Author Archives: Josh Eidelson

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This article, in today’s Yale Daily News, may represent a new low for the paper. The only “story” here is a couple dining hall managers expressing discontent with dining hall workers and casting aspersions on their backgrounds. The quotes from students, and the tone of the article, echo all the worst images associated with the Ivy League:

Jeremy Watford ’06, who works in the Jonathan Edwards College dining hall, said he thinks the “convoluted” disciplinary system makes it difficult for managers to correct outbursts, rudeness and even unproductive behavior…

Watford, who worked as a manager at a McDonald’s restaurant for one year, said he was “jaw-dropping” at employees’ “talking back” to the manager during the first few weeks after beginning his job in the dining hall. “Such behavior would get you fired at any other [restaurant],” Watford said.

Yale undergraduates appalled at the lack of respect paid them by lack of deference and weak labor ethic of the working class New Haveners their school pays them to oversee preparing food for Yalies. And wishing that Yale were as effective as McDonalds at quelling worker militancy and squeezing more productivity out of the help.

No workers are interviewed for this article except to inform on other workers, no students are interviewed who don’t work in the dining halls, and no union representative has the chance to explain their policy or their struggle, or to contest the underlying current of this piece: that the people who prepare and serve your food are dangerous invaders in the ivory tower.

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A few last thoughts on the South Carolina Democratic Debate:

Sharpton is absolutely right to question why for the poor to die for their country abroad is an “honor,” but for the rich to pay taxes is a “burden,” and to call for a less regressive payroll tax.

I’m not sure what Dean was trying to pull off with his critique of Kerry’s failed healthcare bills – it felt overly self-conscious and affected, even grasping. Kerry wasn’t particularly smooth in responding, but came off better over all in that exchange.

I wish I could say that Lieberman’s touting welfare reform as the sort of “bipartisan accomplishment” he’d continue lost him my vote, but clearly he never had it in the first place. I do find it sad that the welfare system has been completely off the radar of these debates.

I was glad to see Kerry get called on what Brooks called the “inner Moynihan” of some of his ’90s rhetoric. He came off quite defensive responding to a statement of his on affirmative action, and preached fealty to the “mend it, don’t end it” stance multiple times without allaying any fears about what kind of mending he plans to do.

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Dean did an effective job making the case against the PATRIOT Act but framed in terms of stopping future assaults on civil liberties rather than calling to undo the recent ones. Why isn’t anyone calling Edwards on his role in drafting it?

Glad to see the way the rhetoric within the Democratic party has shifted over the past few years. Part of that, no doubt, is being out of power; part of that is the success of the “anti-globalization” movement in putting the issue, so to speak, on the map. For Dean to say that we’ve given global rights to corporations but not to workers is right on; to describe that as having done half the job but forgotten the other half smacks of a disingenuous attempt to reconcile his stance with his record.

Kucinich laid out the case for single-payer health insurance clearly and sharply (and effectively dismissed the idea that the Clintons had pursued such a plan), and Sharpton made the compelling moral argument for such a system. What’s most interesting to me about the other candidates’ alternatives is that none of them mounted an argument (true, they’re generally not very good ones) against such a system any stronger than Clark’s “Let’s fix the one we have.”

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Watching the Democratic Debate now. A couple thoughts so far:

Somewhat should ask Joe Lieberman what it means to be “strong on values.” Also, what it would mean to be weak on values, which of his competitors are weak on values, and whether the Bush administration could be characterized as “strong on values.”

Glad to see David Kay’s charges getting some play here, given the way they’ve been underplayed by the media – or arguably overshadowed by the primaries. Dean is right to point the finger at Cheney, and Kerry did a deft job of avoiding either disputing or echoing his charge. I’m not sure what Edwards has in mind when he calls for a comission organized not by Congress but by “us, the people,” although I’m all for it. Also, Edwards is in Congress too…

Sharpton has joined Kucinich in calling for everyone to stay in for a long race to mobilize all their constituencies. I think there’s a strong case for that. Also, he’s right to point out that unlike John Edwards’ dad, his couldn’t have gotten a job as a mill worker.

