Working Life

    A colleague sent me this note from AFL-CIO staff director Bob Welch: President Sweeney informed the AFL-CIO Executive Council yesterday that Linda Chavez-Thompson had notified him that she intended to step down as Executive Vice President of the Federation effective next Friday, September 21st —  for personal and family reasons. President Sweeney also advised […]

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    Tense times in auto worker land. Something will happen in the coming weeks that will reshape the lives of autoworkers and the UAW. But, it’s the longer term future that is perilous.     Right now, the negotiations between the UAW and the auto companies are focused mainly on health care costs. As we’ve discussed […]

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    Wow. Time flies when trade talks are crumbling…I looked back in my archives here and it’s been almost two years since I mused about the crumbling world trade talks known in the parlance as the Doha Round. Today’s Wall Street Journal article tells us that the world leaders who attended the APEC summit were […]

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   While they are quivering and wavering on the Iraq War, let me suggest that there is another issue Democrats cannot capitulate on: economic fairness. It’s been said, repeatedly, that the Democrats took control of Congress in 2006 because of the anger over the Iraq War. I don’t disagree that the war was, and should […]

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    Today is the second day of the strike by taxi drivers in New York City. If you didn’t read the details elsewhere, there is some reporting in The New York Times today. I’ll get to the issues in a sec. But, first, here’s a little from the leader of the Alliance, Bhairavi Desai, from […]

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    A few days ago, I got a copy of a report by the International Labor Organization (ILO) that looks at some global employment trends. The report has got some good data–but, memo to the folks at the ILO, it is really written way too boringly (spice it up!!!). Do you want people to read […]

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Three weeks ago, I took a look at where unions might end up in the Democratic presidential primary race. There has been a fair amount of movement so it’s a good time to check back and see where we are—with some general analysis. Here, and down the line, I’m generally going to focus on national […]

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    Well, I was off on vacation–eh, it was just a week so I barely got the head cleared out–and got back in time to see that we’ve had a little action on the labor front on endorsements for president. I’m going to say a lot more about this tomorrow, with more detail, but for […]

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Subprime mortgages, foreclosures and the housing bubble have been discussed a great deal on this blog and elsewhere so I thought I would take the opportunity to focus on how this crisis has affected one community and what the community is doing to fight back. North Minneapolis is a neighborhood with working class roots that […]

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The Census Bureau released a new report yesterday – Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2006 report. The data paints a dreary picture about the state of working America. For those of us who aren’t in the top 5%, this shouldn’t come as a big surprise. On Health Insurance: According to […]

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