Working Life

As if we didn’t know, the Economic Policy Institute gives us this news: The median household income rose just 1.6% between 2001 and 2004 (from $42,500 to $43,200 in 2004 dollars) compared to an 11.7% rise in productivity. Simply put, workers aren’t reaping the rewards of their labor: real wages are trailing productivity gains because […]

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I meant to write about this when it first surfaced but I wanted to try to figure out the background. Andrew Young, who many people still view as a civil rights leader, has sold his soul to Wal-Mart. He’s made a deal to become the public spokesperson for Working Familes For Wal-Mart. Truly shameful. Young […]

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Here’s an interesting pairing of events. Even though there have been a spate of deaths and accidents at mines, the Bush Administration has “decreased major fines for safety violations since 2001,” as The New York Times reports today. The Mine Safety and Health Administration’s response: last year’s fatalities of 22 miners was “the lowest number […]

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Almost every city or state has to deal with it: a company comes with its hand held out, saying it will only move in or stick around if it gets tax breaks, subsidies or other special deals. Some people call this “economic development.” Mostly, though, it’s highway robbery and we, the taxpayers, end up paying […]

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Here’s a rare piece of good legal news for workers: Court Blocks DOD’s New Rules for Workers Collective Bargaining Hurt, Judge Says A federal judge blocked the Defense Department from implementing much of its new personnel system yesterday, handing the Bush administration a major setback in its efforts to streamline work rules and install pay-for-performance […]

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It will be an interesting day in New York. Over at the union hall for SEIU’s 32BJ, there will be a public briefing for the bi-partisan Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act of 2005. Here’s another place where I part with the AFL-CIO. I think this is a pretty decent bill, though not perfect, while […]

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This is not a new story but it’s always nice when the mainstream media highlight something we’ve been discussing here for many months, and something so many people have pointed out for a long time. The Sunday New York Times Business Section has a front-page story headlined, “Two Tiers, Slipping Into One: As Workers Retire, […]

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I’ve been asked by a lot of people about my opinion of the AFL-CIO’s new blog. My answer has been: what blog? I encourage more labor blogs to get started. But, the point of a blog is to create conversation and debate. In some ways, the AFL-CIO is doing precisely what its culture dictates: pretend […]

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Wal-Mart is quite adept at the mirage game: create an illusion to mask reality. Once it was the image of Sam Walton, the aw-shucks small town guy–who was actually quite a brutal businessman who had no compunction about destroying local businesses. Then, came the “Buy America” company that could not survive without slave wage labor […]

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That headline is not a shocker for most of us. But, here’s a concise summation of what our friends at the Economic Policy Institute: President Bush has noted that 2 million jobs were created over the course of 2005, and that we have added 4.6 million jobs since the decline in jobs ended in May […]

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