Working Life

Not much more can be said about Katrina–the human disaster, the Administration’s complicity in the disaster by cutting funds for precisely the kind of preparation that might have saved New Orleans and the insufficient response by the feds once the hurricane was hurtling towards the area (can’t interrupt the president’s vacation now, can we?). I […]

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I just heard this rumor from a well-placed source in the Washington political operative world that should send your blood aboiling: the National Association of Manufacturing has agreed to hold a fundraiser for the CAFTA 15. There it is, the payoff for a vote that hurt workers here and abroad. Completely by coincidence, an hour […]

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Edolphus Towns probably hates the official Congressional Record. Cuz, there is the Congressman from New York’s 10th District, nine months before the vote on CAFTA, telling people why the so-called “free trade” agreement was a bad deal. As they say, let’s go to the source. He said that the “underlying principle is the aggressive protection […]

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Chazer, for anyone not steeped in Yiddish, is a pig; the “CH” is pronounced as if you were gathering up a load of spit, which is appropriate for this discussion. In Congress, we now have a chazer caucus–a group of elected representatives that seem unable to stop dipping into the public trough to give rich […]

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I’m really perplexed, though not entirely surprised, at the press coverage of the Northwest strike–on many levels. The main one that I find fascinating is the failure to probe deeply into the motivations and background of O.V. Delle-Femine. Today, for example, we get The New York Times story of the labor leader going out to […]

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It’s not been a quiet August over at 16th Street. Somehow, somewhere, the officers and their top staff are going to have to find upwards of $25 million in cuts out of the budget (which assumes $126 million in income in 2006-2006) to make up for the disaffiliations of the UFCW, Teamsters and SEIU. And […]

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So, yes, the wedding was lovely up here in the mountains—but too much to eat and drink. And, now, from the beautiful mountains over to the Lehigh Valley… To which I have my own special connection, having hauled my sorry ass there during the election to knock on doors for Kerry (okay, I can hear […]

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[PUBLICATION ALERT: I’m at a wedding this weekend (pretty sure it’s not mine) so may not post but maybe will…you’ll live. But, if i’m not back here ’til Monday, by all means, keep debating the current hot topics] Here are couple of more things that are worth thinking about. First, I meant to say something […]

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The post-AFl-CIO convention political skirmishing continues–except this time it happened on the international stage…not a good thing. This week, an important meeting of Union Network International (UNI) has been taking place in Chicago; UNI is a global network of about 900 service sector unions in 150 countries (wow, are there that many countries?). I’ll report […]

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Well, unfortunately, no–not yet. There was a bit of a rumor that the head of the Virginia AFL-CIO, Dan LeBlanc, might take him on. But, alas, no such luck. I asked Dan directly and he said, “I live outside the District in the Richmond area and plan on retiring next August, not many folks retire […]

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