People Before Profit blog

Raising spirits and funds from coast to coast

Fri, 19 Dec 2003 06:45:00 +0000

From one end of the country to the other, readers of the People’s Weekly World/Nuestro Mundo have come together to show their support for this newspaper. Over waffles, pancakes, buffet dinners and more, they’ve honored local heroes while raising money for the PWW Fund Drive.

Our readers in Arizona, Colorado, Maine, and Wisconsin deserve special mention. They overfulfilled their fundraising goals through a variety of methods, including by gathering funds for group ads and by making individual appeals to the paper’s supporters.

As the year ends, and the Fund Drive wraps up, we’re still reaching towards our goal of $200,000. While all of the events, big and small, helped get us to where we are today, you can help us get to where we need to be.

Keep the PWW in mind for your holiday gift-giving. Your support will help us gear up for the important struggles in the coming year.

NEW YORK – The New York bureau of the People’s Weekly World/Nuestro Mundo hosted a luncheon with the theme “No More Stolen Elections: Democracy vs. Bush in 2004,” where PWW Washington correspondent Tim Wheeler spoke. The meeting, which also included a speaker from the local chapter of the National Organization for Women, raised nearly $7,000 for the paper.

Throughout the boroughs of New York City, smaller meetings were held on topics such as the role of Latinos in the upcoming elections, the necessity of defeating racism, and the situations in Korea and the Middle East.

BAY AREA, Calif. – A rainbow crowd filled a Berkeley restaurant ballroom Nov. 9 for the annual People’s Weekly World/Nuestro Mundo banquet. The event honored unions, participants in the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride and Bay Area youth groups in the struggle for equality, workers’ rights, democracy and peace. Some $7,000 was raised for the paper’s 2003 fund drive.

Each honoree received a special congressional certificate from Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee, in whose district the banquet was held. Berkeley Vice Mayor Maudelle Shirek extended a welcome to all the honorees and guests.

The 50th anniversary of the great labor film, “Salt of the Earth,” was celebrated with a moving tribute to Lorenzo and Anita Torrez, participants in the zinc miners’ strike and the film. A special birthday salute to 99-year-old champion PWW distributor Jim Moore was followed by a tribute to other area circulators of the paper.

Many speakers echoed the slogan that hung beside the stage: “Terminate the Exterminators – Recall Bush and the Far Right in 2004!”

“We want a nation in which we who create all the wealth are in charge,” declared Northern California Communist Party Chair Juan Lopez. “An America with union jobs, public health care, housing and equality for all, free public education from infancy through college – an America truly of, by and for the people, at peace with the world.” But to win this, Lopez said, “we’d better start by getting rid of Bush and Republican control of Congress in 2004.”

Henry Graham, president of ILWU longshore Local 10, called the Republicans’ aims “dictatorship” and “tyranny,” and declared, “We cannot let that happen.”

Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Local 2 Secretary-Treasurer Tho Do spoke for Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride participants from her local and other locals in the Bay Area. Despite government-inspired immigrant bashing, Tho Do said, “We have seen a lot of hope. … We met many families, many communities that are organizing to make changes for the years to come.” The audience gave warm applause to Judy Goff and Walter Johnson, heads of the Alameda County and San Francisco Labor Councils, which strongly supported the IWFR.

A group of union members accepted the award for SEIU Local 1877, representing janitors throughout the Greater Bay Area who won a recent contract victory.

In accepting their awards, Anita and Lorenzo Torrez emphasized building the PWW’s circulation as important to defeating the far right in 2004.

Also honored were Youth of Oakland United, Kids First and Asian Youth Promoting Advocacy and Leadership. The audience enjoyed presentations by poet Sharita Cobb, singer-songwriter Eliot Kenin, singer Andrea Chambers, hip hop dancer David Johnson and the youth singing group The New Generation Singers.

CHICAGO – The beat of salsa music pulsed through the spacious hall at UNITE! headquarters here as activists and leaders from the area’s labor, peace, student and equality movements streamed in for the 15th annual People’s Weekly World/

Nuestro Mundo banquet on Nov. 15.

They came to honor Anita and Lorenzo Torrez, lifelong fighters for social and economic justice, and to carry on the fight against the ultra-right in the 2004 elections. The two were participants in the historic Empire Zinc strike in New Mexico in 1950 and in the movie, “Salt of the Earth.” They were introduced by Jesse Rios, vice president of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement.

Also honored were Margaret Caples of the Community Film Workshop of Chicago, Ella Hereth and other leaders of the Chicago Student Labor Action Project, and veteran labor journalist and PWW editorial board member Fred Gaboury. All were recipients of the Chris Hani/Rudy Lozano Awards, named after two people’s leaders who gave their lives in the fight for democracy and justice.

Katie Jordan, a member of the Central States Joint Board of UNITE! and chair of the Chicago Coalition of Labor Union Women, welcomed the audience and underscored the importance of uniting a broad coalition to defeat George W. Bush next November.

Greetings were brought by Shelby Richardson Jr., a leader of the Communist Party USA in Illinois, who also stressed the importance of a broad, united front to defeat the GOP in 2004, and paid tribute to the PWW as a key tool in that fight.

Cesar Casamayor, a student leader at Malcolm X College, delivered a powerful, spoken word performance dramatizing the militant rebellion of youth against the ravages of unemployment, cuts in educational programs, and racism.

Over $6,700 was raised for the PWW Fund Drive.

SEATTLE – In Washington State, PWW supporters held four events to benefit the drive. First was a “Summer Celebration in the Park” in late August, with Communist Party USA National Chair Sam Webb as the speaker.

Judith LeBlanc, a CPUSA vice chair, spoke at a waffle breakfast in September, and at a house party in nearby Bellingham. Another waffle breakfast on Dec. 7 featured Hanne Gidora from British Columbia speaking on the Canadian health care system and the fight to stop its privatization.

BALTIMORE – Doug Allan, a Canadian trade union health care researcher and activist, told a sizable and spirited crowd at Stony Run Friends Meeting in Baltimore, Dec. 8, that Canada’s national health care system is central to the Canadian people’s sense of themselves as an independent nation. They have defended their health care system against furious attempts by corporations and the ultra-right to undermine or privatize it, he said. Privatizers, he said, had high hopes that a Royal Commission set up to study the system would come back with a report advocating steps to open the way for privatization. “Instead, the Royal Commission actually proposed extending and strengthening the system, adding new benefits,” Allan said.

Present in the audience were many members of the Baltimore Chapter of Universal Health Care Action Network (UHCAN). Bill Harvey, a leader of UHCAN, said Canada’s example proved that a government-funded single-payer system can be won in the U.S.

Health care worker Jim Baldridge, who chaired the meeting, introduced four Dennis Kucinich supporters who were on a transcontinental walk from Portland, Maine, to San Francisco to popularize the candidate’s message. Baldridge said, “We are attracted to Kucinich not only because he opposed the invasion of Iraq but also for his support of universal, single-payer health care under Medicare.”

In an appeal for contributions to the PWW fund drive, Tim Wheeler blasted George W. Bush and reminded the audience, “This is an election year. There is no task more important than removing these right-wing Republicans from office.” Over $1,200 was raised.

DALLAS – On Dec. 5, PWW supporters in West Dallas, Texas, hosted a fund-raising reception. The speaker was Margarita Del Cid, who spoke about her experiences in the anti-FTAA protests in Miami. She said that U.S. workers were in danger of dropping to the levels of exploitation already faced in Central and South America.

