Dollars & Sense articles from September 1997

Dollars & Sense archives from September 1997

What women want. (working women)(Special Issue: The Global Economy: Labor Explores New Terrain)
September 1, 1997... Karen Nussbaum, the director of the AFL-CIO's new Women's Department, points out that although women make up 40% of union membership, the AFL-CIO does not act like the nation's largest working women's organization. To find out what its mandate...

Sweatshops are us. (sweatshops in US)(Special Issue: The Global Economy: Labor Explores New Terrain)
September 1, 1997... It has become fashionable to talk about sweatshops these days. Unfortunately, the public discussion is dominated by a removed, self-righteous and paternalistic stance. It's those poor women and children in Third World countries being exploited by...

Portrait of a well-to-do tax avoider.(Special Issue: The Global Economy: Labor Explores New Terrain)
September 1, 1997... This is a tax cut for taxpayers. If you don't pay taxes, you're not going to get anything out of this tax cut, and you shouldn't." That's Phil Gramm, the Republican Senator from Texas and die-hard conservative, responding to the demand that the...

Minimum wage, maximum benefit?(Special Issue: The Global Economy: Labor Explores New Terrain)
September 1, 1997... The federal government raised the minimum wage from $4.25 to $4.75 per hour on October 1, 1996, with another 40 cent increase scheduled for September 1, 1997. Opponents argued that the boost would cause disastrous job losses, particularly among...

The global attack on democracy, labor, & public values. (includes related articles on the effects of privatization on the environment and the welfare state)(Special Issue: The Global Economy: Labor Explores New Terrain)(Privatization, part 2)
September 1, 1997... Brazil's government expects to generate $56 billion in revenues from selling publicly-owned assets, such as its telephone and electricity companies, between 1997 and 1999. Praising these plans in a recent Wall Street Journal column, two Latin...

Deregulation and green marketing: the threat to safe energy. (deregulation of electricity industry)(Special Issue: The Global Economy: Labor Explores New Terrain)
September 1, 1997... "Nuclear free electricity," boldly proclaimed Working Assets Green Power (WAGP), one of 30 power marketers competing in a New England electricity deregulation pilot project. It was the first marketing volley in what is shaping up as a brutally...

The promise of a raise is not enough. (organizing union members)(Special Issue: The Global Economy: Labor Explores New Terrain)(Special Section)
September 1, 1997... The crisis of the falling percentage of unionized workers in the United States made John Sweeney president of the AFL-CIO two years ago. At the hottest moment of the 1995 New York convention, incumbent Tom Danahue accused Sweeney of going too far...

Coming in from the cold in the struggle for solidarity. (unions' cross-border campaigns)(includes related articles on Communication Workers of America, United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America and San Diego's Support Committee for Maquiladora Workers)(Special Issue: The Global Economy: Labor Explores New Terrain)
September 1, 1997... We were winding up our interview when Wilfredo Larencuent mentioned in passing that the AFL-CIO's representative in Hondurus whom he'd met a few years before might have been a CIA operative. This, it seems, was a routine fear of left unionists...

Unfair workfare. (Work Experience Program)(Special Issue: The Global Economy: Labor Explores New Terrain)
September 1, 1997... It is 7 a.m. when Ava gets to her job at a Brooklyn, N.Y. Department of Sanitation garage. After exchanging the usual morning pleasantries with her co-workers, she gets her supplies for the day: a dustpan, a broom and a garbage can on wheels. She...

Hitting bottom: welfare 'reform' and labor markets.(Special Issue: The Global Economy: Labor Explores New Terrain)
September 1, 1997... Last April, President Clinton announced that the federal government would do its share to move welfare mothers into jobs by hiring 10,000 recipients in the next four years - including six at the White House. The president promised that his...

Globalization & wages: the down escalator. (includes related articles on North American Free Trade Agreement and trade between multinational corporations)(Special Issue: The Global Economy: Labor Explores New Terrain)
September 1, 1997... Real wages for most Americans have been falling for more than two decades. But what is the culprit? Is it the decimation of unions? The falling value of the minimum wage and the loosening of regulations meant to protect workers? Technology, by...

Living with Racism: The Black Middle-Class Experience.(Special Issue: The Global Economy: Labor Explores New Terrain)
September 1, 1997... Many in America believe that the effects of slavery in this country are no longer, that the Civil War created equality for black Americans and that by putting forth the same effort as whites, they, too, can achieve the "American Dream." Yet...

It's tough to be young today. (declining wages of young workers)(Special Issue: The Global Economy: Labor Explores New Terrain)
September 1, 1997... It is well known that most workers' real earnings have been in decline since the 1970s and that the workers already at the bottom of the pay scale have been hit the hardest. What is less well known is that wages of entry-level workers have fallen...