Labor migration has always existed (tags)
Labor migration to Germany has a history: Italian guest workers in the 1960s The labor shortage in the countryside is becoming increasingly noticeable, and it is becoming more and more difficult to find local workers; on the other hand, the demand for migrant workers, mainly foreigners, is increasing. (...)
Immigrants Are Not Hurting US-Born Workers (tags)
immigration is contributing to strong economic growth—with future immigration forecast to boost real gross domestic product by 2% over the next 10 years—as well as increasing government revenue. Immigrants are also complementing U.S.-born workers by contributing to overall population and workforce growth.
Memorandum 2022 and Memorandum 2023 (tags)
The Bremen study group on Alternative Economic Policy has been publishing analyses since 1975. Sustainable infrastructure Investments, de-carbonization, environmental safeguards, work protections and welfare regulations are primary as well as resisting profit maximization and environmental destruction.
Qualitative Break: Why a Radical Critique of Work is Necessary Today (tags)
Capital has increasingly decoupled itself from directly expended labor and accumulation is now taking place predominantly on the level of financial markets... In large parts of the Global South, the majority has long since been declared ‘superfluous.’
There are already more cars than Germany needs, more smartphones, computers, servers, machines than anyone really needs...There is no compulsion to build and construct so that engineers can justify their jobs, and on the other hand, there is no longer a compulsion to grow, which always makes new developments necessary.
Is the USa Failed State with Michael Hudson (tags)
It’s a failed state because its economy is paralyzed and we’re in a debt deflation, an economic polarization, that is just transferring all wealth and income away from labor, away from industry, into really the financial sector and what I call the finance, insurance, and real estate sector.
The pace of business rationalization has accelerated to such an extent that in the core sectors of world market production, fewer and fewer workers are needed despite growing output of goods. Thus, the development of productive power has reached a point at which it makes absolutely more labor superfluous in each period.
Battle for Social Democracy and Unfettered Capitalism (tags)
Two opposing schools of thought face each other at the sickbed: neoliberalism and social democracy. Didn't the death-bells of neoliberals ring in the course of the financial market crisis? Were not neoliberals unmasked who first caused the whole mess with their deregulation?
Lockdown light - Corona crisis and capitalism (tags)
The pandemic and countermeasures have effects shaped by the neoliberal form of capitalism[ that has dominated since the 1980s. 1.the independence of the financial sphere ,2.the fragmentation of the labor markets, and 3.the weakening of social systems.
Against the cannabilism of capital (tags)
The subjectless rule of capital and Working class hero (tags)
Fortunately, his death did not silence him. The opposite is the case. Because John Winston Lennon became more immortal through the assassination than he already was as a member of the most successful band of all times. Not a martyr - but a working class hero.
Spiral downward and No exit! (tags)
The austerity dictates imposed on the Eurozone are only exacerbating the crisis they are supposed to be fighting. The austerity measures are leading to a collapse in domestic demand.
Making yourself comfortable in capitalism (tags)
"Whoever has a wife should behave as if he had none, ... whoever buys as if he were not the owner, whoever makes use of the world as if he did not use it" (1 Cor 7:29f). Paul is speaking here to people who were "called" as slaves into the messianic church (1 Cor 7:21).
Myths of the Crisis and Enemy Images in the Media (tags)
The Ukrainian ambassador was quoted in the FAZ as saying: "All Russians are now our enemies". This rhetoric is classic enemy image cultivation... This homogenization is so pre-Enlightenment and always wrong.
The work critique of millenials and A new universalism of emancipation (tags)
The 4-Hour League, an alliance founded in 2016 to campaign for the 4-hour day is concerned with pushing back wage labor to have more time for a good life, for a gender-just redistribution of care activities and putting an end to the over-exploitation of nature.
Tax evasion and avoidance and Democracy at a tipping point (tags)
The biggest losses from tax evasion and avoidance are caused by multinational corporations, followed by wealthy individuals. Sums in the triple-digit billions up to one trillion. Euros are evaded annually in the EU. 21-32 trillion US dollars are undeclared via tax havens
The 1960s, when incomes rose for almost all workers, ended with a massive wave of strikes. Since the 1980s, the incomes of most Americans have fallen, working hours have risen massively, and job security has become a foreign word. But strikes have been extremely rare.
“An injury to one is the concern of all.” The events of 1886 – powerful displays of solidarity and mass strikes for an eight-hour work day followed by absolute abuses of state power in executing innocent labor organizers – continue to inspire workers to demand fair, just workplaces & laws.
Labor fetish and anti-semitism (tags)
"Work makes you free" was written above the gate of the Auschwitz death camp. How did the Nazis come up with that? Isn't work something meaningful, something good? What does it have to do with Auschwitz, of all places? Because work and meaningful activity are, two different things.
For a free and sovereign Ukraine (tags)
We cannot accept the intervention and military repression of the population set in motion by Russia; it is equally unacceptable to open any space to the representatives of imperialism who are trying to expand their rule by means of wars that ensure profits & more power for capitalists.
Interview on The Black Book of Capitalism (tags)
The book is: 1) a history of the three great industrial revolutions (introduction of the manufacturing system with the steam engine at the beginning of the 19th century, Fordist “self-mobilization” with the assembly line and the rationalization and the microelectronic revolution.
