out that the referendum pattern resembled that of the 1999 republic referendum, with high status electorates showing support. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-failed-referendum-is-a-political-disaster-but-opportunity-exists-for-those-brave-and-willing-to-embrace-it-213755">The failed referendum is a political disaster, but opportunity exists for those brave and willing to embrace it</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215662/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The result was definitive, a major rebuff for Anthony Albanese and, more important, for the many Indigenous Australians who had put their hopes in what was always a long shot.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2131562023-10-14T09:00:07Z2023-10-14T09:00:07ZVoice to Parliament referendum has been heavily defeated nationally and in all states<p>The Voice to Parliament referendum has failed convincingly after the ABC <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/referendum/2023/results?filter=all&sort=az&state=all&party=all">projected</a> large victories for the “no” side in the national vote and all states. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.pollbludger.net/fed2023ref/Results/">Poll Bludger</a> is currently projecting a 60.0–40.0% win for “no” in the national vote with 74% of enrolled voters counted. </p>
<p>The Poll Bludger’s current projections in the states are a “no” win in New South Wales (58.9–41.1%), Victoria (54.1–45.9%), Queensland (68.1–31.9%), Western Australia (63.2–36.8), South Australia (64.0–36.0%) and Tasmania (59.0–41.0%).</p>
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<p>The referendum required a majority vote in a majority of the states (four of six), as well as a majority vote nationally, to succeed. Votes cast in the Northern Territory and ACT are only counted in the national vote.</p>
<p>The ACT is the only state or territory that will vote “yes”, by a 60.9–39.1% margin in the Poll Bludger projection. The NT is currently projecting for a 61.7–38.3% “no” vote.</p>
<p>Here is the latest aggregate poll graph that was updated with the final Newspoll and JWS polls and the provisional results.</p>
<p>The pollsters were broadly correct – they have been projecting a win for the “no” side for months. However, the Morgan and Essential polls that had “no” ahead by just six and seven points greatly overstated the “yes” support. </p>
<p>Newspoll’s final poll had a 20-point lead for “no” and YouGov’s final poll an 18-point lead. These two polls were the most accurate compared with the current projected result of a 20-point “no” win. The worst polls for “yes” were more accurate.</p>
<p>There were two late national polls not covered in Friday’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/final-voice-polls-have-no-leading-by-sizeable-to-landslide-margins-215264">Voice polls article</a> for The Conversation. A <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/indigenous/voice-referendum-newspoll-late-swing-for-yes-campaign-but-nation-poised-to-say-no/news-story/7096dcf9234291d496ba016ccaa5142c">Newspoll</a>, conducted October 4–12 from a sample of 2,638 people, gave “no” a 57–37% lead. And a JWS poll for the <a href="https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/yes-vote-in-need-of-a-miracle-poll-shows-20231012-p5ebn7">Financial Review</a>, conducted October 6–9 from a sample of 922 people, gave “no” a 52–39% lead.</p>
<h2>Electorate results</h2>
<p>The ABC has <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/referendum/2023/results?filter=all&sort=yes&state=all&party=all">called “yes” wins</a> in 28 of the 151 federal seats and “yes” leads in another five seats. The ABC has called “no” wins in 115 seats, with three seats leaning “no” and not yet decided.</p>
<p>The best electorates for “yes” were inner city seats where Labor and the Greens traditionally do well, such as Greens leader Adam Bandt’s Melbourne electorate, Grayndler and Sydney in NSW, and Canberra in the ACT. The three Queensland seats won by the Greens in the 2022 election also voted “yes”. </p>
<p>All the seats won by “teal” independents in 2022 appear to have voted “yes”, although Curtin and Mackellar are still in doubt. </p>
<p>The six electorates with the highest “no” votes were all in rural Queensland. Traditional Labor strongholds, such as Calwell and Scullin in Melbourne, also voted “no” by large margins.</p>
<p>Some postal votes were counted last night, so what remains to be counted is largely absent votes and late postal votes. These will report in the next two weeks. I believe these votes will help the “yes” side hold the electorates where it currently leads. The overall result will remain a heavy defeat.</p>
<h2>Labor referendums very rarely win</h2>
<p>In May, I wrote that just one of 25 Labor-initiated referendums had succeeded in winning the required majority of states, as well as a national majority. While not successful, Labor referendums held with general elections have performed far better than when held as a standalone referendum.</p>
<p>In view of this history, it was a blunder to hold this referendum as a standalone vote, rather than at the next general election.</p>
<p>Six of 18 referendums proposed by conservative governments have succeeded. The reason for the huge difference in success rate between Labor and conservative-initiated referendums is that Labor sometimes gives its support to conservative referendums, while the conservatives almost never do in reverse.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/while-the-voice-has-a-large-poll-lead-now-history-of-past-referendums-indicates-it-may-struggle-204365">While the Voice has a large poll lead now, history of past referendums indicates it may struggle</a>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adrian Beaumont does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Our election analyst lays out the current projections across the nation.Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2155322023-10-12T09:40:59Z2023-10-12T09:40:59ZGrattan on Friday: Did Anthony Albanese realise what a rough journey this referendum would be?<p>Anthony Albanese has invested heart, soul and political authority in his battle to change the Constitution to establish an Indigenous Voice to Parliament. His tears this week at Uluru, when surrounded and celebrated by Aboriginal women, showed a deep well of emotion. </p>
