People Before Profit blog

On Gaza and the Palestinian situation

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 09:34:00 +0000

Statement issued by the Palestinian People’s Party, June 17, 2007

Our Palestinian people, wherever they are, have been shocked by the bloody developments and events witnessed by the Gaza region and the takeover of authority by armed militias, along with acts of killing, assassination, theft and plunder, especially the ransacking of presidential and official offices and the homes of large numbers of leaders of the Fatah movement and innocent civilians, as well as arbitrary summary “trials” that led to death sentences. This coup has also dealt a heavy blow to the Palestinian national project, and threatens the unity of the homeland and its social fabric.

The Palestinian People’s Party, from a position of national responsibility and concern for the future and interests of our people and their legitimate national demands, calls upon the leadership of the Hamas movement to rescind this policy and refrain from imposing facts on the ground with the force of arms, which threatens our people’s steadfastness and their existence on their land.

The People’s Party warns against the transfer of the state of chaos and infighting to the West Bank, and calls for refraining from reacting with vengeful acts and taking the law into one’s hand. It also calls for an immediate halt to the attacks targeting figures from the Hamas movement, as well as an end to the ransacking of public and private properties and institutions, especially the municipalities, local councils, etc.

Our party has considered national unity and national consensus to be the proper way to strengthen our people’s struggle and to enable them to focus attention on the principal task of resisting the occupation. Based on this, the Party expressed its support for the Mecca Agreement and took part in the Unity Government to spare our people the dangers of infighting and armed confrontation, which did happen despite this.

Regardless of the intensity of armed conflict and the level of control through military might, the solution at the end can only be a political solution, and by returning to the language of dialogue and understanding that is based on respecting the legitimacy of the National Authority, its supremacy, laws and institutions, and respecting the security of the homeland and the citizen, away from anarchy, chaos of armed violence and violation of the law.

Accordingly, the Palestinian People’s Party stresses the following:

• Any Palestinian government must be based on the rule of the Basic Law, and strive to implement it, as an essential guarantee for the stability of the Palestinian political system.

• Restoring sovereignty to the official institutions and putting an end to the state of coup in Gaza.

• Not to transfer the state of conflict to the Palestinian West Bank, and to enact the rule of law in it, put an end to the state of anarchy and lawlessness, and to control the security situation.

• To prepare the climate for carrying out new presidential and legislative elections on the basis of the full proportional system.

• The independence of Palestinian national decision-making, away from regional and external influences.

• To call upon our people, their forces and institutions, to come together in a broad national front, to safeguard the national project for liberation, independence and democracy, and not to comply with any authorities and measures that employ force and lack legitimacy and legality.

• To call upon the members of the Legislative Council to fulfil their role in compliance with the pledge they had undertaken to protect the law and defend the interests of the homeland and the people.

• To call upon the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its Central Council to begin immediately practical steps in order to activate and develop the PLO so that it could take up its real role as the representative and authority for our people wherever they exist. We see this important step, which has been long overdue, as the proper approach to tackling all the problems of our steadfast people.

U.S. Social Forum kicks off in Atlanta

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 08:52:00 +0000

ATLANTA — Thousands of people marched through the streets here June 27 as the U.S. Social Forum, billed as one of the largest gatherings of progressive groups and activists, kicked off. The march, complete with stilt walkers, giant-headed puppets, drummers, bikers, and everyone from antiwar activists to anti-computer-waste advocates finding a place in the multiracial throng, started out from the State Capitol.

Chants, whistles and shouts punctuated the air as enthusiastic men, women, and children, young and old, Black, white, Latino and Asian, gay and straight offered their picture of democracy to the world. The march took place peacefully, winding past government buildings, Georgia State University facilities and Marta stations before ending at the Atlanta Civic Center, ground zero for the conference. The conference closes July 1.

Local police, office workers and everyday Atlantans watched as the lively wave of people flowed down boulevards in the “city too busy to hate.”

Conference organizers said Atlanta was a logical and specific choice for the first U.S. Social Forum, modeled after World Social Forums that have grown from 15,000 to more than 150,000 people since the first meeting in Porto Alegre in Brazil in 2001.

Longtime civil rights leader Dr. Joseph Lowery laid a wreath at the tomb of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King. Speaking afterward, organizers of the U.S. Social Forum talked about King’s role and Atlanta’s historic place in the struggle for civil and human rights.

Other activists felt Atlanta was the right place because of the South’s historic struggle for social change and its continued battles against injustice. The wreath-laying ceremony was the first official conference event.

“The South has seen lots of repression and lots of resistance,” said Jerome Scott, a member of the forum’s National Planning Committee. Events will include a variety of trainings, from organizing to anti-racism to media-making, at venues near the Civic Center and hotels.

Part of the forum’s purpose is to inspire greater activism and to challenge U.S. hegemony and corporate dominance nationally and internationally. The gathering is also about collaboration, where activists look for the places where serious issues — like racism, poverty, violence, corporate wrongdoing and environmental abuses — intersect, and places where groups can combine efforts to challenge these problems.

“Another World is Possible, Another U.S. is Necessary” is the conference theme.

In the end, the U.S. Social Forum hopes to inspire less progressive talk and more action. “An interesting thing happens with these social forums around the world,” said Alice Lovelace, a USSF national lead organizer. “You see it in South America, in Africa, in Asia. A wave of change and grassroots political engagement follows.”

Forum organizers hope to see a similar wave of engagement in the home of the world’s greatest democracy.

Richard Muhammad is an independent journalist and founder of Straight Words E-Zine, which can be found at http://straightwords.typepad.com.

A picture says it all

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 08:42:00 +0000

Ken BeSaw saw a need and filled it.

At a rally he attended while visiting Chicago, BeSaw saw that the Illinois bureau of the People’s Weekly World had only a point-and-shoot camera, and decided that his favorite paper, and its readers, deserve better.

He saved up and bought the paper a Nikon digital single-lens reflex camera.

For those of us who have no idea what this means, BeSaw explained the difference. “You actually look through the lens that is taking the photo. You see actually what is in focus, what is out of focus. It gives you a much better rendition of what the final picture will look like. With a point-and-shoot, you’re looking through a window that is above the camera lens.”

Just how much does such a camera cost?

“Let me put it this way,” BeSaw said. “It was one month’s Social Security. When I realized that the Chicago office needed a better camera, I started putting aside money on a monthly basis.”

The paper’s Chicago staff was happy to receive the camera. The photo on the front page of the June 23 edition, which shows Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) speaking at a rally in favor of the Employee Free Choice Act, was taken with the donated camera.

“I studied photography in college,” BeSaw said, “and one thing we learned is that the photograph on the front page of a paper makes a lasting impression. It can determine whether a person sometimes even reads an article, or how well they retain an article. It’s the first thing a person sees.”

BeSaw says he’s seen a marked improvement in the quality of the PWW’s photographs over the past few years. “We have some excellent photographers. Our readers are starting to take an active role,” he said, urging more readers to send in more of their own photographs.

The local PWW Bureaus across the country can use new, or good used, digital cameras, BeSaw said, suggesting that readers help out in that regard.

“What Ken has been doing is educating all of us on the importance of photojournalism,” said PWW editor Teresa Albano. “‘Make the pictures bigger,’ he tells us. ‘Get more sports photos in,’ he urges. He’s right. A photo has an emotional impact. And now with this generous donation Ken’s given us a better tool to do that.”

