People Before Profit blog

Honoring Grace Bassett, lifelong drum major for justice

Wed, 27 Nov 2013 15:59:00 +0000

[Editors' note: CPUSA Executive Vice Chair Jarvis Tyner delivered the following eulogy for Grace Bassett, a lifelong activist for civil rights and socialism, at the celebration of her life held at Benta Funeral Home in Harlem, N.Y. on Nov. 15. Bassett was a member of the People's World editorial board and a volunteer copy editor for many years, as well as the editor of Chicago's DuSable edition of The Daily Worker during the 1940s. The entire staff, editorial board and network of volunteer reporters extend our deepest condolences to Grace's family.]

Grace Colwell Thornton was born Dec. 17, 1916, in New Orleans. Grace died on Nov. 10, 2013, at age 96; next month she would have been 97, just three years shy of 100.

I have known Grace and her husband Ted for over 40 years. She was all Grace to me; then I married her great-niece and she became Aunt Grace.

She was a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority while a student at Dillard University in New Orleans. She was a social activist all of her life. She was a lifelong member of the Communist Party USA. Grace didn't see a contradiction in being active in both the sorority and party - and neither do we.

In an interview with People's World, Grace, speaking of her growing up years, said, "We were very active in the church and activities like the Girl Scouts, but at the time, they were not receptive to blacks." That led Grace to join the YWCA.

But it was on a camping trip with her Methodist Church that she realized she liked helping people. We have just heard a beautiful rendition of "If I can help somebody, then my living shall not be in vain." It is a very fitting song for Aunt Grace.

Back then she met a women social worker who took her on home visits. "That was my beginning. My whole life began there," she said. She realized that she wanted to be a social worker.

In church and high school, she became involved in all sorts of activities: chorus, acting, counseling other youth, and, she added, "dating too."

"I always had my boyfriends, but I had my activities," she said.

At Dillard University, Grace went on a trip organized by her teacher. It was a lunch with students from a white college. "It was my first interracial experience," she said.

In time, Grace became active in the Southern Negro Youth Congress (SNYC), founded in 1937, just before she graduated Dillard with a Bachelor of Arts in social work.

SNYC, like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) which followed SNYC, was registering black people to vote. It was an organization of 100,000 active young people that carried out voter registration and education campaigns among blacks and whites in the deep South.

"Sometimes," said Grace, "we went into unreceptive places." She described how SNYC and a white student group went to a white neighborhood to do voter education. "While many were friendly, somebody reported us," she said. Interracial groups at that time were targets of sheriff departments and the Klan.

"So we ran to our car, jumped in and left. Our program wasn't just for Black people. It was for white people too, working class whites. We tried to get them to vote and educate them on what to vote for."

The activities of SNYC helped give birth to the modern civil rights movement, she noted. World War II came, and many men went into the service. Grace assumed leadership roles in the New Orleans SNYC.

Later, she went to Atlanta to further her education. She traveled to SNYC organizing meetings in Mississippi. She met and developed friendships with SNYC leaders like Dorothy Burnham, and James and Esther Jackson. In 1984, Bassett was among those interviewed about SNYC for New York University's Tamiment Library. NYU was where she got her master's in social work.

SNYC, in addition to voter registration, organized tobacco and other workers into unions. Grace and her pioneering colleagues were active in fighting every violation of civil rights, all done at great personal risk.

In 1941, Mildred McAdory, a domestic worker and SNYC activist, refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white person in Birmingham, Ala., and was arrested. That was 14 years before Rosa Parks did just that in Montgomery. Mildred was arrested and SNYC led a big struggle on her behalf. Mildred, or Millie as many knew her, had to leave the South and came to Harlem where she became a member of the CPUSA's National Committee.

Parks, the heroine of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the civil rights movement, later credited the role of both the NAACP and SNYC for leading the way to breaking segregation.

Grace moved to Chicago around 1942 with her first husband. McCarthyism had cost him his job with the transport workers union. She got a job with the Daily Worker and later became editor of its DuSable edition, in which she campaigned for the integration of the White Sox and Cubs baseball teams. She and her husband later divorced.

It was in New York City, at a party convention, where Grace met Ted Bassett, the Harlem organizer of the party, political activist and writer. Grace and Ted were married in 1952 and Grace moved to New York. She joined the ongoing grassroots and electoral struggles there for civil rights, peace, low rents and health care. In the 1970s Ted and Grace lived in Cuba. Ted was from Virginia but spoke Spanish and was the correspondent for the Daily World. Grace was very active in the movement to free Angela Davis, the anti-apartheid movement in the 1980s, and the Ben Davis Club of the Communist Party here in Harlem.

Grace Bassett returned to social work and was an active member of Local 1199 union as well as social workers' professional organizations. She worked in New York hospitals, including Harlem's Sydenham Hospital, until it was closed by Mayor Ed Koch, despite community protests of which Grace was a part. She worked until she turned 70 and Ted took ill. She retired to care for him. Ted died in 1994.

Grace was a journalist and a member of the People's World editorial board. Once a week she would get on the subway at her advanced age and travel from the Washington Heights neighborhood downtown to Chelsea to volunteer her considerable editing skills and help get the paper out.

She would say, "I can't stand just sitting around." Remarkable.

When Grace spoke in our club everybody listened. We listened to her even when she was wrong. Like when Obama ran for president in 2008, and we were talking optimistically about the campaign: Grace interrupted and said, "You comrades are leading with your heart and not your head. This country is not ready to elect a black president."

In the broad sweep of history, change is constant. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said the moral arc of the universe was "long but it bends towards justice." Frederick Douglass said, "Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."

But, where do the great demands and struggle that make great change come from? They come from PEOPLE! The first to speak up. The first to say "Let's go." The first to sit down and strike and the first to pick up a picket sign. They know they can't do it alone and they know how to effectively get others involved.

Why did this beautiful young black women college student end up in Birmingham registering black voters under the threat of the Klan? After all, everybody who was opposed to Jim Crow didn't all jump out there first.

It was the heroes and sheroes like Grace Bassett - special people who have a deep understanding and are highly motivated to struggle against injustice. That's why I joined the Communist Party.

Our dear Grace was one of those drum majors for freedom and peace and we loved her for that. We love her for who she was and the great things she did and her beliefs in a socialist future.

She couldn't stand to sit around.

A timely campaign: Health Care for the Holidays

Wed, 27 Nov 2013 15:13:00 +0000

There are many actions underway to win workers rights and push Congress on people's needs. Among them is the Health Care for the Holidays campaign launched by barackobama.com to educate and engage millions of people across the country with the Affordable Care Act. The stories of people getting health care relief through the new system are being buried in the media by negative stories.

The special website and education campaign has been launched to enable ordinary people to discuss the value of signing up for the Affordable Care Act with their families over the holidays. This is of direct benefit to family members and also an answer to the tea party attempt to block any progress for working people.

The tea party burst onto the national scene in 2009 during the summer recess when members of Congress held town hall meetings about health care. The tea party's stated purpose was to disrupt and prevent any new health care legislation from passing. Since that time they have used every legislative and legal means at their disposal to destroy any pro-people health care reform. This has affected many other issues including the government shutdown. It will be a factor in the 2014 elections.

Many organizations are participating with the Health Care for the Holidays campaign including Organizing for Action and Working America.

