Workplace Buzz: Today's Headlines

Looking at Unions
During my 34 years of association with the union movement, I have participated in many high-profile and even historic events - boycotts, strikes, legislative initiatives - that have helped to improve working people's lives. However, the achievement I recall most proudly and which for me epitomizes the deeper meaning of the union movement involved something far more prosaic: helping a group of workers get new chairs. The Register-Guard

A Better Policy
Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton, who has been a true champion when it comes to promoting workplace fairness for women and minorities, got it exactly right when she told the state Senate Committee on Labor, Elections and Urban Affairs that the measure would "set the state on the path to better policy to eliminate discriminatory wage disparities once and for all." Lawton's point ought not be missed. Nearly 80 percent of mothers of school-age children are in the paid work force, according to recent studies. But they are not paid equally. The Capital Times

What Jobseekers Seek
EARLY this summer, Joshua J. Pelton decided that he was meant to live in Orlando, Fla. So he quit his sales job in Detroit, packed his car with all the belongings that fit, put the rest in storage, and drove southeast daydreaming about sundrenched winters and packed nightclubs. “I didn’t have much of a plan, but I knew I wanted to be here,” said Mr. Pelton, 24, who, in his emphasis on where he lives rather than what he does there, is typical of his generation. New York Times