What 2022 is about: eliminating conservatives with progressive economic policies (tags)
A labor shortage that is slowly taking shape and the demand for progressive taxation of high wealth, which is being championed in many countries, will make it possible to change the economy and society in Austria and Europe for the better. They will help us eradicate poverty.
Education neoliberalism disguised as social policy (tags)
The share of the workforce with a college, university or technical college education is rising. The ever-increasing demands on skilled workers and the needs of the labor market are also driving up the cost of education. It is right and necessary to ask questions about financing.
How is Corona changing the world of work? (tags)
What was born out of necessity is to become the new standard: The pandemic-related expansion of mobile work is leading to considerations to change the organization of work, to change business areas online. In addition to savings in real estate and travel costs, companies also expect this to increase flexibility.
The true costs of capitalist wealth (tags)
What drives the capitalist mode of production is the endless compulsion to increase abstract wealth, or, put more simply, the compulsion to turn money into more money... Society is richer than it knows, because it does not take all kinds of wealth factors into account in GDP.
Capital is losing its capacity for productive investment and is turning to the financial markets, which are more profitable. It is with this money that the war machine and the trade deficit are financed. The US is under great pressure to constantly show that it is in control.
We only live in half a democracy (tags)
The machine used in the production process counts more in the constitution than the working person who created this machine in the first place. As a result, the employees in the production process are hopelessly inferior to the capital owners. That is the legal situation. But it doesn't have to stay that way.
The 1.5 target calls for an eco-socialist revolution (tags)
The only responsible way forward is the IPCC's P1 scenario, which envisages rapid and radical interventions in existing production, transport and consumption structures, i.e. a massive industrial transformation and deconstruction in the main capitalist countries (15ff.).
With a plan against the climate crisis (tags)
Quality and enjoyment would be the new maxims, and the true wealth would be free time. Admittedly, a change in consciousness would remain necessary, and many a convenience in lifestyle would have to be abandoned in favor of the ecosystem. However, the standard of living could be raised significantly through free time.
Digitization and poverty (tags)
Technology is replacing human labor. .. A widely acclaimed study by Carl Frey and Michael Osborne estimates that 47 percent of U.S. jobs in manufacturing, retail, or service industries such as medicine, banking, or architecture are at risk.
Workout. The Crisis of Labor and the Limits of Capitalist Society (tags)
The Third Industrial Revolution represents a qualitative break in the history of productivity growth. This is because microelectronics facilitated a radical reorganization in production overall such that labor lost the central importance that it previously had and the application of knowledge became the main force.
Collective working-time reduction is long overdue (tags)
The overall economic fact is further that from 1960 to 2019 the volume of work (despite reunification) increased only from 56.2 to 62.6 billion hours (by 11.4%), while the potential labor force grew from 26.3 to 46.5 million persons, i.e. by 76.8%.
Housing and Public Employment (tags)
How does the interplay of supply and demand affect the housing market? What influence does the financial market have on housing prices? What happens when tenant protection in tenancy law is relaxed and the market is given more leeway?
Chicago School Economists Got it Wrong. Strong Antitrust Policy Boosts the Economy (tags)
When mergers increase market concentration, we know that competition has been harmed even if to a small extent. Since this is the case, it makes sense to ask the merging parties to establish that the merger will provide benefits to the economy.
What does socialism mean in the 21st century? (tags)
"Socialism" should be much more than a mere buzzword. In light of the fact that current capitalism is in the process of destroying our planet and our prospects for a free, democratic, and good life, "socialism" must become a genuine systemic alternative.
Unemployment myth and "Migrantization" of precarity (tags)
Involuntary unemployment is afflicted with many prejudices, which impute a supposed lack of motivation and utility to those affected. Although these prejudices are easy to refute, politicians and representatives of the media cling to the neoliberal notion of individual guilt in unemployment. Unemployment has structural causes.
Fighting the "Immigrant Threat" (tags)
The current rise in precarious work is better understood in the context of neoliberal reform, processes of deregulation, deindustrialization, and deunionization, as well as the growing inequality that has resulted.
Strengthening the welfare state (tags)
Trump's smear campaigns, scapegoating, fear mongering, $8-trillion tax heists, corporate welfare, attacking the poor, minorities, seniors, disabled, children and students have left democracy in intensive care. Helicopter money, a Marshall Plan for journalism and ending wars could revive the debate culture.
For a borderless pragmatism. Outline of a Progressive Migration Policy (tags)
Immigration leads to stronger economic growth, which in turn creates jobs, Without migration, we would all be sitting in Olduvia in East Africa, as we were 100,000 years ago. About 3% of the world's population, about 215 million people, live in a state other than the one in which they were born. Migration has always existed.
The discussion about Corona (tags)
Corona can only become a kairos if we gain the theoretical capacity of recovery and create the conditions for a transformation. Taking the healthcare system away from the markets and obliging large companies to be oriented in the common good would be steps to infrastructure socialism.
From senseless working to senseless learning (tags)
Up to the threshold of modern times, work - as the traditional term for externally determined action(!) - had been perceived from the perspective of the biblically mediated, divine curse. It was regarded as a bitter necessity imposed on people.
