Brian Shezi, the HIV/AIDS program director for the Solidarity Center, told us the workers' unions are effective spokespersons to train and encourage HIV testing because of the fundamental trust and connection workers feel towards them.
Nevertheless, progressive advocates of social insurance programs have long worried that diverting money from the Social Security trust fund would hurt the program by weakening the connection workers feel between their contributions and their eventual payback.
Elites expect to see a tight, logical connection between worker contributions and payroll compensation, but substitute an astronomically inflated merit metric when it comes to executive, investor and celebrity rewards.
When knowledge workers are pressed too hard, the intimate connection between workers and their work is compromised and many things go wrong.
King visited Memphis, spoke to the workers and expressed solidarity with them, making the clear connection between workers' rights, civil rights and basic principles of justice.
"By and large, there wasn't any organic connection between workers and middle-class movements for democracy," Mr. Beinin said.
As described above, occupational interaction does not simply refer to the connection between workers and leaders; it should also include communications between hierarchy leaders and colleagues within a workplace, as well as interactions with staff from other workplaces.
Using netbooks (small, cheap laptops) powered by a generator and a satellite Internet connection, these workers translated tens of thousands of messages, forming a kind of "virtual assembly line" with the Ushahidi volunteers.
If employees end up holding substantial equity stakes, that could lead to more natural allies among investors, preempt unionization efforts and create even more of a connection between workers and management, Elliott said.
And everyone working on issues of training and job access should think more about job quality, the structure of work inside of firms, and connections to worker interests and voices, even as they pursue employer engagement.
The goal is to establish more face-to-face connections between workers, which the folks at Highfive believe will make meetings more productive.
