Reposted due to reader request.
By Patrick Martin, WSWS.ORG, a socialist organization.
Thank you, WSWS.ORG.
Originally published 31 October 2011
A series of reports over the past ten days—on poverty, wages, income inequality and social mobility—have painted a portrait of America starkly at odds with the official mythology of the United States as the land of unlimited economic opportunity, the country with the world’s highest standard of living.
The World Socialist Web Site has naturally drawn attention to these reports, but Marxist critics and opponents of American capitalism did not collect this data. On the contrary, the figures come from US government agencies like the General Accounting Office, the Congressional Budget Office, the Social Security Administration, the Bureau of the Census and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Read more…
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by Laura Clawson
Reposted from Daily Kos Labor by Laura Clawson
Sanders, from Vermont.
Vermont Sens. Bernie Sanders and Patrick Leahy and Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu are trying to slow down the rush to effectively kill the Postal Service. Currently, the House and Senate are considering measures that would, respectively, kill the Postal Service really fast and somewhat more slowly:
A bill offered by Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-D-Conn.; Tom Carper, D-Del.; and Susan Collins, R-Maine, would block the Postal Service from ending Saturday delivery for two years, but Sanders said it doesn’t save the processing centers planned for closure. Landrieu, Sanders and Leahy are pushing to extend the ban for four years. Read more…
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NOVEMBER 15, 2011
A Lesson for Labor From Occupy Wall Street
by STEVE EARLY
Occupy Wall Street (OWS) has given our timorous, unimaginative, and politically ambivalent unions a much-needed ideological dope slap. Some might describe this, more diplomatically, as a second injection of “outside-the-box” thinking and new organizational blood.
Top AFL-CIO officials first sought an infusion of those scarce commodities in labor when they jetted into Wisconsin last winter. Without their planning or direction, the spontaneous community-labor uprising in Wisconsin was in the process of recasting the debate about public sector bargaining throughout the U.S. So they were eager to join the protest even though it was launched from the bottom up, rather than the top-down, in response to headquarters directives from Washington, D.C. Read more…
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July 07, 2011
By Shamus Cooke
Will Obama’s new promises in 2012 fool labor leaders once again or will they engage in self-deception? Sadly, the nation’s largest teachers union, the NEA, has pledged to support Obama’s next campaign.
R. Trumka, new AFL-CIO chief. Combative words cannot make up for a misguided, shopworn strategy.
The first step in saving the labor movement is recognizing that it needs saving. Sadly, many union leaders — including Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO — refuse to accept this reality, choosing instead to dismiss the current threats against labor unions as “exaggerated,” or limited to this or that Republican politician. In fact, the labor movement — especially public sector unions — is facing nationwide attacks by Democrats and Republicans alike. Read more…
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By Andre Damon, WSWS.ORG, a socialist organization
Volkswagen’s new plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, made headlines this year as the first US auto assembly plant to pay its entire production workforce the lowest starting wage for new US autoworkers—$14.50 per hour. But now the plant is starting all new production employees at $12 per hour, workers said, setting the bar even lower for autoworker wages.
In order to receive a bevy of state, federal, and local subsidies, Volkswagen promised in 2008 to create 2,000 local jobs at the “full” pay rate. But as production approaches full speed, all new production workers are now being hired in through Aerotek, Volkswagen’s labor contractor, at $12 per hour. In addition to the current production workforce, the factory employs over 500 temporary contract production employees, workers said. Read more…
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