By Scott Keyes Being poor could soon be a crime in the city of Miami. As though life weren’t already difficult enough for people who can’t afford regular housing, they could soon find themselves thrown in jail and their possessions confiscated… Read More ›
Economy
Who Will March for Marissa Alexander?
by Marissa Jackson On the morning after the Morning After, the racial tension in this country could be popped with a needle. If the prevailing narrative is to be believed, Black America is furious, outraged and depressed about George Zimmerman’s… Read More ›
Detroit files for federal bankruptcy, marking largest case in US history
The city of Detroit has filed for federal bankruptcy, or Chapter 9 protection, which could mean municipal employees are laid off, assets sold and services like trash collection, which have already been cut to the bone, further scaled back. Detroit… Read More ›
McDonalds Tells Workers To Budget By Getting A Second Job And Turning Off Their Heat
By Annie-Rose Strasser McDonalds has partnered with Visa to launch a website to help its low-wage workers making an average $8.25 an hour to budget. But while the site is clearly meant to illustrate that McDonalds workers should be able to live on… Read More ›
McDonalds’ suggested budget for employees shows just how impossible it is to get by on minimum wage
By Robyn Pennacchia McDonald’s has partnered with Visa to make a website dedicated to showing its employees how to properly budget their meager peasant salaries. However, what it actually does is illustrate the fact that it is nearly impossible to get by on minimum wage,… Read More ›
A Disturbing Sign of the Times
Recently a news story about a McDonald’s worker suing her employer has started making the rounds on the internet. Twenty-seven year old Natalie Gunshannon of Dallas Township (Pennsylvania) found that instead of receiving her first paycheck via direct deposit or… Read More ›
New mayor of Miss. capital rejects gentrification
By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS, Associated Press JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A one-time black nationalist was inaugurated as mayor of Mississippi’s capital city Monday, saying he wants Jackson to be a unified community where people of diverse backgrounds can make a living…. Read More ›
On the Day of American Independence
Today is the 4th of July, a holiday celebrated all over the nation as the date of American Independence from the British crown. I was considering burning an American flag to protest US foreign policy, imperial aggression, indigenous holocaust, sponsorship… Read More ›
Manitoba First Nations serve eviction notices to mining companies
Two Manitoba First Nations are serving eviction notices to mining companies they say are operating illegally on their land. A delegation from Red Sucker Lake First Nation descended on the work camp of Mega Precious Metals Inc., a mineral exploration company, to… Read More ›
Editorial: The Wonderful American World of Informers and Agents Provocateurs
by Todd Gitlin and Tom Engelhardt Back in the early 1970s, I worked for Pacific News Service (PNS), a small antiwar media outfit that operated out of the Bay Area Institute (BAI), a progressive think tank in San Francisco. The… Read More ›
How Fast Food Companies Steal Workers’ Pay
by Seth Freed Wessler Olivia Roffle has worked at Papa John’s Pizza in St. Louis, Mo., for three years and she hates it. “It’s just not an enjoyable place to work,” she says. The 23 year old, who is enrolled in… Read More ›
Chinese Investors Pursue U.S. Property Deals
By JULIE CRESWELL First, it was the Japanese. Moneymen from Tokyo blew into the United States to buy famous pieces of the American landscape, from Rockefeller Center in New York to the Pebble Beach Golf Links in California. Now, about a… Read More ›
Philadelphia Closes 23 Schools, New $400 Million Prison Being Built
By Michael Allen Philadelphia officials are closing almost two dozen schools and decimating the budgets of the remaining schools under a so-called “doomsday” education plan. However, amid all these cuts for education, the state of Pennsylvania is building a new $400… Read More ›
70 Percent of Americans ‘Emotionally Disconnected’ at Work
Nearly one in five hates work so much they sabotage their employers. By Steven Rosenfeld If you thought that Americans who kept their jobs during the Great Recession were glad to be working, you would be dead wrong. According to… Read More ›
McD’s worker sues: Don’t pay by debit card
By Bill O’Boyle All Natalie Gunshannon wanted was to be paid a fair wage for her work, she said. Gunshannon, 27, of Dallas Township, worked at McDonald’s Restaurant on the Dallas Highway from April 24 to May 15. When she… Read More ›