People Before Profit blog

GOP rewards Northrop Grumman for slashing jobs

Tue, 31 May 2011 17:40:00 +0000

NEW ORLEANS - People here are in shock after Republicans, just before Memorial Day, voted in Congress to reward the owners of the Avondale Shipyard $310 million for putting 5,000 local people out of work.

"It is totally absurd for elected officials to pay Northrop Grumman (the owner of the shipyard) to quit on America while those same lawmakers hold back on aid for storm victims and plot to kill Medicaid," said Professor Steve Striffler, an anthropologist at the University of New Orleans.

"It is even more absurd when you consider that federal funds for closing costs are only meant to reimburse private companies when they are operating at a military base or for defense purposes. Northrop Grumman is involved at Avondale as a private corporation raking in huge amounts of profits. In no way can you call this a military operation," he said in a May 31 phone interview.

Striffler heads a team of anthropologists from the university that is studying the impact of the shipyard's closing on New Orleans and surrounding areas. Labor and its allies consider the closing to be nothing short of another disaster for the area.

Last year, Northrop Grumman announced it was shutting down the shipyard and began laying off its 5,000 member skilled workforce.

In March, it spun off the shipyard to its newly created company, Huntington Ingalls, and now the workforce is cut to 3,000 who are building the final ship on the yard's order book.

The Republican-controlled House rejected by a margin of 246-177 an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act proposed by Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-La., that would have prevented the government from refunding $310 million to Huntington Ingalls for closure costs at Avondale. Only 19 Republicans jumped ship to join Democrats in supporting the measure.

In his emotional plea, Richmond said, "That is $310 million going to a company for quitting. That's not the American way. I ask my colleagues to support the amendment and not give $310 million to a company who just made $45 million in three months and is quitting on the American people."

In a phone interview, Richmond said, the Republicans are going to have a hard time explaining to their constituents why they are cutting Medicare and Social Security, while at the same time they are "giving $310 million to a company walking out on American workers."

University of New Orleans' Striffler said he couldn't "imagine" why politicians "wouldn't want to even go on record as trying to extract some kind of deal before they hand money out to a profit-making corporation.

"Why not try to get them to build cargo ships, for example? This is the biggest shipyard in America and they are going to let it go down the tubes?"

He said the impact on the area will be much bigger than most people realize.

"These 5000 jobs are, on average, $65,000 a year family-supporting jobs that we are losing. They are the backbone of local communities. I can't tell you how many of the college students in this area have been put through college with money that was earned by workers at Avondale," Striffler said.

The skilled jobs being lost were one of the only ways someone without a college education could make it into the middle class, he said.

He said that one of his biggest concerns regarding the Avondale closing is the impact it will have on African Americans.

"For African American workers in Louisiana, this is going to close off practically the only way left many of them have of escaping a life of low paid, poverty wages," he said.

Striffler, who has worked frequently on joint projects with local and national labor unions, will spend the first two weeks of June studying conditions for workers in coal mines in Colombia.

Photo: Delona Allen, owner of Mack's Cafe and Bar in Bridge City, La., says if Northrop Grumman's Avondale Shipyard closes so will she and many other businesses surrounding the huge facility. Chris Granger/The Times-Picayune/AP

Illinois poised to enact state DREAM Act

Tue, 31 May 2011 15:52:00 +0000

Illinois lawmakers passed a bipartisan bill May 30 that would assist immigrant youth throughout the state in paying for college. The measure, SB 2185, known as the Illinois DREAM Act, passed the Illinois House with a 61-53 vote. It passed the State Senate earlier this month and now heads to Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn's desk, where he is expected to sign the bill into law later this week.

"I believe everyone has the right to a first-class education, and the Illinois DREAM Act strengthens Illinois' commitment to ensuring education for all," Quinn said in a statement released by his office. "The legislation allows private funding to be used to help students pay for higher education and to train high school counselors to assist undocumented children [to] forward their educational careers. This legislation will support our next generation of scholars, business leaders and innovators, and I look forward to signing it."

The measure would establish a privately funded Illinois DREAM fund, administered by a volunteer staff commission, to make scholarships available to children of immigrants who graduate from state high schools. It will also train high school counselors and college admissions officers to be fully informed about educational resources and opportunities for immigrant students. The bill would also allow families to participate in the state's two college tuition savings programs.

The measure will not impose any cost on Illinois taxpayers and could benefit as many as 95,000 immigrant youth.

Lawrence Benito, deputy director with the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, said the bipartisan vote was "truly historic." In a statement on the group's website, Benito added, "This vote is a victory for our state and an important step forward in recognizing the contributions of immigrants." Illinois is poised to become the first state to create a private scholarship fund for children of undocumented Latinos, he said.

The bill, the coalition said, shows Illinois "is not only an immigrant-friendly state but also a national leader on moving fair, humane and practical solutions forward."

With the growing political power of immigrant communities and the recent Census showing an increase of Asian and Latinos in the suburbs, the issues affecting these communities are being taken seriously by elected officials, says the coalition. "This vote is very important for Latinos, immigrants and their supporters, who will remember this vote in 2012."

The Illinois Latino voting bloc grew by nearly 500,000 people since the 2000 Census.

The measure was endorsed by U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Cardinal Francis George, 15 university presidents and hundreds of faith and business leaders and community organizations.

The legislation was especially welcomed by Cindy, 22, an undocumented senior at the University of Chicago and leader with the Chicago-based Immigrant Youth Justice League.

In a video on the league's website, Cindy said she came to the U.S. with her parents when she was three-years-old.

"My parents made the choice to come to the U.S. in hopes to provide me and my sister a better life, she said. "Growing up, my parents always stressed the importance of an education. I grew up with the idea that one day I would attend college, graduate and have a career. I am less than a month away from my college graduation and becoming the first person in my family ... graduating college and fulfilling my parents dream."

Cindy continued, "But my future is uncertain because I cannot be employed after graduation and attending graduate school will be difficult financially."

However, she said, "The Illinois DREAM Act is important for my community, my friends and the thousands of undocumented youth who live in Illinois that want to create an educated immigrant community ready to give back to the U.S."

The bill gets its name from a federal piece of legislation also known as the DREAM Act, which almost passed Congress last winter. That measure was re-introduced recently by Democrats in the U.S. Senate. It would allow millions of undocumented students higher education opportunities, including a path to citizenship if they attend college or join the military.

Since only federal legislation can change immigration law, the Illinois version cannot include a path to citizenship for undocumented youth, but activists say it's a move other state's could follow in countering some of the anti-immigrant measures being proposed.

Pete Seeger on youth, careers, and social movements

Tue, 31 May 2011 13:53:00 +0000

Part 2 of a 3-part interview

David Kupfer visited with Pete Seeger just before his 90^th birthday in the spring of 2009, on a warm afternoon. The home he shares with his wife Toshi overlooks the Hudson River and Denny's Point near Beacon, New York. This is the second installment of a three part series based on the interviews. (The first part: Pete Seeger on the power of songs, an interview.)

Growing up

David Kupfer: Didn't Ernest Thompson Seton have a big influence on you as a young man?

Pete Seeger: He boosted the idea of learning about the North American Indians. I learned that they shared everything that they had. If somebody shot the deer, everything was shared with the rest of the tribe. There was no such thing as one person in the tribe going hungry and others having full bellies. If there was hunger, everybody was hungry. The chief was hungry, and his wife and children were hungry. That seemed to me to be a sensible way to live.

Now today I know that anthropologists call that tribal communism. So I say that I was a Communist ever since I was age seven, when I first started reading about Seton. So these teenagers, they argued with me and said, "you're going to be nice and let the rest of the world go to hell. That's your idea of morality?"

DK: When you were a teenager?

PS: I was about 13, I was going to prep school at the time. I decided they were right. They posed their Jewish traditional sense of social consciousness against my more New England, Thoreau way of thinking. I decided they were right, so I got more involved. The following year I joined the Harvard student union, and I have been more involved, in one way or another ever since.

DK: Was joining the Harvard student union pivotal for you?

PS: I was a sophomore, in the second year there. My first year there, I tried to keep my independence but some friends criticized me, saying "you mean you're at Harvard and you're not a member of the Harvard student union?" So I went back and joined and pretty soon I was the secretary of the club. We decided to run a monthly magazine all of four pages - The Harvard Progressive.

Outlooks and viewpoints

PS: If I'd known then what I know now, I would have worked to see that someone like Dr. King came along. He really turned my thinking around.

DK: How did Dr. King turn your thinking around?

PS: When you face an opponent over a broad front, you don't aim at your opponent's strong points. People say "why did he waste time trying to get a seat on the bus? Why didn't he spend time working on jobs or education or housing or voting?" But he took on the view that you don't aim for your opponent's strong points, you take on something to the side. You win it, you capture it, and then you go on to something else.

DK: You once said you were a Communist like the average Indian would be, and your view on Communism involved nothing that wouldn't fit in the Constitution. In today's North America, what does being a Communist mean to you?

