When enlistment is down, what’s the military to do? Outsource. Seventy thousand of the people in the Pentagon’s war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan are not U.S. soldiers, but “third-country nationals” —…
Labor
Ahram Online reports: The Egyptian cabinet approved yesterday a decree-law that criminalises strikes, protests, demonstrations and sit-ins that interrupt private or state owned businesses or affect the economy in any way. The…
Vic Ryckaert and Kevin O’Neal report in the Indianapolis Star: For the second time, an Indiana public official has lost his job because of provocative comments made about the political brouhaha in…
The progressive views of leading liberal website the Huffington Post apparently stop at the office door. When your company is worth $315 million, it’s hard to make excuses for not paying your…
On the Middle East news network Al Jazeera, Ralph Nader suggests that President Obama is not supporting the labor movement and if such ‘games’ continue it may lead to a ‘popular revolt’ in the United States.
British economist Guy Standing has coined the term “precariat” to refer to the fast-growing working-class caste of the 21st century. With labor markets now globalized and “flexiblized,” the risks and uncertainties of capitalism have been transferred almost completely away from capitalists and onto workers. Below, citizens discuss living and working in post-industrial England, where large numbers scrounge to obtain low-wage, unstable jobs.
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The U.S. government sees dead people. Explains a lot. Mark S. Smith writes on the AP via Yahoo News: Here’s an idea, Uncle Sam: Stop writing checks to dead people. The government…
The above headline is from the good folks at The Onion, please read their story here. What is alarming is, if you watch this recent report from 60 Minutes, this really isn’t a joke.
I have to imagine the chemically induced behavior (i.e. “productivity”) makes it way into the workforce, what does this say about the state of America, is this is commonplace among the so-called best and brightest?
Lance Freeman writes on Escape From America Magazine: Americans, I have some bad news for you: You have the worst quality of life in the developed world — by a wide margin….
The Sydney Morning Herald reports: Apple manufacturer Foxconn was taking extraordinary measures to safeguard its business and workers following a spate of suicides at its sprawling plant in southern China. Workers have…
A Chinese newspaper went undercover at a Foxconn factory, the production site for Western gadgets such as iPhones and iPods. The workers are an army of overworked, ill-treated, but optimistic twenty-year-olds whose…
Was the recent incident in Times Square an attempt to demonize the labor and environmental movements? Mother Jones reports: This much we know: A US citizen born in Pakistan has been arrested…
Another chapter from my book, 50 Things You’re Not Supposed to Know, published in 2003, by Disinfo. For more on me, please check out The Memory Hole. _____________________________________ The United Nations’ International…