Working Life

Let me start out by saying I don’t think John Sweeney or the top folks at the AFL-CIO are aware of this but it still is a bit disturbing. The Federation is doing business with a guy who is supporting efforts to destroy the labor movement in California… Here’s the story. I’ve written a few […]

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The New York Times features a piece on the front page of the today’s Week In Review entitled “Labor’s Lost: For Blacks, A Dream In Decline.” You might have a sense of the statistics that show that blacks are hurt even more by the unfair economic trends that run through the economy. But, this piece–surprising […]

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Good piece in today’s Los Angeles Times looking at who supports Prop 75, the Arnold Schwarzenegger-backed initiative that is trying to cripple the ability of unions to spend money on political activities. Guess what, it’s not the union workers themselves. Here is a snippet with the rest of the article available by registering: Union Members […]

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Things are not getting any better at Northwest. Just last week, it seemed like the union was caving in, deciding to let members vote on a company proposal which would only let 500 members of the 4,400 strikers go back to work. In my humble opinion, you can’t conclude anything good from a deal that […]

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Just around the corner is the premier of the film about Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price. You can see a clip of it here and also register to either host a screening or go to a screening–and get your very own DVD.

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I’ve been pretty vocal about my distaste for the weak leadership exhibited by the Democratic Party–can you imagine if the Republicans were handed the kind of political environment the Dems have been handed? They would crush their opposition–but the Democratic Party just seems incapable of finding a voice… But, one of the people down there […]

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Well, while corporate executives at Delphi are trying to make off with hauls of cash as the company tanks, the Congress did nothing to hike the minimum wage: it’s been stuck at $5.15 an hour since 1997 and proposals to hike the wage to $6.25 went down. Since this might pop up again, I thought […]

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From time to time, I’ve raised, and commenters have opined about, the issue of union democracy. Everyone is for it–but it tends to get subsumed into very general broad statements that degenerate into black-and-white “down with the anti-democratic union leaders” versus “leadership must lead.” So, an old friend of mine, Jane Slaughter and I have […]

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With all the focus on the slashing of UAW members’ health care at GM (there’s a more detailed story today in the New York Times), I didn’t get to the recent, also sad, development regarding the folks who have been striking Northwest. This has been a hotly debated topic here–but the situation continues to be […]

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Today, the Administration is still trying to spin the vote on the Iraqi constitution–but no matter how it comes out, this war remains an unmitigated disaster. In fact, we don’t see, in the comfort of the U.S., the horrors of the war–and the language that obscures its devastation. We read today about the U.S. airstrikes […]

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