PS: After I dropped out of college in 1938, I joined part of the Youth Communist League, making posters. I drifted out of the Communist Party in the early 1950s. This past Memorial Day, someone asked me "Seeger, are you a Communist?" and I said, "depends on the description." I became one at age seven and in a sense I still am one. I would to like see a world with no millionaires.

DK: You mentioned you have reassessed Abraham Lincoln's administration. Why?

PS: I did not realize what a job he had to do. I read this book about Lincoln and the team of rivals he put together. The men of his cabinet really disapproved of one another. The Republican Party was a coalition of dissatisfied Democrats and some abolitionists.

Lincoln pulled together this coalition and then three years into the war they started bringing in the black troops. I didn't know how horrible the draft riots were, the Irish didn't want to be drafted. If when you came over here you had $300, you'd pay that and you didn't have to be drafted. In other words, rich people didn't get drafted. The Irish blame that on the Africans having a whole batch who were just lynched in New York City. This went on for several weeks and then finally Lincoln found a way to cool them down to end the draft riots, which was to bring the Republican coalition together.

They were all ambitious people; at least 3 of them thought they should be president, and if they did not win the nomination on the first ballot, they would win it on the second. Lincoln kept himself in the background. He did not run against it on the first and he did not run against it on the second ballot. But on the 3rd ballot, he all of a sudden came forward. Lincoln would say a word here and a word there and he was able to pull together that coalition that would win an election.

Career and influences

DK: What role did your musicologist Dad play in your career choice?

PS: A very big influence. He was a brilliant scholar and writer, though he only put out one book, a collection of papers that he produced for the Society of Musicologists.

I remember at age nine, he told me that a rich person could live cheaper than a poor person. "What do you mean?" I asked him. "Well, take rent for example," he said. "The average person pays rent all of his life, but if you can get far enough ahead of the game and can buy a place, taxes will never be as much as rent is."

My father was the one who started me thinking about radicals. In 1929, like a lot of people, he thought the crash was the end of the free enterprise system. He started a group called the Composers Collective. Aaron Copeland was a member and Marc Blitzstein and half a dozen others. They were trying to think of what kind of music this new social situation demanded. However, their efforts were almost laughable failures. They went in for dissident, counterpoint Schoenberg, Stravinsky and so on. The working people were quite uninterested in learning their songs.

My father brought Aunt Molly around to the Composers Collective, and they listened to her and said, "but Charlie, this is all music from the past. We are supposed to be composing music for the future." He took Molly back to her apartment on the Lower East Side and he said, "Molly, I am sorry they did not understand you, but I know some young people who are going to want to learn your songs." And I was one of them. She was outspoken.

(sings) "I am a union woman, as brave as I can be, I do not like the bosses and the bosses don't like me."

Photo: 1964 anon for BBC Tonight In Person - #08 Pete Seeger playing mountain banjo. By blacque_jacques, CC 2.0

Pete Seeger on Woody Guthrie, youth and the environment,

Top labor leader: The fight is about morals

Fri, 27 May 2011 16:09:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is redefining workers' battle with the radical right as a moral struggle, saying it involves the nation's future. But since the moral struggle also has a political aspect, Trumka adds that the federation plans an overhaul of its political program to make it a year-round operation.

Trumka cast the conflict in states coast to coast in both political and moral terms in a major speech at Washington's National Press Club on May 20. His text emphasized the struggle, but his answers to post-speech questions turned to politics.

The moral struggle, he said, appears in state and federal budget proposals, most of them by right-wing Republicans and also schemes - from that same source - to curtail voting rights. He called the budgets "a despicable canvas of cruelty.

"In Michigan," he said, "a state senator thinks foster children should be required by law to purchase second-hand clothes - from the $79 annual stipend they get for clothing. In Maine, the governor thinks more children should go to work. In North Carolina, the legislature thinks we should balance the budget on the backs of autistic children.

"In Arizona, the state senate president floats the idea of locking up protesting public employees in desert tent city jails. In New York, a billionaire mayor proposes to fire 5,000 teachers rather than tax the bonuses of the Wall Street executives who brought down the American economy."

All those proposals indicate "not just meanness, but destructiveness" and "a willful desire to block the road to the future," Trumka stated. Though he did not say so, all the politicians and political bodies he criticized but one - New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a Republican-turned-Independent - are Republicans or GOP-run.

In D.C., the GOP-run House's budget cuts federal spending by $4.3 trillion over the next decade, in areas such as Pell Grants and worker training, while cutting taxes for the rich by $4.2 trillion and barely reducing the federal deficit, Trumka said.

"Think about the message these budgets send: Sacrifice is for the weak. The powerful and well-connected get tax cuts, so they can become more powerful and more well-connected."

Trumka portrayed the labor movement as standing against such schemes, and for the American dream "that all of us will be treated fairly, that we will look after each other, and that we will all have a share in the wealth we all help to create.

"Instead of having a national conversation about putting America back to work," creating wealth, increasing income and revenue, and closing the federal budget deficit, "the debate here is about how fast we can destroy the fabric of our country," he said.

In order to change that debate and to defend the moral position, labor must engage in politics, especially since last November's election brought to power politicians whose "real passion was for eliminating the rights of working people and destroying their unions - who are standing in the way of their right-wing agenda," Trumka declared.

The first step in the political fight for labor's moral agenda, he said, will be in the biggest battleground so far: Wisconsin, where unionists have filed successful recall petitions against at least six members of GOP majority in the state senate.

The GOP has a 19-14 edge there, and the 19 - with all the Democrats having decamped out of the state to try to block a quorum - passed right wing GOP Gov. Scott Walker's bill stripping 200,000 state and local workers of collective bargaining rights. The vote was 18-1. "First, we are going to use the workers' voice to end the Scott Walker agenda as a viable political strategy by winning the recall elections," followed by "citizen vetoes of destructive legislation and retaking state houses.

"The next step will be holding elected leaders accountable on one question: "Are you for improving or degrading life for working families?" That means the unions will not only go into battleground states, Trumka told a later questioner, but also support true friends even in non-battlegrounds - and find challengers to labor's political foes.

"It doesn't matter if candidates and parties are controlling the wrecking ball or simply standing aside to let it" - the destruction of workers - "happen. If leaders aren't blocking the wrecking ball...then working people will not support them," he warned.

Doing so will mean remaking the AFL-CIO's political apparatus into a year-round operation focused on the moral issue of helping workers, Trumka told questioners. "We hope to coordinate spending by our affiliates" - the AFL-CIO's unions - "in much more targeted ways. We will change the way we spend money, the way we do things and the way we function. We'll be mobilizing, hopefully on a year-round basis."

But even that may not be enough. Answering one question, Trumka called the political system "broken," and said the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision that unleashed a flood of corporate campaign cash "only made it more so. It has to be changed so that I have as much of a voice as ExxonMobil...and so that we can go back to a government of the people, by the people and for the people."

Photo: At a Chicago protest against cuts in LIHEAP and other necessary social service programs, March, 2. Speakers at the protest suggested some alternatives, like cutting the bloated military budget! And cut the tax cuts to the wealthiest, both corporations and individuals. Shared sacrifice! Teresa Albano/PW

Massey coal alleges government conspiracy

Fri, 27 May 2011 15:38:00 +0000

Top executives of the Massey Coal Company, which was blamed in an independent investigation last week for the deaths of 29 miners, are claiming that the U.S. government has conspired against them ever since the deadly explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine last April.

The charges by Massey executives are included in court papers filed by a Massey shareholder suing the firm and in lawsuits against the firm by trustees of two separate union pension funds.

All three sets of papers, according to the United Mine Workers, contain allegations of a government conspiracy against the company made by retired Admiral Bobby Inman, a former deputy CIA director and Massey Board chairman and by now-retired Massey CEO Don Blankenship.

The two claim that the federal government, all the way up to and including President Obama, is conspiring to shut Massey down.

When the deadly blast occurred last year, the company called it "an act of God."

Several days after an independent investigation released last week by former federal mine administrator Davitt McAteer found the company to blame, Massey responded that emissions of natural gas beyond its control, not dangerous levels of coal dust, were the cause of the deadly blast.

The union pension funds suing Massey are the California Teachers Retirement System and the New Jersey Laborers Building Fund.

Trustees of the teachers' fund are trying to stop the sale of Massey to a larger firm, Alpja Natural Resources. The trustees feel the fund's investments are being hurt because Massey, due to its safety violations, is being given away to Alpha dirt cheap while its fleeing executives rake in huge cash bonanzas as pert of the deal.

The Laborers pension fund is suing Massey for $25 million, claiming that while the company's directors let managers get away with deadly safety violations they were busy pocketing huge amounts of cash.

The lawsuits seek to stop the sale of Massey to Alpha on June 1 because the terms include an $86 million golden parachute for Blankenship and millions of dollars in severance for other Massey execs.

