Working Life

Bob Welsh sent out a note to the AFL-CIO staff yesterday to give them his take on the convention. A few observations: Bob overstates the enthusiasm and excitement he says delegates left with. No question many did. But, the fact is a sizable number of delegates–particularly from Central Labor Councils–left fairly discouraged; some even left […]

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This is not shocking news–on July 29th, the head of the Building and Construction Trades Department, Ed Sullivan, sent a letter to all its affiliated councils in the U.S. and Canada in which he gives the heave-ho to the Teamsters and Carpenters. It’s not shocking in that everyone knew it was coming and it’s consistent […]

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Well, I’ve decided to make the CAFTA 15 a regular project of this blog for as long as it takes. Nothing has gotten people more riled up–for good reason. So, I’ve got a few ideas up my sleeve which I’ll talk about in the next few days. First off, let’s start gathering as much info […]

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By popular demand…a thread on raiding. What seems to have sparked the particular interest is the battle between AFSCME and SEIU out in Riverside County, California so I’ve collected and posted a few documents on the subject below. A few thoughts. Because of the large recent influx of readers, I want to assume that not […]

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With all the hoo-hah inside the labor movement, I’ve left my favorite Beast of Bentonville alone for a couple of weeks. Well, praise be, it never ceases to feed the machine…The Beast has now made a motion in court to throw out the huge class action discrimination case filed against it–that case could cover more […]

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Back in May, I argued that neither side in the internal debate over the future of labor had the answers for key questions, chief among them: what to do about China? We need a strategy that, on the one hand, recognizes that we’re dealing with an authoritarian regime that still waves the banner of communism […]

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Really good story in today’s New York Times’ Sunday Business Section called “How Wall Street Wrecked United’s Pension” (registration required). Written by Mary Williams Walsh (who, I think, has done really good reporting on the attack on pensions), the piece shows how United’s pension fund money managers collected about $125 million in fees over the […]

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And here from the political newsletter Hotline….note the Republicans who voted No. CAFTA: I’ll Take That De-CAFTAnated A “sharply divided” House early 7/28 “passed a hard-fought Central American trade agreement that had become one of the year’s biggest political fights.” The victory was “a huge one” for Pres. Bush and GOPers, “whose legislative agenda could […]

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A friend, deeply involved in the issue of CAFTA (who can’t be named because of the very senior position this person holds in the labor movement), writes: “just so you have some perspective here: about 100 Dems voted for NAFTA, about 70 on PNTR [Permanent Normal Trading Relations, for China], about 23 on fast track […]

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Still trying to catch up the brain from a week of not enough sleep so this weekend my ramblings might come a little later in the a.m.–and, if that isn’t enough, I have to crank out a little opus on the convention for New Labor Forum…by Monday… First, a welcome to Reece–I’m always encouraging new […]

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