Working Life

So, here’s a political take on the General Motors-UAW deal to pay workers to get out of Dodge. In one sense, for a bunch of workers who are near retirement and have over 30 years on the job this isn’t a terrible deal: if your kids are out of college and you have your house […]

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Hmmm…this is curious and bizarre. If you go to to website of the Machinists, you find this curious bit of news: Organizing Drive Gears Up at Alabama Mercedes Plant March 16, 2006 – Fair wages, a voice at work and decent benefits are the foundations for a good job anywhere in the United States. Increasingly, […]

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Okay, so I’m all for the idea of making work pay. That’s the slogan of the Change To Win campaign unveiled in Las Vegas yesterday. Since I couldn’t get there, I’m going to piece this together over the next few days. The press statement of CTW says this: The seven-union Change to Win federation today […]

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I had some further thoughts about the Times article, which I cross-posted at Daily Kos. But, here it is: Will The New York Times stop regurgitating the utter nonsense that welfare “reform” was a success? Erik Eckholm’s article today on the plight of black men is disturbing, not just because of its central thesis that […]

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A few days ago, I got this little squib from the Economic Policy Institute which looked at some date from the Federal Reserve that I haven’t seen discussed anywhere: The data in the report reveal that in 2004, minority incomes were about 56% that of whites. However, a far larger gap exists when we compare […]

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We’ve been following the attack on the pension system for a long time. What an outrage: people save their own money–it is their money because pension money is deferred compensation–and, poof, it’s either gone or taken over by the federal agency that is struggling with a $23 billion deficit, which could get even bigger if […]

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A friend of mine from Michigan, who I can’t name because of the organizational post s/he holds, writes: It’s been delicious – and a bit hilarious — to watch Michigan Republicans spin in ever-contradictory circles as they attempt to justify their vote this week in favor of raising the state minimum wage by 44%, to […]

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Here I hadn’t really mentioned Greg Meeks for some time and, bingo, he pops up twice in a row. After yesterday’s posting about the protest at his fundraiser, I received a notice that Meeks–one of our CAFTA 15–was feted yesterday. Now, it wasn’t a hug from labor or a consumer group or someone looking out […]

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Rep. Gregory Meeks is one of the CAFTA 15 (yes, it is a hard thing for us New Yorkers to admit that 2 of the 15 come from our fair city–an unbelievable thought given that labor unions are still relatively large here). And, just as bad, Meeks is one of the so-called Democrats who voted […]

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I’ve posted the below at Huffington Post and Daily Kos. I’m so peeved at the spineless Beltway Democrats that I’m reposting it here, too. If you are one of those Democrats like me who is completely fed up with the inside-the-Beltway party hacks who continue to lose elections because they have no spine and no […]

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