Working Life

Right after my previous report on the AFL-CIO’s finances, I got a call from Joe Hill (uh, yeah, a pseudonym), an AFL-CIO insider who told me “it’s quite worse than what you wrote.” Hill pointed out that when John Sweeney took over, the AFL-CIO had no debt; now the debt stands at $28.5 million dollars. […]

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I was going to write about the fragility of the global economy but I’ll leave that to tomorrow (I don’t think it’s going to collapse in 24 hours so I should be able to squeeze my thoughts in before it does) because my colleague Andy Levin of the AFL-CIO passed along the article below from […]

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A review of AFL-CIO audited statements for 1996 and 2004 by the coalition pushing for changes inside the labor movement shows some fairly interesting trends. I offer them as they are, with some comment: Under John Sweeney: AFL-CIO Income has grown dramatically, and AFL-CIO Expenses have grown far more dramatically. AFL-CIO income has increased by […]

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Today’s Wall Street Journal has the not-surprising piece “WTO Urges CautionOn Textile Restraints.” (requires subscription). The head of the WTO, says the article, “says it would be a mistake for countries struggling with a surge in Chinese textile exports to throw up protectionist walls right away, just as Europe and the U.S. take steps in […]

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As I prepare to leave Israel Monday (so this space may have a one-day break for the long flight home), can’t help but relate last night’s/early morning today’s episode. Headed back to my place here at 11:45 p.m. to run right into a massive shutdown of the entire highway system of the central part of […]

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Ketih Bradesher writes in The New York Times today that deals being made by China foreshadow “what now seems to be shaping up as a broad assault on global automotive markets by Chinese companies and the Chinese divisions of multinational companies.” Obviously, this has grave implications for the already weak auto industry in the U.S.—and […]

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Just a couple of days ago, I was musing about the disconnect between wages and productivity. That is, productivity was racing ahead yet wages were pretty dismal. That’s not the way the deal is supposed to work—if workers are laboring their little tushes off in the workplace so that every hour worked is a more […]

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I’ve opened up this thread to get thoughts and comments about my column today entitled “Wal-Mart’s Free Market Fallacy.” I’m curious: can anyone give any real example of a free market? I think it’s a bogus concept, used for propoganda purposes to disarm and confuse people into believing that corporations should be able to operate […]

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I see the Consumer Price Index and the reality of workers wages are giving out more signs of the increased pressure on the average worker. My friends at the Economic Policy Institute point out that prices are rising faster than wages. For the 11th consecutive month, prices have risen faster than wages (click the image […]

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Glad to see the splashy public launch of the Center for Community and Corporate Ethics. Check out today’s full-page ad in The New York Times and put its website into your favorite links—and spread the word (www.walmartwatch.com). The Center’s job is to try to link the various efforts underway to changing the way the Beast […]

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