labor Archives

PROPOSED STATE JOURNALISM COMMISSION NEEDS BROADER MEMBERSHIP

IMAGE: Sandstorm State House collage by Jason Pramas (using public domain images) More working journalists, less elite institutes Chris Faraone,* John Loftus,** and I spend a lot of time thinking about how to rebuild American journalism. Pretty much from the ground up, since so many news outlets and jobs in

JASON PRAMAS March 20, 2019

THIS IS U.S.

A community confronts stigmas hurting immigrants in America

OLIVIA MASTROSIMONE March 14, 2019

THE FALL OF THE GE BOSTON DEAL, PART II

AG Healey should form independent commission to investigate the failed agreement Last week in the first installment of this two-part column, I ran through the many problems with the January 2016 deal between General Electric, the city of Boston, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that has now collapsed for

JASON PRAMAS March 6, 2019

THE FALL OF THE GE BOSTON DEAL, PART I

The official narrative and the real story Readers might feel that this should be a time for me to take a victory lap. The GE Boston deal that I criticized from the moment it was made public in January 2016 has crashed to Earth a bit over three years later.

JASON PRAMAS February 28, 2019

PUBLIC BAD. PRIVATE GOOD?

Boston Herald’s attack on MassHousing highlights double standard in American journalism

JASON PRAMAS February 6, 2019

Inscription on the Samuel Eliot Morison statue on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston

WHO I WRITE FOR: A MEDITATION

Like pretty much every journalist, I think about who I am writing for* from time to time. Most writers aren’t just sending messages into the ether, after all. Unless they are writing for therapeutic reasons. Or they are diarists. But even diarists are typically writing for some future audience they

JASON PRAMAS January 30, 2019

WHY GATEHOUSE’S BOSTON ‘MEGACLUSTER’ IS A THREAT TO DEMOCRACY

No corporation should own most newspapers in a region In last week’s Apparent Horizon, “GateHouse Editorial Flacks for Mass Retailers,” I dissected an editorial, “The benefits of a teen minimum wage,” calling for a subminimum wage for Bay State teenage workers that turned out to have run in over two

JASON PRAMAS January 23, 2019

GATEHOUSE EDITORIAL FLACKS FOR MASS RETAILERS

Calls for undermining the rising statewide minimum wage with a subminimum wage for teens

JASON PRAMAS January 16, 2019

QUESTION 1: THE ROAD NOT TRAVELLED

A broader appeal could have resulted in a win for nurses and patients There was no way I was going to criticize Question 1, prosaically dubbed the Nurse-Patient Assignment Limits Initiative, in advance of Election Day. As a longtime labor advocate, I didn’t think it would be appropriate

JASON PRAMAS November 14, 2018

PIZZA BARONS LAY OFF 1,100: PAPA GINO’S & D’ANGELO WORKERS NEED TO ORGANIZE FOR JUSTICE

Mainstream press coverage of mass layoffs like Sunday’s shutdown of almost 100 Papa Gino’s and D’Angelo fast food restaurants generally looks upon such tragic events through a glass, darkly. Because journalism in the service of the rich and powerful is a poor reflection of reality when it comes to

JASON PRAMAS November 7, 2018