The unemployment rate edged down to 8.9 percent in February, as the Labor Department reported that the economy generated 192,000 new jobs. This number is undoubtedly inflated some by the weather-weakened January performance, when the economy generated just 63,000 jobs. The unemployment rate has now dropped by 0.9 percentage points in the last three months. […]
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News updates or analysis.
The New American Workers Movement at the Crossroads
The new American workers movement, which has developed so rapidly in the last couple of months in the struggle against right-wing legislative proposals to abolish public employee unions, suddenly finds itself at a crossroads. Madison, Wisconsin, where rank-and-file workers, community members, and social movement activists converged to create the new movement, remains the center of […]
Obama for Freedom in Libya
“Today, Obama called for freedom of the Libyan oil fields.” — As’ad AbuKhalil Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist. | Print
ALBA Countries Support Venezuelan Initiative to Seek Peace in Libya
Bolivian, Ecuadoran, and Cuban Foreign Ministers David Choquehuanca, Ricardo Patiño and Bruno Rodríguez, and Nicaraguan Vice Minister of Economic Relations and External Cooperation Valdrack Jaentschke, all say that their governments support Venezuela’s initiative to create an international commission to seek a negotiated solution to the internal conflict in Libya. The officials made their position public […]
Uncle Sam
People accuse me of a double moral standard, but really I don’t have any moral standard! Eneko Las Heras, born in Caracas in 1963, is a cartoonist based in Spain. The cartoon above was first published on his blog . . . Y sin embargo se mueve on 3 March 2011. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi […]
Call for an Audit Commission on Greek Public Debt
We the undersigned believe that there is a pressing need for an Audit Commission to examine Greek public debt. Current EU and IMF policy to deal with public debt has entailed major social costs for Greece. Consequently, the Greek people have a democratic right to demand full information on public and publicly-guaranteed debt. The aim […]
How I Became a Socialist
“Workin’ hard scarred my proletarian flesh I used to go to sleep drunk every night depressed Slavin’ for a check, a couple hundred at best While the boss getting’ rich off my blood and sweat And all the crumbs I get go to bills and rent I ain’t workin’ all my life just to […]
Missing in Madison — Where’s Obama? Nurses Offer to Buy President’s Shoes to March with Workers
The past two weeks have been a “Where’s Waldo” moment for President Obama. He’s been largely a bystander while tens of thousands of American workers, joined by students, and community allies, marched in Madison’s snow and freezing temperatures, and slept on the floors of the capitol, to defend their most fundamental right to freedom of […]
Venezuela’s Position on Libya
Venezuela’s proposal to “set up a Goodwill International Commission for the search for peace in Libya” mentioned in the statement below has been accepted by the government of Libya but rejected by the opposition Libyan National Council, France, and the United States. — Ed. This statement records Venezuela’s position on United Nations General Assembly […]
No Tahrir in Benghazi: A Racist Pogrom Rages On against Black Africans in Libya
American progressives and peace forces have been in a state of joyous delirium in recent weeks as they experienced vicarious, televised popular victories in Tunisia and Egypt. Watching unarmed crowds achieve tentative victories against entrenched, U.S.-backed regimes produced a kind of giddiness on this side of the ocean — an otherworldly feeling that, somehow, the […]
Why Taxing the Rich Makes Sense
Over the last half century, the richest Americans shifted the burden of the federal individual income tax off themselves onto everybody else. The three convenient and accurate Wikipedia graphs below show the details. The first graph compares the official tax rates paid by the top and bottom income earners. Notice especially that from the end […]
Ohio: Rigged Game
Ohio’s Senate Bill 5 passed today, 17-16. — Ed. Rigged Game So, after a full and fair debate on SB#5 before a Committee the majority of whom are Republicans, the Bill was going down to defeat. Two Republican Senators, Hughes and Seitz had reasoned the Bill was unfair to public employees and was overreaching. […]
Black Africans Live in Fear in “Free Libya”
Al Jazeera reports that Black African workers now live in fear in the rebel-held territories in Libya. Some of them have been attacked by mobs, others have been imprisoned, and some of their homes and workshops have been torched. “Many African workers say they felt safer under the Gaddafi regime,” says Al Jazeera’s Jacky Rowland, […]
March 1st Protest to Defend Ohio’s Working Class
No on Senate Bill 5, 1 March 2011 Panayiotis T. Manolakos is an independent economist, writer, and activist based in Ohio. The photographs above (available at www.flickr.com/photos/ptmanolakos/sets/72157626052775127/) are published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License. var idcomments_acct = ‘c90a61ed51fd7b64001f1361a7a71191’; var idcomments_post_id; var idcomments_post_url; | Print
URGENT! Don’t Let the Tea Party Take Over the Ohio SB 5 Hearing Room
Late in the evening after SB5 protesters held the biggest rally at the Statehouse in 15 years, word has just come out that SB5 may come up for a vote this Wednesday, March 2nd. We can only guess whether this was timed to coincide with the Tea Party rally scheduled for the Statehouse that […]
It’s Up to You to Take Action and Fight Back
Senate Bill 5 will destroy the way of life of hundreds of thousands of Ohioans and hurt our communities. One way to take a stand is by coming out to the biggest Statehouse rally yet TODAY: from 9 AM, Statehouse‘s West Lawn on the High Street side. The Senate Insurance, Commerce, and Labor Committee […]
“We’ve Been Reaching Out to Many Different Libyans Who Are Attempting to Organize in the East”
Here’s another clue about the real balance of forces in Libya, which has been obscured by the concerted corporate media propaganda. Washington has decided that the Libyan rebels don’t have what it takes to take Tripoli, where about half of Libya’s population live, on their own (as the rebels admit themselves) and that the […]
Imperialists Prepare for Military Intervention in Libya
The Libyan exiles and defectors begging for no-fly zones failed to get them at the United Nations Security Council on Saturday, but they are inching closer to lining up Western military support nonetheless. This just in from the Wall Street Journal today: The Pentagon is repositioning warships and planes in the waters off Libya to […]
Egyptian Workers Strike for Minimum Wage and Independent Unions
Workers’ demonstrations have swept across Egypt demanding an increase in the national minimum wage, an end to corrupt factory management, and the creation of independent workers’ unions. Jasmina Metwaly and Philip Rizk are filmmakers based in Cairo, Egypt. Read Rizk’s blog Tabula Gaza at <tabulagaza.blogspot.com>. Follow Rizk at <twitter.com/tabulagaza>. This video was released by the […]
The New American Workers Movement and the Confrontation to Come
The new American workers movement — born in the last few weeks in the giant protests in Wisconsin and Ohio — faces a fateful confrontation this week. In Madison and Columbus, Republican legislators are pushing to abolish public employee labor unions and tens of thousands of workers are protesting and resisting. We have seen nothing […]
