Nothing scrambles the conventional wisdom on contemporary class politics in the US like a white-collar strike. In our neoliberal era, we’re told that unions might have once been appropriate for the soot-faced and burly proletarians of the 1930s. But since most of those workers have long since disappeared, labor unions — the logic follows — are also no longer necessary.

But not all skilled (and deeply exploited) laborers go to work with a hardhat and a lunch pail. And just like their union brothers and sisters in warehouses and factory floors across the country, the struggle for real union representation is every bit as radicalizing.

Eliza Skinner has spent the past year writing jokes for the E! television show Fashion Police. Skinner pens about 200 jokes per episode (almost a full work week’s as far as “hours worked”), pitching them at a weekly meeting with the host, Joan Rivers, and the show’s producers. For this, she is paid roughly $500 a week.