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Alex Press

@alexnpress.bsky.social
27K followers 539 following 493 posts

I’m me ✌️

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Reposted by Alex Press
Alex Press @alexnpress.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
I wrote about who gets to pick the music at work, from Muzak and wartime songs that made workers think about their lovers overseas to Balkan heavy metal and the fight over earbuds at Amazon. Subscribe if you enjoy these! More will be behind the paywall so I can justify the time I spend on them.
thealexpress.substack.com
Who Gets the Aux Cord?
The science of the workplace soundtrack.
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Reposted by Alex Press
In These Times @inthesetimes.com · 24/09/2026
Amazon called the September 2nd Riverside, California walkout the work of “mostly outside organizers.” Night-shift worker Kain Kazsuk told @alexnpress.bsky.social: “It was all us, boots on the ground in the warehouse, talking to our coworkers.”
inthesetimes.com
Amazon Workers Keep Walking Out
At a Riverside delivery station, workers have walked out three times since December as they organize without a recognized union.
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Reposted by Alex Press
still in Pittsburgh @pdpittsburgh.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
"Tasks are modularized. Performance is monitored through dashboards and software. Chances for advancement thin out. Authority consolidates upward. Contracts shorten or schedules fluctuate from week to week." www.thenation.com/article/soci...
thenation.com
The Making of the Millennial Working Class
A new book follows a rising generation of labor organizers as they attempt to unionize their workplaces.
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Reposted by Alex Press
Alex Press @alexnpress.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
New one on how Amazon maps union risk across its warehouses.
thealexpress.substack.com
Amazon’s Organizing Map
The company knows which warehouses it’s worried about. Unions might want to take a look.
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Reposted by Alex Press
The Nation Magazine @thenation.com · 13/09/2026
The credential economy has expanded as workplace autonomy has constricted. Employers have been building assembly lines in places that were once sold as career ladders. People are noticing. bit.ly/46bEv76
bit.ly
The Making of the Millennial Working Class
A new book follows a new generation of labor organizers as they attempt to unionize their workplaces.
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Reposted by Alex Press
Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 15/09/2026
"Across these industries, employers have been taking complex social or creative work and reorganizing it into something closer to an assembly line."
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Reposted by Alex Press
In These Times @inthesetimes.com · 23/09/2026
At the beginning of the pandemic, more than 400 Amazon workers in Eastvale petitioned for safer conditions. In 2022, workers in San Bernardino walked out over pay and extreme heat. Now, @alexnpress.bsky.social reports that workers in nearby Riverside have staged three walkouts since December 2025.
inthesetimes.com
Amazon Workers Keep Walking Out
At a Riverside delivery station, workers have walked out three times since December as they organize without a recognized union.
02312
Alex Press @alexnpress.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
New one on how Amazon maps union risk across its warehouses.
thealexpress.substack.com
Amazon’s Organizing Map
The company knows which warehouses it’s worried about. Unions might want to take a look.
26615
Reposted by Alex Press
David Marcus @davidmarcus.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
"The social contract is no longer working: Going to college does not ensure anything other than...often low-paying work." @alexnpress.bsky.social in Fall Books on @noamscheiber.bsky.social's new book and the making of the millennial working class www.thenation.com/article/soci...
thenation.com
The Making of the Millennial Working Class
A new book follows a rising generation of labor organizers as they attempt to unionize their workplaces.
28926
Reposted by Alex Press
Anders @derzquist.net · 15/09/2026
Once we were upset with some inaction from management at the brewery so to register our discontent we set the warehouse-wide system to play Jimmy Buffett's 'Cheeseburger in Paradise' on a continuous loop for a couple hours, then locked the computer. Management had to reset the wifi to stop it.
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Reposted by Alex Press
The Nation's Books & the Arts @booksandthearts.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Fall Books Is here—Vivian Gornick on love and death in fiction, Osita Nwanevu on saving democracy, @lailalalami.com on Soraya Antonius's Palestine, @brucerobbins.bsky.social on the Bund, @alexnpress.bsky.social on millennial workers, Edna Bonhomme on Imani Thompson www.thenation.com/issue/octobe...
thenation.com
October 2026 Issue
The Nation Magazine
064
Alex Press @alexnpress.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
I wrote about who gets to pick the music at work, from Muzak and wartime songs that made workers think about their lovers overseas to Balkan heavy metal and the fight over earbuds at Amazon. Subscribe if you enjoy these! More will be behind the paywall so I can justify the time I spend on them.
thealexpress.substack.com
Who Gets the Aux Cord?
The science of the workplace soundtrack.
