It’s safe to say: Wal-Mart likes to buy from anywhere but America. The retail behemoth’s “Buy America program” has become a “Buy China” program that makes Wal-Mart and China stronger while weakening America. Wal-Mart demands forced 14 top suppliers...
By popular demand (check out the comments on yesterday's post!) -- the roll call from yesterday's EFCA vote in the Senate. Yeas (51) Daniel Akaka (D-HI) Max Baucus (D-MT) Evan Bayh (D-IN) Joe Biden (D-DE) Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) Barbara...
The Senate took up the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) today. Since the House passed EFCA overwhelmingly back in March, Senate approval was the next step required for the bill to become law. In the House, determining EFCA's fate...
Where could the U.S. government come up with the money to lift up those Americans hurt most by the rapidly changing global economy? If just one private equity firm would pay their fair share of taxes on annual profits, the...
... like whether to buy a supersonic personal jet, or just a plain old regular one: The Texas billionaire Robert M. Bass is not the kind of guy who flies commercial. If his latest venture takes to the skies,...
Janitor Photo: ©2006 Cameron Davidson Conservative politicians and pundits (and some liberal ones) love to shake their fists about immigration, blaming the influx of undocumented workers for the economic squeeze felt by America's middle class. If we would only seal...
Thousands of Change to Win union members rallied outside the U.S. Senate yesterday to tell Senators to pass legislation that would protect workers’ freedom to form a union and have a voice on the job. The Employee Free Choice Act...
On June 19, working people from across America will be coming together in Washington, DC to demand that the U.S. Senate pass the Employee Free Choice Act and support the American Dream. You can support this rally in two ways: Rally with...
The NYT Editorial Board stood up for home health care providers today in an editorial criticizing the Labor Department regulation that doesn't require their employers to pay them overtime. A retired home health aide who sued her employer for unpaid...
Do you own one of those new-fangled talking picture boxes ("tele-vision", I believe they call it)? Then be sure to tune in Bill Moyers Journal on your local PBS affiliate this weekend. SEIU President Andy Stern will be answering some important...
The Hershey Company, the makers of the quintessentially American chocolate bar, have announced that they are cutting 11.5% of their workforce and moving jobs to a new plant in Monterey, Mexico. The cuts will land especially hard in Oakdale, California,...
Robert Senser raises two points in his comment in response to my post “(Union) Made in China: The Tag Corporate America Doesn’t want You to See.” First, contrary to Senser’s post, we did not shun the Hong Kong Confederation of...
The Supreme Court dealt a blow to basic fairness yesterday in Long Island Care at Home, Ltd. V. Coke, a decision that denies fundamental legal protections on minimum wage and overtime pay for home health care workers. In a...
Did you know? June 12 (that's today, at least on this side of the International Date Line) is the International Labour Organization's World Day Against Child Labor. This year, they are focusing on child labor in the agricultural sector: Worldwide,...
As college kids across America line up to get their diplomas, the New York Times has a splash of cold water for the men folk among 'em: [E]conomic reality is lurking everywhere, and new college graduates are vulnerable to ambush. They have been told...
Cleaning a hotel room is as difficult as construction work? That's what an Ergonomics professor says as reported by the Philadelphia Inquirer. As hotels invest more in luxurious extras to attract guests, hotel hospitality workers are feeling the strain of heavier comforters, state-of-the-art...
George Costanza, meet Eliot Spitzer. The New York Governor is in the business of putting jerk employers out of business, namely those who misclassify their workers so they can skirt labor laws, reports the NY Times. The [NY labor] commissioner, M....
Multinational corporations have been roaming the globe in a race to the bottom, competing solely on which can pay their workers the least -- and far too many have settled in China. As a result, what were once good-paying American...
Terrible news from Tar Heel, NC today: Emmanuel McKoy, a 27-year-old worker and strong union supporter at the Smithfield pork-packing plant in that city (of whose awful working conditions we have spoken before), has died. From the Justice at Smithfield...
"While reductions in head count are always difficult for a company, we know these actions are critical to our ability to deliver unprecedented value to our customers now and in the future," said Dell in a statement. Reductions in head...
There’s no question as to why the modern labor movement would need to pay attention to China. Every major U.S. and foreign transnational corporation has growing operations there, meaning Chinese workers are one of the main hammers that global capital...