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From the Jakarta Post:

The International Labor Organization (ILO) called on Wednesday for the National Police to refrain directly intervening in negotiations and disputes between workers and employers. The ILO’s representative in Indonesia, Alan Boulton, said the police, who are supposed to undergoing internal reform, were expected to focus on maintaining order and upholding the law in industrial disputes.

The world body and the United States government have been working together with the Indonesian government to provide the police with training on labor disputes. Boulton said the project, funded by the U.S., would support progress in workers’ rights and the sort of police reform given the police’s role in the new industrial relations environment in Indonesia. “However, it is not the role for which ABRI was often criticized in the past, where there was direct interference in negotiations and disputes between workers and employers,” he said.

Manpower minister Jacob Nuwa Wea agreed with Boyce, saying the project would contribute to an improved investment climate here.

In comments that seemed to run against the whole purpose of the training, Jacob said the police should not hesitate to take firm against workers. “If they (workers) are out of order, it’s OK for the police to slap them around them a little bit. We often slap our children at home if they are naughty, don’t we?” he said.

Meanwhile, National Police Deputy Chief Comr. Gen. Kadaryanto admitted that the police often sided with the employers when handling industrial disputes.

…Separately, lawyer and labor activist Surya Tjandra expressed fears that the project would only increase abuses by the police against protesting or striking workers. “In a situation where workers have no bargaining power, the police will continue to favor the employers,” said Surya, a former director of the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute.

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So much for fiscal conservatism. Then again, historically speaking, it’s easier to pitch dismantling the social welfare safety net for the poor and middle class as a way of saving it when you’ve run the government into deficit through tax cuts for the rich.

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David Corn gets this much right:

…the leading contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination all ran as Dean-like crusaders, vowing to vanquish Washington special interests. Kerry said he would “stand up” to the special interests. Edwards spoke eloquently of “two Americas”–one where the wealthy receive quality healthcare and education and pocket most of the tax cuts; and another where corporations screw middle- and low-income families who have trouble paying their bills, saving money and obtaining decent education for their kids. Clark argued that as an outsider, not a politician, he would be able to “represent the American people, not pharmaceutical companies.”

In politics, swiping issues is a form of flattery. So Dean should feel complimented, small consolation as that may be. His “take back America” campaign–which he claimed was enlisting citizens in a grassroots effort to challenge the money-and-power ways of Washington–not only inspired hundreds of thousands of people to donate and volunteer but also persuaded Dean’s rivals that anti-special-interests populism was the ticket to the White House, or at least the Democratic nomination.

Whichever candidate gets the nomination, the challenge for the folks on the grassroots level who made it happen – and the others who shifted the terms of the debate – will be holding him to the rhetoric as he campaigns against Bush and God-willing governs America.

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The Center for American Progress suggests that the Administration’s current spin on Iraq –

I think some in the media have chosen to use the word ‘imminent.’ Those were not words we used. We used ‘grave and gathering’ threat

– is less than forthright:

“This is about imminent threat.”
– White House spokesman Scott McClellan, 2/10/03

“The Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency.”
– President Bush, 10/2/02

“No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.”
– Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 9/19/02

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CNN suggests that closing ranks may not be everything:

“As long as the debate within the party stays relatively civil, it’s probably good for the Democrats if the campaign goes on for a while,” said Mark Rozell, a political scientist at Catholic University.

“It keeps their candidates in the spotlight attacking Bush while the president stays on the sidelines.”

…pollster John Zogby said the 2004 race was enabling Democrats to sharpen their message and enthuse core voters, many of whom only three months ago were extremely pessimistic that Bush could be beaten.

I’m inclined to agree, depending on who sticks it out and the kind of campaigns they run. I hope in particular that the eventual nominee will face competition from the left long enough to make it difficult to reinvent himself as a Clinton character for the general election.