PHILADELPHIA – Philadelphia’s annual People’s Weekly World/Nuestro Mundo banquet took place on Nov. 4. Those in attendance heard Toronto trade union health care activist Doug Allan describe the struggles of the Canadian people in their fight to keep universal health care.

Sylvia Metzler, a nurse and peace activist, was honored for her leadership in the Philadelphia Area Committee to Defend Health Care, which recently led a successful campaign to pass a ballot initiative calling for universal health care. The same day, Philadelphia voters approved a change in the City Charter that requires the Department of Health to draw up a plan for universal health care for all Philadelphians. Also honored was Nate Walton, a biomedical technician at Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia. A member of the CPUSA, he has been a longtime fighter for civil rights and peace.

While chairing the program, Dennis Barnebey compared the articles in the local newspaper to those in the PWW.

“Where else can you read about what’s really going on throughout this country and the world?” asked Barnebey.

NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Labor leaders, grass roots activists, elected officials and young people crowded into the New Haven People’s Center Dec. 7 with energy and enthusiasm to “Push Bush out the door in 2004!” The occasion was a reception celebrating the 84th anniversary of the Communist Party USA, hosted by the PWW in Connecticut.

A miniature of the Amistad statue “Make Us Free” was presented to each of five leaders on the front lines of the grassroots movements to defeat George Bush and the right wing in the 2004 elections and win economic justice, equality and peace. As each recipient expressed their appreciation and solidarity, the strength of the recent strike at Yale and struggles to open jobs to Latino workers, the fight to save jobs at Pratt & Whitney, the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride, and vigils for peace filled the room with hope and optimism.

Keynote speaker Denise Winebrenner Edwards, member of the Borough Council in Wilkinsburg, Pa., detailed the pain and suffering in her community and called for the defeat of the Bush administration. “The Bush administration is not just an obstacle to achieving peace, but is aggressive in waging war,” she said, calling for maximum unity to win peace, living wages, health care and senior security.

Awards were presented to Mark Wilson, Local 35 Federation of Hospital and University Employees; New Haven Alderwomen-elect Migdalia Castro and Dolores Colon; John Harrity, International Association of Machinists District 26 organizer; and Joyce Hamilton, executive director of DemocracyWorks.

Five Hartford area high school students, activists in the Young Communist League, inspired the audience as they were presented with Amistad posters. “What Bush is doing in Iraq is wrong,” said Corina Gouch. “We have to do something about it.”

Over $4,000 was raised to put Connecticut over the top in its $10,000 goal for the PWW Fund Drive.

BOSTON – Massachusetts readers held a picnic in July to raise money for the PWW. In early November they hosted a visit by Canadian health care expert Doug Allan to Cambridge, Lawrence and Boston. During the summer, PWW supporters helped sponsor a bus to the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride rally in New York, and raised $1,400 for the PWW in the process. They are currently mobilizing for a PWW phonathon.

LOS ANGELES – The war in Iraq, like conflicts in which the United States has been engaged for more than a century, is not about spreading democracy but global corporate expansionism, author Michael Parenti told a standing-room-only crowd at a fund-raiser for the Peoples Weekly World/

Nuestro Mundo held Oct. 13 here.

Over 250 people packed the UNITE! union hall to hear Parenti speak on “Democracy vs. U.S. World Domination.”

Despite the recent recall election victory for Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger, the audience showed that the people’s fighting spirit and hunger for progressive views are not curbed. The event raised $4,700 for the PWW.

Also appearing on the program was a group of union grocery workers on strike. One of the strike leaders said that she and 70,000 of her UFCW brothers and sisters were determined to win their fight.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Local supporters of the PWW sponsored a “Blueberry Pancake Brunch Bonanza” on Dec. 7. The brunch consisted of fabulous blueberry pancakes, maple syrup, sausages, orange juice, coffee, and fruit salad. But the real “meat” of the event was the talk by Scott Marshall, national labor secretary of the Communist Party USA, on labor’s role in defeating Bush in 2004.

Medicare reform a threat to women

Fri, 19 Dec 2003 06:35:00 +0000

The Bush administration, the right wing of the Republican Party, and the health insurance industry have achieved a remarkable feat – the Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003 is a major threat to the Medicare program and a marvelous source of profits for the health care industry.

Medicare is a program that seniors have depended upon for health care since 1965, a program that relieved countless seniors from spending themselves into poverty just to obtain health care.

This new program promises prescription drug benefits. In truth, the benefits are limited, with major gaps in coverage. We’ve been told that the bill isn’t perfect, but at least it’s a start. So what is the problem? Why should women be particularly concerned?

First, seniors who currently have better coverage through their retirement plans or unions will likely lose this, as their benefits are downgraded to match the Medicare plan. Certainly tomorrow’s seniors won’t have comprehensive benefits.

Second, seniors are prohibited from purchasing Medigap insurance to cover the gaps in drug benefits, even if they could afford it. Never mind that seniors already spend more than 8 percent of their income on health care premiums (compared to 5 percent for younger people) and another 8 percent on out-of-pocket expenses (versus just over 3 percent for younger persons).

Third, the monthly premium of $35 is sure to increase, quite possibly before the program even goes into effect, with annual increases after that.

So, if this bill is such bad news, why on earth was it passed? The bill doesn’t allow the government to negotiate lower drug prices – quite a boon for the pharmaceuticals. They can be assured of sales at the prices they set and swollen profits. The real plum, though, is the billions of dollars in subsidies that will pour into insurance companies as a result of this “reform.”

That the bill is a guarantee of increased profits for the health care industry, as public dollars are poured into private pockets, is bad enough. But it’s also a threat to the Medicare program as a whole.

As healthier seniors, those whose care is more profitable, are drawn out of Medicare and into private insurance plans, Medicare will be left with a greater proportion of very ill seniors, those whose care is more expensive. As costs for this care go up, Medicare will become more financially fragile, until the guarantee of even basic health care for our most vulnerable seniors is threatened.

Currently, poor Medicare recipients in bad health spend about 44 percent of their incomes on health care. Elders at greater risk for unaffordable out-of-pocket expenses are more likely to put off needed care and more likely to die within five years. What will these people do in the future?

National Organization for Women President Kim Gandy announced that NOW and 200 other women’s organizations are working to oppose this legislation. The bill is dangerous for all seniors, with women being especially vulnerable. Even though women live longer than men, older women tend to be sicker than their male age peers.

Women are more likely to have chronic illnesses and multiple chronic illnesses. They have more disabilities. Almost twice as many women as men age 75 or older need help with daily tasks. Women take more prescription drugs. Older women have lower incomes than older men. While the mean income among men aged 65-plus is $30,238, for women it is only $16,311. Among low-income seniors in poor health, the median incomes for men and women are $14,494 and $10,029, respectively. How are these seniors to afford health care?

The Bush administration, the GOP, and the AARP are all happy with this new Medicare bill. Seniors, especially older women, are the ones paying for this celebration with their unmet health care needs and early deaths.

As a nation, we can do better. We must do better. First, we have to join the fight to repeal this dreadful bill. Then, we have to fight for a national health care system, and continue to fight until we win.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org.

Pennsylvanians demand school funding

Fri, 19 Dec 2003 06:29:00 +0000

HARRISBURG, Pa. – Protesters organized by Good Schools Pennsylvania lined the steps of the Capitol Rotunda here Dec. 9 with a strong message for the State Senate: “Pass an education budget that greatly increases funding for education reform. Don’t fail our children!” School districts in Pennsylvania have not received their state subsidies for the last five months. The Republican-controlled Legislature refused to pass Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell’s Education Budget to fund his reform initiatives last July 31. School districts have had to borrow money to keep their schools open. Many face shutdown on Dec. 31.

