Labor Caucus of NC

06/12/2026

There are some who believe that this current round of IPOs beginning with SpaceX is a pyramid scheme designed to funnel wealth to the ruling class off the backs of our labor and retirement savings.

Hard to argue against that notion when the SoaceX IPO is trading at an absurd 94 times earnings.

"SpaceX debuted at a staggering $1.77 trillion valuation. It is the largest IPO the market has ever seen and will make Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire.

But to make it happen Elon used his influence to get the rules changed so Index funds that hold millions of Americans’ retirement savings are forced to buy in.

That’s right. This IPO was engineered to make Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire by risking your retirement savings."

Is it fake? Is this a scam?

Time will tell, but in the meantime Elon Musk will become the fattest oligarch at the table while working people beg for the scraps

SpaceX's IPO valued the rocket and satellite company at roughly $1.77 trillion, pushing Elon Musk's net worth to about $1.1 trillion and making him the first trillionaire on paper.

06/08/2026

The capital is there to pay livable wages:

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1D6R5VPrTu/

05/01/2026

United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain testified in favor of a 32-hour workweek. "Eighty-four years ago the 40-hour workweek was established. And since then, we've had a 400 percent increase in productivity, and nothing's changed."

05/01/2026

From former Labor Secretary Robert Reich "If you want to understand why our economy is rigged for the super rich, look at this graph."

02/02/2026

We support our brothers and sisters:

Tens of thousands of transport workers walk off job in Germany

Click the link in the comments below ⬇️

02/02/2026

There is something troubling in our system that produces these results for elected officials. It has sadly become a feature not a bug.

Nancy Mace first arrived in Washington just before January 6, 2021. In those early days, she sought to position herself as a Republican willing to break with the MAGA wing of the party. She was also in a hurry to distinguish herself: She told her staff she wanted to go down to the House floor and “get punched in the face by rioters” to get more media attention. In a staff handbook, she outlined quotas for getting on cable news and local TV so she could build her brand as “National Nancy.”

Her staffers, as well as many inside the Republican Party, thought she had potential — a willingness to both take risky, heterodox positions and to submit enthusiastically to the ludicrous demands of the modern attention economy. She could come off as a bit nuts, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing in the age of Trump. One person close to Mace recalled the way Bill Maher described meeting Trump for the first time. In this person’s experience, Mace was not a crazy person but someone who played one on TV.

Five years in, however, it’s unclear if Mace actually knows the difference between the two, according to former staffers. “We’ve moved past that now,” the person said. “Something’s broken. The motherboard’s fried. We’re short-circuiting somewhere.”

Read Jake Lahut on why some of Mace’s staffers think her career might be beyond redemption: https://nymag.visitlink.me/OeuoXH

10/07/2025

https://x.com/i/status/1975319528818287089

09/21/2025

In 1981, when Ronald Reagan was sworn into office:

— Fully two-thirds of Americans were in the middle class,
— College was so cheap you could pay your tuition with a weekend job,
— Healthcare was inexpensive and widely available,
— Women and minorities had achieved legal (albeit not yet actual) parity with white men,
— And school and mass shootings were largely unknown because weapons of war were mostly outlawed from our streets.

Today, however, as a result of the Reagan Revolution:

— Only around half of us are in the middle class,
— College debt has crushed two generations to the point where they can’t start a family or buy a house,
— A half-million families end up homeless or bankrupt every year because somebody got sick,
— The GOP is leading an effort to make it harder for women and minorities to vote or maintain employment,
— And, with more guns than people, mass shootings are an almost-daily occurrence.

It's easy to see why an appealing pitch to the nation’s young people would be “comeback” or “Make America Great Again.” But what caused that “greatness” that we need to “come back to” and what wrecked it?

The American middle class is a relatively recent phenomenon. In 1900, only about 17 percent of us were in it; by the time of the Republican Great Depression it was about a quarter of us.

When Franklin D. Roosevelt was sworn into office in 1933, he embarked on a radical new campaign to create the world’s first widespread, more-than-half-of-us middle class. It had three main long-term components.

First, he passed the Wagner Act in 1935 that legalized labor unions and forbade employers from bringing in scab workers or refusing to recognize a union. That gave workers democracy in the workplace, and they used that power to demand that as their productivity increased, so would their pay and benefits.

Second, he established a minimum wage to make sure that people who worked full time would never end up in poverty.

Third, he raised the top income tax rate to 90% for the morbidly rich and 52% for corporations.

That high top tax rate on the rich meant that the average CEO took only about 30 times what the average worker did (because he’d be paying 90% or 74% after taking the first few millions), leaving far more money in the company to give raises and benefits to workers.

09/18/2025

The Town of Pittsboro is the third oldest municipality in the state after Bath and New Bern. In its 238 year history Pittsboro has had exactly one male African-American Town Commissioner (Isaiah Taylor) and his term ended in 1979. In a fast growing town it would be historic to elect Tobais Palmer this fall. (Palmer is friendly to Labor as a member of the NFL players union.)

Tobais Palmer, who grew up in Pittsboro during the 1990s, has seen many changes around town. Now, he is running to be an elected official.

09/14/2025

Congratulations to Braxton Winston, the new President of the NC State AFL-CIO!