Working Life

Will one of the CAFTA 15 go down? That likelihood grew a bit–though not as a result of an election-related development. You may remember, back in August, the F.B.I. raided the offices of William Jefferson, Democrat of Louisiana–allegations surfaced about potential corruption. Yesterday, Jefferson’s former legislative director, Brett Pfeffer, pleaded guilty to “aiding and abetting […]

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Several people have commented in unrelated posts about the series that has been running this week in the Los Angeles Times about the United Farm Workers (registration required). I frankly haven’t had the time this week to read each piece…but people have asked for a space to debate the issue. So, here you go. The […]

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It never ceases to amaze me to watch the conventional wisdom both forget the past and ignore the reality of what the economy means to real people. So, the mainstream media–from The New York Times to the Wall Street Journal–are all ecstatic about the Dow going over the 11,000 mark yesterday for the first time […]

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Last week, I speculated that the decision by IBM to stop providing its employees with a defined benefit pension plan was perhaps a sign that the end was near for real pensions. After all, IBM is not an ailing company and has the third-largest pension plan in America. Today, Mary Williams Walsh has a front–page […]

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I’m still irate a day after reading Michael Moss’ piece in The New York Times (registration required) about the Pentagon study that found “that as many as 80 percent of the marines who have been killed in Iraq from wounds to the upper body could have survived if they had extra body armor.” My view: […]

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The president, trying to distract people from little things like illegal spying, the war and Jack Abramoff, decided to try to tout the wonderful state of the economy. Part of this little roadshow included the tired refrain that tax cuts have helped the economy–even though there’s almost no reputable economist that will make that argument […]

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Readers of this blog know that that I’ve spent a lot of time exploring the attack on pensions. Now, comes one of ths most ominous signals that corporate America is on a relentless path to end the concept of real pensions for workers: IBM announced yesterday that, beginning in 2008, it would freeze pension benefits […]

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Remember all the folks who pointed fingers at the transit union, claiming it was at fault for provoking the recent strike? Well, as the strike recedes in memory, we begin to get more of the truth. Today, Sewell Chan and Steven Greenhouse of The New York Times tell us that the chairman of the transit […]

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Next week, keep an eye on the Maryland state legislature. It looks like it will override the governor’s veto of a bill that would require retailers like Wal-Mart to increase their share of spending on healthcare for its workers. The point of the bill was to lessen the burden on public healthcare programs, where workers […]

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Well, Happy New Year to all. Hope you’re all now properly chained back to your desks doing the bidding of the bosses… Right after the transit strike, we had a pretty intense back and forth about immigration policy and health care, set off by my post that the transit workers deal (which is causing a […]

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