Labor applies Capitol Hill heat for worker rights
WASHINGTON — No matter how hot and sweaty it got here June 19, support for the Employee Free Choice Act was hotter. Some 3,000 union members and allies rallied on Capitol Hill for the most radical reform of U.S. labor law in over 70 years.
Apologizing for slavery and segregation
You may not know it living in the United States, but this year most of what historians call the Atlantic World is commemorating the 200th anniversary of the British abolition of the transatlantic slave trade.
EDITORIAL: Saying no to Bushs yes-man
Ever since President Bush began to build his administration’s track record of undermining the U.S. Constitution and restricting Americans’ civil liberties, he has had a loyal yes-man and enabler, Alberto “Can’t Recall” Gonzales.
How do you pay for your education?
CHICAGO — Graduating with a college degree is more than ever a necessity today. Students and their families are doing whatever it takes to pay for higher education, including taking on excessive amounts of debt.
Oil company price gouging provokes fightback
WASHINGTON — Anger over skyrocketing gasoline prices is turning to fightback with more than 570,768 people signing an online petition to the U.S. Senate demanding that they approve a bill that makes gasoline price gouging a federal crime.
EDITORIAL: Taking back America
The Campaign for America’s Future (CAF) will convene its sixth annual “Take Back America” conference in Washington, D.C., June 18. Every year for the past five years thousands of union members, peace, civil and human rights activists, and environmentalists have gathered for these conferences.
EDITORIAL: Reverse unequal pay ruling
The U.S. Supreme Court’s extreme right majority handed down a decision May 29 crippling the right of women workers to win justice in pay discrimination cases. The court ruled 5-4 that women have 180 days to file a wage bias complaint against their employer. If they miss that deadline, they are barred forever from winning redress
Dead last: health care quality in the U.S.
Among the six nations studied — Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States — the U.S. ranks last, as it did in the 2006 and 2004 editions of the Commonwealth Fund report.
New Yorkers rally for affordable housing
NEW YORK — “When I left New York City in the early ’80s, I paid only $150 a month in rent,” said a cabdriver who participated in last week’s demonstration here against the city’s growing crisis of affordable housing. After living in Florida for 15 years, he recently returned, finding that “the same kind of apartment in the same neighborhood is maybe $1,000.”
Conference aims to grow civil rights/labor alliance
The Communist Party’s African American Equality Commission will hold a conference in St. Louis on June 8-10.
