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Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein

@robinks.com
881 followers 207 following 47 posts

Freelance journalist (NYT, Baffler, etc) / Writing a book about the American workplace for Harper Books / Newsletter of updates: eepurl.com/dxpAjT / robinks.com /

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Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein @robinks.com · 11/09/2026
I've been using Edelweiss for years to find books to review and it is surreal to see my book in the listings! @harperbooks.bsky.social #tyrannyatwork
screenshot of my book, Tyranny at Work, in the publisher's listing for Edelweiss Above the Treeline
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Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein @robinks.com · 26/08/2026
Teachers not only educate our kids but they free parents to work, almost single-handedly enabling our modern work of work. The fact they make up to a quarter less is shameful.
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Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein @robinks.com · 26/08/2026
More than anything, without lists, Twitter is an impossible tool for news gathering and I really can't use it anymore for anything related to the work of journalism.
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Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein @robinks.com · 18/08/2026
crazy
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Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein @robinks.com · 05/08/2026
love to see it
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David_j_roth @davidjroth.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Like many people who have worked in politics for decades, I am baffled and upset to see candidates who say they are going to try to make things better defeating candidates who say they are trying to make it more or less like it was in the years before things tipped over into Oaf-Style Fascism.
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Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein @robinks.com · 24/06/2026
Excited to say book my "Tyranny at Work: Unfreedom and the American Workplace" is now officially due out spring 2027 and available for pre-order. bookshop.org/a/125307/978... #antiwork #unions #antimonopoly
bookshop.org
Tyranny at Work
Check out Tyranny at Work - <p><strong>In the tradition of Barbara Ehrenreich and David Graeber, journalist Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein exposes the hidden authoritarianism of the American workplace&#8212;...
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Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein @robinks.com · 17/06/2026
Check out the new cover for my new book 'Tyranny at Work: Unfreedom and the American Workplace' due out April 2027 from Harper Books
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Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein @robinks.com · 20/04/2026
i'll take shock theater if it means creating broad prosperity
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Bryce Covert @brycecovert.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
Beyond it being exciting to see an important policy being made real in NYC, the other groundbreaking thing about Mamdani loudly and doggedly supporting universal childcare is that it's not coming from a woman or even a parent. It's being championed by a childless man.
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Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein @robinks.com · 08/04/2026
Once upon a time, people with college degrees turned their noses up at unions. Today, the professional-managerial class has turned heel, embraced solidarity, and flocked to labor. Why? I wrote about Noam Scheiber's new book for @newrepublic.com newrepublic.com/article/2087...
newrepublic.com
The Disillusioned College Grads Turning to the Labor Movement
At workplaces from Starbucks to Apple, highly educated downwardly mobile young people are organizing for better conditions.
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Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein @robinks.com · 19/03/2026
1/ As I reported my book, I noticed something that has completely changed American life: widespread chronic under-staffing. It leads to, among other things, deadly medication errors at pharmacies, flight delays, messy stores, and the crime wave. From me @prospect.org prospect.org/2026/03/19/u...
prospect.org
Not Enough Workers for the Job - The American Prospect
Understaffing has become an epidemic in American workplaces of all kinds.
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Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein @robinks.com · 19/03/2026
1/ As I reported my book, I noticed something that has completely changed American life: widespread chronic under-staffing. It leads to, among other things, deadly medication errors at pharmacies, flight delays, messy stores, and the crime wave. From me @prospect.org prospect.org/2026/03/19/u...
prospect.org
Not Enough Workers for the Job - The American Prospect
Understaffing has become an epidemic in American workplaces of all kinds.
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
Great piece from @robinks.com on an underrated epidemic in modern America: understaffing. From nursing homes to retail, railroads to air traffic control, nobody hires enough people for the job anymore. prospect.org/2026/03/19/u...
prospect.org
Not Enough Workers for the Job - The American Prospect
Understaffing has become an epidemic in American workplaces of all kinds.
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
Shorter Jason Furman: it used to be that the tech industry was dominated by only five companies. But AI has changed all that: now there's open competition from five whole companies!
Five years ago, worries about sparse digital competition were well founded. A handful of giants — Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta and Microsoft — dominated the tech economy. Most major product categories had only two or three serious competitors, such as search (Google and Microsoft’s Bing) and mobile operating systems (Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android). When new markets like cloud computing emerged, incumbents quickly took control.There are no lazy monopolists in the A.I. space coasting on past advantages. Over the past year, the top spot on the Arena leaderboard has moved among those three companies, with strong performances from newer arrivals such as the Chinese company DeepSeek and the French firm Mistral — many of which require far less capital than earlier generations of A.I. companies.
