Working Life

Here is something we can all agree on I think—drug companies are blood-sucking, greedy cheats who cannot be trusted with the health and welfare of tens of millions of people. Am I right? And that’s even more true as we watch the global scramble to be the first company to profit big-time from a vaccine […]

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 Let’s go really big! I outline a $6.5 trillion stimulus—more than double what the Democrats in the House passed—because that’s what the people need over the next year: $1.3 trillion in wage guarantees; $715 billion for state and local governments; $600 billion for a “Pandemic Medicare For All”; $1.5 trillion to cancel all student […]

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Big companies don’t give a second thought to making big profits during the COVID-19 pandemic even if that means thousands of workers—and their families—will get sick and die from the virus. Actually, it’s a feature not a bug, no pun intended—in food processing, all those workers who make sure you get beef or chicken on […]

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Private equity vultures love a great economic crisis. Circling above their wounded corporate prey, they wait until a company is too weak to survive, and, then, swoop in to pick up the pieces at a bargain price—which usually involves cutting thousands of jobs, too. And, now, a new rule will allow private equity firms to […]

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I pull back the lens a bit on the Black Lives Matter movement to consider how the uprising is touching the consciousness of workers around the globe, especially in Africa. Chris Johnson, the regional director of Africa for the Solidarity Center, joins me in a conversation about the close relationship between racism and economic oppression, […]

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 The big news—it’s the first regularly scheduled Working Life TV Show!!! View the show now and sign up at www.youtube.com/WorkingLifeWithJonathanTasini  But, all our audio podcast listeners will still be able to hear the show in the long-time format. The unemployment system is in chaos—jammed phone lines, crashing websites. People can’t get the checks they […]

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In 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr gave a speech entitled, “The Other America”, in which he said, “It’s much easier to integrate a lunch counter than it is to guarantee a livable income and a good solid job.” This was a theme he repeated time and time again throughout his life because he saw […]

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 If I say that drug companies are sleazy leeches whose CEOs make millions of dollars while basically killing thousands of people who can’t afford outrageous drug prices, you’d shrug your shoulders and say, “yeah, well, duh.” Drug companies make these huge profits largely because of an absolutely insane system of patents, which you could […]

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Calling people “gig” workers is a subtle trap. “Gig” can sound anywhere from upbeat to just a mundane description. The truth is the “gig” economy is just another way of exploiting people and it’s a dream for all capitalists to have a pool of workers who can be used and abused at the beckon call […]

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Here’s a no brainer observation: It would be hard to find any areas of agreement between the AFL-CIO and Goldman Sachs. Well, I got one—it turns out that the AFL-CIO and Goldman Sachs, along with scores of heads of states, labor folks and business titans, are on the same page about one idea which hasn’t […]

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