Working Life

There isn’t any other way of putting it: last night was a disaster for the labor movement and for its members and all working people. When the working class "hero" John Boehner choked up in recounting his humble roots, I said aloud, "will you remember that when you unleash Big Business to press its boot […]

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   I always thought this approach would be worth trying: Ballots cast throughout New Jersey on Tuesday will list hundreds of candidates, their parties and the offices they seek. But for 53 candidates, the ballots will not say one of the most important things they have in common: union-approved. These people running for town councilman, […]

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   When I first read the story today about Andrew Cuomo, it seemed fairly in line with previous things he has said about his plan to attack the labor movement if he wins the election: Andrew M. Cuomo will mount a presidential-style permanent political campaign to counter the well-financed labor unions he believes have bullied […]

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   This is very good news: In a city of secret economies, few are as vital to the life of New York as the business of nannies, the legions of women who emancipate high-powered professionals and less glamorous working parents from the duties of daily child care so they might get to work. Those nannies, […]

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   Over to Copenhagen (A lovely city to visit): how exactly do we adjust the global economy to save the planet from catastrophic changes AND do so in a way that is fair to workers. The process is called "Just Transition". The international labor movement–there is a delegation in Copenhagen drawing from labor around the […]

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   An interesting report came into my email box this morning from the good folks at the International Labor Organization. The World of Work Report is an annual study by the ILO Institute, which provides an assessment of the current state of labour markets. Among its findings:   Based on the latest IMF growth estimates, […]

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   When NAFTA was passed in 1993, I, and others, argued that the labor movement should mount primary challenges to every Democrat who voted for the legislation. After all, labor correctly saw NAFTA as the underpinning for a trade policy that would hasten the evolution of a global economy based on one thing: the search […]

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   I have had my doubts, as expressed here over these many months, about the Employee Free Choice Act–whether it would do what the labor movement said it would do (unleash organizing of millions of workers) and, most important, whether it would pass in its proposed form.    Well, you can forget about the latter […]

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   A long battle has taken one step forward to victory:   The Stella D’Oro Biscuit Company factory in the Bronx, where 134 workers on strike since last August have been replaced, must reinstate the workers and pay them wages going back to May, a federal administrative law judge has ruled. The 134 workers, members […]

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   There has been a lot of debate when it comes to the question of "green jobs"–what exactly is a "green job"? And when some people call for "high paying, good jobs" in the new "green" industries, does that also mean those jobs are UNION jobs?    A little taste of the question comes from […]

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