Working Life

This past Saturday, we had a great march for immigration rights in New York City–on May 1st, thankfully, and sponsored by the labor movement to boot. Without a doubt, the Arizona racist legislation gave a boost to the turnout on a sun-drenched day. But, here is the point I have made in the past, and […]

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We are being distracted by numbers that are a sideshow. The new Gross Domestic Product numbers and the obsession about the fiscal deficits are obscuring the real problem in America–wages.   Yes, we have a massive jobs crisis. I have been pretty clearly supporting the idea that we need far bigger stimulus and that the […]

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   Whew…ten years sure goes by quickly. A decade ago, labor led, along with environmentalists and other civic-minded groups, a challenge to the framework of so-called "free trade" in the streets of Seattle. A few days ago, I wondered why a Democratic president would be on a path to push through a so-called "free trade" […]

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    Let’s go back in history briefly to the 1990s. In 1993, Bill Clinton pushed through NAFTA, over the objection of a large number of Democrats, with a large number of Republicans joining with the Democratic president to get NAFTA through the House (The Senate has always been far more receptive to so-called "free trade"). […]

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   I don’t have much to add on the extremely disappointing and inadequate health care bill that passed the Senate yesterday–it’s been said by others–so I turned my attention to a couple of international developments.    Every so often, when I discuss trade, here or in debates elsewhere, people say: well, we live in a […]

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   You don’t hear too much about immigration these days. My view has been, for a long time, that immigration cannot be divorced from the economic policies being imposed, largely with the leadership of the U.S. on other countries. If you insist on continuing to ram so-called "free trade" deals down the throats of countries […]

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   On some things, I would rather be proven wrong. I would rather be told, "you see, these trade deals did their job when they passed and promised  to protect labor rights in other countries where union organizers and leaders have been regularly killed and threatened…life has so improved for labor". Then, I would admit […]

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   Yesterday, I was back doing the hard stuff…not in the drinking area (though, actually, I did have a bit of Glenlivet later in the day). No, the hard stuff is trying to have an intelligent conversation with anyone associated with the so-called "free trade" wing of the world. In this case, I was asked […]

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   It is curious, if not maddening, to observe the unwillingness of our economic and political leaders to admit that the bankruptcy of General Motors is a verdict on a much broader failure of the economic vision of the country. Sure, the incompetence of GM management, over a long period of time, is stunning. But, […]

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   While there seem to be some people who think that there is some benefit to having a so-called "free trade" agreement with Panama (the Senate Finance committee had tentatively scheduled a hearing on the deal for this Thursday), I’m wondering if the main people who want this to go through are the people who […]

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