by Rob Kellogg on February 20, 2009
A report recently commissioned by the labor federation Change to Win, the Sierra Club, the Laborers International Union of North America, and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters titled High Road or Low Road: Job Quality in the New Green Economy concludes that so-called “green jobs” are not automatically good jobs and concerted effort has to be made to make them so.
Key findings include: 1) Low pay is not uncommon in the “green” workplaces; 2) Wage rates at many wind and solar manufacturing facilities are below the national average for workers employed in the manufacture of durable goods; 3) Some U.S. wind and solar manufacturers have already begun to offshore production of components destined for U.S. markets to low-wage havens such as China and Mexico; and 4) Very few workers at wind and solar manufacturing workplaces identified in the course of our research are covered by collective bargaining agreements.
To view the report, click here.
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by Rob Kellogg on February 4, 2009
This is the third and final installment in a three-part series on the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) published on Global Investment Watch.
Corporate Propaganda in the Information Age
One of the great benefits of the Internet is that it is the ultimate equalizer against corporate misinformation. It allows citizen activists and public interest groups to quickly and cost-effectively counteract right-wing propaganda. While companies shell out gobs of money to glitzy public relations firms to produce misleading TV infomercials and radio ads these days, organizers in the progressive community are reaching millions of citizens every day by tapping away on their keyboards and posting low-cost videos on You Tube – in real time, no delay. With these new, more flexible methods of communication comes the potential to dramatically increase the power of the message and saturate the marketplace of ideas and opinion building.
Corporations and their misinformation peddlers have a real problem right now. Traditional forms of media – daily newspapers, weekly magazines, television and radio – no longer reach audiences once their exclusive domain. Today, a myriad of communication channels have opened up for organizers and policy advocates, making it far easier to interact with a much larger audience on a global scale. Internet-based tools for successful communication have radically changed the playing field for progressive groups, enhancing the effectiveness of campaigns in dramatic ways. The fight over the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) – legislation that would enhance the nation’s middle class at the cost of the corporate elite – is a case in point.
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