People Before Profit blog

Global labor needs a global stimulus

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 17:20:00 +0000

“Workers of the World Unite” is back by popular demand. And not just by demand, but by necessity.

Global transnational corporations and their partners finance capital are working full time to craft an economic solution to the world crisis that preserves their enormous profits and power while putting the burden of recovery on working people. How could it be otherwise?

The capitalist beast has not changed its spots. But it has mutated into a much larger, globally interconnected, behemoth. Its institutions, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization are in full swing. Not to mention the infamous G8 and G20 big country summits. Of course, none of these even have seats at the table for labor.

The global nature of the economic crisis, and the vast, new levels of global economic integration all demand that labor develop its own global strategy.

The recent meeting of world labor leaders in Washington, DC at the time of the last G20 emergency meeting was a very good start. (Read about it in the People’s Weekly World here) This meeting of labor leaders from the big economies mapped out some important strings that should be attached to any global deals to protect the public interest. But labor needs to go far beyond just adding its own conditions to the plans being hatched by these global capitalist forums.

First the crisis demands that world labor take steps to accelerate the growing trend of international labor cooperation and even organizational integration. An important first step is world labor unity. How about the merger of global labor federations and industry groups without regard to political or ideological conditions – an end to the cold war for good? It also means further development of initiatives like the United Steelworkers and the British Unite the Union merger into a new global union. (Read about it here) These are all parts of a growing objective process that matches labor unity to the actual conditions of global capital. Again Workers of the World Unite!

Secondly, global labor needs a global program. This will take a lot of discussion. It will take the best thinking of us all. The truth is that the massive impact of the global economic disaster on working families everywhere, can make demands that seemed utopian and impractical in the past, realistic solutions for today.

For example don’t we need a massive global economic stimulus that creates jobs? How about a project by the G8 nations to provide clean drinking water for the billions of people who live without it around the world? Not only would this global infrastructure project be a major blow for world health, it could create millions of jobs in areas that need them most. Such a project would help build sustainable infrastructure for further development in poverty stricken areas of the globe.

Or how about a global minimum wage? As a beginning, why not set minimum standards for transnational companies that prowl the globe in search of cheap labor? They can afford it. Such a minimum wage would have to be based on real circumstances in any given country. But a global minimum wage would protect the living standards of workers in developed countries by raising living standards everywhere. Better wages and benefits help lift standards all around.

Lastly global labor needs to intensify its fight for global labor rights. Stronger labor movements help curb the worst excesses of global capital run wild. At home we need the Employee Free Choice Act to better defend the interests of all working people. More labor power is a counter balance to corporate greed and corruption. The kind of greed and corruption that helped produced the current economic crisis in the first place. Sustainable economic development requires more democracy in the system. Unions contribute to democracy by giving workers a bigger collective voice.

Stronger labor organizations will result in workers and their families keeping more of the wealth they produce. Unions raise the standards for all workers by creating upward pressure on wages and working conditions around them. This in turn creates more demand from below for goods and services making for a more sustainable economy.

Workers of the world unite – now more than ever!

Facts on Venezuela

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 07:50:00 +0000

Poll Shows Rising Satisfaction with Democracy in Venezuela

A new survey published on November 14, 2008 by the respected Chilean polling firm Latinobarómetro finds that Venezuela has the region's highest rate of support for democracy as the best system of government, and the second highest rate of satisfaction with the actual functioning of democracy. Citizen satisfaction with democracy has risen by 14 percentage points since 1998, when President Chavez was elected for the first time.

According to the poll, Venezuela also has remarkable levels of support for democratic procedures such as voting, and also for democratic institutions including political parties, congress, and the judiciary. This portrait brings a level of detailed factual analysis to the political realities of Venezuela that is rarely seen in the media.

You can read the full survey in Spanish here.

New Poll Predicts PSUV Victory in Majority of States A poll released on Tuesday by the Venezuelan firm Consultores 30.11 projects that the great majority of state governorships and mayoralties will be won by candidates of the PSUV (United Socialist Party of Venezuela) in regional elections this Sunday, November 23rd. Close races are expected to ensue in only three states: Sucre, Carabobo, and Zulia.

The poll finds that voting trends in the November 23rd elections closely resemble those present in the previous presidential election in December 2006, which President Chávez won with 62.84% support. Read our full press release and review the poll in detail here.

Mainstream Media Offers Doomsday Approach

News outlets suggest altogether different scenarios, emphasizing criticisms of the government. Many sources say the opposition will win one third of state governorships and forecast so-called 'power grabs' by President Chavez regardless of the outcome of the vote. These distortions can lead readers to believe that democracy in Venezuela is threatened. Read one of the most reckless articles out today by Bloomberg here.

Even more disturbing is a PBS television special scheduled to air next week on Frontline just two days after Sunday's elections. The ninety-minute program provides a bleak and unrealistic view of President Chavez and his administration by focusing almost exclusively on negative themes and stories.Watch the program.

