Tag: labor

How A Tie-Breaking Vote Fueled America’s Economy

DAVID MCCALL – IRA-funded projects are increasing efficiency, reducing costs, and shoring up supply chains, better positioning the nation to manufacture the goods needed both for domestic consumption and to trade with the world. Vice President Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate in 2022 to pass the IRA and unlock billions for an advanced manufacturing economy. Not a single Republican in either chamber of Congress voted for this historic legislation, which is revolutionizing the cement, chemical, glass, and steel sectors along with other traditional core industries.

How the National Infrastructure Program Creates Jobs for Today and Tomorrow

DAVID MCCALL – President Joe Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) on November 15, 2021, unleashing $1.2 trillion for tens of thousands of projects nationwide. It is upgrading transportation, communications, and energy systems while building back manufacturing capacity, generating hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs, and investing in the middle class.

Seeing Through the Economic Bait and Switch

SONALI KOLHATKAR – The values of the U.S. public are not the same as those of the wealthy and corporations. It took a UN official—an outsider—to point out the dissonance. Furthermore, evaluations of the U.S. economy by the U.S. media and politicians are based on corporate prosperity while the UN’s evaluation is based on individual prosperity.

How Workers in the South Are Defying History

TOM CONWAY – Workers at Blue Bird Corporation in Fort Valley, Georgia, launched a union drive to secure better wages, work-life balance, and a voice on the job. The company resisted them. History defied them. Geography worked against them. But they stood together, believed in themselves, and achieved a historic victory that’s reverberating throughout the South.

How Critical Race Theory Hysteria May Influence the Future of Affirmative Action

EBONY SLAUGHTER-JOHNSON – The anger surrounding teaching children a more expansive (and truthful) version of American history can largely be understood as a backlash to the Black Lives Matter era, the victories of which have been largely symbolic and localized. The legislative entrenchment of affirmative action will be spun by conservatives as “reverse racism” that hampers the educational advancement of white children. That argument will hold traction among conservatives, moderates, and progressives. As we prepare for the possibility of a post-Roe future, it might also be time to anticipate a future in which affirmative action is unavailable as a means of promoting diversity in and economic mobility through higher education.

Must See Chart: This Is What Class War Looks Like

GREYWOLFE359 – This chart puts the class war in simple, visual terms. On the left you have the “shared sacrifices” and “painful cuts” that the Republicans claim we must make to get our fiscal house in order. On the right, you can plainly see why these cuts are “necessary.” The reason? Because we already gave away all that money to America’s wealthiest individuals and corporations.