Is Trump failing in the fight against the pandemic and the shattered economy? (tags)
The state of the economy is rightly considered the most important factor influencing the re-election or de-election of an American president. Voters* tend to blame the leader in the Oval Office for their personal situation in the labor market and the economic situation in general.
Against the neoliberal denunciation of the welfare state (tags)
No economist is so misunderstood and misinterpreted as Adam Smith. Many consider him to be an advocate of the "free market" and narrow-minded egoism. What a mistake! Smith saw an important and strong role for the state.
Working hours: A four-day week (tags)
Reducing working hours is a socio-economic investment that often brings better long-term health and more time sovereignty. A three-day or four-day workweek is the only way to ensure meaningful work to the rising generation. Public employment is necessary to supplement private.
Wave of layoffs in the US election campaign (tags)
The corona pandemic triggered the most massive job losses in the USA since the Great Depression in the 1930s. Unemployment rose to its highest level in more than 70 years. In April alone, 20.5 million jobs outside agriculture were cut, according to the government
Dying to work at amazon (tags)
The human cost of obscene profits
Less is more and Tightening the rules for the unemployed (tags)
Gainful employment is just one form of work alongside others such as care work or voluntary work. Here I would like to endorse the model of the 30-hour week... There is a need to expand investment-based active labor market policy.
Capitalist conditions are characterized by the fact that there is no rationality in society as a whole that coordinates the interests of the many and the overall direction of social development.
Karl Polanyi on Unfettered Capitalism (tags)
Karl Polanyi condemned profit greed and deregulated markets. Today's capitalism critics are his heirs and don't know it. An unfettered capitalism is responsible for the world coming out of joint. "Finance capital was put in the driver's seat."
"We Gotta Get Out of this Place" (tags)
"Bourgeois theorists have always believed capitalism to be “everlasting” because, they claim, it is in accordance with “human nature.” For them, all crises are only cyclical and transient:" This interview is from www.exit-online.org, 2/23/2016
United Farm Workers has support in AZ,CA and WA 2019 part of national transportation of fo (tags)
The group could shelve a nuclear bomb and do this with salt on arable farmland.
DIARY OF A CON MAN . 18 (tags)
anne frank didn´t write her diary
Teacher Strike? Time for Labor Studies (tags)
With the strike looming, it's a good time to prepare for a little alternative, experiential education. Labor Studies!
What Can Destroy Enclosure? (tags)
The entire world now lives in a totalitarian capitalist police state. This system is more generally called Enclosure. It is far more repressive than life under feudalism was and ever could have been. What could possibly bring about the end of this epoch of human slavery and elite rule? The answer and the power may well be within our reach, closer than it's ever been in human history; and it will not require violence or uncommon bravery on anyone's part. Let me explain...
Addendum: Benjamin Tucker American Mutualist: Tucker Did Not Advocate Voting in Businesses (tags)
This series is supposed to present the ideas of Tucker in an accurate fashion. So this article will focus on how Tucker himself intended businesses to be operated.
Vietnam Labor Watch Tackles Outside and Inside Exploitation of Nation's workforce (tags)
Vietnam Labor Watch
Pantarchy: Voluntary State and a New Catholic Church: Stephen Pearl Andrews (tags)
The Libertarian Socialism of Individualist Anarchist Stephen Pearl Andrews.
Capital as Climate Killer (tags)
The growth pressure of the world economy makes a resource-sparing social order only possible beyond capital. The seeming rationality of capitalist goods production serves an irrational end-in-itself - the multiplication of capital.
The System Question as a Survival Question (tags)
A fundamental social alternative to the permanent capitalist chaos is sought. A rational social discourse on system alternatives would be an antidote to populism and to the irrational identity-mania that spreads. The public discusses headscarves while late capitalism sinks in crisis
Social Policy as Social Infrastructure (tags)
Work and income must be uncoupled. In Germany, thanks to higher productivity and information technology, 30% more was produced from 1970-2010 with 30% fewer workers. Demonizing China will not resuscitate the Rust Belt. Social policy is crucial.
Work and Digitalization and A Corpse Governs Society (tags)
On the 2018 Day of Labor, many were worried. No one can deny digitalization affects work. Artificial intelligence greatly changes professions and whole branches. Well-paid jobs become scarcer. Rebuilding the social state seems necessary. Capitalism's blind flight through history is ending.
The Struggle against Aggressive Tax Avoidance (tags)
Experts estimate a fifth of world wealth is hidden from the tax authorities of states and considerable parts of international corporate profits are not taxed. Google and Amazon parked billions in shadow financial centers. Tax avoidance makes a functioning state impossible
Adam Smith as Philanthropist (tags)
The market can only fulfill its technical function when its rules and mechanisms are politically fixed and governmentally monitored...Adam Smith's theory has nothing to do with neoliberals and market radicals who preach the sleek state, low taxes for businesses and low wages.
Capitalism Criticism 2.0 (tags)
"Capitalism contains crisis as rain clouds contain rain" (Jean Juares, 19th century socialist). Profits increase in the neoliberal model, not investment (Nicolas Krowall). The competitive pressure drives businessmen to reduce investments in labor and wages.
