Fix the health care system
ASHTABULA, Ohio — Health Care for All was the topic at the Town Hall meeting here Nov. 10 at People’s Missionary Baptist Church. The meeting, endorsed by the NAACP and the Ashtabula AFL-CIO and Retiree Council, featured an impressive panel of public officials and community leaders who presented strong arguments for repairing our broken health care system
Shut down NLRB for renovations, Ohio unionists demand
CLEVELAND — A spirited crowd of Working America, Jobs with Justice and local unions’ members picketed the federal building here Nov. 19 to protest a new raft of anti-labor decisions by the National Labor Relations Board.
Collapse in mine safety, report says
PITTSBURGH — “The collapse of MSHA began when Bush appointed David Lauriski in 2001,” says mine safety expert Jack Spadaro. “That set in motion all the processes and disasters in coal mining making headlines now.”
Fans back writers in week 4 of strike
NEW YORK — A thousand striking writers and their backers rallied in Washington Square Park here Nov. 27 to kick off the fourth week of a strike by the Writers Guild of America against an array of U.S. media conglomerates.
BOOK REVIEW: Four centuries of U.S. working-class literature
In his poem “A Worker Reads History,” Bertolt Brecht wrote: Who built the Seven Gates of Thebes? The books are filled with kings. Was it kings who hauled the craggy blocks of stone?
Two tales of one city: First the death, now the resurrection
NEW ORLEANS — It wasn’t the hurricane that almost killed this city. From day one, after Katrina, the Bush administration used this town as a laboratory to experiment with every type of right-wing social engineering scheme imaginable, and if it weren’t for the labor movement and its allies, they just might have succeeded.
From Oregon to Virginia, voters reject Republican right
Voters in the Nov. 6 off-year election made clear once again that they are fed up with the pro-corporate policies of the Republican right and looking for positive changes like ending the Iraq war, rooting out corruption and saving the environment.
Unionists energized for election battles
WASHINGTON (PAI) — Off-year election results in state and municipal races on Nov. 6 show union voters are already energized for 2008, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says. And they also show unionists and the country want “a clear rejection of Bush administration policies,” adds federation Political Director Karen Ackerman.
How do you answer the racists?
In the 2008 elections, the reactionaries are hoping to divide our progressive class with the immigration “wedge” issue. From what I have seen around North Texas so far, it is working pretty well for them. If one looks at history, it’s easy to see how the old pogroms against Jews were cooked up.
Two-tier wages: a community-killing virus
Lockport, N.Y., was once a seemingly growing, family oriented, peaceful community. The historic homes were beautifully maintained and added to the small city’s culture. Original buildings and its lock system along the Erie Canal were preserved for historical value.
