Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money has been doing an excellent series of illustrated posts that chronicle some of the major events in American labor history (a total of 26 so far). This week the focus is on Minneapolis in 1934:

On May 16, 1934, a mere week [...]]]>

1934 Minneapolis Teamster Strike (Source: marxist.org)

Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money has been doing an excellent series of illustrated posts that chronicle some of the major events in American labor history (a total of 26 so far). This week the focus is on Minneapolis in 1934:

On May 16, 1934, a mere week after longshoremen in San Francisco walked off the job and roiled the west coast, truckers in Minneapolis went on strike in an action that would lead the way for the Teamsters to represent truckers across the nation and help lay the groundwork for the organization of industrial workers across the nation during the 1930s.

Mr Loomis has also written about the Haymarket Riot of 1886, the Triangle Fire of 1911, and the Bisbee Deportation of 1917. Each one is a history lesson in itself.

“Provopoulos told me that of course there’s no panic but there’s great fear which can evolve into panic,” he said.

The panic will be coming soon enough.

Pimco says 17-nation Euro currency union will not last

Just because shale oil is theoretically recoverable doesn’t mean it’s economically or environmentally desirable to do so.

Steve Hynd explains why.

FBI may charge George Zimmerman with a hate crime. Can you imagine what it will be like outside the courthouse during the trial, with protesters from all sides there?

Last month the US Department of Labor bowed to political pressure spearheaded by agribusiness lobbyists like the American Farm Bureau Federation and cancelled its planned revision of safety rules for farm child labor, a follow-on [...]]]>

Field-workers, Goodrich Tobacco Farm, near Gildersleeve, Conn., 1917. Lewis Wickes Hine, American. (Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.)

Last month the US Department of Labor bowed to political pressure spearheaded by agribusiness lobbyists like the American Farm Bureau Federation and cancelled its planned revision of safety rules for farm child labor, a follow-on to similar rules for kids working in non-farm industries that the Department had issued in 2010.

Although a lot of noise was made about the threat these rules posed to family farms amid claims of government overreach, they were specifically aimed at underage migrant farm labor.

A Washington Post article noted that that Labor Department tried to avoid controversy by emphasizing that children working on their parents’ farms would be excluded from the proposals. That exemption is actually a matter of federal statute under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. The Labor Department lacked the authority to change it.

It’s worth noting that a Labor Department summary of the proposed changes stated clearly that the parental exemption “allows the child of a farmer to perform any task, even hazardous tasks, at any age on a farm owned or operated by the parent.”

The parental exemption as interpreted by the Labor Department applies to relatives who assume the role of parents, so expressed concerns about farm children not being allowed to work on their grandfathers’ or uncles’ farms were equally unfounded.

The outcome of this brouhaha has been a complete cave of the Obama administration to the interests of agribusiness. Once again, the top 1% have triumphed, this time at the expense of some of the poorest in our land.

Actually, the migrant children in the fields today, facing severe poverty and limited educational opportunities, starkly represent how far modern industrial farming has drifted from the bygone bucolic ideal of the family farm.

How do power companies transition from dirty energy to renewable energy while keeping the lights as they do it? The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) is finding out, as they work towards a clean, renewable energy future. What they are doing makes an instructive case study for other utilities, many of [...]]]>

How do power companies transition from dirty energy to renewable energy while keeping the lights as they do it? The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) is finding out, as they work towards a clean, renewable energy future. What they are doing makes an instructive case study for other utilities, many of whom are mandated to do the same.

The State of California says utilities must provide 33% renewable energy by 2020. This means that LADWP eventually needs to stop using coal. But, you say, coal plants aren’t allowed in California, so how can LADWP be using coal power? Well, it comes from hundreds of miles away from coal plants in Utah and Arizona.

After a couple of weeks with a higher than average number of firearms being found by TSA agents, the period between April 27th and May 3rd, 2012, was quieter.