unions
kkrisberg | October 25, 2013Wages in the highly profitable fast food industry are so low that more than half of families of front-line fast food workers are enrolled in and depend on public assistance programs to make ends meet. In other words, that seemingly inexpensive burger and fries not only comes with a secret sauce, but a secret cost.
According to "Fast Food, Poverty Wages: The Public Cost of Low-Wage Jobs in the Fast Food Industry," which was released last week, the cost of such public assistance is nearly $7 billion every year, with Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program costs accounting for more than…
kkrisberg | June 28, 2013Sharon Thomas-Ellison works hard for her paychecks at Jimmy John's. On occasion when no one else is available, the 19-year-old has worked from 11 in the morning until 1 a.m. at night with just a 30-minute break — and it's okay, she says, she needs the extra income.
After a long day's work on her feet, often working split shifts, the St. Louis resident goes home to the one-bedroom apartment she shares with her brother, who also works for Jimmy John's, a fast food sandwich chain that's become a billion-dollar a year enterprise with more than 1,500 stores nationwide. It's a struggle to pay the…
gregladen | January 15, 2013I was a graduate student in Harvard’s Anthropology Department, which meant I had no funding. I was in the final writing stage of my thesis, and the problem I had was that teaching interesting biological anthropology (which I could do full time if I wanted) was too distracting from the mundane yet mentally challenging task of writing a PhD thesis. So, I got a job as a secretary at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. Since I was able to follow instructions and was also not intimidated by Big Scary Professors as most temps were, I quickly rose through the ranks and became Richard…
gregladen | January 10, 2013We shall not be moved. ..."
Fifty five of us jammed in a bus designed to hold fourty people plus a driver, rolling down Highway 90 from Upstate New York to Chicago. As a teenager (just turned 15), I was thrilled to be going to Chicago to attend the Fight Back Conference, a thinly disguised Communist Party meeting. I was going, in part for Keith, the young African American kid (about 12 years old) who was shot in the back by a state trooper just under a year earlier. Keith was driving a mo-ped down the toll road, on the shoulder, where he shouldn't have been. It appears that he did not…
mikethemadbiologist | September 1, 2011The old saw that 'we hang together or we get hung separately' is a perfect description of how the left has disintegrated into irrelevance. Too often, groups will focus on modest gains for their own narrow constituency, while selling out other allies. Over the long term, each component of the coalition is so weakened, making it impossible to have any influence. Case in point: union support for the Keystone XL pipeline (which will ship oil extracted from tar sands in Canada). John Aravosis explains:
But I'd like to highlight the environment vs. "jobs" controversy, and the union's role in…
mikethemadbiologist | August 12, 2011If our mainstream political discourse is to be believed, the U.S. 'doesn't make anything anymore.' We should all become 'knowledge workers', constantly reinvent our personal brand. Manufacturing--and the engineering it takes to support efficient manufacturing processes--are anachronisms. Hell, everything these days in made in China, right?
But like most popular economic bromides, this is utter bullshit that is completely contradicted by those damn facts. From the SF Fed:
The market share of foreign goods is highest in durables, which include cars and electronics. Two-thirds of U.S.…
mikethemadbiologist | July 17, 2011Because these are the idiots you've allied yourselves with:
...many of these voucher advocates claim they simply want to expand school choice and improve the quality of education for all.
Yet one group that has been influential in the school voucher push -- the Independence Hall Tea Party, which has run a major PAC that operates in Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania -- is finally admitting that its true goal is to abolish public education.
Here's what the head batshitloonitarian thinks:
"We think public schools should go away,'' says Teri Adams, the head of the Independence Hall Tea…
mikethemadbiologist | May 15, 2011A couple of years ago, regarding the typical charter school model, I argued that the model of overworked, undercompensated, and under-'resourced' teachers was not sustainable:
One of the things that I've long suspected about charter schools is that they're an unsustainable model: they rely on incredibly motivated teachers (who I think are a pretty motivated lot to begin with) who are willing to work even longer hours for essentially the same pay (or sometimes less). I'm not sure how to scale that up. Even if there were a significant number of teachers who fit this description, it's not clear…
mikethemadbiologist | May 4, 2011So I was pleasantly surprised to read about this strong pro-union move by the Rockefeller Republican Obama Administration--it's definitely not par for the course:
In what may be the strongest signal yet of the new pro-labor orientation of the National Labor Relations Board under President Obama, the agency filed a complaint Wednesday seeking to force Boeing to bring an airplane production line back to its unionized facilities in Washington State instead of moving the work to a nonunion plant in South Carolina.
In its complaint, the labor board said that Boeing's decision to transfer a second…
mikethemadbiologist | April 19, 2011I'm a bit late to this story, but, if you missed it, the LA Times had a superb article about how IKEA treats and pays workers at its U.S. facilities much worse than at its Swedish factories:
Workers complain of eliminated raises, a frenzied pace and mandatory overtime. Several said it's common to find out on Friday evening that they'll have to pull a weekend shift, with disciplinary action for those who can't or don't show up....
