"Overall, Japanese workers are spending an average of 11 percent more time to earn the same salary they were bringing home about 20 years ago, and some are working unpaid overtime on top of that. Many workers are having to do two or more jobs to make ends meet. Some people are working 70-hour weeks out of multiple jobs. According to Lancers research, some 4.5 million full-time workers in Japan have second jobs, where they work, on average, between six and 14 additional hours each week, on top of any overtime hours they clock at their primary job; a small number of them work up to 30 or 40 hours per week at their second jobs. Under Abe, average annual working hours per employee fell, but only because many of the new workers were part-time or temporary – and Japan’s annual working hours remain one of the highest in the world."

"[...] the real purpose of Abenomics was to raise the profitability of Japanese capitalism, at the expense of labour. That was the third arrow of Abenomics: the so-called ‘structural reforms’ ie reducing the cost of production by deregulating the labour market, privatising and cutting taxes on profits etc. These measures aimed to help boost the rate of exploitation and the profitability of capital in Japan. Abe cut corporate profit taxes sharply – Trump-style and he hiked employee social security contributions to reduce the burden for employers."

https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2020/08/31/abenomics-a-review/

A great read

https://newrepublic.com/article/159210/unemployment-numbers-coronavirus-stock-market

"I like to think this is what a fem­i­nist city might look like, where food, chores, safe­ty and clean­li­ness become even­ly dis­trib­uted pri­or­i­ties, where the well-being of every­one — espe­cial­ly the most mar­gin­al­ized — becomes a col­lec­tive respon­si­bil­i­ty."

https://inthesetimes.com/article/feminist-city-leslie-kern-new-york-city-abolition-park

"The vision of bureaucracy from the perspective of those who are subjects of bureaucracy is simply: paperwork. There is a thing I need, and I cannot get it unless I fill out a million incomprehensible forms. There is something I have done wrong, in the eyes of the state, and in order to correct it, I must perform a series of bizarre tasks, like a rat in an experiment. Miniscule irregularities in my compliance with these administrative rituals confer immense power on the bureaucrat tasked with evaluating me: such an error gives that bureaucrat untrammeled license to reject my request if they so choose. If the fictional face of the bureaucrat is Leslie Knope, the fictional face of the bureaucratic subject is Josef K., the protagonist of Kafka’s The Trial, who finds himself trapped between a nebulous court and a shadowy Committee of Affairs as he struggles to navigate something he knows only as “the process.”"

currentaffairs.org/2020/09/enduring-the-bureaucracy/

"It doesn’t seem that long ago that young people were being lectured to ‘stop being so disengaged’ and ‘start getting involved.’ Now they get told ‘no, not like that.’ Discussions in newspapers and news studios, whether about Black Lives Matter, essential workers striking over poor safety and low pay, or young climate justice campaigners, involve ‘friendly advice’ to activists to ‘tone it down’ and ‘be less demanding’ - to be less in the way. Such complaints often include references to history: ‘why can’t they be more like the protestors of yesteryear - you know, the uncontroversial ones?’"

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/transformation/history-gives-us-reason-hope-inequality-can-be-beaten/

"Consider Johnson & Johnson. Internal company documents have revealed that the company knew since at least 1957 that its talc-based powders could be contaminated with asbestos, a possible carcinogen, for which there is no known safe level of exposure. Despite these concerns, the company pushed these products in the United States and beyond, specifically targeting Black and Brown women. The company’s marketing plans included a race-based distribution model, moving baby powder samples through churches and beauty salons in African American and Latino neighborhoods, and seeking marketing agencies specializing in promotions to “ethnic consumers.”"

https://truthout.org/articles/decoding-corporate-spin-of-black-lives-matter/

CW: suicide.

If you've ever had suicidal thoughts, this might help a bit. Also, therapy.

currentaffairs.org/2020/09/why-you-matter/

"QAnon can be the only logical outcome of the growth of right-wing populism, affective networks of paranoia, and the laissez-faire approach to content moderation"

"In some way, the QAnon conspiracy isn’t appealing because it’s a coherent narrative but because it’s a grab-bag of moral panics that have all been squashed together to create a rat-king conspiracy that contains multitudes"

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/countering-radical-right/qanon-has-gone-fringe-conspiracy-full-blown-cult/

"Kooper Caraway, the newly elected president of the South Dakota AFL-CIO, sees his stated duty to improve the lot of the American working class as more of a calling. Born in Alabama and raised in Texas, the 29-year-old son of a German-American truck driver and a Native American retail worker became aware of the inequities of social class at an early age. Caraway knows all too well what it’s like to suffer for lack of basic resources, let alone luxuries. He’s “been to jail a lot,” he notes, thanks to his years of political activism. When he was still a boy and his family’s water got cut off, he’d be forced to sneak over to a neighbor’s yard to surreptitiously fill up empty milk jugs so he could shower in the morning before school. Now he is the country’s youngest state federation president within the AFL-CIO, and he aims to shake up the nation’s creaking labor bureaucracy in a big way."

https://newrepublic.com/article/159194/future-labor-growing-south-dakota

OPINION: The United States needs a powerful, intersectional labor movement - Indiana Daily Student
https://www.idsnews.com/article/2020/09/opinion-the-united-states-needs-a-powerful-intersectional-labor-movement

The 10 proposals are quite interesting. (Also, this is not an endorsement of Biden)

https://theintercept.com/2020/09/01/biden-economic-policy-us-economy/