People Before Profit blog

Labor Day report: Wages "dead in the water" for a decade

Mon, 02 Sep 2013 09:30:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - Through the Great Recession, the weak recovery since then and even in the business cycle before that, workers' wages "have been dead in the water for a decade," the leader of the Economic Policy Institute says.

And that gloomy picture, portrayed by EPI President Larry Mishel, won't be solved for the overwhelming majority of U.S. workers by the solutions propounded either by Democratic President Barack Obama or his GOP foes on Capitol Hill, Mishel adds.

Mishel and EPI analyst Heidi Shierholz discussed and dissected the economic state of today's workers - and their prospects - in a news conference yesterday where they released their new policy paper, keyed to Labor Day: A Decade Of Flat Wages The Key Barrier To Shared Prosperity And A Rising Middle Class.

While the U.S. economy is finally creating jobs, they're not good jobs, and that's what the government should focus on and change its policies to create, the two said.

"From the point of view of the vast middle class and the low-wage workers, the problem they have is the paycheck they take home," Mishel said.

What their policy paper found was not good, ever since 2000:

Worker productivity is up 7.7 percent since the start of the Great Recession in 2007, but wages dropped for the bottom 70 percent of all workers, stayed flat for those in the 70^th-80^th percentiles - and rose only for the very rich. That continued a trend that started in 2001: Productivity grew by 25 percent since 2000, but the bottom 60% of workers who achieved that success saw their wages drop.

Disturbingly, there is data in the report that shows higher education is no longer translating into better wages. "Wages of workers with a bachelor's degree were lower in 2012 than in 2002, 10 years earlier," the report says. "Real wage gains have eluded the vast majority over the last 10 years, including those with college degrees" and below that. The only exception, where gains are small, has been among workers with masters' degrees or better, the report notes.

"This has even been true for those in science, technology, engineering, and math occupations and for those in business occupations," the report says. "Education can't fix it," Mishel said of the long-term stagnation and decline in workers' wages. "In the 1980s, the college education wage premium grew rapidly. That era is long behind us."

The problem is particularly acute for workers in the bottom 20 percent, who have seen the largest income declines. Male workers with a high school diploma saw their wages drop 3.5 percent since the start of the crash alone, on top of earlier declines. High-school-only female workers saw their incomes fall by 2.7 percent in the same six years.

"The low-wage workers' strikes demonstrate the problem in bold detail," Mishel said. "It's essential we take bold steps to address them."

"We need to establish broad-based wage growth at the bottom" of the income ladder "to extend" the middle class and prosperity, Mishel said.

The jobless rate has dropped from its high of almost 10 percent in the depths of the Great Recession, down to 7.4 percent. "But it'll be another two years before we get to 6.3 percent unemployment, and that was the high in the 2001 recession," Shierholz said. The big reason joblessness dropped is because people left the workforce, she added. "If everyone seeking jobs before the crash hit were still looking, the rate would be 9.4 percent."

The high jobless rate depresses wages. As a result, low demand - because workers lack jobs and pay - makes it unnecessary for business to hire more workers, Shierholz said. If firms need more production, they order speedups, or pile on overtime.

"And with so few job opportunities, employers do not have to offer wage increases to get the workers they need," she noted.

The solution, they said, is not only to focus on specific fixes, such as more construction and infrastructure jobs, encouraging education, raising the minimum wage and indexing it to wage growth. All are good moves, but they're not enough.

"The disappointing wage trend is the result of acts of omission and commission by policymakers in economic policy, and not by technology or other factors beyond their control," Mishel declared. "Policymakers should view achieving broad-based wage growth as the lens through which they view every form of growth" and every policy.

"We need to improve the ability to have people join unions, to firm up our labor standards, which have weakened through 2010, and allow undocumented workers to become citizens," Mishel said. "Those policies will raise wages for them and for every-body else." Allowing more exploited "guest workers" in, as the GOP proposes, would take 300,000-400,000 of the new jobs the economy is creating every year, or approxi-mately 40 percent of all new jobs, he said. To gain GOP votes, the Senate-passed bipartisan immigration bill doubled an original guest worker limit of 200,000 jobs yearly.

Photo: Fast food workers strike at McDonald's/Taco Bell, Aug. 29, demanding the giant corporations "super size" their wages. (Steve Rhodes)

Families of police crime victims demand civilian oversight

Fri, 30 Aug 2013 15:25:00 +0000

CHICAGO - "My husband Howard Morgan is the only man shot 28 times, 21 of those in the back by four police officers. He's still alive, but he's now rotting away in prison," said Roslyn Morgan. "An injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere."

Morgan was marching Aug. 28 with hundreds of other victims of police crimes and their families and friends to demand justice and the creation of a Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC).

The march to City Hall provided a rare opportunity for the families of victims of police crimes to tell their anguished stories of unprovoked police killings, brutality and wrongful convictions that have left innocent victims languishing in prison for years.

In addition to the establishment of a CPAC, families are demanding justice in the all but buried cases of loved ones killed by police, exoneration of those still imprisoned and action against police and prosecutors who made false accusations and are responsible for their incarceration.

"We're not talking about misconduct here. We're talking about police crimes," said Crista Noel. "We're talking about aggravated battery, murder and what they like to call involuntary manslaughter. We're talking about Rekia Boyd and Dakota Bright. We're talking about people who were executed."

Families marched with large pictures of their loved ones held aloft. A rally at Daley Plaza was ringed by a long banner bearing the names of hundreds of victims of the Sgt. Jon Burge torture scandal. Burge was a Chicago Police Department (CPD) commander who oversaw a torture chamber that extracted false confessions from hundreds of victims over decades, many who ended up on death row.

Some marchers held signs identifying police each responsible for wrongfully convicting multiple victims.

Between 2009 and 2012 there were 224 shootings involving Chicago police officers. Sixty-three residents were killed, one out of three shootings. Each year an increasing number of shootings are of African Americans.

Howard Morgan was a security officer for the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad who had worked for the company for 13 years. He was an officer of the CPD for eight and one-half years.

Morgan was on his way home in Feb. 2005 when he was pulled over by two squad cars. Four white police officers demanded he get out of his truck and lie on the ground where they commenced to shoot him 28 times. Morgan miraculously survived and just as astonishingly was charged with initiating the shooting. At a subsequent trial he was found not guilty of attempted murder of two of the officers and not guilty of aggravated discharge of a firearm against a third. However, the judge declared a mistrial on the remaining charges and ordered a new trial.

"The prosecution and judge weren't satisfied so (Morgan) was retried on three counts of aggravated battery with a firearm and two counts of attempted murder," said Roslyn Morgan. In what was by all accounts a travesty of justice, Morgan was found guilty in 2012 on all counts and sentenced to a minimum of 40 years in prison.

"We are not going to give up until we get justice," she said. "There have been a lot of lonely nights and my husband is permanently disabled. But victory awaits us at the end of this tunnel."

Stephon Edward Watts, a 15-year-old with Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism was shot and killed by Calumet City police in his home on February 1, 2012. Watt's mother, Danelene Powell-Watts, an autoworker, was marching with a contingent of fellow UAW Local 551 members from the Ford Torrence plant.

Powell-Watts turned her grief and anger into action and is fighting for legislation to train first responders to deal with people with disabilities. "After they are trained they can't get away with mistreating people. And my UAW Local is backing the bill," she said. (In addition, the public can sign a change.org petition for the bill here.)

"We're a strong union and we support each other. That's why we're out here," said Derrick Powell, a co-worker.

"My son is Jaime Hauad. He was wrongfully convicted and is doing two natural life sentences for a crime he did not commit," said his mother Annabelle Perez. "He was beaten and tortured by the Chicago police as a juvenile. He's been in prison now for 16 years. This is an injustice."

"I'm here to get Edward Davila free from prison. He's been in there 18 years and he's innocent," said his childhood friend Oliver Hernandez. "The officer basically picked him out at random and told the surviving victim, here he's the guy who did it. He was wrongfully convicted but his case is now being taken up by the Innocence Project."

"This is the first time in a long time that we have gotten several hundred people out to demand an end to police crimes," said Frank Chapman of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, an initiator of the march. "We're asking city council to enact legislation to create a Civilian Police Accountability Council that will empower the people of Chicago to hold the police accountable for the crimes they commit."

