The Campaign for a Healthy California (CHC) today denounced the failure of the California Senate to pass SB 810, the California Universal Care Act. The bill died when it remained two votes short of passage.
A Government Overwhelmed by Corporate Money
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Robert Reich: American business won’t and can’t lead the way to more and better jobs in the United States. First, the private sector is increasingly global, with less and less stake in America. Second, it’s driven by the necessity of creating profits, not better jobs.
Apple’s Labor Pool: Job Market or Slave Auction?
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Steven Mikulan: Everything about Apple (from the mocking irony of Jobs’ name to the outsourcing of its employees’ livelihoods to factories in a totalitarian police state) epitomizes big business’s attitude of contempt – not only for American workers but for America itself.
Friday Feedback: Attacks on Teachers
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This week, an article by Mark Naison, “How Attacks on Teachers and Government Workers Will Impact All Our Lives,” drew the following exchange between Ryder and Steve Wider.
How Attacks on Teachers and Government Workers Will Impact All Our Lives
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Mark Naison: The attack on Teachers Unions has been driven by foundations and funding sources traditionally associated with the Democratic Party and has been enthusiastically endorsed by the Obama Administration.
Santorum Loves Unions — in Iran
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“I believe in the American worker,” says Rick Santorum, the new anti-Romney in the food fight for the GOP presidential nomination. A hero of social conservatives, Santorum claims he’s a blue collar sort of guy, too. The ex-senator and congressman from Pennsylvania promises he can make factories boom again. Santorum says he has a plan [...]
A Vote for Newt, Willard, and Chums Is a Vote Against the Unemployed
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Julie Driscoll: In their zeal to see that President Obama is a one-term president, it does not behoove Republicans to roll out anything that would actually improve the economic outlook for the unemployed. They barely pay lip service to it.
Economic Independence: Bedrock of Freedom
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Wendy McElroy: Even laws intended to protect women, like the civil service restriction, ended up privileging one class of women at the expense of another.
Uniting Occupy and Labor Over Health Care
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Shamus Cooke: In order to unite all working Americans into a powerful coalition, Medicare for All should be demanded, so that all Americans will see their interests reflected in the fight.
A Warm Holiday Meal Brought by Your Gas Workers
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Art Frias: As a public-private partnership Sempra has an obligation to treat its customers and workers fairly. Instead they make billions, pay themselves millions while cutting services to customers.
‘Right to Work Is a Cancerous Ideology’
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Berry Craig: Simply put, right to work laws are designed to weaken large unions, destroy small unions, and keep unorganized workers from unionizing.
Nasty Bosses on College Campuses
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Vijay Prashad: Values are taught not just in the classroom but in the very bones of an institution. How it treats its workers sends a message to the student body about what is acceptable in our society.
Holiday Pall: Joblessness Crisis Intensifies
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Carl Bloice: The average period of unemployment now exceeds 26 weeks, well above the previous peak in July 1983 of just 21.2 weeks. This is critical because the longer that people of any age are out of work, the less likely they are to find another job.
Confessions of a Child Janitor
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Tina Dupuy: Gingrich has a dark vision for a Shining City Upon a Hill: where poor children work in place of union labor. It’s basically the 20th century played in reverse.
Los Ángeles 1% Maneuvers to Privatize Public Education
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John Cromshow: Privatizing education has two goals: 1) increase the number of charter schools; and, 2) weaken the teachers’ union.
The Jobs Report: Don’t Break Out the Champagne
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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.
Retirement: Sitting on a One-Legged Stool
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Vivian Rothstein: According to the American Association of Retired People (AARP), a frightening 35 percent of Americans over 65 currently rely only on Social Security (an average person gets benefits of $14,000/year) to survive.
Stop the Austerity Train Wreck!
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Robert Reich: Agreement or not, Washington is on the road to making budget cuts that will slow the economy, increase unemployment, and impose additional hardship on millions of Americans.
From Teachers to Truck Drivers, We’re All the Working Class
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Berry Craig: Historically, labor-haters like Gingrich have tried to divide workers by skill, race, gender, religion, ethnicity and nationality. Today, the wedge issues include abortion, school prayer, guns and gay marriage.
Professionals Moving to Organized Labor
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Sharon Kyle: Labor union membership has declined significantly in the United States over the last 50 years, but this segment of the labor market is booming.
Another Republican Hoax: Corporate Tax Cuts Stimulate Employment
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Sy Slavin: This Canadian study shows that as far as creating new jobs and generally decreasing unemployment, the way to go is increasing governmental infrastructure expenditures.
Bank of America’s Cut of Unemployment Checks
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Leonard Isenberg: Did it really have to be so difficult or was this just a hidden incentive to debit card users to let the money just sit on the debit card, where B of A could continue making the float interest?
Trigger Deficit Cuts When Unemployment Drops to 5 Percent
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Robert Reich: So the best of all worlds is to have a big jobs plan now, and also commit to automatic cuts triggered when unemployment falls to 5 percent.
Money-Grabs Go to Next Level
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Wendy McElroy: A person imprisoned for possession of drugs, or for obstruction of justice (such as speaking back to a police officer) could lose his home, car, or bank account to the county for payment of “hotel” fees, drug testing, medical care, and parole costs.
Wal-Mart Heiress Opens Lavish Art Museum As Company Cuts Worker Health Care
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Randy Shaw: Alice Walton and her family have earned riches by denying workers adequate benefits and living wages. What the museum really needs is a large painting of a Wal-Mart worker suffering from unmet health problems,
Breaking Silence on New Face of Employment Discrimination
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Jasmyne Cannick: Why it’s going to take more than a college degree and a clean criminal record for Shameicka to get a job today.
Occupy Movement, Labor on Collision Course with Obama
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Randy Shaw: If President Obama and fellow Democrats agree to a deficit reduction deal that cuts Medicare, Social Security, and other programs serving the 99%, expect an electoral calamity for Democrats in 2012.
Raising Per Country Immigration Caps
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Michele Waslin: H.R. 3012 would make small but significant changes to the way green cards are distributed by eliminating per country numerical limits on employment-based green cards and raising the limits on family-based green cards which go to immigrants from each country.
Why Arizona Governor Jan Brewer Is Bluffing on State Immigration Laws
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Seth Hoy: Evidence suggests that many unauthorized immigrants are firmly integrated into U.S. society. According to a Department of Homeland Security report, three-fifths of unauthorized immigrants who were in the country as of 2010 (11.1 million) were here for more than a decade.
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Labor Must Choose Between Occupy and the Democrats
Shamus Cooke: The labor movement has a foot in both worlds; one in step with the Occupy Movement and the other with the Democrats, who are working to crush Occupy outright.