People Before Profit blog

Yoda says Treat, you did!

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 08:57:00 +0000

Dear Reader,

You surprised us again.

Our committee made a wrong estimate. Given that our readers are some of the most active people in labor and politics, assumed we wouldn’t see much work on raising money for this pro-labor newspaper until after Nov. 4.

Wrong!

In early October there was $80,000 raised. In a

gamble, we pushed to hit $100,000 by Halloween.

And you responded! As of Oct. 27, $105,000 has been raised.

Thank you all. Because of your efforts there is $95,000 to go. And we are confident — together —

we can do it.

In solidarity,

Dan Margolis, chair

2008 Fund Drive Committee

P.S.: If you haven’t sent your donation in yet—or if you want to send more—then please do so.

Donate now!

2008

People’s Weekly World Fund Drive now.

Call 646-437-5363,

send a check payable to PWW to

235 West 23rd St Fl 8,

New York, NY 10011,

or online at

www.pww.org

State ballot measures highlight social, labor issues

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 09:54:00 +0000

Claiming voters’ attention this fall alongside races for national, state and local elective offices are over 150 state ballot initiatives and a wide range of local measures.

At the state level, about 60 state measures are initiatives or constitutional amendments appearing on the ballot because registered voters signed petitions; others originated with state legislatures or other state bodies.

Among measures claiming national attention is California’s Prop. 8, to amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage. Last May the California Supreme Court, declaring that sexual orientation is “not a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights,” overturned an initiative banning gay marriage passed by voters in 2000.

Supporting a ban are religious groups including the Roman Catholic Church, the Mormons and some Evangelical Christians, along with many Republican state legislators and presidential nominee John McCain. A long list of opponents includes the California Labor Federation, the California Teachers Association, the state NAACP,

Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.

Though the opposition led in earlier polls, Proposition 8 has become a cliffhanger, with the latest tallies showing 47 percent of California voters supporting it and 43 percent opposed.

Across the country three measures deal with abortion rights. One is California’s Proposition 4, to ban abortions for minors until 48 hours after a physician notifies the minor’s parent, guardian or adult family member. Similar propositions lost in 2005 and 2006 but recent polls show Prop. 4 leading, 49 to 41 percent.

Opponents, including the state ACLU, health and education organizations, California NOW and the California Labor Federation, say Prop. 4 would actually endanger the most vulnerable young women, who could become more likely to choose an unsafe, illegal abortion.

In South Dakota, Initiated Measure 11 would change the state constitution to ban all abortions in the state except in cases of incest or rape or to protect the woman’s health. Doctors violating its provisions would be charged with a Class 4 felony, carrying a maximum of 10 years in jail and a $20,000 fine.

Anti-abortion laws failed in the last two state legislative sessions. Measure 11’s backers include Evangelical Christian and Roman Catholic organizations; opponents include the state Medical Association and ACLU along with religious and women’s organizations. Polls show the two sides neck-and-neck.

In Colorado, Amendment 48 would change the state constitution’s definition of “person” to include “any human being from the moment of fertilization.” Supporters believe its passage would outlaw abortion in the state.

Among backers are Christian Evangelical organizations including Focus on the Family; among opponents are Planned Parenthood and the Colorado ACLU.

Also sharing Colorado’s ballot are measures to outlaw union shops and affirmative action. Amendment 47, the so-called Colorado Right to Work Initiative, would bar unions and employers from negotiating “union shop” contracts requiring workers to pay union membership or “agency” fees as a condition of employment.

A major backer is Jonathan Coors of the historically right-wing Coors brewing family. Though the Colorado Association of Commerce and Industry supports it, the Denver Metro and South Metro Denver Chambers of Commerce have joined the Colorado AFL-CIO in opposition.

Pointing out that “right to work” has nothing to do with a right to a job, the Colorado AFL-CIO says Amendment 47 would bar workers and employers from negotiating union security clauses. It would also weaken unions by forcing them to provide all the benefits of membership to workers who pay nothing. The AFL-CIO also notes that federal law already protects workers who choose not to join a union, and that workers in “right to work” states earn significantly less than those in states lacking such a restriction.

A recent poll showed Amendment 47 losing, 49 to 21 percent, with 30 percent undecided.

Amendment 46, the misnamed Colorado Civil Rights Initiative, would ban both “discrimination” and “preferential treatment” in public employment, education and contracting to any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin.

