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Michael Maffie

@maffie.bsky.social
1.6K followers 1.1K following 121 posts

Assistant Professor | Labor Relations, Platform Work | Developer, Coauthor Project (coauthor.fly.dev)

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Michael Maffie @maffie.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
The owners interpret the CBA as requiring guaranteed money to be put into escrow. How much do you think this influences the Steelers policy re: guaranteed money?
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Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
New: The National Science Foundation is preparing to claw back some $500 million in funds from some of its core science programs in physics, math, computer science, and engineering in order to fund a project from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
nature.com
NSF plans cuts to core science programmes to fund White House initiative
A proposed clawback of already distributed research funds comes as the US agency’s budget is already squeezed and it struggling to clear a backlog of grant applications.
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Michael Maffie @maffie.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
It seems like the assumption should be that external partnerships, especially those from interested parties, will undermine scientific research and the burden of proof is on authors to clearly and unambiguously show their impartiality.
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Konstantin Bogatyrev @bogatyrev.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
Thanks for sharing, Will! Personal stats are important, but please consider also submitting data to coauthor.fly.dev
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Michael Maffie @maffie.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
So you’re becoming a publisher?
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Michael Maffie @maffie.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
Not yet, but didn’t we promise the federal government that we’d spend an additional $30M to ‘strengthen’ US agriculture…?
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Anna Stansbury @annastansbury.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
📢New WP: Minimum Wages and Workplace Injuries Using California state and local minimum wage increases 2000-2019, we find minimum wage hikes increase workplace injury rates for low-wage workers. A plausible mechanism is work intensification 🧵 w/ @rjisungpark.bsky.social & Michael Davies
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Steven P Vallas @spvallas.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
Labor scholars and students of the platform economy will want to check out my review of Kathleen Thelen's new book, *Attention Shoppers! American Retail Capitalism and the Origins of the Amazon Economy* Herewith the link: www.wipsociology.org Recommended!
wipsociology.org
Work in Progress
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The New York Times @nytimes.com · 24/02/2026
In @nytopinion.nytimes.com “There are several interesting candidates in the campaign for the 12th District,” our columnist Michelle Goldberg writes. “But only Bores gives voters the opportunity to defeat the tech oligarchs unleashing tsunamis of cash to buy political submission.”
nyti.ms
Opinion | New York Democrats Have a Chance to Vote Against the A.I. Oligarchs
There’s a huge political opportunity for the party that can stand up for human beings in the face of A.I.
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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
NSF Update Funding curve overall. A little bit of progress in the past week, but only a little bit. Now by Directorate... 1/11
A line curve showing number of awards for fiscal year 2026 compared to fiscal years 2021-2025 across NSF. The fiscal year 2026 curve lies well below curves for other fiscal years.
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Isabel M. Perera @isabelmperera.bsky.social · 18/02/2026
Great new tool from @maffie.bsky.social ! Let’s make academic publishing more transparent 🙌
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Michael Maffie @maffie.bsky.social · 18/02/2026
Coauthor update: we're now on Firefox! 🦊 Help make the academic publishing world a little more transparent by using our research lab's plugin. It's automatic: once you sign in, the software takes care of the rest. The app will even calculate your publishing stats for you! coauthor.fly.dev
coauthor.fly.dev
Coauthor
Share your manuscript peer review experiences and discover fair and efficient journals to publish your work in.
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Michael Maffie @maffie.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
That's the competitive adv of scirev: it's platform agnostic. Coauthor has to be updated for each journal portal (and sometimes their design changes).
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Michael Maffie @maffie.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
We’ve been taking about how to integrate those data. One challenge is that scirev is self-entered, whereas Coauthor calculates all the relevant information automatically. But they also have interesting data on the RR process which would be useful.
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Konstantin Bogatyrev @bogatyrev.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
Very interesting! It would be fantastic if we started aggregating such information across scholars and time periods to get a better sense of processing times. The information asymmetries are real. Some tools like @maffie.bsky.social's plugin can be of use if people start submitting data there.
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Michael Maffie @maffie.bsky.social · 09/12/2025
LLMs have robbed so much joy from grading. I used to love when students would turn in a polished, thoughtful final paper. Now I wonder if I'm actually reading their work...and start looking for the em dashes.