<p>If, as the polls indicate, the Voice is defeated on Saturday, it will be a devastating rebuff for the prime minister. He’ll have raised Indigenous hopes only to see them dashed. He’ll have led Australians on an arduous journey only to have them desert him before the destination. Did Albanese realise how risky this bold constitutional gamble would be? Some colleagues will shake their heads at his judgement. </p>
<p>Whatever a defeat would do immediately to Labor’s rating, it wouldn’t necessarily have much effect in the longer term. The reason partly goes to why Albanese couldn’t persuade more people to vote “yes”. </p>
<p>For a large swathe of voters, the Voice is a second or third order issue. At the 2025 election, most voters will have first order issues on their minds – their own economic circumstance, assessments of the government’s general competence, what they think of the Dutton alternative. The Voice will have receded into history. </p>
<p>Immediately, however, a loss would trigger bitterness and anger among many Indigenous people, feeling they’ve been spurned by other Australians. Albanese will need – as a fallback – a plan to try to tackle Indigenous disadvantage by another route. </p>
<p>This bruising referendum campaign has given insights about the various players and our society more generally. </p>
<p>If it’s shown that Albanese, mostly cautious as leader, has been willing to back himself to the point of overreach, it’s also reinforced Peter Dutton’s image as a hardball, Tony Abbott-style opposition leader. </p>
<p>Just as Abbott was brutally relentless in fighting Labor on climate change, so Dutton has been in prosecuting the “no” case. Negative politics fits Dutton like a glove, and he’s made the most of this opportunity, while losing some prominent Liberals to the “yes” campaign. He’ll receive a dose of immediate blame, and pay a price on the Liberals’ left flank, in teal seats the party needs to regain. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-no-win-will-make-it-harder-for-government-to-tackle-indigenous-disadvantage-albanese-215232">A 'no' win will make it harder for government to tackle Indigenous disadvantage: Albanese</a>
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<p>The referendum has highlighted what many have previously overlooked or denied: that Indigenous Australians (like other Australians) aren’t of one political mind. </p>
<p>During the campaign, Albanese repeatedly said the Voice enjoys more than 80% support among Indigenous people. This was based on polling early in the year; a Resolve poll of 420 people reported in Nine newspapers this week put support at 59%.</p>
<p>It’s unsurprising there are differing views. Indigenous politics is robust. Also, Australia’s “First Nations"include a multitude of nations, with some smaller nations concerned larger ones will dominate a Voice. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://research.csu.edu.au/engage-with-us/yindyamarra-nguluway">Yindyamarra Nguluway research program</a> at Charles Sturt University has involved yarns with 24 elders. The findings show elders divided on voting "yes”. The key issues include a lack of trust in the process of change. There is also some dismay the change process has been couched in the context of giving a Voice to Parliament to nations that have never ceded sovereignty.</p>
<p>Although the Uluṟu Statement from the Heart is viewed as an important step forward many of these elders view it to be an elite invention. Nevertheless the general view is that the Voice is a necessary gateway into a more detailed conversation about the future of Australian democracy.</p>
<p>Indigenous leaders have been on the front lines of the “yes” and “no” campaigns: Noel Pearson, Megan Davis (“yes”), Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, Warren Mundine (“no”), Senator Lidia Thorpe (progressive “no”). They’re articulating different philosophies. </p>
<p>Labor senator Pat Dodson, dubbed the “father of reconciliation” for his work over decades, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-11/labor-senator-pat-dodson-addresses-press-club/102962634">told the National Press Club this week</a>: “This is the first time that we’ve had in the public space a clear division between Aboriginal leaders. […] That division is quite substantial. It’s not just a matter of opinion. </p>
<p>"It’s a division based on whether you understand our history, that this nation was colonised, Aboriginal people were forcibly subjugated, that they were denied the opportunity to have a say on how they were going to be impacted. Or whether you say it was all cosy and that we were picked up in a truck and taken into the Winter Wonderland and we lived there forever in some sort of rose garden. </p>
<p>"Now, the sad part about the debate is […] if the No camp campaign gets up, it’ll be a debate about assimilation and co-option. That’ll be where the debate in the future goes. And I don’t think we should be having that debate, because assimilation is a very toxic word to many Aboriginal people.” </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-langton-and-price-fight-with-passion-and-gloves-off-for-beliefs-213541">Grattan on Friday: Langton and Price fight with passion and gloves off for beliefs</a>
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<p>Price denies her position is assimilationist but that’s certainly its flavour. She and some other “no” leaders argue the emphasis should be on need, not Indigeneity; “yes” leaders emphasise Indigeneity as well as need.</p>