Cecil Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers union, blasted the contention by Massey executives that there exists a government conspiracy against the company.

"The notion advanced by Massey Energy Chairman Bobby Inman that there is some grand secret 'conspiracy' to put Massey out of business is as nutty as the prediction the world would end last Saturday," said Roberts, who has long been a leader in the effort to take on the company for its safety violations.

"No one ever needed to do anything extra to find gross violations of safety, environmental and labor laws at Massey operations. The company demonstrated over and over again that it was fully capable of creating those problems all by itself," Roberts declared. Lat week's report confirms his position, he said.

Roberts said that Massey's CEO should take some of the money he is making off the sale deal and use it to improve mine safety.

"Now that Mr. Inman stands to get paid $4.9 million from Alpha Natural Resources as part of the outrageous payments Alpha is giving disgraced Massey executives in the companies' merger, maybe he now can afford to spend a little money visiting mining operations that are actually operated safely and where the working relationship between management and workers is one of respect instead of one of intimidation of and contempt for workers," Roberts said.

"Don Blankenship, who created the safety-last culture of fear and intimidation at Massey, is going to get $86.2 million? Chris Adkins, the chief enforcer of Blankenship's reign of darkness, gets $11 million? Let's remember, both of them have invoked their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination in the Upper Big Branch investigation," Roberts noted.

Roberts said the golden parachutes and big cash bonuses for the CEOs were "unconscionable. What are these payments for? 29 miners are dead at Upper Big Branch. 54 human beings have been killed at various Massey operations and subsidiaries in the last 11 years, the most of any company. Massey continues to have the worst safety record of any American coal company.

"Why on earth would anyone want to reward the people who ran Massey for their outlaw behavior? And why, in the face of all this, would Alpha shareholders agree to allow these payments and the employment of some of these individuals to be part of any merger of the two companies?" Roberts asked.

Company claims that natural gas, not safety violations, were the cause of the deadly blast have been consistently challenged by miners.

"Miners testified that the rock dusting was inadequate in an ongoing basis at this mine," McAteer said when he released his report last week. "The footprint we found underground is a footprint of methane and coal dust - not a footprint of natural gas."

Illinois House to vote on state DREAM Act

Fri, 27 May 2011 13:59:00 +0000

The Illinois House of Representatives' executive committee approved legislation May 24 designed to help the state's undocumented students pay for college.

The bill, SB-2185, known as the Illinois DREAM Act, would establish a privately funded college scholarship for children of immigrants. If passed, immigrant children could apply for the funds. It would also allow the students to invest in the state's college savings program. A DREAM commission would be established to administer the funds, which would cost taxpayers nothing. The measure would enable high school counselors and college admissions offices to be fully informed regarding educational opportunities for immigrant youth.

The measure was approved in the state Senate earlier this month in a bi-partisan vote of 45 to 11. It advanced out of the House committee this week by a 7 to 4 party line vote with no Republican support. It now heads to the House floor for a vote, but it's unclear when. Supporters plan to lobby lawmakers at the State Capitol in Springfield to urge elected officials to vote for its passage. Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn supports the bill.

The bill gets its name from a federal piece of legislation also known as the DREAM Act, which almost passed Congress last winter. That measure was re-introduced this month by Democrats in the U.S. Senate. It would allow millions of undocumented students higher education opportunities, including a path to citizenship if they attend college or join the military.

Although the Illinois version does not include a path to citizenship for undocumented youth, activists say it's a move other states could follow in countering some of the anti-immigrant measures being proposed.

The Illinois bill has bipartisan support in the state assembly. Thirteen university presidents, including University of Chicago President Robert J. Zimmer, faith and business leaders and hundreds of community organizations have also endorsed it.

In a statement on its website, the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights is urging state Republicans to support education for deserving immigrant youth.

"Latinos and immigrants will be shocked if the dreams of immigrant children in Illinois are derailed by Republican partisanship," says the coalition. "Given the growing numbers of Asian and Latino voters in suburban Chicago and the Democratic controlled re-map process, this could be a political mistake as well." The coalition is referring to Democrats that control the state legislature and are currently finalizing redistricting maps throughout the state following last year's Census numbers.

Immigrant rights activists say the Illinois DREAM Act opens doors for immigrant youth who grew up in Illinois to attend college in order to give back to their communities.

Women's labor coalition honors Irene Hull

Fri, 27 May 2011 10:33:00 +0000

SEATTLE - Lynne Dodson, secretary treasurer of the Washington State Labor Council, called on union activists to live as Irene Hull lived, "fighting like hell" to create a better world for working people and their children.

She was speaking here to the Puget Sound Chapter, Coalition of Labor Union Women, annual awards banquet, Sat. May 14. The CLUW chapter conferred its "Special Honoree Award" on Irene Hull, who died March 20 at age 98. Hull was a founding member of the CLUW chapter and a lifelong member of the Communist Party USA.

"Sisters and brothers," Dodson told the crowd, "women are being thrown under the bus as states and the nation try to reduce deficits by slashing budgets." Hardest hit are programs that employ women and serve women and children, such as teaching and nursing, Dodson charged.

She blasted Republicans in Congress for slashing Head Start by $1 billion, the WIC nutrition program by $750 million, $50 million from a block grant that provides health care for poor children and for attempting to terminate funding for Planned Parenthood.

"Corporate profits are up," Dodson said. "Wages are stagnant and unions are under attack because we get in the way of unchecked greed. Now is the time for action. Now is the time to promote the kind of broader social agenda our founding CLUW sisters and brothers worked for.

"Now is the time to continue firmly on the path our sister, Irene Hull, traveled."

She urged a stepped up fight for equal pay for women, single payer national health care, and paid maternity leave.

"Email your legislators, take to the streets and the union halls," she exhorted the crowd. "You can run for office in your union and in local, state and national government. Let's work together to put this country back on the right track."

The crowd erupted in prolonged applause.

Featured in the program book was a tribute to Irene Hull written by her longtime friend and comrade, Will Parry, editor of the Retiree Advocate, monthly publication of the Puget Sound Alliance for Retired Americans, AFL-CIO.

"From 1942 until her death, Irene was a member of the Communist Party," Parry wrote. "Her political views shaped her lifelong commitment to peace, civil rights, social justice and unionism. Irene was fearless in promoting hundreds of campaigns and causes."

Parry noted that the labor movement honored Hull on her 80th birthday, proclaiming, "Eighty is just the start." He added, "As it proved to be. For another full 18 years, into the final week of her life, she was a burr in the side of the enemy."

Other awardees were Lonnie Nelson, SEIU Local 6 (retired); Kathy Oglesby, special assistant to Ron Sims, President Obama's Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; Rhonda Oden Gossett, community activist; Carol Dotlich, president, AFSCME Council 28; Rep. Phyllis Guterriez Kenny, 46th Legislative District; and Velma Veloria, director of Home Sight.

Gossett's bio in the CLUW program book reports that she met her future husband, King County Councilmember Larry Gossett, when she interviewed him after he returned from the World Youth Festival in Moscow during the 1970s. She was then a writer for the University of Washington campus newspaper.

Gossett honored his wife and the other awardees with a greeting in the program book saying that the Metro King County Council proclaimed March 28, 2011, "Public Employee Appreciation Day," adding, "The Council opposes any attempt to restrict or eliminate collective bargaining in the State of Washington."

Photo: Kevin Allen/PW

White House says it's eliminating useless rules, but not deregulating

Thu, 26 May 2011 16:54:00 +0000

For the first time in history, the federal government has undertaken a "look back" process to identify and eliminate anachronistic, redundant or unwarranted regulations.

The Obama administration says it is not "deregulation" and points to its beefing up of regulations in areas like health and the environment. Instead, officials say the review will help the public and save money.

According to an executive order issued by President Obama earlier this year, federal agencies must use a transparent process of rule-making that uses the best available science and a cost-benefit analysis, and must be accessible and the least burdensome,

Overseeing the review effort is Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Cass Sunstein.

Since the president's order, 30 federal agencies and Cabinet-level departments have scoured tens of thousands of pages of regulations. These agencies turned in hundreds of ideas for rule changes, according to the White House Office of Management and Budget. The process included a period of public comment.

According to Sunstein, the process expects to save billions for both taxpayers and businesses. He cited an Environmental Protection Agency rule created decades ago that includes milk and dairy containers in a federal regulation that protects Americans from the hazards of oil spills. According to the the EPA website, a new rule, which has been approved as a result of this process, will exempt dairy containers and focus only on oil and gas company containers. The rule will save dairy farmers $140 million each year.

The EPA will also revise old rules that require gas stations to purchase air pollution vapor recovery systems, because modern cars already have equally effective pollution control systems. This revision should save gas station owners about $670 million over the next 10 years.

Among other rules that have been identified for elimination or revision include a set of Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) employer reporting rules. According to the Sunstein's office, the elimination of these redundant rules and reporting procedures will save $40 million and 1.9 million work hours. A new OSHA rule that will streamline hazards classification and labels will save business owners close to $600 million every year.