16611
Reposted by Alex Press
Damian @damo1954.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
EVIL Amazon jacobin.com/2026/08/amaz...
jacobin.com
Amazon Is Spending Big Against NYC’s Delivery Protection Act
Mayor Zohran Mamdani is backing the Delivery Protection Act, a piece of local legislation which would require Amazon to directly employ their drivers. It could open a lane for drivers to unionize — an...
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Reposted by Alex Press
Nina Zeelen @ninazeelen.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Mayor Zohran Mamdani is backing the Delivery Protection Act, a piece of local legislation which would require Amazon to directly employ their drivers. It could open a lane for drivers to unionize — and is thus seen as an existential threat by Amazon.
jacobin.com
Amazon Is Spending Big Against NYC’s Delivery Protection Act
Mayor Zohran Mamdani is backing the Delivery Protection Act, a piece of local legislation which would require Amazon to directly employ their drivers. It could open a lane for drivers to unionize — an...
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Reposted by Alex Press
Dave Kamper @dskamper.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Great piece by @alexnpress.bsky.social about one of the true giants of labor, Kate Bronfenbrenner. Notable that a constant challenge Bronfenbrenner faced was that unions didn’t want to hear what she was telling them despite it being true.
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Reposted by Alex Press
Matthew Thomas Miller (He/Him) @mtmiller.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
A giant of the labor/union studies world is retiring. Don’t know her work? Spend some time reading it. You won’t approach organizing the same again. Great piece by @alexnpress.bsky.social of @jacobinmag.bsky.social jacobin.com/2026/08/bron...
jacobin.com
Kate Bronfenbrenner, the Union Organizer’s Scholar
Kate Bronfenbrenner, who retired this year from Cornell University, has studied how workers win unions, how employers stop them, and how organizers can learn from one another for four decades. Her fin...
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Reposted by Alex Press
Baby Cheetah (Marxist) @willbloom.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Fascinating stuff, right down to a congressman asking, I assume in a Georgia drawl, "now hwhut is a "grip" exactly?"
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Reposted by Alex Press
Alex Press @alexnpress.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
I wrote about New York’s Delivery Protection Act, which would require companies like Amazon to directly employ their delivery drivers. Amazon has spent more than $5 million fighting it.
jacobin.com
Amazon Is Spending Big Against NYC’s Delivery Protection Act
Mayor Zohran Mamdani is backing the Delivery Protection Act, a piece of local legislation which would require Amazon to directly employ their drivers. It could open a lane for drivers to unionize — an...
04014
Reposted by Alex Press
Alex Press @alexnpress.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
I profiled Kate Bronfenbrenner, who retired from Cornell this year after decades of research that has shaped how generations of organizers understand employer opposition and what it takes to win a union.
jacobin.com
Kate Bronfenbrenner, the Union Organizer’s Scholar
Kate Bronfenbrenner, who retired this year from Cornell University, has studied how workers win unions, how employers stop them, and how organizers can learn from one another for four decades. Her fin...
02911
Reposted by Alex Press
Dave Kamper @dskamper.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Today's must-read for labor peeps is @alexnpress.bsky.social's great overview of the National Right To Work Legal Defense Fund. Kinda hoping this is going to make its way into her new book. (subscribe to Alex's newsletter for lots of cool stuff!) thealexpress.substack.com/p/how-to-sue...
thealexpress.substack.com
How to Sue a Union
A brief history of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
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Reposted by Alex Press
Spooky Mulder Bat Flip @mulderbatflip.net · 24/08/2026
The CSU lost it. IATSE was strengthened, while its principal militant rival in the studios was badly weakened. The fight also helped make an anticommunist out of Ronald Reagan, at least in Reagan’s later telling. Looking back on Black Friday and the violence of the CSU fight, he said the experience had “a profound effect on me.” More than anything else, Reagan claimed, the supposed Communist attempt to take over Hollywood led him to become president of the Screen Actors Guild and “indirectly at least, set me on the road that would lead me into politics.” Horne is skeptical of the chronology: as late as the fall of 1946, he notes, Reagan was still dismissing some anticommunist claims. By 1947 he was cooperating in Hollywood’s anticommunist campaign. Reagan would later describe Communists as using “minor jurisdictional disputes as excuses” in an effort to gain control of the industry.

Minor jurisdictional disputes was one way to describe them. Who made a tombstone? Who moved a wall? Who got to hammer which nail? Who operated the device that made the shadow of an elevated train move across a set?
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Reposted by Alex Press
Alex Press @alexnpress.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
having fun in the archives
thealexpress.substack.com
Who Owns a Shadow?
A trip into some obscure Hollywood labor history: 2,445 pages of congressional hearings, disputed shadows and tombstones, and a fight over the meaning of the word “erection.”