Proponents are led by California businessman and former University of California regent Ward Connerly, an African American who has sparked similar initiatives that have passed in California, Washington state and Michigan. This year, Connerly is backing similar measures in Arizona, Missouri and Oklahoma.

Opponents include the state AFL-CIO and a broad array of labor, faith, education and civil rights organizations. Polls predict the measure will pass.

In Oregon, Ballot Measure 58 would bar teaching non-English speaking public school students in their own language for more than one to two years. Students would then be mainstreamed into classes taught in English. Chief petitioner for Measure 58 is anti-tax activist and perennial ballot measure initiator Bill Sizemore, founder of Oregon Taxpayers United. He has four other measures on the 2008 ballot, including one to base teachers’ pay on classroom performance. Opponents include the Oregon Education Association and an array of labor, education, faith and civil rights organizations.

In Massachusetts, progressive activists are working to defeat the anti-income tax Question 1, sponsored by the Libertarian Party-connected Committee for Small Government. The measure would lower the state income tax rate from 5.3 percent to 2.65 percent in 2009 and completely eliminate it by 2010.

If passed, Question 1 would cut nearly 40 percent of the state budget, much of that in local aid to poorer municipalities, which would then be forced to increase property taxes up to the limit. In Massachusetts municipalities cannot raise property taxes more than 2.5 percent without an override vote by their citizens.

The Vote No on Question 1 coalition includes a broad range of organizations from the state AFL-CIO to a number of Chamber of Commerce groupings.

mbechtel @ pww.org Jose Cruz contributed to this article.

Economic crisis clobbers California

Sat, 18 Oct 2008 04:57:00 +0000

Less than a month after California’s legislature and governor finalized the state’s budget after an 85-day delay, that budget — patched together with accounting sleight-of-hand and optimistic guesswork — may be headed back to the drawing board under the impact of the growing economic and financial crises.

An immediate problem is the state’s annual need to borrow through short-term “revenue anticipation” notes to cover spending until tax revenues flow in next spring. This year the state is seeking $7 billion in such short-term loans. Without them, California is in danger of running out of cash by the end of the month. But the global financial crisis has made lenders reluctant to make the usual loans to California or other states in similar fixes.

In response, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has put out feelers about the federal government becoming the “lender of last resort,” though he expressed more optimism about commercial borrowing after Massachusetts was able earlier this month to get short-term loans.

But the bigger, longer-term problem is the sharp drop in overall revenues, reflecting the impact of the economic crisis. State Treasurer Bill Lockyer last week projected that the 2008-9 budget might see an over $4 billion shortfall. Speculation is growing that the governor may call the legislature into special session before Nov. 30. At the same time, less than three months now remain before Schwarzenegger must present his 2010 budget proposals.

Nursing homes, health clinics and other organizations serving poor and unemployed people, children, seniors and the disabled now face further cuts on top of those they suffered in the just-completed budget process. They could also at least temporarily be plunged back into the dire situation they faced during the long budget delay, when they had to scrape and borrow to cover their expenses until their state payments resumed.

As a state which, if independent, would have the world’s sixth largest economy, what happens in California has a great deal to do with what happens across the country.

In a post to californiaprogressreport.org last week, Assemblyman Ted Lieu (D-El Segundo), head of the Assembly’s Rules Committee and former head of the Banking and Finance Committee, called the relation of the state budget crisis and the foreclosure crisis “a straightforward matter of cause and effect … We cannot solve this unprecedented budget shortfall without mitigating foreclosures and reforming the broken and dysfunctional mortgage system.” Lieu, whose bill to reform the mortgage system was vetoed by the Republican governor, is calling for a special session on mortgage and foreclosure reform.

Lieu is being joined by a coalition of consumer, research and policy organizations who are calling for a 180-day foreclosure moratorium, mandatory affordability-based loan modifications, transparency and accountability.

Adding to California’s problems, a federal judge is ordering the state to come up with $3.5 billion to upgrade its seriously decayed prison health system.

Analysts are also calling attention to the potential impact of two propositions on the ballot Nov. 4. Prop. 6 would make some 30 changes in criminal laws including expanding conditions to try juveniles as adults and create entirely new crimes, some of which could result in life sentences. Estimated initial costs come to nearly $1 billion, while its mandate for automatic funding increases linked to inflation could make future deficits worse.

