Search Results for 'Exxon'
Economy |
Apr 15 |
The Truth About Taxes
Have you heard about the so-called “tea parties” happening today? Honchos of the extremist right are orchestrating top-down events to protest paying taxes for a proposed federal budget that’s designed to stimulate the nation’s flattened economy and support basic infrastructure and public services. Ironies abound in these protests: In some areas, protestors are urged to take public transportation to the events. Key word here is “public,” as in paid for by taxpayers.
The media talking heads pushing these events are spewing a lot of venom toward a presidential administration they can’t control, one not beholden to special corporate interests. In doing so, their rhetoric is bordering on the treasonous: Fox’s Glenn Beck, who’s holding a $500-plate fundraiser for the San Antonio tea party, has begun advocating secession. (Hat tip to Media Matters for this and all its great work.)
Economy, Organizing & Bargaining |
Feb 4 |
Steelworkers Reach Tentative Contract with Shell
The United Steelworkers (USW) reached a tentative agreement yesterday with Royal Dutch Shell PLC—the lead company for the oil industry—on wages, benefits and working conditions that will become the minimum standards when local union negotiations get under way.
While agreement on the economic terms was reached, USW President Leo W. Gerard said safety issues remain.
These were tough negotiations, given the economic conditions of an economy still in a total free fall. The oil companies were not willing to work with us fully to improve process safety.
Economy, Legislation & Politics |
Oct 31 |
Forget Dracula. The Bush Economy Sends Chills up Our Spines
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This Halloween has to be the scariest ever. And not because of the costumes.
* The Washington Post, long in denial about a U.S. recession, today runs an item on tanking consumer spending leading to a decline in the U.S. gross domestic product by saying:
The freight train of American consumption has been derailed.
* AIG, bailed out twice with taxpayer money—despite reports that its top executives spent the money, in part, on a lavish California retreat and fox hunting in the English countryside—already has used three-quarters of the $123 billion we loaned it.
* The total numbers of jobs lost this year stands at 684,000, with October’s jobless figures likely to make the total much worse.
Economy |
Aug 7 |
Jobs Picture Worsens. We Can Do Something About It
Great economic news out this week—if you’re an excessively paid CEO. Seems some corporations are “quietly converting their pension plans into resources to finance their executives’ retirement benefits and pay.” This from The Wall Street Journal (subscription required):
In recent years, companies from Intel Corp. to CenturyTel Inc. collectively have moved hundreds of millions of dollars of obligations for executive benefits into rank-and-file pension plans. This lets companies capture tax breaks intended for pensions of regular workers and use them to pay for executives’ supplemental benefits and compensation.
Corporate Greed, Legislation & Politics |
Jul 31 |
Big Oil’s Big Profits Padding the Pockets of McCain Campaign
Once again, Exxon Mobil made U.S. corporate profit history, pulling in $11.68 billion in second quarter income, the highest quarterly profit rate of any U.S. company in history.
It must be gratifying for Sen. John McCain to know that his sudden flip-flop to support Big Oil’s long-held dream of offshore drilling is tapping into some of the deepest pockets on the planet. Because right after he reversed his long-standing opposition to oil drilling, he hit a gusher of campaign funds from the oil and gas industry, according to The Washington Post:
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Oil and gas industry executives and employees donated $1.1 million to McCain last month—three-quarters of which came after his June 16 speech calling for an end to the ban—compared with $116,000 in March, $283,000 in April and $208,000 in May.
Legislation & Politics |
Jul 7 |
Seven Dirty Words Working People Should Remember This November
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Workers across the country know the Employee Free Choice Act would level the playing field and allow workers to make a fair and free decision on whether they wanted to join a union. But as we approach the 2008 elections, it also wouldn’t hurt to heed the words of the late comedian George Carlin.
Writing in his “Community Voices” column in the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska AFL-CIO President Vince Beltrami says that although he can’t repeat Carlin’s famous “seven dirty words you can’t say on television,” he can substitute seven of his own that working people should remember when we vote in November―greed, corruption, indictments, convictions, apathy, short memories and injustice.
Click here to read the entire column.
Economy |
Jun 20 |
Economic Dictatorship
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This is really frightening. First, America’s workers lose their homes. Or the equity in their homes, or their ability to take out second mortgages to pay for unexpected expenses like a health care crisis. So they turn to credit cards. Now, those cards increasingly are maxed out.
What’s left?
Retirement funds.
Remember back when 401(k) plans were introduced as the promised land of personal control over our retirement destiny? While many workers who otherwise would have no retirement income have benefited from them, the proliferation of these defined-contribution plans gave employers more impetus to jettison the defined-pension plans that have helped ensure retirees don’t have to work until they die. And unlike the funds in traditional employer pension plans, 401(k) plans provide ready access to cash—a $3 trillion pool our declining middle class now is tapping into.
Economy |
Jun 9 |
Gas Prices Hit $4 a Gallon, Workers Set for Week of Action
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Yesterday was marked by a striking economic event: For the first time ever in this nation, the average price for a gallon of gas hit $4.
The price of fuel is driving up prices for other goods and services as well, putting a serious squeeze on working families at a time when wages are stagnant and unemployment is rising sharply. Gas prices are choking off the American dream.
Economy |
May 1 |
Let’s Celebrate: Exxon Mobil Is Making Record-Breaking Profits
Trying to keep up with the bad economic news can take up most waking hours these days.
Just in the past few days, the following have been reported:
- U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) grew at a miniscule rate in the past quarter—0.6 percent, giving the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) cause to frame the data this way: “GDP flashing recession.”
In the States, Legislation & Politics |
Mar 12 |
McCain-o-nomics: Warmed Over Bush
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Murray Rogers’ last day at the Groveton, N.H., paper mill, where he worked for more than 20 years, was Dec. 28—his 50th birthday. That was the day the Wausau Paper mill shut down after hemorrhaging more than 1,200 jobs during the past seven years. The United Steelworkers (USW) Local 61 member says the plant closed because of the failed and flawed Bush administration trade policies that encourage unfair foreign competition.
In fact, the Bush administration trade policies are the same as those that Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain embraces and praises.
Today, New Hampshire union members rallied outside an Exeter, N.H., town hall meeting where McCain was pitching his economic policies, policies Rogers says “warmed-over Bush.”
We don’t need anymore of the same. The two terms of Bush have wiped out 1,200 jobs.
