Working Life

You want to know how your dollars are spent when you buy stuff? It’s not for the wages of the workers who serve you:

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    In some ways, the worst phenomena in political and public life is the way in which we–the people–give over power to the financial and corporate elite partly because we internalize marketing phrases and economic nonsense beaten into our brains over 30 years by the brain-dead traditional media and a capitulation by the political leaders […]

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   So, The New York Times discovered this startling fact: But many researchers have reached a conclusion that turns conventional wisdom on its head: Americans enjoy less economic mobility than their peers in Canada and much of Western Europe. The mobility gap has been widely discussed in academic circles, but a sour season of mass […]

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   I meant to highlight the beginning of this story when it first came up a day or two ago. Here is an update: Indiana House Democrats met behind closed doors on Wednesday, delaying the start of the 2012 legislative session and blocking action on controversial anti-union legislation backed by Republicans. House Democratic Leader Pat […]

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    Those of you with long memories may recall when Caterpillar declared war on the UAW, provoking a long, bitter strike in the 1990s (is there any strike that isn’t bitter?). Well, here it comes again, this time seeking the hides of Canadians: Caterpillar late Sunday locked out about 420 union workers at a train-locomotive […]

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   I took a longer break from blogging than I thought–to think, observe a bit, rest the brain, cycle New Zealand’s spectacular South Island. But, what stirred me to break this hiatus, at the very moment that people are switching off their computers to turn to libations and debauchery, was, well, the modest observation that […]

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    I could blame Joe Lieberman for deciding to take a week off starting Monday but it would be unfair. I’m doing that for other reasons–my computer will be, intentionally, in a different place for that week.    But, reading this crap reminds me why it will be good riddance when Lieberman rides off into […]

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   In one sense, okay, this is fine: Boeing Co. and leaders of its main union reached a tentative settlement that could end one of the biggest U.S. labor disputes in recent times but leave unresolved key questions about the government’s right to determine where companies locate their plants. Boeing’s labor troubles took on political […]

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   The question one has to ask here is: will the CEO or the top executives of American Airlines lose any money from THEIR retirements because of the bankruptcy? Or will a bankruptcy also include the provision that all top management and the entire board resign? Of course, the answer to both question is no […]

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   I’ve written a lot about the complete immoral insanity of the obsession over the phony debt and deficit "crisis"and the rush to impose austerity on the people when we really need much more public spending to employ the masses of people who are falling, falling, falling further behind. Well, truth is austerity is not […]

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