Working Life

Melissa Bean’s people are getting nervous out there in Illinois. Bean is one of the CAFTA 15. I hear today that the Teamsters Joint Council in the district has endorsed a Republican in the primary, Robert Churchill. Six Republicans have lined up for the right to take on Bean. The Teamsters are one of the […]

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Just about a month ago, before the escalating debate over the ports deal, I pointed out that a new round of attacks was beginning to be launched against people who opposed globalization. The mainstream media is feeding that assault. Today, you can read a superficial piece by David Sanger in The New York Times. Anchored […]

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A little switch in subject today. I’ve been reading, here and there, about the new book about Barry Bonds and the questions about his steroid use. In fairness, I’ve never been a fan of Bonds–among the vast sea of self-centered sports figures, he seemed to be in a class of his own. He had his […]

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It’s been a fairly accepted idea that many unions are abandoning the process of organizing workers via the National Labor Relations Board election procedures. According to Steve Greenhouse’s piece today, card check is overwhelmingly becoming the accepted route to unionization: Card checks were used to sign up roughly 70 percent of the private-sector workers who […]

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Back when he ran for governor, I wrote about Tim Kaine and his apparent anti-union bent. People assured me that because he was running in Virginia, he had no choice but to talk a certain way but his heart was really okay when it came to unions. I just don’t buy that. Just this week […]

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It used to be that when the government ran budget deficits, it would finance that debt by selling bonds to Americans–so, most interest payments went to people in this country who had invested in the future of the nation. Quick, blink a few times and look down the road just a few years. As the […]

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When the attacks on pensions hit blue-collar workers, people shrug. But, increasingly, the disappearing pensions are a fact of life for white-collar workers. GM is now going after its white-collar workforce. The General Motors Corporation announced extensive changes to the retirement plans of its salaried employees on Tuesday, a decision that will cut its pension […]

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This is a bit amusing. Turns out that the Beast of Bentonville is now writing copy for bloggers. The New York Times has a story today that reveals that the company has been sending out talking points and other information for pro-Wal-Mart bloggers (I wonder why I didn’t get those emails?). Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest […]

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This is something I think many people worry about and rightly criticize the Democratic Party for. Today, The New York Times has a front-page piece entitled, “For Democrats, Many Verses, but No Chorus.” I don’t generally think much of Adam Nagourney as a reporter–can you say “conventional wisdom?”–but this piece does expose what I think […]

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I haven’t see this anywhere in the mainstream press: the Financial Times had a piece on Feb, 27th (yeah, sorry, it sat on my desk and I just liberated it from the pile) which reported that the Central American Free Trade Agreement might be headed for tough times in Costa Rica: The leader of Costa […]

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