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.
Children suffer in immigration raids
For every two people detained in immigration enforcement operations, one child is left behind, according to a recent report, “Paying the Price: The impact of Immigration Raids on America’s Children,” released by the National Council of La Raza and the Urban Institute.
Gulf workers confront race to bottom
NEW ORLEANS — Renaissance Park in Baker, La., has a name that does it no justice. Home to Catherine Pitt, 31, an African American mother and her two children, it is row after row of cramped FEMA trailers sitting on a flat field encircled by barbed wire and patrolled by armed Blackwater USA security guards.
On the New Orleans docks: Workers fight to rebuild their city
NEW ORLEANS — A small sliver of downtown New Orleans has bounced back as a neighborhood of gleaming corporate office towers and a playground for the rich.
House GOP upholds Bush veto on SCHIP, union leaders vow retribution
WASHINGTON (PAI) — Despite strong lobbying by unions, health care groups, children’s groups and their allies, House Republicans mustered enough votes on Oct. 18 to uphold anti-worker President George Bush’s veto of children’s health care. Union leaders vowed the Republicans would receive retribution at the election polls a year from now.
Auto pact: the good, the bad and the ugly
The wages and working conditions of union autoworkers have always set standards for all manufacturing. These in turn have put upward pressure on wages and benefits for all workers. But in today’s political and economic climate, major contract negotiations in the manufacturing sector are hell.
Autoworkers: Round 2
About 43,000 autoworkers streamed out of their workplaces Oct. 10 at Chrysler plants across the nation, launching a second nationwide auto strike within a two-week period, but this one lasting only about four hours.
Solidarity and Mexican truckers
The U.S. Senate voted 75-23 Sept. 11 to ban Mexican trucks from U.S. highways. The vote rejected a Bush administration program that would allow Mexican truck drivers to operate beyond commercial zones near the Mexican border.
Labor mourns 9/11 dead, fights for the living
NEW YORK — The city’s labor movement gathered near Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan, Sept. 8, in a combined Sept. 11, 2001, commemoration, Labor Day tribute and call for federal legislation to ensure health care for those suffering from 9/11-related illnesses.
Smithfield workers force company to the table
WILLIAMSBURG, Va. — A thousand workers and activists demanding unionization of Smithfield’s Tar Heel, N.C., plant shook the walls of the Williamsburg Lodge Conference Center here Aug. 29 as they massed outside the annual meeting of the company’s shareholders, shouting slogans, chanting and blowing whistles.
