Working Life

    I’m trying to keep election news t a minimum so we can focus on labor and workers’ issues that get less discussion but, let’s face it, people want to know and politics will dominate even more in 2008. So…though he didn’t get the national union’s endorsement, John Edwards did pretty well yesterday as nine  […]

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  (This is the fourth installment of an occasional update on where the labor movement is ending up in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination)   At this point, this is really not a surprise: the Service Employees International Union has chosen not to endorse, at the national level, any one candidate, freeing up […]

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Whew. John Edwards just spoke to the Change To Win convention in Chicago and blew the delegates away. I’ve got a few snippets here from his speech.   First, to repeat some of the background: Three of the Democratic candidates are speaking here at the one-day convention. Barack Obama spoke this morning and he did […]

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    I’m here in the Windy City for the Change To Win convention. I’ve only got a few minutes before the convention goes back into session–and there is no wireless in the hall so it’s tough to get real-time stuff up (memo to unions: if you want reporters to get the message out, set up […]

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   The Service Employees International Union will not endorse any candidate in the Democratic primaries–at least until next week. This announcement came just a few minutes ago via  a conference call with SEIU president Andy Stern and Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger.   How did SEIU get to this place? After hearing on Monday from candidates who […]

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    This is a good day to check in on the lay of the land regarding where unions are going in the Democratic presidential primaries. Today, two important unions are hearing from the Democratic presidential candidates: The Service Employees International Union and the Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA).     For SEIU, here’s the […]

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Three weeks ago, I took a look at where unions might end up in the Democratic presidential primary race. There has been a fair amount of movement so it’s a good time to check back and see where we are—with some general analysis. Here, and down the line, I’m generally going to focus on national […]

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Today is a significant day for the Democratic presidential race: the unions of the AFL-CIO will be freed up to endorse candidates. But, I suspect that a number of unions may hold back, at least until after Labor Day. Here are a few guesses, some based on information and some wildly speculative and pulled out […]

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    Okay, no surprise, the Employee Free Choice Act is dead. I’ve gotten no fewer than a dozen e-mails from various politicians and organizations, including the AFL-CIO and Change To win, hailing the Senate vote because a majority–51 senators–voted to let the bill proceed i.e., to cut off the filibuster. Here’s what John Sweeney had […]

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    The immigration bill is headed back to the Senate floor today. It is unclear whether there will be enough votes–60 are needed–to allow the bill to proceed. And, even some of the Senators who say that they will vote to allow the bill to proceed–i.e., they will vote to cut off any filibuster–are saying […]

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