BeSaw attended college on a vocational education grant, but had to drop out when the grant was taken away. BeSaw, who has suffered from epilepsy, said, “They cancelled the grant, saying it would be impossible for me to get a job in photography, even though I was an A and B student.”

BeSaw is an excellent photographer with astute political framing skills for his subjects. He has drafted a short handbook on taking photos for the People’s Weekly World. E-mailfor a copy.

If you would like to make a donation of a digital camera, please call Teresa Albano at (773) 446-9920, ext. 201, or e-mail talbano @pww.org.

dmargolis @pww.org

Bald eagle comes back

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 08:39:00 +0000

In what is likely to be hailed as one of the greatest conservation success stories of the last 50 years, sources say the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is poised to finalize the delisting of the bald eagle from “threatened” status under the Endangered Species Act.

Bald eagles — the fierce-eyed, white-headed national symbol — are obviously the star of the success story. While they’ve always been common in Alaska and nonexistent in Hawaii, they were on the verge of being wiped out of the lower 48 states in mid-century, harassed by hunters and their reproductive capabilities hobbled by DDT poisoning.

It’s also a success story for the Endangered Species Act. This legislation, created in 1972, offers a host of protective measures to both find what’s wrong with a species facing extinction, then try to repair that damage. Because of the act, eagles, peregrine falcons, brown pelicans, Yellowstone National Park’s grizzly bear population, and the wolves in the Great Lakes region have all been pulled back from disappearing.

“It shows that the Endangered Species act works, if funded properly, and given time,” said Michael Bean from the Environmental Defense.

Two important controversies are brewing surrounding this story however. First will be managing the bird’s recovery nationwide under the Bald Eagle Protection Act of 1940 and the patchwork of state laws, and second will be the Bush administration’s widely rumored proposal to gut the ESA.

Kieran Suckling of the Center for Biological Diversity conservation group said this victory comes at a price — the loss of eagle habitat protection.

The bird’s nesting grounds were protected as long as the bald eagle was considered a “threatened” species. But the less restrictive eagle protection act does not put eagle habitats off-limits.

Suckling said he worries that without habitat protection, developers will move into critical bald eagle areas, push the birds out and reduce their numbers.

“There is big money to be made in cutting down and developing bald eagle habitat,” he said.

The Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act prohibits anyone without a permit from “taking” bald eagles, including their parts, nests and eggs. Its definition of “take” includes: pursuit, shooting, shooting at, poisoning, wounding, killing, capturing, trapping, collecting, molesting and disturbing.

“For the most part, it’s a shooting and hunting statute,” said Nicholas Throckmorton of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“It does talk a little about nesting and the tree that eagles are in, but it’s not intended to protect habitat or ecosystems.”

Sources include CNN.com, Danbury News Times, and National Audubon Society.

Cuban Adjustment Act: still deadly 40 years later

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 08:38:00 +0000

For decades the U.S. has used the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act to manipulate Cuban emigration for counterrevolutionary purposes. Its provision that Cubans arriving on U.S. soil gain permanent residency after a year has lured thousands to death by drowning as they sought to cross the shark-infested Florida Straits. They end up receiving work permits and Social Security numbers and need not provide affidavits of support.

Said British activist Geoff Bottoms, “If you arrive in a boat from Haiti you will be turned back. If you try to scale the fence on the border with Mexico, you will be thrown back. But if you are a Cuban arriving in a dinghy or on a raft, the red carpet is rolled out.”

That goes for Luis Posada, a self-confessed terrorist. During a May 10 radio broadcast, a Miami talk show host congratulated Posada’s lawyer on the assassin’s release from jail, noting, “They have withdrawn all charges, and granted Luis the right to stay in this country, based on the Cuban Adjustment Act.”

Writer Tadeo Sevilla has identified 61 airplane hijackers over 48 years. Most headed to Florida, killing and maiming en route. Prosecutions in Florida have been inconsistent and deportation rare.

Analysts say the U.S. has long manipulated Cuban emigration to further its own ends. The media and right-wing Cuban Americans portray irregular migrants as political refugees, escapees from “communist tyranny.” The Cuban Adjustment Act (CAA) “escape valve” lets Washington interfere in Cuba’s internal affairs.

After 1959 the United States waived visa requirements for counterrevolutionaries and facilitated the 1960-62 Peter Pan exodus of 14,000 Cuban children to Florida. By 1965, intensified economic sanctions and the disappearance of air service to the island had all but stalled emigration.

An expanded Cuban community in Florida was ready to support new arrivals. In 1965, Washington created an ad hoc air transport service for emigrants wanting to join families in the U.S. and passed the CAA.

Coping with new realities on both sides, the two countries reached bilateral agreements on legalized migration that would co-exist with the CAA. In 1980, over 125,000 new immigrants arrived during the so-called Mariel exodus. Most were poor, Afro-Cuban and intent upon maintaining ties with Cuba.

Changed demographics and burgeoning anti-immigrant sentiment within the United States impelled the Reagan administration to enter into the Migratory Accords of 1984. Washington agreed to accept up to 20,000 immigrants annually. But under a rigid selection process, only 11,222 Cuban applicants were admitted between 1985 and 1994.

The rejection rate doubled between 1990 and 1994. Meanwhile 82,500 boat people arrived, 60,000 of them between 1991 and 1994, all beneficiaries of the CAA.

The “special period,” Cuba’s greatest period of hardship after the fall of the USSR and its other key trading partners, reached its most acute stage in 1994. Cuban frustration over shortages, hardships and distance from families in the United States mounted as 39,500 new immigrants arrived in Florida during the first nine months of that year.

Cuban authorities lifted restrictions on irregular departures on Aug. 12, 1994. The U.S. Coast Guard picked up 30,000 migrants at sea, delivering them to the U.S. base at Guantanamo or to Panama, in effect short-circuiting the CAA.

The two nations later that year reached new bilateral migratory agreements. Washington promised to accept a minimum of 20,000 Cuban immigrants from a pool selected in Cuba by lottery. The Coast Guard began to return boat people apprehended at sea to Cuba, the numbers rising from 1,619 in 1999 to 2,293 in 2006.

Washington, however, issued less than 1,200 visas annually in 2000-2005. In Florida, the population of legal permanent residents grew by 78,696 between 2000 and 2004, and by 36,261 nationwide in 2005.

Overwhelmingly, Cubans migrate to the U.S. under the CAA. And despite everything they are allowed to stay: for example, immigration officials have not acted against the 29,079 Cuban residents seen as deportable for criminal behavior.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) gave Congress an opportunity to repeal the CAA with a bill he introduced in July 2006, but the law remains in place.

Deaths at sea continue. Human smuggling grows. Florida boat owners take in $10,000-15,000 per head for shipments of 10 to 30 humans from Cuba to Florida. In a new twist they are taking Cubans to Mexico — 9,000 last year — enabling them to cross the Texas border.

atwhit @megalink.net

Mighty Heart is a mighty film

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 08:34:00 +0000

MovieREVIEW

A Mighty Heart

Directed by Michael Winterbottom

Paramount Vantage, 2007

100 minutes, rated R

“A Mighty Heart” is a story about people just trying to get from point A to point B against the backdrop of terrorist incidents and the Bush administration’s response to them.