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Michael Maffie @maffie.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
AI has all the signs of something that could lead to labor legislation reform: rapid technical change, significant (negative) impacts on workers/the middle class, with the potential for a few in society to capture the overwhelming majority of gains. /end
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Michael Maffie @maffie.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
The disparity in wealth and degrading labor conditions gave rise to industrial unions. Furthermore, comparative industrial relations work has shown that the middle class plays a key role in shaping labor law because they have the political clout and resources to demand greater protections. /3
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Michael Maffie @maffie.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
100 years is a long pattern, but past instances of technical change are instructive: the industrial revolution did not raise workers' incomes for nearly 100 years. While some became very wealthy, the middle class witnessed extended working hours and degrading labor conditions. /2
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Michael Maffie @maffie.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
The last time the US passed legislation expanding union rights for private sector employees, the color television was not yet sold in stores. Could AI lead to the first expansion of private sector labor rights in nearly 100 years? 1/ www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...
washingtonpost.com
The future of white-collar work may be unionized
Law firms, banks and tech companies are seeing an uptick in employees choosing to join unions.
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Michael Maffie @maffie.bsky.social · 01/11/2025
Public sector employees are prohibited from striking, so they will sometimes call out en masse citing sickness - called catching the “blue flu” (named for police departments that would call out sick to put pressure on cities during collective bargaining). abcnews.go.com/US/delays-sa...
abcnews.go.com
80% of NYC-area air traffic controllers absent amid 'surge' in callouts: FAA
Staffing shortages snarled flights at a slew of major airports on Friday.
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Michael Maffie @maffie.bsky.social · 23/10/2025
Looks like the computer science undergrads are about to get a lot of free food.
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Michael Maffie @maffie.bsky.social · 22/10/2025
And how private companies will step in to provide data to their preferred researchers. Gig companies did this with great success — no doubt AI companies will do the same. qz.com/1367800/uber...
qz.com
Uber’s secret weapon is its team of economists
It’s hard to explain just how much economists love Uber.
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Michael Maffie @maffie.bsky.social · 14/10/2025
Given the owners deep concerns about competitive balance, how about this? Research finds that distributing non-gate revenue based on team performance and reducing the time to free agency will both increase competitive balance in MLB. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
A quote from a study on competitive balance in MLB indicating that redistributing non-gate revenue based on on-field performance will increase competitive balance in MLBa quote from an academic study on competitive balance in professional sports that says reducing the time to free agency will increase competitive balance in MLB
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Michael Maffie @maffie.bsky.social · 13/10/2025
The PBA collective agreement expired in July. If Mamdani wins, Adams can sign a new contract giving the PBA whatever it wants — just as Trump did with ICE after the 2020 election.
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Michael Maffie @maffie.bsky.social · 12/10/2025
I tend to think of social media as a never ending academic conference: people can promote their work, network, brand build, etc. It’s both a new form of labor and, as you point out, created an alternative job market signal outside of disciplinary structures.
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Michael Maffie @maffie.bsky.social · 03/10/2025
"Every aspect of it seeks to dictate decisions that have traditionally been left to each university — a degree of control over higher education that is characteristic of authoritarian countries." www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | Trump’s ‘Compact’ With Universities Is Just Extortion
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Michael Maffie @maffie.bsky.social · 04/09/2025
For example, making a digital platform increasingly awful for gig workers. #labor onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
The Enshittification of Work: Platform Decay and Labour Conditions in the Gig Economy
This study investigates the mechanisms by which gig platforms degrade labour conditions over time, building on the concept of platform decay, or ‘enshittification’, initially developed in the context...
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Michael Maffie @maffie.bsky.social · 04/09/2025
My lab is crowdsourcing journal review times to increase transparency in academic publishing. If this journal is on Manuscript Central, would you upload it to the Coauthor project website? coauthor.fly.dev Thanks!
coauthor.fly.dev
Coauthor
Web site created using Vite
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Michael Maffie @maffie.bsky.social · 25/08/2025
Opening day! Here we go, Big Red! @scjohnsoncollege.bsky.social
A statue of Touchdown the bear, Cornell University’s mascot, wearing a red scarf.
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Michael Maffie @maffie.bsky.social · 24/08/2025
I think this is right. Tech elites have largely insulated themselves from the economic consequences of their actions. Yet they are deeply bothered by social pressure, criticism, or isolation. So they use money to shape culture (eg influence elections, buy social media platforms, etc.).
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Michael Maffie @maffie.bsky.social · 14/08/2025
My lab built the Coauthor plugin to help people make informed decisions about how long they will wait for a manuscript decision. Would you be willing to upload your manuscript data from this journal? coauthor.fly.dev
coauthor.fly.dev
Coauthor
Web site created using Vite
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Michael Maffie @maffie.bsky.social · 13/08/2025
I agree this is an important issue -- and the Coauthor dashboard will soon display the average number of rounds before a paper is accepted. If you have suggestions for other metrics that may be useful, let me know. We are always looking for new ways to improve the dashboard.
