Working Life

   Regular readers here know that I have been pressing the case to significantly raise the dues paid by the people who have reaped hundreds of billions of dollars in the past decade–an entirely disproportionate haul pocketed by the top one percent of the population. Well, a bit of that idea is starting to creep […]

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The minimum wage is a scandal. It masks poverty. It must be dramatically raised.   On July 24th, the minimum wage will rise to $7.25 an hour. I applaud people who worked hard to pass the three-step hike. The new level will put some extra money in the pockets of millions of Americans and, modestly, […]

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   Ah, things aren’t hard enough for workers–retirement has vanished, unemployment is at double-digits (don’t believe the media focus on the below 10 percent number–if you add in discouraged workers and people who can’t find full-time work, the number if over 16 percent), wages are flat. But, that’s not enough–now employers are complaining they can’t […]

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  One of the ugliest fights for worker justice has taken place in Tar Heel, North Carolina, which is about 80 miles south of Raleigh. For 17 years, thousands of workers, who labor under some pretty brutal conditions in the largest pork processing plant, have sought a modicum of justice and dignity. And they just […]

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   A long battle has taken one step forward to victory:   The Stella D’Oro Biscuit Company factory in the Bronx, where 134 workers on strike since last August have been replaced, must reinstate the workers and pay them wages going back to May, a federal administrative law judge has ruled. The 134 workers, members […]

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   A few days ago, I wrote about the coming crisis of retirement that could last for decades. Here’s another example: And even as its pension fund faces this giant bulge in payouts, G.M. is not putting any new money in — the company is not required to make any contributions to the fund until […]

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   I can’t help but laugh at the transparent crap passed around by the protectors of the financial kingdom. In a column in today’s Wall Street Journal, Roger Altman writes under the headline, "We’ll Need To Raise Taxes Soon". Altman’s tagline for his bio reads: "founder and chairman of Evercore Partners, was deputy secretary of […]

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   Last week, I wrote about the energy bill and passages that impose penalties on countries that violate the bill. The president thinks this is "protectionism": “At a time when the economy worldwide is still deep in recession and we’ve seen a significant drop in global trade,” Mr. Obama said, “I think we have to […]

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   Trade and climate change are closely connected issues. Think just about the carbon emissions of planes and ships traversing the globe carrying stuff that we consume. I’ll come back to that in a sec.    Yesterday, Rep. Mike Michaud of Maine introduced the House version of the TRADE Act; the Senate’s sponsor is Sherrod […]

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I have argued that the current crisis we are in now is the product of at least three decades of a bankrupt economic system. Now, looking forward, the same system has set the stages, according to a report just out, for a massive worldwide crisis in retirement security that will last decades. The reason we […]

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