Working Life

For obvious reasons, the president is trying to shift attention away from the war, which is a disaster. The Administration’s approach is to get people talking about the economy, which it thinks it can claim goods news: energy prices have come down a bit and about 215,000 jobs were added in November. Well, I suppose […]

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By catching up, I mean both that the piece below was in the recent Daily Labor Report (by its always-on-the-case reporter Michelle Amber) and that, whew, CWA is definitely racking up the numbers. And it shows what we’ve known all along: when companies agree to be neutral in organizing campaigns and pledge not to beat […]

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As I pointed out yesterday, the president’s empty “Strategy For Victory” speech has one unintended consequence: it pushed House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi a bit further in the direction of sanity, as she declared that she would follow John Murtha’s lead. In today’s Washington Post, Jonathan Weisman writes under the headline, “Democratic Lawmakers Splinter on […]

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My first reaction in looking at the front-page New York Times photo of the president standing above a slogan “Plan For Victory” was, haven’t we seen this before? You all remember how he stood on the aircraft carrier emblazoned with the banner “Mission Accomplished.” The new slogan, clearly a result of some p.r. shop trying […]

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“We have a strategy for victory.” This is what Bush said yesterday in preparation for a much-hyped speech he’s giving today at the U.S. Naval Academy. Here’s what’s clear: this speech is at once a p.r. ploy–they have to say something to blunt the Joe Murtha-inspired calls for quick withdrawal–and also an amazing continuation of […]

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So, the U.S. Treasury Department decided not to brand China as a currency manipulator; The Financial Times (subscription required) leads with that story across the top of its front page and The New York Times features it on the front page of the business section. I’ve always thought this debate is misplaced or, at least, […]

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Steve Greenhouse has a front-page story in The New York Times today (registration required) reporting on the success of SEIU’s organizing drive among janitors in Houston. What’s interesting about the victory–other than the fact that it brings in 5,000 new members in the hard-to-organize South–is the way the victory was pulled off. Check out these […]

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I came upon this at www.bringthemhomenow.org and it made me both laugh–which it’s supposed to do–and feel great sadness. It was taken from an Army Family Readiness program to help understand what it’s like to be on the front lines. One of the things that it reminds you of is how soldiers (and their families) […]

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I just finished reading today’s piece in The New York Times–the same newspaper that was such a cheerleader in the rush to go to war–about the psychological damage the war will have (registration required) on the now 1.2 million men and women who have served in Iraq. The tragedy of the killed, wounded and maimed […]

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Poor Pascal Lamy is in a pickle. But, it’s a pickle that no regular working person should feel bad about. Lamy is the director general of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the international body that oversees global trade agreements. I’m assuming most readers know the basics about the WTO so I’ll just move on here. […]

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