12/2-3 LA Binational Conference To Cancel NAFTA and Unite Workers Of Mexico and the US (tags)
A binational conference of US and Mexican workers will be held on Dec 2&3 on the fight to cancel NAFTA and for unity between US and Mexican workers
Benjamin Tucker American Mutualist: Mutual Banking Part 3 and Final Conclusion Part 4 (tags)
"The abolition of compulsory taxation would mean the abolition of the state as well, Tucker asserted, and the form of society succeeding it would be on the line of a voluntary defensive institution... There were two methods of government...The other was the anarchist method of 'leadership', inducing the individual to the 'goal of an ideal civilization' through persuasion and 'attraction'...Two aims of anarchist activity, the abolition of compulsory taxation and the abolition of legally-protected money and land monopolies, form the main theme of his critical writing..."
Benjamin Tucker: American Mutualist Part 1 (tags)
In an Individualist Mutualist market economy of Josiah Warren, Benjamin Tucker, or Stephen Pearl Andrews employers can indeed pay themselves more money than their employees for equal time worked however even though they can pay themselves more money than their employees for equal time worked they are still Mutualists and not Capitalists. Why is this?
Short History of the United Farm Workers (tags)
The United Farmworkers were founded in California in the early 1960's by Mexican American and Filipino Americans.In 1966 there was an impasse with corporate giant Schenley. Cesar and Dolores Huerta deided on a march.
Class War on the Waterfront: Longshore Workers Under Attack (tags)
ILWU Local 10 retired longshoreman Jack Heyman talks about technology and the danger of a proposed 8 year contract.
Get The Internationalist No. 48! (tags)
Get The Internationalist No. 48! Send US$1 to Mundial Publications, Box 3321 Church Street Station, New York, NY 10008 USA. Subscriptions $10.
For an Unconditional Basic Income (tags)
The basic income corrects the distribution effects of the labor market. It takes something from the higher paid to give to those who earn little or nothing. A leftist fights for a just social system. Robots and artificial intelligence replace human labor.
US-Mexico Border Worker Solidarity March/Action Against NAFTA & For Driscolls Agricultur (tags)
Mexican and US workers and activists joined on both sides of the border to oppose the wall, racist attacks and NAFTA. They also called for unity of US and Mexican workers against the multi-nationals that exploit workers on both sides of the border
Benjamin Tucker: Individualist Libertarian Market Socialist (Updated 2017) (tags)
American Individualist Libertarianism is a form of market socialism with self-employed individuals, co-operative businesses, and socialist employers. 1. (If your interested, please see: Benjamin Tucker’s State Socialism and Anarchism: Where they Agree and where they Differ) It differs from Mutualist market socialism because mutualist market socialism also has an agro-industrial federation and a regulated market (regulated market by the community or federation) to ensure equality of opportunity. 2. (If your interested, please see: Proudhon’s Principle of Federation)
Brazil wants democracy back! (tags)
The coup of 2016 double hit democracy in Brazil: it overthrew an honest president from power, without being able to point out against her rigorously no wrong attitude, thus trampling the constitution, which does not admit this alternative, and passing, in practice, the presidentialist regime to The parliamentarian, without consulting the population, a hypothesis that is also forbidden by the Magna Carta.
Rethinking Economic Policy! (tags)
The economic crisis calls for social-democratic answers. The fading mass purchasing power (in Germany) is due to the increasing inequality of income and wealth. Deregulation promotes social problems like precariousness and greater income inequality.
LA Solidarity Protest Rally For Japanese American Apparel Workers Who Face Loss (tags)
American Apparel Workers Union Japan
Growth Criticism and Reduced Working Hours (tags)
Today's growth critics speak of the necessity of a post-growth society, a "renunciation society" or at least of a "green" capitalist model... A political transformation process is necessary. The economist John Maynard Keynes dreamt of a time when his grandchildren would only have 15hr wk.
The Digitalization of Labor (tags)
Robots and algorithms are ready to automate many activities like the manufacturing robot Baxter... John Maynard Keynes dreamt of a future in which the work week of his grandchidren would by only 15 hours.
The Social State Benefits All of Us (tags)
The social state can on ly fulfill expectations when financed on a broad and just basis. The social state must be adjusted to do justice to the pressing challenges.."The social state is the greatest cultural achievement in the 20th century"
VOID NETWORK On the tragic and the farcical of the British referendum An analysis about B (tags)
Analysis about BREXIT from a Greek Anarchist point of view
Social Inequality in the Descent Society (tags)
The elevator effect is not true any more. This changed from the 1990s. People no longer move up together. A society of descent, precariousness and polarization has come ou9t of the society of social ascent. Ascents and descents have a collective and an individual dimension.
2016 AT&T Shareholders engaged by Communications Workers of America D9 Activists (tags)
The April 29, 2016 AT&T Shareholders meeting was attended by labor activists/shareholders of the Communications Workers of America District 9 of California. Despite efforts to silence the voices of labor and progressive shareholders, activists managed to engage top executives, including CEO and Chair Randall Stephenson. There was also discussion and considerable controversy over the ratification of Ernst & Young LLP as "independent" auditors and shareholder proposals for transparency in political donations and lobbying.
Communications Workers of America District 9 Action at AT&T Shareholders (tags)
Observe Randall Stephenson and the AT&T Board of Directors and Shareholders; their connections to BIG MONEY. Learn about their efforts to silence the voices of labor and progressive shareholders seeking transparency in their political donations and lobbying.
