Working Life

Let’s hear from you—any other thoughts on Wal-Mart’s culture of greed and crime? Examples from your communities? In today’s Tom Paine piece, I didn’t even mention Wal-Mart pleading guilty to 25 charges of violating Canadian safety and health laws, for which it was fine $500,000 (Canadian dollars) on February 9th 2005.

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A pause for a moment to reflect on a little project I’ve been involved with for, geez, almost 15 years. A settlement has been reached with publishers and database companies that will bring authors up to $18 million—I was part of the negotiating team that reached the deal. The deal will come before a U.S. […]

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The fingerprints of Wall Street have been all over the scam to privatize Social Security. And, rightly so, the labor movement has been targeting brokerage firms who have been whoring for the privatizaton schemes. Two of those firms—Edward D. Jones & Co., and Waddell & Reed—have felt the pressure and withdrawn from the pro-privatization coalition. […]

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In the U.S., there has been a bit of reporting about the nomination of Paul Wolfowitz to be head of the World Bank. Certainly, it’s a bit baffling—okay, I’m being kind—that the guy who helped prosecute the Iraq war, which was hardly a big hit among the world community (never mind the fake “Coalition of […]

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A quick heads-up on a debate I’ll be participating in on the topic “Is Wal-Mart Good For America?” Below are the details. More to come: there will be a webcast and probably a C-SPAN showing. Those of you in New York might want to get there early–these have been sell-outs in the past. “What’s Good […]

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So, what does this flurry of petty thieves departing the ranks of Wal-Mart management tell us about the culture of Wal-Mart? Even the Financial Times chose to give front-page play today to the resignation of Thomas Coughlin as a company director because of an “alleged unauthorized use of corporate-owned gift cards and personal reimbursements that […]

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I was just rereading the AFL-CIO’s petition, filed almost a year ago, with the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office that sought to force the U.S. to hold China accountable for its repressive labor practices. It’s a startling story of the challenge Chinese workers face—and, by extension, what labor faces in the U.S. in trying to grapple […]

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If you want to know why Democrats are losers, the perfect example is the party’s inability—either through lack of imagination or stupidity—to change the debate from the manufactured “crisis” in Social Security to the real crisis in health care. It’s enough to make a normal person, which I am not, scream. You can see that […]

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Nice piece in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal on the AFL-CIO’s Bill Patterson and the continuing efforts to pressure Wall Street firms to get out of the pro-privatization movement: Social Security Change Faces Labor Muscle AFL-CIO Investment Official Uses Heft of Pension Assets To Influence Wall Street’s Views By JEANNE CUMMINGS Staff Reporter of THE WALL […]

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As I wrote last year, I was glad to see the Red Sox win—at least it would end the sorry whining each year from their fans. But, as I documented, then, the image of the poor downtrodden team that appealed to progressives seemed odd compared to their large payroll, all-white fan base (compared to the […]

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