<p>The referendum has been a case study in how, on such a polarising issue, racism and nastiness will quickly and inevitably break the surface of the “respectful debate” both sides have claimed they want. </p>
<p>Social media and the nature of contemporary politics have undoubtedly debased this particular referendum. But it’s also an old story. Robert Menzies’ 1951 (unsuccessful) referendum to ban the Communist Party was vitriolic. Anne Henderson’s <a href="https://www.connorcourtpublishing.com.au/MENZIES-vs-EVATT-The-Great-Rivalry-of-Australian-Politics--Anne-Henderson_p_548.html">recent book Menzies versus Evatt</a> recounts how, when Menzies opened the “yes” campaign in Melbourne, then senator (later PM) John Gorton “wrestled with one interjector, allegedly snatching at the man’s collar and shouting. ‘Come outside, you yellow rat.’ Police were reported as dragging the senator away rather than the interjector.” At another meeting, when Menzies stood to speak, “an interjector shouted, ‘Heil Hitler’”. Menzies had a quick retort, “You call me Hitler and [opposition leader] Dr Evatt calls me Goebbels – make up your mind”. Propaganda came in pamphlet form rather than via the internet but it was just as gross.</p>
<p>In a democracy, sometimes giving people their say can mean enduring or dealing with a lot of bad behaviour. </p>
<p>After many weeks of people calling out some appalling examples of racism in the referendum, suddenly we see disturbing signs of ethnic hate flare in a totally different context – Hamas’s weekend atrocities and Israel’s retaliation.</p>
<p>The activities of neo-Nazis in Australia might be limited but they appear to have increased. ASIO has repeatedly warned about the growth of right-wing extremism. Even so, to hear chants of “Gas the Jews” at Monday’s Sydney pro-Palestinian rally was extraordinarily shocking. </p>
<p>ASIO head Mike Burgess warned in a Thursday statement, “It is important that all parties consider the implications for social cohesion when making public statements. […] Words matter. ASIO has seen direct connections between inflamed language and inflamed community tensions.”</p>
<p>We should not stop people expressing their views through demonstrations. We should, however, crack down on hate speech, whether it’s directed at those of the Jewish faith, Indigenous people, or anyone else. </p>
<p>CORRECTION: This story has been corrected to say Price and some other “no” leaders argue the emphasis should be on need, not Indigeneity; “yes” leaders emphasise Indigeneity as well as need. The original had “no” and “yes” the wrong way round.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215532/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The referendum has highlighted what many have previously overlooked or denied: that Indigenous Australians (like other Australians) aren’t of one political mindMichelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2138662023-10-10T19:06:17Z2023-10-10T19:06:17ZWhy Australia urgently needs a climate plan and a Net Zero National Cabinet Committee to implement it<p>Australia has <a href="https://www.pm.gov.au/media/australia-legislates-emissions-reduction-targets">a legislated target</a> to reduce greenhouse emissions, a federal government with commitments <a href="https://www.energycouncil.com.au/analysis/the-82-per-cent-national-renewable-energy-target-where-did-it-come-from-and-how-can-we-get-there/#:%7E:text=A%20national%20renewable%20electricity%20target,Interconnected%20System%2C%20and%20the%20North">to increase the share of renewable electricity</a> and reduce power prices, and a globally important economic opportunity at its feet. </p>
<p>In the second half of the government’s current term, delivery looks hard across the board. All is not lost, but we must transform our economy to a timetable. The unprecedented scale and pace of the economic transformation, and the consequences of failure, demand an unprecedented response. </p>
<p>To get things on track requires the government to develop a plan with the right mix of political commitment, credible policies, coordination with industry, and support from communities. And, critically, the plan must be implemented. Too often targets have been set without being linked to policies to achieve them, or linked so poorly that the extra cost and delay sets back the climate transition.</p>
<p>By the middle of this year, Australia’s emissions were <a href="https://treasury.gov.au/policy-topics/measuring-what-matters/dashboard/emissions-reduction">25% below the 2005 level</a>. But the trend of steady reductions has stalled, and sectors such as <a href="https://www.climatechangeauthority.gov.au/sites/default/files/2021Fact%20sheet%20-%20Transport.pdf">transport</a> and agriculture have moved in the wrong direction. </p>
<p>Such ups and downs will continue in response to external events, as we have seen with COVID, droughts, and war on the other side of the world. Policies must be flexible if they are to remain broadly on course in the face of such events. </p>
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<h2>Trouble in the power department</h2>
<p>The detail matters: national emissions reductions <a href="https://www.dcceew.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/national-greenhouse-gas-inventory-march-2023.pdf">have slowed</a>, as has <a href="https://www.energymatters.com.au/renewable-news/cec-australian-wind-and-solar-investment-slows-in-q2-energy-storage-booms/#:%7E:text=The%20slowdown%20in%20investment%20in,support%20from%20the%20federal%20government.">the growth in renewable generation</a> towards the government’s 2030 target of 82%. </p>
<p>At the same time, the government’s <a href="https://www.alp.org.au/policies/powering-australia">target of lower power bills</a> by 2025 looks out of reach, and electricity reliability is threatened as coal-fired generation closes without adequate replacement.</p>