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Reposted by Alex Press
Jacobin @jacobinmag.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Retail workers have always been heavily surveilled by both bosses and customers. But the development of Ray-Ban Meta glasses and phone cameras is cranking that surveillance up to a whole new level.
jacobin.com
The Customer Is Always Watching
Employers have long put customers to work watching and judging workers. With the development of technology like Ray-Ban Meta glasses, now customers have new surveillance tools of their own.
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Reposted by Alex Press
jeffreyalexander07.bsky.social @jeffreyalexander07.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
This world just keeps getting creepier & creepier!!! jacobin.com/2026/08/meta...
jacobin.com
The Customer Is Always Watching
Employers have long put customers to work watching and judging workers. With the development of technology like Ray-Ban Meta glasses, now customers have new surveillance tools of their own.
061
Reposted by Alex Press
Alex Press @alexnpress.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
New one on customers watching workers, for the boss and now for the internet.
jacobin.com
The Customer Is Always Watching
Employers have long put customers to work watching and judging workers. With the development of technology like Ray-Ban Meta glasses, now customers have new surveillance tools of their own.
1377
Reposted by Alex Press
Third Summers Brother @hugetinymistake.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
These paragraphs hit so hard Worker expertise is valued less than customer feedback
Workers knew whose opinions carried weight. In 1993, two women eating lunch at a hotel restaurant complained that its china cups had been replaced by heavy white mugs. Their waiter agreed and encouraged them to fill out a comment card. “The managers don’t necessarily listen to us,” he told them. “But they always read the comment cards.”

Filling out a comment card might not feel like supervising anyone, but management had given the customer’s observations a place in how the workplace was run. The waiter worked there, yet his own knowledge of the workplace counted for less until a customer supplied it back to management.
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Reposted by Alex Press
Kevin Carson 🇵🇸 🇺🇦 🏴󠁭󠁸󠁣󠁨󠁰󠁿 @kevincarson1.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Customers using pervert glasses to harass service workers.
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Reposted by Alex Press
Frédéric Deshusses @fdeshusses.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Le panoptique décentralisé.
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Alex Press @alexnpress.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
New one on customers watching workers, for the boss and now for the internet.
jacobin.com
The Customer Is Always Watching
Employers have long put customers to work watching and judging workers. With the development of technology like Ray-Ban Meta glasses, now customers have new surveillance tools of their own.
1377
Alex Press @alexnpress.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
having fun in the archives
thealexpress.substack.com
Who Owns a Shadow?
A trip into some obscure Hollywood labor history: 2,445 pages of congressional hearings, disputed shadows and tombstones, and a fight over the meaning of the word “erection.”
1218
Alex Press @alexnpress.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
I profiled Kate Bronfenbrenner, who retired from Cornell this year after decades of research that has shaped how generations of organizers understand employer opposition and what it takes to win a union.
jacobin.com
Kate Bronfenbrenner, the Union Organizer’s Scholar
Kate Bronfenbrenner, who retired this year from Cornell University, has studied how workers win unions, how employers stop them, and how organizers can learn from one another for four decades. Her fin...
02911
Alex Press @alexnpress.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
I wrote about New York’s Delivery Protection Act, which would require companies like Amazon to directly employ their delivery drivers. Amazon has spent more than $5 million fighting it.
jacobin.com
Amazon Is Spending Big Against NYC’s Delivery Protection Act
Mayor Zohran Mamdani is backing the Delivery Protection Act, a piece of local legislation which would require Amazon to directly employ their drivers. It could open a lane for drivers to unionize — an...
04014
Reposted by Alex Press
Shay O’Reilly @shaygabriel.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
My neighbors and I started a tenants union in our old building in Brooklyn. Suddenly the landlord actually started to do something about leaks and vermin, after what long-time residents described as decades of neglect.
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Reposted by Alex Press
In These Times @inthesetimes.com · 13/07/2026
Who does the news imagine as its audience? @alexnpress.bsky.social says corporate media is “geared towards an affluent consumer base, so not the working class.” She joins @kimkelly.bsky.social and @hamiltonnolan.bsky.social in a conversation led by @maximillianalvarez.bsky.social.
inthesetimes.com
How Labor Journalists Contend With a Constricted and Polarized Media Landscape
A conversation with Maximillian Alvarez, Hamilton Nolan, Kim Kelly and Alex Press on the state of organized worker’s movements, unions and reporting in the age of AI.
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Reposted by Alex Press
Rebecca Williams @rebeccawilliams.info · 20/07/2026
such a beautiful answer to: What does a candidate who is great at organizing do after they get elected?