Make your holiday more meaningful. Enjoy family, protest with Walmart workers, and take the time to learn about, discuss and sign up for the Affordable Care Act and your state health care program.

Photo: BarackObama.com

Vito Marcantonio Forum celebrates 2nd anniversary

Mon, 25 Nov 2013 15:14:00 +0000

On Sunday, Nov. 3, the Vito Marcantonio Forum sponsored an event at Gaetana's Cucina Italiana restaurant in Greenwich Village.

The forum honors the memory of Vito Marcantonio. Marcantonio, a protégée of LaGuardia and one of the most progressive Congressmen in history, has been called the Thaddeus Stevens of the 20th century. Marcantonio represented East Harlem from the late 1930's to the early 1950's. Like LaGuardia, Marcantonio was a member of the American Labor Party, although he usually ran on multiple party lines. Because of his unshakable stand for progressive causes and in defense of working people ruling circles and the bourgeois press heaped buckets of mud on Marcantonio in attempts to discredit him. His district was gerrymandered and laws were passed with the particular intent of defeating him yet he won time and time again. The attacks, including vicious red baiting, became particularly intense during the McCarthy period. Finally, all the other major parties ganged up on him and he was defeated. Despite this Marcantonio never backed down, tirelessly working for progressive causes and defending the Communist Party and its leaders in the courtroom and in the halls of Congress. Marcantonio was in the midst of planning another run for Congress in 1954 when he stricken by a massive heart attack.

The MC for the event was author Gil Fagiani, a founding member, along with Gerald Meyer and Roberto Rangone, of the Vito Marcantonio Forum. Fagiani began with a short history of the forum. It was originally founded in 1991 with the intention of giving an annual award in Marcantonio's memory. The first award went to Annette Rubenstein, a colleague of Marcantonio, who collected and edited a book of his speeches, I Vote My Conscience. In these early days of the forum awards were also given to community activist Pete Pascale and to progressive artist Ralph Fasenella. The forum was reestablished in 2011 and this event was the 6th that the new organization has held with another planned honoring the life of Fasenella. That event is scheduled for February 22nd, 2014 and will be held at the New Public Libraries Mulberry Branch.

The day's main address was give by noted Marcantonio scholar Professor Gerald Meyer.

Meyer began by setting a context, talking about the defeat of Hitlerism by the United States and Soviet Union and how, during the war years, the U.S. moved towards socialism. This development alarmed certain sectors of society and these responded by unleashing widespread political repression. Marcantonio was largely written out of history at this time, a victim of this repression. Despite this, Meyer sees in the Marcantonio phenomena a blueprint for how the left can win. Marcantonio's lifelong close connection to his East Harlem community can be seen in this context - attacks on him became attacks on the community. Marcantonio personified a style of politics that no longer exists, where people know you on a daily basis.

In closing Meyer spoke of an earlier forum sponsored event, this years August visit to the Marcantonio gravesite in Woodlawn Cemetery and tour of this historic locale.

As a part of the program Roberto Ragone, President of the Italian-American cultural organization FIERI, reenacted a speech against the poll tax that Marcantonio had given in Congress in 1949 and Phillip Paschal, as Paul Robeson, delivered a dramatic reading of a written statement made by Robeson upon the death of Marcantonio.

In addition to celebrating the forums second anniversary, Sunday's event was held, in part, to celebrate the fact that the forum has now become a fully integrated non-profit organization and to raise funds for its sustenance.

Several books focusing on Marcantonio and more generally on the Italian American experience and El Barrio were highlighted at the forum these were:

Vito Marcantonio, Radical Politician, 1902-1954, by Gerald Meyer, I Vote My Conscience, edited by Annette Rubenstein, The Lost World of Italian American Radicalism, edited by Philip Cannistraro and Gerald Meyer, Avanti popolo: Italian American Writers Sail beyond Columbus, edited by the Italian American Political Solidarity Club, and, A Blanquito in El Barrio, by Gil Fagiani.

The program closed with a reading by Gil Fagiani of his poem, "Litany of San Vito", dedicated to Vito Marcantonio.

LITANY OF SAN VITO

by Gil Fagiani

To Congressman Vito Marcantonio (1901-1954)

San Vito of East Harlem, Pray for us

San Vito bread of the poor, Pray for us

San Vito crucified by Wall Street, Pray for us

San Vito martyr of McCarthyism, Pray for us

From the jail cell walls, San Vito deliver us

From the backyard crap game, San Vito deliver us

From the loan shark's vig, San Vito deliver us

From the drunken stupor, San Vito deliver us

From TB and asthma, San Vito protect us

From the social worker's visit, San Vito protect us

From immigration raids, San Vito protect us

From the landlord's greed, San Vito protect us

Photo: Wikipedia (CC)

Obama honors a true freedom fighter, Rev. C. T. Vivian

Mon, 25 Nov 2013 12:41:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - At a White House ceremony Nov. 20, President Obama conferred the Presidential Medal of Freedom on the Rev. C. T. Vivian, one of the nation's staunchest fighters for racial equality and voting rights.

Vivian was one of 16 recipients of the award this past Wednesday, including former President Bill Clinton, and television personality Oprah Winfrey. Obama hailed Vivian for serving as one of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s closest advisers and for putting his life on the line in the struggle to end segregation.

Ironically, Obama himself, the first African American president, is living proof of Vivian's success.

I got to know Rev. Vivian in March 2005 when I was assigned by this publication's predecessor, the People's Weekly World, to cover the Edmund Pettus Bridge Crossing Jubilee in Selma, Ala. This was a march commemorating the 40th anniversary of the brutal attack on voting rights marchers crossing that bridge on their way to the state capitol in Montgomery, Ala., to demand equal voting rights. Alabama state troopers brutally attacked the marchers on March 7, 1965, nearly clubbing to death John Lewis, D-Ga., then the national chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

That attack backfired badly on Alabama Gov. George Wallace. Scenes of the vicious attack were aired on network television, touching off nationwide outrage. A few months later, Congress approved and President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, clearing the way, ultimately, for thousands of African Americans to win election to public office, most notably President Obama.

Rev. Vivian was present at the opening shot of that struggle, leading a march Feb. 16, 1965, to the courthouse in the nearby town of Marion, seat of Perry County, to protest the arrest of Rev. James Orange, a leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). The police had been instructed to target Rev. Vivian, also an SCLC leader. After the police assault, the marchers scattered. Marcher Jimmie Lee Jackson hid with his mother in a closed and darkened café. State Trooper James Fowler tracked Jackson down and shot him to death as Jackson attempted to cover his mother with his own body.

Outrage over the police murder of Jimmie Lee Jackson triggered the first attempt to march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

Forty years later, March 5, 2005, I joined thousands of marchers peacefully marching across the bridge. The main demand of the march was renewal, without weakening amendments, of the Voting Rights Act. Specifically, the march demanded renewal of the "pre-clearance" clause. This was a section of the law that requires states with a history of voter discrimination to submit any changes in its voting procedures for review by the U.S. Justice Department. President George W. Bush and the Republican leadership on Capitol Hill had unleashed a "charm offensive" even as they maneuveured to undermine the Voting Rights Act. They had assigned a delegation led by Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., to join the Bridge Crossing Jubilee. But the marchers were not fooled.

