Working Life

 Sure, elections do matter, at some level–it is no coincidence that, in the wake of Citizens United, a torrent of corporate money is flowing to mostly Republican candidates. But, the truth is that, whatever the results of the elections, we will not end up with a government willing to stop the global movement of jobs […]

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     This caught my eye: More than 20 years ago, congressional Democrats pushed for an increase in the minimum wage, only to have the first President Bush veto the legislation. There were fights over the minimum wage again during Bill Clinton’s presidency, and more battles under George W. Bush. Now, Democrats are once again […]

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   Nobody noticed that this past Friday was the first official day the Laborers were back in the AFL-CIO. I tweeted it and posted the fact on Facebook (I’ve not quite gotten back to blogging here full-time again but hope to do so soon). Which made me think: when will Change To Win officially fold? […]

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The madness in the world can best be boiled down to this: at the same time that we are told there is not enough money to create jobs or pay for real health care, our government is fueling an even more aggressive weapons spree around the world–and that spree, while it will mean robust new […]

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I have always thought there is a huge gap between economists and numbers’ crunchers versus the reality-based world of workers. But, in the midst of the current economic crisis, it seems to me that the entire way we talk about "recessions" needs to be thrown out the window. It simply does not measure, and obscures, […]

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Yesterday, I wrote about how the decline of U.S. wages has made workers here cheaper to hire than workers in India, at least in the call center industry. Today, the news hails from Asia where workers are rising up against poverty-level wages.   From the Financial Times (and, as a side observation, the FT gives […]

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Along the road of the past 30 years, productivity has been soaring (and technology has been a minor part of that) while wages have been flat–thanks to de-unionization and a simple corporate decision to cut wages even when profitable. And, despite that assault on wages, the main line of concern was over outsourcing–that is, jobs […]

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Every single day that I campaign, someone comes up to me in the streets and says, "can you get me a job?". On one day this past weekend, I got literally a couple of dozen of those questions. The desperation in peoples’ voices is more urgent than I have heard in a long, long time […]

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   Well, it’s nice to know that even the Federal Reserve can hear: The Federal Reserve will meet on Tuesday faced with a pivotal decision about whether to abandon its presumption that the economy is gradually picking up steam and begin to consider new steps to keep the recovery from sputtering out.    That easily […]

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Count me in the group, perhaps small, that is unimpressed with the pledge by a group of billionaires to give away large parts of their fortune. Not because I oppose the idea of philanthropy. Rather, the announcement obscures a reality: very little of the money will go to challenging the root causes of the incredible […]

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