Episode 187: Undercover Boss, Uber-Driving CEOs, and the "Empathetic Executive" Schtick

Episode 187: Undercover Boss, Uber-Driving CEOs, and the "Empathetic Executive" Schtick

"New Starbucks CEO plans to pull barista shifts in stores every month," CNN announces. "Uber's CEO moonlighted as a driver and it changed the way he operates the company," Fortune insists. "Your DoorDash driver? He's the company's co-founder," the Associated Press smirks.

Month after month or week after week, we seem to hear the same stories about bold corporate executives who've decided to roll up their sleeves—metaphorically or otherwise—and join their lowest-level employees as a delivery driver, barista, or retail worker. Their stated goal: to "stay connected" to and "better understand" the company, its customers, and its workers.

While these attempts to foster and express empathy may appear noble on the surface, they're anything but. In reality, the CEO-as-worker stunt is an entirely self-serving project, creating a pretext for worker surveillance and a distraction from labor abuses like poverty wages and union-busting, all the while seeking to convince the public that corporate executives are honest, hardworking folks, Just Like You.

Today, we will be dissecting the past and present of Undercover Boss-style corporate maneuvers, looking at the ways in which the C-suiter-in-the-trenches routine advances the squishy concept of "empathy" in order to obscure and undermine the material needs and demands of labor.

Our guest is Ligia Guallpa, Executive Director of the Worker's Justice Project, a community-based, workers' rights organization in New York City.

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Ep 242 - The Disempowering Politics of 'Inevitability' Part 2: US Empire as Mysterious, Teleological Force

Ep 242 - The Disempowering Politics of 'Inevitability' Part 2: US Empire as Mysterious, Teleological Force

In this episode, we discuss how circular "inevitability" arguments have been used for centuries to justify war, expansionism and perpetual hostility — most recently against China. Our guest is organiz...

19 Elo 1h 16min

Ep 241 - The Disempowering Politics of 'Inevitability' Part 1: Data Centers and LLM as 'The Future'

Ep 241 - The Disempowering Politics of 'Inevitability' Part 1: Data Centers and LLM as 'The Future'

In this episode, we breakdown the popular "inevitability" argument AI companies are using to bulldoze over democracy and how the "inevitability" line has been used to sell everything from Manifest Des...

12 Elo 1h 28min

News Brief: Very Serious New Yorker Article Launders Biden Officials' Responsibility for Gaza Genocide

News Brief: Very Serious New Yorker Article Launders Biden Officials' Responsibility for Gaza Genocide

In this News Brief, we are joined by Kaleem Hawa to discuss David K Kirkpatrick's 10,000 word PR job that feigns criticism of Biden officials, but ultimately serves to distance them from the horrors o...

29 Heinä 41min

News Brief: Why US Media Has Evoked Israel's "Right to Exist" 1,001 Times vs Only 6 For Palestine

News Brief: Why US Media Has Evoked Israel's "Right to Exist" 1,001 Times vs Only 6 For Palestine

In this News Brief, we dissect the Orwellian phrase "right to exist," why it only applies to Israel, what purpose it serves, and why Palestinians are never said to have such a right.

15 Heinä 28min

Ep 240: How the Media's "Burden," the "Straining Resources" Framing Manufactures the Expendable Other

Ep 240: How the Media's "Burden," the "Straining Resources" Framing Manufactures the Expendable Other

In this episode, we discuss the ideological work done by our media's default frame of immigrants, poor seniors, homeless people, and those with disabilities as "burdens" and "strains" on our limited r...

8 Heinä 1h 34min

News Brief: Despite 9-Figure Infusion from Silicon Valley, Abundance Still Seeks Popular Support

News Brief: Despite 9-Figure Infusion from Silicon Valley, Abundance Still Seeks Popular Support

In this news brief, we catch up with Dylan Gyauch-Lewis, senior researcher at the Revolving Door Project, to discuss Abundance's PR problems, why this latest neoliberalism rebrand isn't catching on an...

1 Heinä 38min

News Brief: The ADL's Bogus Origin Story and Its Rise as Ideological Enforcer for Empire and Israel

News Brief: The ADL's Bogus Origin Story and Its Rise as Ideological Enforcer for Empire and Israel

In this News Brief, we talk with Emmaia Gelman, author of The Anti-Defamation League and the Racial State, about how––despite posing a civil rights org––the ADL functions as defender of colonialism an...

24 Kesä 42min

Episode 239: The Vague, Capital-Serving Co-Optation of "Affordability" Politics

Episode 239: The Vague, Capital-Serving Co-Optation of "Affordability" Politics

In this episode, we detail the long history of generic "affordability" discourse and how, post-Mamdani, it's become the go-to establishment buzzword justifying tax breaks for developers, deregulation,...

17 Kesä 1h 20min

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