Working Life

Readers of this blog know that that I’ve spent a lot of time exploring the attack on pensions. Now, comes one of ths most ominous signals that corporate America is on a relentless path to end the concept of real pensions for workers: IBM announced yesterday that, beginning in 2008, it would freeze pension benefits […]

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Remember all the folks who pointed fingers at the transit union, claiming it was at fault for provoking the recent strike? Well, as the strike recedes in memory, we begin to get more of the truth. Today, Sewell Chan and Steven Greenhouse of The New York Times tell us that the chairman of the transit […]

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Next week, keep an eye on the Maryland state legislature. It looks like it will override the governor’s veto of a bill that would require retailers like Wal-Mart to increase their share of spending on healthcare for its workers. The point of the bill was to lessen the burden on public healthcare programs, where workers […]

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Well, Happy New Year to all. Hope you’re all now properly chained back to your desks doing the bidding of the bosses… Right after the transit strike, we had a pretty intense back and forth about immigration policy and health care, set off by my post that the transit workers deal (which is causing a […]

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Friends, I’ll be off the posting biz for the holiday–not that I’m just lounging around but have to clean out the mind and desk for a few days. So, barring any labor or economic calamity, look for me to be back here on Tuesday. HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL WORKING LIFE’s READERS AND POSTERS. This […]

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Check out: “New York Transit Deal Shows Union’s Success on Many Fronts.” A very positive analysis of the contract gains.

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So, we have a deal. Just in time for the New Year. And the question is: how did the transit workers do? On the one hand, Transit Workers Local 100 president Roger Toussaint comes out on top on the issue that sparked the three-day strike–there will be no give backs on pensions. Workers with 25 […]

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How is the recent NYC transit strike like a dispute in Ireland over Latvian workers being hired to work on ferries? In both instances, workers are being pitted against each other in the name of cutting costs and boosting profits. In the transit strike, the workers were fighting to keep their pensions and health care; […]

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It never ceases to amaze me how powerful the health care industry lobby is. Otherwise, how do you explain the 45 million uninsured Americans, the millions more under-insured and the crazy 1.8 trillion dollars we spend on health care (15 percent of GDP)–and still we have no national health insurance? This is a scandal. In […]

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As we’ve discussed here for many months, the pension system in the country is under attack. Either by running into bankruptcy or converting defined benefit plans to take-a-gamble 401(k)’s or demanding pension givebacks in contract negotiations (as was the case in the NYC transit strike), employers are dismantling the pension system. The message today is […]

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