National Clips
WASHINGTON: House chips away at Patriot Act; DES MOINES, Iowa: State restores voting rights to ex-offenders; CHICAGO: Defend the right to vote; LEXINGTON, Ky.: Save the mountains
Workers describe roadblocks to getting union
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — A congressional forum here on reforming the labor laws that govern union organizing drives spotlighted the obstacles employers put in the way of workers seeking to join a union.
Farmers know bull when they hear it
Conventional wisdom says a conference of 1,400 members of the Future Farmers of America (FAA) at Penn State University in rural State College would be a safe bet for President Bush to sell his plan to privatize Social Security.
Iraqis intent on ending occupation, rebuilding country
Violence in Iraq has escalated sharply since a new government was named in early May, with an average of 30 Iraqi civilians killed every day. Joblessness, power cuts and lack of sanitation and health care remain at crisis levels and in some areas have worsened, with cholera and tuberculosis on the rise.
Racist found guilty in 1964 Mississippi killings
On June 21 a jury of nine whites and three Blacks in Philadelphia, Miss., convicted octogenarian and former Ku Klux Klan leader Edgar Ray Killen of manslaughter, exactly 41 years after the triple slaying of young civil rights workers James Earl Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner. click here for Spanish text
Its a great time to be a Communist
CHICAGO — The Communist Party USA returns to its birthplace this week as 500 labor, peace, civil rights and community activists, and international guests converge here for the party’s 28th national convention, July 1-3.
Iraqi labor leaders welcomed across U.S.
Six Iraqi union leaders touring the U.S. this week called for an end to the U.S. occupation and expressed hope that American workers would support their efforts to protect Iraqi workers’ rights and defeat privatization. U.S. Labor Against the War sponsored the 17-day, 25-city tour by the representatives of three major labor organizations in Iraq. click here for Spanish text
From Congress to union halls: Demand widens: Exit Iraq!
WASHINGTON — “Let Conyers in!” the crowd chanted at the White House gate the evening of June 16. Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) and a dozen other lawmakers had come to deliver petitions signed by 566,000 people demanding that President George W. Bush answer for the so-called Downing Street Memo proving that he “fixed” intelligence to justify war on Iraq.