The film balances on the tipping point of journalist Mariane Pearl (Angelina Jolie), spouse of veteran Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl (Dan Futterman), as she confronts a deep personal crisis.

Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and brutally murdered in Karachi, Pakistan, in 2002. At the time of the incident, Mariane, a professional in her own right, was pregnant with their son Adam.

Sounds like sentimental propaganda for the “war on terrorism”? See the film and we will argue.

Mariane is of Cuban-French ancestry and Daniel is Jewish American. Both are successful. Both are full of life. Both are sensitive to their relationship, but not absorbed in themselves.

In the days following 9/11 and the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, as thousands of journalists descended on the region and then left, the Pearls stayed behind. Southwest Asia is complicated — far more than a sound bite — and the Pearls remained to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

The film teases the audience with the complexity of the setting, from the superficial “Gee, I didn’t know Karachi looked like that” to “Whoa, I didn’t know India-Pakistan politics even played a role … this is deep.”

The main players — the military-intelligence police — move into the Pearl home and create a command center to track down the kidnappers. But in frame after frame the camera focuses on the son of the housekeeper, who is never introduced. The child plays and helps his mother at her work, and serves as a counterbalance to the unfolding horror.

This story is not spin. Is the Karachi police captain really just working all angles to find Daniel Pearl, or is he just following orders on an internationally charged case, a case that gets the attention of then Secretary of State Colin Powell? What is the role of the CIA? There’s no smoking gun here, but no medals awarded either.

At the end of the film, a riveted audience left the theater with more questions than answers and more compassion than hard-and-fast conclusions.

“A Mighty Heart” is not a summer folly or a relaxing escape. It is glimpse into reality as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — and all the rhetoric and bombast about the “war on terrorism” — drags on, and on and on.

dwinebr696 @aol.com

Sicko a powerful mix of humor, pathos

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 08:23:00 +0000

Michael Moore, the activist author and filmmaker, has given every union member in the United States a great tool of advocacy for our health care agenda with his new movie, “Sicko.” We should return that favor by turning out to see it in big numbers.

With a compelling combination of humor and pathos, “Sicko” documents how medical insurance companies act like cancer on this country’s health care system. This is what we want to eliminate with a national health care system.

Moore begins the film by subjecting his viewers to excruciatingly painful insurance system failure scenes. They include an injured worker suturing up his own lacerated knee because he is one of the 47 million Americans without health insurance; a couple moving into a spare room in their daughter’s home after medical insurance co-payments for the husband’s three heart attacks and the wife’s cancer forced them into bankruptcy, the most common cause for personal bankruptcy today; and a young woman recounting the death of her 18-month-old baby because an ambulance took the critically ill girl to a hospital that refused to treat her because her insurance would not pay for services there.

Those disquieting scenes are thankfully interspersed with Moore’s often-comical antics in four countries with national health care: Canada, Britain, France and Cuba.

In Canada, he tools around in a golf cart with a conservative who endorses the country’s national system of medicine and describes its creator, Tommy C. Douglas, as a Canadian hero, akin to George Washington or Abe Lincoln.

How could a conservative support socialized medicine? Moore asks the man. The conservative says it’s because not everyone can afford the medical services they need. The conservative, like Moore and most of us, recognizes that health care is a human right, not some kind of privilege bestowed only on the rich or the lucky.

Moore reports that his research shows that Canadian, British and French citizens live longer, healthier lives than Americans, and their infants are more likely to survive. The overhead costs for these health care systems are far less than America’s. In fact, the overhead for the one already national system in America, Medicare, is 3 percent. It’s 30 percent for the insurance system. Apparently, Moore says, the government can do something right.

Moore ends up in Cuba after trying to take some American patients, including two 9/11 first responders who suffered lung injuries, to Guantanamo Bay to get some of that free health care America is dispensing to accused al-Qaeda war criminals imprisoned there.

After being refused entrance to the American portion of the island, Moore takes his patients to a Cuban hospital, which provides free treatment to the foreigners under the same procedures and circumstances that it gives care to Cuban citizens. The idea, again, is that medical treatment is a right of all humans, regardless of nationality or religion or politics.

A Cuban firehouse conducted a ceremony to honor the first responders before they left because, the firemen said, they were all brothers and sisters. The Cubans said they wished they could have aided with the rescue on 9/11.

This kind of solidarity is essential for us to win a better health care system. The film advocates radical surgery on the American system to excise the insurance companies, which profit by denying coverage, treatments and pharmaceuticals, and by rescinding payments once made.

Michael Moore argues in “Sicko” that this is not representative of American behavior. We show solidarity in crises and disasters. We bring food, build houses, give blood and clothes.

We have the right, the power and the opportunity to deliberately plan and build a health care system that would be fair and equitable and cover everyone as a human right.

We all know from our bargaining experiences how crucial it is to get health care off the table. That would eliminate much of the contentiousness in negotiations and make it much easier for American companies to compete in the global economy against nations that already provide national health care, including all of those in Western industrialized countries.

Go see the movie. Take your family and friends and neighbors. And take action outside the theatre, too. Stand in solidarity with your union brothers and sisters and Michael Moore to cure our Sicko health care system.

Leo W. Gerard is president of the United Steelworkers union. This is slightly abridged from an article that originally appeared at .

Sicko Directed by Michael Moore Lionsgate, 2007 113 minutes, PG-13

cartoon: Fourth Branch

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 06:37:00 +0000

Harry Potter goes to the library

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 05:46:00 +0000

CHICAGO — Harry Potter fans, eagerly awaiting the release of the seventh and final book by J.K. Rowling, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” got a chance to make a 20-second video about their love for all things Potter at three Chicago public libraries.

The Knight Bus, a purple, triple-decker bus featured in the Potter series, is making a U.S. library tour. Sponsored by the U.S. publisher of the Harry Potter books, Scholastic, the Knight Bus is stopping at public libraries from coast to coast.

Asked why the Knight Bus is going to libraries instead of bookstores, Paul Niemi, a Scholastic spokesperson, said, “We have an amazing relationship with librarians and libraries. We love libraries and putting books in kids’ hands.”

Librarians are welcoming the Knight Bus tour. Mary Jo Godziela, Sulzer Regional Library director, said every Harry Potter book is “eagerly awaited by children of all ages.” Yes, that means adults too, she said.

Harry Potter fans are all guessing about the seventh book’s outcome, pondering such topics as: will Harry live, is Snape really with Voldemort and other mind-bending questions.

“Hopefully no one dies, except Voldemort,” said Aidan Bachtell, 15, a fan since reading the first book some eight years ago.

Lauren York, 12, standing in line at Sulzer with her mom and brother, said she hopes Harry doesn’t die and that he “catches” Snape, who she is convinced is a Death Eater.

York said the books are the “best in the world. I can’t wait to read them. They make me happy.”

talbano @pww.org

June 30 THIS WEEK IN LABOR

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 05:44:00 +0000

Labor support grows for single-payer health insurance

Communications Workers of America locals in New York state and Transport Workers Union locals in Florida have endorsed HR 676, single-payer health care legislation introduced by Michigan Rep. John Conyers. One of the Florida locals, TWU Local 561 in Virginia Gardens, is a 900-member group that represents aircraft mechanics at American Airlines. Jorge Rojas, the local vice president, said his union endorsed the bill “because it is the right way to go.”

