Labor Notes

A British workers’ rights group is calling for a common minimum wage across Asia, and Labor Notes’ Mark Brenner was on PRI’s “Marketplace Morning Report” radio show supporting the notion. Multinational companies dodge the issue of how much the people who make their products are paid, he said, and putting a floor below wages across Asia would force companies to stop playing one country off another.

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As Washington whispers about preparations to send GM through bankruptcy’s wringer, what would that mean for hundreds of thousands of auto workers and retirees? When the governments of France and Italy have committed to saving auto worker jobs, why is the U.S. government only focused on restoring the company’s bottom line? Mark Brenner discusses what a more comprehensive solution to the auto makers’ problems would look like on David Bacon’s “The Morning Show” on KPFA.

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If the car companies are too big to fail, too poorly run to put right, it’s time to take them over. But Obama made a point of ruling out a takeover in his March 30 speech, saying that the government doesn’t want to run the companies. If they can’t present turnaround plans that restore them to profitability, he prefers bankruptcy—which, without significant alterations, will be a disaster for wide swaths of the Midwest. Listen to Mark Brenner discuss these issues on Warren Olney’s “To the Point” on KCRW.

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Washington is buzzing over a “Big Three” bailout, and whether any deal will be tied to a free trade agreement with Colombia. What will a bailout mean for auto workers, or for the state of Michigan?

This morning on 620 AM KPOJ Labor Notes’ Mark Brenner discusses why a piecemeal solution to the industry’s problems won’t work, and why we need a top-to-bottom overhaul of our transportation system–including auto manufacturing. Brenner also addresses why the people who got us into this mess can’t get us out, and why any solution has to put national health care at the top of list.

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