Working Life

Ouch, this is not good for John Sweeney. He’s managed to royally piss off Harold Schaitberger, president of the Fire Fighters union. In the April 29th letter that was just passed to me tonight, Schaitberger resigns as head of the AFL-CIO Executive Council’s Public Affairs Committee. He does so in a harsh, stinging letter to […]

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No, there’s no real connection between all those three headliners—just a confluence of stories in today’s newspapers. Steven Greenhouse has been a busy boy. He has two pieces in the New York Times today. His front-page Business section story looks at the debate over wages at Wal-Mart. I think the best nugget of information from […]

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Okay, folks, here’s what’s coming in. Bob Welch, Sweeney’s executive assistant, and Stewart Acuff, organizing director, have held conference calls with respective staff members (there was a major foul-up with the first call with Welch so he’s scheduling another one for 3:30 p.m.). Field Moblization will be merged with the Political Department into a new […]

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(ALERT, ALERT, ALERT, ALERT, ALERT, ALERT: SEE UPDATES BELOW) It will not be a happy day at 16th Street and its satellite offices. I’ll be posting whatever information comes my way about the massive layoffs expected to be announced this morning. NOON UPDATE!!! Looks like, from first sketchy reports, that field staff are almost all […]

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As the fight over the Central American Free Trade Agreement heats up, I’ll have more to say. CAFTA is yet another in the so-called “free trade” agreements that basically write in law, “let’s screw workers for the sake of capital.” Okay, it’s a bit more sophisticated. Today’s Wall Street Journal, though, has some good news: […]

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Tomorrow, the word will come down on who will lose their jobs in the previously-reported cuts at 16th Street. All managers have been told to be in their offices nationwide and there’s a conference call scheduled tomorrow morning with Sweeney’s executive assistant, Bob Welch. One AFL-CIO staffer just sent me this missive from the Newspaper […]

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I’m shocked, shocked that the White House would be trying to sell the new version of their Social Security as a plan to protect the poor and, get this, slash benefits for the “wealthy.” Which journalist do they have on the payroll now to help them sell that load of bull? Actually, the usual lambs […]

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The world currency markets were abuzz on Friday when China’s currency, the renminbi (“the peoples’ money,” also known as the yuan), traded for 20 minutes above the mark it has held for almost a decade. Was it a mistake, quickly corrected, or a little test by the the People’s Bank of China, the central bank, […]

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A bit of easy activism for you on a weekend—if you needed more evidence of the corruption of corporate America, just check out United Airlines. Here’s an airline in bankruptcy, it reaches a deal to jettison its pension plans and dumps those liabilities on the government, which means a lot of workers will not get […]

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I’m troubled after the teleconference John Sweeney held yesterday with the press. It’s not that the whole affair lasted just 30 minutes (and we had to provide our own coffee, doughnuts and Scotch), which included John’s opening statement and, then, a rush to squeeze in questions before, poof, he had to run before anyone really […]

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