Working Life

Hypocrisy probably makes it into the top three characteristics, alas, of the vast majority of politicians. That isn’t a reason not to participate in the electoral process but it’s just one of those cautionary, red lights to keep an eye out for. To wit: all those politicians who eloquently talk about the importance of unions—mostly […]

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Deval Patrick has become very, very rich since leaving the post of Massachusetts governor. That’s what happens when you become a managing director of Bain Capital, one of the behemoths in the private equity industry. Patrick became rich working for a company—being a managing director of a company—that has screwed thousands of workers, especially 30,000 […]

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Anyone remember that TV advertisement that Merrill Lynch used to have, with the big bull trotting along a beach? I’m reincarnating that bull today for a pretty simple discussion: what is economic progress and how do we have economic growth without destroying the planet? Evelyn Astor, an economic and social policy advisor at the International […]

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IKEA, Volkswagen, Nestle & Airbus are pretty different companies but all of them have a two-faced corporate Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde that explains a lot about the oppression workers face in the U.S. South. Across the pond, all those companies have a pretty reasonable posture towards unions and workers trying to unionize. But just […]

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The Gordon Gekko boast in the fictional movie “Wall Street” that “Greed is Good” is really an organizing principle for the financial vultures who rob the country day after day. Today, you will hear two tales of greed and robbery by hedge fund and private equity vultures. First, it’s Paul Singer, the CEO of a […]

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I’m in a politics mood today, having nothing to do with impeachment or the bizarre spectacle of a previous Democratic presidential candidate going seriously off the rails and accusing with no evidence, in McCarthyite fashion, another Democrat of being some sort of asset of Russia…I mean, crazy shit fills up my news dump every day. […]

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The running joke about Whole Foods is its nickname: Whole Paycheck. But there’s a far darker side to the touchy-feely, organic feel of Whole Foods than the higher prices—the exploitation of workers everywhere along its supply chains where workers labor in slave-like conditions, and are abused day after day, especially women workers. Oxfam is out […]

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I would never have said it before today but it turns out health insurance companies aren’t the most evil players in the healthcare industry. Don’t freak out—health insurance companies are bad, and they are bankrupting millions of people, and the country. But it turns out even worse than the health insurers are some big mega […]

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Teachers are on the ramparts again. This time in Chicago where the members of the Chicago Teachers Union are gearing up for a possible strike if they can’t get a decent contract to improve wages, win a hard cap on class size and increase staffing. To talk more about the struggle for a good contract, […]

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A few weeks ago, I talked about the vast pay discrimination against women who work for supermarket chain Fred Meyer: 2/3 of women are paid $3.70 less than men doing essentially the same job. The union representing the workers—UFCW Local 555—is in hard, brass knuckles bargaining with Fred Meyer to end this. But in the […]

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