“We cry out for educational justice, even though it seems like we are a voice in the wilderness,” said Rev. Arthur R. White, president of the Pennsylvania Baptist Convention. Nelida Sepulveda, Good Schools Pennsylvania director, urged the Senate to increase school funding at least to the level passed by the House which last October passed a compromise bill. That bill drastically cut the governor’s request for $650 million, but did provide $450 million in new funding for the basic education subsidy and restored funds for libraries and other social services.

“Don’t fail your children!” shouted the crowd as the name of each senator was read aloud and a photograph of the senator placed on a clothesline held aloft. Rev. White then led a call and response list of “What all children need” – adequate and equitable funding, smaller class size, quality administrators and teachers with high expectations for all children, quality preschools, textbooks, technology and school libraries, tutoring for struggling students. “When do they need it?” asked Rev. White. “Now!” shouted the crowd. The demands listed by Good Schools Pennsylvania were all part of the governor’s reform bills which the Senate rejected. Rendell has said that he will veto any bill that does not significantly increase school funding as guided by his reform bills.

The governor has proposed raising money for the schools by raising the state income tax for those with incomes above $54,000 a year while lowering the property tax and the Philadelphia wage tax, and putting slot machines at race tracks. The Pennsylvania Department of Education has classified half the schools in the state as “not making adequate yearly progress” under the No Child Left Behind Act guidelines. The funding gap between wealthy schools and poor schools has increased with some districts spending less than $5,000 per student while others are able to spend over $14,000 per student. Students in both urban and rural school districts suffer this great inequity. The majority of students in urban school districts are African American and/or Latino, while many of those in rural districts are white and poor.

Good Schools Pennsylvania has organized a statewide coalition of community groups, parents, students, religious congregations, business and civic organizations to pressure the Legislature. Thousands of citizens have gone to the state Capitol.

Rendell made education reform part of his platform when he campaigned in 2002, getting many Republican votes to win the governorship.

The author can be reached at phillyrose1@earthlink.net.

National Clips

Fri, 19 Dec 2003 05:26:00 +0000

SACRAMENTO, Calif.: Living wage victory

Workers employed by private companies that receive Sacramento city money will ring in the New Year with a raise. On Dec. 9, the City Council in a 6-2 vote established a living wage of at least $9 an hour if the company provides health coverage and $10.50 an hour if health coverage is absent. The law provides for raises of 50 cents per year until 2006.

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) led the three-year campaign to raise the wages of the low paid workers.

“This is a great day,” said Chris Jones, Sacramento ACORN chairman, adding that this victory is “just the beginning” of local efforts to improve wages.

The law applies to companies with at least 25 workers. Nonprofits with less than 100 workers are exempt as are emergency services, professional service contracts and student interns.

BERKELEY, Calif.: First Black law school dean

On July 1, 2004, Harvard law professor Christopher Edley will become Dean of Berkeley’s Law School. He is the first African American to lead a major U.S. law school.

Edley is a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and served in the Clinton administration where he was the architect of the “Mend it, don’t end it” policy defending and advancing affirmative action. Edley is the author of the book, “Not All Black and White: Affirmative Action, Race and American Values.”

SPRING HILL, Tenn.: Saturn contract a mixed bag

Members of United Auto Workers Local 1853 at the General Motors Saturn manufacturing complex here approved a new four-year contract Dec. 14 by an overwhelming margin of 2,953-317.

The agreement raises wages retroactively from September to bring Saturn workers in line with the rest of the industry. It provides a performance bonus in the second year, a 2 percent raise in the third year and 3 percent the year thereafter. But Saturn workers may face layoffs for the first time. The union and company agreed to enter into the umbrella agreement covering autoworkers in the rest of GM.

“We’re in a position that we either adapt or die,” said Mike Herron, chairman of Local 1853.

Saturn UAW workers in Michigan and Ohio are covered by separate contracts.

ATLANTA: No room at the inn

Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin established a commission to study and make recommendations to address the homeless family crisis in this city, one of the country’s fastest growing in the U.S. A one-day count found 6,956 men, women and children living on Atlanta’s streets.

Anita Beaty, executive director of the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless who, disputed the commission’s initial count, places the figure at 23,000-40,000 people.

A Pathways Community Network report found that 75 percent of the homeless in Atlanta lived in the area before losing their home. Eighteen percent are women and 11 percent are children.

CONCORD, N.H.: State to buy drugs from Canada

Gov. Craig Benson, a Republican, defied the Bush Food and Drug Administration by announcing Dec. 10 that the state is setting up a plan to import prescription drugs from Canada to save taxpayer dollars.

“The FDA and the drug companies have been spreading this notion that it is unsafe, but I have a different take,” Benson said. “We have a lot of people who are not taking prescription drugs because they cannot afford them. I think there’s a liability for sitting still.”

Springfield, Mass., currently buys prescriptions from Canada, saving the city an estimated $4 million to $9 million a year. Other states and cities are exploring a similar course.

NORTH POLE: Members of Elves Local 1 on overtime

Members of Elves Local 1, working under their new three-year agreement which included a full family health care package, prescription drug, eye care, dental and mental, with only a $3 co-pay, are working around the clock to met the Dec. 25 deadline.

“We don’t work for cookies,” said Local 1 President Evelyn Frankenhouser. “The Clauses were tough, but we came together, stayed together and we won! We are bringing that same solidarity to the toy and gift benches. We are going to make it.”

“Hey, we’re elves, not reindeer,” Frankenhouser declared. “We’re on the ‘net.’ Just go to: www.nosweatshop.com, justiceclothing.com or unionshop.aflcio.org to see what union elves can do!”

National Clips are compiled by Denise Winebrenner Edwards (dwinebr696@aol.com). Julia Lutsky and Barbara Russum contributed to this week’s clips.

Protesters occupy Baltimore School Board

Fri, 19 Dec 2003 05:03:00 +0000

BALTIMORE – Hundreds of chanting students, parents, and school employees rallied outside the Baltimore School Board on Dec. 9 to protest the layoff of 1,000 school workers, a drastic measure to reduce a $52 million school deficit. After the rally, they marched into the School Board hearing room and occupied the chamber for three hours before police removed them. No one was arrested.

The sidewalk rally was initiated by ACORN but the city’s youth were the most eloquent messengers. Displayed above the speakers’ heads was a big hand-painted banner of the Midtown Academy, a public elementary school. “If we can build schools in Baghdad, why not Baltimore?” their banner read.

Midtown Academy student Ashley Day, so diminutive she had to stand on her toes to look over the lectern, said, “We’re here because we care. We leave messages on their answering machines and they never call us back. But we will be heard!”

Bryan Wiseman, 12, a seventh-grader at the Midtown Academy, told the World, “It doesn’t make any sense to spend our taxes in Iraq when we need it here.” He was circulating a petition addressed to Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich citing an inspection of Baltimore’s 199 schools that found 115 in “poor condition.” The petition asks, “How can the public expect students to learn when our classrooms, libraries, water systems, and gymnasiums are falling apart?”

Joe Parker, a member of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 44 who was laid off from his job as a school janitor, told the crowd, “We hear them talk about ‘No Child Left Behind.’ What does a parent do when just before the holidays, he has to tell his child he got a pink slip?”

