Working Life

Not unexpected… Auto Union Leaders Are Authorized to Call a Strike By JEREMY W. PETERS DETROIT, May 16 — Members of the United Automobile Workers union have voted to give their leaders the ultimate bargaining chip: the authorization to call a strike against Delphi, the auto parts supplier. While not unexpected, the vote to approve […]

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Here I was thinking that so-called “free trade” was reeling…fat chance. There’s a deal that’s now surfacing with Oman. It’s bad and here’s just a little taste from the Citizen’s Trade Campaign: Despite commitments by the Omani Sultan dating back to the mid-1990s to labor law to make it consistent with core ILO labor standards, […]

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Frank Rich often calls it right when he calls out the hypocrits in the Administration. In case you didn’t catch his column today in The New York Times–which is for subscribers only–I’m printing it here because it’s really worth reading: Will the Real Traitors Please Stand Up? WHEN America panics, it goes hunting for scapegoats. […]

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Don’t get your hopes up about the trade decifit, according to EPI Economist Robert Scott. There was a minor improvement in the trade deficit in March–but it’s headed to go over $800 billion this year. Wow. Says Scott: “The slight improvement in the trade deficit in March was largely explained by seasonally adjusted growth in […]

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I’m never one to praise corporate behavior–heck, companies have enough money to do their own p.r. and backslapping–but at least one phone company had some lawyer with the guts to say no to the National Security Agency: Qwest Explains Why It Refused N.S.A. Query By JOHN O’NEIL and ERIC LICHTBLAU WASHINGTON, May 12 — The […]

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Here’s a fun little political game. Rep. Melissa Bean, one of the so-called Democrats who voted for CAFTA, is a key target for those who want the CAFTA 15 to pay a political price. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) has a PAC which she uses to help members of Congress in their re-election campaigns. She decides […]

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So, for the real gluttons out there, I’ve got the exchange of letters that lead to the creation of the National Labor Coordinating Committee. Anna Burger, chair of Change To Win, sent a letter to John Sweeney on April 11th. Sweeney replied a week later. And here you can also see the outline of the […]

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My sources tell me that today at 2 p.m. Change To Win and the AFL-CIO will announce a deal that sort of helps bridge the work of the two federations, mainly in the area of politics. This new formation will be called the National Labor Coordinating Committee and the main purpose of the committee will […]

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Intriguing, huh? It involves Change To Win and AFL-CIO but I can’t say anything until then…

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This is worth repeating and reading: the economic costs of the Iraq war. And weeping about. Everything you want to make happen will be hampered by the waste of $2 trillion.

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