Police in the photo above are taking a break from guarding the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. in Akron, Ohio, 1936. While Goodyear and other tire companies prospered, even during the Great Depression, their workers toiled under poor conditions, low wages and usually no benefits. Consequently, they formed the United Rubber Workers in 1935. Just organizing a union did not guarantee improvement. Faced with reduced wages and an assembly-line speed-up, discriminatory pay rates and layoffs of older workers, the URW went on what turned out to be a pivotal strike in 1936 against the Akron-based rubber industry. They tried a technique previously launched by the Industrial Workers of the World against General Electric Works in Schenectady, New York, in 1906: the sit-down strike. One of its advantages was that workers continue to remain in the factories so that the owners could not so easily send in strike-breaking replacement workers. In 1936, they were reluctant as well to send in private security forces for fear that their factories would be damaged in the ensuing melée. And those cops? No way were they going to drive out thousands of workers inside the factory. So they didn't try. Eight weeks after the strike began, Firestone signed the first contract with the URW.
At the Campaign for America's Future, Dave Johnson writes Why You Shouldn’t Be “Optimistic” About Corporate “Tax Reform”:
Washington elites are “optimistic” about another “reform.” That’s never good.
According to an article in The Hill this week, “WH adviser ‘optimistic’ for corporate tax reform“:
A top economic official in the White House on Tuesday expressed confidence that the next Congress can pass corporate tax reform. […]
Obama has proposed lowering the corporate statutory rate from 35 percent to the high-20s while eliminating many deductions. Camp also proposed to lower the rate, but down to the mid-20s.
Camp has proposed shielding most of the profits corporations make offshore from U.S. taxation, while Obama has called for a minimum tax on global earnings.
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Why is it that any time you hear the word “reform” coming out of Washington, it always ends badly for about 99 percent of us? They talk about entitlement “reform”—meaning cutting Social Security and Medicare. They talk about regulation “reform”—meaning our food and workplaces are going to be less safe. They talk about spending “reform”— meaning doing less of the things that make We the People’s lives better. (They never “reform” the military budget. It is more than double what it was when ‘W’ Bush took office. Because we have to defend against the Soviet Union.)
“Reform” is lobbyist-speak for opening up the floodgates, hanging the flags out, lighting the savings accounts on fire, letting dozens of blackbirds fly out of the pie, letting the horses out of the barn and generally fleecing the citizenry.
“Reform” is politician-speak for “time to start the money flowing our way because the favors are going to be flowing your way.” [...]
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Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2011—At Countrywide, protecting mortgage fraud involved firing whistleblowers:
The thing about a corporation committing widespread fraud is that it tends to involve a lot of people, some of whom will not be enthusiastic about committing fraud and may even try to stop it. Michael Hudson at iWatch News reports on how Countrywide Financial Corp. protected its ability to commit fraud by firing whistleblowers, behavior that continued after Countrywide was bought by Bank of America. In fact, they fired the person in charge of fraud investigations; recently, "the U.S. Department of Labor ruled that Bank of America had illegally fired her as payback for exposing fraud and retaliation against whistleblowers. It ordered the bank to reinstate her and pay her some $930,000."
But Countrywide/Bank of America didn't just get in the way of investigations at the top. At least 17 other former employees allege that they were demoted or fired for raising the alarm about fraud they witnessed.
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Tweet of the Day
Texans are more in danger of being infected by the ignorant stuff that comes out of #Rick Perry's mouth than they are from #Ebola
— @DemissieHaile
On
today's Kagro in the Morning show,
Greg Dworkin recapped the TX ebola story. Also: a Tea Party tantrum threatens Pat Roberts; ISIS strike polling bump; Brookings scholars say primaries are growing in impact, and; new lows for Christie's polling.
Joan McCarter shares one of the dumbest Obamacare polls to date, conducted by one of the worst pollsters ever. Brown's border attack backfires. The Kochs freak out! Hiding corporate $ overseas. Updates on races with Daily Kos-endorsed candidates. The collapse of the KS conservative experiment may have a mirror in ID. Cory Gardner trapped trying to deny his personhood support. And Mitt's still buying houses. Because normal!
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