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Alex Press @alexnpress.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
New in @jacobinmag.bsky.social: The Mamdani administration is launching an initiative to help build tenant unions.
jacobin.com
Zohran Mamdani’s City Hall Wants to Build Tenant Unions
A new New York City initiative, led by Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s Office of Mass Engagement, will send volunteer organizers into neglected buildings to help tenants organize, testing the role government c...
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Alex Press @alexnpress.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
ICYMI on the situation that led to this
jacobin.com
Who Monitors the UAW’s Federal Monitor?
Shawn Fain’s reform administration in the United Auto Workers now finds itself locked in conflict with a federal anti-corruption monitor that Fain says is overstepping his bounds — including in opposi...
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Reposted by Alex Press
Los Angeles Review of Books @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
“The genocide in Gaza hit Hollywood as a political issue, but it also played out as a labor question: in auditions canceled, projects endlessly stalled, careers ended.” lareviewofbooks.org/article/hollywo…
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Reposted by Alex Press
Jacobin @jacobinmag.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
Nearly 5,000 workers packed Labor Notes’ biennial conference outside Chicago last week. The mood was sober, the challenges immense, and the appetite for organizing as large as ever.
jacobin.com
No Illusions and No Retreat for Union Militants at Labor Notes
Nearly 5,000 workers packed Labor Notes’ biennial conference outside Chicago last week. The mood was sober, the challenges immense, and the appetite for organizing as large as ever.
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Reposted by Alex Press
Labor Notes @labornotes.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
Read the full piece in @jacobinmag.bsky.social by @alexnpress.bsky.social jacobin.com/2026/06/labo... 6/6
jacobin.com
No Illusions and No Retreat for Union Militants at Labor Notes
Nearly 5,000 workers packed Labor Notes’ biennial conference outside Chicago last week. The mood was sober, the challenges immense, and the appetite for organizing as large as ever.
0101
Reposted by Alex Press
Jacobin @jacobinmag.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
Shawn Fain’s reform administration in the United Auto Workers now finds itself locked in conflict with a federal anti-corruption monitor that Fain says is overstepping his bounds — including in opposing the union’s stance against Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
jacobin.com
Who Monitors the UAW’s Federal Monitor?
Shawn Fain’s reform administration in the United Auto Workers now finds itself locked in conflict with a federal anti-corruption monitor that Fain says is overstepping his bounds — including in opposing the union’s stance against Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
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Reposted by Alex Press
Labor Notes @labornotes.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
“This year’s conference included the largest Amazon contingent in Labor Notes history, around two hundred warehouse workers and delivery drivers.” 1/6
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In These Times @inthesetimes.com · 23/06/2026
The Oakland People’s Arms Embargo campaign argues that the city’s publicly owned airport should not facilitate shipments of weapons components to Israel. @alexnpress.bsky.social reports on the workers and organizers challenging Oakland’s role in the global war logistics chain.
inthesetimes.com
The Planes Across the Tarmac
At a civilian airport in a progressive city, the machinery of global war meets the question of who controls infrastructure.
02910
Reposted by Alex Press
Alex Press @alexnpress.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
good week of checking in with legends
jacobin.com
Amy Goodman and Democracy Now! vs. Mainstream Media
The new documentary Steal This Story, Please! shows how Amy Goodman helped build Democracy Now! into an independent outlet with a mass audience. We spoke to Goodman and director Tia Lessin about the f...
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Reposted by Alex Press
Alex Press @alexnpress.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
sat down with a legend
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Alex Press @alexnpress.bsky.social · 21/06/2026
also ICYMI! lot going on in this one
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Alex Press @alexnpress.bsky.social · 21/06/2026
fun convo at @inthesetimes.com!
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Reposted by Alex Press
Ben Nelson @bennelson.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
Nearly 5,000 workers packed Labor Notes’ biennial conference outside Chicago last week. The mood was sober, the challenges immense, and the appetite for organizing as large as ever. jacobin.com/2026/06/labo...
jacobin.com
No Illusions and No Retreat for Union Militants at Labor Notes
Nearly 5,000 workers packed Labor Notes’ biennial conference outside Chicago last week. The mood was sober, the challenges immense, and the appetite for organizing as large as ever.
06828
Alex Press @alexnpress.bsky.social · 21/06/2026
ICYMI: for @jacobinmag.bsky.social, thoughts on this year’s @labornotes.bsky.social conference
jacobin.com
No Illusions and No Retreat for Union Militants at Labor Notes
Nearly 5,000 workers packed Labor Notes’ biennial conference outside Chicago last week. The mood was sober, the challenges immense, and the appetite for organizing as large as ever.
0184