"This rule is going to save lives," Sunstein told reporters on a conference call, May 26. "But it will also save millions of dollars."

A streamlined Department of Transportation railroad safety equipment rule "would maintain robust railroad safety standards while saving up to $400 million up front and up to $1 billion over 20 years," Sunstein's office reported.

"This change will continue to protect safety," Sunstein said. "That's a top priority."

The Department of Health and Human Services has also proposed eliminating redundant reporting by doctors. According to Sunstein, the current requirements do not provide any additional protections for patients but do add unnecessarily to the workload for workers in doctors' offices.

While some of the ideas have already been put into place, most of the proposals will be posted on a White House website for continued public comment.

"The President's executive order contains a number of principles and directives in it that are designed to go beyond the polarizing, anachronistic, decades-old debate over regulation," Sunstein added.

The administration says it expects the financial and labor savings of the new regulatory process will be much greater than any achieved by the deregulation moves in the first two years of the Bush administration.

While labor and cost-saving rules changes will earn some praise from the business community, the aim of the process, the White House repeatedly points out, isn't to appease or appeal to any particular groups. Rather, officials say, the goal is efficiency and protection of the health and safety of the public.

Sunstein pointed to new regulations by the Food and Drug Administration to protect consumers from salmonella poisoning, new EPA regulations on pollution and fuel economy, and new health care regulations, to argue that the administration's review process isn't a pro-business move.

Sunstein could have also mentioned recent EPA steps to strengthen regulations on carbon and mercury emissions or its plan to boost CAFE standards later this year, to show that the administration's goal in this process isn't standard "deregulation" as favored by conservative administrations and the business community.

"What we're determined to do here is to change the regulatory culture in a way that will get beyond polarized debate between those who celebrate regulation and those who decry regulation," Sunstein explained. The plan, he said, is to ensure that regulations, or the lack thereof, are based on empirical evidence, science, practical needs, and qualitative and quantitative cost-benefit analysis. This will sometimes mean new rules for certain situations and revision or elimination of rules in others.

While the next step is to open the proposals up to public comment, some media reports indicate that special business interest groups have formed innocuous sounding front groups to manipulate the public comment process.

A safeguard against this, Sunstein said, was that all public comments are a matter of public record and can be tracked. Another protection against cheating on the public comment process, he said, will be scrutiny of the proposed ideas based not on who wants it but on whether or not it is a good idea.

N.J. Supreme Court upholds right to public education

Thu, 26 May 2011 15:31:00 +0000

The New Jersey Supreme Court delivered a sharp setback to Gov. Chris Christie's determination to destroy New Jersey's public schools. The court by a 3 to 2 vote on May 24 voted to uphold the New Jersey state constitution's provision which guarantees a "thorough and efficient" education to all New Jersey children. The court ruled that the Christie administration must restore $500 million to the state's 31 poorest school districts.

The governor had cut out $1.3 billion dollars from the state education budget. The cuts are racist to the core. The state's 31 poorest school districts are in the main largely Black and Latino urban communities. They include the six largest cities - Newark, Jersey City, Paterson, Elizabeth, Trenton and Camden.

New Jersey public schools are funded by property taxes and some state grants. With this method, wealthier communities are able to provide more money per child and more programs for child development and newer school buildings. In the working class communities, children go to older schools, have fewer programs and no supplies and suffer the most severe layoffs of teachers and staff.

The court's decision continues a 136-year struggle by public education advocates to have a "thorough and efficient" (known here as T&E) education for all the state's children.

In 1875 the New Jersey legislature amended the state constitution, making it the state's responsibility to provide a "thorough and efficient system of free public schools." Since that time elected officials have tried to minimize and reduce the scope of T&E, but education advocates and courts have held fast. There have been many state Supreme Court decisions over the years upholding T&E and active implementation of it. For example in 1990, the court said that the "record proves what all suspect, that if the children of poorer districts went to school today in richer ones, educationally they would be a lot better off." The court further said: "Everyone's future is at stake and not just the poor's."

In 2009 the court upheld a new funding formula proposed by Gov. Jon Corzine, a Democrat, in 2007 extending additional funding to all school districts which have disadvantaged students. This approach differs sharply from the expressed intent of Republican Chris Christie to destroy public education. During his 2009 election campaign, Christie referred to the New Jersey Education Association as the "National Extortion Association." Since taking office in 2010, he has undermined public education in favor of charter schools and vouchers. His funding cuts have forced teacher layoffs across the state.

While progressive forces hailed the court's latest decision, they pointed out that it falls short in that it provides relief only to the 31 poorest districts. It does not provide relief for 171 other needy school districts in New Jersey.

Following the ruling, among the early options Gov. Christie was reported to be considering was to defy the court decision, which would have placed this former prosecutor in contempt of court.

In a bald-faced attempt to evade carrying out the court decision, Christie said the responsibility for implementation belongs with the state legislature. Senate President Stephen Sweeney said in response to Christie's evasion: "When there is good news to be had, he takes credit for it. When there is a difficult, tough situation, he says the legislature will handle it. That's fine, we'll deal with it."

Sweeney, a Democrat, also pointed to the need to find money to fund the other 171 left-out districts. Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver, also a Democrat, expressed determination to find funding for all affected districts even if it means raising taxes on the rich. In addition to the potential funds from restoring the lapsed millionaire's tax, the state just became the beneficiary of a $953 million tax windfall. This money came from increased income tax revenues because of the growing economic recovery, a large portion of which came from banks and Wall Street firms and their overpaid executives. The governor has no excuse not to fully fund public education as needed.

Barbara Keshishian, president of the New Jersey Education Association, called on "Governor Christie and the legislature to craft a budget that complies with the court's ruling and the law, and which respects the educational needs of all New Jersey children." She also urged them "to fund the education of students in all districts moving forward so that the state does not waste any more time or money defending the indefensible. Our children's education is too important to be left to the whims of politics."

Right wing pushes shocking child labor measures

Thu, 26 May 2011 14:43:00 +0000

The right wing's widespread attack on workers has a new target: the nation's youth. Currently the number of youth who are unemployed, especially youth of color, has risen to a level not seen in the last 60 years. It is estimated that only one in four youth who are looking for summer jobs this year will find one.

At the same time, Republican lawmakers in Maine and Missouri are proposing legislation to repeal child labor laws, which would allow children to begin work at an earlier age, for longer hours, for less than the minimum wage. Already state Sen. Jane Cunningham in Missouri and Gov. Paul LePage in Maine are using the argument that putting children to work in sub-human conditions will somehow be a solution to the nation's economic crisis.

Exploiting young people not only ignores the need to hold corporations accountable for skyrocketing poverty levels in the U.S., but perhaps even more importantly threatens the generation of people who will determine the economic stability of the nation for the next century.

Especially for working class youth, finding stable employment at an appropriate age is imperative in the process of securing economic well-being. However, it has become increasingly difficult for youth to find stable employment, both while they are still in school and upon completing their education.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the share of young people who were employed in July 2010 was 48.9 percent, the lowest July rate on record since the bureau began tracking this number in 1948. This summer's overall youth employment rate is expected to plummet even further.

A recent Reuters article projected that the unemployment rate amongst African American youth between ages 16 and 19 in Chicago could reach 90 percent this summer.

Hispanic youth face similarly staggering unemployment numbers. The National Puerto Rican Chamber of Commerce estimated this past February that the overall unemployment rate among U.S. Latino youth was 24 percent, while for African Americans it was 32 percent.

The quoted numbers have terrifying implications not only for young people's economic stability but also for their exposure to violence and incarceration. The same Reuters article referenced above reports that 700 youth in Chicago alone were victims of gun violence last year. Simultaneously, the racist GOP policies that create a "school to prison pipeline" - in other words the rapid pushing of youth of color from school into prison - will gain much traction during this time of drastic youth unemployment.

While corporations and the right wing are creating a hostile economy for youth who are actively looking for decent jobs, Maine and Missouri lawmakers are making sickening proposals to over-work youth at lower wage rates and at younger ages.

In Maine, Republican Gov. LePage is pushing for legislation that would:

* increase the number of hours per week that students can work from 20 to 24, * eliminate the maximum number of hours that a minor of 16 years or older can work on a school day, * allow children to work until 11:00 p.m. on school nights (right now they can only stay working until 10:00 p.m.).

Another bill pushed by LePage would have introduced a "training wage" of $5.25 per hour for the first six months of employment - the standard minimum wage in Maine is $7.50 - and removed limits on their school-week work hours. That bill has been killed.

LePage stated in a public meeting in Topsham, Maine: "I went to work at 11 years old. I became governor. It's not a big deal. Work doesn't hurt anybody."

