This OtherWords Labor Day Special features a wide range of commentaries addressing worker rights. Deborah Burger calls for better nurse-staffing ratios at the nation’s hospitals, Amy Dean makes the case for accountability when companies getting tax breaks for being “job creators” don’t create jobs, and Virginia Sole-Smith casts light on how Mary Kay exploits its own sales force.

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  1. The Lipstick Profiteers / Virginia Sole-Smith
    Mary Kay’s biggest revenue source may be the dreams of its own pink-clad sales force.
  2. How to Safely Scale Down the Fiscal Cliff / Salvatore Babones
    A slow descent wouldn’t be disastrous.
  3. Rooting out Fake Job Creators / Amy Dean
    Without serious accountability, the rallying cry for more “job creation” is likely to amount to nothing more than empty rhetoric.
  4. Healing our Health Care System / Deborah Burger
    Unsafe nurse-to-patient staffing levels are a key cause of 98,000 preventable deaths each year.
  5. A Bold New Call for a ‘Maximum Wage’ / Sam Pizzigati
    A national labor leader aims to expand the economic fairness debate.
  6. Percolate-Up Economics / Jim Hightower
    Every dime of a minimum-wage hike is spent by its recipients — circulating upward in our local economies as they increase their purchases of such basics as food, kids’ clothing, and health care.
  7. The Race to the Bottom / William A. Collins
    The American middle class isn’t the envy of the world anymore.
  8. Hellish Working Conditions / Khalil Bendib (Cartoon)
Hellish Working Conditions, an OtherWords cartoon by Khalil Bendib

Hellish Working Conditions, an OtherWords cartoon by Khalil Bendib

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