Progressive Media Advocates
Victoria Defranceso Soto: Latinos aren’t the first group that comes to mind in a discussion about unions, especially with regards to a rust-belt state such as Michigan. But it turns out that Latinos are disproportionately affected, and not in a good way, by the diminishing strength of unions.
Robert Reich: encouraged by the economic recovery and perhaps also by the election returns, low-wage workers have started to organize.
Marc-William Palen: Conspiracy theories have of course trailed Obama ever since his 2008 presidential run, with plenty on the far right believing him to be some amorphous combination of radical Muslim, Maoist, socialist, and communist.
JP Sottile: We can talk cavalierly about the “paranoid style in American politics,” but just beyond the Birthers and latter-day Red Scarecrows who populate the Tea Party and Rep. Allen West’s townhall meetings, there is a deeper, darker secret that we all basically know and lament.
Robert Reich: RBoth Obama and Romney assume the recovery will continue, even at a slow pace, and that we’ll be back to normal at some point. But I’m not at all sure. “Normal” is what got us into this mess in the first place.
Robert Reich: The biggest election news this week won’t be who wins the presidential debate Wednesday night. It will be how many new jobs were created in September, announced Friday morning by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Robert Reich: Middle-class consumers won’t and can’t spend because their savings are depleted, their homes are worth a fraction of what they were five years ago, their wages are dropping, and they’re worried about keeping their jobs.
Anthony Samad: Damn near every street in the southland is torn up from construction, as is damn near every freeway. I purposely look for BMWs (Black Men Working). I rarely see any and I’m not the only one who notices this. It’s often a point of conversation in the circles I run in.
Robert Reich: @idening inequality is the underlying culprit. As long as almost all the gains from economic growth continue to go to the top, the vast middle class doesn’t have the purchasing power to boost the economy on its own.
Robert Reich: When people ask me what Congress is likely to do I always say the same thing: The odds are in favor of nothing.
Robert Reich: Every time you hear anyone say we’re “broke” or “can’t afford to spend more,” tell them we’ll be in worse shape if we don’t. If the economy remains dead in the water, the ratio of public debt to GDP balloons.
Ellen Brown: North Dakota is the only state to be in continuous budget surplus since the banking crisis of 2008.
Steve Hochstadt: But neither party has tried very hard to protect the poorest Americans from the outsized greed of the wealthy. About half of all members of Congress are millionaires, and all of them are beholden to the very wealthy for donations to their constant campaigning.
Robert Reich: Conservative economists have it wrong. The underlying problem isn’t that so many Americans have priced themselves out of the global/high-tech labor market. It’s that they’re getting a smaller and smaller share of the pie.
Robert Reich: With corporate profits are through the roof, the Dow is flirting with 12,000, Wall Street paychecks are fat again, and big corporations are sitting on more than $1 trillion in cash, you’d expect jobs be coming back. But you’d be wrong.
Labor Day became a federal holiday in the United States in 1894. At that time, conflict between labor unions and the railroads had reached such a fever pitch that there was danger of the American economy taking a big hit. President Grover Cleveland took action by calling in the U.S. Military and U.S. Marshals to [...]
Robert Reich: An extraordinary number of Americans are still hurting. It’s more important than ever for the US government to step in with a larger stimulus that puts more people to work and tax cuts for people who will spend them
Robert Reich: New businesses are vital to job growth, and entrepreneurship does fuel the economy. And surely some of America’s new independent workers will build their own companies. But when the economy is still so hard on so many, it’s important to distinguish between entrepreneurial zeal and self-employed desperation.
Robert Reich: In politics as in economics and love, timing is everything. Obama can’t wait much longer if he wants to convince waivering and worried conservative Dems to join him in a last ditch 51-vote reconciliation measure to get health care through the Senate. We’re already in the gravititational pull of November’s mid-term elections. But the economy is taking a longer time to turn around than anyone expected, and telling Americans the jobs numbers are getting worse more slowly isn’t exactly reassuring.
Ron Wolff: The International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), a multilateral treaty promoted by the United Nations, commits its parties to work toward stated objectives for all its citizens. As of December 8th, 160 countries had ratified it. Not us. The United States has “signed,” but the Senate has never ratified.
In other words, ten percent unemployment really means twenty percent underemployment or anxious employment. All of which translates directly into late payments on mortgages, credit cards, auto and student loans, and loss of health insurance.
Alright, so it’s been an unpredictable election year. When the primaries began, Hillary Clinton was the heavy favorite and John McCain was all but dead in the water with Fred Thompson’s entry in the race being eagerly awaited by conservative and moderate Republicans alike. And something may yet happen – the oft-cited, much worried about, [...]
When I heard there was a sizable increase in black community joblessness between April and May I mentioned it to a few people and in return got that so-what-else-is-new? stare. “Every month, when unemployment rate data are released, the news for African Americans is bleak,” wrote educator Julianne Malveaux four years ago. Some things change, [...]
Benjamin called on the President to use his power as Commander-In-Chief to close Guantanamo prison, release the 86 Guantanamo prisoners who have been cleared for release, and stop the killer drone program
Angola 3 News: Hidden behind the walls, huge numbers of human beings have their spirits broken daily. Secretly, many suffer false disciplinary reports, illegitimate confiscation or destruction of personal property, physical beatings, rape, and sometimes fraudulent criminal penalties.
Tina Dupuy: Because these giant corporations are getting a free pass by the very premise they create jobs, they’re in essence piling their tax burden onto their workers.
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The Modern Union versus Workers’ Rights
Wendy McElroy: The raging controversy in Wisconsin over eliminating collective bargaining “rights” for government employees cast a bright and harsh light on public-sector unions.
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