Local 44 leader Yvonne Finn pointed out that scores of curriculum specialists have been terminated. “Who’s going to write the curriculum when they are gone?” The crowd chanted, “Save our schools!”

While Maryland’s governor and General Assembly have been directed to provide $250 million annually to Baltimore in a court-ordered effort to equalize per-pupil spending statewide, Gov. Ehrlich has yet to deliver, citing the state’s budget woes.

Later that evening, Lonnie Francis, a student at Baltimore City College High School, told a jam-packed meeting of the School Board that the Maryland Constitution requires an adequate education for all children. “We believe the school board should take the withholding taxes that go to the state and federal government and funnel it into the school system,” he said. “It may be a violation of the tax laws but if they fail to fund our schools, they are violating the Constitution.” The crowd erupted in applause.

James Carroll, president of the City Union of Baltimore (CUB), which represents 600 school secretaries and other support staff, protested the termination of 27 CUB employees. “We did not create this mess. Why should working people have to suffer for the mismanagement?” he said.

Carroll told the World his union, an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers, will join the Baltimore Teachers Union, AFSCME Local 44, ACORN and other labor and community groups to send 1,000 or more protesters to a rally outside the State House in Annapolis on Jan. 26 to demand full funding of the schools. “They have promised that classroom instruction won’t suffer from these layoffs. But we can’t believe that,” he said. “We see them hiring high-priced contractors when that work could be done within” using public employees, he said.

The author can be reached at greenerpastures21212@yahoo.com.

Attack on California workers comp

Fri, 12 Dec 2003 06:01:00 +0000

The attack on the California Workers’ Compensation system, being orchestrated by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s corporate think tanks, dramatizes the importance of workers’ comp in state politics. It also shows that the federalization of workers’ compensation must again become a major issue for federal legislation. Allowing 50 different governments to decide the fate of workers injured or made sick on the job is not good policy.

Reform in U.S. almost worked

A radical change almost came about in the 1970s, in the afterglow of the EPA, OSHA, the Civil Rights Acts and other federal actions. Congress, with intense pressure from the labor movement, attached action points for change when the federal OSHA law was passed in 1970. A National Commission on Workers’ Compensation was empanelled. After six years of meetings, they pointed the workers’ comp issue toward a federal solution, issuing 19 recommendations for each state’s system. Failure to comply would mean that state’s system will be subsumed under the Federal Longshore Workers’ Compensation Law, a very good law.

None of the 50 states complied. Even with a Democrat, Jimmy Carter, in the White House, the whole idea was dropped. The Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers gave high priority to defeating these reforms. The last thing they wanted was a federal workers’ compensation system linked to the federal Social Security system, including the federal Social Security Disability Insurance – SSDI. It would also have been indirectly linked to federal EPA and other worker protection laws. And it would make national health legislation a foregone conclusion.

Crisis at highest levels

In the years since then, the crisis which workers face when they are injured on the job has grown dramatically. But labor has generally been on the defensive in state capitals. Their main efforts have been directed at protecting the present system, with all its flaws, and not fighting to make it better. The truth of the matter is that the current workers’ compensation system does not begin to adequately address the actual deaths and disabilities that take place in our nation’s workplaces. This is especially true with regard to occupational injuries and diseases.

California’s anti-worker proposals

Just reviewing some of the backward legislative proposals being put forward by Schwarzenegger proves the point:

Fewer injuries and illnesses would be covered. Current California law does not restrict eligibility for workers’ compensation benefits based on the extent to which the worker’s job caused the injury or the disability (except for stress-related, psychological injuries). Injured workers with cumulative injuries (caused by repeated exposures) would be required to show that the injury was “substantially caused” by their current work. Those with injuries caused by one event would be required to show that the specific injury contributed at least 10 percent to the worker’s disability.

Employers would select the worker’s doctor. Current law permits workers to make their own choice of physician without any veto power of their employer. Under this proposal, they would not be allowed to pre-designate their personal doctors. The worker would not be able to change doctors 30 days after the employer learns about the injury.

Medical reports will go unchallenged. The worker’s right to challenge a treating physician’s medical reports will be severely curtailed.

“Independent Medical Review” determinations would be final and binding. The so-called independent medical review physician would not personally examine the disabled worker, only see medical reports. These decisions would not be subject to review.

Permanent disability benefits would be reduced or eliminated. The state’s 2002 reforms raised California from 49th to only about 40th in the nation in the level of workers’ compensation benefits provided to injured workers. Yet, even this small increase infuriated employers. Under the proposals from the new governor’s think tank anti-worker ideologues, these increases will only take effect when workers’ compensation costs in California are equal to or less than the national average.

Employers and every state government are watching these California developments closely. Killing these anti-worker proposals must be a high priority for California labor and its allies.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org.

Public Health Association opposes new drug bill

Fri, 12 Dec 2003 05:57:00 +0000

Shortly before Congress passed the Bush administration-sponsored Medicare drug bill, the American Public Health Association said the bill “creates real problems in access to and the cost of prescription drug for seniors,” and urged its members to oppose it.

As the struggle continues to amend or repeal the bill, APHA’s criticisms retain their force. These include the following:

• The bill lacks an adequate prescription drug benefit for millions of seniors who urgently need and deserve a comprehensive and affordable prescription drug benefit provided through the traditional Medicare program;

• The plan fundamentally weakens the Medicare program itself;

• The proposal contains large gaps in coverage;

• The bill disproportionately affects racial and ethnic minorities in an adverse way;

• The bill forces millions of seniors into private-sector health plans.

Finally, the APHA statement says, “Tell Congress to adopt a plan that offers seniors REAL help and maintains the integrity of the Medicare program.” The statement was issued during the association’s 131st annual meeting in San Francisco.

States face fiscal crisis

Fri, 12 Dec 2003 05:48:00 +0000

In 2004, states across the country will be experiencing their fourth straight year of budget woes. While the official explanation tends to blame a weak economy for anemic revenues, a closer examination reveals that federal policies are deeply responsible for the fiscal mess the states find themselves in.

According to Iris Lav of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), state governments have had to close a collective budget gap of approximately $190 billion over the past three years. And in FY 2005 (which begins in July 2004) they will have to deal with a $40 billion shortfall in revenues. This will amount to $230 billion over a four-year period. Bush’s tax-and-spend policies, which have left no millionaire or defense contractor behind, haven’t, to date, jump-started many state economies. But they have reduced state revenues due to the linkage between the federal and state tax codes.

Bush’s tax cuts have also been quite successful in adding trillions to the national debt, creating the perfect excuse to limit revenue sharing and forcing the states to cope with the costs of unfunded federal mandates. To make matters worse, the Supreme Court has ruled that states cannot raise additional revenues to meet the needs of their residents through taxing catalog or Internet sales. Nor are states permitted to put a tax on monthly access fees that people pay for Internet services.

Federal policies, Iris Lav writes, “are costing states and localities about $185 billion [in revenues] over the four-year course of the state fiscal crisis, from state FY 2002 through FY 2005.” To balance their budgets, states have been forced to reduce health care coverage and increase co-payments for eligible low-income families, creating the conditions for a public health crisis. In Texas, for example, 170,000 children from poor families lost medical coverage. Many states have also elected to make deep cuts in childcare subsidies, making it difficult for a low-income parent to seek employment. In addition, states have been forced to make reductions in Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) grants. Some states have been driven to cut K-12 education aid and sharply increase tuitions at public colleges and universities, as well as to trim their payrolls.

