New York's unionized workforce has remained fairly steady over the past decade — giving the state by far the largest percentage of union members of any state and bucking national declines in union membership.
The city native, about to turn 90, looks back at a glorious past and wonders what his next act will be. The rise of Donald J. Trump alarmed him, but not as much as the passion and numbers of Mr. Trump's supporters. 'I've never known this country to be so' - he paused before saying the word.' Though encouraged by the energy in the Black Lives Matter and Occupy movements, he felt that both lacked an ideology to make real change.
How we vote on November 8 will be the first step in a long process of building a new economic and political order in New York State and in the United States. It is an opportunity to push the nation - and Dems - forward. It is important to vote the Working Families Party (WFP) line for several reasons. The WFP is an independent progressive political party that in New York State can run progressive candidates who are endorsed by both the WFP and the Democratic Party.
Executive orders are meant to avert imminent or existential crises that cannot await legislation. It's as if we are being asked to believe that BDS is some deplorable enemy endangering our very existence as a free society, and that only those who really care, take action on behalf of the rest of us, who have not yet awoken to the grim reality. For Cuomo, fighting this fight on behalf of Israel is all about "freedom, liberty and democracy".
After Occupy in 2011, and the wave of fast-food strikes the following year in New York City, the movement to raise wages took a new turn and a bolder stance: $15 an hour and a union. When the campaign first began, that pay demand seemed like a pipe dream. Yet the call for $15 resonated. Now, the movement has scored victories in two of the biggest states in the country.
The ideology and practice of neoliberalism, resulting in rising inequality and the imposition of austerity policies, brings us to the national debate about whether it is appropriate for public funds to underwrite the costs of public higher education or whether higher education is essentially to be seen as a private good and an individual (or familial) responsibility.
Legendary rock star Patti Smith's look back expresses supremely well the tentativeness of every movement forward, the sense of following a path so risky, so sketchily perceptible, that at any moment one might go astray and never be heard from again, never perhaps even hear from the deepest part of oneself again. For a book that ends in success, it is acutely sensitive to that abyss of failure that haunts the attempt to become any kind of artist.
The Knick joins HBO's Boardwalk Empire as a show that seems juiced by the wider range of plotlines and stories allowed by diversifying the cast.
When fast-food workers started protesting just two years ago for a $15 minimum wage, they were mocked. This week, they secured their biggest victory yet.
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