When we reached the east end of the bridge, there was Rev. Vivian standing in the midst of the crowd, a look of joy on his face. I asked him for an interview. "Don't take voting rights for granted," he told me, referring to the theft in Florida of the 2000 presidential election. "We took it for granted that if we had the right to register and vote, our votes would be counted. We never imagined that 40 years later we would have to launch a whole new struggle. But we now know that many poor people never had their votes counted in the 2000 election or in the 2004 election. Given the character of the people now in power, we can have no confidence that our votes are being counted."

That interview echoed Rev. Vivian's speech a few hours earlier to the congregation in the Selma church that had served as the headquarters of the voting rights movement in 1965. Sen. Frist and other Republicans were in the standing room crowd as Vivian blasted Bush's war in Iraq and the nationwide attack on voting rights by the ultra-right Republicans. Vivian received a standing ovation.

I interviewed Vivian by phone several times after that. In the summer of 2008, I was in Denver covering the Democratic National Convention that nominated Barack Obama for president. I was standing outside the Colorado Convention Center passing out copies of the People's Weekly World when who walked up but C. T. Vivian. We greeted each other warmly and I handed him a copy of the PWW. Someone with a camera was about to click our picture. "Wait a minute," he said, shifting the paper so it was plainly visible under his arm. That's my fondest memory of the Rev. C. T. Vivian, a real hero of the people's movement.

He is still in the thick of the fight for voting rights and for full equality even as the Republicans do all in their power to strip people of that vital tool of democracy. As he told me in 2005, "We have to march all over again."

Photo: Rev. C. T. Vivian, right, poses for a photo with reporter Tim Wheeler outside the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver. Courtesy Tim Wheeler

Ala. board approves pardons for “Scottsboro Boys”

Thu, 21 Nov 2013 15:32:00 +0000

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - The state's parole board wrote a new ending for the infamous "Scottsboro Boys" rape case Thursday morning by approving posthumous pardons more than 80 years after the arrests.

The board made the unanimous decision during a hearing in Montgomery for three black men whose convictions were never overturned in a case that came to symbolize racial injustice in the Deep South in the 1930s.

Nine black males were falsely accused of raping two white women on a train in northeast Alabama in 1931. The men were convicted by all-white juries, and all but the youngest defendant was sentenced to death.

The state senator who got a law enacted to permit posthumous pardons said the Scottsboro Boys' lives were ruined by public officials and juries who ignored evidence, and that it was time to right a wrong.

"It is a promising reminder of how far we have come from those regretful days in our past," Republican Sen. Arthur Orr of Decatur said.

The founder of the Scottsboro Boys Museum in Scottsboro, Shelia Washington, said the pardons "give the history books a new ending - not guilty."

The Scottsboro Boys case became a symbol of the tragedies wrought by racial injustice. Their appeals resulted in U.S. Supreme Court rulings that criminal defendants are entitled to effective counsel and that blacks can't be systematically excluded from criminal juries.

The case inspired songs, books and films. A Broadway musical was staged in 2010, the same year a museum dedicated to the case opened in Scottsboro.

Five of the men's convictions were overturned in 1937 after one of the alleged victims recanted her story. One defendant, Clarence Norris, received a pardon before his death in 1976. At the time, he was the only Scottsboro Boy known to be alive. Nothing was done for the others because state law did not permit posthumous pardons.

In April, the Alabama Legislature passed Orr's bill to allow the parole board to issue posthumous pardons for old cases where the convictions involved racial discrimination.

The three Scottsboro Boys considered by the parole board on Thursday were Charles Weems, Andy Wright and Haywood Patterson.

The board said the other five - Olen Montgomery, Ozie Powell, Willie Roberson, Eugene Williams and Roy Wright - were not eligible under the new law because their convictions were overturned on appeal and the charges dropped.

Washington said some of the Scottsboro Boys changed their names and started new lives. The museum, working with students and faculty members at the University of Alabama, has found the graves of four of the nine. Washington said the next goal is to find all the graves and erect historical markers.

"They didn't know how much they meant in history while they were alive," she said.

Photo: ILD-retained attorney Samuel Leibowitz meets with the Scottsboro defendants under guard by the state militia in 1932. (CC)

Supreme Court, 5-4, clamps down on Texas abortion providers

Wed, 20 Nov 2013 13:01:00 +0000

AUSTIN, Texas - "This is outrageous and unacceptable - and also demonstrates why we need stronger federal protections for women's health. Your rights and your ability to make your own medical decisions should not depend on your ZIP code."

The woman making that statement was Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, in reaction to Tuesday's Supreme Court ruling that allows the state of Texas to continue enforcing harsh abortion restrictions.

With a 5-4 vote, the high court's conservative majority left in place a provision requiring doctors who perform abortions in clinics to obtain admitting privileges at a nearby hospital - regardless of location or the unproven willingness of said hospital to grant such rights.

Planned Parenthood and several Lone Star clinics had pleaded for the Supreme Court to overturn an appeals court ruling that kept the provision in effect while the overall law is appealed. Earlier a judge had said the requirement made no sense and should be suspended pending the outcome of the larger appeal.

The law as a whole remains on appeal with New Orleans' 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, where arguments are expected to be heard in January.

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, who sided with the liberal minority, indicated that the case, once ruled on by the 5th Circuit, is likely to return to the highest court for a conclusive end to the battle, which began this past summer in Texas when the Republican-dominated legislature pushed through the harsh abortion restrictions.

Previous rulings related to the issue of abortion have left in place restrictions when they do not pose an "undue burden" on a woman's ability to obtain an abortion.

Texas is the second largest state in the country, with much of the rural population strung across hundreds of miles in West Texas and the Panhandle.

The de facto shutdown of most of the specialized women's health clinics means that women and their families in rural Texas must pony up gas and travel money, as well as miss work. It adds up to a financial hit that may not be burdensome to a woman of means, but poses a hardship to those not quite so fortunate.

Down in the Valley, population numbers are higher, but so is the poverty rate. Many here observe that the anti-abortion decision treats women from up in Dalhart down to Brownsville the same - as pawns without voices in a religiously-motivated crusade against women's rights.

Justice Breyer decried the decision not to block the admitting privileges requirement for the time being until a final ruling is issued. He said, "The harms to the individual women whose rights it restricts while it remains in effect will be permanent."

For her part, Richards pledged, "We will take every step we can to protect the health of Texas women. This law is blocking women in Texas from getting a safe and legal medical procedure that has been their constitutionally protected right for 40 years."

Photo: National Day of Action to Defend Women's Rights rally at Dallas City Hall, July 15, 2013. Steve Rainwater CC 2.0

Today in history: President Lincoln's Gettysburg Address

Tue, 19 Nov 2013 13:26:00 +0000

One of the best-known speeches in American history, it was delivered by Lincoln in the midst of the Civil War, on the afternoon of November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery, four and a half months after the Union armies defeated those of the Confederacy at the Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

It was a carefully crafted address: In just over two minutes, Lincoln reiterated the principles of human equality from the Declaration of Independence and proclaimed the Civil War as a struggle for the preservation of the Union sundered by the secession crisis, with "a new birth of freedom," that would bring true equality to all of its citizens, ensuring that democracy would remain a viable form of government.

Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. Would the promise of "all men are created equal" be realized? It was not clear in 1860 when Abraham Lincoln was first elected. It was not clear in 1865, just after Lincoln's re-election as the Civil War was finally coming to a close after four long years and 600,000 dead.

Lincoln worried the Emancipation Proclamation would not be enough to guarantee an end to slavery. An amendment to the Constitution would be the only way slavery could be abolished forever from American soil, he said. So began the struggle for votes in the House of Representatives to pass such an amendment in January 1865, just after Lincoln was re-elected.

This intense political period is the setting for Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln," based on Doris Kearns Goodwin's "A Team of Rivals."

Ever since Lincoln wrote the speech, the "Bliss copy" has been the most often reproduced, notably on the walls of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. Today it is on display at the Lincoln Room of the White House:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate-we can not consecrate-we can not hallow-this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us-that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion-that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain-that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom-and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863

Smithsonian Folkways Recordings: Listen to David Kurlan read the speech from "Heritage USA, Vol. 2, Part 2: Documents and Speeches" and remember those lost in the Civil War.

Barbara Russum, Teresa Albano and Wikipedia contributed to this article.

Photo: The only known photograph of President Lincoln giving his Gettysburg speech, taken by photographer David Bachrach. Lincoln is seated on the right at the end of the dais, facing the crowd. Wikimedia Commons: This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.

Election mandate calls for unity and jobs

Tue, 19 Nov 2013 12:55:00 +0000

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - A huge multiracial crowd jammed inside and outside of Kelly's restaurant on election night here to celebrate the victory of Toni Harp as the first woman African American mayor, and cheered also for the mayors elected in New York and Boston. In all three cities, the labor movement joined with community forces to elect a candidate running on a program prioritizing people's needs.

Led here by New Haven Rising, unions of Yale University workers and community groups, hundreds of volunteers knocked on doors across the city this summer and fall to discuss issues and organize a large voter turnout. Labor-backed Harp won the primary and then went on to win the general election. In addition, the 20-member super-majority of union members and allies on the Board of Alders elected in 2011 was retained.

Also, charter revision to give residents a larger voice in government passed overwhelmingly. Two elected members were added to the mayor-appointed Board of Education, a civilian review board was established, 10 points were added for city residents who pass civil service exams, and mayoral appointments will be approved by the Board of Alders.

These victories and fulfilling the aldermanic priorities for jobs, youth services and an end to violence have not come easy.

New Haven's population is majority Black and Latino. Since the flight of industry, Yale University and its teaching hospital have become the dominant employers with constant expansion into surrounding neighborhoods displacing working class families.

After two decades in office, outgoing Mayor John DeStefano decided not to run again, creating an open field with five candidates in the Democratic primary. Harp's candidacy was unanimously endorsed by the union/community alders. This led to a hot and heavy primary election filled with union-bashing and personal attacks against Harp, which were rejected by the majority of voters.

Opposition candidates organized as "Take Back New Haven" claimed the alders were controlled by a "union machine" from the suburbs. In fact, the alders who are union members were elected as a result of unprecedented outreach door to door in each ward, exactly the opposite of a back-room machine. They have brought into the community the skills they learned representing co-workers on the job as service, maintenance, clerical and technical workers at Yale and as members of AFSCME and 1199. They are neighbors with as much stake in the future of the city as anyone else. Most are African American, many are women.

Harp, a former AFSCME Local 3144 member, said during the campaign, "ASFCME and I share a vision for a new New Haven. We share a vision of a New Haven that pays all workers fairly, that provides social services to the less fortunate, and guarantees all employees a secure retirement."

A longtime state senator with a strong progressive voting record, Harp came under attack for tax problems around her late husband's business. After she won the five-way Democratic primary, these attacks escalated in an apparent attempt to keep down the vote.

Harp's years of community service and her endorsements by legislators and the governor ensured her victory over Alder Justin Elicker who switched and ran independent after coming in second in the primary. His votes came primarily from wards with large white homeowner professional populations who liked his balanced budget program.

While Harp won with 54 percent of the vote, a campaign of education and discussion about race and the role of unions will be important post-election to move the city forward.

A major accomplishment of the union/community alders during their first term was the establishment of New Haven Works, which to date has helped over 100 residents get jobs at Yale, with a goal of 1,000 jobs in the next two years. Efforts are being made to get comparable commitments from other employers.

New Haven Rising activists are preparing for a new push to create jobs with livable wages and the right to a union. Activists who became involved during door knocks for the election plan to bring their message to Harp and the alders that to restore hope and opportunity more initiatives are needed to bring an end to the massive unemployment facing youth and adults, especially in largely African American and Latino wards. Young people themselves were a major part of the door knocking all year long leading up to November's general election.

Photo: Union members gather at the New Haven Labor Council in October to visit their union sisters and brothers and get out the vote for their alders and Toni Harp for mayor. Art Perlo/PW

Tragedy in the Philippines the topic tonight at PW call-in

Tue, 19 Nov 2013 12:28:00 +0000

CHICAGO - Like Hurricanes Sandy and Katrina here in the United States, Super Typhoon Haiyan, which devastated the Philippines, has become much more than a weather event. People are asking "Who or what is to be blamed for the fact that millions of victims still haven't been helped."

You will have the opportunity tonight to hear from and talk with a community leader who is well qualified to tackle these issues. You can participate in a national call-in and hear from Rev. Primo Racimo, rector at St. Margaret's Episcopal Church in Chicago.

Rev. Racimo, who was born in the Philippines, is an activist in Chicago's more than 100,000 member Filipino community. He will be interviewed by John Wojcik, the People's World labor editor and vice president of the International Labor Communications Association. You will have a chance to ask questions or comment.

To participate in tonight's call in at 8 pm. ET, 7 pm CT, 6 pm MT, and 5 pm PT just dial 605 475 4850 and, when prompted, enter the code 1053538#.

Please join us for this timely and exciting event.

Photo: A survivor walks through the rubble in Tacloban. Aaron Favila/AP

Plans to make Black Friday biggest worker mobilization ever

Tue, 19 Nov 2013 12:04:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - Walmart workers, the nation's labor leaders, and community leaders from all across the country called a press conference here yesterday where they announced plans to turn the busiest holiday shopping day of the year into one of the largest mobilizations of workers in U.S. history.

Organizations representing tens of millions are throwing their support behind underpaid and abused Walmart workers who are planning strikes, walkouts and demonstrations at Walmart stores from coast to coast on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. Black Friday is traditionally the busiest shopping day of the holiday season.

Amid spontaneous strikes and protests already breaking out at Walmarts in many cities, the labor and community leaders declared here yesterday their intention to pull off one of the largest mobilizations of U.S. working families ever when the Walmart workers walk out next week.

"Count on the full support of the millions of working people who belong to our unions," declared Richard Trumka, president of the 13 million member AFL-CIO at the press conference yesterday.

"The scale of support and nationwide activity being planned for Black Friday is unlike anything we've seen in recent history. Black Friday is destined to become a Labor Day, not of picnics but of action for workers," said Peter Dreier, Distinguished Professor of Politics at Occidental College in Los Angeles and author of The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20^th Century: A Social Justice Hall of Fame. Dreier joined the assembly of labor, community, civil rights, on-line organizing and other leaders at the press conference.