U.S. national Pac Revenue Stream 1992 (tags)
According to The State of the U.S.A. Atlas: 79.3% of money given to National Political parties was from private businesses:5.1% was from labor 2.5% was from single issue and 13.1% sprang from other sources.
Philippines: Climate Focus - Time to act is now on energy transformation (tags)
What could possibly be so urgent and life-threatening to drive leaders of people from a small and barely reachable island off the coast of Mindoro to leave their homes and travel 285 kilometers by land and sea over the period of five days just to reach Metro Manila? On November 27, a day before the biggest climate justice march in the country, they have reach the Presidential Palace.
Neoliberalism. Submission as Freedom (tags)
The society in which we live is increasingly unfree in all areas and yet successfully passes off this growing unfreedom as freedom.
Philippines: Unions decry deceptive, vague ‘labor agenda’ of APEC (tags)
ORGANIZED workers sneered at the so-called labor agenda in the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Manila next month by describing it as deceptive and vague, which merely reaffirms APEC’s ideology based on the primacy of corporate power and profits over labor and trade union rights.
For 40 years, the Bremen study group has published memorandums. The council of experts promoted the profits of businesses, not aggregate economic demand. Mass unemployment surpassed the 5 million mark because of neoliberal structural reforms.
The Lie of the Weak State (tags)
The good condition of German labor markets is in reality in a catastrophic state...Unemployment is an "act of violence" against every unemployed person and represents an enormous waste for society as a whole.
Everyone could work less instead of terminating people. Ways could be organized through shared activity for using the gained freedom in services of everyday life...Breaking with the disastrous logic of competition and money is int he interest of the life, peace and happiness of people today.
Philippine President Aquino no longer deserves any support from workers and trade unions (tags)
THE workers and the trade unions throughout the world mark today the International Labor Day – 125th anniversary globally and 112th celebration here in the Philippines. This historic and revered day has been an enduring and stirring symbol for the working class despite serious setbacks caused by multipronged and systematic neoliberal attacks against the workers, the masses and their organizations, which have seriously threatened to dilute if not totally wipe out the hard-fought sociopolitical gains achieved by the labor movement in the past hundred years or so.
CDC Lies In Calling Cigarettes The Number 1 Cause Of Preventable Death (tags)
Since its founding in 1946, the CDC has by censorship, distortion and falsehood hidden the cause of the majority of deaths in the US which is the consumption of animal and fish cadavers as well as eggs and dairy products.
Sketchy Crusader Against Poor Brandishes Dildo at Council (tags)
John Webby of Webby Candies waved a sex toy around despite objection from Mayor Helene Schneider of Santa Barbara, ranting about the homeless. Investigation implicates his business in questionable practices possibly implicated in child slave labor.
TTIP: Redistribution of Power, not Free Trade (tags)
The TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership agreement) involves the redistribution of power away from the parliaments and to the executive and its unelected lobbyists. The TTIP does not involve freedom of trade.
34 countries, 17 states represented "100,000 Tweets for Oscar" Campaign Reaches over 500,0 (tags)
Over 500,000 people were reached on January 6, 2015, Oscar's 72nd birthday, as the National Boricua Human Rights Network and La Respuesta coordinated the "Social Media Campaign for Oscar López."
PHILIPPINES: Rescind the LRT-MRT Fare Hikes (tags)
Metro-Manila: The roughly 100 percent fare increases imposed on users of the Light Rail Transit 1 and 2 and Metro Rail Transit 3 is a great disservice to the riding public.
Unconditional Basic Income and Solidarity Economies (tags)
Without the social contract, we become wolves to one another. Basic economic, social and cultural human rights include the right to participate. Everyone should share in the wealth and prosperity brought by automation, labor-saving technology and higher productivity.
Economics is Onesided and Reactionary (tags)
The homo oeconomicus cannot be our hope and is not desirable or future-friendly. The economic benefits to the capitalist entrepreneur are in contradiction to nature and to the person..We face completely oversized financial markets that have uncoupled from the real economy creating value.
Israel
Labor Solidarity Demands a “No” Vote on Israel Boycott (tags)
The AAF currently consists of over 120 liberal and progressive scholars, affiliated with The Third Narrative, who are dedicated to combating academic boycotts and blacklists, defending freedom of expression and promoting empathy and civility in the debate over Israelis and Palestinians.
PHILIPPINES: Arrest of Cebu labor leader denounced (tags)
The Philippine Labor Party [ Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) ] condemned the arrest of the union leader at the Carmen Copper Corp. in Toledo City, Cebu, one of the biggest mines in Asia. Tony Cuizon, president of the Panaghiusa sa Mamumuo sa Carmen Copper (PAMCC-AGLO), was arrested last October 25, 2014 in Cavite on the strength of warrants for illegal possession of firearms and explosives.
Netanyahu Vows Zero Tolerance (tags)
Israel
Telling It Like It Is On Israel (tags)
Israel
Organized Labor in America Today (tags)
labor
Self-Determination Means Market Determination (tags)
We face the continuing dissolution of traditional types, forms and rules, not a new type, a new form or a new rule... What was once called estrangement or objectification should appear as workers' own interest. .. Karl Polanyi spoke of a dis-embedded economy.