Photo: Names of known victims of police torture conducted by CPD and Commander Jon Burge. There are still countless others unknown. Banner at rally against police crimes Aug. 28, Chicago. John Bachtell/PW

Fast food workers strike in 60 cities for higher wages

Fri, 30 Aug 2013 11:42:00 +0000

DETROIT - "Rebuilding the new American middle class is going to begin right here in the Big D," said Service Employees International President Mary Kay Henry as she walked the fast food workers picket line here in front of Church's Chicken.

Fast food workers went on strike in a half dozen Michigan cities as well as over 60 cities, towns and suburbs nationwide, Aug. 29, from Detroit to New York to St. Louis to Washington D.C. and beyond, driving home how fast this movement for dignity and a 15 dollar an hour wage is spreading.

Henry pointed out that like autoworkers at the beginning of the last century, who said they deserve to feed their families on the wages they make, these workers are standing up for "making service jobs, good jobs."

Church's employee Charlotte Gandy joined the picketing because after three and one-half years of working hard at her job, she still makes $7.40, the state's minimum wage.

It was for people like Gandy that Henry said this campaign must and will succeed. Henry said these are not starter jobs anymore and they are not worked by high school students; the average age is 28. Many have families to support and thirty percent have college degrees but are trapped because they can't find anything else. "We have to do something to improve these jobs," she declared.

Also joining the picket line was Detroit native and now Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison. Ellison emphasized the campaign to win a $15 an hour wage can be won.

"Fifty years ago today some said we couldn't get rid of segregation that it would be here forever and never change. But some unreasonable radical optimist said we believe we can do better," he said, paying tribute to the mighty movement led by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

He noted that Republicans also represent people who make "slave wages" too and they need to be sensitive to their constituents. "Politicians see the light when they feel the heat," he added.

Unions, community groups and faith leaders swelled the morning picket line, one of many planned throughout Detroit and surrounding communities today.

Bishop A. Barnes from Hamtramck said people can't make it on $7.40 an hour. It's time for us to move up to another level.

For Detroit, a city under attack, the benefits are clear to Barnes, "It will lift-up the city 100 percent. If people make more money, they will have more money to spend."

Photo: SEIU's Mary Kay Henry, left, stands with a Church's worker at Detroit rally for fast food strikers, Aug. 29. (PW/John Rummel)

Chicago school boycott demands elected school board

Thu, 29 Aug 2013 14:55:00 +0000

CHICAGO - Hundreds of students, parents and community activists joined a rally and march Aug. 28 supporting a one-day Chicago school boycott to protest the destruction of public education. They were part of the Education is a Human Right Day Boycott organized by parents and students in 21 other cities.

In New Orleans, protesters occupied George Washington Carver High School because instruction is still taking place in FEMA trailers eight years after hurricane Katrina devastated the city. Demonstrators in New Jersey marched on the state capitol in Trenton to demand an end to school privatization.

"Today we light the match for an elected representative school board in the city of Chicago," said Jitu Brown, educational organizer for the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization (KOCO). "This is a national fight. We are not alone."

Chicago protesters demanded an end to school privatization, a moratorium on school closings, an elected school board to replace the one appointed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, dispersal of Tax Increment Financing Funds that have been looted from the schools, and passage of a financial transaction tax to increase funding.

"My three children and I am boycotting today because massive budget cuts are an attack on our children and our city," said Rosemary Vega. Her children previously attended Lafayette Elementary School, which had a renowned orchestra, but was closed along with 49 other schools. "Fifty years ago people marched for justice and freedom. Without justice you will not have freedom," she said.

Vega said the community rallied to save Lafayette but the Chicago Board of Education was deaf to their pleas. She and her family along with other parents and community activists occupied the school but were unable to save it.

"That experience convinced me we needed an elected school board," said Vega. (Article continues after slideshow.)

After the Board of Education approved the closure of 50 schools earlier this spring, Chicago Public Schools management then imposed massive cuts which have resulted in the loss of 1,041 teachers, 474 educational support personnel and 855 other school workers. Fourteen of the "welcoming schools," accepting student from closed schools, lost teachers.

So far most of the "welcoming schools" have maximum enrollment. Many are now over-enrolled and class sizes have ballooned.

Asean Johnson, a 9-year-old fourth grader who electrified a rally to stop closings earlier this spring and who spoke at the 50th Anniversary March on Washington last weekend, said his class at Marcus Garvey Elementary School has 39 students. District guidelines say class size should be capped at 28 for younger students, 31 for third graders and up.

Orleana Smith brought her 4-year-old daughter who is enrolled in pre-kindergarden at Oscar DePriest Elementary School. "I'm here to guarantee her right to a free education," said Smith. "I just bought a home in the community and I'm looking for some stability for her and our family. But it doesn't look like that will happen with everything CPS is doing."

Smith said DePriest, on Chicago's West Side, is a "welcoming school" and is at maximum capacity. She said every space is being used to put students in the school, classes are at 37 students, and it makes her very skeptical that education will be improved for the children.

Over 100 students joined the Aug. 28 boycott, including many from the Chicago Students Union. The CSU led walkouts, boycotts and protests during the last school year and is planning actions for this year.

"A boycott is the only thing that will make the Board of Education realize that something is going on," said Nidalis Burgos, a sophomore at Lincoln Park High School and co-founder of the CSU. "We have the CSU because we want to show the elected officials that we are one and we want an elected school board and an end to school closings and teacher layoffs."

Photo: PW/John Bachtell

Obama: Realizing King's dream means jobs, decent wages for all

Thu, 29 Aug 2013 11:59:00 +0000

WASHINGTON---Speaking to a cheering crowd at the Lincoln Memorial on the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, President Barack Obama warned that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "dream" remains unrealized as long as millions of workers are unemployed and poverty is growing.

Obama praised the progress in realizing King's dream. "To dismiss the magnitude of this progress, to suggest, as some sometimes do, that little has changed, that dishonors the courage and sacrifice," he told the crowd at the "Let Freedom Ring" celebration. Recalling the martyrdom of Medgar Evers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, Dr. King himself, and many others, Obama said, "They did not die in vain. Their victory was great."

But it also dishonors them to suggest that the work is complete, he said. The "arc of the moral universe" may bend towards justice, Obama continued, "but it doesn't bend on its own."

In some ways, Obama added, winning civil rights, voting rights, the eradication of legalized discrimination, "obscured" the second goal of the 1963 march, jobs. He quoted King's challenge, "For what would it profit a man...to sit at an integrated lunch counter if he couldn't afford the meal?"

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, he said, "requires the dignity of work, the skills to find work, decent pay...."

That half of King's dream remains unmet and getting more distant, Obama said. Black unemployment is almost twice as high as whites and Latinos are close behind. The gap in wealth between the races has not lessened; it has grown. The economic position of all Americans, regardless of race, has eroded "making the dream Dr. King described even more elusive."

"For over a decade, working Americans of all races have seen their wages and incomes stagnate," Obama said. "Even as corporate profits soar, even as the pay of the fortunate few explodes, inequality has steadily risen over the decades. Upward mobility has become harder. In too many communities....the shadow of poverty casts a pall."

Obama called on the crowd to renew the fight, to win jobs and higher pay not just for a handful but for many millions unable to land a good job.

Rep. John Lewis, one of the speakers at the 1963 march and rally, said some complain "nothing has changed" since 1963. "Come walk in my shoes," Lewis cried, recalling the fire hoses used against Black youth in Birmingham, the billy clubs and tear gas used against him and other peaceful marchers in Selma Ala. Despite the police terrorism, the movement won passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and countless other civil rights laws. King's "I Have A Dream" speech, Lewis said, was a "spark of the divine."

Former President Clinton recalled the climate of racist violence including the murder of four little African American girls in the bombing of the 16^th Street Baptist Church Sept. 15, 1963. Yet the people are "still marching for jobs and freedom," he said. He urged the crowd to "stop complaining" about the gridlock in Washington D.C. "and put our shoulders against the stubborn gates" to reverse the right-wing obstructionists. "We must push open these stubborn gates. A great democracy does not make it harder to vote than to buy an assault weapon."

At 3 p.m., moments before Obama spoke, the crowd fell silent as a bell, sitting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, was rung by a young Black girl. The bell was brought from the 16^th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, a symbol of the sacrifice made by the children and youth of that city in the freedom struggle. After he spoke, Obama walked over and knelt down and spoke with the child.

