As I travel around the country, I tell people: if you have a job, join a union. And if you don’t have a union, start one. Continue reading
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Category Archives: Labor
The latest job report is another fiction
There were not 312,000 new jobs created in December. Continue reading
More jobs fictions
According to Friday’s payroll jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the economy created 200,000 new jobs in August. These jobs, assuming that they exist, are reported to be in low paid domestic service jobs such as transporting and selling goods, ambulatory health care services, and waiting tables and mixing drinks. There are none in manufacturing or in the “high tech clean fingernail” jobs that neoliberal economists promised the American work force in exchange for letting the industrial and manufacturing jobs go to Asia. Continue reading
The economy is supposed to be great, so why are workers miserable?
Quantity is on one thing, but quality is what really matters when it comes to jobs
It’s practically unanimous: Nine out of 10 establishment economists agree that America’s solid job growth and the low unemployment rate truly make ours “The Land of Opportunity.” Continue reading
Americans live in a world of lies
The US government and the presstitutes that serve it continue to lie to us about everything. Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics told us that the unemployment rate was 3.9%. How can this be when the BLS also reports that the labor force participation rate has declined for a decade throughout the length of the alleged economic recovery and there is no upward pressure on wages from full employment. When jobs are plentiful, people enter the labor force to take advantage of the work opportunities. This raises the labor force participation rate. When employment is full—which is what a 3.9% unemployment rate means—wages are bid up as employers compete for scarce labor. Full employment with no wage pressure and no rise in the labor force participation rate is impossible. Continue reading
More fake news From Washington—this time it is about employment
The US government continues to lie about everything, not just Russia, Syria, Iran, and China. The US government is incapable of telling the truth about something as straightforward as employment. According to the government, March produced only 98,000 new payroll jobs, an insufficient amount to reduce unemployment, but the unemployment rate fell from 4.7 to 4.5 percent. Continue reading
Faux populist Trump wages all-out war on American workers
President-elect Donald Trump, a supposedly populist candidate who rose to power on promises made to frustrated American workers, has now seemingly launched what Politico is describing as an outright “war on unions.” Continue reading
Dismal jobs report
The presstitute media delivered the false news, not from Russian propaganda websites such as the Washington Post accuses this one of being, but from Obama’s US Bureau of Labor Statistics. The false news is that the collapsing economy continues to boom with 178,000 new jobs in November and a further fall in the rate of unemployment to 4.6%. Continue reading
Another phony jobs report
As John Williams has made clear, the monthly payroll jobs number consists mainly of an add-on factor of 200,000 jobs. These jobs are a product of the assumption in the Birth-Death Model that new business ventures create more unreported new jobs than the unreported job losses from business failures. If we subtract out this made-up number, July saw a gain of 55,000 jobs, not enough to keep up with population growth. Even the 55,000 figure is overstated, according to John Williams’ report: “The gimmicked, headline payroll gain of 255,000 more realistically should have come in below zero, net of built-in upside biases.” Continue reading
France imposes widely despised anti-labor bill by decree
On top of punishing austerity, new rules imposed benefit business exclusively at the expense of worker rights. Continue reading
May Day 2016: No gods, no masters
Each year, as we join millions across the world to celebrate the victories of workers, our own Freedom Day remains still fresh in our minds. Continue reading
Jobs report blues
On Friday the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that there were 215,000 new jobs in March. Continue reading
Are the payroll jobs reports merely propaganda statements?