Laborers in Swedwood plants in Sweden produce bookcases and tables similar to those manufactured in Danville. The big difference is that the Europeans enjoy a…
sastyk | March 24, 2011From Alternet (actual Bill text at site), it turns out that House Republicans have a plan to prevent fighting for labor rights - hunger!: Maybe they've got firehoses too! And attack dogs, that would be good. Or maybe they could just shoot them - that's an old favorite way to disrupt strikes!
Much of the bill is based upon verifying that those who receive food stamps benefits are meeting the federal requirements for doing so. However, one section buried deep within the bill adds a startling new requirement. The bill, if passed, would actually cut off all food stamp benefits to any family…
mikethemadbiologist | February 27, 2011Mike Konczal put together this nice graphic of Wisconsin governor Scott Walker's roadmap to a batshitloonitarian paradise:
Konczal notes:
There's a three-prong approach in Governor Walker's plan that highlights a blueprint for conservative governorship after the 2010 election. The first is breaking public sector unions and public sector workers generally. The second is streamlining benefits away from legislative authority, especially for health care and in fighting the Health Care Reform Act. The third is the selling of public assets to private interests under firesale and crony capitalist…
mikethemadbiologist | February 20, 2011By now, you might have heard about how the Wisconsin Senate Democrats have fled the state in order to prevent a bill from passing, supported by Republican Governor Scott Walker, that would cripple public sector unions (if it's about redressing the budget, then why does the bill deal with union dues, which have nothing to do with the budget?). Before I address the title of the post, I want to comment on the Democratic tactics. Despite conservative/Republican bleating, including one commentor on this post, the Democrats have done nothing illegal. They are playing by the rules, just as…
mikethemadbiologist | February 18, 2011Republican governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, has claimed that he needs to bust unions in order to deal with a budget crisis. Well, he's lying, since this is a 'crisis' entirely of his own doing:
The reality is radically different. Unlike true austerity measures -- service rollbacks, furloughs, and other temporary measures that cause pain but save money -- rolling back worker's bargaining rights by itself saves almost nothing on its own. But Walker's doing it anyhow, to knock down a barrier and allow him to cut state employee benefits immediately.
Furthermore, this broadside comes less…
mikethemadbiologist | February 18, 2011If you haven't heard, Democrats in Wisconsin have refused to allow Republican governor Rick Walker to eliminate the right of public sector employees to collectively bargain. One of the key issues is the cost of public sector pensions. But what's interesting is this little tidbit from David Cay Johnston (italics mine):
Well, Dylan, I think this is a very revealing move. You know, Aristotle taught us the tyrants first surround themselves with bodyguards who will go after anybody who challenges what they do. We shouldn't forget that historical lesson. You know, the pensions they want to go…
mikethemadbiologist | February 17, 2011I wish national Democrats and their hangers-on had half the guts the Wisconsin Senate Democrats do. If you haven't heard, Wisconsin's Republican governor Scott Walker is attempting to strip public sector unions of their collective bargaining rights. This comes on top of other recent stupidities by Walker, including turning down $810 million in risk-fee construction funds for high-speed rail.
The Wisconsin Senate Democrats have decided to stop the legislation by not showing up to the vote:
...State Senate Democrats are refusing to show up at the state capitol to prevent the measure to strip…
mikethemadbiologist | January 17, 2011As the ongoing assault against public sector employees continues, it's worth remembering why Martin Luther King was in Memphis when he was assassinated: he was supporting striking sanitation workers. Due to conservative revisionism, we seem to have forgotten the radicalism of King, that he detested both war and economic rampant inequality. There was much to King than the phrase "the content of their character." From a speech he gave to striking sanitation workers in Memphis on March 18, 1968 (italics mine):
My dear friends, my dear friend James Lawson, and all of these dedicated and…
mikethemadbiologist | November 28, 2010Or, at least, don't obey Massachusetts law and receive the healthcare they are entitled to. Esterline Technologies demonstrates that much of what passes for 'rational business decision making' is actually ideology combined with petty personal vendetta. From Yves Smith:
This story illustrates how far some companies are willing to go to preserve their bottom lines and assert their right to operate in an unfettered manner, even when that includes breaking the law and violating contracts...
Esterline is in the process of shuttering its Tauton manufacturing operation, Haskon Aerospace, which…
mikethemadbiologist | October 18, 2010I write about education and educational data a lot, and I'm always struck by the insistence that the U.S. K-12 educational system is DOOMED! This is a staggering display of willful ignorance that rivals creationism (and, arguably, is more pernicious). Without going through the entire backstory (that's what links are for), some U.S. states--relatively large ones--excel, to the point where they do better than every European country and most Asian countries. These states also do better than expected, given their childhood poverty rates; some cities also do a better than expected job of…
mikethemadbiologist | September 6, 2010(from here)
Last weekend, Glenn Beck and his Tea Party dupes decided to 'reclaim' Martin Luther King's legacy. In light of that, this speech King gave to striking sanitation workers in Memphis seems appropriate--and puts the lie to Beck's propaganda:
My dear friends, my dear friend James Lawson, and all of these dedicated and distinguished ministers of the Gospel assembled here tonight, to all of the sanitation workers and their families, and to all of my brothers and sisters, I need not pause to say how very delighted I am to be in Memphis tonight, to see you here in such large and…