The rally came at the conclusion of a march, led by veterans of the 1963 march, down Pennsylvania Ave, along Constitution Avenue to the Lincoln Memorial where King delivered his "I Have A Dream" speech 50 years ago. This was the second huge demonstration in five days commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Aug. 28, 1963, March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, a testament to how deeply the civil rights revolution has changed the nation. Both drew 150,000 or more people, a majority African American but also many thousands of all races and nationalities. The labor movement brought many hundreds of buses to both events with thousands of autoworkers, transit workers, teachers, and public employees.

Photo: The president and First Lady Michelle Obama with former presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton on the video screen and reflected in the water at the Lincoln Memorial "Let Freedom Ring" rally on the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washingto, Aug. 28. (Victoria Pickering/CC)

Catholic diocese settles with fired gay teacher

Thu, 29 Aug 2013 11:17:00 +0000

COLUMBUS, Ohio - After a hard fought four-month campaign, the Columbus, Ohio, Catholic Diocese has been forced to reach agreement with a discharged 19-year teacher, Carla Hale. The diocese fired Hale for being gay, after she returned to work from burying her mother, because her mother's obituary stated that she "was survived by Carla and her partner."

The undisclosed settlement is believed to include substantial back pay and an official clearing of Hale's record.

"We are happy to announce a settlement to this long dispute," said Hale's attorney, Tom Tottle.

"Carla has been overwhelmed by the massive outpouring of support she received, especially from the students and alumni of Watterson, who have been so important in her life. Carla is just happy that she'll be getting back to the classroom, which is where she always wanted to be," he said.

"She appreciates the support given her by HaleStorm Ohio, Pride@Work and the AFL-CIO without whose help this settlement would not have been possible."

Hale is planning to work as a substitute teacher in the Columbus area and is expected to receive numerous job offers, now that her long fight with the diocese is over.

HaleStorm Ohio is the grassroots support group of Bishop Watterson High School students, alumni, parents and community volunteers that sprang to the teacher's aid when the diocese announced her discharge. The group organized a petition drive that garnered hundreds of thousands of signatures demanding Hale's reinstatement.

Since her firing, HaleStorm Ohio regularly held large rallies outside the diocese in Columbus, as well as getting out posters, buttons and flyers in her support. HaleStorm also held a huge fund raising party in support of Carla's reinstatement. The growing movement had become a real thorn in the diocese' side, as HaleStorm groups showed up wherever diocese spokesmen appeared. It became a crisis when donors began to withhold funds and angry parents of Watterson students disrupted the annual diocese fundraising dinner.

Amanda Finelli, chair of HaleStorm Ohio, said that she had always viewed this struggle "through a long range lens."

"We are just overjoyed that Carla will again be able to make a living and raise her family, but I've always seen this as just part of an overall struggle for justice. We still need to push the church to change its policy of discriminating against LGBT teachers. Our struggle is part of the fight of all of us to make this a better, more just world."

The fight to support Hale hit a crisis point of its own in June, when the in-house Catholic "company union" that was supposed to represent her announced they would not do so. This inspired the Central Ohio AFL-CIO labor federation, Union Retiree Federation and Pride@Work to come to Carla and HaleStorm Ohio's support.

In an unprecedented development, for the first time, organized labor officially entered a float in the massive Columbus Pride Parade, estimated this year at over 300,000 participants. As well, led by Pride@Work, the AFL-CIO partnered with HaleStorm at the huge Columbus Gay Rights Festival.

President of Ohio Pride@Work Glen Skeen, a Communications Workers of America officer who helped organize the solidarity effort, said the labor effort really made a positive impression on everyone.

"I can't tell you how important it was for people who have been marginalized, who were left out of society, to see unions and the community standing up for them. The response has been overwhelming!" he said.

"This is an important victory," Skeen said, "really a victory not just for LGBT folks, but everyone fighting for justice. The importance of the new open alliance between organized labor and the LGBT community cannot be overstated. We stand shoulder to shoulder, as well, with all the people celebrating the 50^th anniversary of the great civil rights march and continuing the fight for justice. This is just one step on the road to justice for all people!"

Photo: Via HaleStorm

Visit to giant's gravesite: Vito Marcantonio

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 16:02:00 +0000

BRONX, N.Y. - Recently I had the opportunity to spend an afternoon in Woodlawn Cemetery (a beautiful 400 acre expanse) here, learning more about a giant in New York progressive movement, Vito Anthony Marcantonio. The group honoring him was comprised of poets, authors, students and historians familiar with Marcantonio's legacy.

Marcantonio was a congressman for New York City's East Harlem district for 14 years; he was born Dec. 10, 1902 and died in Aug. 9, 1954.

Vito Marcantonio has been virtually erased from the history books. This successful attempt to remove him from the study of the progressive movement of the 1930s and 40s has dealt a severe blow to the movement. It has deprived generations of the rich history of his life, his devotion to the working class, and the great achievements made during that period with others such as Ben Davis - in the NY City Council along with Peter Cacchione.

Gerald Meyer, a history professor at Hostos Community College for over 30 years, and poet Gil Fagiani-both founders of Vito Marcantonio Forum-organized the event. Marcantonio, the son of an Italian immigrant mother and first-generation American father, was born in East Harlem. His political life was, from the very beginning, closely associated with that of his friend and early mentor Fiorello LaGuardia, who was the most progressive mayor of NYC.

Despite growing up poor, he eventually managed to enter New York University Law School. While at university, Marcantonio became involved in politics. He served as assistant United States district attorney from 1930-31. In 1933, he played an important role in the successful election campaign of La Guardia. Marcantonio was elected to Congress in 1934, where he represented New York's 20^th district.

As a congressman, he stood up for freedom of speech by opposing the policy of deporting left-wing people for their political views, saying, "I do not believe in the deportation of any man or woman because of the political principles that they hold. Irrespective of what a person advocates, he or she should not be molested, because our Government has been based upon the principles of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion and freedom of thought."

Marcantonio was defeated in 1936, but won the seat back in 1938 as the American Labor Party candidate. A strong supporter of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Deal, Marcantonio held the seat for the next 12 years. In Congress he argued that the "unemployed are victims of an unjust economic and social system which has failed." Marcantonio was also a strong supporter of African American civil rights, according to the British Spartacus Educational website.

As Meyer, author of "Vito Marcantonio: Radical Politician, 1902-1954" (now in its fourth printing), has pointed out: "In the House, Marcantonio distinguished himself as the major leader for civil rights legislation by sponsoring anti-lynching and anti-poll tax bills as well as the annual fight for the Fair Employment Practices Commission's appropriation. He served as de facto congressperson for Puerto Rico, insuring that it was not excluded from appropriations bills. He also submitted five bills calling for the independence of Puerto Rico."

In his moving talk at Marcantonio's grave, Meyer reminded the gathering, "In the entire history of the U.S. Congress, Vito Marcantonio was probably the most ardent, consistent, and eloquent advocate for the immigrants. Marc also served as the vice president of the American Committee for the Foreign Born, which effectively fought for the rights of immigrants, protected them from deportation, and help educate the American public about the great contributions of immigrants to American society."

In 1950, Marcantonio was defeated. He and others believed that his defeat was the result of the enactment of the Wilson Pakula Act, which disallowed anyone who was not of the two major parties to run in those primaries. Marcantonio was registered with the American Labor Party at the time.

His defense of workers' rights, his mastery of parliamentary procedure and his ability to relate to the workers in his district while engaging in worldwide issues, endeared him to many on the left.

At his funeral, after his sudden death of a heart attack at the age of 52, hundreds of thousands of people placed flowers on the sides of the path of the coffin to pay their last respects; because of his left wing ideology, the Catholic Church denied him funeral services.

"His legacy, I think you will agree, has never been more relevant than it is today. His speeches and positions on immigration, labor, war, education and civil rights continue to be clear messages worth revisiting," said poet Fagiani.

Photo: PW/Gabe Falsetta

Michigan expands Medicaid despite tea party obstructers

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 14:23:00 +0000

LANSING - Add Michigan, barely, to the list of states implementing a key part of Obamacare, the expansion of Medicaid, known locally as the "Healthy Michigan" plan.