Both Germany and the US follow an economic policy without enlightenment. Slight economic stimulation will not solve problems of mass unemployment and corporate welfare. Tax evasion of corporations and tax cuts for the super-rich lead to suffering and a revenue crisis.
Is AFT Pres Weingarten On The Take? (tags)
Is AFT President Randi Weingarten and other officials of the AFT/CFT and NEA/CTA taking millions of dollars from "non-profits" funded by union busters and privatizers such as the Gates Foundation, Broad Foundation and others is the question that attorney and education advocate Kathy Carroll answers
A Tribute to Filipino Labor Leader Romy Castillo (tags)
Who was labor leader Romy Castillo to this young activist?
Don't work for IBM, Infosys, or Manpower (tags)
Don't work for IBM, Infosys, or Manpower. They discriminate against American workers in favor of guest workers.
MayDay4All Coalition May Day March 2014 (tags)
Photos from the May Day march that started in Chinatown.
Time to act with urgency and determination to improve the lives of Filipino workers (tags)
Philippines: As the country observes the International Labor Day, Akbayan Party would like to draw attention to the inability of the current economic growth to translate into an improvement in the lives of ordinary workers from both the urban centers and the countryside. While the Aquino administration takes pride on the 7.2 % growth rate for 2013, it cannot mask the fact that this growth has been insufficient to curb massive unemployment and poverty.
Philippines: Inclusive growth under Aquino no longer possible (tags)
WITH only two years left in his term as he now enters his fourth year in office, President Aquino could now be described as either unwilling or unable to make the country’s much-hyped economic growth inclusive.
TTIP Attacks on Wages, the Social and the Environment (tags)
The belief that growth and prosperity for all people are promoted by free trade is as old as capitalism. This is often wonderfully represented in the model worlds of economists. But reality looks different. Specific particular interests are sold as the general interest.
The So-Called Technological Unemployment, and Permanent Piecework (tags)
All the hype about technological unemployment only provides a glimmer of hope against the cold reality of a highly mechanized future of shitty, low pay jobs.
Technology, Unemployment and Policy Options (tags)
Navigating the Transition to a Better World
Meeting for upcoming April 4, Dr. King Workshop. (tags)
Friday, March 8 meeting at 12 p.m. at Mercado La Paloma 3655 S. Grand Avenue 90007 to discuss upcoming April 4 Dr. King Workshop on labor and economics.
Obamacare Harms America's Workforce (tags)
Obamacare
Our Triple Jobs Problem (tags)
First, even as unemployment has inched down, the economy has created barely enough jobs to match population growth. Second, this enormous labor-market “slack” has stifled workers’ bargaining power and kept wages low. Third, policies over 30 years have undermined workers
Capitalism as a Secularized Religion (tags)
It is never too early or too late to challenge the dominant narrative. Capitalism is a fetish social formation, a demolishing of being not a reform of being. Capitalism may be the first case of an indebted cult, not an atoning cult, possibly the most bloodthirsty cult of humanity's history.
Labor Laws Learned by Studying OUR Walmart #2 (tags)
I'm not a labor lawyer, so this article doesn't condone anything or give legal advice. You should double check everything here.
Labor Laws Learned by Studying OUR Walmart #1 (tags)
I'm not a labor lawyer, so this article doesn't condone anything or give legal advice. You should double check everything here.
Modern Day Slavery in Qatar (tags)
Qatar
The Time Has Come For $15 Minimum Wage (tags)
In one of comedian Chris Rock’s routines, he observes: “You know what that means when someone pays you a minimum wage? You know what your boss is trying to say? ‘Hey, if I could pay you less, I would, but it’s against the law.’”
Labor Needs to Recalibrate and Fight (tags)
While the U.S. media has been obsessed with the in-fighting between Democrats and Republicans, as well as the recent government shutdown and the global/domestic ramifications of a possible government default, little attention has been paid to a looming disaster confronting working people: Obama is again threatening to cut “entitlement” programs, meaning Social Security and Medicare.
The UAW Takes One Step Forward, and One Backward (tags)
Trying to rebound off the ropes, where it has been pummeled for the past several decades, The United Auto Workers (UAW) has launched an aggressive organizing campaign in the South, in line with an AFL-CIO resolution emphasizing organizing there, where unionization rates are weak across the board.
They are not being nice to you.
Bernanke Stays the Course (tags)
Fed
Labor Leaders, Obamacare, and the Fate of the Unions (tags)
A funny thing happened a couple of months ago: labor leaders finally awoke from their coma and realized that Obamacare was not only bad for unions, but for working families in general.
At the AFL-CIO Convention, Leaders Ask: What Direction for Labor? (tags)
The acknowledgment of Labor’s existential crisis and the recognition that something must be done to resolve it is the key issue at the AFL-CIO’s four-day quadrennial convention in Los Angeles. The urgency of the situation has compelled Labor’s top officials to experiment in a search for solutions.
Geekout's Links 9.7.2013 (tags)
This time around, it's some Syrian history, Chelsea Manning, race in Jamaica, and thoughts about the future of labor.
What Can We Learn from 25 Years of Jobs with Justice? (tags)
It’s no secret that the last 30 years have seen a brutal corporate assault on U.S. workers. Incomes and union membership rates have plummeted, unemployment is soaring, and the two corporate parties have joined forces to go after our previously untouchable historic gains.