<p>The production and use of natural gas <a href="https://grattan.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Flame-out-Grattan-report.pdf">contributes around 20%</a> of Australia’s emissions. The use of gas in industry will be covered by the <a href="https://www.cleanenergyregulator.gov.au/NGER/The-Safeguard-Mechanism#:%7E:text=The%20Safeguard%20Mechanism%20has%20been%20in%20place%20since%201%20July,must%20manage%20their%20excess%20emissions.">Safeguard Mechanism</a>, a policy designed by the Coalition and now revised by Labor, to drive down emissions from the country’s 200 biggest emitters. </p>
<p>Emissions from gas-fired power generation will fall with the growth of renewables. But there are no constraints on fossil gas use in other sectors, such as our homes. </p>
<p>Industrial emissions are <a href="https://theconversation.com/nearly-30-of-australias-emissions-come-from-industry-tougher-rules-for-big-polluters-is-a-no-brainer-190264">slowly growing</a>. The huge amount of hype about green hydrogen has so far proven to be little more than that: Australia continues to have lots of potential green hydrogen projects, but <a href="https://reneweconomy.com.au/australia-leads-world-in-green-hydrogen-hype-and-hope-but-not-in-actual-projects/">virtually none are delivered</a>.</p>
<p>Finally, we remain without <a href="https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/fuel-efficiency-standard-cleaner-cheaper-run-cars-australia-consultation-paper-april2023.pdf">constraints on vehicle emissions</a>, and with a large herd of <a href="https://www.publish.csiro.au/cp/CP22299#:%7E:text=In%20Australia%2C%2071%25%20of%20agricultural,by%20grazing%20sheep%20and%20cattle.">grazing cattle and sheep</a> whose emissions are determined more by the weather than the actions of our best-meaning farmers.</p>
<h2>The risk of swinging from naive to negative</h2>
<p>So, we are in a hard place. Naïve optimism about an easy, cheap transition to net zero is at risk of giving way to brutal negativity that it’s all just too hard. The warnings of early spring fires and floods in Australia and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/17/extreme-temperatures-recorded-across-northern-hemisphere">extreme heat</a> during the most recent northern hemisphere summer will feed this tension.</p>
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<p>The federal government’s latest <a href="https://treasury.gov.au/publication/2023-intergenerational-report">Intergenerational</a> Report provides a deeply disturbing snapshot of the potential economic impacts if we fail to get climate change under control. Yet in a world 3 to 4 degrees hotter than pre-industrial levels, economic impacts could be the least of our worries.</p>
<p>The task is unparalleled outside wartime. Within 30 years we must manage the decline of fossil fuel extractive sectors, transform every aspect of our energy and transport sectors, reindustrialise much of manufacturing, and find solutions to difficult problems in agriculture.</p>
<p>What’s to be done?</p>
<h2>The need for a Net Zero National Cabinet Committee</h2>
<p>We should begin with leadership across the federal government, coordinated with the states and territories. The best structure might be a Net Zero National Cabinet Committee with two clear objectives – to develop and begin implementing a national net zero transformation plan by the end of 2024. </p>
<p>Modern governments are more than happy to set targets and announce plans to meet them. They seem to have lost the capacity or will to implement such plans. The <a href="https://www.pmc.gov.au/news/net-zero-economy-agency#:%7E:text=The%20Net%20Zero%20Economy%20Agency,of%20the%20net%20zero%20economy.">Net Zero Economy Agency</a>, created in July and chaired by former Climate Change Minister Greg Combet, could be charged with that task.</p>
<p>The first step is being taken – the <a href="https://www.climatechangeauthority.gov.au/">Climate Change Authority</a> is now advising on emissions reduction targets for 2035 and perhaps beyond. The government’s work to create pathways to reducing emissions in every economic sector must be used to build a comprehensive set of policies that are directly linked to meeting the targets.</p>
<h2>How to get electricity moving in the right direction</h2>
<p>The electricity sector can be put on track with three actions. One, drive emissions reduction towards net zero using a sector-focused policy such as the <a href="https://www.cleanenergyregulator.gov.au/RET/About-the-Renewable-Energy-Target">Renewable Energy Target</a> or the Safeguard Mechanism. </p>
<p>Two, implement the <a href="https://www.energy.gov.au/government-priorities/energy-supply/capacity-investment-scheme">Capacity Investment Scheme</a>, a policy intended to deliver dispatchable electricity capacity to balance a system built on intermittent wind and solar supply. </p>
<p>Three, set up a National Transmission Agency to work with the <a href="https://aemo.com.au/en">Australian Energy Market Operator</a> (AEMO) to plan the national transmission grid and with authority to direct, fund, and possibly own that grid.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/made-in-america-how-bidens-climate-package-is-fuelling-the-global-drive-to-net-zero-214709">Made in America: how Biden's climate package is fuelling the global drive to net zero</a>
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<p>For heavy industry, the scale and pace of change demands a 21st-century industry policy, in three parts. Activities such as coal mining will be essentially incompatible with a net-zero economy. Activities such as steel-making may be able to transform through economic, low-emissions technologies. </p>
<p>Finally, activities such as low-emissions extraction and processing of critical energy minerals, which are insignificant today but which in time could help Australia to capitalise on globally significant comparative advantages. </p>
