Seth Sandronsky
I'm a Sacramento-based writer.
Seth Sandronsky is a freelance journalist writing for Comstock's magazine, CounterPunch, Nonprofit Quarterly, The Progressive Populist, Sacramento Business Journal and Solving Sacramento.
The Progressive Populist
Walk This Way: Reviewing Anne Braden’s Letters, Speeches and Writings
Anne Braden (1924-2006) was a freedom fighter in the US South. She talked and walked left. Ben Wilkins’ book “Anne Braden Speaks” (Monthly Review Press 2022) is a collection of her path-breaking advocacy to form a mass movement to challenge and transcend the economic system and its handmaiden of the color line, e.g., Jim Crow and white supremacy.
The book under review has an Introduction, three parts and an Index. In part one, we read a thoughtful letter that Braden penned to Rev. Dr. Martin ...
The Progressive Populist
Facts Against Industrial Farming
Rob Wallace is an evolutionary epidemiologist who writes for the layperson. His “Big farms make big flu: dispatches on infectious disease, agribusiness, and the nature of science” (Monthly Review Press 2016) is a guide to making sense of the world. To this end, he unpacks food and health, economics and politics, as a totality.
His totalizing angle is not, of course, a mainstream view of science and the society in which it operates. With the aim of making clear what is unclear in a mainstream ...
The Progressive Populist
Closing California Prisons Will Save Taxpayers Money, Budget Watchdog Agency Reports
A nonpartisan fiscal watchdog agency that advises the California Legislature is calling for closure of five additional state prisons to help reduce the state budget deficit, the gap between spending and income. The Golden State operates 34 prisons currently.
Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom declined a reporter’s request for comment on the issue of closing five more state prisons. We return to the California watchdog agency that recommends state prison closures.
“The Governor proposes reductio...
mtdemocrat.com
California unemployment rate ticks up to 5.2% as employers add 58,000 jobs
(The Center Square) - California employers added 58,100 nonfarm payroll jobs in January compared with 23,400 in December, but the Golden State’s unemployment rate rose to 5.2%, up slightly from December’s 5.1%, according to the Employment Development Department (EDD). This
employment data comes from the survey week including January 12.
CounterPunch
Book It: Reading About Heterodox Economics
March 8, 2024
Opinion polls show that Americans want humane policies and politics. To this end, two recent books from Monthly Review Press on heterodox economics shed light on injuries of social class and progressive next steps.
Michael D. Yates is the author of “Work Work Work: Labor, Alienation and Class Struggle” (2022). The editorial director of Monthly Review Press, Yates centers working people in the pages of this book.
Everybody works, but, to paraphrase Marx, under conditions alien to...
nonprofitquarterly.org
How Freelance Journalists Are Moving from Precarity to Solidarity
A new US Department of Labor rule restores protections for misclassified workers and could help reduce the precarious status of freelance journalists, according to Samantha Sanders of the Economic Policy Institute. These protections are sorely needed in an industry buffeted by layoffs. Now, freelance workers are organizing to make sure that needed reforms like the new DOL rule stick.
The perilous conditions faced by newspaper staff these days are well-known. In 2023, through November, there w...
The Progressive Populist
Langston Hughes and Language of Human Liberation
Langston Hughes (1902-1967) was a great American poet. However, he did not stop there. Jonathan Scott’s new Socialist Joy in the Writing of Langston Hughes helps us to take pleasure in his originality and productivity.
“I’ve been obsessed by the relation between the individual and the collective,” writes Scott, a Detroit native. To this end, he illuminates Hughes’ patterns of poetry and prose as organic ingredients of social actions in the United States and abroad at that time in history. Our...
CounterPunch
A World Away?
January 26, 2024
Our 24/7 reliance on technology plays a big role in “Leave the World Behind,” a film streaming on Netflix now. Set in Long Island, the film stars Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke and Mahershala Ali.
Roberts and Hawke are the parents of a teenage daughter and son. Roberts is the alpha of the married couple, members of the professional managerial class who no doubt vote for Democrats.
Oh, she hates people. Her occupation in the corporate world explains in part this hatred of others.
...
The Progressive Populist
The Changing Face of Catholic Health Care
Q&A with Sister Doris Gottemoeller
Sister Doris Gottemoeller was a high school chemistry and math teacher before entering religious life. In that capacity, she has played an instrumental role in the growth of Catholic health care. For example, Sister Doris contributed to the establishment of the Mercy Health hospital system.
Seth Sandronsky: Who were your role models growing up?
Sister Doris: I grew up in Cleveland, the oldest of four daughters. I guess my role models were my parents, who dem...
thecentersquare.com
California’s unemployment climbs to 5.1%, employers add 23,400 nonfarm new hires
(The Center Square) – California’s unemployment rate in December climbed to 5.1% from November’s 4.9%, a rise of 0.2 percentage points, while employers registered a month-over increase of 23,400 nonfarm jobs, according to the Golden State’s Employment Development Department.
“We are continuing with the pattern of recent months,” Professor Jeffrey Michael, director of public policy programs at University of the Pacific, told The Center Square in an email. “The survey of business payrolls shows...
thecentersquare.com
Private employers hire 164,000 new workers in December; pay growth slows
(The Center Square) – Leisure and hospitality hiring led the way in December as U.S. private sector employers added 164,000 new hires compared with a revised downward 101,000 in November.
The news was released in an ADP National Employment Report, done in collaboration with the Stanford Digital Economy Lab.
“We're returning to a labor market that's very much aligned with pre-pandemic hiring,” said Nela Richardson, ADP’s chief economist, in a statement. “While wages didn't drive the recent bou...
thecentersquare.com
California’s unemployment rate climbs to 4.9%, as job growth slows
(The Center Square) – California’s unemployment rate rose to 4.9% in November, up 0.1 percentage points from October, as employers registered a month-over increase of 9,300 new hires versus October’s downward revised month-over gain of 34,500 jobs, according to the California Employment Development Department (EDD).
“With a modest gain in payroll jobs,” Professor Jeffrey Michael director, public policy programs at University of the Pacific, told The Center Square via email, “and an uptick in ...
thecentersquare.com
Private employers hire 103,000 new workers in November; pay growth decelerates
(The Center Square) – U.S. private-sector employers added 103,000 new hires in November versus 106,000 workers in October, according to Nov.’s ADP® National Employment Report, a collaboration with the Stanford Digital Economy Lab.
Consider what is occurring in a slice of service sector employment.
“Restaurants and hotels were the biggest job creators during the post-pandemic recovery,” said Nela Richardson, ADP’s chief economist, said in a statement. “But that boost is behind us, and the retu...
thecentersquare.com
California’s unemployment rate rises to 4.8% as job growth increases
(The Center Square) – California’s October unemployment rate rose to 4.8%, up 0.1 percentage point from September, while employers registered a month-over increase of 40,200 new hires versus 8,700 in September, according to the California Employment Development Department (EDD). The Golden State has added 3,236,900 new hires for an average monthly gain of 77,069 jobs since April 2020, the beginning of the current economic expansion.
October’s employment data comes from the survey week includi...
The Progressive Populist
Pfizer Grows by Merging with Seagen
Big and growing bigger via innovative product lines is one way to see the proposed $43 billion merger of two biotech companies, Pfizer (PFE.N) and Seagen (SGEN.O), both based in the US, announced in March.
To analyze that proposed corporate structure, we turn to Robin Feldman, the Arthur J. Goldberg Distinguished Professor of Law, Albert Abramson ’54 Distinguished Professor of Law Chair and Director of the Center for Innovation at UC Hastings in San Francisco, Calif.
“For large pharma compani...