Working Life

   I’ll be on a plane early this morning so I’ll try to catch up later on more topical news. But, let me celebrate here for a moment. "Dollar Bill" Jefferson bit the dust: Representative William J. Jefferson was defeated by a little-known Republican lawyer here Saturday in a late-running Congressional election, underscoring the sharp […]

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   This is simply an open thread if someone has anything to comment on about the discussion I will have taken part in on CNBC at 8 p.m. Eastern. It’s pegged to this ugly report: The government’s report of vast job losses in November, the largest monthly decline in a generation, puts more pressure on […]

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   How about this to send you off to your weekend, from The Wall Street Journal this morning: Companies are shedding workers at an accelerating rate, some in response to declining sales and others in anticipation of tougher times ahead. Job losses are spreading far beyond the housing and finance sectors at the center of […]

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   How about this to send you off to your weekend, from The Wall Street Journal this morning: Companies are shedding workers at an accelerating rate, some in response to declining sales and others in anticipation of tougher times ahead. Job losses are spreading far beyond the housing and finance sectors at the center of […]

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   Not a happy day for auto workers–and, frankly, for workers everywhere. The UAW, as most of you know by now, has agreed to new concessions to try to save the auto companies. From The Wall Street Journal: Two weeks after insisting his union had already done enough to help the car makers, UAW President […]

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   Not a happy day for auto workers–and, frankly, for workers everywhere. The UAW, as most of you know by now, has agreed to new concessions to try to save the auto companies. From The Wall Street Journal: Two weeks after insisting his union had already done enough to help the car makers, UAW President […]

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   Today, I’m going to be talking about labor and the president-elect with WNYC’s Brian Lehrer, who, for non-New Yorkers, has one of the most interesting radio talk shows in the city. It’s at 11:25 am Eastern time. Those people fortunate enough to live in NYC (okay, let’s not start a war over that…) can […]

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   Well, duh. We needed a group of economists to tell us what we already know and felt for a long time. And you have to wonder: were they asleep since it took them until now to tell us that, by their reckoning, the recession began a year ago. From the Financial Times: Evidence of […]

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   Even though I’ve suggested that auto workers should not pay for the mistakes made by the industry’s executives, the drumbeat has been pretty persistent that the workers will take another hit. And it picks up in today’s New York Times: While the union has not agreed to reopen contracts at General Motors, Ford and […]

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  The inevitable is happening: the people who lead us over cliff and helped spark the collapse of our financial system are running for cover. They want to avoid responsibility for the debacle. And among those running to hide is Robert Rubin.   In an extraordinary interview published today in The Wall Street Journal, Rubin […]

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