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Most of us have been on both sides of it — receiving a coffee or sandwich from an employee who seems just a little too happy to serve you, or being forced to beam a smile at a rude customer who views you as merely an annoying obstacle in his busy day. The term for this coerced sunniness is “emotional labor,” as first defined by sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild in 1983.
Hochschild coined the term “emotional labor” in her 1983 book, The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling, where she described it as ”management of feeling to create a publicly observable facial and bodily display … sold for a wage.”
Midwives, psychologists and funeral home directors are expected to calm the seas of their clients’ moods, and affluent visitors of high-end boutiques and restaurants pay a healthy premium to be coddled by their employees — but should workers making little more than minimum wage be forced to smile or be fired?
Exactly a century ago, on February 3, 1913, the 16th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, authorizing a federal income tax. Congress turned it into a graduated tax, based on “capacity to pay.”
It was among the signal victories of the progressive movement — the first constitutional amendment in 40 years (the first 10 had been included in the Bill of Rights, the 11th and 12th in 1789 and 1804, and three others in consequence of the Civil War), reflecting a great political transformation in America.
The 1880s and 1890s had been the Gilded Age, the time of robber barons, when a small number controlled almost all the nation’s wealth as well as our democracy, when poverty had risen to record levels, and when it looked as though the country was destined to become a moneyed aristocracy.
But almost without warning, progressives reversed the tide. Teddy Roosevelt became president in 1901,
» Read more about: A Progressive Anniversary: The Income Tax Is 100 Years Old »
My (early) New Year’s resolution was to get a credit card. You may remember that I have never had a credit card. And thus if I were on the dating market, my OKCupid inquiries would be flatly rejected. It’s not that I have a bad score. I just don’t have one. I had a good score when I was dutifully paying off my student loan after I graduated, but then through paying dirt-cheap rent in Harlem and never paying for cable I was able to pay off the loan. Since then I haven’t owned any credit products. I’ve paid my rent on time every month and paid every bill before the due date. But those things don’t make their way over to FICO. I’ve thus landed myself in quite the Catch-22 that speaks volumes about the lending industry and our reliance on it.
When I moved into a new apartment three years ago,
» Read more about: Give Her Credit: A Writer’s Pursuit of Plastic Debt »
When the President finished his inaugural speech the other week, I said to my wife Susan, “That was a great piece of rhetoric.” By that I did not mean a lot of flowery words strung together or a piece of political discourse from a particular party’s perspective. I meant it as high praise of a public address that transcends the immediate moment and inspires us as a people to live up to our nation’s principles. This one, unlike four years ago, felt like the caliber of speeches I had studied in college in a course on Rhetoric and Public Address.
At least that is what I thought I’d heard. The President talked about the unresolved problems that face us as a nation: immigration, gun reform, deficit control, climate change, economic inequality. He placed those within the context of this nation’s founding principles: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. Then the President reminded us how we Americans have always acted to resolve the issues that face us: from Seneca Falls to Selma to Stonewall – three locations that struck movements to expand democracy and make the pursuit of happiness more possible for more people.
» Read more about: Walking the Talk: A Speech for All Seasons »
In 2012, Indiana and Michigan joined the ranks of the “right to work” states. They joined 22 other mostly Southern and Western states. All 11 Southern states are “right to work.”
Unfortunately, living in a “right to work” state doesn’t mean that you have a right to work. It doesn’t even mean that you have a right not to join a union. No one ever has to join a union.
It means that you don’t have to pay for union representation in collective bargaining even when the majority of the workers in their company have democratically voted to be represented by the union.
The union still bargains for you. It helps you get a good salary, paid holidays and a health plan. Members of the union sometimes even go out on strike to make sure you get these benefits.
But when it’s time to pay the piper,
» Read more about: Right to Work Laws: Opening Pandora’s Box »
I wonder what the three mayoral candidates thought of last night, as they traveled to the third and final debate to be held in South Los Angeles before the March 5 election. Were Wendy Greuel, Jan Perry and Eric Garcetti affected by the change in scenery as they drove closer to Ward AME Church, one of the city’s historic religious institutions?
I would like to think that they clearly saw the run-down corridors, littered with liquor stores, abandoned buildings, empty lots and fast food joints. As they approached the steps of the church did these veteran public servants allow themselves to catch the eyes of that beautiful little neighborhood girl or boy who has access to fewer resources, as well as a lower probability of living a high quality life than a child from the Westside or San Fernando Valley?
Looking forward, if elected, would the high poverty rates in South Los Angeles and elsewhere keep Greuel,
» Read more about: Mayoral Candidates Forum: Debating South L.A.’s Future »
The accolades for Timothy Geithner came on so thick and heavy in the last week that it’s necessary for those of us in the reality-based community to bring the discussion back to earth. The basic facts of the matter are very straightforward. Timothy Geithner and the bailout he helped engineer saved the Wall Street banks. He did not save the economy.
We can’t know exactly what would have happened if we did not have the TARP in October of 2008. We do know there was a major effort at the time to exaggerate the dangers to the financial system in order to pressure Congress to pass the TARP.
