Ted Cruz Calls For National Law To Cripple Unions

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz said during a radio interview Thursday that he supports national “right-to-work” legislation, a type of anti-labor law that Wisconsin passed last year in an effort to cripple the state’s unions.
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/04/01/3765757/cruz-right-to-work/

Costco's entry-level workers will soon make $13 per hour

Costco announced that it will raise employees' wages this month, which may be a response to competitors like Wal-Mart that have also raised their wages...
http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2016/0304/Costco-s-entry-level-workers-will-soon-make-13-per-hour

Welcome to Michigan: Don't Drink the Water

GOP, Democrats set to spar in Detroit and Flint.

It's hard to win a popularity contest when you're unpopular, but here the politicos come.

Michigan plays host this week to both the Democratic and Republican presidential roadshows.

What will the candidates find in the Great Lakes State? Failing schools. Crumbling roads. Poisoned water. And a people who have lost faith in their public officials.

They'll find America.

Some candidates will promise big government. Some will promise small government. But can they deliver an effective government?
https://youtu.be/6vyBq8W37w0

Sanders to UAW crowd in Dearborn: 'We need fair trade'

Bernie Sanders tells cheering crowd in Dearborn: If we can rebuild villages in Iraq and Afghanistan, we can rebuild Flint.
http://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2016/02/15/sanders-uaw-crowd-dearborn-we-need-fair-trade/80416440/

How The One Percent Reshaped Democracy In Their Image

It’s no secret that our democracy today is owned by large corporations and the wealthy elite. And for most Americans coming of age today, this is simply how things have always been. But rest assured – this is not how the government has always been run.
https://youtu.be/B0JymEu4VrE

The Koch-Like Family You’ve Never Heard Of Influencing State Legislatures | Political Research Associates

The DeVos family—Michigan-based builders of the Amway fortune—is one of the most influential families in conservative U.S. politics. Their agenda includes many items on the Corporate and Christian Right’s wish lists, including so-called “right to work” laws that weaken unions, discriminatory Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) bills, and education privatization (including pushing school vouchers that transfer public dollars to private religious coffers). Although some of their higher-profile activities such as Dick DeVos’ failed 2006 race for Michigan governor and Richard DeVos´ ownership of the Orlando Magic basketball team are covered in the press, their political spending has gotten far less attention. This year 435 seats will be contested in the House of Representatives, 35 in the Senate and 13 gubernatorial races will take place alongside local and county elections; therefore it is critically important for the country to see and debate the influence that rich families like the DeVoses are wielding in politics...
http://www.politicalresearch.org/2015/12/22/the-koch-like-family-youve-never-heard-of-influencing-state-legislatures/

Who was behind Michigan GOP’s one-two punch against LGBTQ working families? | Political Research Associates

As 2015 winds to a close, Michiganders–especially working people and LGBTQ folks–are reeling from right-wing assaults on both their pocketbooks and their civil rights. I am referring to the one-two punch of new laws passed during the summer legislative session and signed into law by Gov. Rick Snyder. These new laws effectively roll back decades of progress made by community and labor organizing in the state; at the same time, they represent dots along a disturbing trend line that people in many other states need to see more clearly in order to avoid the same fate.
http://www.politicalresearch.org/2015/12/01/end-of-a-tough-year-for-michigan-who-was-behind-the-one-two-punch-from-gop-lawmakers/

How Right-Wing One Percenters Are Bankrolling a New Mega-Assault on Working Americans

There's a looming Supreme Court case designed to decimate public-sector unions.
http://www.alternet.org/economy/how-right-wing-one-percenters-are-bankrolling-new-mega-assault-working-americans

Bernie Sanders' 12 Best Reasons for Being a Democratic Socialist

Sanders stands beside the New Deal, Great Society and civil rights movement.
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/bernie-sanders-12-best-reasons-being-democratic-socialist

Bernie Sanders Delivers Epic Speech On Democratic Socialism

Bernie Sanders delivered his long-awaited speech advocating for democratic socialism in America. He pointed to the example of FDR’s New Deal which was part of a massive social movement to secure rights for workers against the corporate/owner class. Ana Kasparian (The Point), John Iadarola (Think Tank), and Jimmy Dore (The Jimmy Dore Show Podcast), hosts of the The Young Turks, break it down. Tell us what you think in the comment section below.

"In a speech at Georgetown University on Thursday afternoon, Sen. Bernie Sanders, the independent from Vermont who's seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, did something unprecedented for a major candidate: He made the case for democratic socialism.

The address, which Sanders wrote himself, had been in the works for weeks, and in it Sanders embraced a label that has most often been used to attack him. (At the first Democratic presidential debate last month, front-runner Hillary Clinton distanced herself from Sanders' "democratic socialist" views.) At times, this address sounded much like Sanders' stump speech: He railed against Wall Street, the "ruling class," and the billionaire Koch brothers. But he tied those stances to an ideology that he contended was an essential part of the United States' heritage.” (***Explicit language from the news anchors***)
Interview:
https://youtu.be/8_8R6PgGcTw

The Extreme Positions Of Kentucky’s New Tea Party Governor

"There's over 300,000 [Kentuckians that are on expanded Medicaid], and Matt Bevin is just going to take it from every single ... Read more

Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz on "Rewriting the Rules of the American Economy"

Democracynow.org - As presidential candidates spar over economic policies and Congress debates the TPP, one of the nation’s leading economists is calling for a comprehensive overhaul of the U.S. economy. Nobel Prize-winning economist and Columbia University professor Joseph Stiglitz has just published a new book called "Rewriting the Rules of the American Economy: An Agenda for Growth and Shared Prosperity."
Interview:
https://youtu.be/DGerWRb5_ms

What We Know About the 92 Million Americans Who Aren’t in the Labor Force

...Big pieces of this chart are no mystery at all. About 41 million Americans don’t work because they’re retired. These retirees are overwhelmingly actually of retirement age. It makes perfect sense to consider them outside the labor force (another way of saying it makes little sense to consider them unemployed)...
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Workplace Democracy Act (Senator Bernie Sanders)

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) introduced legislation today that would make it easier for workers to join unions and bargain for better wages, benefits and working conditions.
https://youtu.be/65IsNlRttFU

Noam Chomsky - Keeping the Poor Frightened

https://youtu.be/mmakLRxGbW8

Sweden is shifting to a 6-hour work day

"I think the 8-hour work day is not as effective as one would think. To stay focused on a specific work task for 8 hours is a huge challenge. In order to cope, we mix in things and pauses to make the work day more endurable. At the same time, we are having it hard to manage our private life outside of work," Linus Feldt, CEO of Stockholm-based app developer Filimundus, told Adele Peters at Fast Company.
Read more

Everything You Need To Know About The Big Supreme Court Cases The Justices Will Hear This Term

Unions, voting rights, race, and abortion are expected to fill out the Supreme Court's docket this term.  ... Read more

Efficiency up, turnover down: Sweden experiments with six-hour working day | World news | The Guardian

A trial of shorter days for nurses at a Gothenburg care home is inspiring others across Scandinavia to cut back, but the cost of improving staff wellbeing is high...
Read more

Decline In Labor’s Share Of Corporate Income Means $535 Billion Less For Workers

I'm sure this will come as a surprise to no one who has been watching and living the decline of what's left of our middle class in the United States, ...  Read more

Scott Walker’s New Plan To Gut Unions Also Strips 5 Million Americans Of Overtime Pay

Walker says he'll eliminate the National Labor Relations Board, ban federal worker unions, and repeal prevailing wage laws ... Read more