Leid Stories – 10.27.15

Happy Motoring?: Behind the UAW-GM Tentative Agreement

The Benghazi Hearings: What Gave Hillary Her Big Break (Part 2)

Averting a midnight-Sunday threatened strike by mere minutes, the United Auto Workers union and General Motors announced a tentative agreement on a new four-year contract for 52,700 workers. They now must vote on the deal. Veteran auto worker and bargaining committee member Gary Walkowicz says worker solidarity is keeping both union leadership and corporate bosses in check.

We pick up from where we left off with the discussion on Hillary Clinton’s “triumph” at last week’s hearing on the attack on two mysterious U.S. “diplomatic” compounds in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012that left four Americans dead—including Ambassador Christopher Stevens, foreign service information management officer Sean Smith , and CIA contractors Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. Leid Stories listeners ask questions about Clinton that committee members never intended to.

Leid Stories – 10.05.15

Auto Workers Say ‘No’ to Contract; Put Union, Fiat Chrysler on the Ropes
Whole Foods’ Version of ‘Conscious Capitalism’: Cut 1,500 Jobs
With two-thirds of about 40,000 workers at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles rejecting a tentative contract last week, both the automaker and the United Auto Workers leadership are reeling from the stunning defeat—a harbinger of what might happen with contractions at General Motors and Ford Motor Company. The Big 3 employs 141,000 workers.
Alex Wassell, a veteran auto worker and member of Local 869, explains why the rank and file voted against the new contract.
Over the next two months, Whole Foods Market will cut 1,500 jobs—a move, it says, is necessary to bring down costs to consumers and to fund an upgrade in its technology.
Leid Stories in a commentary on Whole Foods’ recent questionable business practices asks: Is this what co-CEO and co-founder John Mackey means by “conscious capitalism?”

Leid Stories – 09.23.15

Auto Workers Begin Voting on New Contracts. Deal or No Deal?
Starving for Education in Chicago: Hunger Strikers Fight for A School
About 40,000 workers are voting this week on whether to ratify a new four-year contract their union, the United Auto Workers, has worked out with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. All eyes in the auto industry are looking for the outcome, which might predict how contract negotiations with General Motors and Ford Motor Co. will go as well. The industry employs 141,000 people.
Two longtime union workers discuss their concerns about the contract-negotiation process, the concessions they say the UAW has made, the definitive change in workers’ rights and benefits, and the outsourcing of jobs.
It took a 34-day hunger strike by 15 activists to force Chicago Public Schools to reopen the historic Dyett High School, shut down last year. But the fight’s just beginning, say the strikers, who envision the creation of the Dyett Global Leadership and Green Technology High School, and the rebirth of community control over education in the City of Chicago.

It’s the Planet Stupid!: Capitalism and The Destruction of the Commons – John Atcheson

There is a war going on right now between those who are working to protect the commons and the hard-core capitalists, who are working to privatize our economy, culture, ecology, environment and government. The stakes are high. The outcome will determine whether we live in a dystopian chaos, or a civil society; whether we preserve our natural life support system, …