HR 676 would institute a single-payer health care system in the United States by expanding a greatly improved Medicare system to every resident. The bill would cover every person in the U.S. for all necessary medical care including prescription drugs, hospitalization, surgery, outpatient services, primary and preventive care, emergency services, dental care, mental health services, home health care, physical therapy, rehabilitation (including for substance abuse), vision care, chiropractic services and long-term care. HR 676 ends deductibles and co-payments. It would save billions annually by eliminating the high overhead and profits of the private health insurance industry and HMOs.

HR 676 has 74 co-sponsors in addition to Conyers. The bill has been endorsed by 280 union organizations in 43 states including 77 central labor councils and area labor federations and 19 state AFL-CIOs.

Warning: Popcorn ‘butter’ deemed health hazard

Fourteen Democratic members of Congress have introduced a bill aimed at lessening worker exposure to a deadly chemical used to make butter flavorings.

The chemical, called diacetyl, replicates the flavor of butter in popcorn and other foods.

Diacetyl has caused severe respiratory damage in hundreds of flavor and popcorn factory workers. Unions, lawmakers and occupational health experts have called for putting controls on diacetyl.

Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) proposed the bill last week. She accused the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) of failing to limit worker exposure.

“OSHA has known about this hazard for years and has yet to take the steps necessary to address it,” Woolsey said in a statement. “Since the [Bush] administration has no intention of taking action on its own to protect workers, we will force them to act and hold them accountable on behalf of the workers.”

On April 24, OSHA said it would conduct more inspections of popcorn plants and provide “direction” in controlling diacetyl hazards. It did not, however, write emergency, temporary or permanent rules governing diacetyl.

Occupational health experts consider diacetyl a leading culprit in a rare, irreversible lung disease called bronchiolitis obliterans. People with the disease lose breathing capacity and often must avoid even mildly strenuous activity.

Those in the advanced stages of the disease must carry an oxygen tank or undergo lung transplants.

Introduction of the bill followed an April 24 congressional hearing on the Bush administration’s failure to issue standards. Eric Peoples, a 35-year victim of bronchiolitis obliterans who needs a double lung transplant, testified at the hearing. “I played by the rules. I worked to support my family. This unregulated industry virtually destroyed my life. Don’t let it destroy the lives of others,” Peoples pleaded.

Nursing home workers take to the streets

Midday traffic on Military Road in northwest Washington, D.C., slowed to a crawl June 25 as hundreds of labor activists demonstrated in front of the Ingleside Nursing Home. A purple-clad sea of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) health care activists chanted, marched and danced in the street to demand a contract for 150 Ingleside Nursing Home workers who voted in the union in January 2006.

“I want a union and I want it now,” shouted Christa, an Ingleside worker who joined the rally on her break. Local political leaders — including D.C. Council members Kwame Brown and Ward 4’s Muriel Bowser — joined labor leaders and activists at the demonstration and vowed their support.

“You’re looking at the daughter of a nurse, so I know what you’re fighting for,” said Bowser.

Newly elected SEIU 1199 leader George Gresham said, “If there’s no contract by August 31, Military Road won’t hold us next time,” and Metro Council President Jos Williams promised, “Next time it won’t just be purple; we’ll have all union colors here, because this isn’t just about the workers at Ingleside, it’s about dignity for all workers.”

Trade unionists head to U.S. Social Forum

By bus, plane, van and car, trade unionists from all over the country are attending the first-ever U.S. Social Forum this weekend in Atlanta. Building on the World Social Forums, which have brought together activists from movements across the globe, the trade unionists have joined thousands from every type of struggle for justice who are meeting for five days to share stories and strategies at the U.S. Social Forum. (See story, page 5)

The unions participating include the AFL-CIO, Teamsters, United Food and Commercial Workers, United Steelworkers, Unite Here, Communications Workers, United Electrical Workers, SEIU, teachers, health care workers and many more.

This Week in Labor is compiled by John Wojcik (jwojcik @pww.org).

Cure for summer job blues

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 05:40:00 +0000

“Fewer teens have summer jobs” — St. Cloud (Minn.) Times “Summer bummer: Jobs scarce” — Detroit Free Press “Finding good summer jobs is hard work” — KATV Little Rock “Feds slash city youth jobs program” — AM New York

We see these headlines every year. It’s always been hard for young people to find jobs. In the 1960s, the federal government began a summer jobs program for youth. In 1999, the program provided 500,000 jobs at the cost of $871 million. The next year, the Republican Congress effectively ended the program.

In July 1999, 55 percent of youth aged 16-19 held at least a part-time job. The next year, there were 482,000 fewer jobs — almost the exact number lost from the summer jobs program. Then, the recession hit. Jobs dried up, and they have been slow to return. Last July, teen employment was only 45 percent — a drop of 10 percentage points, or 1.6 million jobs, compared with 1999.

The social cost of doing nothing

A few years ago, a New Haven, Conn., police lieutenant told my block watch that he was trying to find summer jobs for 15 “problem” youth. But with the cuts in funding, he was only able to place five. This year, lack of jobs and youth programs has been cited as a key factor in a rash of shootings involving teenagers.

In 2000, the U.S. Conference of Mayors urged reinstatement of the federal summer jobs program. The mayors said the program cost “returns many times over in reduced welfare dependence, fewer crimes, lower incarceration expenses, and greater workforce productivity.”

The lack of summer jobs casts a long shadow. Summer work is often the first step on a lifetime jobs ladder. Andrew Sum, an economist who studies youth job markets at Northeastern University, explains, “How do you learn [to work]? You spend time in the workplace. Fewer kids are getting serious work experience during their high school years.”

Wanted: 3.2 million summer jobs

In 1988, 64 percent of white teens had summer jobs. The number dropped during the recession of 1990, and again after 1999. But it is likely that the same 64 percent would be working this year, if jobs were readily available.

Many African American and Latino youth live in neighborhoods with few job openings, and face many levels of discrimination in applying for jobs. Given equal opportunity, they would certainly be employed at the same or higher levels as white youth. But opportunities are not equal. In 2006, only 27 percent of African American teens and 37 percent of Latino teens had summer jobs, compared with 50 percent of white teens.

In order to reach 64 percent employment for all youth aged 16-19, 3.2 million additional jobs are needed this summer. African American and Latino youth would have the biggest benefit, more than doubling employment rates. But an additional 1.8 million white teens would also find work.

Broad community benefits

Young people have energy, creativity and talents that should not be wasted. In New Haven’s summer jobs program, kids who start out in routine, entry-level jobs often take on greater responsibilities to match their abilities. In Oakland, Calif., a local initiative is training young people for jobs in “green” industries.

Imagine a federal Youth Jobs Administration (YJA) that would invite every city and state department, high school, national park and nonprofit to prepare a plan to use youth power. A YJA could pay the wages of the teens and their supervisors, and provide funds for overhead, planning and materials. Here are a few ideas:

• Canvass neighborhoods door-to-door to survey community needs and problems, and inform residents of city programs and services.

• Organize community-based cleanups, beautification, block parties, neighborhood watches.

• Serve as counselors for programs for younger kids.

