Working Life

“We have a strategy for victory.” This is what Bush said yesterday in preparation for a much-hyped speech he’s giving today at the U.S. Naval Academy. Here’s what’s clear: this speech is at once a p.r. ploy–they have to say something to blunt the Joe Murtha-inspired calls for quick withdrawal–and also an amazing continuation of […]

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So, the U.S. Treasury Department decided not to brand China as a currency manipulator; The Financial Times (subscription required) leads with that story across the top of its front page and The New York Times features it on the front page of the business section. I’ve always thought this debate is misplaced or, at least, […]

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Steve Greenhouse has a front-page story in The New York Times today (registration required) reporting on the success of SEIU’s organizing drive among janitors in Houston. What’s interesting about the victory–other than the fact that it brings in 5,000 new members in the hard-to-organize South–is the way the victory was pulled off. Check out these […]

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I came upon this at www.bringthemhomenow.org and it made me both laugh–which it’s supposed to do–and feel great sadness. It was taken from an Army Family Readiness program to help understand what it’s like to be on the front lines. One of the things that it reminds you of is how soldiers (and their families) […]

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I just finished reading today’s piece in The New York Times–the same newspaper that was such a cheerleader in the rush to go to war–about the psychological damage the war will have (registration required) on the now 1.2 million men and women who have served in Iraq. The tragedy of the killed, wounded and maimed […]

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Poor Pascal Lamy is in a pickle. But, it’s a pickle that no regular working person should feel bad about. Lamy is the director general of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the international body that oversees global trade agreements. I’m assuming most readers know the basics about the WTO so I’ll just move on here. […]

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Today, the Wall Street Journal catches up with a story that I first saw reported in the Financial Times on Wednesday: the UAW and a group of large shareholders, including four large U.S. and European pension funds, have filed objections in bankcruptcy court to the outrageous bonuses that Delphi executives have cleverly orchestrated for themselves […]

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Happy Thanksgiving to all…just a brief post this morning, combining my favorite issues: sports and politics. Looks like Carlos Delgado is going to sign with the cross-town rivals, the Mets. I’ve always liked Delgado–but not solely because of his baseball skills. Back when he was with the Blue Jays, when his team came to Yankee […]

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Here’s a bit more information on where we stand on the question of the participation of Change To Win unions in the AFL-CIO’s local and state central bodies. For those just joining the conversation, there’s been a long back-and-forth between the two federations about John Sweeney’s proposal to create Solidarity Charters. In mid-September, there was […]

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I found the MSM accounts of the deeper cuts at General Motors (5,000 more workers to lose their jobs on top of the 25,000 UAW members who already faced the axe) pretty woeful, primarily because the stories typically refer only in passing to the role health care costs play in the demise of GM and […]

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