Working Life

Look no further for evidence that Congressional Republicans will be buried in 2008 then the vote yesterday to extend unemployment benefits. Republicans are threatening to block the bill in the Senate and/or President 28 Percent is promising to veto the bill. Please do–and stand back to usher in a filibuster-proof Democratic Senate and a huge […]

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   I’m going to have more to say on this topic in the coming days. There has been a controversy brewing in the past couple of days while I’ve been out of pocket (sort of) and here’s the upshot: WASHINGTON — Labor union officials and some liberal activists were seething Tuesday over Barack Obama’s choice […]

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I’ve always believed, and have said in the past, that until we start locking up executives who let workers die and be maimed on the job because of unsafe working conditions, the toll will continue to climb. That is why this is good news, just posted on the Times website: Contractor Charged With Manslaughter By […]

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    I don’t make a habit of referring to articles written by one of the worst reporters on the face of the earth but I will make an exception today. Yesterday, Michael Cieply had this story in the Times: Leaders of the Screen Actors Guild publicly declared war on a fellow actors’ union at a […]

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    An amazing person is no longer with us. Last night, Merrilee Milstein passed away in Chicago where she had been celebrating her daughter’s wedding; over these past many months, she had been battling a second bout of cancer when an infection she picked up proved too much to fend off.     I am just […]

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    I recently bemoaned the unfortunate conflict between the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA). Well, little did I know that it could get worse: Attempting to throw a monkey wrench into a new contract between the Hollywood studios and the American Federation of Television and Radio […]

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Yesterday, I highlighted the rolling out of a very important piece of legislation: the Trade Reform, Accountability, Development, and Employment Act of 2008 (cleverly, the TRADE Act). So far, the only Senate co-sponsors, who have joined the bill’s sponsor Sherrod Brown, are Byron Dorgan, Russ Feingold, Bob Casey and Sheldon Whitehouse. So, today, it’s worth […]

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The Obama pound, exchanged between Michelle and Barack on Tuesday night, marked a historic moment. Yeah, there’s that whole first black nominee for president thing. But more significant, is the fact that the greeting which has been described by confused white journalists as a "fist bump," "closed-fist high-five," "a frat-tastic fist bump" and a "’Hezbollah’ […]

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    This morning is a time to shake off the cobwebs of conventionitis. Conventionitis is a serious form of mental illness brought on by being cooped up in a climate-controlled atmosphere, where the air you breathe is not real, and the steady hum of many voices conversing at a low pitch combines to penetrate the […]

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    Immigration continues to be a very divisive topic. Too often, we don’t hear a basic point–most people don’t choose to leave their homes and travel thousands of miles to find work, often times at great risk to their lives. They are forced to. Today, at the SEIU convention, Gerry Hudson, a union executive vice […]

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