Working Life

I’ve been a skeptic for many months–actually, it might be years now–about the declarations about economic “recoveries.” And I also have been regularly raising that a deep economic crisis is around the corner. For many people, it’s already here. The recently release data from the government tells us why people are anxious about the future–and […]

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I was going to post, quite late today, about a picket line I took part in this early morning against Rep. Gregory Meeks (he’s one of the CAFTA 15) at JFK airport. But, hey, we’ve got the transit workers rejecting the negotiated contract. Here’s what New York 1 is reporting: Transport Workers Union members have […]

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I suspect this is going to cause a big hoo-hah in labor so let’s have a discussion here, too. Two large unions, SEIU and the Laborers, have joined with the Chamber of Commerce to push for an immigration bill that would “legalize millions of illegal workers,” as reported today in The New York Times. One […]

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Henry Cuellar was one of the CAFTA 15–the so-called Democrats who abandoned working people when he voted for CAFTA. Now, he’s getting a big kiss from the Club For Growth, the conservative political action committee that runs hard-right Republicans against its own (the club’s president, former Rep. Pat Toomey, found Arlen Specter to be so […]

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You think I’d be used to it. But, I never lose my sense of shock and amazement at how brazen corporate executives can be in this country. You may remember that United Airlines filed for bankruptcy, partly to dump its workers’ pension plans. And the workers themselves have made about $4 billion in concessions. Today, […]

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In the past few days, I’ve read a couple of things that, on the face of it, don’t have a direct connection–but they do. First, Jared Bernstein at the Economic Policy Institute tells us in a “snapshot” that “Wage growth slows for most workers between 2000 and 2005: One of the most important problems in […]

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If the Democrats do not filibuster the nomination of Samuel Alito, it will show, yet again, why the party will remain a minority party–or, at best, do very little to show any kind of leadership to the millions of people who need a real oppositional party. It’s clear that with Alito on the Supreme Court, […]

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I found today’s cover story about living wage campaigns in The New York Times Sunday Magazine troubling mainly because of what it didn’t say. There was not a single–not one–mention that the reason people are living in poverty and have to survive on minimum wage salaries is because of the lack of unions. Duh. The […]

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I don’t think we should make much of the United Farm Workers leaving the AFL-CIO. Sure, the union has a certain iconic position in the movement’s lore which is quite disproportionate to its current size and impact on anything happening in labor. Remember, the UFW was already part of the Change To Win coalition–like the […]

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…at least in Maryland. This is a snippet from The New York Times article this a.m.: Maryland Sets a Health Cost for Wal-Mart By MICHAEL BARBARO ANNAPOLIS, Md., Jan. 12 – The Maryland legislature passed a law Thursday that would require Wal-Mart Stores to increase spending on employee health insurance, a measure that is expected […]

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