Working Life

    Today, I’m going to head down to a protest at noon by striking taxi drivers in New York City. You may remember that the drivers, who belong to the  Taxi Workers Alliance, struck for 48 hours right after Labor Day. In today’s NY Daily News, the Alliance executive director, Bhairavi Desai, explains the main reasons […]

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    I don’t know that one should trust The Wall Street Journal’s take on the vibe inside any union. I’m not familiar with the reporter who wrote today’s story describing stronger dissent inside the UAW to the negotiated deal with Chrysler, as well as a relatively strong minority "no" vote on the GM deal. But, […]

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    Now, I like this and I get to write about this on my birthday, too. SEIU managed to reach a deal in Philadelphia that…are you ready for this?…increases the health benefits for its members. Most of the time, we read about health care givebacks–health care is always the big issue and has been for […]

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    We just had an amazing panel here on the crisis in retirement security (if you missed it…you had your chance…make sure you get to our future events!). Bruce Raynor, general president of UNITE-HERE, gave some very clear examples of how defined benefit pensions are crucial to his members’ retirement, pointing out that pensions bind […]

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    I’m trying to keep election news t a minimum so we can focus on labor and workers’ issues that get less discussion but, let’s face it, people want to know and politics will dominate even more in 2008. So…though he didn’t get the national union’s endorsement, John Edwards did pretty well yesterday as nine  […]

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  Last week, I took part in a discussion on CNBC about the agreement reached between the UAW and Chrysler. The show’s producers wanted to focus on the question of whether the deal showed that the UAW’s power is in decline. The truth is that the Chrysler deal, and the previous pact reached between the […]

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The Wall Street Journal has an interview today with George Bush that gives great insight into the disinformation, lies and, charitably, cognitive dissonance that underpins the Administration’s economic policy. "We have lost sight of what it means to be a nation willing to be aggressive in the world, and spread freedom or deal with disease," […]

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    Though not surprising, here’s a report that puts some facts behind a grim picture: Low wages, inadequate benefits, and limited work supports leave one-in-five people (nearly 41 million) in working families struggling to make ends meet. According to a study released today by the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC, and […]

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    So, as a short follow up to yesterday’s post on the decision by SEIU to be neutral at a national level and let its state-level organizations make up their own minds, here’s some intel on where at least one insider believes states might go. Some of this is probably obvious–and feel free to disagree […]

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  (This is the fourth installment of an occasional update on where the labor movement is ending up in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination)   At this point, this is really not a surprise: the Service Employees International Union has chosen not to endorse, at the national level, any one candidate, freeing up […]

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