Work Won't Love You Back

by Sarah Jaffe

  41. Pein, Live Work Work Work Die, loc. 1009.

  42. Vivian Ho, “‘It’s a Crisis’: Facebook Kitchen Staff Work Multiple Jobs to Get By,” The Guardian, July 22, 2019, www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/22/facebook-cafeteria-workers-protest; Weigel, “Coders of the World, Unite”; Press, “Code Red”; Sean Captain, “How Tech Workers Became Activists, Leading a Resistance Movement That Is Shaking Up Silicon Valley,” Fast Company, October 15, 2018, www.fastcompany.com/90244860/silicon-valleys-new-playbook-for-tech-worker-led-resistance.

  43. Ben Tarnoff, “Coding and Coercion,” Jacobin, April 11, 2018, www.jacobinmag.com/2018/04/lanetix-tech-workers-unionization-campaign-firing; Sean Captain, “How a Socialist Coder Became a Voice for Engineers Standing Up to Management,” Fast Company, October 15, 2018, www.fastcompany.com/90250388/the-advocate-bjorn-westergard; Shaun Richman and Bill Fletcher Jr., “What the Revival of Socialism in America Means for the Labor Movement,” In These Times, October 9, 2017, http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/20587/labor-movement-workers-socialism-united-states; Tekla S. Perry, “Startup Lanetix Pays US $775,000 to Software Engineers Fired for Union Organizing,” Spectrum, November 12, 2018, https://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/at-work/tech-careers/startup-lanetix-pays-775000-to-software-engineers-fired-for-union-organizing.

  44. Wendy Liu, “Silicon Inquiry,” Notes from Below, January 29, 2018, https://notesfrombelow.org/article/silicon-inquiry; McNeil, Lurking, loc. 226–232, 240–242; Monica Torres, “As Tech Employees Party, Contract Workers Get Left Out,” HuffPost, August 1, 2019, www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/contractors-holiday-party-employee-benefits_n_5c2c335ae4b0407e9085e368; Anonymous, “Organizing Tech: Insights into the Tech World’s Sudden Rebellion,” It’s Going Down, October 16, 2018, https://itsgoingdown.org/organizing-tech-insights-into-the-tech-worlds-sudden-rebellion.

  45. Sam Levin, “Google Accused of ‘Extreme’ Gender Pay Discrimination by US Labor Department,” The Guardian, April 7, 2017, www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/07/google-pay-disparities-women-labor-department-lawsuit; Kate Conger, “Exclusive: Here’s the Full 10-Page Anti-Diversity Screed Circulating Internally at Google [Updated],” Gizmodo, August 5, 2017, https://gizmodo.com/exclusive-heres-the-full-10-page-anti-diversity-screed-1797564320; McNeil, Lurking, loc. 232–234; Daisuke Wakabayashi and Katie Benner, “How Google Protected Andy Rubin, the ‘Father of Android,’” New York Times, October 25, 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/technology/google-sexual-harassment-andy-rubin.html.

  46. Emily Sullivan and Laurel Wamsley, “Google Employees Walk Out to Protest Company’s Treatment of Women,” NPR, November 1, 2018, www.npr.org/2018/11/01/662851489/google-employees-plan-global-walkout-to-protest-companys-treatment-of-women; Claire Stapleton, Tanuja Gupta, Meredith Whittaker, Celie O’Neil-Hart, Stephanie Parker, Erica Anderson, and Amr Gaber, “We’re the Organizers of the Google Walkout. Here Are Our Demands,” The Cut, November 1, 2018, www.thecut.com/2018/11/google-walkout-organizers-explain-demands.html.

  47. Johana Bhuiyan, “Google Workers Demand the Company Stop Selling Its Tech to Police,” Los Angeles Times, June 22, 2020, www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2020-06-22/google-workers-demand-company-stop-selling-tech-to-police; Annie Palmer, “Amazon Employees Plan ‘Online Walkout’ to Protest Firings and Treatment of Warehouse Workers,” CNBC, April 16, 2020, www.cnbc.com/2020/04/16/amazon-employees-plan-online-walkout-over-firings-work-conditions.html.

