Working Life

Okay, so fair enough, the CAFTA 15 and their Republican “brothers” are not yet feeling tremendous fallout from their votes. Or so says the piece below from Congressional Quarterly. Though it does make me wonder why they have to “shore up” their messages for 2006–me thinks that they protesteth too much…and if people like Robin […]

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I don’t know why everyone seems so surprised and outraged about what Pat Robertson said about “taking out” Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Sure, it’s crazy, foolish, possibly illegal and certainly not what Jesus would have said (but Robertson is way far from Jesus’ life). And it certainly makes sense to try to hold Robertson accountable […]

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At the risk of really sitting this place ablaze, throughout the day yesterday I had a number of conversations with people who argued that the Northwest strike is more like the P-9-Hormel strike of the 1980s then PATCO, which I had argued. Hmmmm…I think it might be a little of both–but the bottom line question […]

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So, in the ten months this blog has operated, this is my first post on behavior on the site. My general rule of thumb has been: let anyone say whatever they want. And that’s been the case–there have been a wide-range of views here, many of them disagreeing with my positions, sometimes fiercely and even […]

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It’s never easy to do crystal-ball stuff, but, heck, they can’t sue you, can they? Looking at this Northwest strike, all I can think is: it’s the 1981 air-traffic controllers strike all over again. But, it’s even uglier and potentially more far-reaching, if that’s possible. And there are a few lessons here about the whole […]

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Back in December 2003, when Melissa Bean would do anything to get labor support (or, anyone’s support for that matter), she filled out a questionnaire for the Illinois State AFL-CIO. Every candidate has to fill out one of these documents before being considered worthy of endorsement, particularly, in her case because she was a first-time […]

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One of the most annoying things about the apologists for the Central American Free Trade Agreement (including the CAFTA 15) has been their insistence that the trade deal would do wonders for people in Central America and the Dominican Republic (which is included in CAFTA). The problem was that those apologists could not explain why […]

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Andy Stern has sent a letter to SEIU locals reacting to the recent Solidarity Charters proposal from the AFL-CIO. Here it ’tis: August 17, 2005 TO: All Local Unions FR: Andy SternRE: Labor Unity at Local and State Level and in Constituency Groups The seven major unions with 6 million members that formed the Change […]

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Jim Moran, one of the CAFTA 15–not to mention in the pocket of the credit card industry and a sleazy guy to boot–was given the back of the hand today from a group of union delegates. This guy is the bottom of the pond and should have been taken out long ago, as I opined […]

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The local press in Rep. Gregory Meeks’ neighborhood is getting on his case about his CAFTA vote. Here’s an editorial from the Queens Chronicle. Thursday August 18, 2005 Queens ChronicleEditorialNo More Compromises During the sleepy Congressional recess that occurs every August, it is easy to put aside thoughts of Capitol Hill for a few weeks […]

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