<h2>Create a plan – and stick to it</h2>
<p>The government has made a good start by revising the Safeguard Mechanism and the <a href="https://www.dcceew.gov.au/energy/publications/australias-national-hydrogen-strategy">Hydrogen Strategy</a> and developing a <a href="https://www.globalaustralia.gov.au/industries/net-zero/critical-minerals#:%7E:text=Australia's%20Critical%20Mineral%20Strategy%202023,raw%20and%20processed%20critical%20minerals.">Critical Minerals Strategy</a>. These should be brought together in an overarching policy framework with consistent, targeted policies linked to clear goals, developed and executed in sustained collaboration with industry. </p>
<p>The Safeguard Mechanism will need to be extended beyond 2030 and its emissions threshold for the companies it covers lowered to 25,000 tonnes of emissions per year.</p>
<p>Industry funding will probably need to expand, and give priority to export-oriented industries that will grow in a net-zero global economy. And the federal and state governments should phase out all programs that encourage expansion of fossil fuel extraction or consumption.</p>
<p>In transport, long-delayed emissions standards should be set and implemented. Finally, government-funded research, some of it already underway, should focus on difficult areas such as early-stage emissions reduction technologies in specific heavy industries, transport subsectors, and emissions from grazing cattle and sheep.</p>
<p>There is little new or radical in the elements of this plan. What would be new is a commitment to its design and implementation. This is what government needs to do now. The consequences of failure are beyond our worst fears, the benefits of success beyond our best dreams.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213866/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tony Wood may have a financial interest in companies relevant to the article through his superannuation fund. </span></em></p>Australia’s move towards net zero emissoions by 2020 is in danger of stalling. If it is not to fail, the nation urgently needs a government plan, aligned with industry and with public support.Tony Wood, Program Director, Energy, Grattan InstituteLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2153302023-10-10T12:36:46Z2023-10-10T12:36:46ZClaudia Goldin’s Nobel Prize win is a victory for women in economics − and the field as a whole<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552868/original/file-20231009-15-dk22qh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=48%2C0%2C7982%2C5345&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The world's newest Nobel laureate takes a bow.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/claudia-goldin-the-henry-lee-professor-of-economics-at-news-photo/1715805293">Carlin Stiehl/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Economic history has long been chronicled through a male lens, emphasizing the contributions of men and their viewpoints. For proof, just look to the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. It’s been awarded to 90 men since 1969 – and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/nobel-prize-economy-224c204c0cc20843636e5525d6a61673">just three women</a>.</p>
<p>The third woman to win the prize, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/claudia-goldin-wins-2023-nobel-economics-prize-2023-10-09/">distinguished Harvard labor economist Claudia Goldin</a>, was honored on Oct. 9, 2023, for her <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2023/goldin/facts/">decades of work studying the gender pay gap</a>. It wasn’t a victory just for her but for women in the field. </p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=GyTN5PYAAAAJ&hl=en">As an economist</a>, I take this issue personally. My field has <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-gender-gap-in-economics-is-huge-its-even-worse-than-tech-156275">a huge gender gap</a>. Only 24% of tenure-track faculty in economics are women. In contrast, women make up 43% of tenure-track faculty across academia as a whole.</p>
<h2>More than just stocks and bonds</h2>
<p>Part of the problem is that economics is often stereotypically associated with finance, money and banking. This narrow perception might not appeal to everyone. Women in particular tend to be drawn to areas that have <a href="https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/why-having-more-womendiverse-economists-benefits-us-all">direct bearing on social challenges</a>. </p>
<p>But economics is about much more than just the stock market. In fact, vast areas of the discipline deal with social issues – <a href="https://theconversation.com/health-insurance-coverage-for-kids-through-medicaid-and-chip-helps-their-moms-too-178249">health</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-drives-chinese-migrants-to-ghana-its-not-just-an-economic-decision-177580">development</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/teach-all-young-people-universal-basic-skills-by-2030-it-will-give-huge-boost-to-gdp-41792">education</a> and, yes, <a href="https://theconversation.com/5-tips-for-women-to-negotiate-a-higher-salary-200415">gender inequality</a>. </p>
<p>For instance, labor economists study issues like <a href="https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w26617/w26617.pdf">family leave policies</a> and the <a href="https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/GenderGap.html">gender pay gap</a> – areas that directly affect women’s lives. </p>
<p>It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that women have had a greater presence in labor economics than in other subfields. </p>
<p>Women have also historically been drawn to <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w23953">health economics, development economics and education economics</a>. But those fields don’t get as much attention, and the public sometimes doesn’t even recognize them as being part of economics at all.</p>
