Quite A Transformation

Nov 26th, 2011

And I thought Spam sucked out of the can.

Image via MoJo

A few months ago, Ted Genoways profiled the hellish conditions of Hormel employees for Mother Jones.

It is an astounding piece which traces Hormel's evolution over the last eighty years from one of the most labor friendly industrial-food operations to one of the most dangerous and even legally questionable.

During the transformative 1970s, the company began a rapid journey towards greater exploitation of illegal labor and wage-slashing.

Yeah, I Said Bagman

April 4th, 2011

An observation on the unfolding Wisconsin side show

by F. Grey Parker

Update 7:15pm CST 4/5/2011 The situation has changed, but it ain't over.

"Hinky Dink" & "Bathhouse"

The history of Chicago's political underbelly is something of a hobby of mine. Having grown up in it's shadows and in a house of a decidedly political timber, it just fascinated me. I can tell you amazing stories about the bad old days. It was once truly a city without peer in a nation without a whole lot of "sunlight." For a time, it even made "Boss" Tweed's Tammany Hall in New York look good. I hadn't thought about it much recently until a short time ago.

Yesterday, I posted about Gov. Scott Walker's (R-WI) doling out state money and an important position to the seemingly unqualified, legally challenged and not college degreed son of a major political backer. It's a stunning caper. I jived to a few pals that Walker's shenanigans would've made the average 1950s, cigar-chompin', Chicago-Machine hack blush. After some further thought, I have concluded that this was correct. No one in the first Daley Administration would ever have done anything this blatantly not on the level. 

In the midst of a dust-up Walker has intentionally crafted to steamroll over his own state's nearly century long history of open government while giving the high hat to organized labor, he has put an apparent connected bum on the taxpayer's nickel to the tune of just over 80 thousand samolians. To find a guy this craven in Chicago's past, I can only come up with the infamous prohibition era bosses of the 1st Ward, Michael "Hinky Dink" Kenna and "Bathhouse" John Coughlin. 

At the height of the "Hinky Dink" and "Bathhouse" stranglehold on power in Chicago, a frustrated Mayor Carter Harrison questioned "Hinky Dink" about his quite eccentric and bent partner. The Mayor wanted to know if "Bathhouse" was using narcotics or might actually be certifiable. Kenna looked at Harrison. He suggested that it was not really explicable. "To tell you the God’s truth, Mayor, they ain’t found a name for it yet," he said.

When a 21st Century Midwestern Governor is reminiscent of either of these goofs, he can take his good government malarkey and scram. I begin to wonder if Walker might not be ossified. Maybe he's just a piker. This is only beginning to heat up, kids. I am pretty sure that it ain't goin' away.

Wisconsin Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca (D-Kenosha) is awfully temperate in his response, if you ask me:

“Gov. Walker has repeatedly stated that all public employees must sacrifice, but it appears his political appointees are exempt from any sacrifice. Media accounts in the past few weeks have focused on two appointees with close Republican connections getting questionable appointments with excessive raises.


Gov. Walker’s budget adjustment bill that is tied up in court gave him 37 additional political appointees and recent revelations make that highly inadvisable. 

A governor cannot ask his employees to sacrifice while rewarding his political cronies and relatives of big donors. I call on the Legislature to halt any expansion of political appointments, no-bid contracts or gubernatorial power over rule-making in the future. This includes special session bill AB 8, which could come back to the Assembly as early as tomorrow.

If there is any shred of independence among legislative Republicans they will not allow the hiring of additional political cronies after the revelations of the past weeks. This is simply not how we do business in Wisconsin.”

Personally, I would've at least called Walker a spifflicated palooka. The guy keeps spoonin' the applesauce. He's tryin' to take the whole state and maybe even the country for a ride. He thinks we're all pushovers. 

He is wrong.

Jon Stewart Takes On The Zero Taxed Corporations

March 29th, 2011

Jon Stewart: "I know the Supreme Court has ruled that corporations are people. But I didn't realize those people were assholes."

The Daily Show - I Give Up - Pay Anything...
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Quote Of The Day -- Solidarity Edition

Feb 19th, 2011

"In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as 'right-to-work.' It provides no 'rights' and no 'works.' Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining... We demand this fraud be stopped." --  Martin Luther King, Jr.

Billy Bragg - And A Whole Bunch Of Petitions

Feb 18th, 2011

As event's continue to unfold in Wisconsin, Ohio and now Tennessee, we are bearing witness to the opening salvos of the most dangerous and well funded campaign against organized labor in 80 years. Here's a little breather from Billy Bragg that stays on point. Please investigate the links below the video while you listen and get involved.



