Immigrant rights movement grows in Connecticut
Three years ago, people in Connecticut started talking loudly about something many believed was just a condition experienced by states bordering Mexico.
What next for labor?
Some of the dust has begun to settle since the serious split in labor that finally emerged at the AFL-CIO convention at the end of July. The Change to Win unions (consisting of SEIU, Teamsters and Food and Commercial Workers — disaffiliated; Unite Here, Laborers and Farm Workers — still affiliated; and the Carpenters who had already left the AFL-CIO a few years ago) are planning a conference or convention for late September. They seem to hint, and many fear, that it will be a founding convention of a rival labor federation to the AFL-CIO.
Editorial: Save Social Security from Wall Streets clutches
Aug. 14 marks the 70th anniversary of Social Security — our country’s most effective anti-poverty program.
From Emmett Till to Harold Washington: Arlene Brigham: foot soldier for equality
CHICAGO — Arlene Brigham’s eyes still blaze when she talks about Emmett Till. At 88 years old she can still vividly recall the pain and outrage surrounding the lynching of the 14-year-old African American on Aug. 28, 1955.
Atkins introduces low-cash diet
Two days after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Atkins Nutritionals, Inc., said today that although its low-carb diet had lost its luster, the company was introducing what it called “a low-cash diet guaranteed to melt those pounds away.”
Looming AIDS funding crisis
Federal AIDS funding is dangerously inadequate and doesn’t look like it will improve soon. This year 20,000 new cases are expected to be newly diagnosed. But instead of increasing funding, the Bush administration unveiled a proposal July 27 to shift billions of dollars for HIV/AIDS-related services away from hard hit urban centers to rural areas. Expanded medical care is urgently needed in poor and rural parts of the country where the rates of HIV are increasing rapidly, but 70 percent of people with HIV live in urban centers. The poor in the inner city will suffer.
Autoworkers rally: Union in, scabs out
LIVONIA, Mich. — “Union in, scabs out,” shouted 600 UAW members from Ford, GM, Daimler-Chrysler and auto parts supplier plants as they marched to the Hercules Drawn Steel plant in this Detroit suburb July 28.
Minimum wage headed for ballot in New Mexico
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The Living Wage Coalition here has collected 30,000 signatures on petitions to place a measure on the Oct. 4 ballot to increase the minimum wage in this city from $5.50 an hour to $7.50. On Aug. 4 the County Clerk verified 22,000 signatures, well over the 13,889 needed to achieve ballot status.
Sweating in a union shop
One summer in the 1930s I worked in a laundry in the Bronx. I probably worked there in the fall and winter too. But it was the summer I remember because it was hot and hotter. The laundry was housed in an old, commercial garage and employed about 100 workers, mostly women. There was little natural ventilation and I don’t remember any fans.
World Notes
World Notes