The most egregious mistakes are outlined below and merit a response.

1. Frontline states that President Chavez resigned during the 2002, which is not true. The Venezuelan leader did not renounce his presidency, although he was held captive and threatened with a bombing of the presidential palace.

2. Frontline completely ignores the well known manipulation of the events of the 2002 coup by Venezuela's private media, as well as its role in staging the coup.

3. Frontline asserts that Chavez used the enabling law to pass 12 laws that did not pass in a referendum on constitutional reforms. However, the 26 laws decreed on the last day of the enabling law are fundamentally different from those that faced referendum last December. All of them are in accordance with the constitution.

4. Frontline irresponsibly closes the program with the following quote: 'Chavez barred hundreds of opposition candidates from running [in regional elections].' Again, PBS gets it wrong - this law was not written nor approved by Chavez. It was made in the National Assembly in 2001 by opposition and government supporters alike, including the former political party of opposition Mayor Leopoldo López, Primero Justicia. The law enables administrative sanctions for a variety of corruption charges and allows politicians to finish their term in office.

More delicious fare includes Viggo Mortensens Good

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 08:00:00 +0000

There were at least two films at the 44th Annual Chicago Film Festival that addressed the rise of Nazi power leading up to World War II. A powerful drama entitled, “Good,” to be released in late December, stars the talented actors, Viggo Mortensen and Jason Isaacs as two buddies who had fought together in World War I. One happens to be Jewish, and the other is a college professor who had written a textbook about eugenics.

Their friendship is tested as the Nazis assume power and become strongly interested in the professor’s research on mercy killing. As the professor is drawn into the ruling elite, his Jewish friend, now a highly successful psychiatrist, becomes increasingly threatened by the government’s racial policies. The moral issue of eugenics and how the professor acts to save his friend from his inevitable fate under the Nazi regime, is the central focus of this gripping drama.

From a totally different direction comes “The Wave,” which also examines the depravity of the Nazi mentality. This dynamic youth-oriented political film that takes place in the present time is about a German high school professor who is given a one-week assignment of explaining ‘autocracy’ to his class. Displeased that his preference of teaching ‘anarchy’ was overlooked, he decides to give his students a history lesson they’ll never forget.

At first, his students are bored, thinking this will just be another dry study of the old Nazi period that could never happen again in the developed world. Daily the professor draws enthusiasm from the students as he asks them to develop and participate in a ‘dictatorship’ in class. The professor is selected as the dictator, and he makes the class create a name for the group (“The Wave”), design a logo, a website, a daily school newspaper, and they are all given tasks and forced to wear uniform clothing, white shirts and blue jeans.

The excitement catches on, the students see the exercise as giving them meaning and a form of equality, goals and discipline. Before the week is over, however, the exercise gets out of control. Weapons, vandalism, fights, and racism begin to enter the picture and with the current realities of unemployment, poverty and immigration issues, the students soon discover that it’s still quite possible to recreate the conditions that gave birth to Nazism. The stunning climax to the film is memorable.

A new film from Cuba, “Personal Belongings,” addresses the persistent issue of emigration and broken families. Ana faithfully remains in Havana after her family abandons her for a better life in Miami. Ernesto sits in his car on the Malecon dreaming of leaving for a better life in Miami. They meet, fall in love, and the tug-of-war begins. Stay in Cuba or leave? Using a touching love story as a microcosm of the tragic separation of families caused by the U.S. blockade, the well-directed and acted film provides a penetrating study of life in Cuba today.

A touching and beautifully acted story, “Wendy and Lucy,” stars Michelle Williams of “Brokeback Mountain” as an understated “Everywoman.” Wendy is traveling across the country, forced to live out of her car, joined by her trusty companion, a dog she named Lucy. Her car breaks down, her dog gets lost, she runs out of money, and meets wonderful people in a small town in Washington state. With little dialogue, the simplistic plot and expressive characters say more about the human condition than most films crammed with verbosity.

For further information about all the films shown at the Festival checkout .

New president, new media

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 07:35:00 +0000

CHICAGO (AP) — This isn't your grandfather's fireside chat.

President-elect Barack Obama plans to tape a weekly address not just for radio listeners, as presidents have for years, but for YouTube Internet viewers, too.

Well, what else would you expect from a president born at the tail end of the baby boom?

Connecting the White House hearth to the American home, Franklin Roosevelt talked to the people through the radio, with crackling broadcasts delivered near a crackling fire. John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan mastered television. For Obama, who built a big part of his campaign on the Internet, it's YouTube.

About 75 years after Roosevelt used a new medium to reach out during troubled times, the president-elect is doing the same with Web videos.