For example, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke highlighted the claim that the commercial paper market was shutting down. Since most major companies finance their ongoing operations by issuing commercial paper, this raised the threat of a full-fledged economic collapse because even healthy companies would not be able to get the cash needed to pay their bills.
Atop the list of landmark laws that conservatives have never particularly warmed to are two that established fundamental rights for workers and consumers: the 1935 National Labor Relations Act, which provided employees a legal path to form unions, and the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform, which established a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to rein in banks’ abusive treatment of depositors and mortgage holders. Conservatives have never had the votes or the gumption to repeal these statutes. But now they can essentially neuter these laws.
[Last] Friday, three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit — all nominated by Republican presidents — ruled that President Obama lacked the authority for three appointments he had made to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) during the break between Congress’s 2011 and 2012 sessions. Invoking the president’s power to make one- or two-year appointments while Congress is in recess — a power that presidents have exercised as far back as James Madison — Obama appointed two Democrats and one Republican in the face of continued Republican opposition to his previous NLRB picks.
» Read more about: Court Decision Could Cripple NLRB and Consumer Bureau »
As Senator Bernie Sanders has warned, “Social Security faces an unprecedented attack from Wall Street, the Republican Party and a few Democrats. If the American people are not prepared to fight back, the dismantling of Social Security could begin in the very near future.”
What exactly does the 99 Percent need to know to defend Social Security against the Wall Street One Percenters who want to profit by destroying it?
First, know our adversaries. Listen closely to the corporate-funded Heritage Foundation, headed by Tea Party hero and former Senator Jim DeMint. They want to turn part of our retirement and disability savings over to the same Wall Street firms that crashed our economy.
Heritage’s Social Security plan would
» Read more about: Wall Street’s Newest Hedge Fund: Social Security »
Civil rights leader Reverend James Lawson announced last Saturday that he’s planning to give himself to a new nonviolent direct action campaign with the Children’s Defense Fund, but wasn’t ready yet to discuss the details. The setting was his monthly workshop on the theory of nonviolence, where upwards of 35 people of diverse ages and backgrounds were gathered to hear Lawson present his provocative thoughts on basic human values, spirituality and the need for systemic social change.
Credited with introducing nonviolent direct action to the 1960s civil rights movement, Rev. Lawson feels the theory of nonviolence has had the equivalent impact on our understanding of the universe as Einstein’s theory of relativity. He sees the recent growth of California’s labor movement as an outgrowth of what Lawson calls “this science of social change” introduced to the state by farm worker leader Cesar Chavez in the 1960s and 70s.
Lawson was dressed last weekend in pressed khaki slacks,
» Read more about: James Lawson: Training for Nonviolence’s Next Step »
The Conference Board reported Tuesday that the preliminary January figure for consumer confidence in the United States fell to its lowest level in more than a year.
The last time consumers were this bummed out was October 2011, when there was widespread talk of a double-dip recession.
But this time business news is buoyant. The stock market is bullish. The housing market seems to have rebounded a bit.
So why are consumers so glum?
Because they’re deeply worried about their jobs and their incomes – as they have every right to be.
The job situation is still lousy. We’ll know more this coming Friday about what happened to jobs in January. But we know over 20 million people are still unemployed or underemployed.
Personal income is in terrible shape. The median wage continues to drop, adjusted for inflation.
Most people can’t get readily-available loans because banks are still cautious about lending to anyone without a sterling credit history.
The Republican Party spent the better part of the past few years reaching back a century or more for ideas. Where liberals saw the dangers of a creeping Gilded Age on the horizon, conservatives cheered the true freedom that attends gross economic inequality. Paul Ryan, one of the GOP’s standard-bearers, repeatedly excited crowds with the promise of the true adventure and excitement that comes from riding the free market without a social safety net. By adopting the Republican vision, he explained, you choose against “a dull, adventureless journey from one entitlement to the next, a government-planned life, a country where everything is free but us.”
Similarly, there is currently a conservative attempt to rehabilitate the infamous 1905 Supreme Court decision of Lochner v. New York, which struck down on economic liberty grounds a New York state law that forbade bakers from working more than 10 hours per day and 60 hours per week.
» Read more about: Atlas Smirked: Why the GOP Kicks the Ladders to Prosperity »
(Editor’s Note: The following includes excerpts from remarks made on KPFK’s Uprising program, which focused on the Los Angeles mayoral debate held January 28 .)
The argument that framed the debate – that Los Angeles could go bankrupt – is ridiculous. L.A. is one of the richest cities in the world. Yes, we face some budget challenges, but the solution is not to gut the modest retirement benefits of hard-working people. We need to focus on creating good jobs, which will increase our tax base, and making sure that we are generating the revenues we should from our incredible city-owned assets.
When the focus of the majority of the discussion is pensions, which is an issue but represents only 10 or 11 percent of the budget, and really is one of many important issues facing the city – when that is the primary subject of conversation most people are left wondering,
» Read more about: The Politics of Bankruptcy: The UCLA Mayoral Debate »
The state of California has ordered a Southern California warehouse that processes merchandise for Walmart and other retailers to pay 865 workers more than $1 million in stolen wages.
