Working Life

    Okay, no surprise, the Employee Free Choice Act is dead. I’ve gotten no fewer than a dozen e-mails from various politicians and organizations, including the AFL-CIO and Change To win, hailing the Senate vote because a majority–51 senators–voted to let the bill proceed i.e., to cut off the filibuster. Here’s what John Sweeney had […]

Read the full story

    The immigration bill is headed back to the Senate floor today. It is unclear whether there will be enough votes–60 are needed–to allow the bill to proceed. And, even some of the Senators who say that they will vote to allow the bill to proceed–i.e., they will vote to cut off any filibuster–are saying […]

Read the full story

You can hear the nervous Nellies on Wall Street expressing worries that so many of us have raised for a long time about hedge funds and the private equity funds that operate outside the scrutiny of the government. Today’s front-page Wall Street Journal article is an expression of the concern:   The near-meltdown of two […]

Read the full story

   If you want another sign pointing to the attack against the middle class and a decent standard of living, look no further than what’s happening at Delphi. Apparently, there is some deal to cut wages at Delphi, according to The New York Times:  The Delphi Corporation and its largest union reached a tentative wage-cutting agreement […]

Read the full story

    You might remember that Wal-Mart was making big-time efforts to get into the banking world–which elicited a huge wave of protest. Well, never say the folks at Bentonville aren’t relentless. If the company can’t get its way into opening up a bank, it will do the next best thing, as The New York Times […]

Read the full story

I’m on the road out of the country so I’ve had a weird kind of schedule to post these past few days and that will continue the rest of the week. And it’s really late now so…a quickie… Checked out this piece in the Wall Street Journal from today: Free-Trade Alert: A Warning on Globalization […]

Read the full story

Today, the Senate will begin considering the Employee Free Choice Act. The Change To Win and AFL-CIO federations are joining together to turn out people to a rally in Washington, D.C. and many other events around the country. IF YOU HAVE VIDEO OF THESE EVENTS, POST IT VIA OUR WORKINGLIFE TV SITE. In the past […]

Read the full story

Even The Wall Street Journal acknowledges the obvious today: President Bush’s ambitious global trade agenda appears to be shrinking to this: a new investment-treaty negotiation with Rwanda, launched Thursday, likely to be followed by pursuit of similar pacts with the small African countries of Ghana and Mauritius. Bigger, more complex agreements — notably the Doha […]

Read the full story

Back in April, I wrote that supporting the Employee Free Choice Act should be a no-brainer for Democrats. Well, the debate on EFCA is starting next week in the Senate and so we’ll see where a few Democrats stand. I noted that a few Democrats were not co-sponsors and were giving dodgy answers why they […]

Read the full story

    I’m sure this is not the way Brian McLaughlin wanted to be back on the job as a regular working stiff. But, this story in today’s Times did make me think that it probably wouldn’t hurt every union leader to do this once and a while–obviously not under these circumstances: As he walked down […]

Read the full story