Sign The AFL-CIO petition to Stop Attacks On Working Families
Sign the change.org petition to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.
Join the fight against Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker on Twitter
Share your thoughts on recalling Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.
Join the BLUEGREEN alliance between environmental action and labor.

Gov. Walker's Very Bad Math

Feb 18th, 2011

Wisconsin has a budget surplus though the middle of 2011 totaling $56,362,800. SOURCE LINK BELOW

As we reported yesterday, the new Wisconsin state tax cuts that went into effect are 150% larger than the projected deficit. We also deflated the meme that the public sector pays more when the opposite is true. Another interesting fact has come to our attention.


The Legislative Fiscal Bureau, Wisconsin's equivalent of the CBO, shows very different numbers than Gov. Scott Walker has been publicly proclaiming. He has been repeatedly asserting that the state is "broke now."

Wisconsin By The Numbers

Feb 17th, 2011

Gov. Scott Walker

As the controversy over Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's plans to balance the state budget on the backs of his workers heats up, the likes of Glenn Beck and Michelle Malkin are attempting to demonize his government's employees for not rolling over and taking what amounts to a 7% wage cut. 

It's just another part of the current Republican war on the rights of labor. Here is a little perspective.

From the NY Times:

"Mr. Walker said he had no other options, since he is facing a deficit of $137 million in the current state budget"

From The Wisconsin Budget Project:

"At least eight new or expanded state tax cuts and tax credits will go into effect at the beginning of 2011. These tax changes add up to an estimated $210 million cut in state taxes over the 2011-13 biennium. After adding in other tax reductions with different effective dates, we calculate that tax changes contribute more than $320 million to the structural deficit for the coming biennial budget."

Uh huh. Looks like more Reaganomic upward redistribution to me.

The War On Unions, Cont...

Jan 25th, 2011

The labor movement is under attack from the American Right with a force that hasn't been seen in decades. Public sector pensions in particular have been targeted as the primary villain in budget shortfalls at the state level. Completely ignoring depressed revenue due to the recession, the wildly irresponsible tax code modifications of the last 30 years and even the most basic principles of contract law, a near hysterical meme is gaining traction. It is the argument that we must find a way to dissolve or otherwise dishonor these legal obligations.

There is one problem with the rising level of alarmism. The facts simply don't support it. The average state cost of public sector pensions is an average of 3.8% of GDP. The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College completed an exhaustive study this past October on the actual impact of these commitments.


It should be required reading by every so-called "fiscal-hawk."

Things You Can't Make Up

Jan 5th, 2011

The Murdoch Device Business Channel's resident tool, Stuart Varney, continued the network's war-on-unions by suggesting that private entrepreneurs would have done a better job during New York City's recent snow catastrophe. He used Homer Simpson as an exemplar from the classic "Mr. Plow" episode. I am not making this up.

Where Are The Jobs?

Jan 5th, 2011

Jobs are arguably the only thing America reliably exports anymore. The chart below shows the minimum 512,000 jobs transfered from America to China alone in 2010.

As the Republicans continue their perverted and anti-historical assault on the union bogeyman, it's worth asking what I believe is the great question of our age; How can an American corporation argue that it's patriotic to enhance profit by divesting from America?

Quote Of The Day -- Labor Edition

Jan 5th, 2011

"Now everyone knows that the labor movement did not diminish the strength of the nation but enlarged it. By raising the living standards of millions, labor miraculously created a market for industry and lifted the whole nation to undreamed of levels of production. Those who attack labor forget these simple truths, but history remembers them." -- Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr's Social Justice

Sept. 4th, 2010

Glenn Beck should really shut up.

"At the turn of the century women earned approximately ten cents an hour, and men were fortunate to receive twenty cents an hour. The average work week was sixty to seventy hours. During the thirties, wages were a secondary issue; to have a job at all was the difference between the agony of starvation and a flicker of life. The nation, now so vigorous, reeled and tottered almost to total collapse. The labor movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress. Out of its bold struggles, economic and social reform gave birth to unemployment insurance, old age pensions, government relief for the destitute, and above all new wage levels that meant not mere survival, but a tolerable life. The captains of industry did not lead this transformation; they resisted it until they were overcome. When in the thirties the wave of union organization crested over our nation, it carried to secure shores not only itself but the whole society." -- Martin Luther King Jr. speaking at the AFL-CIO convention of 1965