Working Life

I’m going to spend a second day here on the Beast of Bentonville. If you want to know why the Democratic Party will continue to be the minority party in the country, look no further than the raft of Democratic operatives and elected representatives who do the bidding of Wal-Mart. At the end of this […]

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Whew. Today, it’s all about the Beast of Bentonville. Hard to decide where to start but…how about today’s world premiere of Robert Greenwald’s film “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price.” Yours truly will be at the advance screening tonight here in NYC and I’ll report back with a movie review tomorrow. But, in the […]

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Over the past couple of months, the corporate money has been flowing into the hands of the CAFTA 15. Besides the fundraiser that business associations held for the CAFTA 15 in September, each of these so-called Democrats–who really need to be challenged and defeated in primaries–has been receiving corporate donations. I’m going to start letting […]

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There is an ideological drum beat underway that, to me, mirrors the relentless mantra we have endured about so-called “free trade” for the past three decades. This one goes like this: pensions are a thing of the past, and certainly no one should expect to get a real pension anymore–“real” being, in my humble opinion, […]

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As readers know, I’ve been beating the drum for some time that the “growing economy” as measured by the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a misleading number because it doesn’t really tell the depth of economic distress facing workers. Presto, in front of my eyes the contradiction is laid bare. First, I get my little […]

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We’ve been following, from time to time, the situation with Proposition 75, which is an Arnold Schwarzenegger-backed initiative that would require government employee unions to give prior notice to members before using dues on political activity. Here is a poll that looks at the support for Prop 75 and a set of other propositions. The […]

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No, I’m not referring to the indictments in the Plame affair (as I write this in the a.m., nothing announced other than it looks as if Rove might skate and Scooter will take the hit). It’s Delphi’s next shot at the UAW. You may remember it was the bankruptcy filing of Delphi that triggered the […]

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I can’t say that I disagree with the grim assessment in this front-page article in The Wall Street Journal (it’s a subscription so I’m providing it here, in full). But, since health care is such a big piece of what happens at the bargaining table, I think this crisis opens up an opportunity: a massive […]

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Tyson Foods has a pretty ugly reputation as a hard-nosed, nasty employer. There is a very ugly strike underway at the the company’s Lakeside Packers plant in Brooks, Alberta. As the UFCW reports, “Approximately 2,300 workers were forced on strike by Tyson Foods at the company’s Lakeside Packers plant in Brooks, Alberta, on Wednesday, October […]

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This is great news–the White House has caved in to the pressure to rescind the suspension of the Davis-Bacon prevailing wage laws for the areas hit by Hurricane Katrina. Here’s what I hear from my Capitol Hill sources: the president, who suspended the Davis Bacon provisions that guarantee people working on federal contracts are paid […]

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