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Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein @robinks.com · 26/02/2026
This is AI-as-management
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Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
Part of the problem here is a long-standing issue of mine: The public gets a huge benefit from beat journalism—but the journalism industry does not, by and large, recognize beat journalism for its value or when it comes to awards and prizes. Those go to investigations and "one big thing" features.
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Joshua Erlich @joshuaerlich.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
I’m not going to get into this again but the defund the police critique remains complete bullshit yes we can was nonspecific lock her up doesn’t lay out why or for what make america great again couldn’t be less specific this critique is pure reactionary nonsense filtered through pundits
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Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein @robinks.com · 25/02/2026
Ryszard Kapuscinski's recollections of being a 7 y/o in Poland 1939 as the Red Army was taking over and deporting people to prison camps (from his book "Imperium"). Scary flash backs to today: "In school, during breaks, or when we are returning home in a group, the talk is of deportations."
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jon ben-menachem @jbenmenachem.com · 24/02/2026
I don't really like the arguments that Zohran should be careful about opposing the NYPD because of what the NYPD did to BDB's daughter. This is all stuff that any mayoral candidate had to be aware of before taking the job. Anyone to the left of Bloomberg was going to have to take this fight
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 24/02/2026
Aliya Rahman, woman who was dragged out of car by ICE in Minneapolis: "I've spent the last month learning the names of the tendons in my shoulder, because both of my shoulders are torn -- cartilage and tendons. But what I haven't learned is the names of the people who did this to me."
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Ilhan Omar @ilhanmn.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
Donald Trump killed two of my constituents. He is a liar and should be ashamed of himself.
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Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein @robinks.com · 24/02/2026
Researcher finds that middle managers, fearful of losing their jobs to automation, pretend to use AI in order to keep their jobs. HA HA HA www.techpolicy.press/in-weak-job-...
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
new from me at @curbed.com: everyone ICE did business with in New York City last year www.curbed.com/article/ice-...
curbed.com
The ICE Contractor Down the Hall
A tour through the Midtown intelligence firms and courier services that help keep the agency running.
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Jacob Silverman @jacobsilverman.com · 16/02/2026
For Business Insider, I took a look an emergent literary form: the AI company resignation letter. www.businessinsider.com/resignation-...
businessinsider.com
Tech workers in a fierce competition to write the best resignation letters
What we can learn from the flood of "why I quit" letters from researchers at Anthropic, OpenAI, and xAI.
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Gizmodo @gizmodo.com · 23/02/2026
AI Added 'Basically Zero' to US Economic Growth Last Year, Goldman Sachs Says gizmodo.com/ai-added-basically-zero…
gizmodo.com
AI Added 'Basically Zero' to US Economic Growth Last Year, Goldman Sachs Says
Imported chips and hardware mean the AI investemtns are translating into US GDP growth.
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Ed Burmila @edburmila.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
I read Gavin Newsom‘s memoir so that you don’t have to. Suffice it to say the book does not achieve what it sets out to do and I’m looking forward to everyone on bluesky being extremely normal on this subject.
newrepublic.com
Gavin Newsom’s Struggle For Everyman Cred
“Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery” tries to recast a life of privilege in often baffling ways.
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Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein @robinks.com · 23/02/2026
A lot of people were probably hoping for the Trump administration v 1.0 in which they spent three years just trying to fill basic appointment and only passed a tax cut. I think people prefer a president who does nothing.
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Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein @robinks.com · 23/02/2026
I would love to see the pro-natalist Silicon Valley types respond to the fact that a family with two kids needs to make over $400k to comfortably afford childcare (under 7% of income). www.lendingtree.com/debt-consoli...
lendingtree.com
Households With 2 Kids Need to Earn Average of $402,708 to Comfortably Afford Child Care
Families don’t make enough on average to afford child care for two children, according to government benchmarks.
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Clara Jeffery @clarajeffery.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
This is seriously fucked up taskandpurpose.com/news/army-wa...
The Army will soon have senior warrant officers bid against each other in an eBay-style auction for retention bonuses and six-year service commitments. Soldiers who agree to take a “minimum” bonus can cash in, while those who ask for larger ones will lose out, Army officials announced in a recent press release.

Dubbed the “Warrant Officer Retention Bonus Auction,” the system will debut in March, an Army official said Friday. In the news release, Army officials said the new system represents a “shift from traditional, fixed‑rate bonuses to a more flexible, market-driven system and that the auction encourages warrant officers to bid their “true value.”
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Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein @robinks.com · 20/02/2026
"amazon prime for human beings"
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Eunice Cho @eunicehcho.bsky.social · 20/02/2026
Concerned about ICE's $45 billion plan to convert warehouses into immigration detention centers? This is what they'll look like inside. From ICE's plan for the Social Circle, GA facility. Each little dot: a person. www.socialcirclega.gov/home/showpub...
