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Sure, George W. Bush did away with the White House Women’s Office of Initiatives and Outreach. He’s given us a first lady who prefers to be seen and not heard. He hired women with much fanfare, then promptly dismissed their input and humiliated them in public. (Think Dick Cheney usurping Condoleezza Rice’s authority and the […]

The Guardian The central reality of our age is that globalisation and technological change have increased the demand for people with the right education, skills, and connections – and reduced the demand for those without them. The bottom third of our citizens are either paid less or have fewer job opportunities than before. The top […]

Broadcast December 21, 2000 You may remember old Scrooge wasn’t happy he had to give his clerk in the counting house time off for Christmas. “A poor excuse for picking a man s pocket every twenty-fifth of December! But I suppose you must have the whole day,” he said. “Be here all the earlier next […]

They are poorly paid and often numbed by the repetitiveness of their jobs. They quit frequently and are replaced quickly. They serve the public good, but work for private companies. When they do their jobs thoroughly, they earn the wrath of impatient travelers. And when tragedy strikes, the world holds them responsible. They are airport […]

If George W. Bush really wanted to be a compassionate conservative — and to promote a new bipartisan approach in Washington — then he would stop Senate Republicans from killing the new standard to prevent workplace injuries. However, if he is simply interested in pay back to big business that supported his campaign, then he’ll […]

The first union negotiations at Harvard since the student-led 21-day sit-in have yielded a promising new contract with the local union representing food service and dining hall workers, including significant wage raises. While there are still flaws with the package — future raises are not indexed to inflation, and there are still many workers in […]

You may not have heard of Antonio Villaraigosa, but in about a month he is likely to be on the cover of Time and Newsweek. Villaraigosa is the front-runner to become the first Latino mayor of Los Angeles in the June 5 election. Almost more important, his likely win is the fruit of a remarkable […]

Broadcast August 10, 2001 The old industrial struggle was between companies and workers. The new struggle is between … companies and workers. But the issue isn’t exactly the same as it used to be. The new battle is over who’s going to keep spending, and thereby keep the American economy going. You see, since last […]

The New York Times CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Linda Chavez, George W. Bush’s pick for labor secretary, withdrew as the nominee Tuesday after facing a blizzard of questions concerning Marta Mercado, a Guatemalan woman who, as an undocumented alien, lived in Chavez’s home during the early 1990s and did some work for the family. Chavez didn’t […]

After four months of post-election purgatory — more than 100 days in which liberals have watched Democratic leaders weakly grumble as President Bush has handed the government over to corporations and sought to pay off their C.E.O.s with giant tax cuts — real leadership has finally emerged on the left. Who are these new leaders? […]