In Missouri, state Sen. Cunningham has proposed Senate Bill 222, which would:

* make it legal to employ children under the age of 14,

* remove the requirement that children age 14 and 15 obtain a permit from their school to work

* allow children of any age to work in hotels and motels in any capacity if the hotel provides a place for them to sleep,

* remove restrictions on how long children can work during the day,

* remove the requirement that businesses keep records regarding the children that they employ,

* eliminate the state's authority to inspect employers who employ children.

These shocking proposals illuminate the intentions that the GOP has to concentrate wealth and power in corporate hands at literally any cost.

As a nation we must focus on creating good jobs for the young people who are at an age where starting their working lives makes sense. We must vehemently oppose the efforts in Maine and Missouri to make young workers into the new population that capitalism can exploit. The student leadership in Wisconsin's uprising and in many other states across the country clearly demonstrates that young people are ready to play a central role in the labor movement today, not only in solidarity with their parents and teachers but for their own futures as well.

Photo: People's World

Gay slurs rejected in the NBA

Thu, 26 May 2011 14:31:00 +0000

Anti-gay slurs in professional sports are unacceptable and show irresponsibility on the part of both athletes and, if homophobic language is not adequately addressed, the entire industry, activists say. Professional athletes are role models to millions, and using anti-gay phrases should not be tolerated, especially when so many in the sports world still seek acceptance and equal rights based on their sexual orientation, they add.

The issue has come full circle recently, and LGBT rights groups, in partnership with the National Basketball Association and its star players, have taken measures to address it, despite recent setbacks.

Weeks after major advertisements by NBA star players supporting gay rights hit the airwaves, Chicago Bulls forward Joakim Noah was seen on national television May 22 shouting an anti-LGBT slur to a heckling fan during Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals.

Noah had gotten into early foul trouble against the Miami Heat in the first quarter before being benched. The fan insulted Noah, leading to the poor choice of words. The Bulls ended up losing, and Noah immediately apologized. The NBA fined Noah $50,000 for his inappropriate actions.

Since then, Noah has said he wants to put the incident behind him and that he hopes to learn from the situation.

"You know, all my best friends live downtown in New York City. I was made in Soho," Noah told ESPN's Kevin Arnovitz. "Sometimes, when you're at this level, you don't realize the consequences of how much a word can bother people. My mom's best friend was gay. So I'm disappointed because that's not me. I didn't mean any harm to anybody. I don't want anyone to feel disrespected by what I said, and I understand that's what's going to happen."

Last month, the Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant issued a similar apology after he too was seen on television yelling the same anti-gay slur at a referee after a technical foul was issued against him. Bryant was fined $100,000, because his actions were directed at an official. Bryant said his words were "stupid and ignorant" and not indicative of his views toward the LGBT community.

"Last month, the NBA sent an important message about how such slurs fuel a climate of intolerance and are unacceptable," said Jarret Barrios, president of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, in a recent statement on the groups website. "These anti-gay remarks [Joakim Noah's], coming so soon after, demonstrate how much needs to be done."

Barrios continued, "Noah's apology is a start. We are confident that the NBA will now take disciplinary measures and hasten its work with us to tell players that there is no place for anti-gay words and attitudes in the game."

Miami Heat forward LeBron James said he understands what it's like to be heckled by obnoxious fans during games and sympathized with Noah.

"It's unfortunate," James told the Chicago Sun-Times. "I don't think Joakim is that person. Like he said, he's not that [prejudiced] guy. He made a mistake, and he's paying the price for it. All of us understand there are times when you become emotional. Things get said that you don't mean. You just have to be more careful. Understand that there are kids watching, people watching, that look up to us as role models."

Meanwhile, a major public service advertisement was launched by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network to address the use of anti-gay language among teens. The commercial, which is being aired during NBA play-off games, features Phoenix Suns players Grant Hill and Jared Dudley and is an extension of the award-winning Think Before You Speak campaign.

Phoenix Suns star Steve Nash also voiced his support for gay marriage in a public video recently released by the Washington, D.C.-based Human Rights Campaign. "A growing number of professional athletes are speaking out in support of gay and lesbian couples getting married. I'm proud to be one of them. Join me and the supermajority of New Yorkers who support marriage equality," Nash says in the video.

Earlier this month Phoenix Suns executive Rick Welts publicly announced he is gay, and supporters say his decision marks a new era of acceptance in the sports world.

Hall of Famer Charles Barkley, who played for the Suns, told ESPN he supports gay athletes and wished Welts the best in his coming out.

"First of all, society discriminates against gay people," said Barkley. "I've been a big proponent of gay marriage for a long time, because as a black person, I can't be for any form of discrimination at all."

Photo: Joakim Noah (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky).

Fracking stirs controversy in Ohio

Thu, 26 May 2011 14:18:00 +0000

CLEVELAND - Airways here and across Ohio have recently been flooded by ads from the oil and natural gas industry gleefully explaining that a new technology has allowed them to extract natural gas from rock.

Other ads remind viewers that they may be part owners of natural gas and oil companies through their retirement or pension funds.

Why the flood of information about natural gas? Because "fracking" has come to Ohio.

Three bills currently before the Ohio legislature would allow fracking in state parks. The industry seeks to drill 20,000 wells in the state parks with each site requiring the clearing of 20 acres of the surrounding woods. Currently there are only three wells in Ohio using a destructive new technology called slick water hydro-fracking, or high-pressure, high volume hydro-fracking.

Amendments to the bills proposing more environmental protections and excluding Lake Erie from fracking have all been rejected.

Over the past month standing room only crowds of concerned citizens have been testifying at public hearings against the drilling in state parks. Only one person testified in favor - David Mustine, director of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, appointed by Republican Governor John Kasich. Mustine has a background working for the oil and gas industry.

The Republican majority in Ohio's both houses seems oblivious to the public outcry and bent on putting the state's natural treasures at risk by an industry whose track record is shameful.

Since 2005 communities nationwide have seen the disastrous effects of the new technology. The system allows millions of gallons of fresh water mixed with up to 600 chemicals and sand that are forced under a very high pressure underground then drilled horizontally to "fracture" shale, releasing the natural gas and or oil trapped in the hard formations. Three fourths of the chemical laden water, or "brine" remain underground traveling through the fractures. If there is an underground aquifer in its path, that aquifer is permanently and severely polluted.

The remaining brine comes out above ground as wastewater. This backflow is a toxic product that can be radioactive if there is radon in the fractured rock. This wastewater is put in holding pools to allow some of the chemicals to evaporate into the atmosphere.

The remaining wastewater is sometimes "recycled" by using it to spray the roads to keep the dust down, or other cleaning activities. It cannot be sent to municipal treatment facilities where there are no methods to clean it and should not be dumped into streams or rivers or lakes.

So, it is often put into injection wells. If the well is shoddily constructed this toxic mix can seep out to pollute the ground or, if there are heavy rains it can cause an overflow, which also pollutes the ground.

Does this sound like a clear violation of air and water regulations?

Unfortunately fracking is exempted from the usual environmental safeguards thanks to a loophole in the Clean Water Act of 2005 at the urging of former Vice President Dick Cheney. His former company, Halliburton, was also engaged in fracking.

This new kind of fracking has been practiced in many states including Texas, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, West Virginia, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

When Josh Fox, a Pennsylvania landowner was approached to sign a lease to allow fracking on his land, he knew nothing about the process. Seeking to learn more, he set off on a journey throughout the country to see first hand the effects fracking had on communities. What he found and documented in his Oscar-nominated film "Gasland" were alarming cases of ruined water wells, devastated landscapes, fouled streams, sick farm animals, pets and human beings, and evasive, uncooperative drilling companies and agencies responsible for regulating them.

Hoping to educate the public about the problems associated with horizontal fracking, the Northeast Ohio Sierra Club is holding screenings of "Gasland." Coalitions working with the statewide Buckeye Forest Council are forming to oppose fracking in a number of counties.

Photo: Ari Moore // CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Unions help towns in tornado aftermath

Thu, 26 May 2011 13:29:00 +0000

Unions organized to come to people's aid as tornadoes struck Texas and Oklahoma this week, and Alabama before that.

North Texas saw a wave of storm-related destruction on Tuesday, including reports of hail, damaging winds, and at least one tornado spotted in Denton, with 70 mile per hour wind gusts. There was also devastating damage in Saginaw. Mark Fox, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, remarked, "This is one of the biggest storm systems to hit the area since 2007."

In Oklahoma, the aggressive storm system turned homes into splintered wreckage and vehicles into twisted shells. "My husband and I were driving around yesterday and went past a house and there was a vehicle in the pond in the front yard," Valerie Thomerson, Mayor of Piedmont, Okla., told the Huffington Post. "The only way I could tell it was a vehicle was I could see four wheels above the water. It was a crushed ball."

But worst of all, over in Joplin, Mo., the carnage was greater and more widespread, with the tornado of Sunday evening causing the highest death toll from a single tornado in more than 50 years, according to ABC News. WeatherOnline reported that the disaster left 123 people dead.

