Working Life

Count me as one person not shedding too many tears about the death of Helen Walton, the matriarch of the Walton family–she of the $16 billion net worth. After all, this family, worth tens of billions of dollars, has made live a living hell for thousands of workers. And just in time to mourn dear […]

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    Smithfield Foods is a very ugly company. As the UFCW explains, “Smithfield Foods is the largest pork producer and processor in the world, the fourth largest turkey processor and fifth largest beef processor in the U.S.” It has its own police force and jail cell in its Tar Heel, North Carolina processing plant. […]

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Supporting the Employee Free Choice Act should be a no-brainer for every Democratic senator. So, we need to ask: why are four Democratic Senators not co-sponsoring the legislation (S1041)? Are they anti-union? As of today, every Democratic senator is on-board as a co-sponsor of the bill (as are the two independents, Bernie Sanders and Joe […]

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I don’t think the Democrats have gone far enough in the legislation to end the war. Having said that, there is no reason for the Democratic leadership to give an inch to the madman in the White House. The public stands behind the Democrats on the issue and, apparently, despite Bush’s attempt to use the […]

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Good for Steelworkers president Leo Gerard–from today’s Wall Street Journal– Unions in the U.S. and abroad have been slow to follow companies as they extend their overseas reach. The United Steelworkers and two of Britain’s largest unions are considering a daring move to catch up. The Steelworkers union is expected to sign an agreement tomorrow […]

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The crumbling of so-called “free trade” has got to be near when you read The Wall Street Journal and learn that “Republican presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain will use his campaign’s first big economic speech today to talk about downsides of free trade.” Apparently, McCain will “acknowledge that open markets have resulted in pain for […]

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Today, Steve Greenhouse has a good story in The New York Times about the struggle of many food delivery workers to get a decent wage. They can usually be seen pedaling madly on Manhattan streets, often against traffic, rushing to satisfy New Yorkers’ capacious appetites for cold sesame noodles and General Tso’s chicken. Yu Guan […]

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I don’t know how many people out there worked with or knew Jim Jontz. He was a long-time activist who worked in the trenches of labor and politics for a long, long time…Jim died today of cancer. Here is what Americans For Democratic Action sent out: It is with profound sorrow that I announce the […]

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A few days, I got a report from the good folks at the Center for Economic and Policy Research on a topic that hasn’t gotten the attention it should–the break between productivity and wages. CEPR’s report focuses on looking at productivity and how that relates to wage growth and income inequality. Some of the conclusions: […]

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Friends: Welcome. This marks the beginning of a new chapter in the life of Working Life. Working Life started as a blog a couple of years ago at the time when labor had a pretty intense debate about its future. Stuff happened since then…but there is no less of a need for a vigorous debate. […]

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