After reading Mike Elk’s piece on Caterpillar I can’t help but wonder if these right to work laws will make the United States a new haven of low wage labor. It’s a sickening race to the bottom.

After locking out 465 members of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) Local 27 in London, Ontario, Caterpillar decided last Friday to close its 62-year-old locomotive facility there and move production to newly “right-to-work” Indiana, where American workers will work for half of what Canadian workers would make. Caterpillar’s decision to close the plant  after workers refused to agree to major wage concessions has provoked outrage across Canada in light of the fact that Illinois-based Caterpillar made a record $4.8 billion in profits in 2011.

This reinforces the thinking out there that labor activism has to become global, because corporations are able to exploit any sector of the global economy they choose. It’s going to be about global solidarity movements.

I remember Seymour Hersh once talking about the importance of The New York Times, even though he had issues with how the paper was run. He felt that it needed to be preserved. I think the majority of us realize the importance of the New York Times as the journal of record. As we all know, newspapers as we know it have been undergoing a sea change as of late; with many of them ceasing to operate, while others no longer publish in print and just online.

The New York Times has tried to stay one step ahead of this shift to online publishing by producing an excellent website. They make great use of online video and blogs as well. But they’ve also realized that they had to monetize their online presence, otherwise all would be lost. So they introduced a pay wall and it is my understanding that The New York Times finds their current subscriber rate from the pay wall to be satisfactory.

Then why are they still in trouble?

As Mike Elk reported in this website on January 3, in an effort to trim its overhead costs, in December the company froze the pensions of its foreign citizen employees and threatened to cut their health insurance benefits. A frozen pension means the company will no longer be contributing to that employee’s retirement account. The company is trying to cut pensions across the board, for both union and foreign nonunion employees, from The International Herald Tribune in Paris to foreign citizen Times staffers posted worldwide. (Contract talks with the Newspaper Guild union continue.)

The truth as this article points out is that we aren’t reading newspapers anymore. If newspapers can’t make money online then maybe they might have to go the nonprofit route?

Shame on you Aveda! Who would have thought that the lovely people I often see at the Green Festival in DC that are from the Aveda Institute, work for some cruel higher-ups?

The AFL-CIO has the dirt on Aveda:

Aveda’s image as a socially and environmentally responsible company is outstanding. In Portland, Ore., however, the story is a little different.

Charges filed with the National Labor Relations Board allege that salon workers at Dosha Salon Spa—an Aveda Lifestyle Salon—are being subjected to illegal surveillance, illegal threats and coercion and even being fired for supporting their union.

Now that is an ugly management team if I ever saw one! It doesn’t matter how many Aveda products they use, you can’t change the ugly on the inside people.

There are two things you can do to help CWA Local 7901 in their struggle with Aveda.

1. Call Aveda President Dominique Conseil at 612-378-7404. Urge Aveda management to tell its local owner in Portland to reach a fair union contract with his workers at Dosha Salon Spa—an Aveda Lifestyle Salon.

2. Call Ray Motameni, the owner of Dosha Salon Spa, at 1-888-519-5424 (press 0 for the operator).Demand Mr. Motameni reach a fair contract with his workers.

This is a travesty. It is a shame that the United States Supreme Court would side with religious institutions referring to a “ministerial exception,” that allows for the discrimination against those with disabilities.

In his majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts validated prior lower courts’ precedent finding a “ministerial exception,” and ruled that it covered Perich. “Requiring a church to accept or retain an unwanted minister, or punishing a church for failing to do so,” wrote Roberts, “intrudes upon more than a mere employment decision. Such action interferes with the internal governance of the church, depriving the church of control over the selection of those who will personify its beliefs.”

I’m glad that the Obama administration took the right side of this argument. This had nothing to do with theology and everything to do with an unfair labor practice. It is also a perversion of the word freedom.

Seriously I love conservatives when they take provisions in a bill and come up with things like “death panels” and “lactation chambers,” I think Frank Luntz has been spoon feeding these people for too long.

Stemberg doesn’t want to use capital to pay for:

…provisions in the Affordable Care Act that require employers to give lactating mothers “reasonable break time” to nurse their child, as well as “a place, other than a bathroom, that is shielded from view and free from intrusion from coworkers and the public…” The place they provide for new moms does not have to be a dedicated room as long as it’s private and can be called into use when female employees need it.

I feel sorry for his wife honestly. She has to deal with having such a brute for a husband. He actually thinks doing this will cost jobs. No, it’s called being cheap Tom.

I was reading a post on the Atlantic’s website talking about how Latino’s were able to rebound to pre-recession levels of employment in the U.S. economy. The article states that 50 percent of new jobs since 2010 went to Latinos. The jobs they are being hired to do however are on the low-wage side of the scale in service jobs like cashiers, stock clerks and restaurant workers. We are in a two-tier economy; one where you have high-end knowledge workers and low-end service workers.

