Working Life

We’ve been talking a lot about the demise of the pension system in our country. It’s grim. And it’s been pretty clear, from Delphi and United Airlines, that when companies go into bankruptcy and shed workers’ pensions, the CEOs don’t suffer at all. In fact, they are making out like bandits. The AFL-CIO gives us […]

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Melissa Bean is feeling fairly anxious, from what I hear. Apparently, she is begging unions to support her, knowing that without labor’s strong support she will probably lose re-election in the 8th District in Illinois. But, because of her vote for the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), she’s gotten the cold shoulder. A well-informed […]

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So, what would be the harm if nothing passed this week on immigration? After all, it’s only because Bill Frist, the majority leader of the Senate, demanded that a bill pass right now that there is a rush to ram something through. Wouldn’t it be better if we had no bill as opposed to a […]

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Republicans have been brilliant at creating narratives about the vast number of people oppressed by the big-bad tax system. I’ll bet that even some readers here, somewhere deep inside their brains, have retained the idea that the federal estate tax ends up hurting small farmers and people who aren’t really THAT rich that they should […]

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I know you missed the headline on the front-page of The New York Times and the other major newspapers the other day: “Corporate Profits Hit Record Highs But Workers Get Screwed.” Yes, not subtle, but you get the picture–a story like that never hit the MSM but it’s a fact. Corporate profits rose 21.3% in […]

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So, today is a big day in sports for yours truly. I’ll be using the clicker to flip back and forth between the NCAA national basketball championship game and the game featuring those wonderful pinstriped boys from the Bronx (though rain is forecast out in Oakland so it may not come off). In hoops world, […]

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Robert Reich is a chameleon. He’s spent his entire career remaking himself–and yet never admitting when he was wrong and when he has changed positions. The latest example? In today’s New York Times Book Review, he reviews a new book by Joseph Stiglitz and Andrew Charlton called “Fair Trade For All.” I haven’t read the […]

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So, Delphi has done what is has threatened to do: it’s gone to court asking a judge for the right to tear up its labor agreements. This was not a surprise–the threats have been there for some time. It certainly made The New York Times’ list of important events, rating the front-page lead story: Delphi, […]

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One of perfect examples of the lack of basic democratic rights in our country is the Taylor Law. As many of you know, it prevents New York public employees in New York from striking–and imposes heavy penalties on people who try to exercise a right that is pretty basic in many other democracies. Yesterday, the […]

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I’ve been skeptical about the way the government uses data to tell us what’s really happening out there in the economy. For years, I’ve argued that the Gross Domestic Product is a flawed tool if it is used to argue how people are doing and it certainly doesn’t tell us much about the *distribution* of […]

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