Working Life

Right after my previous report on the AFL-CIO’s finances, I got a call from Joe Hill (uh, yeah, a pseudonym), an AFL-CIO insider who told me “it’s quite worse than what you wrote.” Hill pointed out that when John Sweeney took over, the AFL-CIO had no debt; now the debt stands at $28.5 million dollars. […]

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I was going to write about the fragility of the global economy but I’ll leave that to tomorrow (I don’t think it’s going to collapse in 24 hours so I should be able to squeeze my thoughts in before it does) because my colleague Andy Levin of the AFL-CIO passed along the article below from […]

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A review of AFL-CIO audited statements for 1996 and 2004 by the coalition pushing for changes inside the labor movement shows some fairly interesting trends. I offer them as they are, with some comment: Under John Sweeney: AFL-CIO Income has grown dramatically, and AFL-CIO Expenses have grown far more dramatically. AFL-CIO income has increased by […]

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Glad to see the splashy public launch of the Center for Community and Corporate Ethics. Check out today’s full-page ad in The New York Times and put its website into your favorite links—and spread the word (www.walmartwatch.com). The Center’s job is to try to link the various efforts underway to changing the way the Beast […]

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I’ve been in the Middle East for the past week meeting with Israeli journalists (today I’ll be sitting down with Arab journalists in Nazareth). The wonders of the free market have infected labor relations here, too. It used to be that Israeli journalists were paid via a collective agreement that was set through the semi-government […]

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I thought the end of civilization had arrived with reality T.V. but this morning I’ve been once again reassured that our crazy country can come up with the ever-more bizarre. CNN carried a local video report from a TV station in Latham, New York reporting on a real special wedding (it’s on the CNN website […]

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So, the Wall Street Journal carried a story yesterday (followed up today by The New York Times) that reports, in part, a claim that Wal-Mart’s vice-chairman Thomas Coughlin had falsified expense reports to hide money he was using for anti-union activities. Coughlin, you may remember, was asked to leave the board after the company uncovered […]

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It was a hoot last night at the great debate over the question “Is Wal-Mart Good For America?” I’m not a good crowd numbers guesser so if I said there were 400 people, I might be off by fifty, one way or the other. Each combatant got to make an opening statement of 6 minutes […]

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I wasn’t there at the media-fest put on by Wal-Mart in Bentonville yesterday but it seemed like a swell affair, though none of the media accounts said anything about what food was served (C’mon, get to the important stuff!). I’ll leave most of my specific thoughts about the flaws in the company’s defense to tomorrow—after […]

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Just as Wal-Mart opens up its doors to a media-fest in Bentonville, it will get a letter from people living in Inglewood. The letter was just released: April 5, 2005 Mr. Lee Scott CEO Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Bentonville, Arkansas 72716-8611 Dear Mr. Scott: One year ago, Wal-Mart tried to deny the people of Inglewood their […]

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