Working Life

It’s not particularly surprising to learn that the John Sexton-led New York University is building its latest monument of “higher education” on the backs and sweat of abused workers. After all, Sexton and NYU led a vicious anti-union campaign to deny graduate students the right to have a union, and tried to kill the union at the end of a four-year agreement. The higher-ups at NYU are despicable, anti-union thugs–and they are happy to let people be abused half around the world, all for the glory of an academic empire.

Read the full story

   It’s a full-time job–actually, five full-time jobs–to keep track of how the economic elites screw working people. Just when everyone is excited–rightly so–about the demonstrations breaking out all over the country, in the back door slides more horror: Congress prepared Wednesday to pass free-trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama, showing unusual bipartisan […]

Read the full story

   Reaching back all the way to NAFTA (oh, so ancient history…1993), there has been a complete lie and sham underlying virtually every trade deal post-NAFTA–don’t worry, so-called "free trade" advocates tell us (including free trade zealots Bill Clinton and Robert Reich) about these deals…we will put in place "labor protections" to make sure workers […]

Read the full story

   In all the negative news out there, I found this encouraging: A group of more than 130 artists, including many prominent figures in the Middle Eastern art world, says it will boycott the $800 million Guggenheim museum being built in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, unless conditions for the foreign […]

Read the full story

We have an affliction that really undermines a decent society. It’s a tendency to want to ignore inconvenient facts, either explicitly or because we are encouraged to look quite narrowly and myopically at a problem. Which brings me to Wal-Mart’s new attempt to whitewash its practices, using the First Lady as a prop.   We […]

Read the full story

  The Beast of Bentonville–aka Wal-Mart–is slowly, but surely, letting go of the argument "we’re innocent" of widespread lawbreaking. And this just in: it will settle 63 lawsuits for a cool $640 million.   From The New York Times: Wal-Mart Stores, the nation’s largest retailer, said Tuesday that it would pay up to $640 million […]

Read the full story

   McDonald’s really knows how to celebrate liberty and justice. On the eve of the international recognition Human Rights Day, McDonald’s announced it will launch a massive campaign to defeat the Employee Free Choice Act. So, let’s respond in kind: boycott McDonald’s.   As a reminder, the right to form a union is an internationally […]

Read the full story

    This morning is a time to shake off the cobwebs of conventionitis. Conventionitis is a serious form of mental illness brought on by being cooped up in a climate-controlled atmosphere, where the air you breathe is not real, and the steady hum of many voices conversing at a low pitch combines to penetrate the […]

Read the full story

I have to admit to a knee-jerk dislike when I hear the name "General Electric". It goes back to the days when the company that claims "we bring good things to life" was deep in the business of producing nuclear weapons, which have a quirky ability to end life. Then, there was the reign of […]

Read the full story

    Almost three years ago, I wrote about James Lynn, a whistle-blower who worked for Wal-Mart and exposed the Beast’s exploitation of workers in Central America. Wal-Mart fired Lynn, claiming he had engaged in improper "fraternization" with a colleague. A couple of days ago, the Arkansas Court of Appeals ruled in Wal-Mart’s favor: The Arkansas […]

Read the full story