Latin America and U.S. free trade
Several times in the past year, we heard of Mexican refugees dying of dehydration in the Arizona desert. Who were they?
Cleveland unites in fight with LTV
CLEVELAND – United as never before, the people here are holding rallies, marches and vigils to block LTV Steel’s plans to close its mills here along with other plants in East Chicago, Ind., Hennepin, Ill. and Warren, Ohio.
COSATU prepares for World Social Forum
LAS VEGAS – Joseph Nkiso, first vice president of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), attended a workshop on global justice after Sept. 11 at the AFL-CIO convention here Dec. 3.
Hoffa: Take back the ports for labor
LAS VEGAS – To a roar of cheers and applause, Jimmy Hoffa, Jr., president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), told the 24th AFL-CIO Convention Dec. 4, “We are going to take back the ports of North America for labor. We’re telling the steamship lines and the owners that we’re going to organize the ports wall-to-wall union.”
Protesters delay Philly schools takeover
PHILADELPHIA – Hours before the midnight deadline Nov. 30, Philadelphia Mayor John Street and Pennsylvania Gov. Mark Schweiker emerged from closed-door talks to announce that the threatened state takeover of Philadelphia’s public school system would be postponed for three weeks.
Community support for public workers
JEFFERSON, Ohio – A community rally of 300 people was held here Dec. 1 to support public workers on strike in Ashtabula County. Jefferson is the county seat and a main center of strike activity by American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 14 and Ohio Association of Public School Employees (OAPSE) Local 419.
Striking teachers opt for jail
FREEHOLD, N.J. – Contract talks between a striking teachers’ union and a school board broke off early Dec. 5 as 43 teachers spent their first night in jail for defying a judge’s back-to-work order.
GE workers fight closing
PHILADELPHIA – Families, members of the community, and Communications Workers of America-International Union of Electrical Workers members from western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Virginia, Mississippi, Indiana, and Massachusetts rallied Nov. 17 in support of their brothers and sisters from General Electric’s Philadelphia plant.
Sharon provocations result in violence
TEL AVIV – The death least week of some 45 Israeli citizens was at least in part due to Sharon’s provocative steps on the eve of the visit of Bush’s envoys, Anthony Zinni and William Burns, and Sharon’s Dec. 2 meeting with Bush at the White House.
ACLU hits Bush, Ashcroft on civil liberties
WASHINGTON – The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) warned Nov. 28 that the Bush administration has unleashed a “breathtakingly broad” assault on civil liberties in the past 10 weeks, violating a wide range of “due process” legal rights protected by the Constitution and jailing more than 1,200 people in the most massive preventive detention program since the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
