Working Life

Wait, didn’t we just talk last week about the attacks on government workers? Well, a week doesn’t go by when another attack against people, who keep our society working, isn’t launched by this administration—this time it’s the workers at the Environmental Protection Agency. AFGE Local 1236 Bethany Dreyfus joins me to give us the lowdown […]

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Five years ago, I wrote something with almost the same title — and I resurrect this today because the Senate passed an immigration bill. Whatever you think about the bill, in my view, it avoids a central point: we ignore the fundamental reason people flee their homes and what needs to be done to change that forced flight.

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   This is one reason people do not understand how the economy really works–because transcribers of press releases (formerly known as "journalists") don’t do their jobs. A basic point of journalism is tell the reader, fairly soon, WHY something happened…well, if you read this story, you don’t get there until it’s way too late: Investors […]

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    Gee, I’m shocked. Wal-Mart breaking the law, covering up bribes? What a new trend. Except it isn’t.    Look, obviously, it’s good that this is out:

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This past Saturday, we had a great march for immigration rights in New York City–on May 1st, thankfully, and sponsored by the labor movement to boot. Without a doubt, the Arizona racist legislation gave a boost to the turnout on a sun-drenched day. But, here is the point I have made in the past, and […]

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   I wanted to make sure folks saw this: Gunmen ambushed a peasant union leader and his family in northern Mexico, killing him and 14 others in an attack that bore the hallmarks of a hit by drug cartels but one that his organization said might have been related to his union work. The victims, […]

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   In the bigger sense, these two things are related. First, a week ago, I asked whether the president will keep his campaign promise about renegotating NAFTA. The answer seems to be "no": The administration has no present plans to reopen negotiations on the North American Free Trade Agreement to add labor and environmental protections, […]

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   You may remember–this is old history…a year ago so this might seem like eons ago–that during the Democratic 2008 primary campaign, there was a huge surprise: we learned that NAFTA was a bad thing. Who knew? I couldn’t keep track of all those candidates running for office who suddenly had discovered something that a […]

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    They’ve poisoned the State Department, the Labor Department, the EPA…you’d think that the Bushies would be exhausted by now–it isn’t easy to dismantle a government either by defunding it or making a mockery of its original intent. But, you have to eat least tip your hat to those folks–they just don’t get tired. So, […]

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    They’ve poisoned the State Department, the Labor Department, the EPA…you’d think that the Bushies would be exhausted by now–it isn’t easy to dismantle a government either by defunding it or making a mockery of its original intent. But, you have to eat least tip your hat to those folks–they just don’t get tired. So, […]

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