In the late seventies, I joined the Peace Corps, fresh out of college with a degree in Plant and Soil Science.  Maybe I did it for for idealism, maybe for a youthful sense of altruism or adventure, maybe to escape a future of employment at Cargill or Monsanto, or all of these.  Whatever the reason, […]

From a working person’s point of view, the recent (and to most of us) completely unexpected split in the AFL-CIO leaves a lot of unanswered questions in its wake. Not that anybody has ever asked me, but I’m a member of  the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, so I have my own questions, too. To […]

For better or worse, I work for a power company. My mostly white male union workers and I have been through cycle after cycle of lousy labor contracts. We’ve seen healthcare, retirement benefits, job security, and work practices crumble, and we dread our next round of labor negotiations. Customer service has fared no better than […]