Harold Meyerson: The Middle Is Falling Out of the Economy
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/021508LA.shtml
Harold Meyerson for The American Prospect delivered testimony to the Labor Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee on the long-term state of the economy, rising inequality, the dearth of good jobs in the middle of the economy and America's changing role in the world economy.

Best US Factory Jobs In Rising Jeopardy
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/021508LB.shtml
Mark Trumbull, The Christian Science Monitor, says, "A new round of cutbacks by Detroit's automakers carries a larger message that America's manufacturing workers are under new pressure in jobs where labor unions had once been able to command middle-class wages for assembly-line jobs."

Sara Robinson | Debunking the Free Marketeers
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/021508HA.shtml
Sara Robinson for OurFuture.org addresses "the larger assumptions that Americans make about health care that are contradicted by the Canadian example."

Kelpie Wilson | Improving Our Green Job Prospects
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/021508J.shtml
Truthout's Environmental Editor Kelpie Wilson writes: "On the one hand we have a deepening economic recession, a mortgage and debt crisis, and rising unemployment. On the other hand is the growing energy and climate crisis, shadowed by the specters of peak oil and planetary meltdown. Rising prices for energy, food and health care are hitting the poor and middle class hard. We have ourselves in quite a mess. No one has all the answers to these problems, but there is one answer that everyone with any sense embraces as a necessary first step toward a permanent solution: we must create green jobs in the renewable energy and energy efficiency industries. But despite that clear path forward, somehow the political will is not there yet and our prospects for a green jobs program in 2008 do not look very good."

Kelpie Wilson | Improving Our Green Job Prospects
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/021508J.shtml
Truthout's Environmental Editor Kelpie Wilson writes: "On the one hand we have a deepening economic recession, a mortgage and debt crisis, and rising unemployment. On the other hand is the growing energy and climate crisis, shadowed by the specters of peak oil and planetary meltdown. Rising prices for energy, food and health care are hitting the poor and middle class hard. We have ourselves in quite a mess. No one has all the answers to these problems, but there is one answer that everyone with any sense embraces as a necessary first step toward a permanent solution: we must create green jobs in the renewable energy and energy efficiency industries. But despite that clear path forward, somehow the political will is not there yet and our prospects for a green jobs program in 2008 do not look very good."

David Carr | Who Won the Writers Strike?
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/021208LA.shtml
In The New York Times, David Carr writes, "When the Writers Guild of America held its annual awards ceremony Saturday night in Manhattan, it felt more like a victory celebration. So after a long and bitter strike, the writers won, right?"

Feds to Unveil New Mortgage-Help Plan
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/021208LB.shtml
Marcy Gordon, The Associated Press, reports: "At-risk borrowers with all types of mortgages, not just high-cost subprime loans, could be eligible for help under a new plan involving six big home lenders."

Halliburton Accused of Silencing Gang-Rape Victims
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/021208S.shtml
ABC News' Maddy Sauer writes: "A Houston, Texas woman, who says she was gang-raped by her co-workers at a Halliburton/KBR camp in Baghdad, says 38 women have come forward through her foundation to report their own tragic stories to her, but that many cannot speak publicly due to arbitration agreements in their employment contracts." 

GM Seeks Buyout for 74,000 Hourly Workers
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/021208B.shtml
The Associated Press reports, "General Motors Corp. reported a $38.7 billion loss for 2007 today, the largest annual loss ever for an automotive company, and said it is making a new round of buyout offers to US hourly workers in hopes of replacing some of them with lower-paid help."


Charles R. Morris | The Consumer End of a Stumbling Economy
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/021208H.shtml
Charles R. Morris, writing for The Washington Independent, says: "One can pity Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke. No other federal reserve chairman ever cut interest rates by a full 1.25% within just eight days, as Bernanke has done. But the monetary skies remain as leaden and thunder-clouded as ever. The stock market keeps quivering downward, crowds thin at the malls, jobless queues grow. Wal-Mart reports that customers are using their Christmas gift cards for groceries."

Battles Over Nurse Staffing Ratios Spread Across Nation
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/021108LA.shtml
Writing for Labor Notes, Mischa Gaus says, "After a patient quietly died in registered nurse Danielle Magana's hospital hallway, she decided she'd had enough. Although an autopsy later said the woman had died of natural causes, Magana said the incident was waiting to happen at her chronically short-staffed San Antonio hospital."

More Employees Join Labor Unions
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/021108LB.shtml
Betty Beard, The Arizona Republic, writes: "Union membership grew last year across the country, and for the first time since 1983, unions nationwide saw their share of members increase."