Working Life

   Here are some poll questions that I’d like you to consider: 1. If you knew that taking a deep breathe would kill you, would you inhale? 2. If picking your nose caused cancer, would you allow you child to ever go digging for that gold? 3. If George Steinbrenner was a left-wing Democrat, would […]

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   Enough. Now that she has thrown another obstacle in the path of the Employee Free Choice Act, Blanche Lincoln must face a well-funded primary opponent in 2010. And it’s got to be the labor movement that recruits and funds that candidate–or the rhetoric about how important the Employee Free Choice Act is will be […]

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   The Los Angeles Times had a website report posted last night: After weeks of back-channel talks, Hollywood’s biggest actor union and the major studios appear to have broken their logjam and could be close to reaching an agreement on a new three-year contract, according to people close to the situation. The agreement would come […]

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Now, c’mon, this is entirely absurd. We already have the widest gap between rich and poor in many generations. Republicans (and some Democrats) are trying to cut the Administration’s proper and wise investments in infrastructure and wise energy efficiency programs. And, in the midst of all that, the Senate does what? Votes to cut the […]

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   When you think about having a job, the logical person would consider that a situation where you were making enough money to pay your bills, and maybe save a bit. Anything less is not real employment. And by that measure, our unemployment figure is more than 15 percent.    So, each month, the media […]

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   I’m not sure that anyone has told NY Comptroller Bill Thompson yet but his race for mayor is over…effectively. His only prayer (and any other candidate’s only prayer) to defeat the billionaire mayor was to have a unified labor movement behind him. It was the only way–and even that was a big "if"–to balance […]

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This is not a post about the auto industry. The attack against the decent standard of living fought for and won by auto workers over many generations is just one of the most visible assaults on the American Dream–an assault that is sweeping through every corner of the economy as workers have to pay for […]

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   Those poor AIG executives–they must be pissed about getting all the heat from walking away with a paltry $165 million in bonuses while the folks at Merrill Lynch managed to cart away twenty times that amount just as the government was crafting its takeover by Bank of America.    Remember, Merrill had just posted […]

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   The Wall Street Journal has a story today looking at what a modern depression would look like. The story asserts: There is no consensus definition for "depression." Harvard University economist Robert Barro defines it as a decline in per-person economic output or consumption of more than 10%, and puts the odds of a depression […]

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   I meant to write about this yesterday mainly because I knew most of the readers of this blog would want to know that their stock options they get at the companies they work for are worth a bit more or at least have the potential to earn a lot more money despite the crash […]

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