Portside

Are hospitals cutting jobs because of sequestions cuts to medicare reimbursement rates? The American Hospital Association cites this as well as the recession as reasons for job cuts.

(Moderators Note. The following article is from the US Chamber of Commerce, a group that is not a friend of workers or unions.) As this blog noted nearly a year ago, the use of worker centers as front groups for unions has been a key strategy among certain labor organizations to circumvent federal laws that would otherwise restrict their behavior, so it is a good sign that Congress has started to take more notice.

Two reports on a recent Oxford University study that predicts that nearly one-half of existing jobs in the United States will be replaced by robotic machines in the next generation. Plus, a video of a related lecture by an MIT economist who specializes in the impact of technology on employment.

New leadership elected in American Postal Workers Union. President-Elect Mark Dimonstein's slate won seven of the nine positions they contested. Their goal is to unite with the other postal unions, community groups and others in a fight to save the Post Office.

There is a growing impatience with austerity among public-sector workers, as the government prepares a budget for 2014 that will inflict a seventh year of spending cuts and tax increases. Irish governments have sought to control costs in response to the country's worst-ever property and banking crisis that started over five years ago. The country is obliged by its bailout with the European Union and International Monetary Fund to public sector spending and jobs cuts.