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Article Artículo

Workers

The Attack on Workers’ Wages

Today, people are more skilled, more productive, and higher educated than in the past, yet many are worse off than their less-educated counterparts thirty years ago (read more from CEPR here and here).  Gordon Lafer, associate professor at the University of Oregon’s Labor Education and Research Center, examines the causes of this imbalance in his new paper for the Economic Policy Institute entitled The Legislative Attack on American Wages and Labor Standards.  He illustrates how corporations have orchestrated state attacks on the minimum wage, employee benefits, and labor standards.

CEPR and Teresa Kroeger / November 05, 2013

Article Artículo

The Top Secret Trade Deal You Need to Know About

CEPR's Dean Baker is appearing in this week's episode of Moyers & Company, talking about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), referred to by some as “NAFTA on steroids.”

Along with Yves Smith, who runs the excellent Naked Capitalism blog, Dean and Bill Moyers discuss the secret negotiations that have plenty of seats at the table for corporations (but not the public), as well as the potentially dangerous effects that the TPP could have on the rest of us.

CEPR and Nicole Woo / November 01, 2013

Article Artículo

Honduras

Latin America and the Caribbean

World

Honduras: Military Police as a Major Electoral Issue

The deployment of a new military police force, an initiative first proposed by National Party candidate, and president of the National Congress Juan Orlando Hernández, has emerged as an important contextual issue in U.S. media and analysis of Honduras’ fast-approaching presidential elections. Catherine Cheney, for example, wrote recently for World Politics Review:

Last week, in the midst of a political campaign that has focused heavily on public security, authorities in Honduras deployed 1,000 military police as part of an effort to address drug violence and organized crime in this Central American country, home to the highest homicide rate in the world.

The new police force is a demonstration of a central Hernández political campaign position in response to one of the biggest issues in the elections: soaring crime rates, and Honduras’ now infamous status as the “murder capital of the world.” As Henry Tricks wrote for The Economist:

…Mr Hernández has made security the central issue, even though polls show that the economy is just as much of a concern for most citizens. In relentless publicity slots, he accuses [LIBRE presidential candidate Xiomara] Castro of wanting to demilitarise the fight against crime (she denies this, saying she wants to use the military to secure the borders against drug traffickers). In contrast, he has put his weight behind the creation of a 5,000-strong military-police force, 1,000 of which have been deployed on city streets during the campaign.

Cheney cites experts who see the militarized police force as both poorly-trained and having a misplaced focus:

[Mark Ungar, a Latin America expert and professor at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center] said militarizing the police is harmful to both security and human rights, and diverts attention from reforming the police. “They’re not trained for security. They don’t know how to do criminal investigation or community policing. They’re trained to shoot,” Ungar said of the military police.

CEPR / October 31, 2013