"As income inequality climbs to historic levels and families are increasingly pushed to the margins, working families are coming together to demand better," said Dreier. "This year," he predicted, "the day after Thanksgiving will be remembered not as the busiest shopping day of the year but as the day Americans took action to demand that the country's largest employer pay workers a livable wage and play a part in improving our economy."

"The fight for better pay, full time work and an end to illegal retaliation against workers who fight for a better life isn't just a Walmart workers issue," said Trumka.

"It's a family issue, it's a women's issue, it's an immigrant rights issue, a student issue, an environmental protection issue and it's a consumer issue - above all it's an issue of fairness. The 13 million members of the AFL-CIO stand in lockstep with the Walmart workers."

Tiffany Beroid, a Walmart worker active with the non-union group of Walmart associates who call themselves OUR Walmart, interrupted in the middle of the press conference to announce breaking news that the NLRB was prosecuting Walmart for illegal firings of workers who went out on strike last June.

"This is such good news," she said. It is great to know that we actually have the government of this country behind us."

The decision to prosecute Walmart was made by Richard F. Griffin, Jr., only recently confirmed by the Senate as President Obama's nominee to the position of General Counsel of the NLRB.

MoveOn.org, a huge national online organization that supports an array of progressive causes, has thrown its full support to the Black Friday organizing drive.

"Our 8 million members stand in solidarity with Walmart workers for a very simple reason: hardworking people deserve to be able to get by," said Anna Gallana, executive director of MoveOn.org Civic Action. "Our members will be out in force on Black Friday exposing Walmart's poverty wages, dangerous working conditions and illegal retaliation."

Photo: "We shall not be moved." OUR Walmart members from all across the country participating in peaceful civil disobedience in front of Walmart's office in Washington D.C. Facebook page.

Texas GOP points fingers for Wendy Davis’ rise

Mon, 18 Nov 2013 14:47:00 +0000

The all-powerful Texas GOP has resorted to apologetics to explain the emergence of Democrat State Sen. Wendy Davis, who filed her candidacy for governor on November 9. When questioning how an omnipotent power could allow for the existence of a viable challenger, Republicans pointed the finger at the only logical culprit: one of their own.

Specifically, members of the GOP turned on Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst, whom they blamed for setting the scene for Davis' rise. In a statement redolent of nervousness over Davis' popularity, State Sen. Dan Patrick blasted the lieutenant governor for allowing the filibuster that "made Davis a national star and put a bull's-eye on Texas." Patrick did not elaborate on whether he believed Davis drew the "bull's-eye" herself, or if his party's regressive tea party politics may have had something to do with it.

Patrick, whose comments came during a November 12 debate between hopefuls for the GOP's nomination for lieutenant governor, went on to bemoan how much it will cost to buy the election out from under Davis. "This race that's going to cost Republicans $30 to $40 million should have never happened," said Patrick. Another debater, State Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples, condemned Dewhurst's "failed leadership" in allowing the filibuster, which is a legal legislative safeguard meant to preserve the rights of minority party constituents.

The specter of Wendy Davis haunted the entirety of the debate. At one point, Dewhurst defended himself through the rationale that a Davis campaign was doomed anyway, so in the end the filibuster did not matter. "Look at the scoreboard," he said in reference to the abortion bill's eventual passage. "It's Wendy Davis 0, life 1." Having established the solipsism that the battle against Davis is one of life versus death, Dewhurst went on to predict that Davis would eventually have to settle for an appointment in the Obama administration.

The debate, held at a North Dallas church, pitted the four tea party candidates in the GOP primary for lieutenant governor against one another. In addition to Patrick, Dewhurst and Staples, Jerry Patterson, the current Texas Land Commissioner, participated in the event.

Photo: Sen. Dan Patrick answers a question as Lt. Governor David Dewhurst, Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson and Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples look on during a statewide Republican primary debate in Conroe, Texas. Jason Fochtman/The Courier/AP

Day of reckoning set for Texas voter ID law

Mon, 18 Nov 2013 12:44:00 +0000

AUSTIN, TX - Texas' voter ID law, passed by the Republican-controlled state legislature and widely condemned as discriminatory and unconstitutional, now has a day in court. Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos of the U.S. 347th District Court, chose September 2, 2014 to hear the case in Corpus Christi. This date falls just over a month before the pivotal 2014 statewide elections.

The Voter ID law, officially known as Senate Bill 14, has been the target of numerous lawsuits. On November 12th, a South Texas plaintiff group comprised of African American and Latino voters filed a claim under the authority of the 14th and 15th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, while the U.S. Department of Justice filed its own claim back in August.

Critics of the law regard it as a blatant effort to disenfranchise large segments of the voting population, especially low-income and minority voters who traditionally vote against the conservative bloc that pushed Senate Bill 14 through. Proponents of the law cite a desire to limit voter fraud. According to the Dallas Morning News, the law would have prevented exactly four fraudulent votes cast statewide since 2004. In 2012, the New York Times publicized a study that determined voter ID laws cause a two percent drop in turnout among registered voters. In Texas this works out to 279,924 voters dissuaded from the polls of every election.

State Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott, a major proponent of the ID law, cited the instance of a woman who mailed in five absentee ballots for a 2012 primary as proof of its necessity. Mr. Abbott made this statement in apparent ignorance of the fact that the voter ID law has no bearing upon absentee voters. The U.S. Justice Department suit against the law explicitly compares it to the poll taxes and literacy tests enforced during the Jim Crow era.

In 2012, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that 25 percent of African-Americans lack the type of ID required compared to eight percent of whites. In Texas, 1.4 million voters overall lack the necessary ID.

The voter ID law generated headlines earlier this month when public figures like Judge Sandra Watts, State Senator Wendy Davis, and former U.S. Speaker of the House Jim Wright were initially refused the right to vote due to problems with their IDs. Opponents of the law pushed for the early September hearing in the hope that voter ID requirements get struck down before the November 2014 elections.

Photo: Michael Perez/AP

Ericka Huggins calls for continued conversations on race

Fri, 15 Nov 2013 11:55:00 +0000

On Monday, Oct. 28th, educator and activist Ericka Huggins spoke to students in an open forum at Laney College in Oakland, California. Huggins infused her own life experience in the Black Panther Party and work at the Oakland Community School to address systematic racism that continues to exist throughout the United States today. She admitted that trying to change these systems is hard and takes up a great amount of cognitive space, but said that it was up to past generations of those involved in the freedom struggles of the 1960s and 1970s to pass on their experience to today's young activists.

"I think we've gotten lulled to sleep," said Huggins, "especially my generation, because we're not willing to go out and talk with the younger people."

Huggins admitted that it can be difficult for historically oppressed groups to share their stories of past struggle. She stated that it's not always easy, but "I speak because I owe young people some information."

Known for her work with the Black Panther Party from the late 1960s into the early 1980s, Huggins was the longest serving female member in the party's leadership. She was also the head director of the Oakland Community School (OCS) - a grassroots, tuition-free school that presented an alternative educational model to Oakland's public schools.

From the early 1970s until 1982 the OCS served predominantly low-income students of color under a revolutionary model of education that encouraged critical and historical thinking, along with both global and local community awareness.

