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Fired up for change. It started in Iowa
January 11, 2008DES MOINES, Iowa — Fed up with the far right’s 30-year legacy of fear, division and hate, the American people are using the 2008 elections as a movement for change. Riding a tidal wave unleashed by Iowa voters, Sen. Barack Obama achieved a stunning victory here Jan. 3 and came in a close second to Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire on Jan. 8. In both states, white voters waited in...
Read moreLabor alive and well as new year arrives
December 21, 2007A review of the recent past and a peek into the nearby future of the labor movement reveals a level of activity reminiscent of the militancy that built industrial unions more than half a century ago. From breaking the GOP grip on Congress in 2006 and the current wave of strikes to new mobilizations for a fundamental shift in the balance of political forces in 2008, labor is proving that...
Read moreTHIS WEEK IN LABOR: Dec. 15
December 14, 2007Labor cites the Bush record The AFL-CIO reported this month that since Bush has been in office, 5 million Americans have slipped out of the “middle class” into poverty and 8.5 million people have lost their health insurance. During his tenure, median household income for working families has gone down by $2,500, over 3 million manufacturing jobs have been lost and 3 million workers have lost their pensions. Wages and...
Read moreLabor leaves no stone unturned
November 30, 2007Organized labor is flexing its muscles, showing that it is tired of taking it on the chin. If the unions have their way, between now and Election Day 2008, even the ultra-right lock on the White House and Congress could be broken. Unions flexed their muscles in off-year election campaigns that ended in victories Nov. 6. Thousands of union members combed neighborhoods, buttonholed people at worksites and operated phone banks...
Read moreLabor leaving no stone un-turned
November 21, 2007Organized labor is flexing its muscles, showing that it is tired of taking it on the chin. If the unions have their way, between now and Election Day, even the ultra-right lock on the White House and Congress could be broken. Unions flexed their muscles in off year election campaigns that ended in victories Nov. 6. Thousands of union members combed neighborhoods, button-holed people at worksites, and operated phone banks...
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Two tales of one city: First the death, now the resurrection
November 16, 2007NEW ORLEANS — It wasn’t the hurricane that almost killed this city. From day one, after Katrina, the Bush administration used this town as a laboratory to experiment with every type of right-wing social engineering scheme imaginable, and if it weren’t for the labor movement and its allies, they just might have succeeded. Trafficking in human labor is one of the countless ways that big business succeeds in lowering wages,...
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THIS WEEK IN LABOR: Nov. 3
November 02, 2007Union demands apology The United Steelworkers demanded an apology from the Wall Street Journal Oct. 24 on behalf of its 1.2 million members in the U.S. and Canada. The newspaper grossly over-reported a USW local union officer’s compensation in a vitriolic, error-filled editorial last week, ostensibly aimed at congressional Democrats who voted to trim $2 million from the Office of Labor Management Standards’ proposed $50 million 2008 budget. In a...
Read moreLETTERS: Oct. 27
October 26, 2007Wildfires, climate change and Iraq All eyes and ears have been on San Diego, Calif., in recent days as over a half million people have had to be evacuated from their homes due to the most destructive fire in this area’s history. Although there have been a small number of people injured and few deaths, billions of dollars worth of homes have been destroyed. I believe the way the California...
Read moreTHIS WEEK IN LABOR: Oct. 13
October 12, 2007A big fat rat If you check in at an airport, don’t be surprised if you are greeted by a giant inflatable rat holding bags of money. United Airlines’ unionized pilots are using the rodent to represent United’s CEO. He hiked his own salary from $800,000 a year to $39 million a year while he slashed the salaries of airline employees more than 30 percent. Cheers for a living wage...
Read moreAutoworkers: Round 2
October 12, 2007Chrysler, UAW agree on tentative pact DETROIT — About 43,000 autoworkers streamed out of their workplaces Oct. 10 at Chrysler plants across the nation, launching a second nationwide auto strike within a two-week period, but this one lasting only about four hours. Members of the United Auto Workers union shut down plants and were on picket lines just minutes after the 11 a.m. strike deadline. But by around 4 p.m.,...
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