The California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement issued the citations Monday, Jan. 28 against Quetico, LLC, a large warehouse complex in Chino, California. Back wages and unpaid overtime total more than $1.1million and in addition the state issued about $200,000 in penalties.
“Quetico is strict when it comes to enforcing its rules with workers so it is only fair that the state enforce the laws that the company broke,” said Abraham Guzman, a warehouse worker who has been at Quetico for about two and a half years. “I am satisfied that the law will now be followed and workers have won justice.”
Last year workers brought concerns to the Warehouse Worker Resource Center, an advocacy organization that works with Warehouse Workers United.
» Read more about: State Hits Walmart Contractor With Wage-Theft Ruling »
Last week’s annual national union membership numbers were eye-opening, and well, pretty depressing. The relentless attacks on unions nationwide have caused overall union density to drop to a startlingly low 11.3 percent. The share of union members as part of the workforce is the lowest it’s been in 97 years. That’s not just bad news for unions, that’s really bad news for everyone.
According to the Center for American Progress:
Without the counterbalance of workers united together in unions, the middle class withers because the economy and politics tend to be dominated by the rich and powerful, which in turn leads to an even greater flow of money in our economy to the top of the income scale.
Sound familiar?
But despite last week’s bad news on a national level, there were silver linings. Not the least of which is the trend here in California.
» Read more about: California Unions’ Growth Bucks National Trend »
Ask Los Angeles Times reporter Alana Semuels why union membership in California rose by 100,000 in 2012 and she’ll give you a simple answer:
“Latino workers.”
To explain the contrast between the trend in California and the U.S. as a whole – where union membership dropped last year by 400,000 – Semuels turned to some credible sources, including Steve Smith of the State Labor Fed who cited “an appetite among these low-wage workers to try to get a collective voice to give themselves opportunity and a middle-class lifestyle.”
Quoting Smith and others, Semuels finds that, “After working hard to get here, many Latino immigrants demand respect in the workplace and are more willing to join unions in a tough economic environment, organizers say.”
True enough: Immigrant workers have been particularly important for unions in California and Latino organizing has helped reignite the state’s labor movement.
Last year, Walmart gave $918,000 through its foundation to 33 California nonprofits. Amongst the types of organizations: job training, homeless shelters and health groups (see list below).
I scratched my head when I read this. Of course we want to see vital social service groups impacted by severe government funding cuts survive in this economy. Many of us have attended fundraisers for, or donated to these groups ourselves.
But there was something about the nature of the groups that caught my eye. I wondered: Why is Walmart funding groups that provide for such basic needs? Why is a corporation suddenly funding healthcare groups? Altruism? A love for Obamacare? Or is there something else?
Here’s what strikes me about Walmart’s seemingly benign charity efforts: The type of groups they’re funding addresses basic needs (jobs, health, shelter) that good jobs actually fulfill. Walmart, of course, is notorious for not providing such jobs.
» Read more about: Walmart’s Philanthropy Model: Charity and Poverty »
Ask Adela Valdez how it feels to hear public health experts on TV explain ways to limit a flu outbreak. Get a flu shot, wash your hands, they advise – and if you get the flu, stay home until 24 hours after your fever’s gone.
“One day, I had a fever but I went to work anyway,” Adela said. She’d worked for three years in a factory in New York making expensive lamps. “On the third day, I still had a fever. I felt very sick and I asked permission to go to the hospital.”
Her supervisor’s response? “Fine, go to the hospital, but don’t come back. I need people who come here to work, not to get sick.”
Adela lost her job.
Some management consultants acknowledge that sick workers may spread the flu to co-workers out of fear that they’ll be fired if they stay home to recover.
Brace yourself. In coming weeks you’ll hear there’s no serious alternative to cutting Social Security and Medicare, raising taxes on [the] middle class and decimating what’s left of the federal government’s discretionary spending on everything from education and job training to highways and basic research.
“We” must make these sacrifices, it will be said, in order to deal with our mushrooming budget deficit and cumulative debt.
But most of the people who are making this argument are very wealthy or are sponsored by the very wealthy: Wall Street moguls like Pete Peterson and his “Fix the Debt” brigade, the Business Roundtable, well-appointed think tanks and policy centers along the Potomac, members of the Simpson-Bowles commission.
These regressive sentiments are packaged in a mythology that [says] Americans have been living beyond our means: We’ve been unwilling to pay for what we want government to do for us,
It was a viral Internet sensation last year, but Boxing Lessons with Eric Kelly is worth a second viewing today, as we swing into a year that promises only sharper divisions between those who control wealth and those who don’t. Eric Kelly, a former amateur boxer from Brooklyn, works at New York’s Church Street Gym, where he trains Wall Street executives in the manly art of self-defense.
Actually, according to the video, he mostly insults these Masters of the Universe nonstop – and they love it. In a recent SB Nation piece on Kelly, writer Brin-Jonathan Butler asked one of the gym’s patrons, a JP Morgan banker, why he has taken up boxing under the dismissive gaze and trash talk of Kelly. Reports Butler:
“You know,” he began with a sheepish smirk, “maybe, deep down, we just miss that whole Occupy Wall Street movement a little bit.