Throughout Huggins' talk, she modeled the open classroom of OCS. Instead of merely talking at the young audience, she began by simply asking them: "What is racism?" After some dialogue with those in attendance, Huggins facilitated a conversation around institutional racism interspersed with historical events and accounts from her own experience in community activism.

Huggins skillfully connected history with contemporary issues, weaving together stories of struggle and triumph. She connected various examples of federally sponsored racial oppression, such as Japanese interment during Word War II and the "War on Drugs" that has led to disproportionately high incarceration rates among Latinos and African Americans over the past few decades.

Huggins also dispelled some of the myths about the Black Panther Party. Though the organization's masculine appeal was in part due to its vocal male leadership and media attention that focused on arms carried in self-defense, women were heavily involved as well. Huggins provided herself as an example of the important role woman played in the party. She was also clear that there was a long history of the organization's efforts at cross-racial organizing, which puts down the understanding that the Black Panther Party only reached out to African Americans.

Many problems affecting communities of color are also afflicting workers of European descent. Huggins was quick to recognize that unity across cultures went far back in the struggle.

She further explained that it's important for all of us, regardless of our background, to go out of our way to call out both individual racist acts and institutional racism. "Sometimes we need to have hard conversations," Huggins said. She called for the need to have more open and honest conversations on race and racism, especially with our children.

Many of our students of color and low-income children are not properly taught culturally relevant lessons that are reflective of our working-class roots.

"If you don't know where you come from, you can't possibly understand your future," said Huggins.

She also encouraged the student audience to tell their own stories, warning them: "If you don't write your story someone else will write it for you."

Tying in her experience as director of the OCS, Huggins explained: "We thought that children should learn how to think, not what to think." She called for the need to continue promoting spaces that are gender neutral, prejudice free, and accepting of all sexual orientations.

Huggins challenged the audience to get involved not only in education, but in other community-based programs as well. Many of us would like to do some of these things in our neighborhoods today. Huggins noted that any of us could impact social change by getting more involved in existing local programs or creating our own. The sparks are there, reminded Huggins.

Photo: ErickaHuggins.com

Sen. Davis registers candidacy for governor

Fri, 15 Nov 2013 11:24:00 +0000

AUSTIN, Texas - State Senator Wendy Davis of Fort Worth filed her official candidacy for the Democratic nomination for Texas governor on November 9. In an effort to showcase her focus on job creation in the technology sector, Senator Davis registered at the uShip headquarters in Austin. Her primary Republican challenger, Texas State Attorney General Greg Abbott, also made official his own candidacy. Each seeks to succeed the well coiffed Rick Perry, who has chosen to forego re-election after serving the conservative agenda from the governor's mansion for the past 12 years.

As she filed her paperwork, Davis stated: "I'm running for governor because I believe all Texans should have a voice in their future and a place in Texas' future." The state senator, who made nationwide headlines after her courageous filibuster of a discriminatory anti-abortion law, also promises a focus on job creation, education, and governmental transparency.

Abbott, who seems bluntly convinced that Texans will continue to rubber stamp his party's ideological extremism, posted on Twitter that, "The state of Texas is going to stay as red as the shirt I'm wearing today. We can tell Democrats to 'Come and Take It.' I am prepared to roll to victory." Abbott seeks to inherit and further Perry's bigoted agenda, which considers anti-constitutional legislation like the 2011 Voter ID law and the aforementioned anti-abortion law as rollicking successes.

Despite having a substantial monetary advantage and the support of an entrenched Republican establishment, Abbott only leads Davis by six percentage points, according to a recent poll from the University of Texas. Davis seeks to become the first Democratic governor of Texas since the wildly popular Ann Richards. Assuming that each receives their party's nomination, the 2014 gubernatorial race between Davis and Abbott promises to serve as a widespread referendum on Texas' economic and social identity.

Photo: Wendy Davis. Jim Lane/PW

National disgrace: Boehner blocks immigration vote

Thu, 14 Nov 2013 16:10:00 +0000

Once again John Boehner, the Republican House Speaker, has allowed a rightwing extremist cabal in Congress to control the fate of important legislation.

Bowing once again to the wishes of the tea party, he has refused to put immigration reform to a vote in the House, all but guaranteeing that the comprehensive bill passed in the Senate will go nowhere for the foreseeable future.

Boehner's decision shows his total inability to lead his party to do the right thing in immigration reform, as his leadership has shown time and again in the past the total inability of the GOP to do the right thing on any matter important to working people or their allies.

Republicans are saying this week that there was no time left to tackle immigration reform this year.

Yet they have found plenty of time to start phony hearings on the problems with the Obamacare rollout. Boehner himself has found time to bring to the floor and pass with almost unanimous Republican support a bill that would deport DREAM-eligible young people.

Every day 1,100 people are being deported - ripped out of their homes, away from their families and off their jobs. At the end of another year of this human tragedy the Republicans have nothing to show for themselves but additional disgraceful action that only adds to the human misery. The Boehner decision hurts the economy too, and therefore all Americans, by keeping millions of productive people in the shadows. These people are in every way, except on paper, fellow Americans.

The peoples' movements must not give up the fight until our lawmakers finally pass immigration reform.

A first step would be to let Boehner know personally about the misery he is causing. Support the campaign by United We Dream to make 1,100 calls to Boehner. The idea is to call Boehner's office on Nov. 20, one call per deportation. You can join the campaign by texting "boehner" to 877877 and you will receive a text with Boehner's number to call on Nov. 20 to demand a vote on immigration reform.

Beyond that, we must all make it clear that if Boehner's House Republicans continue to block the path to immigration reform, if they continue to refuse to do what is right, we will make sure they pay the price on Election Day in 2014.

Photo: United We Stand Facebook page

Dem lawmakers: Slow down on Pacific trade bill

Thu, 14 Nov 2013 13:07:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) - One hundred and fifty-one House Democrats - three of every four - mobilized by influential Reps. George Miller, D-Calif., and Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., told Democratic President Barack Obama on Nov. 13 that they will not vote for fast track trade negotiating authority for him.

The letter is important because Obama seeks fast track, now called Trade Promotion Authority, so he can push two big future trade pacts through Congress on single up-or-down votes, without amendments or changes to protect workers. One pact would be with Europe and the other, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), would be with 12 Pacific Rim nations.

Workers, unions and their allies contend Obama officials are negotiating the two pacts in secret, that the pacts are fully pro-business and would cost U.S. jobs and harm environmental and consumer protection.

The lawmakers said the two pacts, especially the TPP, cover far more than trade.

"The TPP FTA will include binding obligations that touch upon a wide swath of policy matters," they wrote. "Beyond traditional tariff issues, these include policies related to labor, patent and copyright, land use, food, agriculture and product standards, natural resources, the environment, professional licensing, competition, state-owned enterprises and government procurement policies, as well as financial, healthcare, energy, e-commerce, telecommunications and other service sector regulations.

"In light of the broad scope of today's trade agreements, it is even more vital that Congress have a role in shaping these pacts' terms. Given our concerns, we will oppose "Fast Track" Trade Promotion Authority or any other mechanism delegating Congress' constitutional authority over trade policy that continues to exclude us from having a meaningful role in the formative stages of trade agreements and throughout negotiating and approval processes."

