Bad Science

Llewllyn Hinkes-Jones Jacobin
Not only do patents push higher prices onto consumers, they burden the research world with the increased costs of paying for the intellectual property needed to do further research . . . If anything, the neoliberal approach to academic research is a return to the privately funded, pre-tenure origins of the university system when numerous schools were simply research labs and promotional arms for private industry

How to Be a Staffer in a Democratic Union

Alexandra Bradbury Labor Notes
If members run the local... what exactly is the union rep's job? We asked four experienced staffers how they approach their day-to-day tasks while keeping the rank and file in the driver’s seat.

Documentary: Citizen Koch

In this searing exposé on the state of democracy in America and the fracturing of the Republican Party, Academy Award®-nominated directors Carl Deal and Tia Lessin (Trouble the Water; co-producers of Fahrenheit 9/11 & Bowling for Columbine) follow the money behind the rise of the Tea Party. CITIZEN KOCH investigates the impact of unlimited, anonymous spending by corporations and billionaires on the electoral process, featuring stories of life-long Republicans whose loyalty is tested when their families become collateral damage in the GOP fight to take organized labor out at the knees. Alternately terrifying and funny, CITIZEN KOCH is an essential and powerful portrait of our political times.

How Hassan Yussuff won the CLC presidency

Larry Savage Rabble (Canada)
Hassan Yussuff was elected Canadian Labour Congress president, marking the first time an incumbent was defeated. Yussuff did not offer a shift in ideology, but rather a shift in approach. He promised a more open and inclusive CLC that would balance lobbying and advertising campaigns with the type of grassroots mobilization and direct political action that so many rank-and-file members were demanding.

Why is Capital So Much Stronger than Labor?

Jared Bernstein Jared Bernstein blog
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers.” Progressives have all kinds of ideas to shape a more equitable primary distribution. But those ideas will never get much oxygen if we remain voluntary trapped in the cramped debate of a short-sighted economics.

Leaving Homeless Person On The Streets: $31,065. Giving Them Housing: $10,051

Scott Keys ThinkProgress
A study found that it would cost taxpayers just $10,051 per homeless person to give them a permanent place to live and services like job training and health care. That figure is 68 percent less than the public currently spends by allowing homeless people to remain on the streets. If central Florida took the permanent supportive housing approach, it could save $350 million over the next decade.

Spot-on, After All These Years

Michael Hirsch Democratic Socialists of America
A hundred years after publication, the central message of this British classic still rings true . . . These fictional but very representative working people are under the thumb of papers such as the Daily Obscurer and the Weekly Chloroform; attend the Church of the Whited Sepulchre; work for bosses named Sweater, Makehaste, and Slogg; elect a town council comprising "The Forty Thieves"; and have daughters who work as maids for the likes of Mrs. Starvum and Lady Slumrent.

Pregnant in Prison

Lauren Kirchner Pacific Standard Magazine
Will Orange Is the New Black show the complicated reality?

Antibiotic Resistance Revitalizes Century-Old Virus Therapy

Sara Reardon and Nature magazine Scientific American
Denied access to some of the best antibiotics developed in the West the Soviet Union invested heavily in the use of bacteriophages — viruses that kill bacteria — to treat infections. Now, faced with the looming spectre of antibiotic resistance, Western researchers and governments are giving phages a serious look. Pharmaceutical companies remain reluctant to get on board because phage therapy, nearly a century old, would be difficult claim intellectual property.

Are Bosses Afraid of "Members only Bargaining"?

Are Bosses Afraid of "Members only Bargaining"? The Chamber of Commerce has published a report on the threat of "members only bargaining". This refers to the fact that in the 1930's company's negotiated with unions, for the unions members only. Labor law expert Charles Morris comments on their fears. In another article, the Wall St. Journal fears that the AFL-CIO might throw it's support to members only bargaining.