The station reported that Joplin resident Lauren Miller wiped tears from her eyes as she picked through the wreckage of her grandmother's home, retrieving family photos. Miller's grandmother hid in the cellar while the house above collapsed, and survived. But Miller's other grandmother, out for a Sunday evening dinner, was not so fortunate. "It's not easy," Miller told WeatherOnline. "I don't think the worst has come yet. This is all adrenaline and coping."

Elsewhere in Joplin, reported The Joplin Globe, 19-year-old Tyler Hall had been forced to take shelter in a back room at Home Depot, where he was working, when the tornado struck. A concrete wall collapsed onto Hall and four other workers who were huddled together there. He and his co-workers crawled out from beneath it as the tornado passed.

Mark Woolbright, vice president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, 2nd District, and Missouri State Council of Fire Fighters President Tony Kelley were on the scene on May 23, helping wherever and however they could. "The situation in Joplin is still chaotic," Woolbright said on the union website. "But we do know at least four of our members have lost their homes and some fire stations may have suffered significant damage."

This string of chaotic weather came less than a month after one of the worst tornadoes in recent history ripped through Alabama, according to the Locust Fork News-Journal. In that case, unions also arrived to assist in any way possible. "I've been in the labor movement since 1998, and seeing more than 150 of my union brothers and sisters come together to help one another and their communities is the proudest moment of my life," Terry Davis, the AFL-CIO Community Services liaison for central Alabama, told the News-Journal.

The United Steelworkers reported that USW workers from Fairfield, Ala., collected supplies and provided ice and physical assistance to the Alabama tornado victims. USW Local 2122 opened its union hall to the community. On its Facebook page, the union local has posted numerous status updates, urging any tornado victim to come to the union hall to pick up products that can help them.

Meanwhile, the Republicans have focused on reducing funding for the federal agencies that monitor and react to disasters, as slate.com reported. Under the Republican budget plan, the National Weather Service, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, saw its funding drop by $126 million. Democrats responded by attempting to add more money to NOAA's budget. Rep. Dan Lipinski, D-Ill., proposed an amendment to the House Committee on Appropriations that would have directed $710,641,000 to the National Weather Service Local Warnings and Forecasts. Lipinski's spending proposal, however, was ruled out of order by the GOP leaders, and not voted on, the slate.com column noted.

Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said May 25 that before House Republicans would support replenishing the federal disaster relief fund needed by the devastated people of Joplin, it would have to be offset by "spending cuts" elsewhere.

Photo: A scene of devastation, a day after the deadly tornado tore through Joplin, Mo., on May 22. Eje Gustafsson, Wikipedia

"Red School Bus" stops in Chicago

Thu, 26 May 2011 13:28:00 +0000

CHICAGO - Young people from all over the rust belt converged on the spot of the Haymarket Massacre when the "Red School Bus" tour stopped here for the Midwest School for Young Activists.

At the Haymarket memorial, Tim Yeager, secretary treasurer of UAW Local 2320 and member of the Illinois Labor History Society, gave a presentation about its significance and the conditions that led to the massacre itself.

After listening to Yeager talk about the struggle for the 40-hour work week when the average was at 78 hours, Tyler a young activist from Illinois, said, "I work that many hours now."

Recent attempts by Republican governors to dismantle and intimidate unions were more than relevant to the young Midwesterners.

In a discussion on capitalism and the class struggle back at the Unity Center, where the school took place, the young activists discussed the many ways that capitalism had affected them personally.

Classes at the school were on the "political time of day," capitalism, the labor movement, racism and immigration and LGBT rights. Discussion leaders were veteran activists and labor leaders from the Communist Party.

During the class, taught by Communist Party USA Secretary Treasurer Roberta Wood, one spoke of a life with no money to get an education; another of not having benefits at their job; still another of the stress of having to move away from family in search of gainful employment

Derek, 19, who came with the Kentucky delegation, spoke to the conditions in his state and the backwardness of Rand Paul. Gavin, a truck driver from Ohio, sought advice on how to address racism and xenophobia in his hometown and among friends and family.

The school also featured sessions on the labor movement, taught by People's World Labor Editor John Wojcik, and the struggle for equality and immigration, led by Pepe Lozano. Students even learned the labor theory of value by discussing the life of a Big Mac.

The students were also lucky enough to have members of the Immigrant Youth Justice League come and talk about the difficult situation facing young undocumented workers and what things they and other young people can do to help. One suggestion was organizing around the DREAM Act.

A representative from the AFL-CIO's youth group participated in a panel discussion and argued for the importance of unions and young workers' rights on the job.

The pilgrimage to the Haymarket memorial in Forest Home Cemetery came on the last day of the Chicago school. There they paid tribute to some of the giants of American labor movement, like Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, William Z. Foster, Henry Winston and Emma Goldman.

Steven, a 25-year old from Ohio described his experience at the school, saying, "This weekend has ended an old chapter, and began a completely new one in my life."

The next stop on the Red Bus tour is Orlando, Fla., June 10th-12th. For more info on that and other upcoming bus stops, contact ycl@yclusa.org.

Photo: YCL

A Memorial Day massacre

Thu, 26 May 2011 11:18:00 +0000

It's a dramatic, shocking and violent film. Some 200 uniformed policemen armed with billy clubs, revolvers and tear gas angrily charge an unarmed crowd of several hundred striking steelworkers and their wives and children, who are desperately running away. The police club those they can reach, shoving them to the ground and ignoring their pleas as they batter them with further blows. They stand above the fallen to fire at the backs of those who¹ve outraced them.

Police drag the injured along the ground and into patrol wagons, where they are jammed in with dozens of others who were also arrested. Four are already dead from police bullets; six others are to die shortly. Eighty are wounded, two-dozen others so badly beaten that they, too, must be hospitalized.

The close-ups are particularly brutal. As one newspaper reviewer noted, "In several instances from two to four policemen are seen beating one man. One strikes him horizontally across the face, using his club as he would a baseball bat. Another crashes it down on top of his head and still another is whipping him across the back."

The film ends with a sweaty, fatigued policeman looking into the camera, grinning, and motioning as if dusting off his hands.

The film was made in 1937. It was not, however, one of those popular cops and robbers features of the thirties. It was not fictional. It was an on-the-scene report of what historians call "The Memorial Day Massacre," a newsreel segment filmed by Paramount Pictures as it was happening on the south side of Chicago on May 30, 1937.

We¹re accustomed these days to the use of videotaped evidence to show wrongdoing by abusive law enforcement officers. Video technology was unknown in 1937, of course, and though film was available, it had rarely - if ever - been used for that purpose. The 1937 film, in fact, was initially kept from the general public by Paramount¹s executives. Fearful of "inciting riots," they refused to include it in any of their newsreels, which were shown regularly in movie theaters nationwide.

But the film was shown to a closed session of a Senate investigating committee chaired by Robert LaFollette Jr. of Wisconsin. The committee, concerned primarily with civil liberties, was outraged - particularly since the Chicago police had acted in violation of the two-year-old federal law that guaranteed workers the right to strike and engage in other peaceful union activities.

The committee found that strikers and their families, while noisily demanding collective bargaining rights as they massed in front of the South Chicago plant operated by Republic Steel, had indeed been generally peaceful.

But that was beside the point to the police in Chicago and other cities with plants operated by Republic and two other members of the "Little Steel" alliance that also were struck. For, as the committee concluded, the police had been "loosed to shoot down citizens on the streets and highways" at the companies' behest. The companies even supplied them with weapons and ammunition from their own stockpiles.

The committee said the companies had spent more than $40,000 on machine guns, rifles, shotguns, revolvers, tear gas canisters and launchers and 10,000 rounds of ammunition to use against strikers. Republic alone had more supplies than any law enforcement agency in the entire country.

The companies were prepared to go to any extreme to remain non-union. Two closed their plants temporarily, anticipating that most of the 85,000 strikers would soon be forced to return to work because they had little if any savings. But though Republic Steel closed most of its plants, it continued to operate the Chicago plant and a few others.

Republic fired union members at the plants that remained open and, with police help, cleared out union sympathizers and brought in strikebreakers to replace them. The strikebreakers, guarded by police day and night, ate and slept in the plants to avoid confronting the pickets outside.

Municipal police, company police and National Guardsmen harassed and often arrested pickets for doing little more than lawfully picketing. Six strikers were killed outside Republic's Ohio plants in Cleveland, Youngstown, Canton and Massillon.

The killings and other violence, the steadily increasing financial pressures on strikers, unceasing anti-union propaganda - all that and more combined to end the strike in mid-July, two months after it had begun.

But the steelworkers didn't give up. Determined to not have made such great sacrifices in vain, they turned to the labor-friendly administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt for help. They got it in 1941, when heavy pressures from the administration finally forced the steel companies to recognize their employees' legal right to unionization and the many benefits, financial and otherwise, that it brought them and the many other industrial union members who followed their lead.

