Working Life

If the Democrats do not filibuster the nomination of Samuel Alito, it will show, yet again, why the party will remain a minority party–or, at best, do very little to show any kind of leadership to the millions of people who need a real oppositional party. It’s clear that with Alito on the Supreme Court, […]

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I found today’s cover story about living wage campaigns in The New York Times Sunday Magazine troubling mainly because of what it didn’t say. There was not a single–not one–mention that the reason people are living in poverty and have to survive on minimum wage salaries is because of the lack of unions. Duh. The […]

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I don’t think we should make much of the United Farm Workers leaving the AFL-CIO. Sure, the union has a certain iconic position in the movement’s lore which is quite disproportionate to its current size and impact on anything happening in labor. Remember, the UFW was already part of the Change To Win coalition–like the […]

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…at least in Maryland. This is a snippet from The New York Times article this a.m.: Maryland Sets a Health Cost for Wal-Mart By MICHAEL BARBARO ANNAPOLIS, Md., Jan. 12 – The Maryland legislature passed a law Thursday that would require Wal-Mart Stores to increase spending on employee health insurance, a measure that is expected […]

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Will one of the CAFTA 15 go down? That likelihood grew a bit–though not as a result of an election-related development. You may remember, back in August, the F.B.I. raided the offices of William Jefferson, Democrat of Louisiana–allegations surfaced about potential corruption. Yesterday, Jefferson’s former legislative director, Brett Pfeffer, pleaded guilty to “aiding and abetting […]

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Several people have commented in unrelated posts about the series that has been running this week in the Los Angeles Times about the United Farm Workers (registration required). I frankly haven’t had the time this week to read each piece…but people have asked for a space to debate the issue. So, here you go. The […]

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It never ceases to amaze me to watch the conventional wisdom both forget the past and ignore the reality of what the economy means to real people. So, the mainstream media–from The New York Times to the Wall Street Journal–are all ecstatic about the Dow going over the 11,000 mark yesterday for the first time […]

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Last week, I speculated that the decision by IBM to stop providing its employees with a defined benefit pension plan was perhaps a sign that the end was near for real pensions. After all, IBM is not an ailing company and has the third-largest pension plan in America. Today, Mary Williams Walsh has a front–page […]

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I’m still irate a day after reading Michael Moss’ piece in The New York Times (registration required) about the Pentagon study that found “that as many as 80 percent of the marines who have been killed in Iraq from wounds to the upper body could have survived if they had extra body armor.” My view: […]

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The president, trying to distract people from little things like illegal spying, the war and Jack Abramoff, decided to try to tout the wonderful state of the economy. Part of this little roadshow included the tired refrain that tax cuts have helped the economy–even though there’s almost no reputable economist that will make that argument […]

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