unions

Or bigotry. Because union carpenters are the new Muslim. Or something. Here's a refreshing exchange of free speech (italics mine): ...at an anti-Mosque demonstration down in Lower Manhattan, when a black man walking through the crowd was... mistaken for a Muslim by the crowd -- angrily. The video, shot by amateur YouTube videographer "lefthandedart," opens with chants of "No Mosque Here!" as it traces a black man wearing a white cap walking through the crowd. It's not clear where he's coming from or why the videographer had decided to film him, but the man seems to be trailed by a…
Finally, large, mainstream organizations that have traditionally supported Democrats are not rewarding bad behavior. From Arkansas, where incumbent corporate shill and supposed Democrat Blanche Lincoln is in a primary fight for her life. From The NY Times: CONWAY, Ark. -- They have knocked on 170,000 doors, made 700,000 phone calls, sent 2.7 million pieces of mail and spent almost $6 million on television and radio advertising. That is how badly labor unions, by their own count, want to defeat Senator Blanche Lincoln, a Democrat they once supported. Even though Arkansas's labor force is one…
Image by Bettmann/CORBIS With ten percent unemployment, and nearly eighteen percent underemployment--and much of the political establishment unconcerned about this--Martin Luther King's passion for economic justice sadly is still relevant. What is forgotten about Kings--often willfully--is that he was an advocate for racial and economic justice. 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 distinguished ministers of the Gospel assembled here tonight, to all of…
In one of his last speeches before Martin Luther King was murdered, he spoke to striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. It seems appropriate for the day: 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 enthusiastic numbers... If you will judge anything here in this struggle, you're commanding…
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 how long they could remain like this. Not only is there a real possibility of burning out, but, as teachers get older, other considerations--legitimate ones--come to the…
From former Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich: It's about time a presidential budget unequivocally redistributed income from the very rich to the middle class and poor. The incomes of the top one percent have soared for 30 years while median wages have slowed or declined in real terms. As economists Thomas Piketty and Emanuel Saez have shown, the top-earning one percent of Americans took home eight percent of total income in the 1970s; as recently as 1980, they took home nine percent. After that, total income became more and more concentrated at the top. By 2007, the top one percent took home…
From the archives: One of the things that is often neglected on Martin Luther King day is his dedication to economic justice. What is forgotten--often willfully--is that he was an advocate for racial and economic justice. 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 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…
David Leonhardt does a good job of explaining the lies surrounding the bogus $73 per hour compensation that the Big Three autoworkers supposedly receive--even if he does so rather elliptically. Here's how that $73 figure is reached: You'll notice that past compensation is a big part of the problem. As Leonhardt puts it: The crucial point, though, is this $15 isn't mainly a reflection of how generous the retiree benefits are. It's a reflection of how many retirees there are. The Big Three built up a huge pool of retirees long before Honda and Toyota opened plants in this country. You'd…
In the midst of the hoopla over how 'in touch' Sarah Palin is supposed to be (all her faux personal touches), I came across this speech by a steelworker at an AFL-CIO convention. A couple of you might have noticed the image I use in the sidebar: It's from Norman Rockwell's famous series, the Four Freedoms (this one is freedom of speech). I'll turn the description over to driftglass: He's nervous. Really nervous.By his tan and his hands and his clothes, you can tell he's a working man. Everyone around him is wearing a tie; his collar is open.Those are his remarks there in his pocket, which…
I've never understood why so many liberals and progressives think the Democratic field is strong. Yes, the candidates aren't insane, but neither of them are particularly good on economic issues. There is nothing in either Clinton's or Obama's records or speeches that suggests that they will do anything significant to reduce income inequality, other than perhaps letting the Bush tax cuts expire (and Obama has even been waffling on that). And keep in mind, that income inequality isn't just a matter of economically integrating more people into society. That's not some gushy, "it's not fair"…
Today, in 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis. This is why he was in Memphis.
I'm not a fan of charter schools: they typically 'cherry pick' the best students, and then claim spectacular results (if they can do so at all), while paying teachers less and expected them to work even harder. However, here's one charter school trying something that I hope works--paying teachers more: A New York City charter school set to open in 2009 in Washington Heights will test one of the most fundamental questions in education: Whether significantly higher pay for teachers is the key to improving schools. The school, which will run from fifth to eighth grades, is promising to pay…
...if he weren't a fucking moron. One of the books that has gone missing in all of the criticisms of Jonah Goldberg's ridiculous Democrat-bashing screed Liberal Fascism is Wolfgang's Schivelbusch's Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt's America, Mussolini's Italy, and Hitler's Germany, 1933-1939. Schivelbusch correctly notes (as does Goldberg) that were similarities among the U.S., Germany, and Italy between 1933-1939: the state did become more involved in the economy, there was state propaganda--which was informed by what people wanted (at least superficially), and each society was…
I'm a proud member of the United Auto Workers. The entertainment value of people's broken socioeconomic assumptions when I say this is not to be underestimated, but I don't feel that I'm personally much better off with the UAW than without. The sciences as a whole are much better funded than, say, comparative literature. Graduate students in the earth sciences typically have the option to get a "real" job without leaving the field, which makes school almost like part of a competitive labor market - even without collective bargaining I would probably still be paid okay. I don't have…
We 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…
...or too much of anyway. One of the most eloquent speeches that I have ever heard was by Martin Luther King to striking sanitation workers. What's sad is that, while the particulars have changed somewhat, the overall picture remains the same. 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 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…
In Las Vegas, the SEIU nurses were recently locked out during contract negotiations (they're back to work now). The nurses don't want pay increases or better benefits, but a lower patient-to-nurse ratio. Universal Health Services, the for-profit hospital chain, claims the nurses are trying to expand the union membership. The nurses claim that they simply want to improve patient care. Regardless of the motives involved, there is one indisputable fact: having fewer patients per nurse decreases the likelihood that a patient will become infected while in the hospital. I've blogged about…
Some brilliant Republican solons from the great state of Missouri have released an official state report that argues that abortion has led to illegal immigration. The 'argument?' Abortion has eliminated U.S. workers, leading to a need for illegal immigrants. Clearly, these brilliant minds have never heard of the meat-packing industry. The meat-packing industry used to be unionized, and, consequently, virtually all of its workers were either legal residents or citizens. Then the unions were busted, resulting in crappy pay and dangerous conditions, and many people--rightfully so--did not…
Well, things are looking up anyway. By way of Matt Stoller comes this letter from SEIU president Andy Stein: More than 5,300 Houston janitors have reached a solid tentative agreement with their employers that will put workers and their families on the road to a better future and pave the way for workers throughout the country to unite to improve their lives. Details of the agreement are forthcoming, however the janitors' contract will lift workers and their families out of deep poverty and ensure access to quality, affordable health care. The agreement was reached following an intense four-…
Maybe they won't beat us in prison if they think we're white, not Latino I was going to update this post about the Houston police who used horses to break up a peaceful union demonstration. But the way the police treated the union members once in custody is so awful, it deserves its own post. According to Texas organizer, Anna Denise Solis (italics mine): We sat down in the intersection and the horses came immediately. It was really violent. They arrested us, and when we got to jail, we were pretty beat up. Not all of us got the medical attention we needed. The worst was a protester named…