  48. Weigel, “Coders of the World Unite”; Seth Fiegerman, “Google’s Parent Company Now Has More Than 100,000 Employees,” CNN Business, April 29, 2019, https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/29/tech/alphabet-q1-earnings/index.html; “Facebook: Number of Employees, 2009–2020 | FB,” MacroTrends, www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/FB/facebook/number-of-employees.

  49. Cecilia D’Anastasio, “Striking Voice Actors Didn’t Get Everything They Wanted, But It Was a Start,” Kotaku, September 16, 2017, https://kotaku.com/striking-voice-actors-didnt-get-everything-they-wanted-1818822686; Woodcock, Marx at the Arcade, loc. 1325–1341.

  50. Allegra Frank, “Pro-Union Voices Speak Out at Heated GDC roundtable,” Polygon, March 22, 2018, www.polygon.com/2018/3/22/17149822/gdc-2018-igda-roundtable-game-industry-union; Allegra Frank, “This Is the Group Using GDC to Bolster Game Studio Unionization Efforts,” Polygon, March 21, 2018, www.polygon.com/2018/3/21/17145242/game-workers-unite-video-game-industry-union.

  51. “Fire Activision CEO Bobby Kotick for Pocketing Millions While Laying Off 800 Workers,” Coworker.org, petition, 2019, www.coworker.org/petitions/fire-activision-ceo-bobby-kotick-for-pocketing-millions-while-laying-off-800-workers; Jeff Grubb, “Game Workers Unite Org Calls for Activision CEO’s Job After Layoffs,” Venture Beat, February 13, 2019, https://venturebeat.com/2019/02/13/fire-bobby-kotick.

  52. Game Workers Unite, UK, union homepage, www.gwu-uk.org.

  53. Tom Ley, “They Turned Spider-Man into a Damn Cop and It Sucks,” Deadspin, September 10, 2018, https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/they-turned-spider-man-into-a-damn-cop-and-it-sucks-1828944087.

  54. Ben Quinn, “‘Unlawful and Vicious’: Union Organiser Sacked by Games Company,” The Guardian, October 3, 2019, www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/oct/03/ustwo-austin-kelmore-union-organiser-sacked-games.

  55. GamesIndustry Staff, “Games Industry Donates to Black Lives Matter and More to Support US Protests,” GamesIndustry.biz, June 24, 2020, www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-06-03-games-industry-donates-to-black-lives-matter-and-more-in-support-of-us-protests.

  CHAPTER 10: IT’S ALL FUN AND GAMES

  1. Western Collegiate Hockey Association, “WCHA 20th Anniversary Team: Meghan Duggan, Wisconsin,” WCHA.com, www.wcha.com/women/articles/2018/12/wcha-20th-anniversary-team-meghan-duggan-wisconsin.php.

  2. Seth Berkman, “Women Get a Spotlight, but No Prize Money, in New N.H.L. All-Star Event,” New York Times, January 24, 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/01/24/sports/hockey/nhl-skills-competition-women.html; Sportsnet Staff, “CWHL Announces It Will Pay Players in 2017–18,” Sportsnet, September 1, 2017, www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/cwhl-announces-will-pay-players-2017-18; D’Arcy Maine, “How Much Will the Top Players in the NWHL Make This Season?,” ESPN, September 30, 2015, www.espn.com/espnw/athletes-life/the-buzz/story/_/id/13778661/how-much-top-players-nwhl-make-season.

  3. Maine, “How Much.”

  4. Berkman, “Women Get Spotlight.”

  5. Mary Bellis, “A Brief History of Sports,” ThoughtCo., August 23, 2019, www.thoughtco.com/history-of-sports-1992447.

  6. Bellis, “Brief History”; Mark Perryman, Why the Olympics Aren’t Good for Us, and How They Can Be (New York: OR Books, 2012), loc. 159–162, Kindle; Dave Zirin, A People’s History of Sports in the United States: 250 Years of Politics, Protest, People, and Play (New York: New Press, 2008), 1–2; Garth Vaughan, “The Colored Hockey Championship of the Maritimes,” Birthplace of Hockey Museum, October 3, 2001, www.birthplaceofhockey.com/hockeyists/african-n-s-teams/segr-integr; Associated Press, “Canada Stamps Honor on Pre-NHL All-Black Hockey League,” AP, January 23, 2020, https://apnews.com/db727ad26c7f8c74cc6c2debb3b98ea1; National Hockey League (@NHL), Twitter, June 19, 2020, 4:24 p.m., https://twitter.com/NHL/status/1274000088034168834.