After a long day and several votes, eight Senate Republicans finally joined all 12 Senate Democrats late yesterday to give a two-vote margin of victory. Passage will mean almost 2 billion dollars in federal money can be used to provide health care to low income adults, approximately 325,000 in 2014 and over one hundred thousand more by 2015.

Marjorie Mitchell, the executive director of Michigan Universal Health Care Access Network (MICHUHCAN), said this morning the campaign to win passage was "one of the few things we have worked on in health care where there was consensus" among providers, hospitals, doctors, advocates, and small business associations of how important this legislation was. She said additional support came from unions, churches and even the Republican governor.

Gov. Snyder doesn't disagree with tea party Republicans on too many issues but on this he supported expansion citing the $206 million the state will save in the 2014 fiscal year by providing benefits to those now receiving services paid for with general fund dollars.

Snyder said adding almost 500,000 adults would also alleviate most of the $880 million a year in uncompensated costs that are borne by hospitals and passed along to individuals and businesses through higher health care premiums.

It "boggles the mind" with so many diverse organizations supporting expansion it should take this much effort, said Mitchell. "It was a long battle," and she was up early sending "thank you notes" to those senators that had "persevered."

Expansion had passed Michigan's House several months ago. In the days leading up to yesterday's vote Michigan Senate Democratic Leader Gretchen Whitmer said in a posting, "it's a vote that should have been simple, bipartisan and taken place months ago but an "extremist minority" has been fighting this process every step of the way.

Mitchell said MICHUHCAN does have concerns about changes made to expansion that transfer some of the costs to individuals and may become a barrier to people enrolling. "We'll need to look at that over time and if it is a barrier, correct it in the future."

Right now she said we need to do more work in convincing people the safety net is "so important from both moral and economic points; it makes sense."

The summer long campaign for Senate passage hampered efforts to get information to people to start the enrolling process in October. Now Mitchell says we need to "roll up our sleeves."

Photo: MIchigan Nurses Association members lead the way with a press conference on the Capitol steps urging the state Senate to pass Medicaid expansion. (via MNA)

Video: 1963 civil rights march commemorated in L.A.

Tue, 27 Aug 2013 14:48:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES - Black, brown, Asian and white marched together down Martin Luther King Blvd here on Aug. 24 to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of the March on Washington. Organized by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and joined by many unions. The march ended at Leimert Park where the commemoration continued with a rally.

Among the speakers were the first African American City Council president, Herb Wesson, who thanked all for coming, but especially non African Americans.

Also speaking was the first African American speaker of the California State Assembly, Karen Bass, who said that there was much to celebrate because 50 years ago there was only one appointed African American state official, and today there are many people of color holding offices in many areas of the legislature and in other positions of leadership.

Another first among the speakers was the first openly gay member to be speaker of the California State Assembly, John Pérez.

California Black Caucus Chairwoman Holly Mitchell, who is featured in the video, challenged all not just to celebrate but to continue the fight.

Maria Elena Durazo, executive secretary of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, called to continue the fight for a comprehensive immigration reform and that undocumented workers too have the right to be represented at their work place. "We want good jobs for people in this country; this is why labor is here today and was there 50 years ago," she said.

Photo: PW/Rossana Cambron

President Obama rolls out higher education plan

Mon, 26 Aug 2013 15:16:00 +0000

President Obama debuted his new proposal for curbing costs of higher education Aug. 22, expanding on the presentation of his plan's details in a town hall the following day at Lackawana College in Scranton, Pa.

President Obama outlined three possible incentives for colleges to lower their tuition costs as part of his proposed package:

- Tie financial aid to college performance, starting with publishing new college ratings before the 2015 school year.

- Challenge states to fund public colleges based on performance.

- Hold students and colleges receiving student aid responsible for making progress toward a degree.

Part of the metric in measuring performance would be looking at graduation rates at colleges, possibly tying federal financial aid funding to schools that have higher outcomes in this area.

The American Federation of Teachers Higher Education tweeted its reaction to the town hall, welcoming the president's signal that he would be including educators in the ongoing conversation over the plan's future.

Like President Obama, the union points to withdrawal of state funding from higher education budgets as a contributing factor in soaring tuition costs. "State and local governments have decreased their levels of investment in public colleges and universities to the point where state funding accounts for only 10 percent or less of many public universities' budgets," the union report notes.

The AFT's position paper parallels the president's points that limited access to ever costlier higher education leads to stagnation in graduation rates, which are at a low-point in the United States, especially for working-class African-American and Latino youth.

AFT's report also notes that several states have already adopted a model that ties funding to completion rates, but sounds a note of caution on this approach. "Performance-funding mechanisms that hinge a percentage of state higher education appropriations on how well institutions increase their graduation rates have increased in popularity...in spite of the fact that research examining state performance-funding plans suggests they have little or no effect  on improving college completion rates."

Foundations such as Lumina and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations, notes the report, have also been involved in funding performance-based outcomes in higher education.

This point may lead to a conversation on the importance of inputs, as opposed to outputs, to success in college between the union and the White House. Data accumulated on factors that lead to greater student retention state that "students have been clear about the supports they need to succeed: They need better financial aid assistance through grants and scholarships, as well as better financial counseling, more informative and accessible counseling and advising, more accessible faculty (a largely contingent faculty workforce undermines this), smaller class sizes and more course offerings, a culture of encouraging students to seek guidance and help, and better orientation programs."

However, reforms of this nature in the future may only be possible with a Congress that is more aligned with President Obama's goal of expanding accessible education for all. The president stated that he is aware of legislative roadblocks to his plans and is concentrating on what he can accomplish on his own authority.

Finding common ground on the issue of ballooning student debt burden and reducing the outstanding $1 trillion dollars in student loan defaults is more likely. One of the key points of President Obama's proposals, that loan payments should not be more than 10 percent of a person's income post-graduation, was part of the union's recommendations for relieving student debt.

Shifting focus to rewarding colleges that offer more need-based financial aid will also better serve the goal of improving student achievements, the report says. "The shift from need-based to merit-based financial assistance has made it harder  for low-income, first-generation, and other deserving but disadvantaged students, as well as middle-class students, to afford college without accruing thousands of dollars in debt."

Using the "gainful employment" yardstick, ensuring that students are leaving colleges with good jobs that pay well, is also a reform welcomed by education advocates. This data will be available to students who are choosing colleges, giving them helpful information on how well that college prepares degree-holders for the workforce.

Federal oversight of out-of-control college costs, will, it is hoped, establish an important precedent, similar to the precedent established by the reform of the health care industry established by ACA.

Photo: President Obama speaks to students. AP

Bayard Rustin LGBT coalition highlights civil rights leader’s role

Mon, 26 Aug 2013 11:44:00 +0000

SAN FRANCISCO - The San Francisco chapter of the Bayard Rustin LGBT Coalition rallied in front of City Hall here on Saturday to highlight the contributions of Rustin, an often-overlooked figure of the civil rights movement.

The coalition was established in 2006 to fight racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia, with chapters in Oakland and San Francisco. Their mission also extends to creating awareness of LGBT civil rights history, with an especial focus on the history of Bayard Rustin.

Rustin, recently awarded a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom, was an architect of the historic 1963 March on Washington. Rustin had been a protégé of African American labor leader A. Philip Randolph, and later studied Gandhi's principles of nonviolence. Rustin lived life as an openly gay man, which led some activists close to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to press King to cut ties with him. However, Dr. King considered Rustin an invaluable friend and mentor, working with him from 1956 up until the time of King's assassination in 1968.

The Aug. 24 rally here opened with songs of the civil rights era led by Oakland singer Terrie Odabi. Transgender activist Veronika Fimbres, wearing a hoodie to honor Trayvon Martin, spoke on the first experience she had with racism as a child and the impact this would have on the rest of her life. Fimbres stressed that trans people of color are often subject to deadly violence on a daily basis, most recently the murders of Islan Nettles and actress Domonique Newburn, both killed within days of the rally.

Speaker Dr. Perry Lang, executive director of the Black Coalition of AIDS and former staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, followed Fimbres, quoting Dr. Howard Thurman, "Keep fresh before us the moments of our high resolve" in working to further economic, racial and social justice.