• Work on maintenance, new construction and landscaping at city parks.

• Design and implement web sites and other computer infrastructure for municipal agencies, nonprofits and small businesses.

It would cost about $8 billion to provide a summer job for every teenager who wants one. That’s 3-1/2 weeks of the Iraq war.

It would cost only $4 billion to bring jobs back to their 1998 level. As a community activist in New Haven pointed out, that’s about what Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spends every year spreading fear and breaking up families by arresting, jailing and deporting undocumented workers.

Jobs or war? Jobs or fear? Which would you choose?

economics @cpusa.org

June 30 WORLD NOTES

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 05:19:00 +0000

Nigeria: General strike settled

A general strike that had halted most major economic activity in Nigeria was called off June 24 with labor leaders accepting a government proposal to refrain from raising fuel prices for a year, and to cut in half an earlier price hike that led to the strike.

The strike was called June 20 by the National Labor Congress (NLC) and other labor federations. The unions had accepted government promises to raise public employee pay by 15 percent, reverse tax increases, and reconsider the proposed sales of two refineries, but insisted that gasoline remain at 65 naira (51 cents) per liter instead of the recently imposed 75N price. NLC head Abdulwahed Omar called the price hike a “serious nuisance to the general public.”

Unionists see low-priced fuel as partial compensation for a dearth of public services, according to allAfrica.com. President Umaru Yar’Adua’s government, elected in April amidst vote fraud charges, depends on foreign oil sales for 90 percent of its revenues.

Palestine: Refugees still suffer

On World Refugee Day, June 20, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said 4.4 million Palestinians are still refugees nearly 60 years after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. One-third remain in camps and receive UNRWA services. Israeli hostilities and barriers, violent internal conflicts and an international boycott have recently worsened their conditions, the UN’s IRIN news agency said.

For UNRWA official Filippo Grandi, “Humanitarian access is an immediate problem in Gaza.”

Lebanon hosts 400,000 refugees victimized by legal restrictions and recent fighting in the Nahr al-Bared camp. In Syria, 460,000 Palestinians enjoy access to services and employment equal to that of citizens.

A quarter of the 800,000 Palestinians fleeing the 1948 war were displaced again by Israel’s 1967 war. UNRWA, with a $200 million deficit, has focused assistance on the twice-displaced, and takes credit for a 92.4 percent Palestinian literacy rate, significantly higher than the 67 percent for Middle Easterners elsewhere, and eradication of communicable diseases.

Australia: Military links grow with U.S., Japan

With some 100 protesters nearby, U.S.-Australian joint military exercises began on June 18 off Queensland. Washington contributed 20,000 troops, 10 ships, and 100 aircraft; Canberra 7,500 soldiers, 20 ships and 25 aircraft. We have “the same values and interests,” said a U.S. admiral quoted by the Jerusalem Post.

Thousands more protesters were expected at Shoalwater Bay for June 23 culminating demonstrations.

Australia is considering joining the Japanese-U.S. “regional security” missile defense network. Australia and Japan have already agreed on joint humanitarian and “peacekeeping” missions. Australia, with 2,000 soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, will increase troop levels to 30,500 and plans to spend $42 billion on military procurement.

Canada: Afghanistan competes as uranium supplier

Canada’s role as the world’s major source of uranium took center stage at the 9/11 Truth Conference in Vancouver June 22-23. Speakers pointed out the health risk to Canadians of depleted uranium (DU), the illegal use of DU in military target practice, and its role in causing human disease. They emphasized that under international law, DU, a weapon of mass destruction, is illegal.

Canada was identified as sending 60 percent of its uranium to the United States, with most DU used by the U.S. in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans being Canadian in origin. Afghanistan and Kazakhstan have recently been shown to harbor vast uranium deposits with the latter set to become the world’s top supplier by 2020, according to scoop.co.nz. In the case of Afghanistan, that may explain why the British ambassador there recently called his country’s commitment there “a marathon rather than a sprint — we should be thinking in terms of decades.”

Haiti: Drivers’ strike reflects crisis

Refusing for 48 hours to drive buses, taxis and small trucks, unionized drivers in Haiti began on June 12 what one called a “nationwide strike from the grass roots,” according to Inter Press Service. They were protesting inflated traffic fines, retroactive registration fees and six-fold increases in gasoline prices.

Almost half the drivers’ income goes for fuel. Business has also been hurt by the reduced spending power of the population due to the high gas prices.

Union spokesperson Benissoit Duclos criticized ties between Rene Preval’s government and business supporters of the 2004 coup against President Aristide.

Haiti’s participation in Petro Caribe so far offers little remedy. Under the Venezuela-engineered plan, Haiti was to have received cheap oil and transferred it at cost to oil companies. But two U.S. suppliers have refused to negotiate. So far, the government adheres to international banking and U.S. rules against subsidized fuel sales. The striking drivers have insisted that without subsidies, they cannot operate.

World Notes are compiled by W.T. Whitney Jr. (atwhit @megalink.net)

Separatist scheming imperils Bolivia

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 05:11:00 +0000

Bolivian army commander Freddy Bersatti is worried about “subversive groups” and “abnormal movements.” His worries intensified after a two-day meeting in Santa Cruz of an Autonomous Council following which, on June 18, well-heeled right-wing separatist leaders issued a manifesto promising stepped-up attacks on Bolivia’s socialist government.

Ever since Evo Morales’ accession to the presidency by a 54 percent majority in January 2006, class- and race-based divisions have bogged down Bolivia’s first indigenous-led government in 500 years. Opposition forces centered in the nation’s eastern “half moon” have demanded autonomy for four states, or departments, there — Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando and Tarija. The Autonomous Council met simultaneously in each department.

The Santa Cruz manifesto vowed “to convert a state of emergency into a state of citizen mobilization for organizing civil and democratic resistance.” It demanded that Bolivia’s Constituent Assembly, in session for almost a year, implement a July 2006 national referendum that approved autonomy for the four eastern departments.

The Santa Cruz Civic Committee is the sparkplug of separatist agitation in the East. Leader Branko Marinkovic, a big rancher and president of the local federation of industries, emphasized to reporters the committee’s resolve to take action if the Constituent Assembly fails to approve a new constitution by a two-thirds vote or refuses to honor the referendum vote. Such resolve was the “mandate of our peoples,” he declared, expressed by “popular assemblies” held in the four departments last Dec. 15.

The separatists announced that on July 2 proposed statutes on autonomy would be submitted to people in the four departments and that on July 7 a national gathering of “a united and democratic Bolivia” would decide specific actions. Roberto Gutiérrez of the Santa Cruz committee said marches and vigils would start soon throughout the nation.

The eastern states are unique in Bolivia for their European-descended majority and concentrations of wealth. Export-oriented Santa Cruz boasts 90 percent of the nation’s industry, 50 percent of its GDP, and 60 percent of the oil wells. In this epicenter of separatism, 25 individuals own 60 percent of the land. Amid charges of corruption, eastern moneyed interests held decisive national power prior to Morales’ election victory.

Political leaders there reject the Morales government’s moves to nationalize the country’s petroleum and gas resources, its many-sided empowerment of workers and farmers, and its proposal to divide the nation into 42 regions and 36 autonomous indigenous territories, a move that might undermine the power of departmental governments.

