Working Life

Here’s a rare piece of good legal news for workers: Court Blocks DOD’s New Rules for Workers Collective Bargaining Hurt, Judge Says A federal judge blocked the Defense Department from implementing much of its new personnel system yesterday, handing the Bush administration a major setback in its efforts to streamline work rules and install pay-for-performance […]

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It will be an interesting day in New York. Over at the union hall for SEIU’s 32BJ, there will be a public briefing for the bi-partisan Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act of 2005. Here’s another place where I part with the AFL-CIO. I think this is a pretty decent bill, though not perfect, while […]

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This is not a new story but it’s always nice when the mainstream media highlight something we’ve been discussing here for many months, and something so many people have pointed out for a long time. The Sunday New York Times Business Section has a front-page story headlined, “Two Tiers, Slipping Into One: As Workers Retire, […]

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I’ve been asked by a lot of people about my opinion of the AFL-CIO’s new blog. My answer has been: what blog? I encourage more labor blogs to get started. But, the point of a blog is to create conversation and debate. In some ways, the AFL-CIO is doing precisely what its culture dictates: pretend […]

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Wal-Mart is quite adept at the mirage game: create an illusion to mask reality. Once it was the image of Sam Walton, the aw-shucks small town guy–who was actually quite a brutal businessman who had no compunction about destroying local businesses. Then, came the “Buy America” company that could not survive without slave wage labor […]

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That headline is not a shocker for most of us. But, here’s a concise summation of what our friends at the Economic Policy Institute: President Bush has noted that 2 million jobs were created over the course of 2005, and that we have added 4.6 million jobs since the decline in jobs ended in May […]

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This story makes no sense to me. When the AFL-CIO announced the concept of Solidarity Charters, I thought it was a good idea once the kinks got worked out with the Change To Win federation. It was a strong step towards realizing that everyone needed to figure out how to work together, and that, frankly, […]

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We’ve been following the trail of the attack on the pension system on a regular basis here. Down there, inside the Beltway, there’s been a fight brewing of how to “reform” the pension system, with two competing bills duking it out: A House version and a Senate version. From where I sit, neither is great […]

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Check out today’s front-page story in the biz section of The New York Times on the Communications Workers of America’s success at organizing Cingular Wireless. The main reason for the success is obvious: Cingular has agreed to be neutral in organizing drives. Indeed, that’s even more obvious when you consider that of the 225,000 workers […]

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Here’s a stark contrast: think of the gap between a minimum wage worker and a guy like Jerald Fishman, chief executive of Analog Device who just picked up a payday worth $144.7 million (that’s not a typo). While the greed of a few executives is continuing unabated, here’s what’s happening to millions of minimum wage […]

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