Renata Moreira, policy and communications director of Our Family Coalition, spoke of Bayard Rustin's role in the 1963 March on Washington and the importance of keeping this history alive in education. Moreira recently organized support for the successful passage of the California Fair Education Act, which brings the history of LGBT people into classroom history lessons instead of being kept institutionally invisible. The Bayard Rustin LGBT Coalition is working to make sure the law is implemented.

Continuing in the theme of education, Dr. Kenneth Monteiro recalled the civil rights movement that led to the creation of the Ethnic Studies program at San Francisco State University, of which he is the dean.

"You have to worry about what your institutions are doing," Dr. Monteiro said, warning of the need to demand that these instutions take responsibility for providing what people really need. Monteiro paraphrased Dr. King's famous statement, saying, "The arc of history bends toward justice," and adding "It bends because we bend it."

Event emcee Andrea Shorter took a moment to acknowledge Harvey Milk, the San Francisco supervisor and activist who was assassinated in 1978 at San Francisco City Hall, as a person who should also be considered a civil rights leader. Milk was the first openly gay person elected to office in the United States.

Coalition members stood in front of the doors of City Hall, holding up portraits of trailblazing figures in African American civil rights history such as Rustin, President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, Malcolm X, and Barbara Jordan. Also included was a portrait of actress Nichelle Nichols, of "Star Trek" fame in her role as Lt. Uhura. Dr. King was a tremendous fan of the show and was instrumental in convincing Nichols to stay in the role at a time when she was thinking of leaving "Star Trek" for Broadway.

Rev. Daniel Bates gave a rousing address on the subject of Dr. King's words "Free at last!" When he first heard these words, Bates said, he "took it to heart to mean everybody 'free at last'"- he didn't hear Dr. King say "except LGBT" or 'except the undocumented," or low-wage workers, or any other oppressed groups.

Bill Doggett, son of the Rev. John Nelson Doggett, Jr., also a leading civil rights figure close to Dr. King, rounded out the rally, invoking the spirit of the 1963 March on Washington and the issues we still fight for today like access to health care and housing.

Photo: Bayard Rustin LGBT Coalition members rally at San Francisco City Hall, Aug. 24, 2013. Michelle Kern/PW

Marchers pack capital for 50th Anniversary March on Washington

Sun, 25 Aug 2013 19:02:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - "I gave a little blood on that bridge in Selma, Alabama, for the right to vote and I'm not going to stand by and allow the Supreme Court to take the right to vote away from us."

With those ringing words, Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., drew a roaring cheer from the enormous crowd at the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday. The people assembled on the National Mall, on a sunny, breezy day, were celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Aug. 28, 1963, March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Lewis, then a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, was the youngest speaker at the 1963 march and rally. Later, Lewis was beaten bloody by Alabama state troopers while leading peaceful voting rights marchers in Selma. That brutal assault - and the mass outrage that followed - was key to the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

But the ultra-right majority of the Supreme Court recently gutted a key provision of the law. "The vote is precious," Lewis said on Saturday. "It is the most powerful non-violent tool we have in a democratic society and we've got to use it ... We must say to Congress: Fix the Voting Rights Act."

Lewis also called on Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform. "It doesn't make sense that millions of our people are living in the shadows," he said. "Bring them out into the light. Set them on the path to citizenship."

More than 30,000 members of the NAACP were in the crowd, many holding signs that proclaimed, "Protect the right to vote." Others held signs that said, "Comprensive immigration reform NOW."

Dr. Roslyn Brock, NAACP national president, denounced the "racist onslaught on our right to vote." She added, "Our challenge today, my friends, is to vote in all elections, especially non-presidential elections."

Referring to the 2010 off-year elections in which tea party Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives, she said "the consequences have been devastating" when the progressive majority stays home on Election Day.

Rep. Alicia Reece, who represents Cincinnati in the Ohio Legislature, called for a "Voters' Bill of Rights," a constitutional amendment to be put on the ballot across the nation beginning with Ohio.

Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, told the People's World that Reps. John Conyers, D-Mich., and Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., are drafting a bill to restore the Voting Rights Act. The measure, not yet introduced, will include restoration of the section struck down by the Supreme Court, Henderson said. He predicted that Sensenbrenner will persuade enough Republicans to support the bill that it will pass.

The first march in 1963 had a laser focus on ending racist segregation. By contrast, the rally this Saturday was far more diverse in both composition and the vital issues the marchers raised. There were many more women participating and more blasts against the Republican right for attacking women's rights. Thousands carried signs demanding "Justice for Trayvon Martin," the unarmed 17-year-old Black youth shot to death in Florida by George Zimmerman, who was acquitted of the slaying.

Sybrina Fulton, Trayvon Martin's mother, told the crowd that the slain youth "was not just my son. He's all of our sons and we have to fight for our children."

Dan Gross, speaking for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence denounced the "cowardly Congress" that ignores the 90 gun fatalities each day in blocking legislation to end the firearm massacres. "We are here today because Trayvon Martin is dead," Gross said. "A young Black male is 17 times more likely to die in a gun homicide ... and we are here to say 'My voice matters."

Terry O'Neill, president of the National Organization for Women, said the Republican right is waging a "war on women" even though the women's equality movement has "won the war of ideas." She listed some of the demands of that movement: "union jobs at fair pay," equal pay for work of equal value, no cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. She added, "We demand a constitutional amendment, a guarantee of the right to vote. Women will never go back!"

Growing economic inequality with millions unemployed or falling into the ranks of the working poor brought thousands of union members to the march. Bob King, president of the United Auto Workers, told the People's World his union filled 105 buses from across the nation, in keeping with its history: the UAW was a sponsor of the 1963 march.

"We're here to honor Dr. King and to commit ourselves to action to fulfill the dream of social justice for everyone," King said. "That includes the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively, equal rights for women, full funding of public education, a clear path to citizenship for all the millions who are the children of God in our country."

The Rev. Al Sharpton, who co-organized the march with Martin Luther King III, gave a fiery keynote address, calling for an all out mobilization on three issues: voting rights, jobs, gun violence. He urged building a united movement and to put the heat on the "one percent" and banks when it comes to economic justice.

Drawing on King's 1963 speech, Sharpton said the check marked "insufficient funds" was redeposited but came back marked "stop payment."

"They had the money to bail out banks. They had the money to bail out major corporations. They had the money to give tax benefits to the rich. They had the money for the 1 percent," Sharpton said.

"But when it comes to Head Start, when it comes to municipal workers, when it comes to teachers, they stopped the check," he said. "We want to make you make the check good, or we're going to close down the bank."

The St. Louis chapter of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists brought a busload. Lew Moye, president of the chapter, told People's World, "Many of the same problems we faced in 1963 we face today. We want to send a message to our congressional representatives and to our president and his administration that those issues remain our highest priorities. They need to address our priorities."

Ben DeGuzman was leading a contingent of the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans. "In many ways our struggles are the same," he said as he marched. "We're fighting for jobs, peace and freedom the same as all the other people here. Immigration is an issue of particular interest we work on. Over 60 percent of Asian Americans are foreign born and 11 percent of the undocumented are Asians so it is an issue that affects us all. We fight hard for citizenship. We fight hard to claim our place in the country."

Jahquille Ross and Angellica Perkins, students at Tuskegee University, rode one of the NAACP buses from Alabama. "I think it's important for young people to be here," said Ross, a senior who is majoring in elementary education. "We are not only remembering the past but we are moving toward our future and our future is not clear. We need more young people to step up and lead."

Perkins said she is from Selma and still has family living there. "My family has passed the torch from generation to generation in all we have gained in the civil rights movement. When we celebrate those accomplishments, we are defending them. We are showing the unity that is necessary to defend those gains."

After the rally ended, participants marched to the recently completed memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. overlooking the Tidal Basin. It was a moving conclusion to another historic march on Washington.

Photo: A scene at the 50th Anniversary March on Washington, Aug. 24, 2013. NAACP Facebook page.

"Jury" to Bank of America: "You're guilty"

Fri, 23 Aug 2013 15:08:00 +0000

DETROIT - The willful wrongdoings of Bank of America were "put on trial" here earlier this week. On the sidewalk outside BoA's Detroit headquarters, actors portraying former bank employees presented damning evidence that that Bank of America was guilty of delaying and denying home modification loans and was a major cause of Detroit's financial problems and foreclosure crisis.