<p>They may even get the short shrift in Econ 101. A study of introductory economics textbooks found that <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/01/19/women-are-underrepresented-economics-textbooks-says-new-analysis-implications-fields">75% of people named</a> in them were men. Women weren’t even equally represented in hypothetical examples.</p>
<h2>Where are the women?</h2>
<p>Not only are women underrepresented as economists, economics as a field has historically ignored the role women play in the economy. Even as the study of family economics gained traction in the 1970s, the pivotal roles of women <a href="https://www.imf.org/en/News/Podcasts/All-Podcasts/2023/06/09/claudia-goldin-on-family-economics">were often sidelined</a>. </p>
<p>Traditional models often oversimplified households’ decision-making processes and overlooked women’s contributions. This led economists to undervalue the unpaid labor women provided in households and perpetuate <a href="https://www.nber.org/system/files/chapters/c2970/c2970.pdf">stereotypical gender roles in their analyses</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552869/original/file-20231009-23-jkaxfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A young reporter in a suit is shown speaking to economist Claudia Goldin, who stands with her hands clasped." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552869/original/file-20231009-23-jkaxfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552869/original/file-20231009-23-jkaxfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552869/original/file-20231009-23-jkaxfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552869/original/file-20231009-23-jkaxfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552869/original/file-20231009-23-jkaxfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552869/original/file-20231009-23-jkaxfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552869/original/file-20231009-23-jkaxfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Nobel Prize winner Claudia Goldin takes a reporter’s question after a press conference on Oct. 9, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/claudia-goldin-the-henry-lee-professor-of-economics-at-news-photo/1715805733">Carlin Stiehl/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Goldin has challenged these traditional male-centric narratives. Through her groundbreaking research – particularly on wage inequalities and the “<a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w30323">motherhood penalty</a>” – Goldin has turned the spotlight on women’s economic roles and challenges.</p>
<p>Her findings reveal the complexities of wage disparities, emphasizing issues like the challenges women face after childbirth. For instance, <a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/goldin/files/dynamics_of_the_gender_gap_for_young_professionals_in_the_financial_and_corporate_sectors.pdf">career interruptions such as maternity leave</a> or reduced work hours to care for children and other relatives can reduce women’s earnings and job prospects in the long term. </p>
<p>It’s vital to note that Goldin’s research doesn’t attribute the gender pay gap to employer discrimination. Instead, her insights advocate for the establishment of robust support systems. </p>
<p>Strengthening child care facilities, improving parental leave policies, offering workplace flexibility and otherwise bolstering policies that support families with kids can play a pivotal role in addressing the wage gap, her findings suggest. In the absence of such supports, women are bound to keep earning less than men after they become parents.</p>
<h2>A win for one, a victory for many</h2>
<p>Goldin’s Nobel recognition isn’t merely an honor for her individual achievements. It serves as a beacon for women in economics and academia as a whole. </p>
<p>First, her win challenges the historical gender imbalance in such prominent awards, signaling a long-overdue recognition for women’s contributions to economics. It provides hope for young female economists that their work can also achieve such renown.</p>
<p>Beyond this, her Nobel nod underscores a crucial point: Economics is a rich and complex discipline that goes beyond traditional monetary and financial issues. It’s about parenthood. It’s about child care. It’s about people’s struggles. It’s about social change.</p>
<p>In essence, Goldin’s win shows the world just how expansive, inclusive, diverse and interconnected the field really is. Economics isn’t just <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dismal_science">the dismal science</a>. It’s a human science.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215330/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Veronika Dolar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Goldin is showing the world that economics is about more than just finance.Veronika Dolar, Associate Professor of Economics, SUNY Old WestburyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2145192023-10-05T12:35:23Z2023-10-05T12:35:23ZWhat today’s labor leaders can learn from the explosive rise and quick fall of the typesetters union<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551502/original/file-20231002-29-eiap6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=31%2C5%2C3489%2C2349&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Formerly cutting-edge technology.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/metal-printing-press-letters-royalty-free-image/464946342">iStock/Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Can a seemingly robust labor union simply collapse? The news is full of stories about growing union power – but just because a union is strong now doesn’t mean it’ll stay that way. Important unions have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/001979398403700201">put themselves out of business</a> before. The <a href="https://depts.washington.edu/moves/CIO_ITU_locals.shtml">International Typographical Union</a>, or ITU, is one such example. Once it was among the nation’s most significant unions, but it disappeared in just a few decades.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.bu.edu/questrom/profile/jay-zagorsky/">I am a business school professor</a> who is fascinated by the lessons of the ITU – first, because <a href="http://businessmacroeconomics.com">I teach courses</a> about unions, and second, because I inadvertently participated in the ITU’s demise. But more on that later.</p>
