If Union Members Were Not So Politically Conservative – By Berry Craig – PADUCAH, Ky. — Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes says Bluegrass State union members are her “secret weapon” in her quest to unseat arch conservative Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and help the Democrats keep a majority hold on the…
By Robert Reich – What someone is paid has little or no relationship to what their work is worth to society. Does anyone seriously believe hedge-fund mogul Steven A. Cohen is worth the $2.3 billion he raked in last year, despite being slapped with a $1.8 billion fine after his firm pleaded guilty to insider…
By Heather Gray – In 2005, I attended the National Media Reform Conference in St. Louis, Missouri. While there I visited the historic St. Louis courthouse and the huge Gateway Arch by the Mississippi River that symbolizes St. Louis as the gateway to the west. It was here that U.S. corporate agribusiness, the U.S. occupation…
The signs of climate change are all around us, according to a new report just released by the White House. The average temperature in the United States during the past decade was 0.8° Celsius (1.5° Fahrenheit) warmer than the 1901-1960 average, and the last decade was the warmest on record both in the United States…
By Glynn Wilson – Mercedes was found guilty this week of violating labor law against employees by an administrative law judge ruling for the National Labor Relations board. Judge Keltner W. Locke ruled that Mercedes-Benz U.S. International in Vance near Tuscaloosa committed three violations in dealing with employees who were working to try to unionize…
The American Federation of Government Employees union supports of the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s unanimous vote on Friday to allow federal prisoners serving time for low-level drug offenses to apply for early release, according to a press release issued shortly after the decision was announced. Overcrowding in federal prisons has become a significant problem in recent…
A new report released by the U.S. Department of Labor provides solid evidence that raising the minimum wage in states tends to spur job growth, the opposite of what conservative critics claim. The state-by-state hiring data, released Friday by the Labor Department, provides ammunition to the camp in favor of raising the minimum wage. In…
By Robert Reich – In a new Pew poll, more than three quarters of self-described conservatives believe “poor people have it easy because they can get government benefits without doing anything.” In reality, most of America’s poor work hard, often in two or more jobs. The real non-workers are the wealthy who inherit their fortunes.…
By Robert Reich – Dozens of big U.S. corporations are considering leaving the United States in order to reduce their tax bills. But they’ll be leaving the country only on paper. They’ll still do as much business in the U.S. as they were doing before. The only difference is they’ll no longer be “American,” and…
To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize. – Voltaire, 1694-1778 – By David Underhill – MOBILE, Ala. – Newly captured Africans bound for slavery in the Americas often didn’t arrive directly. They stopped in the Caribbean islands for “seasoning.” There they lost their culture, language, religion.…
By Glynn Wilson – MARION, Va. — The Council of Economic Advisers released a report on Wednesday detailing the negative effects on local economies and public health in states where Republican administrations failed to cooperate with the federal government and expand Medicaid. The report, entitled Missed Opportunities: The Consequences of State Decisions Not to Expand…
Amending the Constitution may sound audacious, but it’s not impossible – By Leo Gerard, USW – All of this has so emboldened billionaires that one of them, Tom Perkins, said earlier this year that citizens should get one vote for each tax dollar they pay. No more one person one vote. Ketchup king H.J. Heinz…
By Robert Reich – Rather than confront poverty by extending jobless benefits to the long-term unemployed, endorsing a higher minimum wage, or supporting jobs programs, conservative Republicans are taking a different tack. They’re peddling three big lies about poverty. To wit: Lie No. 1: Economic growth reduces poverty “The best anti-poverty program,” wrote Paul Ryan,…
Coming Clean – By Michael Brune – I was honored to be invited to speak to the United Auto Workers in Detroit at their convention this week. Even though the Sierra Club and the UAW have been working together for years, some people don’t know we’re natural allies. Here are some other things you might…
By Robert Reich – I spent several days in New York last week with students from around the country who were preparing to head into the heartland to help organize Walmart workers for better jobs and wages. (Full familial disclosure: My son Adam is one of the leaders.) Almost exactly fifty years ago a similar…
President Barack Obama set an ambitious goal two years ago to attract 100 million international visitors to the United States each year by the end of 2021. More than 70 million travelers from around the world visited the U.S. in the last year alone — and they spent more than $180 billion. “That’s huge, and…
By Robert Reich – For years Americans have assumed that our hard-charging capitalism is better than the soft-hearted version found in Canada and Europe. American capitalism might be a bit crueler but it generates faster growth and higher living standards overall. Canada’s and Europe’s “welfare-state socialism” is doomed. It was a questionable assumption to begin…
Coming Clean – By Michael Brune – My current column in SIERRA magazine Money Talks, Carbon Walks describes how each of us can help build the fossil-free economy by exercising our influence as consumers and investors. Most of us will do that because we believe it’s right but, as I wrote in Sierra: “If environmental…
By Robert Reich – Even though French economist Thomas Piketty has made an air-tight case that we’re heading toward levels of inequality not seen since the days of the nineteenth-century robber barons, right-wing conservatives haven’t stopped lying about what’s happening and what to do about it. Herewith, the four biggest right-wing lies about inequality, followed…
By Robert Reich – Until the 1980s, corporate CEOs were paid, on average, 30 times what their typical worker was paid. Since then, CEO pay has skyrocketed to 280 times the pay of a typical worker; in big companies, to 354 times. Meanwhile, over the same thirty-year time span the median American worker has seen…