The sectors where Latinos have greater-than-average employment also tend to be among the fastest-growing sectors. Health care, hospitality, retail, food manufacturing, and mining were among the top six sectors for jobs added in 2011.

It’s up in the air if the United States can ever return to the era of heavy manufacturing. There has been an increase in manufacturing jobs as of late, but it’s a fry cry from decades past. Detroit is making cars again as we’ve seen in the past two Chrysler Super Bowl commercials, but how many jobs will it create going forward?

Therefore, if organized labor is going to attempt to grow their ranks, they’ll have to focus on service jobs. SEIU has obviously realized this and has been actively organizing for at least a decade now. Service jobs are the fastest growing sector of the economy after all. I would end by saying that as unions organize in the service sector, they should also focus on social mobility. We want to get more people into the higher paying jobs too.

So here we are at the dawn of Super Bowl 46. It’s the New England Patriots versus the New York Giants; an east coast love/hate affair if there ever was one. Super Bowl 46 continues the tradition of the Super Bowl being one of  America’s largest non-secular holidays–rivaling only that of Earth Day.

As you enjoy Super Bowl 46,  there’s one story I’d like to remind you of as it won’t be one of those multi-million dollar commercials you see today. Right in the center of it all at the Hyatt Regency Indianapolis there are hotel workers fighting a Super Bowl-like battle of their own.

From the AFL-CIO blog:

Last month after area hotel workers filed a federal lawsuit alleging wage and hour violations against Hyatt subcontractor Hospitality Staffing Solutions (HSS) and 10 downtown hotels, including the Hyatt Regency Indianapolis, Hyatt announced that it would cut ties with HSS, according to UNITEHERE .

Thus far, Hyatt has refused to hire the HSS workers directly and that means 20 workers, some who have been on the job for nine years as full-time employees, will be out of work after Feb. 8.

If there ever was a comparison to make between the 99 percent versus the 1 percent it would be the fact the Hyatt and other hotels can make $1,000 a night during the week of Super bowl 46. You would think that some of that profit could be passed down to ensure hotel workers have a good and secure job.

Ah yes, I remember how horrible a move this was for Circuit City. A lot of executives like “Neutron Jack” back in his day, would put workers on the chopping block even when the company was profitable. They would look for ways to cut costs to satisfy Wall Street. In this day and age companies like Whole Foods will use the recession to lay people off, and Verizon will try and shaft their workers in contract negotiations.

Circuit City was one example of the shortsightedness of the executive suite:

In what turns out to be a bad business decision, Circuit City fires 3,900 experienced sales people because they’re making too much in commissions. Sales plummet. Six years later it declares bankruptcy.

Source: Metro Washington Council – AFL-CIO

Newt Gingrich wanted to create jobs by putting a mop in the hand of every poor kid in school and fire all the janitors; I wonder what he would say about this story and the reality of the dwindling employment opportunities for teenagers?

Even as the economy slowly picks up, finding a job is harder than ever for teenagers, according to a national study released on Tuesday. That’s likely because the jobs that are being “created” in recent months are being snapped up by adults—often people over age 50 who were laid off from other positions or forced out of retirement during the economic crisis.

This trend is nothing new. Back in 2006, when Barbara Ehrenreich published Bait and Switch she highlighted the story of a female executive who was laid off and found her self working at a big box store. So yes, the downward push on the labor market is affecting teenagers and their employment opportunities.

Ironically, the growing dearth of employment opportunities for youth—particularly low-income and minority youth—has come just as families most need that extra income, and as the experience the jobs provide is more important than ever for youth to get a leg up in an increasingly competitive labor market.

Even with what was mentioned above, I would say that if you can afford to not work and instead focus on your education that would be the way to go. Like many parents of teenage students would say “you can have a job so long as your studies aren’t affected.” Even in this horrible labor market I think education is more important than ever. Think of what kind of employment opportunities a teenager would have anyway—it would mostly be in the service sector. What kind of leg up is there to have from starting in those jobs early?

As a former boss of mine in retail once said “retail is for the ones who didn’t make it.” I remembered that and fought my way out of it going to college (it was a business school) at night-time for my Associate’s Degree in Multimedia Development and Management. I’m not finished with my education; I’m in debt but I do plan to go back! In the meantime I take the self-taught route via technology books. I’m also a voracious reader in general.

This story also reminds me of the news that some schools in Detroit will begin to offer classes on how to work at Wal-Mart. Now I don’t care what anyone says, retail jobs are not rocket science; so why they are wasting valuable class time teaching this as a subject is beyond me.

I understand that this is Detroit and that the unemployment rate is at 50 percent in the city, so any employment opportunities would be welcome, but this action reeks of hopelessness. Is the best a student in Detroit can hope to become is a Wal-Mart employee? We know about social mobility in this country, so don’t give me the argument that this can be viewed as an opportunity for advancement. A real opportunity would be helping these kids get a shot at college.