Working Life

I’m on the road out of the country so I’ve had a weird kind of schedule to post these past few days and that will continue the rest of the week. And it’s really late now so…a quickie… Checked out this piece in the Wall Street Journal from today: Free-Trade Alert: A Warning on Globalization […]

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    We still need to read the fine print regarding the trade deal that was struck yesterday between the Administration and House Democrats (or, to be more precise, Ways and Means Chair Charlie Rangel). But, I’m always struck by the way in which liberals and even a few progressives (note: there is a difference) still […]

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    Back on my particular hobby horse today on the idiotic description of the issues around trade. And, as usual, The New York Times is the reason. Robin toner has a piece today entitled “For Democrats, New Challenge in Age-Old Rift.” The article is kind of a profile of Rep. Sander Levin, who chairs the […]

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I’ve been writing about labor rights and the world economy for so long that I was a bit suspicious after first reading Elizabeth Becker’s May 12th piece in The New York Times entitled “Low Cost and Sweatshop-Free.” (a side note: the web version of this article does not carry that headline but only the sub-head: […]

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Today’s Wall Street Journal has the not-surprising piece “WTO Urges CautionOn Textile Restraints.” (requires subscription). The head of the WTO, says the article, “says it would be a mistake for countries struggling with a surge in Chinese textile exports to throw up protectionist walls right away, just as Europe and the U.S. take steps in […]

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Pension power and China on my mind this morning. On pension, kudos to Bill Patterson and his band of pension-fund activists at the AFL-CIO. They forced Waddell & Reed, a Kansas-based financial services firm, to pull out of the business-funded (ready for an Orwellian-sounding title) Alliance for Worker Retirement Security (AWRS), the coalition pouring millions […]

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I’m taking a brief break here from the goings-on at the AFL-CIO to raise the specter of the looming Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). For some time, I’ve referred to CAFTA-like deals as so-called “free trade” deals because they have little to do with the theory of free trade and a whole lot more […]

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