Working Life

Thank god, I said–finally, a great juxtaposition of an argument I’ve made for lo these many years (and, not to great success, admittedly) that the Gross Domestic Product tells us very little about the general welfare of most people. The Bureau of Economic Analysis just dropped an e-mail to report that: Real gross domestic product […]

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This is an example of what a determined effort can do. The Beast of Bentonville is throwing in the towel in its efforts to get into the New York City market: Frustrated by a bruising, and so far unsuccessful battle to open its first discount store in the nation’s largest city, Wal-Mart’s chief executive said […]

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The folks at Global Labor Strategies have a new look at how corporations are trying to weaken and attack any semblance of workers’ power in China. Here are some points from the Executive Summary of the report, UNDUE INFLUENCE: Corporation Gain Ground in Battle Over China’s New Labor Law: 1. A behind-the-scenes battle is raging […]

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One way to judge that the war has gone on far too long–yes, it should never have started–is how death seems to become routine. Five soldiers were killed on Sunday due to car bombs exploding in Baghdad and areas near the capitol–yet their deaths only merit a short, buried story in The New York Times. […]

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I understand the rationale that people are giving for the vote on the supplemental appropriations bill–that it, for the first time, sets a deadline for withdrawal of the troops. But, I think those people who pushed for an end to the war this year are heroes, as the After Downing Street people show.

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This is going to be a tough fight for our sisters and brothers in the UAW (of which I am a member). The Wall Street Journal has a story previewing the bargaining convention taking place in Detroit next week: United Auto Workers union leaders will convene in Detroit next week for a critical collective bargaining […]

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Obviously, the answer is no, is you caught today’s story in the The Wall Street Journal: For the first time since 2003, General Motors Corp. is giving bonuses in the form of stock to Chairman and Chief Executive Rick Wagoner and other top executives, a move that could complicate GM’s efforts to get further concessions […]

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Last Fall, during the election, I mused numerous times about the worrisome phenomena of Democrats hugging corporate lobbyists (for example, here). Yeah, I know, this isn’t new. The point was that if Democrats wanted to take power and really be different, they needed to reject those kind of relationships. Well, The Politico has a story […]

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Nancy Pelosi, in a move that is still perplexing to me, is going all out to pass the supplemental appropriations bill that funds the war for a very long time. According to The Hill, she’s playing hard-ball with the anti-war caucus: Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is holding the implied threat of lost committee seats over […]

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I am perplexed and aghast that the Democratic leadership is moving ahead to fund Bush’s continued war in Iraq. That is the upshot of the supplemental appropriations bill that is moving to a vote as early as Wednesday. But, a handful of courageous progressives could stop this shameful funding of the war and bring the […]

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