  7. Perryman, Olympics Aren’t Good, loc. 97–98, 162–167, 597–602.

  8. Perryman, Olympics Aren’t Good, loc. 167–172; Dave Zirin, What’s My Name, Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States, loc. 274–284, Kindle; Robert J. Szczerba, “Mixed Martial Arts and the Evolution of John McCain,” Forbes, April 3, 2014, www.forbes.com/sites/robertszczerba/2014/04/03/mixed-martial-arts-and-the-evolution-of-john-mccain.

  9. Zirin, What’s My Name, loc. 284–293, 2722–2724.

  10. Zirin, What’s My Name, loc. 293–298, 777–784; Zirin, People’s History, 26–27.

  11. Zirin, What’s My Name, loc. 360–469.

  12. Zirin, What’s My Name, loc. 805–810, 298–302; Perryman, Olympics Aren’t Good, loc. 151–159. See also Robert McChesney, The Political
Economy of Media: Enduring Issues, Emerging Dilemmas (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2008).

  13. Zirin, What’s My Name, loc. 543–665.

  14. Taylor Branch, “The Shame of College Sports,” The Atlantic, October 2011, www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/10/the-shame-of-college-sports/308643.

  15. Branch, “The Shame of College Sports”; Timothy Michael Law, “Football’sCancer,” Los Angeles Review of Books, September 10, 2015, https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/footballs-cancer-exploitative-labor-in-americas-favorite-sport; Chuck Slothower, “Fort Lewis’ First ‘Student-Athlete,’” Durango Herald, September 25, 2014, https://durangoherald.com/articles/79431.

  16. Chris Koentges, “The Oracle of Ice Hockey,” The Atlantic, March 2014, www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/03/the-puck-stops-here/357579; Zirin, What’s My Name, loc. 305–308; John Molinaro, “From Humble Beginnings: The Birth of the World Cup,” Sportsnet, June 9, 2018, www.sportsnet.ca/soccer/from-humble-beginnings-the-birth-of-the-world-cup; Vaughan, “The Colored Hockey Championship”; Associated Press, “Canada Stamps Honor,” https://apnews.com/db727ad26c7f8c74cc6c2debb3b98ea1.

  17. Branch, “Shame of College Sports”; Zirin, People’s History, 113, 127; Howard Bloom, “NFL Revenue-Sharing Model Good for Business,” Sporting News, September 14, 2014, www.sportingnews.com/us/nfl/news/nfl-revenue-sharing-television-contracts-2014-season-business-model-nba-nhl-mlb-comparison-salary-cap.

  18. Zirin, What’s My Name, loc. 1430–1440.

  19. Zirin, What’s My Name, loc. 1502–1562.

  20. Zirin, What’s My Name, loc. 1440–1497, 1574–1576; Zirin, People’s History, 194, 205; Dave Zirin, Welcome to the Terrordome: The Pain, Politics and Promise of Sports (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2007), loc. 552–557, Kindle; Perryman, Olympics Aren’t Good, loc. 177–178; William C. Rhoden, “Early Entry? One and Done? Thank Spencer Haywood for the Privilege,” New York Times, June 29, 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/06/30/sports/basketball/spencer-haywood-rule-nba-draft-underclassmen.html; Business & Economics Research Advisor: A Series of Guides to Business and Economics Topics, “The Sports Industry,” Summer 2005 (updated December 2016), www.loc.gov/rr/business/BERA/issue3/football.html.

  21. Perryman, Olympics Aren’t Good, loc. 545–552; Zirin, What’s My Name, loc. 338–339, 762–764, 1033–1037.

  22. Zirin, What’s My Name, loc. 771–902.

  23. Zirin, What’s My Name, loc. 911–913.

  24. Zirin, What’s My Name, loc. 1037–1258; John Wesley Carlos and Dave Zirin, The John Carlos Story: The Sports Moment That Changed the World (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2013).

  25. Zirin, What’s My Name, loc. 2714–2742.

  26. Zirin, People’s History, 95, 119; Lindsay Parks Pieper, “They Qualified for the Olympics. Then They Had to Prove Their Sex,” Washington Post, February 22, 2018, www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2018/02/22/first-they-qualified-for-the-olympics-then-they-had-to-prove-their-sex.

