Mark Gruenberg is head of the Washington, D.C., bureau of People's World. He is also the editor of Press Associates Inc. (PAI), a union news service in Washington, D.C. that he has headed since 1999. Previously, he worked as Washington correspondent for the Ottaway News Service, as Port Jervis bureau chief for the Middletown, NY Times Herald Record, and as a researcher and writer for Congressional Quarterly. Mark obtained his BA in public policy from the University of Chicago and worked as the University of Chicago correspondent for the Chicago Daily News.
Extreme income inequality poses a threat to the well-being of American democracy.
NEW YORK—The United Nations Commission on Human Rights will open debate June 21 on a special report by its lead investigator, who said the U.S. not only “is the most unequal society in the developed world,” but that Trump administration policies – notably the $1.5 trillion tax cut for the rich – have made a bad situation worse. UN Special
The island’s difficulties are compounded by “a great deal of red tape” from the federal government.
WASHINGTON—Relying on constant communication with family and friends there, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor says Puerto Rico’s recovery from last year’s smash by two hurricanes is still decades away. And, she adds, the island’s difficulties are compounded by “a great deal of red tape” from the federal government. Hurricanes Irma
Female Democratic hopefuls won, with few exceptions, notably the Iowa governor’s race. South Dakota will have a female governor, regardless of which nominee wins in November.
The slew of primary elections on June 5 produced mixed results for progressives, and cases of confusion in the mega-state of California. On the winning side, the Golden State’s lieutenant governor, Gavin Newsom, led all 27 candidates in the gubernatorial field with 33 percent of the vote. Newsom, a strong supporter of unions and advocate of
Approximately 50,000 people showed up in the streets of San Juan to demand the fiscal belt-tightening end in the depression-plagued commonwealth.
SAN JUAN – On the U.S. mainland, teachers have been marching, organizing at the grassroots, for more money for schools. On Puerto Rico, it was the students – 94 percent of them. That’s how many of the island’s students stayed out of class on May Day, the commonwealth’s Education Secretary admitted. The students were part of a mass nationwide
Keith Ellison is calling into question a Trump-led Department of Labor scheme to loosen rules around child labor laws.
Teenagers in coal mines. Kids driving forklifts. 17-year-olds operating heavy and dangerous machinery with little training. All of that could be possible under a Trump Labor Department plan to consider relaxing the rules governing child labor. And Rep. Keith Ellison, DFL-Minn., is asking questions – lots of questions. He doesn’t like
If 50,000 workers, who toil at 34 big hotels on the Las Vegas strip and downtown, must walk out, it would be the union’s largest strike in decades.
LAS VEGAS—Las Vegas casino owners’ threats to subcontract or automate thousands of workers’ jobs – among other issues — forced the workers, employed by Unite Here Locals 226 and 165, to vote almost unanimously to authorize a strike if bargainers fail to agree on a new pact by June 1. If 50,000 workers, who toil at 34 big hotels on the Las Vegas
The Koch Brothers and other right-wing groups have budgeted approximately $80 million for 66 so-called think tanks nationwide, specifically for their campaign to get public union members to quit.
Several months ago, Maxford Nelson, executive director of a right-wing think tank, the Freedom Foundation, showed up at a Washington state legislative committee hearing to oppose a bill to make dues checkoff easier for the state’s public workers. The lawmakers jumped on him, questioning what he was even doing there, since the foundation is
