John Funiciello

Over the past few months, there have been literally thousands of to-do lists for the incoming Barack Obama Administration to consider and, for certain, someone is duly noting all of them and weighing them for action and the setting of priorities. The big things have been addressed by large advocacy organizations and even some lawmakers:…

Oregon is considering taxing the number of miles we drive, rather than add a tax to each gallon of gasoline or diesel we buy, to pay for the construction and maintenance of the highway system. That isn’t the only state considering this approach, according to the Associated Press, which noted a few days ago that…

Most Americans have heard of the “bridge to nowhere” and its $390 million price tag. And, most Americans have heard of the $750 billion of working peoples’ tax money that went to the “big bailout” of the no-product money manipulators of Wall Street. Probably, though, not many Americans can tell you where their money went.…

When Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago told its 260 workers last week that it was going to shut its doors in three days, so they had better find another job, it might have been just another plant closing in a time of economic turmoil in America. But there’s a difference. The Republic workers are…

While members of Congress ponder the prospect of a U.S. economy without a domestic auto industry if there is no bailout, there is an underlying factor that has not been mentioned by very many of the pundits—American auto plants are unionized. Not only are they unionized, but the union workers are some of the best…

“Unions once served a purpose, but they don’t anymore.” Throughout the past 30 years, that assessment of the union movement in America has been heard repeatedly, mostly from people who work in the so-called technological, information, or other “industries,” where workers don’t sweat much (at least, from the skin) and who believe that they are…

Those observers of organized labor who can remember as far back as 1981 can recall that the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) was destroyed by presidential fiat when they struck over conditions in the towers. Well, it turns out that the union may have been pretty well forgotten, but it is not gone and…

Change is coming! That’s what we were told during the recent presidential election campaign and Tuesday’s election alone brought a historic change to America—Barack Obama is the president-elect and he promised more change than John McCain. But anyone who would bring change to the nation must first find all the parts—the parts of the economy,…

Historically, hunger, mass migration, and joblessness have been a problem throughout the developing world. Scholars, macro-economists, and international development experts have recognized the problem and speculated what might be done to solve the complex issue, but one of the root causes has not received much attention by the peoples of the “developed” nations: rural peoples…