Jamala Rogers: They are not in a good mood and they certainly aren’t lovin’ it. If workers in the fast food industry really had it their way, they’d get a livable wage and better working conditions freaky fast.
Minimum Wade
Contrary to popular belief, teens represent less than 12% of the low-wage work force. Over 60% of low-wage workers are between the ages of 25 and 65.
“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning." ―Warren Buffett
How Walmart Can REALLY Help Our Schools: Pay Living Wages
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Peter Dreier: The Waltons could end to the company’s longstanding practice of keeping its employees in poverty, with low wages, poor benefits, and unpredictable schedules that make parenting even harder than it already is.
Pushing Budget Reform State by State
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Randy Shaw: While progressives debate whether President Obama could have used his “bully pulpit” to overcome GOP opposition to reviving the nation’s economy, let’s accept that in 2013-14 activists can more effectively address economic justice measures at the state level.
Real Faces of the Minimum Wage
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Richard Eskow: Here’s the truth: Most minimum-wage workers are adults, the majority of them are women, and many are parents who are trying to raise their children on poverty wages.
25 Best Progressive Victories in 2012
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Peter Dreier: Progressives are rarely satisfied. It is part of our political DNA. There’s so much injustice in the world, it’s sometimes hard to feel that we’re making progress. But as Chinese philosopher Laozi reminded us, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
Taxpayers Should Stop Subsidizing Wal-Mart
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Tina Dupuy: Bachmann and the tea party are like a 30-year-old who lives comfortably in the family home while railing against parental tyranny and bemoaning the mediocrity of the meals his mother cooks.
How the One Percent Spends Its Money
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Vivin Rothstein: While the No on Measure N campaign charges that the living wage measure is backed by outsiders from Los Angeles, 66 percent of its money has come from hotel corporate centers in Oklahoma and Kentucky.
Living Wages Would Boost Long Beach’s Economy
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Vivian Rothstein: Most Long Beach hotel workers live, work and shop in the city. And if the hotel living wage passes, they’ll have more money to put into the Long Beach economy.
Vouchering an Educational Adventure
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Walt Brasch: Had to. He was at the top of the salary schedule. Besides, he was teaching about the rise of the middle class and how unions helped get better wages and benefits for the masses. That’s just downright unpatriotic. He refused to be a team player.
Labor Pains: A Fable for Our Times
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Walter Brasch: “As long as the product is cheaper, our people will gladly go to large non-union stores and buy whatever it is that we tell them to buy.”
Eat at BJ’s
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Steve Hochstadt: The lesson for all of us is that we do better for ourselves and our communities if we patronize small businesses and use local tax dollars to encourage local entrepreneurs, not big boxes.
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.
Economic Issues, Not Faith or Religion, Drive Latino Votes
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Pilar Marrero: Moral issues rank very low in Latino Voter’s minds when making a voting decision while issues like the economy, jobs, taxes and minimum wage are far more important, a new poll released today shows. That finding totally contradicts the famous Ronald Reagan belief, said in the eighties, that “Hispanics are Republicans. They just don’t know it yet.”
Friday Feedback: Real Social Security: A Just Distribution of Wealth
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Friday Feedback: This week, John comments on “Real Social Security: A Just Distribution of Wealth” by Charles Hayes.
Drinks Are on the House (and Senate)
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Walter Brasch: “As long as the Republicans control Congress,” said Marshbaum, “the American way of life will be preserved. Want a drink now?”
The Rise of the Regressive Right and the Reawakening of America
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Robert Reich: Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann and the other tribunes of today’s Republican right aren’t really conservatives. Their goal isn’t to conservative what we have. It’s to take us backwards.
To Rebuild a Fair Economy, We Must Tackle the Underground Economy
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Caitlin Vega: Decades of weak law enforcement and inadequate penalties has convinced many companies that they can violate labor laws without any consequences. In certain low-wage industries, violating labor law is part of the business model.
Why the Most Important Issues May Be Off the Table in the 2012 Election
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Robert Reich: By continuing to push and prod we give hope to countless Americans on the verge of giving up. We give back to them the courage of their own convictions, and thereby lay the groundwork for a future progressive agenda
How to Create More Jobs By Lowering Wages: Texas and America
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Robert Reich: Perry and Romney can duke it out over who created the most jobs, but governors have as much influence over job growth in their states as roosters do over sunrises.
The Texas Economic Model
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Steve Hochstadt: Republicans don’t mention poverty, because they don’t plan to do anything about it. The millions of poor Americans are invisible to Republican politicians. They pretend that trickle-down economics will reach the poor, but it hasn’t and won’t.
The Debt Ceiling Crisis: Let’s Get Personal
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Walter Brasch: Since you like hunting, and they like hunting, your banker friends will let you buy all the guns and ammunition you want. But, they can’t help you on your health bills, or even lower the insurance premiums and co-pays. And, they can’t do much for that inflated mortgage payment. Or to help you find another job.
The Real News on Jobs
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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.
The Value of Collective Bargaining
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Steve Hochstadt: As grass-roots organizations, unions are feared by dictators. All of the world’s dictatorships, whether left or right, have banned free unions.
Martin Luther King, Jr. and Municipal Workers
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Joseph Palermo: I cannot believe that in the 21st Century we are having this kind of a debate on the role of labor unions in this country. But I suppose it isn’t surprising since we have a new Gilded Age going on.
Behind the Kitchen Door
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Diane Lefer: A comment last week on an LA Times blog argued that “working in a restaurant is not supposed to provide a ‘living wage’. It’s a job that teenagers and students use to get started in life.” Not so according to ROC-LA co-coordinator Cathy Dang who reported that nationwide, people tend to stay in the industry for a lifetime.
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