Did you know that about $44 of every $100 you spend in locally-owned businesses gets recycled back into your community? In comparison, when you spend the same amount of money at a national (or multinational) retail chain store like Wal-Mart, only about $14 goes back into your community.

The nation watched with horror as we learned of the 12 deaths in the mine explosion in Tallmansville, W.Va. Our hearts sank with the grief of the miners’ families, compounded by the tragically erroneous reports that most of their loved ones had survived.

The class struggle is in some respects like a baseball game. There really isn't a time clock, as there is in most other team sports, but a series of innings that can go on indefinitely, where one team has its chance to score and then has to take the field to keep the other team from scoring.

During the five years that she worked at a Wal-Mart store in Pennsylvania, Brenda Houle was a model employee. She consistently received stellar evaluations and won awards for her performance. She even had aspirations of becoming a store manager and sought entry into the assistant manager training program.

A student of mine from a working class background came and asked me about the media coverage of the Transit strike and Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Pataki’s attacks on labor. Basically he was shocked that they were trying to set the "poor against the workers" (his words) and thought that they, the politicians and the media, "must be living on another planet."

With 52% of the 13,134 votes cast, Wal-Mart won the 5th annual online "Grinch of the Year" election sponsored by National Jobs with Justice. Nominated by Wake Up Wal-Mart, the company is criticized for leading the global race to the bottom; boosting profits for their executives on the backs of their employees through low wages, insufficient healthcare, and discrimination.

We respect the history of WFTU as well as its course during the 60 years since its foundation. Relying on this rich 60-year route, it is now necessary to move on. To correspond to contemporary demands. To open ways for the coming decade. 

Workers and union leaders testified at a Workers Rights Hearing about the failure of US labor law to protect workers who try to join unions.

The pension crisis that began in the steel industry and swept through the airlines and auto industries is now moving on to the public sector. Defined benefit pension plans are in jeopardy as state and local governments move to end these plans and shift to 401(k)-type plans for public employees.

The free enterprise system, AKA the free market, AKA capitalism, is an economic system, as we all know, that is dedicated to maximizing profits at any cost. Neither ethics, morality, honor, the environment, nor human life itself will be spared by this system and its quest to put profits before people (and everything else).

ORGANISED by the All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) at Shanghai last month, the “International Forum on Economic Globalisation and Trade Unions 2005” was attended by 27 trade union functionaries from several countries.

The mainstream press is finally covering the pension crisis with full force, spurred by Delphi’s bankruptcy filing and news that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has formalized its investigation of General Motors’ underfunded pension obligations.

A group of young, mostly female workers in Hidalgo, Mexico, some as young as 13 years-old, who have made Harry Potter and other Halloween costumes with Warner Brother logos, have been illegally locked out for protesting child labor violations, unsafe and unjust working conditions, and the company’s refusal to recognize their collective bargaining agreement.

Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline isn’t a household name yet, but he may be soon. In recent months Mr. Kline has shown that he is the type of judicial nominee that President Bush is looking for.

Working family activists have forced President Bush to rescind his pay cut for the workers who will rebuild the Gulf Coast, effective Nov. 8...They are using the tragedy of the Gulf Coast hurricanes as an excuse to slash federal spending on crucial programs that support working families, including our brothers and sisters in Gulf Coast states.

Throw a few indictments at the ruling party and watch how quickly things change. This week has seen important back-pedaling by the Republican Party and the Bush administration.On Tuesday, Congress cut funding for new nuclear weapons, the so-called bunker-buster, from the federal budget

“I hate the way they portray us in the media,” said hip-hop star Kanye West on a NBC fundraising telethon for the Red Cross relief efforts for victims of Hurricane Katrina. “You see a black family, it says, ‘They’re looting.’ You see a white family, it says, ‘They’re looking for food.’”

Delphi, the nation’s largest auto parts manufacturer, filed for bankruptcy last week. The company’s 12,000 retirees and 34,000 active workers who have spent their lives on hot, noisy production lines, making everything from air bags to instrument panels, are left staring at a future without pensions or health care.

More tales of Republican Party corruption, abuse of veterans, an anti-working class agenda, and plain craziness.

Two percent. That's the percentage of U.S. blacks who approve of President Bush's job performance, a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found...No amount of Rove's strategic and tactical skill can counter the televised imagery of modern-day savagery after Katrina. He and the neo-cons can only hope for a miracle to counter what the world has seen in the hurricane region.