<h2>More than just a ‘hot labor summer’</h2>
<p>Right now, union leaders are feeling powerful. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/25/cnbc-daily-open-summer-of-discontent.html">More than 360,000</a> workers have <a href="https://theconversation.com/waves-of-strikes-rippling-across-the-us-seem-big-but-the-total-number-of-americans-walking-off-the-job-remains-historically-low-210673">gone on strike in 2023</a> – nearly <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/wkstp.nr0.htm">three times as many</a> as in all of 2022. The United Auto Workers union is currently <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-autoworkers-launch-historic-strike-3-questions-answered-213518">striking against</a> Detroit’s Big Three and demanding a <a href="https://apnews.com/article/uaw-strike-ford-gm-stellantis-contract-offers-5dd4dee2056b7efe06d2a55433d8d13a">36% pay hike</a>. UPS recently <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/22/business/economy/ups-contract-vote-teamsters.html">agreed to union demands</a> for a generous new contract, under which the most senior drivers will eventually earn about $170,000 a year. Hollywood was shut down by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/actors-are-demanding-that-hollywood-catch-up-with-technological-changes-in-a-sequel-to-a-1960-strike-209829">screenwriters’ and actors’ strikes</a>.</p>
<p>However, union leaders would be wise not to overplay their hands. The typesetters guild boasted more than <a href="https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/1970/compendia/statab/91ed/1970-03.pdf">100,000 members at its peak</a>. Today it serves as a cautionary example of how quickly union power can erode.</p>
<h2>A brief digression: What is typesetting, anyway?</h2>
<p>Our story begins <a href="https://www.asme.org/getmedia/4e9d6576-020f-4e74-a00c-27e11a250f09/gutenberg-and-mass-production.pdf">in the 1500s</a> with the invention of the movable-type printing press. Workers called typesetters would take individual blocks of letters and <a href="https://letterpresscommons.com/setting-type-by-hand/">arrange them into lines of text</a>. They would store unused letters in two cases: capital letters in an upper case and smaller letters in the easier-to-access lower case. That practice – which is why English speakers still describe letters as <a href="https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/did-you-know-history/why-it-called-upper-and-lower-case">“uppercase” and “lowercase”</a> – would be ripe for disruption a few centuries later.</p>
<p>A typesetter’s biggest concern was letters falling out when put on the printing press. To prevent this, all lines were made justified, or the same width, so <a href="https://www.oldtreasurybuilding.org.au/lost-jobs/in-print/hand-setting/">text could be locked into a rectangular frame</a>. Being a good typesetter demanded physical skills to move blocks of type quickly. It also took intellect, since typesetters acted as de facto proofreaders and layout designers. </p>
<h2>An early American union</h2>
<p>Fast-forward a few hundred years. <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0113/the-history-of-unions-in-the-united-states.aspx">U.S. labor unions started picking up steam</a> after the Civil War, and typographers were <a href="https://depts.washington.edu/moves/CIO_ITU_locals.shtml">quick to unionize</a>, since their high literacy levels helped with organizing. They formed the International Typographical Union <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1821011">in 1852</a> with more than 1,000 members.</p>
<p>Thirty years after its founding, the ITU faced a major technological shock. In 1886, the inventor <a href="https://www.typeroom.eu/ottmar-mergenthaler-10-things-to-know-about-linotype-inventor">Ottmar Mergenthaler</a> was granted a patent for the Linotype machine. This machine allowed operators to select characters by typing them on a keyboard instead of picking them from a type case. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://blogs.loc.gov/headlinesandheroes/2022/06/the-linotype-the-machine-that-revolutionized-movable-type/">Linotype’s advantages were quickly evident</a>. A skilled <a href="https://www.prepressure.com/printing/history/1850-1899">operator could set 6,000 characters per hour</a>, many times faster than a hand compositor. The Linotype also didn’t require blocks of letters to be re-sorted into type cases after material was printed. Instead, lines of <a href="https://www.history.uwo.ca/public_history/docs/i2i%20big%20labels.pdf">type could be melted down and reused</a>.</p>
<p>The Linotype and competing machines didn’t hurt the union because it made publishing cheaper, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/1998/02/11/a-history-of-newspaper-gutenbergs-press-started-a-revolution/2e95875c-313e-4b5c-9807-8bcb031257ad/">which resulted in a burst of printing</a>. In fact, ITU membership increased as new newspapers, magazines and book publishers sprang up, all of whom needed skilled workers who could take handwritten copy and transform it into printed text. </p>
<p>By the start of World War I, ITU membership was over 60,000.</p>