The jury was composed of 200 housing and labor activists and the witnesses against BoA were actors playing parts. But the testimony was real. It was drawn from a recent class action lawsuit filed in a Massachusetts federal court. The lawsuit charged that the bank had required employees to lie, falsify records, and more - or rewarded those who did so - in order to deny borrowers loan modifications they were legally entitled to.

Chris Michalakis, president of the Metro Detroit AFL-CIO, said BoA played a big role in undermining the city's finances. "When you foreclosure on loans, property values decrease, hardworking Detroiters are out of homes, revenue to the city dries up and it's hard for the city to stay afloat," he said.

An estimated 45,000 foreclosed homes remain vacant in Detroit, representing an annual loss of $135 million in property taxes.

The city itself was swindled by BoA and other banks according to Detroit Eviction Defense leader Steve Babson. The city borrowed money from banks to cover deficits and got caught in a casino-like bet on interest rates, he said. Detroit bet the rates would go up, BoA and other banks bet they would go down. When they did go down, banks added hundreds of millions in profits, Babson said.

Testimony at the Aug. 19 sidewalk "trial" was based on federal affidavits filed in the lawsuit which said Bank of America modification and foreclosure specialists were given bonuses and gift cards for placing 10 or more accounts in foreclosure a month.

They were told to deny receiving loan modification paperwork from homeowners even when it had been received in a timely fashion. People entitled to low-cost mortgage modifications were forced to accept expensive ones.

Why did the bank employees go along? BoA North Carolina employee William E Wilson supervised a team of 13 employees doing loan modifications. Testimony from an actor playing Wilson said that employees were subject to discipline and firing if they didn't produce results.

Joining the noontime rally were Summer of Solidarity union activists, many of them from the Steelworkers union. Mike Zielinski, from the Steelworkers, said what is happening in Detroit is a coast-to-coast problem. The group is participating in 32 actions across the nation that started in Philadelphia and will end in Los Angeles on Labor Day.

Detroit is under siege from toxic lending, subprime loans, and illegal foreclosures and on top of that the banks that caused the crisis get bailed out by the taxpayer, Zielinski said. "We're here to say enough!"

Photo: A Detroit citizen jury indicts Bank of America and "Count Bankula," Aug. 19. John Rummel/PW

Philly coalition demands quality education for all

Fri, 23 Aug 2013 13:52:00 +0000

PHILADELPHIA - The crowd included students, parents, teachers, counselors, librarians, school nurses, classroom aides, union members and students from Philadelphia and from Baltimore and Boston who had come in support.

The rain and the thunder did not stop them.

They came to deliver a message to the School Reform Commission (SRC), the mayor and governor: "Restore funding for Philadelphia schools!"

Before reaching school district headquarters on north Broad Street, the large crowd of demonstrators had gathered at the Comcast downtown corporate headquarters a few blocks away.

The march started there to highlight their claim that Comcast, in its recently completed corporate skyscraper, is not paying its fair share of taxes and is a major player in causing the schools' funding shortfall.

At the rally, speakers representing the wide range of groups and organizations participating praised the marchers for the high level of unity and determination that the developing coalition had achieved as the school's crisis intensifies.

With the opening of school less than three weeks away, the situation in the district continues to be confused and unclear. Although a few have been recalled, over 3,000 school employees including nurses, counselors, teachers and support staff are still facing layoffs.

City and state officials have engaged in a complex game of political maneuvering in attempts to patch together a plan to fill part of the $270 million gap in the 2013-2014 budget.

The city's schools have been under state control since 2001. It is widely recognized that Pennsylvania Governor Corbett's deep budget cuts over the previous three years are a major cause of the crisis, but Philadelphia Mayor Nutter is not escaping the anger of school activists.

Dave Morgan, vice president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) told the crowd that he wanted to "report a robbery; Governor Corbett and other officials have stolen our children's education." He continued, " In this crowd I see the people of Philadelphia, but I don't see a government that cares about them. When you cut $1 billion from the education budget to build more prisons, we know what message you are sending us. We are not going to stop until the funding is restored and the schools are back in the hands of the people."

Speaker after speaker echoed Morgan's words. The message was, as Philadelphia student and member of Youth United For Change (YUC) Krista Rivers said, "We don't just want band aid funds; we have come together to get decent learning conditions for students and decent working conditions for teachers."

Pat Eiding, head of the Philadelphia AFL-CIO said, "We need public schools that are for working people's children; I remember a time when we were proud of our school system; the state came in here and messed it up. They are trying to destroy collective bargaining, but it's not going to happen."

Philadelphia Federation of Teachers (PFT) President Jerry Jordan said he had one question for the SRC: "What about the children?" He went on to cite the staff members the children would have to do without under the SRC's current plans. "The nurses are there to take care of the children. And every counselor who was working in June has to be brought back. A child does not decide what day of the week to have a crisis. We will not be a party to cheating Philadelphia's children. We need services and programs as good as the ones I had when I was a student at West Philadelphia High School."

Last week, the SRC voted to suspend portions of the state school code in order to open schools without the required number of staff. For example, the district plans to staff schools with nurses who are licensed, but are not certified as school nurses. The teachers' union contract expires at the end of August.

Jordan earlier told the press that the SRC was negotiating in bad faith, "by seeking to suspend work rules even as we talk everyday at the bargaining table and seeking to subject school employees to the bad old days of staffing decisions based on patronage and favoritism."

Rally organizers announced plans for further actions in the coming days, including delivering petitions to City Council and a youth vigil outside the governor's office on Broad Street. The governor has said he would not agree to a proposed partial funding plan unless the PFT accepted major concessions in their new contract.

Photo: Ben Sears/PW

Feminist and Marxist: Dorothy Smith receives lifetime sociology award

Thu, 22 Aug 2013 13:40:00 +0000

NEW YORK - At a national meeting this summer here, social theorist Dorothy E. Smith was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Section on Marxist Sociology of the American Sociological Association. Smith is widely acknowledged as a major feminist thinker, perhaps best known for her development of the concept of "standpoint theory." Recognizing that knowledge and understanding are embedded in social structures, standpoint theory begins in a Marxist rejection of liberal claims of "objective" social research, and instead calls on social scientists to begin inquiry in social structures and processes with the standpoint of the marginalized.

Unfortunately Professor Smith, aged 87, was unable to travel to the event. Her praises were sung at the reception by Roslyn Wallach Bologh, professor of Sociology at the College of Staten Island and CUNY Graduate School, who presented the award. Bologh said that Smith's commitment to Marx was profound and lifelong. Both Smith's first book, published in 1977, called Feminism and Marxism: A Place to Begin, A Way to Go and her most recent work, an article entitled "Ideology, Science, and Social Relations: A Reinterpretation of Marx's Epistemology," deal with Marxist theory of knowledge - epistemology - and reclaim its power to make sense of the world.

Bologh recounted the many accomplishments of Smith's lifetime, including her book The Everyday World as Problematic, which Bologh said "single-handedly reshaped the social sciences," seven other widely read volumes, and numerous prestigious awards in sociology and anthropology both in her native Canada and internationally.

Bologh closed by saying, "To Dorothy Smith, thank you. Thank you for work that has enriched and benefited so many people, work that has enriched and transformed the social sciences, and work that continues to jolt social science forward in exciting new and progressive ways."

Photo: Dorothy E. Smith. Via Syracuse University

Activists demand Rep. Dan Lipinski support immigration reform

Wed, 21 Aug 2013 16:07:00 +0000

CHICAGO - Nestled in a small urban strip mall here in the shadow of Midway Airport sits Democrat Rep. Dan Lipinski's office. It was to that office immigration activists delivered a birthday cake recently. Well - half a cake to be exact.

The event was conceived as a half celebration/half lobbying effort. Community residents sang happy birthday on the one-year anniversary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Homeland Security memo that allowed discretion from immigration officials when dealing with minors. They then urged the congressman to take action on passing an immigration reform law. Written on the half-cake was "DACA/border enforcement not a solution."

This was one among many actions taking place during Congress' August recess. Eighteen other congressional representatives from Honolulu to Racine, Wisc., from Kalamazoo, Mich., to Elkhart, Ind., also received half cakes for only doing half a job, according to the faith-based grassroots network, Gamaliel, which sponsored the Aug. 15 events.

"Deferred Action is only half the work," said Rita Aguilar vice president of Pilsen Neighbors Community Council. "As people of faith, we will not rest until comprehensive immigration reform is reached and places the individual and the family at the forefront before anything else."