Prop. 9 would give crime victims much greater influence in criminal cases and would make prison overcrowding worse by cutting back on early-release programs, with a potential cost of hundreds of millions annually.

California is not alone in suffering growing economic woes. Some 15 states say they have midyear budget shortfalls, among them Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Ohio and New York. Even before the Wall St. crisis, states reported laying off some 7,000 workers and slashing services — many of which are needed more urgently than ever as joblessness soars.

New Jersey plans a special legislative session this month. Arizona has frozen state contracts larger than $50,000. West Virginia’s governor is thinking of suing Wall St. firms like AIG to regain funds lost in its state employee pension fund.

“The bottom line is that states are facing a very difficult fiscal outlook over the next two to three years,” Raymond Scheppach, executive director of the National Governors Association, said in a commentary on stateline.org. “This economic downturn will likely be longer and more severe than any states have experienced since the downturn of 1982-1983.”

mbechtel@pww.org

Free Liliany Obando!

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 05:10:00 +0000

Liliany Obando, closely associated with Colombia’s largest rural labor organization, was arrested Aug. 8 in what police called a “preventive” arrest. In the process, officers of Colombia’s National Police Anti-Terrorism Unit and Criminal Investigation Directorate harassed her children, seized her family’s personal documents and removed left publications.

Images of the arrest scene promptly showed up on national television. The government — the world’s largest recipient of U.S. military aid outside the Middle East — charged Obando with “rebellion” and with “managing resources related to terrorist activities.”

Obando’s incarceration in Bogotá’s “Good Shepherd” women’s prison has occasioned a worldwide campaign on her behalf, promoted especially by Canadian, Australian and European unions responsive to her past pleas for justice on the land. In her Sept. 3 “Open Letter,” Obando describes herself as a “political prisoner, prisoner of conscience, communist activist, and survivor of the genocide against the Patriotic Union.”

Formerly human rights director of the National Federation of Agricultural Unions (FENSUAGRO), when she was arrested Obando was serving as consultant to FENSUAGRO, carrying out a study of 1,500 FENSUAGRO members murdered or disappeared since its formation in 1976.

Analyst James J. Brittain (see www.colombiajournal.org), sees Obando as victimized because of her role and that of FENSUAGRO in Colombia’s agrarian struggle. Over decades, mega agricultural operations dedicated to the production of export commodities — bananas, palm oil, sugar and cattle, among others — have eradicated small and medium-sized farm holdings. Power in the form of military violence wielded by paramilitaries and the state has removed an estimated 4 million Colombians from the land. FENSUAGRO, which represents 80,000 members and 37 farmers’ unions, has stood in the way.

FENSUAGRO has agitated for improved wages and working conditions, instigated organizational and infrastructure changes affecting small producers and pioneered education projects covering sustainable farming and human rights. According to Brittain, the Colombian government views the widely-traveled Obando — a respected filmmaker and academician — as the principal link between FENSUAGRO and unions, religious groups, solidarity networks and social justice organizations throughout the world. In view of some 500 FENSUAGRO assassinations since 1976, including 20 percent of unionists killed in 2007, the government sees that link as dangerous indeed.

Liliany Obando has been targeted for another reason: distraction is the current prescription to shore up a government notorious for crimes committed in the pursuit of wealth for the few. Obando lists these crimes as: “bribery that favored Uribe’s reelection,” links between the government and paramilitary enforcers, the failed paramilitary demobilization, illegal military incursions outside Colombia, attacks by President Alvaro Uribe on judicial independence, and finally, the government’s extradition last May of paramilitary chieftains to the U.S. to forestall testimony on relations with politicians.

To divert attention from these embarrassments, the government has targeted leftist activists including Obando. They are accused of support for terrorists by virtue of ties with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) alleged by Colombia’s Attorney General and Defense Minister on May 22. It is claimed Obando provided the FARC with money raised for FENSUAGRO.

Others named with Obando include TeleSur journalist William Parra; legislators Gloria Inéz Ramirez, Gustavo Petro and Wilson Borja of the center-left electoral coalition Alternative Democratic Pole; and liberal Senator Piedad Cordoba and Communist editor Carlos Lozano who have sought humanitarian release of FARC-held prisoners.