Communications Workers President Larry Cohen, an outspoken anti-worker trade pacts - and whose union unveiled the letter's existence - reiterated the opposition to fast track. He also noted 600 corporate "advisers" get to sit in on the TPP talks. Lawmakers, labor and environmental groups are barred.

"Our 20 years of experience in trade deals, going back to North American Free Trade Agreement, has proven that we lose far more jobs than we gain, and that our pay and benefits are pushed down with global competition as the excuse," Cohen said. "That's not the future we want for ourselves or our children. We must pursue economic and trade policies that are best for American workers - not multinational corporations."

Photo: citizen.org

Reports show $83 million right-wing empire is hijacking state governments

Thu, 14 Nov 2013 12:59:00 +0000

Twelve new reports released Nov. 14 reveal that the State Policy Network (SPN), an $83 million web of right-wing "think tanks," is moving to seize the legislative agendas in every state across the country.

Although SPN's member organizations claim to be nonpartisan and independent, an in-depth investigation reveals that SPN and its state affiliates are major drivers of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)-backed corporate agenda in state houses nationwide, with deep ties to the Koch brothers and the national right-wing network of funders.

The reports show how these groups masquerade as "think tanks," and describe how some of them may be skirting tax laws while really orchestrating extensive lobbying and political operations to peddle their legislative agenda to state legislators, all while reporting little or no lobbying activities.

"The 'experts' of State Policy Network groups get quoted on TV, in the papers, or in the legislature as if they were nonpartisan, objective scholars on issues of public policy," said Lisa Graves, Executive Director of the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). "But in reality, SPN is a front for corporate interests with an extreme national policy agenda tied to some of the most retrograde special interests in the country, including the billionaire Koch brothers, the Waltons, the Bradley Foundation, the Roe Foundation, and the Coors family."

Denise Cardinal, executive director of Progress Now added, "The bottom line is these organizations of the rich, by the rich and for the rich are representing themselves as groups that are looking out for the best interests of everyday, working class Americans and it's just a blatant lie. What we're doing is trying to bring some transparency to the damaging work they're doing on a daily basis. From policies that promote polluting the air and water to the destruction of our public education system and a tax system that benefits their rich donors, what these organizations are doing is shameful and it's time that someone brought this to light."

The reports - a nationally-focused report written by CMD and eleven state-focused reports written by Progress Now member groups and CMD - can be viewed here:www.stinktanks.org.

Key findings include:

While it has become an $83 million dollar right-wing empire, SPN and most of its affiliates do not post their major donors on their websites. The identities of the donors discovered reveal that SPN is largely funded by global corporations - such as Reynolds American, Altria, Microsoft, AT&T, Verizon, GlaxoSmithKline, Kraft Foods, Express Scripts, Comcast, Time Warner, and the Koch- and tea party-connected DCI Group.
Corporations likeFacebook and the for-profit online education company K12 Inc., as well as the e-cigarette company NJOY, also fund SPN, as demonstrated by its most recent annual meeting.
Although SPN's affiliates are registered as educational nonprofits, several appear to orchestrate extensive lobbying and political operations to peddle their legislative agenda to state legislators, despite the IRS's regulations on nonprofit political and lobbying activities.
SPN and its affiliates push an extreme right-wing agenda that aims to privatize education, block healthcare reform, restrict workers' rights, roll back environmental protections, and create a tax system that benefits most those at the very top level of income.
SPN and many of its affiliates are some of the most active members and largest sponsors of the controversial ALEC, where special interest groups and state politicians vote behind closed doors on "model" legislation to change Americans' rights, through ALEC's task forces. SPN has close ties to, and works with, other national right-wing organizations like the Franklin Center and David Koch's Americans for Prosperity.

Photo: The state capital (state house) in Boston, Massachusetts. Wikipedia

Asbestos survivors blast GOP bill

Thu, 14 Nov 2013 12:25:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) - The AFL-CIO, asbestos victims and their survivors are blasting the GOP-run House's latest venture into the legal thicket of asbestos-caused cancer and its victims, saying the legislation harms the victims and helps the companies that injured them. One survivor calls the measure "one-sided, unfair and unnecessary."

But that didn't stop the GOP-run House Judiciary Committee from approving the legislation, HR982, earlier this year by a party-line vote, or the full House from voting on it on Nov. 13. It's the second pro-business asbestos bill that's come up in three years.

The asbestos compensation issue has been dragging through the courts for years, as millions of workers - or their survivors - try to get compensation from firms that knowingly forced them to work with, and inhale, the cancer-causing substance.

Asbestos inhalation is responsible for mesothelioma (a fatal cancer), asbestosis, lung cancer and several other diseases.

The firms, led by still-bankrupt W.R. Grace, but also including shipyards, builders and others, have spent years lobbying against the victims, and sabotaging prospective settlements the federation worked on. HR982, the victims and the AFL-CIO say, would shortchange victims and survivors and expose victims' confidential medical data.

That would subject the victims and survivors of asbestos-caused mesothelioma to "blacklisting and discrimination," says AFL-CIO Legislative Director Bill Samuel.

"Decades of uncontrolled use of asbestos, even after its hazards were known, resulted in a legacy of disease and death," he wrote lawmakers. "Hundreds of thousands of workers and family members suffered or died of asbestos-related cancers and lung disease, and the toll continues. Each year an estimated 10,000 people are expected to die in the U.S. from asbestos-related diseases.

Mesothelioma can hit the worker long after asbestos exposure. Susan Vento wrote lawmakers that her husband, the late Rep. Bruce Vento, D-Minn., was not diagnosed with the cancer until February 2000, decades after he worked as a construction laborer and breathed in the asbestos. Treatment failed. He died in October.

His widow has spent her time since campaigning for justice for asbestos victims. HR982, she added, "would contradict" his work and hers. She called it "one-sided, unfair and unnecessary."

"Asbestos victims have faced huge barriers and obstacles to receiving compensation for their diseases," Samuel added. "Major producers refused to accept responsibility and most declared bankruptcy in an attempt to limit their future liability. In 1994 Congress passed special legislation that allowed the asbestos companies to set up bankruptcy trusts to compensate asbestos victims and reorganize. But these trusts don't have adequate funding to provide just compensation, and the median payment across the trusts is only 25 percent of the claim's value.

"We have spent years trying to seek solutions to make the asbestos compensation system fairer and more effective. HR982 does nothing to improve compensation for victims and would in fact make the situation even worse. The bill is simply an effort by asbestos manufacturers who still are subject to asbestos lawsuits to avoid liability for diseases caused by exposure to their products," Samuel stated.

The victims and their survivors aren't happy with the GOP's bill, either, and said so during a GOP-run House Judiciary subcommittee hearing in March.

"Mesothelioma is the worst kind of cancer you can get," Genevieve Bosilevac of Richmond, Va., wrote the lawmakers in one letter the Democrats read into the record. "What makes it so bad is that I shouldn't have it. I was diagnosed because someone else decided to use asbestos in their automotive products - gaskets, brakes and clutches." But she wasn't an autoworker, just a delivery worker of those products from her family's auto painting business to mechanics and body shops.

"What we didn't know is that these products contained asbestos and could cause my cancer. Now these asbestos companies are asking you to pass a bill that will make it harder for people like me to get justice. Please don't let that happen."

