NY Min Wage to go to $7.15/hr - The GOP-controlled Senate in New York state, following a massive grassroots campaign, has agreed with the Dem-led state assembly to...
MORE...
July 27, 2004
Labor Triumphant - The power of organized labor is highlighted most by how little they've needed to talk about it, but how much...
MORE...
Mass. to Make Health Care a Right - While debates on gay marriage amendments have gotten headlines, the Mass legislature just voted to put a constitutional amendment to...
MORE...
Morgan Stanley's Roach on Job Quality - Possibly my favorite mainstream economic analyst is Morgan Stanley's Stephen Roach, who shares my skepticism of headline statistics and has...
MORE...
NRA vs. Hunters - The National Rifle Association's blind GOP partisanship is now putting it increasingly at odds with its own members, particularly hunters...
MORE...
On Vacation - I may post the occasional comment from on the road, but I'm vacationing this week, so expect blogging to be...
MORE...
July 03, 2004
Bush's incompetence - Jacob Levy at the Volokh Conspiracy makes the case against Bush, not because he opposed the Iraq War but because...
MORE...
July 02, 2004
Watch the Rats - If you want to measure the danger of a storm, watch the rats abandoning ship. Or the K Street lobbyists....
MORE...
Total Work Hours Drop - The fact that only an anemic number of jobs were created in June is getting the big headlines, but I've...
MORE...
Bush Fights Cheap AIDS Drugs - While Bush has agreed to increase funding for AIDS drugs in the developing world, he has conditioned the money on...
MORE...
Wal-Mart Doing Good for Environment - Seriously. This initiative by Wal-Mart to promote energy-saving light bulbs is a major environmental initiative. "Compact fluorescent" bulbs fit in...
MORE...
The Collapse of Tax Cut Politics - You can check out Progressive States rundown of progressive successes in the states on Tuesday, but I want to focus...
MORE...
November 08, 2006
A Good Night for Progressives - Let's be clear-- this wasn't just a good night for Democrats. It was a good night for progressives, and no...
MORE...
November 01, 2006
Labor Cold War Ends - New International Labor Federation - At the dawn of the Cold War, the international union movement divided up between the ICFTU, dominated by US and Western European unions, and the World Confederation of Labor, largely allied with the Soviet Union. It's taken a decade and a half, but the irrelevancy of that division will end today as the two federations merge-- bringing together 241 labor organizations from 156 countries representing 190 million workers. The new International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) is a good step for a labor movement looking to globalize itself in the taking on global capital power....
MORE...
- Valuing Families: State Legislative Models Brought to you by Progressive States and MomsRising What would a policy that really values families look...
MORE...
October 09, 2006
Emaciated Models, Labor Regulation - There's a bit of debate in the blogosphere around Spain's new law banning underweight models from the runways in that country. See Jordan, Amanda at Pandagon and Lindsay Beyerstein at Majikthise on whether this is an intrusive regulating violating free expression or something like that and whether OSHA safety regulations are appropriate. Just to throw my two cents in-- any broader OSHA approach would seem cumbersome and bureaucratically intrusive in a deep way. But the original Spanish proposal is brilliant in its high-impact, low-intrusion approach. Regulate only the fashion week type runways, where in a single spotcheck, models can be...
MORE...
October 03, 2006
Big loss for Labor-- - The National Labor Relations Board ruled today that a range of professionals are now deemed "supervisors" and thus lose all protections under labor law. That means if they say a positive thing about unions, their bosses are free to fire them at will. The AFL-CIO has more here. To put this denial of labor rights in perspective, 32 million workers or 25% of the workforce already have no right to form a union under federal, state or local law (see this GAO report and this ARAW summary). This includes: Supervisors 16.6 million workers, 8 million new supervisors plus traditional 8.6...
MORE...
