Working Life

It just snowed in New York. Seriously. Wild flurries. Nothing will stick but, hey, it was amazing–first time this winter and it’s January 10th. I thought Mark McGwire would be in the Hall of Fame before it snowed. I gather this will be the reaction of future generations unless we get this global warming thing […]

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I’ve always thought that there is no issue in our society that labor should not be involved in. Global warming? Obviously. The war? Think of the economic damage, not to mention the number of working class people who are spilling their blood in Iraq. I’d be interested in hearing if you think there is a […]

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It’s not been a pretty couple of days here for New York labor. It is true that Brian McLaughlin deserves the presumption of being innocent until proven guilty of the corruption charges leveled against him yesterday. But, what really needs to be looked at is how we got here in the first place. Frankly, even […]

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So, for the real gluttons out there, I’ve got the exchange of letters that lead to the creation of the National Labor Coordinating Committee. Anna Burger, chair of Change To Win, sent a letter to John Sweeney on April 11th. Sweeney replied a week later. And here you can also see the outline of the […]

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There’s been a lot of speculation and anticipation and criticism, all rolled into one, about the plans of Change To Win. Well, wait no longer for the first shot out of the box. This coming week, CTW will launch its campaign–previously discussed–called “Make Work Pay. And you can be the first one to see the […]

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I have been optimistic since last summer that the two federations would find some way to work with each other. And when John Sweeney rolled out the general concept of Solidarity Charters, even though the initial proposal had some serious weaknesses that needed to be fought over, it looked like they would provide a good […]

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Hmmm…this is curious and bizarre. If you go to to website of the Machinists, you find this curious bit of news: Organizing Drive Gears Up at Alabama Mercedes Plant March 16, 2006 – Fair wages, a voice at work and decent benefits are the foundations for a good job anywhere in the United States. Increasingly, […]

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Okay, so I’m all for the idea of making work pay. That’s the slogan of the Change To Win campaign unveiled in Las Vegas yesterday. Since I couldn’t get there, I’m going to piece this together over the next few days. The press statement of CTW says this: The seven-union Change to Win federation today […]

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I’ve been asked by a lot of people about my opinion of the AFL-CIO’s new blog. My answer has been: what blog? I encourage more labor blogs to get started. But, the point of a blog is to create conversation and debate. In some ways, the AFL-CIO is doing precisely what its culture dictates: pretend […]

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This story makes no sense to me. When the AFL-CIO announced the concept of Solidarity Charters, I thought it was a good idea once the kinks got worked out with the Change To Win federation. It was a strong step towards realizing that everyone needed to figure out how to work together, and that, frankly, […]

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