Committee Democrats, who unanimously opposed HR982, were similarly harsh. They called it "a thoroughly flawed bill that blatantly strengthens protections for the very entities that exposed millions of unsuspecting Americans to the toxic effects of asbestos," and that was among their milder statements.

"The bill accomplishes this by giving asbestos defendants 'new rights and advantages to be used against asbestos victims in state court' and it would 'add new burdens' to asbestos bankruptcy trusts that would severely cripple 'their ability to operate and pay claims.' Although the proponents assert that it is intended to protect asbestos victims, not a single asbestos victim has expressed support for HR982."

All the objections didn't deter the Republicans. Their committee report says the bill bans "disclosure of confidential medical records" by the asbestos trusts. But it also requires the trusts to "provide information related to payment from, and demands for payment from such trust to any party in an action involving liability for asbestos exposure." Left unsaid in the GOP description: The information comes from the victims or their survivors and "any party" includes the asbestos manufacturers.

Image: ewg.org

Outrage follows declaration that police killing was “justified”

Thu, 14 Nov 2013 12:03:00 +0000

CHICAGO - Flint Farmer was laying face down on the parkway grass after being shot in the thigh and abdomen by Chicago police officer Gildardo Sierra. The officer then calmly circled around Farmer and fired three more shots into his back, killing him.

Altogether Sierra fired 16 shots at the 29 year-old Farmer, who was unarmed. Farmer, an African American, was holding only a cell phone, which Sierra maintained he mistook as a weapon.

This horrific scene late in the evening of June 7, 2011 in the Englewood neighborhood was captured on a police squad car video. Last week, nevertheless, Cook County states attorney Anita Alvarez said she could find no reason to indict Sierra for murder and declared the shooting "justified."

Alvarez issued her decision despite the fact that the Chicago City Council awarded Farmer's family $4.1 million in an out-of-court settlement last February. At that same meeting, aldermen voted to award $33 million in other police abuse cases.

"I don't understand why this can't be proven in court," said Emmett Farmer, Flint Farmer's father, speaking at a Nov. 8 protest in front of Alvarez's office. "The video shows (Sierra) walking over to my son and shooting him in the back while he's lying on his stomach defenseless. Isn't that proof enough?"

After taking a mandatory alcohol breath test, Sierra also admitted he had consumed "multiple beers" prior to killing Farmer. Sierra, at first, had denied he had been drinking.

This was the third time Sierra had shot a civilian and the second resulting in a death within a span of six months. Even Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy admitted Sierra was a "big problem."

Several dozen demonstrators joined Emmitt Farmer at the protest and demanded that Alvarez prosecute Sierra, step down or be impeached. Of the 70 police murders of civilians since 2009, Alvarez has ruled that every single killing was justified.

Farmer also called for a federal investigation by the U.S. Justice Department into the killing and that they charge Sierra with violations of his son's civil and human rights.

"We've been hearing this cell phone is a gun story for a long time. We're really getting tired of it," said Frank Chapman of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR). "These people need to be prosecuted and treated like the criminals they really are. It's a crime to murder someone and this is a crime of the highest order. We want some justice here.

"Anita Alvarez has proven herself to be delusional if she cannot see the record of Flint Farmer's murder," said Chapman.

The CAARPR is demanding the creation of a democratically elected Civilian Police Accountability Council, an independent entity that would be empowered to "make policy, hire, and fire police, and petition for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate and prosecute police accused of crimes such as battery, unlawful arrest, racial profiling, torture, murder, and the use of force to suppress the democratic rights of the people to organize and protest."

Photo: John Bachtell/PW

New Trans Pacific trade partnership stirs worries

Thu, 14 Nov 2013 11:16:00 +0000

The New York Times reported serious worry in the U.S. Congress about the Trans Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPP for short), a massive new free trade deal being pushed by the United States with the involvement of 11 other countries on both sides of the Pacific. About 170 Congresspersons have signed on to one or more of three letters which oppose fast track status for the deal.

On Wednesday also, Wikileaks released 95 pages and 30,000 words of the draft of just one component on the treaty, on intellectual property rights. This did nothing to calm the many who think the TPP is a giant corporate power grab.

The TPP began with free trade negotiations among Chile, New Zealand, Singapore and Brunei. It has been taken up as a major objective of the United States, and now also includes Japan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Mexico, Canada, Peru, and Australia, with others perhaps yet to come.

Pointedly excluded are China, and those Latin American countries that oppose the neo-liberal free trade model pushed by the United States via agreements like NAFTA, CAFTA-DR and the new U.S. free trade agreements with Colombia and South Korea.

The TPP is being negotiated in secrecy. Press, academics, legislators, most government officials and the general public, are not privy to the negotiations. However, representatives of some 700 major corporations are directly involved in the negotiating process. From what we have seen so far, they are making the most of this opportunity to increase profits.

The objection of the critics of the TPP and especially the secretive negotiating process is that if only corporations are involved in drafting the treaty, and if it is then rammed through Congress by December 3 on the "fast track" basis which the administration is asking for, the deal will favor corporate interests to the detriment of those of ordinary working people not only in the United States, but in all the countries participating and beyond. The draft chapter on intellectual property rights leaked by Wikileaks does nothing to assuage that fear.

Very problematic items include:

* Copyrights would be extended for decades more than current usage, from current life of the author or artist plus 50 years to life of the author or artist plus 70 years for individual authors, and for 120 years for corporate owned copyrights. The purpose of copyright is supposed to be to protect the interests of authors and artists and their heirs, but the proposed change transparently benefits corporations which are likely to have acquired the juiciest copyrights over the passage of time.

* Internet Service Providers would be required to police violations of this strengthened copyright law, and kick violators off the internet.

* Patents for pharmaceuticals would be strengthened, making it harder to produce and distribute generic medicines, thus impeding governments from making lifesaving medicines available to poor people. It would also extend the regime of medical patents to surgical methods currently exempt. This will greatly increase the cost of health care.

* In an item that seems to reveal ignorance of computer and Internet basics, copyright would be extended even to "temporary copies" of internet files. But whenever you do anything with a file on the Internet, your computer creates one or more "temporary copies" in order to carry out its basic functions!

The overall impact would be a massive increase of profits and power for transnational corporations at the expensive of sick people, internet users and the public.

In addition to the signatories of the Congressional letters, the TPP has raised worries on the part of labor and consumer groups.

In Latin America, the TPP will reduce the transpacific trade opportunities of countries which have followed the of rejecting the neoliberal formula of bogus free trade, privatization and austerity in favor of increased regional economic integration more regulation, less privatization and less dependence on, and subordination to, the United States.

In those countries that sign on to the TPP, ordinary citizens will lose the ability to fight back against rapacious transnational corporations who seize villagers' land and water, displace rural populations and destroy the environment. Resistance to these abuses, and also to the introduction of genetically modified crops, will bring lawsuits from corporations. Right now in every one of the Latin American countries presently hooked into the TPP, there are fierce fights going on pitting transnational extractive corporations (mining, oil, etc.) against local farmers, workers and indigenous communities. This is happening in Mexico, Peru and Chile, and also in Colombia which is a likely TPP addition as it is already linked in free trade agreements to the other three Latin American TPP countries (via the Pacific Alliance) plus the United States. It is also happening in most Central American countries.

Sometimes the local people win; under the TPP, their chances of doing so will be greatly reduced.

Photo: IndyMedia