Working Life

Thousands of workers, and supporters, have rallied and marched for several years under the banner “Fight for 15”—a demand that fast food workers, and all workers, be paid at least $15-an-hour, almost double the poverty-level federal minimum wage, and, as important, have the right to form a union. It’s been a hard slog but a […]

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The numbers and the passion show it: undocumented immigrants, the vast majority of whom have lived in the country for over a decade, are part of the fabric of communities everywhere. I speak with one expert, Lisa Christensen Gee of the Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy, who tallied up the billions of dollars undocumented […]

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Five years ago, I wrote something with almost the same title — and I resurrect this today because the Senate passed an immigration bill. Whatever you think about the bill, in my view, it avoids a central point: we ignore the fundamental reason people flee their homes and what needs to be done to change that forced flight.

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As regular readers of this space know, I’ve argued for a number of years that the whole obsession over the debt and deficit is just crazy. It’s a manufactured crisis and evidence just keeps mounting that the entire austerity-budget-cutting mania is just foolish and, on the facts, wrong. But, if you want to worry about the deficit, here’s a nice wrinkle that will frustrate the hell out of the “keep immigrants out” bozos: immigration cuts the deficit.

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On the list today of no-brainer questions and answers: If you are an undocumented immigrant working for a low wage, would you trust the Chamber of Commerce or the AFL-CIO to look after your interests. Ok, on to a tougher question…

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   Okay, something to like on a 102-degree day: The Obama administration on Tuesday sued Arizona over the state’s strict new immigration law, attempting to wrestle back control over the issue but infuriating Republicans who said the border required more security. The administration argued the Arizona law, which requires state and local police to investigate […]

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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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   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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   I recall how striking it was that the issue of immigration barely registered during the 2008 presidential campaign. No one really wanted to talk about it. So, this is interesting news: The nation’s two major labor federations have agreed for the first time to join forces to support an overhaul of the immigration system, […]

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   We are going to see alot more of this in the next couple of years: More than 50 day laborers stood, bored, anxious and mostly silent, in the sun-blasted parking lot of a Home Depot here last week, tracking the ebb and flow of customers and hoping for work. The hours crawled by. Six, […]

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