In a report titled “State Budget Deficit Continues to Threaten Public Services,” Nicholas Johnson, also from the CBPP, describes projected state budge shortfalls for FY 2005. Here’s a sample of his projections for state deficits as a percent of general funds:

• Alabama – $580 million (11 percent) • Arizona – $800 million - $1 billion (13-16 percent) • California – $17.6 billion (25 percent) • Georgia – $1 billion (6 percent) • Kansas – $600 million (13 percent) • Missouri – $800 million - $1 billion (12-15 percent) • New Jersey – $4 billion (17 percent) • New York – $5.745 billion (14 percent)

All told, Johnson expects states to experience deficits of $40.3 to $45 billion in FY 2005.

While domestically the Bush plan forces states on a starvation diet, internationally the sky is the limit. Conducting discretionary wars might delight the military-industrial complex and other war profiteers, but they are a disaster for domestic budgets, the primary source of the physical, mental and social health of our nation’s communities.

The author can be reached at daveisenhower@optonline.com.

Gay, womens groups build April 25 march

Fri, 12 Dec 2003 04:48:00 +0000

NEW YORK – As the gay rights movement grew in influence in the last decade, Richard Burns says, conservative gay groups have become more vocal, seeking to push the movement to the right.

He cited the Human Rights Campaign backing right-wing right-to-life supporter Al D’Amato for the Senate from New York in 1998, and gay Republicans demanding the death penalty in the Matthew Shepard case.

“Our job is to turn that tide,” said Burns, executive director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Community Center in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood. For instance, he said, “We need to say, ‘Reproductive freedom is part of our movement.’”

National Organization for Women National President Kim Gandy, noting that her organization had come out in support of same sex marriage back in 1998, said that sexism, racism – “all those ‘isms’ we fight” – are connected. “They all share the same roots and require the same conditions to flourish,” she said.

The comments by Burns and Gandy came at a Dec. 3 panel discussion, “Causes in Common: Reproductive Rights and LGBT Liberation,” called to encourage all-out mobilization for the April 25, 2004, march on Washington for freedom of choice. Organizers hope to bring 50,000 participants from New York City alone.

Rights and laws that generations of Americans had come to take for granted have been wiped off the books and more are at risk, the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL) Pro-Choice warns on its website.

Already courts have struck down anti-discrimination laws, part of the Violence Against Women Act, affirmative action programs, and other guarantees of equal opportunity. Federal courts have limited workers’ rights and weakened environmental protections. And the courts are allowing more and more restrictions on a woman’s right to choose.

Reproductive rights and personal privacy issues, Gandy said, are constitutionally intertwined and both are under attack. “If we’re not [in Washington on April 25], standing up saying, ‘You’re not going to take away our rights,’ they’re going to keep doing what they’ve been doing, which is being more afraid of the right wing than they are of us.”

The Bush administration recently cut family planning funds in half, Gandy said, and 50 percent of the remaining is earmarked for “abstinence only” education. What adds insult to injury is that any right-wing group can get these federal funds simply by claiming to advocate “Just say no.” In other words, Gandy said, President Bush first cuts the funds and then gives what’s left to his friends.

On Nov. 5, President Bush signed the so-called partial birth abortion ban legislation. NARAL Pro-Choice America President Kate Michelman said then, “George Bush has crossed a line. … Just a week after he said in the Rose Garden that our culture is not ready for a ban on abortion, President Bush is making clear that he’s itching to put one into place anyway.”

The organization is airing television ads in selected markets that highlight the fact that the ban signed by the president violates the privacy of the doctor-patient relationship. It also points out that by signing the bill, he becomes the first president ever to criminalize safe medical procedures.

New York State Assembly member Deborah Glick warned that despite this, many people – especially young women – have been lulled into believing that Roe v. Wade will always be there to protect them. That is the 1973 Supreme Court decision recognizing for the first time that the decision whether or not to terminate a pregnancy should reside with the woman, not politicians or the government.

“You don’t have the same degree of zealousness on college campuses,” said, Glick, the Assembly’s first openly gay member, “that you had before Roe v. Wade.” But, she warned, “This really is about the rest of our lives.”

Other panelists included March for Choice co-directors Alice Cohan and Loretta Ross; Robin Brand, vice president of Campaigns and Elections, Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund; and Carmen Vazquez, deputy executive director of Empire State Pride Agenda.

The author can be reached at crummel@pww.org.

National Clips

Fri, 12 Dec 2003 04:35:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES: March for right to drive

State law bars undocumented immigrant workers from getting a driver’s license, but hundreds of immigrant workers marched 50 miles from Claremont to Los Angeles to demand the legal right to drive a car. Organized by the Pomona-based Latino Roundtable, the “Pilgrimage for Human Rights” began Dec. 4, passed through 27 cities, and ended Dec. 7 with a rally at the Federal Building here.

Pedro Tobar, 23, a factory worker in Ontario, joined the march as it approached L.A. “They’ve taken my car away three times in the last year,” he said. Tobar commutes to Santa Ana after dropping his three children off at school. “We need licenses. Not to do bad things. We need to get to work, take our kids to school. If we don’t work, we don’t eat.”

Latino Roundtable President Jose Calderon estimated that 1,000 people participated in the march over the four days. “At a time when there’s an economic downturn, the immigrants are always blamed,” he said. “But we know immigrants contribute more than they take out. Studies show it.”

NEW YORK: ‘Save money – don’t privatize’

Hundreds of building trades and municipal worker union members lined up outside City Hall, Dec. 8, to testify before the City Council Committee on Contracts. The City Council is considering expanding the use of private outside contractors – privatization – to do the work of Board of Education workers. The board’s workers say that not only will privatization result in more layoffs, but will cost taxpayers more money, to boot.

Veteran steamfitter Joseph McManus, member of Steamfitters Local 638, told the World, “Privatization is not the answer.” For example, McManus explained, “We work around the clock, including weekends, for the same benefits. When a contractor does the same job, they always run over in-house costs.”

A South Carolina-based company, Gordian Group, manages maintenance work for the School Board and charges a 13 percent fee. The industry standard is 3 percent, another example of taxpayers getting gouged.

According to the Civil Service Coalition of Building Trades and Municipal Unions, the Board of Education plans to reduce work performed by city workers from the current 64 percent to 14 percent.

MEDIA, Pa.: DNA frees man from Death Row

Nicholas Yarris spent 21 of his 42 years under the threat of execution for the 1981 rape and murder of Linda Mae Craig. Last week DNA testing proved that Pennsylvania prosecuted the wrong man and Craig’s murderer is still free.

Yarris is the 10th person in 2003 and, since 1973, the 112th person to be found to be found innocent of murder charges carrying the death penalty.

Jeff Garis, executive director of the Pennsylvania Abolitionists United Against the Death Penalty, renewed calls to Gov. Ed Rendell to declare a moratorium on the death penalty in the state. Rendell supports the death penalty. “Millions in tax dollars have been wasted on these cases,” Garis said. “All the while the real killers have escaped justice. Let no one say this exoneration is irrefutable evidence that the ‘system works’; this exoneration is irrefutable evidence that immediate moratorium on executions and system-wide investigation is essential for ensuring justice in our justice system.”

Meanwhile Texas plans to execute three more people during the week of Dec. 8, bringing that state’s total to 27 for 2003.

NATIONAL: MoveOn.org house parties

Use of the Internet to spread the truth about the Bush war on Iraq reached a new benchmark Dec. 7 as an estimated 50,000 people gathered in 2,200 homes from Alaska to Florida to watch the video, “Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraqi War,” by Robert Greenwald. The event was organized by the Internet web site, MoveOn.org, which claims over 300,000 subscribers.