The Autonomous Council’s manifesto called upon the “armed forces to fulfill their constitutional role” in defending national integrity. Armed forces head Wilfredo Vargas affirmed June 19 that the army would comply, but castigated “divisive posturing from the oligarchic sectors of Bolivia’s East.” The armed forces, he promised, would support the constitution and legally constituted government and reject “those political actors bringing back from the past century coup d’etats, military takeovers.”

Indigenous spokespersons also denounced the autonomists’ manifesto. They said autonomy for departments could end up as central power relocated and perpetuate past neglect of indigenous needs and rights. Leader Diego Faldin told reporters, “We will fight for indigenous autonomy,” which is our “way of life and our right.”

Just weeks prior to the Aug. 6 target date to complete its new constitution, the Constituent Assembly appears to be floundering. All 21 assembly commissions were to have submitted final reports on June 21. Only six were ready. Others were delivered with omissions or withheld because of unresolved conflicts and lack of consensus.

The commission dealing with international relations epitomized the divide between government supporters and right-wing minority delegates. Commission members, for example, could not agree upon a chain of authority applying to the constitution, national sovereignty, and international treaties. Nor could they compromise sufficiently to devise means for approving treaties and international conventions, especially those relating to human rights and international trade.

The Constituent Assembly’s uncertain fate and the mounting separatist storm suggest a precarious future for Bolivia’s new people’s government and are slowing momentum toward transformative change, especially for the nation’s indigenous majority.

atwhit @megalink.net

Havana ponders recognizing same-sex unions

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 05:09:00 +0000

Cubans are debating a new set of proposals to update the country’s Family Code to include the legal recognition of same-sex relationships and transgender people. Supporters are hoping that the National Assembly will approve the reform package later this year.

Sexologist Mariela Castro Espín, director of Cuba’s National Center for Sex Education (Cenesex), told the Mexican daily newspaper La Jornada at a recent conference in Havana that the proposed changes are part of an effort to eliminate all forms of social exclusion.

Cuban law does not currently recognize gay or lesbian couples. According to Castro, the proposals include recognizing same-sex couples and extending to them all the same rights and privileges that opposite-sex couples enjoy, including inheritance and adoption rights. “One cannot continue perpetuating discrimination and exclusion as a value,” she said.

However, Castro emphasized that gay unions would not be called marriages, which under the Cuban constitution is reserved only for men and women. The rights of gay and lesbian people who are not legally registered as a couple would also be recognized, as would those of opposite-sex unregistered couples. Cenesex drafted the reform proposals.

Castro said the reform proposals are being debated in the National Assembly’s standing commission for judicial and constitutional matters, as well as among lawyers and other sectors of the population. She said the proposals are drawing both support and opposition.

Castro said that those who are against the changes argue that “Cuban society is not prepared for this.” The most contentious change is allowing gay and lesbian couples to adopt children.

Despite the resistance to the proposed changes, Castro said, “There is the political will to eliminate all forms of discrimination in our laws.”

One group that Castro mentioned as being interested in the reforms is the National Association of Small Farmers. The group said there are cases of gay men leaving the countryside because they feel rejected or humiliated due to their sexual orientation.

Castro said the reform package also recognizes the rights of transgender persons, people who for various reasons identify with a gender identity that differs from their original physiological and psychological status. The law would give Cuban men and women the legal right to change their sex after a medical diagnosis. She said that sex-change operations, including hormonal treatments, are already being carried out in Cuba, and medical personnel are being trained to carry out such procedures.

Castro also mentioned that the Cuban government’s education ministries have already agreed to undertake efforts, through changes in the curriculum, to eliminate prejudice against gays, lesbians and transgender persons among young people.

Castro added that the reform package, as well as recognizing the family model’s diverse expressions, also includes new measures dealing with the care of elderly people, the handicapped, gender violence, child sexual abuse, and adoption, among other things.

She is hoping that the reform package, which is also being reviewed by the leadership of the Communist Party of Cuba, will be sent to the National Assembly sometime this year to be voted on. Castro is the daughter of Raul Castro, interim president of Cuba, and Vilma Espín, former president of the Federation of Cuban Women (FCM), who recently passed away. The FCM is also backing Cenesex’s proposed changes to the Family Code.

If the Cuban Communist Party and National Assembly support the reform package, Cuba will become the first country in Latin America to accept same-sex couples and extend to them the same rights and benefits enjoyed by opposite-sex couples.

Currently, Mexico City; the Northern Mexican state of Coahuila; Buenos Aires, Argentina’s capital; and the Brazilian state of Rio Grande Do Sul are the only places in Latin America that recognize same-sex couples.

Legislation passed by Columbia’s Congress and endorsed by President Alvaro Uribe that would have given gay couples together for two years a full range of entitlements and benefits was defeated in the Colombian Senate June 20. Supporters have vowed to reintroduce the legislation for another vote.

Costa Rica, Argentina and Brazil are considering recognizing same sex-unions.

tpelzer @shaw.ca

Cubans mourn Vilma Espn, womens leader

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 05:05:00 +0000

Vilma Espín Guillois, a legendary heroine of the Cuban Revolution, died June 18 in Havana. She was 77.

A student activist in the struggle against the Batista dictatorship, Espín later emerged as a courageous guerilla fighter in the successful drive led by Fidel Castro to topple the corrupt, gangster-infested U.S.-backed regime.

Shortly after the revolution, in 1960, Espín help found the Federation of Cuban Women. She served as the group’s president until the time of her death. She was a member of the Communist Party’s central committee since 1965, and was married to acting President Raul Castro.

Cuban leaders memorialized her on June 19 as remembrance gatherings took place throughout the island. Fidel Castro, in a special tribute, noted her ceaseless devotion to the cause of women’s equality. Three days later, family and co-workers interred her remains at a commemorative site near Santiago de Cuba for fallen veterans in the anti-Batista struggle.

Espín’s death sparked a flood of worldwide condolences. For Angel Guerra, writing in La Jornada, “her identification with [ideas] about women’s emancipation and the dedication and creativity with which she applied them constitute a memorable page in the history of the international revolutionary movement.”

Co-workers said Espín worked hard to promote the interests of those who she conceived as the revolution’s primary beneficiaries — Cuba’s women and children.

The Federation of Cuban Women, with 3.5 million members, assesses the needs of, advocates for, and acts in the interests of women and children, especially in areas of health care, educational access, family support, women’s equality, sexual awareness and tolerance, and domestic violence. Espín headed national commissions in most of these areas in the course of her work.

She pioneered nationwide programs for teens, single mothers, and sex workers, whose numbers grew during the extremely difficult years after the demise of the Soviet Union, which had been Cuba’s primary trading partner, in the early 1990s.

An enthusiast for early childhood education, Espín led the fight in Cuba for day care centers and nurseries.

In 1972, Espín established the National Working Group on Sexual Education, which in 1989 became the now widely acclaimed National Center for Sexual Education headed by her daughter, Mariela Castro Espín. In 1979 she founded a commission to study the needs of transgender people. She was also instrumental in Cuba’s decriminalization of homosexuality that same year.

Espín promoted academic teaching and scientific study on sexual issues.

Vilma Espín, a delegate to the Cuba’s National Assembly, also belonged to the Council of State and, from 1980-1991, the Communist Party’s political bureau. For decades, she served as Cuba’s “first lady” at state occasions.

