Working Life

   We can, and will, have differences with the president and his Administration on issues, particularly on the shaping of economic policy (single-payer, Mr. President). But, it’s nice to see that we at least have a leader who understands what a picket line is: Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. and other top Obama administration […]

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  Meticulously anal pundits, like Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh, intellectual heavy weights Tom Tancredo, and ex-convict/current actor/ radio personality G. Gordon Liddy have exposed Judge Sotomayor for what she really is: a KKK-supporting, racist, menstruator/pre-menstruator who hates white people and speaks to aliens. Sotomayors’ own beliefs confirm she is a Racist, Sexist, Elitist, Class-Warfare-Inciting […]

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   Yes, there are big issues where the outcome is not clear–the Employee Free Choice Act and health care come to mind. But, this does make a difference in the day-to-day lives of workers–from The Wall Street Journal today: Mr. Obama is asking for $13.3 billion of discretionary spending to run the Labor Department, up […]

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   We keep avoiding the elephant in the room. It’s fine for the president to do this: President Obama on Monday called for curbing offshore tax havens and corporate tax breaks to collect billions of dollars more from multinational companies and wealthy individuals. The move would appeal to growing populist anger among taxpayers but is […]

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The bankruptcy of Chrysler crystallized a pretty straightforward choice about which side you are on in our society: do you care about what happens to workers and their communities or are you more interested in making a few more dollars? The Administration made its choice. A few hedge funds made their choice and, along with […]

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It is a pretty extraordinary scenario: in a blazingly short amount of time, the Administration has forged a deal that could save thousands of jobs at Chrysler–the major banks are on board, the UAW has made more significant concessions. But all that may come crashing to a halt because of a few hedge funds who […]

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   I imagine that I risk the ire of at least the most die-hard fringe Northern Ireland para-military forces or perhaps people who still revel in the Revolutionary War-era spanking of the redcoats but I’ve been carrying around this article from about a week ago that got a little attention and, then, floated out of […]

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   In the bigger sense, these two things are related. First, a week ago, I asked whether the president will keep his campaign promise about renegotating NAFTA. The answer seems to be "no": The administration has no present plans to reopen negotiations on the North American Free Trade Agreement to add labor and environmental protections, […]

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   Last week, I wondered whether the president would keep his campaign promise about NAFTA. Today, Colombia is on my mind because of this piece in The Wall Street Journal: President Barack Obama discussed a pending free-trade agreement with his Colombian counterpart Saturday and dispatched his trade representative to discuss U.S. concerns over Colombia’s treatment […]

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   You may remember–this is old history…a year ago so this might seem like eons ago–that during the Democratic 2008 primary campaign, there was a huge surprise: we learned that NAFTA was a bad thing. Who knew? I couldn’t keep track of all those candidates running for office who suddenly had discovered something that a […]

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