Lawmakers propose stronger plant closing notification law
WASHINGTON –(Workday Minnesota) Saying the nation’s 21-year-old plant closing law needs to be widened and toughened to account for changes in today’s economy, a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced legislation in late June to do so. The “Forewarn Act,” by Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller, D-Calif., Rep. John McHugh, R-N.Y., and others, would extend the present plant closing law to cover mass layoffs or shutdowns affecting 25 workers or more, not 50. The present law covers only 24% of companies.
Texas cities grapple with anti-gay bias among police
Just weeks after a police raid on a gay club in one Texas city left a patron with life-threatening brain injuries, another Texas city is embroiled in controversy after gay men were kicked out of a restaurant – and local police took the restaurant's side.
Could NL break ALs winning streak at All-Star game?
Baseball fans nationwide are gearing up to watch their hometown bat-sluggers and small-ball players take the field tonight during the 80th Major League Baseball All-Star game.
The status of immigration reform today
Immigration reform of some sort is underway, but it is running a zigzag course of small positive moves and other very negative ones. Labor and immigrants’ rights organizations are asking that grassroots activism and pressure be massively increased for a reform that provides justice to immigrant workers.
Mass transit can ease Michigan woes, group says
DEARBORN, Mich. — Detroit wasn’t always singularly known as the Motor City. Once it was also known as a city that had an extensive streetcar system where people had a choice of how they “motored” around.
Senators praise Sotomayors empathy for poor, voiceless
WASHINGTON — With Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor sitting in the witness chair, Democratic senators praised her wide-ranging judicial experience and her empathy for working people and the oppressed.
Minority unemployment debated in NY mayor's race
William, an African American in his twenties from Brooklyn, works the trains. He goes car to car, selling candy and hustling money through gambling. While most New Yorkers are familiar with street hustlers who bet that you can’t beat them in blackjack, William, or Billy, does it differently. He wagers that you can’t outsmart him in biology, physics, mathematics or literature.
Investigate Bush administration's domestic spying, torture
Civil liberties organizations are demanding a federal investigation into a newly disclosed, far-reaching secret domestic spying program created and controlled by top Bush administration, as revealed last week by new federal report on the country's major spy agencies. According to that report, which was authored jointly by the inspectors general of several federal departments, the Bush administration politicized terrorist threat assessments and used leads unrelated to terrorist threats to justify the continuation of the program.
Racial gap widens among New Yorks unemployed
According to new studies, unemployment among African Americans in New York City continues to increase at a higher pace than for whites, and the gap appears to be widening at an accelerating speed, says The New York Times. Job losses in the city continues to show a wider racial gap.
COMMENTARY: Stop the presses! The CIA lied
Oh my God! Stop the presses! Call out the fire brigade! Send in the Marines! Batten down the hatches! Boil some water! They have discovered that the CIA has lied to Congress!
