By Rachel Goldfarb, originally published on Next New Deal
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In Florida Tomato Fields, a Penny Buys Progress (NYT)
The Coalition of Immokalee Workers has done incredible work to improve labor conditions in Florida's tomato fields, says Steven Greenhouse, but bringing Walmart into the fold might be its biggest win yet.
- Roosevelt Take: The Roosevelt Institute presented the CIW with the Freedom from Want medal at the 2013 Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Awards. Senior Fellow Richard Kirsch spoke with some of its organizers about its Fair Food program.
Meet The Real Amazon Drones (HuffPo)
Dave Jamieson explains how one little-known shipping company contracted by Amazon treats its workers, who are classified as independent contractors. Fees from the company for mandatory supplies are just the start.
The 'Mismatch' Theory of Unemployment Meets Its Match in Goldman Sachs (Bloomberg Businessweek)
Peter Coy reports that economists at Goldman Sachs see clear evidence that a skills mismatch is not what's keeping people out of work. There just aren't enough jobs to go around right now.
The Sharing Economy Isn’t About Trust, It’s About Desperation (NY Mag)
By looking at the data on how many full-time jobs have been replaced by part-time jobs, Kevin Roose concludes that workers in the gig-based sharing economy are just trying to make a living any way they can.
- Roosevelt Take: Roosevelt Institute | Campus Network Operations Strategist Lydia Bowers explains how some of these "sharing economy" companies exploit their workers.
Elizabeth Warren’s A Fighting Chance: An Exclusive Excerpt on the Foreclosure Crisis (Boston Globe)
In this excerpt from her new book, Senator Warren shares an anecdote that demonstrates how the Treasury Department's approach to the foreclosure crisis centered on banks instead of people.
Massive New Fraud Coverup: How Banks are Pillaging Homes — While the Government Watches (Salon)
Regulators aren't doing enough to hold banks accountable, say David Dayen, which is allowing banks to foreclose on homes despite missing and falsified documentation.
To Have and Have Not (Los Angeles Review of Books)
Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century shows what economics has lost by minimizing political economy, which considers how we organize our interconnected economic lives, says Jedediah Purdy.