The daughter of a Bacardi rum company lawyer, she sheltered in their home survivors of the 1953 Moncada Barracks attack, which launched the Cuban Revolution. She was a gifted student. For a period of time, as a graduate student, she studied chemical engineering at MIT in the United States.

She conferred with Fidel Castro’s revolutionaries in Mexico in 1955. The next year she joined Frank Pais to lead an insurrection in Santiago de Cuba aimed at distracting Batista’s troops away from the insurgents, then fighting in the nearby mountains. Espín joined the Rebel Army in the field in June 1958.

In a communication June 19 to Cuban leaders, the Communist Party USA recalled Espín’s contributions and revolutionary stature: “Vilma’s work in favor of women, of the working class and of humanity transcends national boundaries. ... In her own person, she showed with her actions that we cannot create a better future for humanity unless women are fully involved on the basis of complete equality.”

atwhit @megalink.net

Activists gather in Atlanta for Social Forum

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 04:47:00 +0000

Many thousands of trade unionists, peace activists, community organizers, students and young workers are converging on the U.S. Social Forum in Atlanta this week to march, rally and develop strategies in their fight against the ultra-right.

The huge gathering was set to march through the city’s downtown on Wednesday, June 27, ending with a rally at the Civic Center.

Leaders of transnational corporations and countries whose governments represent their interests have held an annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, since 1971. The World Social Forum movement developed in 2001 and has been held every year since as a peoples’ response to the ruling-class gathering in Davos. The Atlanta event is the first U.S. Social Forum.

The U.S. forum, which has drawn over 5,000 registrants, was planned by 50 labor, peace and community groups from around the country. In addition to the march and rally, hundreds of workshops, panels and cultural events will take place over the five days of its sessions, June 27-July 1.

Many of the groups attending the forum see this as a significant time in U.S. history, ripe with the possibility of defeating the ultra-right here at home and improving conditions for masses of people around the world. As the basis for their optimism, they cite the defeat of many right-wingers in the U.S. elections in 2006, the almost total loss of support for the Bush administration’s Iraq policy, and the anger in the country over the failure of the federal government to respond adequately to the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

The U.S. Social Forum, like its worldwide counterpart, sees itself as hammering out alternatives to the policies of the multinational corporations here and abroad.

Organizers selected Atlanta as the host city because of the political significance of the U.S. South as the area where the worst attacks against people and the greatest struggles for civil rights and justice have occurred. Organizers point out that the South has cultivated determined and consistent fights for working-class emancipation, civil rights and human liberation generally.

jwojcik @pww.org

Oakland housing activists demand City Council action

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 04:43:00 +0000

OAKLAND, Calif. — Expressing concerns shared by many California communities, affordable housing activists gathered on the City Hall steps, June 19, to protest long delays by the City Council and a blue-ribbon commission in preparing proposals to increase affordable housing and to protect tenants whose buildings are converted into condos.

“We’re here to tell the City Council that they’ve been working on these issues for years, and while they’re going on summer recess, the need for affordable housing is not,” Pastor Lucy Kolin of Resurrection Lutheran Church told the World.

Skyrocketing housing costs are forcing more and more Oakland residents, including members of her congregation, to leave the city, Kolin said. Among the urgent measures needed to help stem the tide, she said, are zoning requirements for developers to provide units for low-income residents and greater protections for tenants in condo conversions.

A rally before the council meeting called by the Oakland People’s Community Housing Coalition, an alliance of community, labor and faith-based organizations, heard tenants, including seniors and people with disabilities, tell how their living conditions have worsened and their housing costs have risen despite current tenant protections. Speakers challenged the council to act promptly on the issues when it returns to work in September.

City Councilmember Jane Brunner and a representative of Mayor Ronald Dellums pledged their support for measures to keep Oakland affordable and preserve the community’s diversity.

As the meeting opened, speakers including Amie Fishman, executive director of East Bay Housing Organizations, presented a Housing Bill of Rights calling for housing to be affordable and accessible to people at every income level, environmentally sound and racially integrated, and protected against unjust evictions or displacement.

Among several speakers addressing the council was Oakland High School teacher Cassandra Lopez, who told of the destabilizing effect the housing crisis is having on the schools. “Every week students are forced to move out of Oakland because their families can’t afford to stay,” she said, adding that African American families are especially affected. “Affordable housing is vital to our students’ ability to get a good education,” Lopez said.

The People’s Housing Coalition says the council has been discussing inclusionary zoning since 2000. The requirement was opposed by former Mayor Jerry Brown but is supported by current Mayor Dellums. As a result of maneuvers within the council as Brown’s term was ending late last year, the issue was shunted to a blue-ribbon commission which was later asked to also consider condo conversion regulations. Though the commission was to finish work in March, it has still not issued a report.

mbechtel @pww.org

June 30 National Clips

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 04:39:00 +0000

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.: Demand humane treatment for jailed immigrants

When undocumented workers looked out of their jail cell windows, June 19, they saw over 100 labor, religious and legal activists holding a vigil calling for action to improve conditions in the Albuquerque Regional Correction Center, and for national immigration reform.

Some of the 700 jailed workers’ families reported that their relatives are imprisoned in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions, lack health care, experience language barriers and have been denied access to lawyers.

“As people of faith we have to question an immigration system that is causing innocent people to fall victim to exploitation on the job, detention under deplorable conditions and causing children to wait hopelessly to be reunited with their parents,” said Barbara Dua, executive director of the New Mexico Conference of Churches.

American Civil Liberties Union leaders called the mistreatment and imprisonment unconstitutional. “The U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights does not distinguish between the rights of citizens and immigrants,” said Brendan Egan of the ACLU. State ACLU director Peter Simonson added, “The Fifth Amendment prohibits subjecting any person in the custody of the United States to unnecessary pain and suffering.”

Centro de Igualidad y Derechos director Rachel Lazar said efforts were under way to correct conditions at the jail through the Bernallilo County commissioners.

The coalition called for an easy path to legalization and labor rights for all workers.

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J.: Global concerts launch campaign on global warming

Here in the Meadowlands at Giants Stadium, and in London, Johannesburg, Shanghai, Sydney, Rio de Janeiro and Hamburg, a simultaneous 24-hour concert spanning seven continents July 7 will kick off an international campaign seeking solutions to the crisis of global warming. An estimated 2 billion people are expected to participate either in stadiums or through various media, including at www.LiveEarth.msn.com.

The Alliance for Climate Protection, chaired by Al Gore; the Climate Group; Sierra Club; and scores of other organizations are sponsoring the event designed to “drive individuals, governments and corporations to action,” on global warming.

Over 100 musicians are on the program. Madonna composed a song, “Hey You,” for the event, and 25 cents from every Internet download will go toward funding the campaign. A million fans already have purchased the song.

The Sierra Club is hosting house parties around the United States and is encouraging members to send out press releases to call attention to the issue.

The Giants Stadium happening is being organized as a “green event.” Large outdoor festival veterans know they can be messy affairs. Organizers hired the Green Building Alliance to make sure green guidelines are followed.