  27. Zirin, What’s My Name, loc. 2793–2820, 2696–2702.

  28. “Title IX Frequently Asked Questions,” NCAA.org, www.ncaa.org/about/resources/inclusion/title-ix-frequently-asked-questions#title; Zirin, What’s My Name, loc. 2576–2590; Britni de la Cretaz, “Almost Undefeated: The Forgotten Football Upset of 1976,” Longreads, February 2019, https://longreads.com/2019/02/01/toledo-troopers.

  29. Eric Anthamatten, “What Does It Mean to ‘Throw Like a Girl’?” New York Times, August 24, 2014, https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/08/24/what-does-it-mean-to-throw-like-a-girl; Autumn Whitefield-Madrano, “The Beauty in Watching Women Want,” HuffPost, July 2, 2015, www.huffpost.com/entry/the-beauty-in-watching-women-want_b_7712570.

  30. Perryman, Olympics Aren’t Good, loc. 93–95, 977–979, 1231–1243.

  31. Dave Zirin elaborates, “In 1984, Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates oversaw the jailing of thousands of young Black men in the infamous ‘Olympic Gang Sweeps.’ As Mike Davis has written, it took the reinstatement of the 1916 Anti-Syndicalism Act, a law aimed at the revolutionary union, the Industrial Workers of the World, to make these Stalinesque jailings a reality. The 1916 bill forbade hand signals and modes of dress that implied IWW membership. The L.A. politicos of the ’80s modernized the bill to include high fives and bandanas, making the case that Blood and Crip Joe Hills were overrunning the city. It was in the Gates sweeps that the seeds for the L.A. Rebellion of 1992, as well as the first music video by a fledging rap group called N.W.A., were planted. The Atlanta Games in 1996 were no different.” Zirin, Welcome to the Terrordome, loc. 2007–2013; Perryman, Olympics Aren’t Good, loc. 977–987, 180–195, 1016–1017; Judy Celmer, “1984 Olympics Gets Auto Sponsor,” United Press International, August 19, 1981, www.upi.com/Archives/1981/08/19/1984-Olympics-gets-auto-sponsor/7234367041600. See also Mike Davis, City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles (New York: Verso, 2018 [1990]).

  32. Branch, “Shame of College Sports”; Perryman, Olympics Aren’t Good, loc. 193–199; Erin Hatton, Coerced: Work Under Threat of Punishment (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2020), loc. 1870–1877, Kindle.

  33. Perryman, Olympics Aren’t Good, loc. 1209–1230, 965–977; William Davies, The Happiness Industry: How the Government and Big Business Sold Us Well-Being (London: Verso, 2015), loc. 1883–1940, Kindle; Malcolm Harris, Kids These Days: The Making of Millennials (New York: Back Bay Books, 2018), 173.

  34. Zirin, What’s My Name, loc. 1417–1418, 2986–2998, 3095–3096. See also Dave Zirin, Bad Sports: How Owners Are Ruining the Games We Love (New York: Scribner, 2010); Hillary Hoffower and Taylor Borden, “The 20 Richest Billionaires Who Own Sports Teams, Ranked,” Business Insider, January 30, 2020, www.businessinsider.com/richest-billionaire-sports-team-owners-2018-9.

  35. Sheiresa Ngo, “Alex Rodriguez Net Worth and How He Makes His Money,” Showbiz CheatSheet, March 10, 2019, www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/alex-rodriguez-net-worth-and-how-he-makes-his-money.html; Teddy Mitrosilis, “Alex Rodriguez and the 15 Richest Contracts in MLB History,” Fox Sports, October 20, 2016, www.foxsports.com/mlb/gallery/new-york-yankees-alex-rodriguez-contract-richest-baseball-deals-of-all-time-080716; Forbes America’s Richest Families List, “#75 Steinbrenner Family,” 2015, www.forbes.com/profile/steinbrenner/#ce5c7a45854f; Travis Waldron, “Minor League Baseball Players Allege Wage Violations in Lawsuit Against MLB,” ThinkProgress, February 13, 2014, https://archive.thinkprogress.org/minor-league-baseball-players-allege-wage-violations-in-lawsuit-against-mlb-196348b96335; Associated Press, “Minor League Baseball Players Can Seek Wage Increases, Appeals Court Rules,” August 17, 2019, www.si.com/mlb/2019/08/17/minor-league-baseball-wages-appeals-court; Zirin, What’s My Name, loc. 1427–1429.

