Working Life

   My state is on the verge of a mass execution. It’s an execution that will be carried out by a Democratic governor on behalf of the richest people in the state. It will be applauded by the traditional press, which will, in its collective willingness to ignore facts, bless the execution as the path […]

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   Ok, fine, this is a good thing, via The Wall St. Journal: The number of U.S. workers filing new claims for jobless benefits slid last week to the lowest level in nearly two and a half years, indicating that labor-market conditions continue to improve. Initial unemployment claims declined by 34,000 to 388,000 in the […]

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   I’ve never been sold on the notion of education as the saving grace of this unholy economic system. The problem in the country–and the world–is not that people are not smart enough or that they need to go to college. It’s that we have a system that drives down wages no matter how smart […]

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   We weren’t invited to the CEO summit with the president (you missed chicken and fish for lunch, by the way). But, I think there is a huge point being missed: The White House has been pursuing a charm offensive with the biggest U.S. employers in recent weeks, hoping to convince them to plow some […]

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   And there is some good news: Gov. David A. Paterson signed into law some of the nation’s strongest protections against wage theft on Monday, after months of lobbying by immigrants’ advocates and labor unions that said New York lagged behind other states on the issue.   The law, which takes effect in April, will […]

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So-called "free trade" is part of the relentless class warfare under way in America. And the so-called "free trade" deal with South Korea is no exception. That said, a lot of the shallow criticism of the UAW’s support for the deal is–well, shallow. Here’s my view about how we should engage the UAW–my union–via an […]

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Yesterday, I wrote about the disastrous state of labor in the wake of the elections. Suffering from either a lack of sleep or simple brain lock, I neglected to include one of the most dangerous coming debacles: we have lost much of the ground built opposing so-called "free trade" agreements, which have played a central […]

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   A lot of the voices on our side repeat the absolute truth: the Republican Party is simply not telling the truth about the seeds of the economic disaster we are dealing with and that it is in fact the government–our government–that prevented things from getting a lot worse AND we would be in much […]

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I get why people are angry. Not the anger espoused by the racists, birthers and anti-government people. Across the political spectrum, wherever people place themselves, there is a unifying point that keeps coming up: we’ve been robbed by corporate powers. And the foolish, failed so-called "free trade" policies–pursued by Republicans and Democrats alike–is a place […]

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 Sure, elections do matter, at some level–it is no coincidence that, in the wake of Citizens United, a torrent of corporate money is flowing to mostly Republican candidates. But, the truth is that, whatever the results of the elections, we will not end up with a government willing to stop the global movement of jobs […]

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