The Colombian government bases allegations of FARC connections on material derived from computers seized March 1 in Ecuador shortly after FARC second-in-command Raul Reyes and 21 others were killed in a U.S.-assisted raid. Reporting on the creation, modification or deletion of 48,055 computer files while they were in Colombian custody, the international police agency Interpol cast doubt on government claims about the computers. Liliany Obanda also denounced government-inspired media allegations of a love relationship with Raul Reyes.

The new Australian union-supported group Peace and Justice for Colombia has spearheaded an international campaign to free Liliany Obando. The group’s web site, www.colombiasolidarity.net, provides information, news reports and a petition on her behalf as well as addresses for recommended recipients of messages of support.

atwhit @ roadrunner.com

In Virginia, military families mobilize

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 09:50:00 +0000

NORFOLK, Va. — Stacie Burgess, wife of an active-duty sailor in the U.S. Navy, was in the crowd at an Oct. 4 rally of 20,000 in Newport News where Obama urged a last-minute push to register more first-time voters and get them to the polls. She joined a group chanting “O-ba-ma” so loudly it caught his attention. Wading through the crowd after his speech, Obama reached out and shook her hand.

“He was laughing, so glad that we were so excited,” Burgess told the World. “I thanked him for inspiring people like my husband who had given up on making a difference. My husband’s ship was moored right behind where Obama spoke. He and his crewmates could have walked over to listen to Obama’s speech.”

People, she said, are getting beyond skin color, beyond Republican scare tactics. “Ask yourself: Are you better off than you were four years ago?” she said. “Look at what we got from Bush over the last eight years. To keep going with the same policies, that is really asinine. I can truly say that I believe Barack Obama is going to be our next president.”

Jacquie Green’s husband recently retired from the Navy after 20 years, including multiple deployments to Iraq including Operation Desert Storm. They live in a comfortable home in Chesapeake with their three children. He is now a part-time bus driver in Virginia’s Tidewater region and she works as a telephone technical support person for a company that manufactures photocopiers.

Yet he has had to cash out his military savings so they can make ends meet until that runs out. For Jacqueline, the urgency for change is clear.

“The politicians talk about the middle class but they never talk about the working poor,” she commented. “We are making serious choices: Do we eat or make those repairs to the car? McCain hasn’t done anything for the vets. Active duty soldiers are giving more to Obama than to McCain. Why? Because they want to come home, not stay in Iraq 100 years. We are happy living here in the Virginia Tidewater. We’ll be even happier when Obama is inaugurated next January.”

A member of a military families and veterans group said in a phone interview that hundreds of military families in the Tidewater are supporting Obama. “I think we have a very good chance of carrying Virginia for Obama. We’ve registered so many new voters and the demographics of Virginia have changed so much,” said the activist, a war veteran who is not authorized to speak for the organization.

Military families, including many active-duty sailors and soldiers, are playing a crucial role in winning voters for the Obama-Biden ticket, the veteran activist said. “McCain’s record on veterans’ issues is just horrible. He opposed the 21st Century GI Bill of Rights. He opposed adequate rest time for soldiers before they are deployed for a second or third tour of duty. My brother did two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan.”

The veteran concluded, “I’m a Republican. I’ve worked for Republican candidates. It took a lot to switch me over. We’ve had a lot of Republicans at our meetings. At a meeting last week, out of 30 people present, eight were Republicans. We believe Barack Obama should be president.”

Union members are also campaigning hard for Obama in the Tidewater area.

Oct. 6 was the deadline for voter registration in Virginia and a team of Unite-Here union volunteers had gathered at the Teamsters Local 822 hall here to count registration cards filled out by new voters that day.

“We’ve registered over 5,000 new voters since Sept. 8,” said Unite-Here organizer Gwen Mills, who came here from Connecticut on Labor Day to spearhead the project. “The enthusiasm and excitement are just tremendous.”

The team of 36 union volunteers will take a week off and then return to the same neighborhoods and work through Election Day educating voters and getting out the vote.

So far, grassroots volunteers, many of them members of AFL-CIO and Change to Win unions, have signed up 310,000 new voters in Virginia. The project is nonpartisan but the Democrats are winning this fight for first-time voters by a wide margin here and across the nation.

Denise Brown-Lipford, a Unite-Here volunteer from Upper Marlboro, Md., said people she has encountered “tell us how tired they are of not having the income to afford the things they used to be able to afford. Virginia has voted Republican in every presidential election since 1964. This time? I’m betting they vote Democrat.”