  36. Zirin, Welcome to the Terrordome, loc. 736–870; Ian Gordon, “Inside Major League Baseball’s Dominican Sweatshop System,” Mother Jones, March/April 2013, www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/03/baseball-dominican-system-yewri-guillen.

  37. Zirin, What’s My Name, loc. 3229–3323, Zirin, Welcome to the Terrordome, loc. 2241–2243.

  38. John Branch, “Derek Boogaard: A Brain ‘Going Bad’” New York Times, December 5, 2011, www.nytimes.com/2011/12/06/sports/hockey/derek-boogaard-a-brain-going-bad.html; Law, “Football’s Cancer.”

  39. Mark Fainaru-Wada and Simon Baumgart, “‘Who Does This to People?’” ESPN, August 25, 2017, www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/page/enterpriseNFLWives/wives-former-nfl-players-left-navigate-concussion-settlement.

  40. Harris, Kids These Days, 132–143.

  41. Branch, “Shame of College Sports”; John Duffley, “In 40 States, Sports Coaches Are the Highest Paid Public Employees,” FanBuzz, December 31, 2019, https://fanbuzz.com/national/highest-paid-state-employees.

  42. Branch, “Shame of College Sports”; Zirin, What’s My Name, loc. 3156–3215; ESPN News Services, “Clowney: Pay College Athletes,” ESPN, February 13, 2014, www.espn.com/nfl/draft2014/story/_/id/10449257/jadeveon-clowney-says-college-athletes-paid.

  43. Hatton, Coerced, loc
. 197–200, 226–227, 739–748, 942–946, 970–981, 1272–1280, 1294–1297, 1729–1734.

  44. Lester Munson, “NLRB Decision Very Well-Reasoned,” ESPN, March 26, 2014, www.espn.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/10678393/nlrb-director-decision-follows-road-map-laid-northwestern-quarterback-kain-colter-legal-team; Ben Strauss, “N.L.R.B. Rejects Northwestern Football Players’ Union Bid,” New York Times, August 17, 2015, www.nytimes.com/2015/08/18/sports/ncaafootball/nlrb-says-northwestern-football-players-cannot-unionize.html.

  45. Tom Farrey, “Jeffrey Kessler Files Against NCAA,” ESPN, March 17, 2014, www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/10620388/anti-trust-claim-filed-jeffrey-kessler-challenges-ncaa-amateur-model; Jemele Hill, “The NCAA Had to Cut Athletes a Better Deal,” The Atlantic, October 30, 2019, www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/10/ncaa-had-cut-student-athletes-better-deal/601036; Steve Berkowitz and Jori Epstein, “NCAA’s $208.7 Million in Legal Settlement Money Finally Reaching Athletes’ Mailboxes,” USA Today, December 15, 2019, https://eu.usatoday.com/story/sports/2019/10/04/ncaas-208-7-million-legal-settlement-reaching-athletes-mailboxes/3859697002; Marc Tracy, “The N.C.A.A. Lost in Court, but Athletes Didn’t Win, Either,” New York Times, March 11, 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/03/11/sports/ncaa-court-ruling-antitrust.html.

  46. Ross Dellenger, “Coronavirus Liability Waivers Raise Questions as College Athletes Return to Campus,” Sports Illustrated, June 17, 2020, www.si.com/.amp/college/2020/06/17/college-athletes-coronavirus-waivers-ohio-state-smu; Anya van Wagtendonk, “Covid-19 Is Exposing Inequalities in College Sports. Now Athletes Are Demanding Change,” Vox, August 2, 2020, www.vox.com/2020/8/2/21351799/college-football-pac-12-coronavirus-demands; Lia Assimakopoulos, “College Football Players Attempt to Unionize as Hope for a Season Dies Out,” NBC Washington, August 10, 2020, www.nbcwashington.com/news/sports/nbcsports/college-football-players-attempt-to-unionize-as-hope-for-a-season-dies-out/2386941.