Geekout Bookmarks 9/1/2013 (tags)
This is an irregular experimental feature to gather the links which I've posted to facebook and twitter over the past few days into a short digest. Most of the links are mainstream. I'll try to do better next time. Enjoy.
The AFL-CIO’s New Strategy: Inspiration or Hype? (tags)
After years of embarrassing denial, the AFL-CIO recently took its first baby step in addressing the crisis that has engulfed organized labor: it recognized there was a problem. In the run up to its national convention in early September in Los Angles, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka recently admitted that “what we’ve been doing isn’t working,” and consequently announced a new strategy that was, supposedly, a revolutionary break from the previously-failed strategy of organized labor.
A Big Victory For Oregon’s Biggest Union (tags)
After years of painful backsliding, the state workers of Oregon’s largest union, SEIU 503, recently stood firm and scored a big win in their contract negotiations against the state’s anti-union Democratic governor, John Kitzhaber.
Honoring Bayard Rustin, Freedom fighter (tags)
Labor leader and civil rights activist Bayard Rustin has been posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States. Along with Rustin, 15 others will be honored at a White House ceremony later this year.
The August 24 March on Washington: Why We Need a New Civil Rights and Labor Movement (tags)
It could have been left as a relatively small event that would make little impact, but plans for the 50th anniversary of 1963′s March on Washington appear to have taken another course.
Philippines: Another labor leader killed; second this month (tags)
BARELY two weeks after the death of Antonio “Dodong” Petalcorin, the transport leader who was murdered by a paid assassin in Davao City, another local leader of NCTU-APL in Cotabato City was gunned down in a brazen daytime attack again, which makes a mockery of justice and underscores the reign of impunity in the country.
Why No Revolution Exists in Syria (tags)
The era of Arab Spring euphoria is long ended, having devolved into doubt, confusion or wholesale rejection. Libya and Syria put an abrupt end to the Arab Spring celebrations, with the current situation in Egypt adding to the frustration.
Filipino workers challenge to Aquino (tags)
Three years ago, President Aquino promised to substantially reduce poverty, create quality and secure jobs, and end the reign of impunity, among others. He promised “inclusive growth”. Workers have had enough of these broken promises.
Fed
SF Labor: Calls on Labor Movement to Mobilize in Washington, D.C. August 24 (tags)
In Support of the SCLC and King Center call for a March and Rally in Washington, DC on August 24, 2013 and in Support of the July 2 Northern California Demonstration to Demand a Massive Federally Funded Jobs-Creation Program and No Cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid
The State Should Rescue the Market Economy (tags)
A balance recession is more than a temporary slump of the economy. During a balance recession, private economic actors try to reduce their debts. The cheap money seeps out on the financial markets where it leads to new bubbles. The labor market does not function like other markets. Falling wages did not lead to more employment - as claimed for decades.
It's almost hidden on the ballot, but it's worth considering. It's a flawed proposition, and probably "toothless", but worth voting for.
May Day 2013 Los Angeles (tags)
Themes of Inclusion, Family Unity and Respect Carry the Day. Photo Set 5 of 5
May Day 2013 Los Angeles (tags)
Themes of Inclusion, Family Unity and Respect Carry the Day. Photo Set 4 of 5
May Day 2013 Los Angeles (tags)
Themes of Inclusion, Family Unity and Respect Carry the Day. Photo Set 3 of 5
May Day 2013 Los Angeles (tags)
Themes of Inclusion, Family Unity and Respect Carry the Day. Photo Set 2 of 5
Philippines: 25,000 Workers March to Mendiola on Labor Day (tags)
Chiding President Aquino’s pronouncement that Labor Day should be celebratory with both labor and capitalists greeting each other for “doing a good job” for the past year, workers renewed the call for government to create “not just jobs” but “more regular jobs with living wage.”
Bayer, Monsanto, Syngenta, BASF, Dow: Biggest Bee Killers (tags)
The world's largest slave labor force is being killed off by Bayer, Monsanto, Sygenta, BASF, Dow and other beekilling profiteers
Who Will Save Social Security and Medicare? (tags)
Before Social Security and Medicare existed, the elderly were either completely dependent on their children or were left to beg in the streets. These programs thus remain sacred to the vast majority of Americans. They allow the elderly dignity and independence instead of poverty and insecurity.
Another Dismal Jobs Report (tags)
jobs
Why Don't Politicians Care about the Working Class? (tags)
The national debt is not the most important problem to address. Reversing the polarization of the labor market is much more important.
Detroit Citizen’s Prepare to Fight Their Corporate Master (tags)
Fresh from shoving his “Right to Work for Less” legislation down the throats of Michigan’s workers, Governor Rick Snyder has grown bolder in pursuing a corporate agenda. He has now appointed Kevyn Orr of Jones Day law firm to act as an Emergency Financial Manager (EFM) of Detroit.
International Women's Day in the Philippines (tags)
Women groups hail ‘triple wins,’ but warn of complacency
Thomas Perez: Obama's Labor Secretary Choice (tags)
labor
Democrats and Labor: A Tale of Abuse (tags)
The Democratic Party’s participation in the recent national “sequester” cuts is yet another big dent in their love affair with organized labor. But break-ups are often a protracted process. Before a relationship ends there is usually a gradual deterioration based on irreconcilable differences, until the split becomes inevitable. The decades-long marriage of labor unions and the Democratic Party is nearing such a divorce. Labor unions are becoming frustrated as the Democrats flaunt their affair with corporate America and Wall Street.