Lipinski has refused to say where he stands on immigration reform. In the 2010 lame duck session of Congress, he voted against the DREAM Act, erroneously calling it an "amnesty bill" in his press release. The DREAM Act, short for Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act, would give undocumented young people an opportunity to earn legal residency and eventually citizenship.

What's perceived as catering to the anti-immigrant and racist fringe of American politics infuriates many of Lipinski's constituents. Lipinski represents a swath of the southwest side of Chicago and his district extends beyond the city's border to the southwest suburbs, reaching almost to Joliet, Ill. According to the Census Bureau, the district is overwhelmingly working class. Almost one-third of the district is made up of Latino residents and at least 20 percent are identified as foreign born. Most of the district is white with Irish, Polish and German ethnic identities topping the list, each having their own tradition and struggle for immigrant rights.

"This country is made up of immigrants," says Michelle Kelly, who lives in the 3rd district and met with Lipinski's staff at an earlier office visit. Kelly says she can't understand why her congressman won't speak up for immigrants and their families. "Obviously, his family were immigrants at some point," she said.

Lipinski attracts particular ire from Chicagoans as they consider their city "immigrant friendly."

In addition, the state of Illinois has its own version of the DREAM Act, making available scholarship applications, college savings and prepaid tuition programs to undocumented individuals who graduated from an Illinois high school. Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois is the original Democratic sponsor of the DREAM Act in the U.S. Senate, and Chicago's Rep. Luis Gutierrez has been a long-standing champion of immigration reform and immigrant rights.

While Democrats are widely seen as championing immigration reform with a path to citizenship for young people, their parents and family, there are some reluctant ones that need to hear from their constituents and the wider community, activists say. But most of the recess actions are visits to Republicans.

Outside Lipinski's office, Emma Villareal, who grew up in the area, says the congressman has to "get with the times."

"The community has changed. What doesn't he get?" she said.

Villareal says all throughout his district immigrants - especially Mexican and Polish - work at restaurants and factories located in the third. "What about the little guy who makes minimum wage without health care?" she says.

Anna Padilla, a younger activist, suggests there is a "disconnect" among some in Lipinski's district on the reality of immigration today. People say immigrants should get to the "back of the line," Padilla said.

Some people imagine immigration as it was during Ellis Island days, she said.

"But let's look at the 'line' today. There are Filipinos and Mexicans at the front of the line who petitioned 20 years ago, in the 1990s. They are still waiting."

There are an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living and working in the country. Last August, President Obama signed the DREAM executive order, which allows people born elsewhere and brought to the US as children to apply for citizenship. On August 15, 2012, federal officials began accepting applications from DREAMers. But the DREAM order leaves the mothers and fathers of DREAMers - childhood arrivals - in limbo and in danger of deportation. Advocates believe that comprehensive immigration legislation is still needed.

The Senate passed a bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill that included a pathway to citizenship earlier this summer with a 68-32 vote. However, in the Republican-led House, the extreme right prevails and Speaker of the House John Boehner and other House leaders refuse to bring any of the five bills that have passed through committees to the floor for a vote. No bills have been introduced in the House that would provide a pathway to citizenship. If the House was to pass a bill, it would go to a joint committee where the Senate's earned citizenship provision would probably prevail, activists say.

Photo: Activists delivered half of a birthday cake to Rep. Dan Lipinski of Illinois, Aug. 15 (courtesy of Gamaliel of Metro Chicago).

Manning gets 35 years, will seek White House pardon

Wed, 21 Aug 2013 15:39:00 +0000

A military judge on Wednesday morning sentenced Army Pfc. Bradley Manning to 35 years in prison for leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks. The judge, Col. Denise Lind, also reduced Manning's rank and ordered a dishonorable discharge and forfeiture of all pay.

Manning, 25, was convicted last month of multiple charges, including six violations of the 1917 Espionage Act, for copying and disseminating the documents and videos to WikiLeaks while serving as an intelligence analyst at an Army base in Iraq. The documents and videos include evidence of possible war crimes and other illegal actions by U.S. forces in Iraq and at Guantanamo prison. Manning was found guilty of 20 of the 22 charges against him. However the judge found him not guilty of aiding the enemy, a key government charge.

Manning could have been given up to 90 years in prison.

Prosecutors did not ask for the maximum sentence, perhaps an acknowledgment that Manning was found not guilty of the most serious charges against him. Instead they asked for a 60-year jail term, saying that it would send a deterrence message to any other would-be military leakers. Prosecutor Capt. Joe Morrow called Manning a "determined insider who exploited an imperfect system. Every day was another day to stick his finger in the eye of the classification system of the military."

However Manning's defense asked for a prison term of no more than 25 years, arguing that it would give the young man the chance to rebuild his life. In appealing for leniency, defense attorney David Coombs said Manning's "biggest crime was he cared about the loss of life he was seeing and was struggling with it."

The judge said the 35-year sentence would be reduced by 1,294 days (more than three years), representing credit for the time he served before the trial and 112 days of punishment under illegal conditions in the brig at Quantico, Va. Manning will be eligible for parole in seven or eight years, when he will be 32 or 33 years old.

Judge Lind's 35-year sentence turned out to be closer to the defense's request than to the prosecutor's. That, coupled with her acquittal of Manning's on the serious "aiding the enemy" charge, seems to in part vindicate the argument of Manning and his supporters that he had acted out of humanitarian impulses.

However the American Civil Liberties Union denounced the sentence, saying the punishment given to Manning was more severe than that given to other soldiers who were guilty of torture and murder. "When a soldier who shared information with the press and public is punished far more harshly than others who tortured prisoners and killed civilians, something is seriously wrong with our justice system," Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU's Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, said in a press release. "A legal system that doesn't distinguish between leaks to the press in the public interest and treason against the nation will not only produce unjust results, but will deprive the public of critical information that is necessary for democratic accountability."

The Government Accountability Project, which defends whistleblowers, called the sentence "excessive and unjust," for the following reasons:

* It has never been proven that Manning's conduct did harm to the US.

* Manning informed the public of clear wrongdoing.

* Manning suffered egregious and unlawful pretrial detention.

* No individuals have been punished as a result of Manning's revelations despite clear atrocities.

At a news conference Wednesday after the sentencing, defense attorney Coombs said Manning's legal team is formally applying to President Obama for a pardon "or at the very least commute his sentence to time served." In requesting a pardon, Manning will tell the president he acted "out of a love to my country, and a sense of duty to others," Coombs said.

A petition supporting the pardon request is online at pardon.bradleymanning.org. Supporters say they are establishing a college trust fund for Manning so that after his release he can fulfill his dream of attending college.

Manning will be imprisoned at Fort Leavenworth.

Photo: Pfc. Bradley Manning, the day before his sentence was handed down. AP/Patrick Semansky.

California prisoners’ hunger strike enters seventh week

Wed, 21 Aug 2013 11:19:00 +0000

As a hunger strike by California prison inmates entered its seventh week Aug. 19, authorities said some 130 inmates in six prisons are refusing meals, with nearly 70 having maintained their strike from the start. Advocacy groups say they think far more inmates are participating.

When the strike started July 8, some 30,000 inmates, or more than one-fifth of the total prison population, were refusing meals at 22 of the state's 33 prisons.

More than 3,600 inmates are reportedly held in isolation in "security housing units" (or SHUs) at four California prisons - for a fixed term or indefinitely - with dozens isolated for more than two decades. Authorities claim most are members or "associates" of prison gangs.

The strikers say such prolonged isolation amounts to torture, a contention supported by UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Mendez, who said in October 2011 that such confinement could amount to torture.

Strikers' core demands include ending group punishment, changing how inmates are determined to be gang members or "associates," ending long-term solitary confinement, providing enough nutritious food, and offering more constructive programs and activities for SHU inmates.

Governor Jerry Brown has been silent on the strike. A team of inmate advocates seeking to mediate the conflict says the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) is not negotiating with them, and a department spokesperson has said CDCR will not make policy decisions under "threats or intimidation."

Many solidarity actions have been held around the state.

On Aug. 9 clergy and other strike supporters rallied in Los Angeles.

On July 30 nearly 100 family members of hunger strikers gathered in the state capitol, Sacramento, to present over 60,000 signatures to the governor's office, demanding negotiations with the strikers.

