Working Life

Yesterday, Sen. Obama made comments to a business reporter that leave the impression that he is already shifting his stated position on NAFTA and, by extension, so-called “free trade”. It is worth looking at as a sign where Sen. Obama really intends to lead us on trade if he wins the White House.   A […]

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   I meant the "breaking" as a snark, in case it wasn’t obvious. For everyone but the pro- so-called "free trade" crowd (economists, elites and too many Democrats), it’s been crystal-clear that the driving force behind trade is wages, not efficiency, a better product, lower prices for consumers and all the other nonsense you read. […]

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   There is a pretty interesting poll out today in The New York Times about our billionaire mayor. The teflon mayor is still pretty popular–something I’ve never understood. But, people are paying attention to one of his failings–choosing development over the lives of workers. I’ve been watching the fatalities and injuries pile up for a […]

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I almost broke my pledge of sanity not to blog on the weekends when I read Roger Lowenstein’s monumentally stupid article on trade in the Sunday Times Magazine. The piece was so moronic as to…well, let’s go to the text.   Lowenstein starts out by setting the terms of debate thus: According to Political Science […]

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Look no further for evidence that Congressional Republicans will be buried in 2008 then the vote yesterday to extend unemployment benefits. Republicans are threatening to block the bill in the Senate and/or President 28 Percent is promising to veto the bill. Please do–and stand back to usher in a filibuster-proof Democratic Senate and a huge […]

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   I’m going to have more to say on this topic in the coming days. There has been a controversy brewing in the past couple of days while I’ve been out of pocket (sort of) and here’s the upshot: WASHINGTON — Labor union officials and some liberal activists were seething Tuesday over Barack Obama’s choice […]

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I’ve always believed, and have said in the past, that until we start locking up executives who let workers die and be maimed on the job because of unsafe working conditions, the toll will continue to climb. That is why this is good news, just posted on the Times website: Contractor Charged With Manslaughter By […]

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    I don’t make a habit of referring to articles written by one of the worst reporters on the face of the earth but I will make an exception today. Yesterday, Michael Cieply had this story in the Times: Leaders of the Screen Actors Guild publicly declared war on a fellow actors’ union at a […]

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    An amazing person is no longer with us. Last night, Merrilee Milstein passed away in Chicago where she had been celebrating her daughter’s wedding; over these past many months, she had been battling a second bout of cancer when an infection she picked up proved too much to fend off.     I am just […]

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    I recently bemoaned the unfortunate conflict between the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA). Well, little did I know that it could get worse: Attempting to throw a monkey wrench into a new contract between the Hollywood studios and the American Federation of Television and Radio […]

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