Working Life

You may have heard in the last few days that the AFL-CIO issued a statement at the executive council meeting threatening to demand that the Democratic Party move its 2008 nominating convention from Denver because of the veto cast last month by DEMOCRATIC Governor Bill Ritter that torpedoed legislation that would have made union organizing […]

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The other day I wrote about the criteria I thought should be used by labor in choosing who to support for president (commenters provided useful additions, including where the candidate stands on immigration). Today, The Wall Street Journal has a piece on the topic, written out of Las Vegas where the AFL-CIO is holding its […]

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To end the suspense right away, I am not going to say which candidate I think labor should support. I have a favorite candidate who I think would be the strongest pro-labor candidate—and would remember labor once elected. But, here, I simply want to suggest what the criteria might be for labor to choose a […]

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This falls under the rubric of (a) how we can never trust Democrats to do the right thing unless we are willing to make them pay an electoral price and (b) how the power business has is so threatening to a politician that s/he will even break a campaign pledge to make sure that business […]

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Eve since I can remember, there has been a debate about money that we spend for “defense” versus money that is spent for domestic needs–the classic “guns v. butter” issue. Frankly, most of the labor movement has not played a great role in that debate, either because of a sense of patriotism or, more likely, […]

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There’s a new political alliance being announced today, linking unions and more “Republican” leaning groups. The Washington Post reports that: In a first-of-its-kind alliance that could fundamentally reshape the environmental movement, 20 labor unions with nearly 5 million members are joining forces with a Republican-leaning umbrella group of conservationists — the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership […]

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It will be interesting to see the analysis of labor’s political operation in the 2006 election. A flurry of emails has been making the rounds, highlighting the mobilization of union members in the key races. A press release from the AFL-CIO asserted that, “High turnout among union members turned a win into a sweep with […]

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The people spoke clearly Tuesday–about the rights of people to make a living. At least, if you’re making minimum wage. Across the nation, in case you missed it, every ballot initiative passed that called for raising the minimum wage above the pathetic federal level of $5.15 per hour: Arizona: 66 percent-34 percentColorado: 53-47Missouri: 76-24 (and […]

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Look, no one wants the Republicans to lose more than I do…they are disgusting and they’ve torched this country and caused the deaths of untold numbers of human beings. BUT…fair is fair… A reader pointed out to me that Maine’s two Republican Senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins (the latter always seemed kind of a […]

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With thanks to Susan G over at Daily Kos for pointing this out, the Christian Science Monitor had a decent article reporting on a joint effort by the AFL-CIO and Change To Win to coordinate political efforts in 2006. I always thought that this would happen after the split–after all, coordinating phone and walk lists […]

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