About 40 people attended the video showing at Ann Smith’s house in the Faircrest Heights community near Los Angeles. “When MoveOn decided to organize the house parties,” said hostess Smith, owner of the New School of Cooking, “I thought, ‘Why not?’ I made a promise to myself to work politically this year, because this is the year that counts. There is an element of preaching to the choir, but this is a choir that needs to sing a little louder. After seeing the film, a lot of people felt they had a responsibility to get more involved. I’ve never had a party where I liked so many people.”

National Clips are compiled by Denise Winebrenner Edwards (dwinebr696@aol.com).

Gabe Falsetta and Julia Lutsky contributed to this week’s clips.

Correction: Last week’s clips erroneously reported that a rally took place in Sacramento on Dec. 3 to protest Gov. Schwarzenegger’s cuts in programs serving the developmentally disabled. In fact, the event took place on Dec. 10.

Cincinnati killing Questions mount on police beating

Fri, 12 Dec 2003 04:25:00 +0000

Ohio’s Hamilton County coroner ruled Dec. 3 that the death of Nathaniel Jones, 41, was a homicide. Jones, a Black man who weighed 350 pounds, was beaten to death by Cincinnati police officers, Nov. 30.

Other factors contributed to Jones’s death, but the coroner, Carl Parrot, said, “absent the struggle, Mr. Jones would not have died.”

The Jones’ family attorney, Ken Lawson, said that Jones may have been provoked into a fight with police.

“There are a lot of unanswered questions, and the family wants answers,” Lawson told WLWT-TV. Lawson says witnesses at the fast food restaurant where Jones was killed have alleged that he was provoked into a fight by police. “You can’t start a fight, and then say it’s his fault,” Lawson said.

The video shows Jones lunging at the officers, swinging and hitting one of them. He is wrestled to the ground, then beaten with nightsticks while being ordered repeatedly to “Put your hands behind your back.”

But the video images showing police beating and jabbing Jones over 40 times – at least a dozen of them after he had fallen on the ground – has outraged and sickened many.

NAACP President Kweisi Mfume said in a statement, “The sight of police officers repeatedly beating Nathaniel Jones with metal nightsticks is sickening and appears well outside of the norm for subduing an unarmed suspect.”

Rev. Jesse Jackson, in a Rainbow/PUSH Coalition statement, said, “Police officers have options available to immobilize citizens, short of death.” Mfume and Jackson have called for investigations by state and federal officials.

The murder has rekindled tensions between the police and the African American community. Since 1995, at least 18 Black men have died at the hands of Cincinnati police.

In 2001, the killing of 19-year-old Timothy Thomas by a white police officer sparked a rebellion in Cincinnati. That and the ensuing struggle led the police department to agree to a series of changes, including a new “use-of-force” policy. One of those procedures was to have a mental health team on call for situations like the Jones case. That team was never called.

The mayor, police chief and police union have defended the officers, saying that they followed department procedures. The coroner, while ruling the death a homicide, cautioned it did not imply that police used excessive force.

But Calvert Smith, Cincinnati NAACP chapter president said, “If proper procedure means that you can use that kind of force to clobber people repeatedly who are clearly disarmed, then there’s something wrong with the policy.”

“You don’t keep beating on him,” attorney Lawson said. “You give him a chance to surrender. No one is going to surrender as long as you keep slapping them across the head or body.”

A citizens’ review board investigation, along with an administrative inquiry, is underway. The Justice Department said it is gathering information to determine whether a federal investigation is needed.

Meanwhile, over 1,000 people paid their respects to Jones, Dec. 6, at the Allen Temple Worship Center. The mood was somber as a line of more than 200 people stretched into the parking lot. Visitors waited to greet Jones’ grandmother and other family members.

The service concluded with family members releasing doves, a traditional sign of peace, into the air. The standing-room-only service, which included a video tribute to Jones, was closed to television cameras. A weekend protest rally was canceled in response to his family’s request that it not be held at this time.

Terrie Albano (talbano@pww.org) contributed to this story.

GOP: not even a lump of coal for unemployed

Fri, 12 Dec 2003 04:18:00 +0000

WASHINGTON – The majority Republican 108th Congress went home for the holidays this week having doled out sugar plums for their wealthy contributors but not even a lump of coal for millions of long-term unemployed.

“It’s almost inconceivable to me that Republican leaders are poised to play the Grinch again,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), commenting on the refusal of the GOP-controlled House and Senate to approve an additional extension in jobless benefits.

The one ray of sunshine is that Senate Democrats blocked approval until January of the whopping $832 billion omnibus spending bill loaded with goodies for the rich. It means that labor and its allies will have more time to mount a fight to preserve overtime protection for millions of workers and for extension of jobless benefits when Congress returns next year. George W. Bush had threatened to veto the spending bill unless the lawmakers removed from it a measure that preserves overtime coverage for 8 million workers. The GOP leadership gladly axed the overtime provision.

There are officially 8.7 million unemployed people. That does not count the millions who have stopped looking for nonexistent jobs or the “underemployed” who can’t find full-time employment. Two million jobless have exhausted the 26 weeks of state unemployment insurance and are running out of the 13 weeks of extended benefits. Because Congress refused to approve another extension, some 80,000 to 90,000 unemployed workers each week will lose all benefits.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney blasted the lawmakers for bowing to Bush veto threats and “strong-arm tactics,” calling it “beyond comprehension that the House approved the 2004 omnibus spending bill without protecting workers’ overtime pay and extending unemployment benefits for millions of American workers.” His call on Senate Democrats to block the measure was answered when Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) objected to a motion for unanimous consent on the omnibus bill.

The first session of the 108th Congress will be remembered for approving an unprecedented resolution authorizing preemptive war on Iraq, a nation that did not attack the U.S., and for approving Bush’s $1.7 trillion tax gift to the rich. It will live in infamy for enacting a Medicare prescription drug plan that provides little or no benefits and even raises costs for some seniors, while enriching drug and insurance company profits and opening the door to privatization of Medicare. These issues are expected to loom large in the 2004 presidential and congressional elections.

Bush signed the Medicare bill into law at a White House ceremony with all the trappings of an election campaign rally. Lurking in the shadows was House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who openly advocates letting Medicare “wither on the vine.”

The drug plan was denounced at a Capitol Hill rally, Dec. 8, as “Bad for seniors, good for special interests.” Referring to Bush and the Republican House and Senate leadership, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) thundered, “You sold us out.” He pointed out that Medicare was enacted by a majority Democratic House and Senate in 1965 and signed by President Lyndon Johnson over stubborn Republican opposition. Kennedy blasted the “HMO-coddling, drug-company loving, Medicare-destroying, Social Security-hating Bush administration” and vowed to defend Medicare “every day of every week of every year” from the GOP privatizers.

In a statement released at the rally, the Alliance for Retired Americans said, “It’s disgraceful that members of Congress have passed a bad bill so they can go home and claim a hollow political victory. This is a sad day for America’s seniors.”

Already, lawmakers have introduced legislation to repeal sections of the drug bill, including a provision that prohibits the federal government from using its enormous bargaining power to negotiate lower drug prices from drug companies.

The author can be reached at greenerpastures21212@yahoo.com.

Pediatric drug rule reinstated

Fri, 05 Dec 2003 05:34:00 +0000

The Pediatric Research Equity Act of 2003, which requires drug companies to test their products for use in children, has passed the House of Representatives and Senate overwhelmingly and is expected to be signed into law.