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Michael Maffie @maffie.bsky.social · 13/08/2025
Thanks!
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Joshua Goodman @joshua-goodman.com · 13/08/2025
Promising way to crowdsource data on academic journal decision timelines. I'm uploading my data. You can too!
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Michael Maffie @maffie.bsky.social · 13/08/2025
Stories like this are why my lab started the Coauthor Project. If this was a manuscript central submission, can you upload it to the dashboard? coauthor.fly.dev
coauthor.fly.dev
Coauthor
Web site created using Vite
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Michael Maffie @maffie.bsky.social · 06/08/2025
My memory on this is a bit fuzzy, I remember hearing that today, independent voters are more likely to vote for the same party in consecutive elections than those who identified with a party 40-ish years ago.
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Michael Maffie @maffie.bsky.social · 05/08/2025
🚨 I’m excited to announce that, “The Enshittification of Work: Platform Decay and Labour Conditions in the Gig Economy” is now available online ! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
The Enshittification of Work: Platform Decay and Labour Conditions in the Gig Economy
This study investigates the mechanisms by which gig platforms degrade labour conditions over time, building on the concept of platform decay, or ‘enshittification’, initially developed in the context...
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Niels van Doorn @nielsvdoorn.bsky.social · 05/08/2025
This is an important “long view” contribution to the gig economy/platform work scholarship. Congrats @maffie.bsky.social! I recognize many of the decay/degradation mechanisms you describe. They’re why so many seasoned gig workers have left these platforms, when possible.
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Michael Maffie @maffie.bsky.social · 05/08/2025
🚨 I’m excited to announce that, “The Enshittification of Work: Platform Decay and Labour Conditions in the Gig Economy” is now available online ! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
The Enshittification of Work: Platform Decay and Labour Conditions in the Gig Economy
This study investigates the mechanisms by which gig platforms degrade labour conditions over time, building on the concept of platform decay, or ‘enshittification’, initially developed in the context...
0208
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Reuben Binns @rdbinns.bsky.social · 24/06/2025
Len Sherman and team from Columbia business school have just released this excellent report on Uber's pricing and pay which reflects many of the same trends we observed: len-sherman.medium.com/how-uber-bec...
len-sherman.medium.com
How Uber Became A Cash-Generating Machine
Uber has achieved one of the most impressive turnarounds in recent corporate history — a $12 billion swing in free cash flow over the past…
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Steve Herman @w7voa.journa.host.ap.brid.gy · 03/08/2025
The US could see a 30-40% decline in new international student enrollment, resulting in nearly $7 billion in lost revenue and more than 60,000 fewer American jobs. www.nafsa.org/fall-2025-internation…
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Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · 31/01/2025
A new era of government censorship has begun. It started with the silencing of scientific speech, when the admin blocked release of research on bird flu. But MAGA has also cracked down on other wrongthink—on race, geography (!), and of course Trump himself www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...
washingtonpost.com
Opinion | A new era of government censorship has dawned
Donald Trump fancies himself a champion of free speech. Oh, really?
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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 25/07/2025
You should never follow any of these color charts. They are all stupid. I'll show you why. 🧵
Someone on Twitter posted a color chart for how to combine different shirts and pants.
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Isabella M. Weber @isabellamweber.bsky.social · 17/06/2025
NEW PAPER Oil, shipping, tariffs: We are back in a world of cost shocks. Our AI/LLM analysis of 138,962 corporate earnings calls shows how economy-wide cost shocks let large firms raise prices & increase profits—triggering sellers' inflation. 🧵 Open access: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
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Clara Murray @claradoodle.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
An AI slop factory apparently tried to rewrite our article about AI not replacing workers en masse, but hit the paywall... so just summarised the paywall. If this is the robot that takes my job I'll be v embarrassed
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Michael Maffie @maffie.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
Dodge? No way. Gommage.
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Michael Maffie @maffie.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
I’m curious how the trend changes in unionized universities in which there are clear standards for tenure and promotion. Seems that is likely to reduce the spike before a tenure vote but could reduce burnout immediately after.
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Michael Maffie @maffie.bsky.social · 22/07/2025
Editing an article about the enshittification of online services in Wiley's online proofing system is strangely validating.
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Michael Maffie @maffie.bsky.social · 16/07/2025
Tell me you’ve never attended a faculty meeting without telling me you’ve never attended a faculty meeting.
An excerpt from a New York Times article where the author claims that contrarianism is unnatural to human beings
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