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Jonathan Tasini

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Jonathan Tasini

Jonathan Bernard Yoav Tasini (born October 18, 1956) is an American political strategist, organizer, activist, commentator and writer, primarily focusing his energies on the topics of work, labor and the economy. On June 11, 2009, he announced that he would challenge New York U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand in the Democratic primary for the 2010 U.S. Senate special election in New York. However, Tasini later decided to run instead for a seat in the House of Representatives in 2010.

He was the president of the National Writers Union from 1990 to 2003. In 2006, he unsuccessfully challenged incumbent U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary, principally because of the incumbent's vote for the Iraq Resolution which gave then President George W. Bush the authority to invade Iraq.

He is currently president of the Economic Future Group, a national consulting group. He also writes frequently for a labor and economy blog, Working Life.

Tasini was born in Houston, Texas, though he spent much of his late childhood in Israel. Tasini's father, Betsalel Tasini, was a computer scientist who was born in Palestine and fought in the Haganah, Israel's pre-state army, and its strike force, the Palmach. Tasini lived with his father and stepmother in Israel for seven years and speaks fluent Hebrew. He completed high school in Israel and studied at Tel Aviv University. While there, he was also involved in Histadrut, a trade union. He earned a degree in political science from the University of California, Los Angeles.

From 1990 to April 2003, he served as president of the National Writers Union (UAW Local 1981). In 1993, Tasini was the lead plaintiff in the case of New York Times Co. v. Tasini, in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in favor of the copyright claims of writers whose work was republished in electronic databases without their permission. The ruling set an important precedent that led to a class-action lawsuit settlement of $18 million. He also served in a wide variety of additional author and labor advocacy positions, including as a board member of the International Federation of Journalists and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, a joint industry-scientific-academic panel. He also was the founder of the Creators Federation, which sought to unite creators groups to work in concert.

Tasini remains the president emeritus of the NWU.

Tasini is a leading economics and labor writer who has analyzed economic and labor affairs for a wide variety of publications and organizations, including The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, Bloomberg Businessweek, Playboy, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and Newsday. He is the creator and publisher of Working Life, a central source of information, analysis and debate within organized labor and the general policy community, and one of the first blogs to devote itself entirely to work and the economy.

Tasini is the author of five books: The Essential Bernie Sanders and His Vision for America (2015); It's Not Raining, We’re Being Peed On: The Scam of the Deficit Crisis (2010); The Audacity of Greed: Free Markets, Corporate Thieves and The Looting of America (2009); They Get Cake, We Eat Crumbs: The Real Story Behind Today's Unfair Economy (1997); and The Edifice Complex: Rebuilding the American Labor Movement to Face the Global Economy (1995).

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