Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein

Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein

@robinks.com

Freelance journalist (NYT, Baffler, etc) / Writing a book about the American workplace for Harper Books / Newsletter of updates: http://eepurl.com/dxpAjT / robinks.com /

890 followers207 following58 posts

Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein reposted

Teacher Kolbe Ricks keeps a box of snacks in her classroom so kids aren't hungry. "The box, which she estimated had about $200 to $300 worth of snacks, was completely wiped out within the first nine weeks of school."

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Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein reposted

"They’re trying to use our own solidarity and close-knit community against us." New documentary about the Minnesota 15, solidarity, and how Trump is targeting unionists and community members in retaliation for mass opposition to ICE. Produced by @workdaymagazine.bsky.social and @therealnews.com

therealnews.comTrump is trying to criminalize solidarity: “Minnesota 15” defendants speakWe speak with three union workers who are among the “Minnesota 15” defendants the Trump administration is targeting for organizing to defend their Minneapolis communities from ICE earlier this year.

Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein reposted

Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein reposted

It's really odd that anyone is surprised that Gen Z people express a certain hopelessness in their expectations for their lives when everyone older have been insisting that a better world (one with healthcare, say) is impossible and bleating about how doomed we all are.

Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein reposted

i think it is fun when people write things that are just totally in tension with easily observable reality. like, this is “charlie brown had hoes” levels of nonsense: “in his first term Trump largely respected the cultural consensus of the Obama years.” www.compactmag.com/article/how-...

compactmag.comHow ‘Woke 1’ Radicalized the GOPOn May 30, 2020, five days after the death of George Floyd, the head of a prominent DC-area think tank issued a stentorian condemnation of the killing and the bigotry she said had enabled it.

Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein reposted

Economist Paulo Dos Santos had a very funny observation on twitter: "There are now nine recipients named 'Robert,' opening a three-point lead over 'James'. The name 'Michael' now goes up to three awards, closing in on the four wins for a 'Paul.' This is getting really exciting."

Nathan Tankus@nathantankus.bsky.social

Its 2026 and we are giving the fake Nobel prize in economics to the inventor of the flat tax

Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein reposted

wrote on saturday that trump was not going to let democrats avoid the question of impeachment and here we are with an offense that would have had a president impeached, removed and *at least* exiled if it had happened at any point prior to now.

Teachers not only educate our kids but they free parents to work, almost single-handedly enabling our modern work of work. The fact they make up to a quarter less is shameful.

NEW: Teachers earned 25.2% less than comparable college graduates in 2025, according to our new report with @cepr.org. This decades-long teacher pay penalty has taken a heavy toll on public education. 1/4

More than anything, without lists, Twitter is an impossible tool for news gathering and I really can't use it anymore for anything related to the work of journalism.

love to see it

New York City’s business elites are long accustomed to direct access to City Hall, where even Democratic mayors felt the need to court the city’s wealthiest and most influential corporate leaders. That access is getting shredded by Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein reposted

Like many people who have worked in politics for decades, I am baffled and upset to see candidates who say they are going to try to make things better defeating candidates who say they are trying to make it more or less like it was in the years before things tipped over into Oaf-Style Fascism.

i'll take shock theater if it means creating broad prosperity

The Economist@economist.com

Coming from a chief executive, Franklin Roosevelt’s anti-business rhetoric would shock us today, argues one historian. “With a glee worthy of Donald Trump or Boris Johnson, Roosevelt from the start had luxuriated in shock theatre”

Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein reposted

Beyond it being exciting to see an important policy being made real in NYC, the other groundbreaking thing about Mamdani loudly and doggedly supporting universal childcare is that it's not coming from a woman or even a parent. It's being championed by a childless man.

Once upon a time, people with college degrees turned their noses up at unions. Today, the professional-managerial class has turned heel, embraced solidarity, and flocked to labor. Why? I wrote about Noam Scheiber's new book for @newrepublic.com newrepublic.com/article/2087...

newrepublic.comThe Disillusioned College Grads Turning to the Labor MovementAt workplaces from Starbucks to Apple, highly educated downwardly mobile young people are organizing for better conditions.

Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein reposted

1/ As I reported my book, I noticed something that has completely changed American life: widespread chronic under-staffing. It leads to, among other things, deadly medication errors at pharmacies, flight delays, messy stores, and the crime wave. From me @prospect.org prospect.org/2026/03/19/u...

prospect.orgNot Enough Workers for the Job - The American ProspectUnderstaffing has become an epidemic in American workplaces of all kinds.
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4/ Retail workers, especially grocery stores workers, told me that understaffing partially explained the crime wave that gained media attention during the pandemic: with scant workers stocking shelves it became incredibly easy to steal.

2/ A big part of the story is the spread of monopoly businesses like CVS, who, because they control all the pharmacies in their area, do not care that patients have to wait up to a month for their medications to be filled bc they have so few pharmacy workers.

3/ The state of Ohio found the understaffing was so rampant they used the pharmacy giant and won a $1.5 million lawsuit. Regulators in the state found stores in complete disarray, boxes all over the floors and high temps destroying medication.

Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein reposted

Shorter Jason Furman: it used to be that the tech industry was dominated by only five companies. But AI has changed all that: now there's open competition from five whole companies!

This is AI-as-management

More Perfect Union@moreperfectunion.bsky.social

Burger King is launching an AI chatbot that will assess workers' "friendliness" and will be trained to recognize certain words and phrases like “welcome to Burger King,” “please,” and “thank you.” The AI will be programmed into workers' headsets, according to @theverge.com.

Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein reposted

Part of the problem here is a long-standing issue of mine: The public gets a huge benefit from beat journalism—but the journalism industry does not, by and large, recognize beat journalism for its value or when it comes to awards and prizes. Those go to investigations and "one big thing" features.

Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein reposted

I’m not going to get into this again but the defund the police critique remains complete bullshit yes we can was nonspecific lock her up doesn’t lay out why or for what make america great again couldn’t be less specific this critique is pure reactionary nonsense filtered through pundits

Nicholas Grossman@nicholasgrossman.bsky.social

One thing to add: Democrats really shouldn’t fear to be anti-ICE. It’s specific, unlike “defund the police.” If asked, say “Of course I support enforcing the law. ICE isn’t doing that. They’re breaking laws—really important laws, like the Bill of Rights—not enforcing them, which why I oppose ICE.”

Ryszard Kapuscinski's recollections of being a 7 y/o in Poland 1939 as the Red Army was taking over and deporting people to prison camps (from his book "Imperium"). Scary flash backs to today: "In school, during breaks, or when we are returning home in a group, the talk is of deportations."

Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein reposted

I don't really like the arguments that Zohran should be careful about opposing the NYPD because of what the NYPD did to BDB's daughter. This is all stuff that any mayoral candidate had to be aware of before taking the job. Anyone to the left of Bloomberg was going to have to take this fight

Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein reposted

Aliya Rahman, woman who was dragged out of car by ICE in Minneapolis: "I've spent the last month learning the names of the tendons in my shoulder, because both of my shoulders are torn -- cartilage and tendons. But what I haven't learned is the names of the people who did this to me."