Working Life

It is a waste of time to jump up and down and scream about the ludicrous nature of the Republicans “ideas” about the economy, and, specifically, the proposal put forth by John Boehner regarding the phony debt and deficit “crisis”. These people are nuts and, worse, they either lie or are ignorant about the facts when it comes to the economy. So, it’s more important, in my humble opinion, to ponder the proposals floated out there by people who claim to be representing the “left” or “center” and, even more astonishing, “the last good economy”.

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   Oh, no. Here we go again. We’ll have to endure yet another round of Clinton nostalgia: In the book, titled “Back to Work,” Mr. Clinton will make the case for why government matters, explaining his ideas on energy, job creation and financial responsibility, his publisher said Thursday.    You mean we’re going to get [...]

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The jobs crisis is really devastating. We all know the numbers on how many people are out of work. But, the truth is that just calling for more jobs is not enough–because what we lack in the country is GOOD-PAYING JOBS. And wages are not coming back.   The Wall Street Journal reports what many [...]

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So-called "free trade" is part of the relentless class warfare under way in America. And the so-called "free trade" deal with South Korea is no exception. That said, a lot of the shallow criticism of the UAW’s support for the deal is–well, shallow. Here’s my view about how we should engage the UAW–my union–via an [...]

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   This could be important in the scheme of things next week–the labor movement is holding its collective nose and helping out people who were less than helpful on key issues: Big Labor’s big threat to punish misbehaving Democrats has largely evaporated in the heat of the midterms, as unions now scramble to rescue incumbents [...]

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This past Saturday, we had a great march for immigration rights in New York City–on May 1st, thankfully, and sponsored by the labor movement to boot. Without a doubt, the Arizona racist legislation gave a boost to the turnout on a sun-drenched day. But, here is the point I have made in the past, and [...]

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   When NAFTA was passed in 1993, I, and others, argued that the labor movement should mount primary challenges to every Democrat who voted for the legislation. After all, labor correctly saw NAFTA as the underpinning for a trade policy that would hasten the evolution of a global economy based on one thing: the search [...]

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   In the bigger sense, these two things are related. First, a week ago, I asked whether the president will keep his campaign promise about renegotating NAFTA. The answer seems to be "no": The administration has no present plans to reopen negotiations on the North American Free Trade Agreement to add labor and environmental protections, [...]

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   You may remember–this is old history…a year ago so this might seem like eons ago–that during the Democratic 2008 primary campaign, there was a huge surprise: we learned that NAFTA was a bad thing. Who knew? I couldn’t keep track of all those candidates running for office who suddenly had discovered something that a [...]

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   I recall how striking it was that the issue of immigration barely registered during the 2008 presidential campaign. No one really wanted to talk about it. So, this is interesting news: The nation’s two major labor federations have agreed for the first time to join forces to support an overhaul of the immigration system, [...]

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   While we are distracted by the minor problem of the financial crisis, and shoveling mountains of cash into the hands of private investors who will enrich themselves (again), there is the small matter of the so-called "free trade" deal with Panama that keeps poking its nose above ground. There are murmurings that there will [...]

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   Change has to begin with the transformation of the economy: a rejection of the marketing phrase of the "free market". The president has made some very strong proposals in this area. A large group of Members of Congress is now pushing him to declare a new era in trade.   I just received the [...]

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  When many people voted for "change", they embraced the idea that the parameters and language of our policy debate had to be altered. Nowhere is that more evident than on the topic of trade. Now, there is legitimate concern that the president may not live up to his rhetoric when it comes to so-called [...]

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   If policy was constructed by the people, not the wishes of the lobbyists and corporate interests, we would never see a so-called "free trade" deal pass Congress again. That’s pretty much the upshot of the 2008 elections–though, believe me, this fight ain’t over yet.     I would argue that the issue of trade [...]

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Yesterday, Sen. Obama made comments to a business reporter that leave the impression that he is already shifting his stated position on NAFTA and, by extension, so-called "free trade". It is worth looking at as a sign where Sen. Obama really intends to lead us on trade if he wins the White House.    A [...]

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I almost broke my pledge of sanity not to blog on the weekends when I read Roger Lowenstein’s monumentally stupid article on trade in the Sunday Times Magazine. The piece was so moronic as to…well, let’s go to the text.   Lowenstein starts out by setting the terms of debate thus: According to Political Science [...]

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