Court ruling victory for African American firefighters

Wed, 25 May 2011 16:44:00 +0000

CHICAGO - It was a long time in coming and a major blow against discrimination in hiring practices here. The 7th US Court of Appeals ordered the Chicago Fire Department (CFD) to hire 111 African Americans who had passed a qualifying exam to become fire fighters in 1995, but then weren't considered after the qualifying criteria was changed.

In its unanimous May 13 ruling, the court also ordered the city of Chicago to pay what could exceed $30 million to 6,000 other African American applicants who also qualified. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund argued the case on behalf of the applicants and the African American Firefighter and Paramedics League.

"I am very surprised and pleased to get this result," Crawford Smith told the Chicago Defender. "I had given up (on the case) because it took so long."

The action puts an end to 16 years of legal obstruction by the City of Chicago and the Daley Administration even after it had confessed it had discriminated. The city had tried to avoid a settlement based on a technicality.

Even the right wing dominated US Supreme Court couldn't deny the blatant discrimination and had ruled unanimously in favor of the African American applicants last May. The high court said they had not waited too long to file a complaint against the act of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which the city had maintained.

The case goes to the heart of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In 1995 the City of Chicago conducted tests for new firefighters and set a qualifying score of 64. After 26,000 applicants scored above the limit, the CFD announced it had a new criteria and would choose from a much smaller pool of applicants who scored 89 or higher.

Of those who scored between 64-88 on the exam, 6,000 were African American or 36 percent. But when the qualifying score was raised to 89, whites compromised 77 percent and African Americans 9 percent, a clear violation of the "disparate impact" standard of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

The CFD used these criteria to hire 11 disproportionately white firefighter classes over the years.

The 89 score set by CFD was an arbitrary number according to Joshua Karsh, an attorney for the African American applicants. Karsh said the number had no bearing on the applicant's qualifications. A Federal Appeals Court agreed with this argument and ruled it discriminatory in 2005.

The CFD has a long legacy of embedded corruption, political machine patronage and racism in hiring and promotion. This also created an environment that pervaded the ranks below and permitted outrageous acts of racism and sexism in many firehouses. The Chicago Tribune had investigated how well the racial composition of fire departments matched the racial composition of major US cities. It found Chicago ranks third worst, only behind New York and Baltimore.

It's hoped the Appeals Court victory will now begin the process of reversing the startling erosion of African Americans firefighters in the department. Despite many high profile efforts and an aggressive outreach campaign to raise the percentage of African Americans firefighters, the numbers have declined steadily since 1995 when they were 22 percent of the force.

While African Americans represent 32.4 percent of the city's population and Latinos constitute 28.9 percent according to the 2010 census, they make up only 17 percent and 10 percent respectively of the fire department. Of the latest class that graduated in 2010, only 13 percent were African American. The situation for women firefighters is even worse.

The US Supreme Court unanimous ruling in May 2010 in the Chicago case was in contrast to its recent pattern of dismantling affirmative action, most specifically in the 2009 case in New Haven, Conn. Then, white firefighters claimed they were passed over in favor of African Americans for promotion despite scoring higher on an exam. The exam had been scrapped after it became clear it would result in a department racial makeup different from the surrounding city. The ruling by the right wing dominated court upended decades of settled law.

"My grandfather was a fireman. My father was a fireman. I've got an uncle and a cousin who are still firemen. The Fire Department raised me. It's a dream I've always had," said Smith.

"I should have been a fireman. I should have been called. It feels good to finally have justice reached. I'm still interested if they're interested in me."

The African American Firefighters and Paramedics League is attempting to find as many of the 6000 applicants as possible to share in the $30 million judgment and be part of the new hiring pool. They are urged to contact the AAFPL on its website.

Photo: Associated Press

Immigrant students win in-state tuition battle

Wed, 25 May 2011 15:51:00 +0000

HARTFORD, Conn. - As high school students across the state prepare for graduation, a long-awaited victory for the rights of the children of immigrant parents was won yesterday in the state legislature. The immigrant tuition bill will offer in-state tuition rates at the state's public colleges and universities to graduates from Connecticut high schools, regardless of immigration status.

Four years ago, the legislature passed a similar bill but lacked enough votes to override Republican Gov. Jodi Rell's veto.

As the DREAM Act continues to await Congressional action, Connecticut joins 12 other states in ending discrimination against immigrant students in college tuition fees. After a nine-hour debate, the bill passed the State Senate 21-14. The bill passed the House in a 77-63 vote, also along party lines, earlier this month.

"Anyone that has a degree from a Connecticut high school should be able to attend a public institution at an in-state rate. That's what I believe," said Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy as the Senate began deliberations.

A vigorous campaign for the bill began with the election of Malloy, who made the issue a campaign promise. A group of high school and college students who named themselves "The Dreamers" worked side-by-side with a group of legislators in crafting the bill, researching questions raised by opponents, and building grassroots support.

Students watched the debate from the gallery. Overcome with emotion when it passed, Lorella Praeli, who was born in Peru, told the media, "I'm excited we've done something in our state."

High school honor students from Danbury, New Haven and Hartford had testified about the impact of the bill on their lives. With a difference of about $10,000 a year, many would not be able to pursue their studies at the university level if they were forced to pay the much higher out-of-state tuition rates.

Immigrant students who graduate from Connecticut high schools after attending for at least two years, and who submit an affidavit stating that they will apply for citizenship when eligible, will be able to attend college and pay in-state tuition.

The language requiring the students to sign an affidavit stating that they will apply for citizenship when eligible is included because if they apply now they would probably be ordered to leave the country.

The attempt by Republicans to play one student off against another fell flat. Republicans argued that if immigrant students got in-state tuition other students would be left out. This was refuted on the Senate floor.

In a research paper prepared for the Legislature, community college instructor Barbara A Richards said that "approximately 250 high-achieving immigrant students per year, many of them Hispanic, will be able to attend college and pay in-state tuition. Even though they will not receive state or federal financial aid, some of them will gradually complete their college degrees and play a much-needed role in our workforce. They will not displace anyone. There is more than enough room for them. They are essential for the future of our economy."

Richards cites the fact that there is currently a shortage of qualified high school seniors to enroll in Connecticut colleges. "If Bill 6390 passes, not only will the students affected not displace citizen children, but they will help to fill a gap that threatens our state economy," she said.

A national anti-immigrant right-wing organization, Numbers USA, issued a statement this week calling on Congress to pass legislation that would forbid states from giving in-state tuition rates to undocumented immigrants. Legal challenges to overturn in-state tuition legislation, including in California, have failed.

Photo: Connecticut Dreamers lobby at the State Capitol in Hartford. Via creedible.com

Critics: Mandatory E-Verify comes at a serious price

Wed, 25 May 2011 15:07:00 +0000

The GOP in Congress is pushing new laws that would force employers to check the immigration status of new hires. Democrats, who argue that the enforcement-only measures are hurtful and wrong, have instead pushed for laws that would combine enforcement with a path toward citizenship. Mandatory immigration checks by employers would hurt businesses, cost American jobs and have a tremendous effect on the agricultural industry, they argue.

House Judiciary Chair Lamar Smith, R-Texas, is spearheading an anti-immigrant measure that would require employers to use the Homeland Security Department's voluntary E-Verify program. E-Verify allows employers to screen hires' identification numbers against the Social Security Administration and DHS database to determine if they are in the country legally.

Leading experts on the matter and immigrant rights supporters said during a May 24 conference call that the costs, drawbacks and legal issues surrounding E-Verify's mandatory enforcement-only policy will have serious consequences.

Tyler Moran, policy director with the National Immigration Law Center, noted E-Verify, which was first introduced ten years ago, has been a central component of every immigration bill since 2005 and was supported both by Democrats and Republicans. But, she added, President Obama and most Democrats say an E-Verify law must include a program that aims to legalize the millions of undocumented workers essential to the American economy.

In 2008, Arizona became the first state to make E-Verify mandatory, says Moran. In fact, half of Arizona's employers are not using it, she said, adding that it's not rooting out immigrants, but it is costing taxpayers way too much.

Craig Regelbrugge, senior director of government relations with the American Nursery and Landscape Association, emphasized agricultural and seasonal workers will be hard hit under mandatory E-Verify. It will lead to unintended consequences: less overall production, fewer jobs, more reliance on exports and will drastically affect the industry that provides the foods we eat everyday, he said.

E-Verify routinely fails to detect good-faith documents and will ultimately screen out the most experienced farm workers, says Regelbrugge. "Over the years E-Verify has failed miserably."

Growers will not survive under E-Verify and will have to switch to lower-value crops or leave farming all together, notes Regelbrugge. "It will suck the economic life blood out of the agricultural industry and negatively affect those that work to feed us," he said.

Speakers explained how E-Verify has negatively impacted businesses, workers, communities and taxpayers in states like Arizona, Florida and Georgia. Activists, they said, should build alliances between business and immigrant rights groups to demand lawmakers oppose E-Verify and measures like it on a local, county, state and national level.