RIVERDALE, Ill.: Jackson says get the guns off city streets

Homicide statistics spiked this year for the first time in nearly a decade, and numbers on a page do not begin to describe the human impact of gun violence, especially in the cities. Gun sales are banned in Chicago, so the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Father Michael Pfleger, a South Side priest, have been taking busloads of protesters to suburban gun stores for the past three weeks. On June 23, the two were arrested at Chuck’s Gun Shop in Riverdale.

“The suburbs have surrounded the city with these gun shops,” said Jackson. “Jobs are going out and guns are coming in.” Pfleger added, “Chuck’s becomes the poster boy for this issue. We need tougher gun laws so the kids are not dying in the streets.”

When the gun control advocates gathered in front of Chuck’s, owner John Riggio told them to clear the doorway and said two could come in. Inside, the store was jammed with pro-gun activists. Jackson described them as “hostile, dangerous and life-threatening.” Riggio called the police who took the two clergymen away in handcuffs and charged them with trespass.

Jackson and Pfleger vowed to return on June 30.

RENO, Nev.: State universities OK arming college staff

The state university system Board of Regents has given the green light to allow professors and staff to carry guns on campus. The Regents argued that the action was appropriate following the April mass shooting at Virginia Tech that left 33 people dead.

“I think you’d find very, very few faculty who would avail themselves of this,” said Stephen Rock, Faculty Senate chairman at the University of Nevada-Reno. But, he said, “The impact on departments, small departments could be very significant.”

Mike McFarlane, vice president for academic affairs at Great Basin College in Elko, said, “I think faculty generally are concerned with the proliferation of guns on campus.”

Regent Stavros Anthony, a Las Vegas police captain, pushed through the proposal. Under the plan, college faculty or staff who volunteer will be granted paid leave to attend a 21-week course at the police academy and become certified Nevada police officers. The armed faculty and staff would be under the command of each college’s police department.

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

In Ohio, Fathers Day rally backs immigrant rights

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 04:33:00 +0000

PAINESVILLE, Ohio — With raids and arrests of undocumented workers spreading, hundreds of farmworkers held a silent, solemn Father’s Day march and rally in this mid-sized town about 30 miles east of Cleveland.

“It is mostly fathers working in the fields of Painesville who have been arrested,” Veronica Dahlberg told the crowd when it arrived at the gazebo in a park by City Hall.

The 43 arrested here, she charged, are part of “the biggest immigration sweep in U.S. history.”

“It is called ‘Operation Return to Sender,’” she said. “Since 2006 they have arrested 20,000, but they have 500,000 names on the list. These are not criminals. These are hard-working family members.”

Dahlberg, head of Hispanics of Lake and Ashtabula (HOLA), said she got the information about the national sweep from her congressman, Steve LaTourette, a Republican, after the raids began here May 18.

Baldemar Velazquez, president of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, which brought two busloads of union members to the event, called the raids “mean-spirited and senseless.”

“Why are the federal agents pursuing this tragic strategy now, when we are in the middle of a legislative process to get the issue resolved?” he asked.

Velasquez said the legislation before Congress is imperfect and the penalties too severe, “but at least it would allow legalization within five years.”

“The arrested workers, at most, committed a misdemeanor,” he said. “The punishment does not fit the crime. Their families are being broken up. Their employers have also broken the law. ICE [the federal immigration agency] is not rounding up the employers.”

Velasquez charged that the crisis has been precipitated by U.S. trade policy. He said U.S. government-subsidized corn flooded Mexico after passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement and caused displacement of 4 million Mexican corn farmers.

“They have saturated Mexican cities looking for work, and this has led to mass migration to the United States.”

“I have been in this struggle for 39 years,” Velazquez said, “and they still treat us like animals. The time has come to say: This is enough. We are indigenous to these lands, and we will continue to come because we want to feed, clothe and educate our families.

“Stop the raids. Pass laws to complement the new reality of America.”

As Velasquez finished, a young woman with two small children came from the crowd and asked for the bullhorn. Her name was Maribel Rodriguez. She was visibly upset and held her hand on the side of her face as if to stop the flow of tears. Speaking in Spanish, she said she prayed they would send her father back to her.

“I am alone,” she said. “I am the last person left here. This is not fair.”

She said her father, Tonio Rodriguez Moreno, was in a van with others on their way to work at a nursery, when they were stopped and he was arrested May 18. He worked here over five years, she said, and now is in a detention facility in Youngstown. They sent her back his work clothes. She said she did not have the $5,000 needed to post bond.

Someone put a baseball cap down on the ground and asked for donations. People came forward, and it was later announced that $567 had been contributed.

Others also came forward telling their stories of the raids. They included three children who said they were sleeping when men in black uniforms broke into their bedrooms shouting “Wake up, wake up,” and forced them to report to Homeland Security.

ricknagin @yahoo.com

Obama, Edwards top progressive poll

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 04:31:00 +0000

WASHINGTON — Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and John Edwards topped a straw poll of liberal and progressive activists at the Take Back America conference here June 20.

What that all means is up for fierce speculation in the blogosphere.

Comments posted on politico.com, which conducted the poll, ranged all over the map, from “Obama was electrifying; Hillary was a big dud. No surprise there,” to “I hope he wins in the peoples (sic) minds but not for President of this Nation! Where is he from, anyway?” to “Who cares?” to comments supporting Hillary. There was some nasty Muslim-baiting too.

At the 3,000-person conference Obama certainly got rock star status. The atmosphere was indeed electrifying and the crowd seemed to appreciate his “vision” speech designed to inspire even the most cynical into believing that hope is still alive.

But it was Edwards, whose speech included more details about his program, who also impressed the crowd. A student from Southern California said, “I really liked Edwards because he spelled out more of his plan.”

And the poll shows that. When asked about issues and candidates, Edwards beat Obama and Clinton on Iraq and health care — the top two issues among those polled. Energy/global warming and the economy/jobs were the third and fourth most important issues participants chose.

Overall, Obama polled at 29 percent, Edwards at 26 percent, Hillary Clinton at 17 percent, Bill Richardson at 9 percent, and Al Gore — a write-in — at 8 percent, topping left favorite Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich who got 5 percent. Former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel, Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware all got 1 percent. Gravel was the only one of the last three who addressed the conference, introduced by Ralph Nader, who got a lukewarm reception.

Richardson, the governor of New Mexico and former Clinton administration official, who has Mexican American roots, is not as well known as the top three, but impresses people when they hear him.

Much was made of the crowd booing Clinton when she blamed the Iraqi government for all the problems caused by the U.S. invasion and occupation, but she won the crowd back with a number of issues not mentioned by the other candidates, including the Bush administration’s relentless attack on science.

Clinton polled higher among women than among men, drawing numbers very close to Obama and Edwards: Clinton, 22 percent; Edwards, 25 percent; and Obama, 27 percent.

But Obama’s vision appeared to resonate profoundly among voters aged 18-29, who gave him a whopping 40 percent.

With the first primaries still six-plus months away, there is still a lot of campaigning ahead. This poll is really an indication of the struggle over the direction of the Democratic Party and who among its base will be in the driver’s seat. Progressives, energized by the 2006 congressional victory and hungry for a 2008 sweep, have some momentum, fueled by broad public opinion wanting real change on Iraq and health care. But there is still a ways to go to turn that into a committed grassroots operation that can win the hearts and minds of voters from Augusta, Ga., to Zanesville, Ohio.

talbano @pww.org