We live in a paradoxical time. On the one hand, workers and organized labor are in their worst state since the early 1930s. Only 6.4 percent of private-sector workers belong to unions; average hourly pay is below what it was in 1973; 40 percent of adults lack the savings to pay for a $400 emergency expense. On the other hand, there is more excitement and organizing potential on the left, and among many workers, than there has been in generations.
According to the Trump Labor Depratment, here was bad economic news on Friday. 150,000 new jobs were expected. Instead "private payrolls rose just 96,000, a three-month low, after a downwardly revised 131,000 advance the prior month." Most economists blame Trump's senseless and disastrous trade wars and his tax cuts to the top 1%. But Trump blamed... the news media.
As someone who has been a union member since I was a Marine with the American Servicemen’s Union until I retired last year as a Teamster as well as a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, I have lived the reality of mistreatment of workers in the United States.
Balls by Nancy OhanianWere you excited when the reactionary Business Roundtable announced last week that their members don’t just care about shareholders-- but they also care about customers, workers and society? That was the way, long long ago, we ran Warner Bros Records.
Inviting Chrystia Freeland to address this week’s Unifor convention undermines the union’s claims of international solidarity. As Foreign Affairs Minister, Freeland has pursued staunchly pro-corporate and pro-US policies. She has been bad for workers and their families around the world. Let us count a few of the ways:
Aviva Chomsky reports on the complexities of labor’s response to the Green New Deal and little-known divisions over the plan within the environmental movement. By Aviva Chomsky TomDispatch.com When it comes to heat, extreme weather, wildfires, and melting glaciers, the planet is now in what…Read more →
I spend a lot of time on the phone with congressional candidates trying to figure out who to believe and who not to believe. How progressive are they? How courageous? How capable? It didn't take much of a discussion to figure out AOC was going to be a super-star if she ever beat Joe Crowley, which seemed impossible to everyone (but her and her posse). But she beat him-- and she's a superstar. Sometimes we get disappointed. I talked so much about how great Jared Golden (ME) would be... but did he ever turn out to be a dud! I got that all wrong.
Plutocracy V: Subterranean Fire, written and directed by Scott Noble, continues the run of quality documentaries by Metanoia Films. The film provides the historical context that allows the viewer to understand why inequality reigns while social justice and peace lag today.