Rallies have also been held in San Diego, San Jose and outside San Quentin State Prison in San Rafael. At a rally in Oakland, seven protesters locked themselves to the main entrance of the state office building, where they were arrested and later released.

In an Aug. 1 statement, Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, who chairs the Assembly's Public Safety Committee, said of the inmates' demands: "To keep anyone in severe isolation for indefinite amounts of time does not meet norms of human rights that civilized countries accept." Ammiano and other legislative leaders have repeatedly urged that inmates' basic human rights be respected.

A controversy erupted after CDCR head Jeffrey Beard, in an attempt to counter public support for the strikers, issued a statement Aug. 6 calling inmate strike leaders "leaders in four of the most violent and influential prison gangs in California... convicted murderers who are putting lives at risk to advance their own agenda of violence."

He claimed former gang members had said in court declarations that the strike's true aim was to "get out of the SHU to further our gang agenda" in the general population.

Among many who responded to Beard's characterization was civil rights and inmates' rights leader Angela Davis, who called the strike "a courageous call for the California prison system to come out of the shadows and join a world in which the rights and dignity of every person is respected."

This week prison officials received authority from U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson to force-feed inmates whose health is failing, even if they have a legally valid do-not-resuscitate (DNR) request.

The authority was requested by prison officials, a federal receiver controlling inmate medical care, and the Prison Law Office, a nonprofit advocating for prisoners' welfare.

Prison policy has been that inmates may continue to refuse food if they have signed legally binding DNR requests, but Judge Henderson's order would allow prison authorities to feed inmates who recently filed DNR requests or those thought to have been coerced into doing so.

In recent weeks dozens of strikers have sought medical help and several have been hospitalized. At the same time, legal advocates have continued to receive reports of ill treatment and indifference from both guards and prison medical personnel.

Photo: AP/California Department of Corrections

Booming Silicon Valley economy hides rising social inequality

Tue, 20 Aug 2013 13:34:00 +0000

BURLINGAME, Calif. -- California's Silicon Valley, in the Bay Area, has added tech sector jobs recently that have helped raise national employment levels. However, those most hurt by the nation's economic bust of 2008 seem to be losing out. While fueling a new source of profits for Wall Street, working families here are not enjoying the benefits of the region's economic resurgence.

The end of the dot-com bubble of the late '90s undercut much of the expectation of the high-tech economy being "immune to economic cycles." The ensuing bust in 2001 triggered a national recession and many bubble-fueled personal fortunes were lost as rapidly as they were gained. High-tech business culture shifted away from earlier Gold-Rush-level enthusiasm, leaving a few surviving companies to take over most of the main sectors.

Working families saw the greatest losses. Nonprofit organization Working Partnership, USA in its 2010 report "Life in the Valley Economy" found that in the wake of the tech recession "It wasn't until 2006-07 that Silicon Valley workers began to see a return to normality in job markets and wages. But just then, the national housing bust hit, followed hard on its heels by the financial crisis, erasing all the gains made during the recovery and then some."

The number of middle-income families in the area declined to 49.7 percent by 2010, reported the Public Policy Institute of California. Their study, "The Great Recession and Distribution of Income in California," noted that wide gaps in income distribution are a hallmark of the earnings picture in this state: "In California, the gap between lower- and upper-income families has been larger than in the rest of the nation for many decades and has tended to increase in recessionary periods. The Great Recession is no exception."

2009 marked the "official end" of the Great Recession, but today nearly 22percent of Bay Area families live below federal poverty levels. Hardest hit have been African American, Latino and immigrant families. Unemployment levels remain high in these demographics even with recent job gains in the Bay Area.

Higher education, often cited as a route to higher earnings in the tech sector, is no guarantee out of poverty in Silicon Valley. As reporter Martha Mendoza found, "Before the Great Recession, about 10 percent of people seeking food had at least some college education. Today, one in four who line up at food pantries for bags of free food have been to college."

Homelessness, meanwhile, rose to 20 percent by 2012 in Silicon Valley and the average rent for an apartment rose to $2,000 per month. Living costs are such that an income of $80,000 is required to just make basic living expenses for a family of four, yet many are struggling on much less.

Palo Alto, home to Stanford University, recently went so far as to pass a law that criminalizes homelessness, cloaking the law in a statute that would forbid anyone from using their car as a dwelling. Offenders could be charged with a misdemeanor that may result in a $1,000 fine or six months in jail.

Sales of high-end Bay Area homes, on the other hand, those costing $1.5 million or more, have increased to nearly 25 percent over last year, which had already seen expanding sales in this range. Rising home values have heated up the rental market while on the other end of the social scale, a number of families are one paycheck away from losing their apartments.

Investors are further driving up home prices, sinking capital into single-family homes to rent or to flip for resale. Companies are buying foreclosed properties at auction as well as on the open market, often outbidding families who cannot compete with the deep pockets of a firm who can make an offer well over the asking price. Areas hard-hit by the subprime loan crisis are being subjected to what the New Republic reported as "REO to rental." It is estimated that nearly 27 percent of rentals may now be held by absentee landlords on Wall Street. Findings show that 24 percent of home sales in the Bay Area in 2012 were purchased by corporations.

In an ironic twist, these home sales are now being bundled into Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), which function as a mutual fund for real estate holdings and return profits to investors from rents at a rate of 5-7 percent.

"Perhaps worst of all, Wall Street has begun to explore the option of securitizing the rental revenue, much in the way that they used mortgage-backed securities to ramp up capital in the bubble years. Three separate REO-to-rental trusts appeared on the market, under the administration of Wells Fargo, in the past couple months. These are non-public offshore trusts that are unregistered with the SEC, and in all likelihood have no credit ratings ..." the New Republic concluded.

Those who lost their homes to the subprime crisis of the last decade may now find themselves renting from the same corporations that were bailed out in 2008, on the road to a potential new Wall Street bust based on yet another derivative-based market bubble.

Photo: christian.rondeau, CC BY 2.0

U.S. faults accreditation panel in City College of San Francisco ruling

Mon, 19 Aug 2013 16:44:00 +0000

In a significant win for City College of San Francisco, the U.S. Department of Education issued a letter, Aug. 13, which could turn the tables on the accrediting agency - citing the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) for being out of compliance with a number of education codes.

The letter was a response to the 300-page complaint filed by American Federation of Teachers Local 2121 and California Federation of Teachers documenting the many irregularities in the review panel and the overall process which eventually led accrediting group to place City College on sanction and one year later to revoke its accreditation.

The ACCJC, which had been labeled a "rogue" accrediting agency by the California teachers union, was found to be lacking in these key areas:

1. The panel that was enjoined to report findings from City College was made up almost entirely of administrators, with only one instructor.

2. One of the panelists, Peter Crabtree, is the husband of the ACCJC's president Barbara Beno, resulting in a conflict of interest.

3. A lack of clarity in terminology from past accreditation reports on San Francisco's city college, which did not make clear that "recommendations" would be turned into violations that would threaten to close the school in the future if not rectified.

Education union leaders hailed these findings as a vindication of their claims of irregularities within the commission. Randi Weingarten, president of American Federation of Teachers said, "Today the U.S. Department of Education found sufficient problems with the accreditation process that the decision to strip the college's accreditation should be set aside."

President of AFT 2121 Alisa Messer said, "It's a clear justification for reversing the decision."

The U.S. Department of Education has stated that it has no authority to reverse the commission's decision, although if these problems are not addressed the accrediting panel could lose its standing to accredit colleges in the future.

Community leaders in the fight to save CCSF say that this development does not mean a total victory for the future of the school, but these findings bolster the argument in favor of reversing the decision to close the school in the ongoing legal battles.

Joshua Pechthalt, president of the California Federation of Teachers, concluded that the finding "confirms what we have known for some time, that the commission has operated as a rogue agency."

The ACCJC is not presently backing down from its decision, and will be issuing its own response to the Education Department's findings in December.

Recently the Commission has also come under fire for excessive secrecy and for shredding documents pertaining to its review process in advance of the review of its decision to yank CCSF's accreditation.

On Aug. 20, CCSF is due to submit its appeal request to the accrediting commission.

A student rally will also be held in support on Aug. 20, in conjunction with the Save CCSF coalition, at the San Francisco Civic Center.

Photo: Marilyn Bechtel/PW