Marshall Fitz, director of immigration policy with the Center for American Progress, said part of the problem is the Obama administration lacks the necessary votes to pass immigration reforms in Congress.

"Immigration is not a black and white issue, and Republicans would like to convince us that the problem is an enforcement-only one," said Fitz. "But E-Verify is not a silver bullet and it actually creates more enforcement challenges than it proposes. It's unquestionably wrong and doomed to fail." It's also alienating the fastest growing voting bloc, Latinos, in the country, says Fitz.

Rep. Smith, the House judiciary committee chair, argues a mandatory E-Verify law would actually grow the economy and is supported by the business community. But this couldn't be further from the truth, speakers on the call said. They claim that under mandatory E-Verify, nearly 800,000 jobs could be lost, along with up to $17 billion dollars in tax revenue. Some 75,000 workers in agriculture and related jobs alone could be at risk in at least five states.

It's likely a mandatory E-Verify bill will pass in the Republican-dominated House later this year. But the measure could face strong resistance from Democrats that control the Senate. Senate Democrats are trying to gain support for the DREAM Act, after re-introducing it earlier this month.

President Obama recently made a speech in El Paso, Texas, renewing his call for overhauling the broken immigration system. He said he would only consider an E-Verify proposal if it included a legalization program that allows unauthorized workers to get right with the law. Republicans, on the other hand, are against any measure that supports a pathway to citizenship.

Photo: Fieldworkers pick onion bulbs on a Vidalia onion farm in Lyons, Ga. Concern that new legislation meant to bar undocumented immigrants from the workforce and giving local police increased enforcement powers could negatively affect the industry. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

GOP anti-abortion fervor hits fever pitch

Wed, 25 May 2011 14:21:00 +0000

Republicans have made no secret of their opposition to the legality of abortion. In fact, between their resurgence last November and the end of March, they proposed 916 measures in 49 state legislatures relating to reproductive rights, health, and access, according to the Guttmacher Institute. So much for "Jobs, jobs, jobs."

In South Dakota, the GOP has tripled the pre-abortion waiting requirement, from 24 to 72 hours- the longest in the country. This would have a negative impact on women in the mostly rural state who already often have to take time off from work to travel to a clinic. In addition, it is now required that the woman meet with an abortion crisis counselor in the interim. These crisis centers are often run by pro-life groups to discourage women from seeking abortions.

That pales in comparison to a South Dakota bill that would expand the definition "of justifiable homicide" to include killings that are intended to prevent harm to a fetus - therefore legalizing the killing of abortion providers. While it passed out of the House Committee, it was shelved following a national outcry.

Texas, a Republican bastion, has made several inroads against reproductive rights as well. The Texas House approved a bill that would strip funding from state hospitals and clinics that provide abortions or "abortion related services." Governor Rick Perry planned a special ceremony May 24 to sign a bill that would require women to view a sonogram of their fetus prior to receiving an abortion, as well as listen to the fetus's heartbeat.

GOP Louisiana State rep. John LaBruzzo has introduced a bill that would ban Louisiana from using Medicaid funds on abortions, even in the case of rape or incest. Additionally, the bill would expand the crime of "feticide" to include voluntarily aborted fetuses. The bill, which passed of committee to the House floor, is an attempt to challenge the 1973 Supreme Court ruling in Roe V. Wade, and risks cutting of Medicaid funds for the state, as well as incurring millions in legal fees.

In May, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels signed into law a bill that bans Medicaid payments and government grants to Planned Parenthood because the organization provides abortions. Kevin Falk, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, who joined Planned Parenthood in an unsuccessful attempt to block the law, told the Indiana Courier-Journal that the law will force Planned Parenthood to close 13 of its 28 centers in Indiana. The law also bans abortions after 20 weeks.

Back in March, during the debate, when Democratic state Rep. Gail Riecken introduced an amendment that would allow abortions after 20 weeks in the instance of rape, incest, or health of the mother, it was countered by bill sponsor Eric Turner (R). Turner claimed, "I don't want to disparage in any way someone who has gone through the experience of a rape or incest - but someone who is desirous of an abortion could simply say that they've been raped or there's incest."

Perhaps the most honest assessment of Republican feelings towards the topic came from Kansas Republican state Rep. Peter DeGraaf. The Republican-controlled legislature passed a bill that would prohibit insurance companies from covering abortions to women, except when a woman's life is at risk. When a pro-choice Republican representative, Barbara Bollier, expressed her concern that this was placing a financial burden on women, DeGraaf said, "We need to plan ahead, don't we, in life?" When Bollier responded that women often have no control over these issues, especially in cases of rape, DeGraaf responded, "I have a spare tire on my car. I also have life insurance. I have a lot of things that I plan ahead for."

Speaking of GOP attitudes toward rape, recall the brutally tragic rape of an 11-year-old girl by 18 young men in a small Texas town. This event was used by a Florida GOP state lawmaker as a justification for a state dress code prohibiting sagging clothing, or clothing that exposes underwear or parts of the body. Referring to the rape, she said, "There was an article about an 11-year-old girl who was gang-raped in Texas by 18 young men because she was dressed up like a 21-year-old prostitute. And her parents let her attend school like that." In other words, it was the 11-year-old girl's fault that she was gang-raped.

It is hard to fathom the extent of all these anti-choice, anti-reproductive health laws pushed by the GOP recently. However, seeing some of their lack of compassion for rape victims, it is not surprising.

Corrected 5/27/11: The bill that would have expanded the definition "of justifiable homicide" to include killings that are intended to prevent harm to a fetus - therefore legalizing the killing of abortion providers - was in South Dakota, not North Dakota. An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified the state.

Photo: Fibonacci Blue CC 2.0

Democrats score first big victory since 2010 defeats

Wed, 25 May 2011 13:25:00 +0000

Not even a year after they swept elections across the country and wrested control of the House of Representatives from the Democrats, Republicans seem to have hit a speed bump - which they fear, and Democrats hope, could be a sign of things to come in 2012 - in western New York.

Underdog Democrat Kathy Hochul was handed a stunning victory yesterday, when 47 percent of voters in New York's 26th Congressional District backed her for the House seat vacated by Republican Rep. Chris Lee after a sex scandal. She beat out Republican Jane Corwin, who took 43 percent of the vote, as well as tea party candidate Jack Davis, who took 9 percent.

"The voters ... gave voice tonight to the growing national consensus that Republican leadership has failed," Jay Jacobs, chair of the New York State Democratic Party, said yesterday after the votes were counted. "Kathy Hochul's come-from-behind victory is a testament to her hard work, perseverance and commitment to the values and principles that have defined Western New York."

Corwin was expected to win, but the Republican plans to radically change Medicare became a big issue, and the race tightened. Big name GOP stars came to campaign for Corwin, including Speaker of the House John Boehner.

Voters, Working Families Party Executive Director Dan Cantor said in an email to supporters, "were not willing to buy the Ryan-Boehner-Pawlenty-Romney-Whoever view that we don't actually have any obligations to one another, that we are just islands unto ourselves. Medicare is a promise, from one generation to the next, that all Americans deserve to be treated with dignity."

In New York's fusion voting system, candidates can run on the line of more than one party. The Working Families Party gave their line to Hochul, while Corwin ran on the lines of both the Republican and Conservative Parties.

The Republican candidate spent millions of dollars on her campaign. Corwin spent more than $2 million of her own money, and other Republican groups contributed as well. Karl Rove directed about $1 million to her campaign.

On the Democratic side, the Working Families Party put its powerful electoral machinery into gear for Hochul, as did MoveOn and a host of labor unions.

The Republican tried to run from her party's positions on Medicare. The non-partisan factcheck.org criticized Corwin, accusing her of running ads falsely suggesting that Hochul favored cuts to Medicare and Social Security. In response, Buffalo's NBC affiliate, WGRZ television, said, "Corwin, at this point, is criticizing something that she supports."

In addition, groups friendly to Corwin, including the Chamber of Commerce, ran what Democrats deemed "smear ads" against Hochul. One commercial by the Chamber particularly offended The Tonawanda News.

"The advertisement [the Chamber of Commerce] produced is a blatant attempt to legitimize [Corwin's] flagging campaign by implying that her policy positions are endorsed by this newspaper, when in reality they are not," read an editorial in the News.

The district, located between Buffalo and Rochester, is composed of suburbs, small cities and rural areas. Republicans far outnumber registered Democrats, and, except for a 10-year-break starting in 1993, the area has been represented by Republicans since 1953. Further, the district was remapped in 2002, skewing the demographics further right. Hochul's victory is the first for a Democrat since the redistricting.

Yesterday's election, said DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz in a statement, "has far-reaching consequences beyond New York. It demonstrates that Republicans and independent voters, along with Democrats, will reject extreme policies like ending Medicare that even Newt Gingrich called radical."

Photo, via Hochul's website, shows a volunteer working on her campaign.