The legislation restores the protections of the Food and Drug Administration’s 1998 Pediatric Rule, which a federal district court invalidated in October 2002.

“This law will finally guarantee children the same access to safe and effective medicines that we demand for ourselves as adults,” said Mark Isaac, vice president of the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF).

About three-quarters of drugs used by children have not been tested for their use despite the fact that their small bodies metabolize drugs differently than adults, according to the foundation. In some cases, children have died or been seriously injured after taking drugs that were safe for adults but not tested specifically for use in children. Children are often overdosed or underdosed, resulting in drug resistance, adverse side effects, longer illnesses, and higher costs to the health care system.

The Pediatric Research Equity Act requires manufacturers to test the safety and dosing of all new medicines and some already marketed medicines for children. It will also ensure that drugs are available in forms young children can readily use, such as liquids and chewable tablets.

While applauding Congress for passing this legislation, the foundation continues to oppose the “sunset” clause in the bill, which allows its fundamental safeguards to expire in four years.

For more information on EGPAF, go to their website (www.pedaids.org).

The author can be reached at crummel@pww.org.

National Clips

Fri, 05 Dec 2003 04:17:00 +0000

CINCINNATI: Police beat Black man to death

Nathaniel Jones, 41, father of two, died Nov. 30 after six Cincinnati police officers repeatedly pummeled him with metal batons. Jones was unarmed.

Jones was the 15th Black man to be killed by Cincinnati police since 1995. This incident came only two and half years after African Americans rose up in protest when police shot and killed another unarmed Black man, Roger Owensby Jr.

In a statement, Cincinnati Police Captain Vincent Demasi said that after viewing a videotape, “(the tape) shows us our officers were acting within their training.”

NAACP President Calvert Smith, who also saw the tape, said, “If proper procedure means that you can use that kind of force to clobber people who are clearly disarmed, there is something wrong.” The NAACP and the Citizen Complaint Authority, established by the state, is looking into the death, as is the federal Justice Department.

EUTAW, Ala.: Ban the death penalty

By a unanimous vote, the Eutaw City Council became the 100th U.S. municipality and the 14th in Alabama, including Birmingham, to enact a resolution calling for a halt in state executions.

Esther Brown, 70, is a retired psychiatric social worker who spearheads the anti-death penalty movement in Alabama, Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty. She has criss-crossed the state speaking and circulating a newsletter, written mostly by death row inmates. “I think people are more aware of it in Alabama than there were a year ago, she said. “I look at it as education. People are hearing things that otherwise they wouldn’t hear.”

Alabama’s death row population has doubled in the last decade to 190 people. Another 300 face capital murder charges.

State Sen. Hank Sanders (D-Selma) will introduce a bill in the 2004 session of the Alabama Legislature declaring a moratorium on the death penalty.

ST. LOUIS: State-run health insurance touted

The Missouri Foundation for Health released a study Dec. 2 which concluded that a state-run health care insurance system would provide better care for the state residents and cost dramatically less.

The foundation was created in 2000 when Blue Cross and Blue Shield became for-profit companies. Its mission is to provide affordable health care for all. It has $1 billion in assets.

The study found that by moving to a state-run, instead of the current private insurance company, profit-driven system, would save $3 billion in administrative costs. Under the current private system, health care in Missouri costs $29.4 billion per year, and over 570,000 Missourians have no health care insurance.

The study proposes a payroll tax, like Social Security, to replace private insurance company premiums.

“We could cover everybody for a little less than we’re spending now,” said foundation president and former University of St. Louis Director Dr. James R. Kimmey.

DENVER: Gerrymandering ruled illegal

Colorado Republicans tried to do a “Texas” and re-draw the state’s congressional districts to create a Republican dynasty in the U.S. House of Representatives, but the state’s Supreme Court rejected the new maps Dec. 1. Under the ruling, Colorado’s seven congressional districts will remain as they were in 2002.

“We are back to the old maps,” said Tom Downe, attorney for the Colorado Democratic Party. “This is a blow to the Republicans nationally.” The White House orchestrated the Colorado effort, just as they did in Texas, according to Downe.

Republicans hold five of the seven congressional seats, but using the original maps, Democrats are optimistic that they can pick up two, bringing their total to four, in 2004.

The National Republican Congressional Committee has a case pending in federal court which would, if successful, result in new congressional maps.

National Clips are compiled by Denise Winebrenner Edwards (dwinebr696@aol.com). Julia Lutsky and Phyllis Wetherby contributed to this week’s clips.

White House blasted for war on voting rights

Fri, 05 Dec 2003 04:02:00 +0000

WASHINGTON – The Bush administration is waging war on democracy. That was the message from speakers at a Nov. 22-23 conference on voting rights here. To protect ballot rights and other democratic freedoms, many participants said, it is vital to remove Bush from office in the 2004 elections.

The conference, titled “Claim Democracy: Securing, Enhancing, and Exercising the Power of the Right to Vote,” was sponsored by 60 national organizations including the Center for Voting and Democracy, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, National Organization for Women, Common Cause, and the League of Women Voters.

The immediacy of the danger was brought home by Craig Holman, legislative representative of Public Citizen. He noted that two days earlier, House Administration Committee chair Robert Ney (R-Ohio) threatened to subpoena leaders of the AFL-CIO-backed Voices for Working Families, Partnership for America’s Families, America Coming Together, America Votes, and the Democratic Senate Majority Fund. All six groups refused to testify voluntarily at a congressional hearing they denounced as a witch-hunt.

Republicans have no objections to Bush raising $200 million to buy a second term, but they go ballistic when pro-labor organizations scrape together a fraction of Bush’s war chest to oppose the Republican right, Holman said.

“This has all the earmarks of an inquisition,” he said. “It is really very intimidating.”

The backdrop for the conference was the Bush-Cheney theft of the 2000 election when tens of thousands of votes were stolen through purging of mostly African American and Latino voters from election rolls and the Supreme Court’s termination of the vote count in Florida.

Ron Daniels, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, told the crowd the CCR has launched an internet petition to Congress demanding that Attorney General John Ashcroft be removed as the main culprit in the war on democracy. “We really need a regime change in 2004,” Daniels said. “You can debate about differences between the Democrats and the Republicans but there are moments in history that are so extraordinarily important, we have to do what is tactically necessary. … The differences are incremental but they are not inconsequential. They matter in people’s lives. … We have to help people become part of a movement to rescue democracy.”

Rep. Garnet Coleman, a member of the Texas State Legislature, drew a strong ovation as he described how he and 51 colleagues fled to Ardmore, Okla., last spring to block House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s off-year redistricting scam to add eight Republicans to his House majority in Washington. “What became clear was that this was a coup,” Coleman charged. “They sent Homeland Security after us. DeLay was using the people’s house, the people’s legislature, to take away our representation.” DeLay ultimately succeeded, but Coleman told the World that Black and Hispanic legislators are challenging the new districts as a brazen violation of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Many of the sponsoring groups advocate a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to vote, public financing of elections, instant runoffs, proportional representation, and Election Day registration. None of these will see the light of day as long as the ultra-right GOP controls all three branches of government.

Greg Moore, executive director of the NAACP National Voter Fund, said, “We will be focusing a tremendous amount of our effort to get out the vote in 2004. We have no intention of letting the 2000 election happen again.”

Project Vote, a group affiliated with ACORN, is demanding that state officials vigorously implement the “Motor Voter” law that permits motorists to register to vote when they renew their drivers licenses, said Joanne Breen Wright, deputy director of the group.