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Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein @robinks.com · 17/02/2026
"The Trump administration has used crime as a pretext to conduct its immigration operations, even in cities where crime is lower than it’s been in decades. In Memphis, it was at a 25-year low before the task force began." fantastic report @motherjones.com www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
motherjones.com
I'm a veteran criminal justice reporter. I've never seen anything like ICE-occupied Memphis.
“It’s about as sad as you can possibly imagine."
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Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein @robinks.com · 20/02/2026
"Today, New York City’s rental market is defined by two colliding forces: tenants’ need for affordable rents, and landlords’ need to repay their creditors. Only public ownership offers an escape from the mounting pressure." Fantastic! @jwmason.bsky.social www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/aft...
phenomenalworld.org
After the Rent Freeze | JW Mason
The cost of affordable housing in New York City
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Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein @robinks.com · 19/02/2026
Police funding is out of control in America, and that's the problem with ICE and the insane number of cops in American cities. We need to stop trying to reform police and just slash their budgets so there are not like 3,000 cops in Minneapolis for no reason. "Defund the police" is common sense
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Terri Gerstein @terrigerstein.bsky.social · 19/02/2026
Great piece: @brendanballou.bsky.social describes revolting rampant impunity for pardoned Trump donors who've stolen from workers & investors. But as he notes, Trump can only pardon federal crimes. State & local prosecutors are critical for accountability & justice. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/18/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | One Man Stole $660 Million. He’ll Never Pay It Back.
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Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein @robinks.com · 18/02/2026
I'm not going to die on a hill defending the Fed but as a journalist covering economics for many years, I have never ever heard a government official say this about Fed research before.
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Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein @robinks.com · 17/02/2026
When you have a Burger King franchisee violating child labor laws 1,600 times in regards to 600 kids, there's definitely a larger systemic problem. www.wpr.org/news/wiscons...
wpr.org
Wisconsin accuses Burger King franchise operator of thousands of child labor violations
The state's Department of Workforce Development is ordering the operator of more than 100 Wisconsin-based Burger King restaurants to pay back $237,437 in wages owed to teen employees.
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Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein @robinks.com · 17/02/2026
“Oregon’s results confirm what we saw in New York: When you cover the real cost of shared housing directly for two years — and pair it with support — young people stay housed” www.oregonlive.com/politics/202...
oregonlive.com
Oregon tried giving homeless youth $1,000 a month with no strings attached. Here’s what happened
The program helped 94% of participants secure housing while building financial literacy skills that could break the cycle of homelessness.
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Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein @robinks.com · 17/02/2026
Generally, I agree that liberals don't know how to talk about parenting in a positive sense and often they rely on econometric or overly rational reasons, but what is the reason to have kids?? Piece doesn't say www.newyorker.com/news/fault-l...
newyorker.com
How Liberals Talk About Children
Many left-leaning, middle-class Americans speak of kids as though they are impositions, or means to an end.
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Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein @robinks.com · 17/02/2026
"The Trump administration has used crime as a pretext to conduct its immigration operations, even in cities where crime is lower than it’s been in decades. In Memphis, it was at a 25-year low before the task force began." fantastic report @motherjones.com www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
motherjones.com
I'm a veteran criminal justice reporter. I've never seen anything like ICE-occupied Memphis.
“It’s about as sad as you can possibly imagine."
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Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein @robinks.com · 12/02/2026
"David Frum was right: if Democrats acted more like Republicans, they would win 100% of elections!"
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Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein @robinks.com · 12/02/2026
feels a lot like the "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" banner behind George Bush in 2003
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Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein @robinks.com · 12/02/2026
The fact this guy has to assert ICE is legitimate at all shows how incredibly unpopular and foolish ICE and CBP enforcement is. What a fuckin disaster
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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
now that's the power of a union
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Rick Perlstein @rickperlstein.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
Best part of this, by the great @dankaufman70.bsky.social, transcends its specific, and also crucial, subject matter: how timorous institutionalist in the anti-Trump coalition get challenged by young people (here, a caucus called "FUN"!) itching for a fight. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/27/m...
nytimes.com
‘The Biggest Act of Union-Busting in U.S. History’: Trump’s War on Federal Workers
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Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein @robinks.com · 05/02/2026
what a stat
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Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein @robinks.com · 05/02/2026
From reporting on ICE, I found too much attention is being paid to the bonus' that agent receive for signing up and agents incompetence. The problems with ICE is the problem with policing in general: arrest first, question later; racial targeting; horrible incentives; violence; impunity.
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