<p>The union’s membership peaked in the 1960s, with newspapers being the biggest employers of ITU members. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1950/07/22/archives/publishers-reopen-battle-with-itu-union-is-accused-of-coercion-on.html">Newspaper publishers didn’t like</a> the ITU because it meant they had to pay for two different expensive workforces: the reporters who created the content and the typesetters who made that content readable. While only <a href="https://newsguild.org/history/">some of the reporters were unionized</a>, almost all of the typesetters were.</p>
<h2>The decline of the ITU</h2>
<p>Starting in the 1960s, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1978/07/03/archives/paper-using-cold-type-2-main-innovations-how-new-method-works-the.html">other new developments</a> like <a href="https://www.dsource.in/course/digital-typography-1/phototypesetting">phototypesetting</a> and then <a href="https://web.stanford.edu/%7Ebkunde/fb-press/articles/wdprhist.html">word processing</a> threatened typesetters’ jobs. </p>
<p>The ITU fought against technological changes with a <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2012/11/1963-newspaper-strike-bertram-powers">massive strike in New York City</a>. When the strike started, New York City had seven daily newspapers. After a 114-day shutdown, only three remained: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/">The New York Times</a>, the <a href="https://nypost.com/">New York Post</a> and the <a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/">Daily News</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551499/original/file-20231002-24-94rdfa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Dozens of protesters with the ITU stand densely packed together on a New York City street, waving signs and placards." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551499/original/file-20231002-24-94rdfa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551499/original/file-20231002-24-94rdfa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551499/original/file-20231002-24-94rdfa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551499/original/file-20231002-24-94rdfa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551499/original/file-20231002-24-94rdfa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551499/original/file-20231002-24-94rdfa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551499/original/file-20231002-24-94rdfa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Members of the International Typographical Union demonstrate outside the offices of The New York Times on Jan. 15, 1963.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/new-york-ny-bertram-powers-president-of-local-six-of-the-news-photo/514907050">Bettmann/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The relatively high pay of typesetters, combined with their ability to shut down production for long periods of time, made newspapers, magazines and other publishers <a href="https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/108858/02996029-MIT.pdf">eager customers</a> for high-tech companies that built computers that automatically determined line breaks, hyphenation and text justification. These computers also saved time by eliminating the need for typing copy twice: first by the author and then by a typesetter.</p>
<p>This <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/j.ctt15jvw33.14">second technological revolution devastated</a> ITU membership. From 1984 to 1987, its membership halved. In 1986, it <a href="https://cwa-union.org/about/cwa-history">merged with the Communications Workers of America</a>, which today <a href="https://cwa-union.org/about">doesn’t even mention typographers</a> on its list of sectors.</p>
<h2>Walking the negotiating tightrope</h2>
<p>Similarly today, unions are pushing for large wage increases at a time when new technologies pose a threat to those workers’ livelihoods. <a href="https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/teamsters-tech-firms-tangle-over-self-driving-trucks-bill">Autonomous vehicles threaten</a> Teamsters truckers; robots and simpler-to-build <a href="https://www.ualrpublicradio.org/npr-news/2023-09-20/why-the-uaw-is-fighting-so-hard-for-these-4-key-demands-in-the-auto-strike">electric vehicles threaten</a> United Auto Workers; ChatGPT threatens screenwriters.</p>
<p>Labor leaders walk a fine line: Their job is to advocate for workers, but making aggressive demands can backfire if they prompt employers to more quickly embrace automation. In other words, there’s a risk that militancy today can destroy union jobs tomorrow.</p>
<p>Oh, yes – how did I inadvertently help the ITU’s demise? </p>
<p>After newspapers computerized their news operations, typographers were still needed to create display ads. I joined a <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/obituaries/2015/10/01/george-white-founded-companies-that-helped-change-newspaper-production/r8oA8ERHMy6siV17BTvOkO/story.html">small high-tech company</a> that built some of the first software and hardware that automated creating display ads. Our systems cost millions of dollars but were eagerly purchased by large newspapers.</p>
<p>The irony was that shortly after my company helped put the final nail in the ITU’s coffin, a new wave of computer companies such as Apple, Adobe and Hewlett-Packard created the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/rr/business/businesshistory/April/apple_testimage.html">desktop publishing revolution</a>. That technological change put the company I worked for out of business.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214519/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jay L. Zagorsky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>History suggests that there’s risk of overplaying one’s hand when new technology is lurking.Jay L. Zagorsky, Clinical Associate Professor of Markets, Public Policy and Law, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.