National Organization for Women President Kim Gandy said, “Wal-Mart waged a war against overtime (which they won when opposition in Congress collapsed). … Clear Channel has taken over our airwaves. And in the name of patriotism, we are losing the last vestiges of democracy.” The struggle to regain political clout, she said, “begins where it has to begin: At the ballot box.”

NOW views the “March for Women’s Lives” in Washington next April 25 as an important mobilizer for the election campaign, Gandy told the World. “We intend to make sure there is a lot of activism coming out of that march – that people are inspired to get involved in the 2004 elections.”

The author can be reached at greenerpastures21212@yahoo.com.

Help fuel reportage from the streets

Fri, 05 Dec 2003 03:53:00 +0000

Dear readers,

We are entering the final weeks of our Fund Drive, even as we deepen our links with the mounting struggles of working people from coast to coast.

For example, in the next several editions of the PWW/NM you will read still more about the Free Trade Area of the Americas meetings in Miami. That coverage comes firsthand from our reporters and readers. If you were there, you felt the camaraderie and exhilaration of being with the people in the streets calling for fair trade, not “free trade.”

But if your only source of info was the corporate media, then you either saw the Miami police spin about so-called “violent protesters,” or you saw nothing at all – a news blackout about the government attacks on democratic rights of free speech and freedom of assembly.

Several PWW/Mundo reporters were on the scene, giving a firsthand account of the issues, the righteous struggle for economic justice, democracy and the truth about how Miami became a “police state.” While the corporate media was embedded with the police, reporters wearing gas masks and helmets, the PWW was embedded with the trade unionists, students, environmentalists, peace and faith-based activists.

While we were in Miami we also accomplished the following:

• Co-sponsored a forum with the Communist Party USA on “A Socialist Vision of the Americas” with speakers from Canada, Venezuela and the U.S. Over 50 people attended, including reporters from the Miami media.

• Distributed 9,000-10,000 copies of the PWW/Mundo. It’s hard to get a precise count because the police riot and attacks disrupted the whole freedom of assembly, freedom of speech “thing.”

• Obtained eyewitness accounts and reports of the FTAA protests and police repression and reported them as quickly and as accurately as possible to you, our valued readers.

That’s why we need to complete our Fund Drive. We need you to help us make this fighting, working-class newspaper even better and more widely read.

The People’s Weekly World/Nuestro Mundo Fund Drive runs from Sept. 1-Dec. 15.

Donate online at www.pww.org or call (212) 924-2523, ext. 363, for credit card donations over the phone. Checks or money orders payable to Long View Publishing Co. can be sent to 235 W. 23rd St. New York, NY 10011.

In peace and struggle,

Terrie Albano, Editor

P.S. Our readers have held several successful events. Banquets in Northern California and Illinois raised over $6,000 each; a luncheon in New York featuring Tim Wheeler, former editor and now Washington correspondent, also raised over $6,000; and Doug Allan, a Canadian health care coalition organizer and expert, spoke in three cities helping to raise several thousand dollars. But we can’t stop there. We still need your donations to make our goal of $200,000.

Cities and states face brutal cutbacks

Fri, 05 Dec 2003 03:34:00 +0000

BALTIMORE – In what could be called a “Thanksgiving massacre,” public school officials here handed out pink slips to 710 Baltimore City Public School (BCPS) employees. At least 1,000 are expected to have lost their jobs by January.

Coming just two days before the holiday season began, the layoffs are aimed at reducing a $52 million budget deficit in the school system, which in 1997 was placed under state control due to falling reading and math test scores.

Cities and states throughout the nation are facing similar deficits, to the tune of a combined total of $150 billion, thanks to Bush’s tax cuts for the rich, his war policy, and the economic recession. A similar budget shortfall in Cleveland, for example, has put 300 firefighter and police jobs on the chopping block. Chicago plans to lay off 1,000 city workers for similar reasons. Big cuts will California after Jan. 1.

Staff at Baltimore School Board headquarters have been slashed by 50 percent, or 298 fulltime positions. The department that oversees school properties and facilities was eliminated with all six employees terminated.

So far, 70 classroom teachers and 13 assistant principals have been terminated. BCPS CEO Bonnie S. Copeland warned that more school workers may be laid off to get the budget in balance.

There was rising anger and many tears among the laid-off workers. Among those handed a pink slip was Joyce P. Wheeler, with 34 years in the schools, who as the city’s only elementary science curriculum specialist helped organize science staff training for thousands of teachers. The efforts are paying off as student test scores have risen dramatically.

“The budget is being balanced on the backs of hardworking people who did not create this crisis,” she wrote in a letter published by the Baltimore Sun. “Eliminating our jobs will not cut fat. It will cut muscle, bone and brain. … Maryland’s fiscal crisis is the price our state pays for war in Iraq and billions in tax cuts for the rich.”

Students at Midtown Academy, a public school, reacted to the crisis by marching in a picket line outside School Board headquarters with a giant banner that proclaimed, “We build schools in Baghdad. Why not in Baltimore?”

Chris Maher, a staff specialist in public education for Advocates for Children and Youth, told the World the Maryland Constitution requires a “thorough and efficient education” for every child. The Thornton Commission established by the Maryland General Assembly in 1997 found that $1.3 billion annually is needed to close the gap for the state’s poor and working-class children, including $250 million more for Baltimore. “If we were getting that money we would be looking at a $200 million surplus rather than a $52 million deficit,” he said. ACY and a broad coalition are demanding full funding of Thornton state aid to education.

The American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees Local 44, which represents school custodians, organized a “Save Baltimore Schools” fax and e-mail petition campaign to Copeland, protesting the termination of several dozen janitors.

“The actions you are taking – laying off essential workers – will threaten the health, safety and education of the children of Baltimore,” the petition states.

Local 44 President Glenard S. Middleton Sr. charged that millions could be saved by terminating outside contractors. “At the very meeting layoffs were announced, contracts were still being made with private, for-profit companies,” he said.

As the city reeled from the school layoffs, Mayor Martin O’Malley and Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. flew to Detroit to plead with General Motors not to close an assembly plant here, which would destroy another 1,100 jobs.

Kalman Hettleman, a former Baltimore School Board member, wrote in a Baltimore Sun op-ed that Baltimore schools have been hit by “the educational equivalent of a weapon of mass destruction. ... The fallout from this bombshell will be far and wide and deep.”

Hettleman told the World that chronic under-funding has meant severe staff shortages both in administration and the number of classroom instructors. Full funding of the Thornton program would go a long way to close the gap, he said.

Hettleman called Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act “a monstrous unfunded mandate,” with school systems facing termination of all federal aid if students fail to pass rigid achievement tests.

The community group, ACORN, has filed a class action lawsuit seeking an injunction to halt the layoffs. ACORN organizer Mitchell Klein told the World, “Every kid in this city needs a quality education. This layoff is just the latest attack on our schools.” He predicted that Gov. Ehrlich, a right-wing Republican, will seize on the deficit and then “declare a crisis and privatize management of the schools in Baltimore.”

ACORN is also mobilizing for a mass demonstration at the School Board on North Avenue for Dec. 9 at 4:30 p.m.

During an ACORN protest meeting, Wendy Foy, who has a son enrolled at Walbrook High School, pointed out that Maryland has spent millions to build a brand new juvenile detention center in downtown Baltimore. “If they can find the money to put kids in jail, they can find money to educate them to keep them out of jail,” Foy said.

The author can be reached at greenerpastures21212@yahoo.com.