US economics statistics are so screwed up that they do not provide an accurate picture. Continue reading
Another phony payroll jobs number
The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced Friday that the US economy created 271,000 jobs in October, a number substantially in excess of the expected 175,000 to 190,000 jobs. The unexpected job gain has dropped the unemployment rate to 5 percent. These two numbers will be the focus of the financial media presstitutes. Continue reading
Freedom Rider: French workers show how to fight
Workers in the United States have learned some painful lessons: that they live on less than their peers in much of Europe and are woefully insecure in their jobs and retirements—if they have jobs and retirement plans, at all. What U.S. workers have not learned—or have forgotten—is how to fight. They can take some tips from the French, who “throw down the gauntlet at any mention of job loss or pay cuts.” Continue reading
Friday’s payroll jobs report
The 142,000 September payroll jobs reported Friday (2 Oct 2015) by the Bureau of Labor Statistics is too small to be consistent with the still high stock averages or the alleged economic recovery. Moreover, the BLS says that it over-estimated the July and August payroll jobs by 59,000. Continue reading
Finland and India workers send a message
When a country faces economic problems, it immediately calls for an austerity program to deal with the situation. Austerity does not mean that the wealthy will have to surrender their jet planes or their yachts, or use of personal expenses as tax write-offs. Continue reading
The boss who fought for the working class
He was born into poverty in New Hampshire in 1811. Continue reading
The December 2014 payroll jobs report
On January 9, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that a quarter of a million new jobs were created in December. Continue reading
Another fabricated jobs report
Friday’s payroll jobs report is another government fairy tale or, to avoid polite euphemisms, another packet of lies just like the House of Representatives Resolution against Russia and every other statement that comes out of Washington. Continue reading
More lies from ‘our’ government: The latest jobs report
Just as the German media have destroyed their credibility with lies, the US government is consistently destroying Washington’s credibility both with its own citizens and the rest of the world. Continue reading
More bad news from the jobs front
The Bureau of Labor Statistics headline Friday morning read: “Payroll employment increases by 248,000 in September; unemployment rate declines to 5.9%.” Continue reading
Virtual economy’s phantom job gains are based on statistical fraud
And more fraud is in the works
Washington can’t stop lying. Don’t be convinced by last Thursday’s job report that it is your fault if you don’t have a job. Those 288,000 jobs and 6.1% unemployment rate are more fiction than reality. Continue reading
More phantom jobs created—all in the wrong places
Education is not the answer
Last April, I saw a report that 83% of May’s college graduates did not have a job. I remarked that in my day most of us had 2 or 3 job or graduate school offers before we graduated. The latest payroll jobs report issued on June 6 proves that the April report was true. Continue reading
Another fraudulent jobs report
The March payroll jobs report released April 4 claims 192,000 new private sector jobs. Continue reading
Should the minimum wage be raised?
Some years ago when I was Business Week’s columnist an up-and-coming academic economist published his conclusions that raising the minimum wage did not cause unemployment. An implication was that labor unions did not cause unemployment by forcing up wages. Continue reading
No jobs for Americans
The alleged recovery took a direct hit from Friday’s payroll jobs report. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the economy created 74,000 net new jobs in December. Continue reading
Happy birthday, NAFTA
“I believe we have made a decision now that will permit us to create an economic order in the world that will promote more growth, more equality, better preservation of the environment and a greater possibility of world peace. We are on the verge of a global economic expansion that is sparked by the fact that the United States, at this critical moment, decided that we would compete, not retreat. In a few moments, I will sign the North American Free Trade Act into law. NAFTA will tear down trade barriers between our three nations. It will create the world’s largest trade zone and create 200,000 jobs in this country by 1995 alone. The environmental and labor side agreements initiated by our administration will make this agreement a force for social progress as well as economic growth.” Continue reading
More misleading official employment statistics
The payroll jobs report for November from the Bureau of Labor Statistics says that the US economy created 203,000 jobs in November. As it takes about 130,000 new jobs each month to keep up with population growth, if the payroll report is correct, then most of the new jobs would have been used up keeping the unemployment rate constant for the growth in the population of working age persons, and about 70,000 of the jobs would have slightly reduced the rate of unemployment. Yet, the unemployment rate (U3) fell from 7.3 to 7.0, which is too much for the job gain. It seems that the numbers and the news reports are not conveying correct information. Continue reading
When lack of money prevents work: FSRN ends daily broadcast
Free Speech Radio News, a daily international news program produced for and carried by community radio stations primarily in the United States, aired for the last time on Friday, September 27, 2013. Continue reading
In Los Angeles, labor redefines itself
“It’s time to turn America right side up!” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka exhorted those in attendance at the labor alliance’s quadrennial convention in Los Angeles on Monday. Time, he said in his keynote address, to change the ratio of power, to put the 99 percent in charge rather than let the richest one percent dominate government, politics and society. Continue reading
Public workers’ trump
Posted on January 30, 2019 by Robert Reich
Air traffic controllers hold the trump card (pardon the expression) in upcoming negotiations between Donald Trump and congressional Democrats over border security. Continue reading →