Obama was recording a four-minute address Friday at his transition office in Chicago. It will be posted Saturday through a YouTube link on his transition Web site, http://www.change.gov. And he will continue to do the videos when he takes office on Jan. 20.

And he won't be the only one in his administration taking a starring role online.

Transition leaders and policy advisers will also appear in videos on a regular basis, Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki said. Other officials, such as Cabinet members, could also take part.

President George W. Bush hasn't videotaped his radio addresses for online viewing as Obama plans to do, the White House said. YouTube wasn't around when Bush came into office, though podcasts of his addresses are available on iTunes, and the audio is posted on http://www.whitehouse.gov.

The Saturday radio addresses were initiated by Reagan and have evolved into a weekly fixture of the presidency, accompanied by a response from the party out of power.

Still, relatively few people actually hear them on the radio, and Obama is hoping to reach many more with what his transition team calls a 'multimedia opportunity.'

The videos are part of the team's effort to build on a campaign model that helped Obama reach millions of voters online during the presidential race. It's a potentially powerful electronic tool in new digital outreach effort aimed at supporters and others interested in being connected to the activities of the Obama White House. The Web site and videos allow him to bypass the traditional media and reinforce his message online.

On the campaign trail, Obama promised to use the Internet to make his administration more open and interactive, offering a detailed look at what's going on in the White House on a given day or asking people to post comments on his legislative proposals.

The transition team plans to use videos to keep people posted on developments as Obama prepares to take the oath of office, Psaki said.

A two-minute video of Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett is already on the Web page. In it, Jarrett discusses recent staff decisions and the ethics policy in place for the transition.

'We'll be back frequently to give you updates,' she tells watchers.

(This version CORRECTS that Obama born at tail end of baby boom, instead of first post-baby boom president.)

240,000 jobs lost last month

Sat, 08 Nov 2008 11:25:00 +0000

Two hundred forty thousand more workers were tossed onto the jobless pile in October, driving the nation’s official unemployment rate to 6.5 percent – the worst in 14 years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. More than 1 million U.S. workers have now lost their jobs this year and more than 10 million are out of work and looking for new jobs.

The areas that were hit the hardest were the manufacturing and financial sectors. The Institute for Supply Management had already reported last week a sharp decline in manufacturing activity, which in October fell to its lowest in 26 years. The jobs report is just one more indication, labor leaders say, that Congress needs to pass a stimulus package even before the new president takes office.

“We need urgent action on an economic recovery package in the lame-duck Congress that dedicates enough money to matter to help working people get back on track,” said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney in a statement released immediately after the jobs report was issued. “The recovery package must include an extension of unemployment benefits and increased funding for food stamps while providing aid to local and state governments to maintain vital services. It should also include an immediate investment in infrastructure spending to rebuild roads, bridges and schools and put people to work.”

The official figures, of course, don’t show the full picture. The unemployment rate, labor analysts say, would be well over 12 percent if it counted discouraged and underemployed workers, who are not technically considered “unemployed” by the BLS.

The BLS reported Nov. 6 that the number of people collecting state unemployment benefits reached the highest level in 25 years, rising by 122,000 to a seasonally adjusted 3.84 million in the week ending Oct. 25. Compared with the same week a year ago, new jobless claims are up 45 percent, while continuing claims are up 46 percent.

Larry Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute said, “We haven’t seen the worst of it yet. We are looking at several years of high unemployment and widespread income losses that will take many more years to overcome.

CNN reported that it was told by a spokesman for ADP, the payroll management outfit, that he didn’t anticipate a turnaround for these numbers until the second half of next year, and added that it was “highly likely” that unemployment numbers will be in excess of 200,000 job losses per month for the next several months.

All of this bad news followed the Commerce Department’s announcement that U.S. gross domestic product declined more in the third quarter than at any time since 2001. That decline resulted from a drop in consumer spending which most analysts say was the only thing fueling the economy.

Mishel said, “The last business cycle from 2000 to 2007 failed to generate any growth for working families – on average, they lost over $2,000 per year in inflation-adjusted income. This erosion of earning power happened even as the economy, through its workers, became increasingly productive.”

The erosion of workers’ earning power – more than 1 million are expected to file for bankruptcy this year – and the skyrocketing foreclosure rate, in which 2 million are expected to lose their homes, make the jobs situation that much more serious, labor analysts say.

Those analysts note that President-elect Obama, thanks to the Bush administration, has inherited the most difficult set of domestic and foreign policy disasters likely ever to have converged simultaneously in the history of this nation. On the domestic front, those analysts say, the first step is to stop the economic bleeding. This is why the AFL-CIO is calling for a “rescue package” that gets people back to work in jobs that will support families and provides a moratorium for home foreclosures, among other measures. These are steps Obama called for during his campaign.

Beyond the immediate measures, labor plans to back the Obama administration in longer term efforts aimed at correcting imbalances under which corporate profits soared while wages stagnated and declined.