I recently viewed two news sources online one alternative news source and one mainstream. The alternative news source that I chose is from a website known as Labor notes. The mainstream news site that I chose to compare it to was our famous New York Times. Initially I viewed the New York Times because I knew off the bat that a majority of the press would be based on corporate businesses and not middle class, low income workers. Unfortunately, our press is run by capitalists as Mr. Thomas Eland simply puts it, in his article “Critical Thinking Deviant Knowledge“. Eland explains, “The business section is consciously aimed at the upper-middle and upper classes of American society, and a lifestyles section targets people with significant disposable income.” (pg 5). Currently in the New York Times business section I see stories such as the well known company Apple dealing with back taxes regarding Ireland and a article based on other major companies known as Amazon and Pandora offering music streaming for as low as $5 a month.
Although these stories may be interesting to read, where are the articles on low income workers and those struggling to find decent or even high paying jobs in today’s economy? When I viewed labornotes.org, I saw multiple articles based on the struggle of our lower classes in today’s society. For example, an article that I chose from this alternative press site was “Organizing gets fashionable: Zara workers beat the odds” by Sonia Singh. This article speaks of the strike that occurred in Manhattan against this particular highly recognized clothing store. The employees from different Zara locations complained about their unfair treatment and demanded to be unionized. According to Singh, “Retail organizing has drawn national attention with the Fight for 15 movement and Walmart worker strikes. But despite the slogan “$15 and a union,” the goal of widespread unionization seems far off”. So see, it is stories like these that are just as important but are least to hardly recognized at all thanks to corporate and capitalist domination.
http://labornotes.org/2016/08/organizing-gets-fashionable-zara-workers-beat-odds