KPCC.org Gets School Board Fight Wrong (tags)
KPCC.org has a story about the controversial LAUSD school board race, but they can't even get the combatants right.
AFL-CIO’s Own Oil Disaster (tags)
With less than transparency, the AFL-CIO just issued a statement endorsing “expanding the nation’s pipeline system.” Although it did not explicitly endorse the Keystone XL pipeline, the labor federation nevertheless managed to extend its blessing to the project while hiding behind vague generalities. However, the logic of its position is unambiguous: the federation is in favor of extending pipelines in general and without qualification; the Keystone XL is a pipeline. Therefore logic compels us to infer that the federation supports the extension of the Keystone XL pipeline.
Strategies Of Containment (tags)
Many of us on the left have been kettled at demonstrations: surrounded by a wall of police, herded into a small area, and prevented from reaching our goal. But we are also kettled by the thought police, and that's even more insidious. This strategy of containment is used politically to confine potentially revolutionary energy into an area where it can't reach its goal. Instead of by cops, we are corralled by institutions that purport to be progressive or even socialist. This pseudo-left diverts our energies away from organizing a militant working class and towards supporting the Democratic Party. Their base is not in the working class but among slightly-left-of-liberal professionals who prefer progressive policies because they will benefit from them. They are well educated and have access to financial and political power. They communicate professionally and persuasively. Like the wall of cops, their message is clear: You must stay here.
What the 1% Heard During Obama’s State of the Union Speech (tags)
When President Obama speaks, most Americans hear what he wants them to hear: lofty rhetoric and a “progressive” vision. But just below the surface the president has a subtly-delivered message for the 1%, whose ears prick up when their buzzwords are mentioned. Obama’s state of the union address was such a speech — a pro-corporate agenda packaged with chocolate covered rhetoric for the masses, easy to swallow, but deadly poisonous.
PHILIPPINES: Semirara mining disaster - A wake-up call on government to change course (tags)
A change in mining policy and use of coal in power generation must be taken into consideration when government agencies conduct their investigations on the mining disaster that took place off Semirara island in the province of Antique, the labor group Partido ng Manggagawa (PM - Labor Party) said in a statement.
Why Organized Labor Must Stand Against the Keystone XL Pipeline (tags)
Spurred by real urgency over the corporate driven ruin of the environment, a growing social movement is taking shape that will be on display this Sunday, February 17, when tens of thousands descend on the streets of Washington, D.C. in a show of power titled “Forward On Climate.”
The Argument for Amnesty: An Immigration Policy That Works for All (tags)
Millions experience the repressive nature of the U.S. immigration system on a daily basis, lifting its need for reform to a level of urgency. And fixing this broken program is integral to building the unity among U.S. workers that is required to challenge corporate America’s attacks on our wages, rights, public social services, and living conditions.
jobs
Israel
Longshore Struggle Brews on Both Coasts, Part 2 (tags)
In the Northwest, at the terminals on the Columbia River, Puget Sound, and Portland, Oregon, the membership of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) are on the defensive against the Northwest Grain Handlers Association (NWGHA). The conflict involves nearly 3,000 workers at terminals that handle a quarter of the nation’s grain exports.
PHILIPPINES: Workers party-list group petitions SC to overturn disqualification (tags)
The newly-formed workers party-list Partido ng Manggagawa Coalition (PM Coalition) today filed a petition at the Supreme Court seeking to overturn the Commission on Elections resolution disqualifying the group. In its petition, PM also sought a temporary restraining order on the scheduled raffle of party-list names and printing of the ballots in January.
Justice served with stiff penalties against fraudulent teacher recruiter (tags)
We, members of the Filipino community and different Filipino-American groups here in the US, extend our congratulations to the hundreds of Filipino teachers for their victorious struggle against their deceitful recruitment agency Universal Placement Inc. (UPI) and its owner Lourdes Navarro. We are happy that after four years of brave and sustained efforts on different fronts and winning different battles along the way, the case has reached the federal court which found these defendants liable for engaging in fraudulent practices.
Philippines: Let’s All Work for a Better Party-List System (tags)
Recently, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) concluded its process of scrutinizing groups that will participate in the 2013 partylist election. It marked the end of a long and arduous process that the poll body has undertaken to cleanse the party-list system of fake partylist groups which have used and abused the system to advance their vested interests.
Defeating “Right to Work” (tags)
The passage in Michigan of the anti-worker legislation grotesquely misnamed “Right to Work” (RTW) should be putting the entire nation on red alert. The downward pressure on the standard of living such bills unleash on the vast majority extend well beyond the union ranks. The bill’s success in Michigan, a pivotal state for organized Labor, indicates the unfolding of a national campaign by RTW’s backers.
Waging War on US Workers (tags)
labor
Paul Krugman Discovers Marx (and Misses the Point) (tags)
In his recent New York Times op-ed piece, Princeton professor and regular columnist for The New York Times, Paul Krugman observed: The American economy is still, by most measures, deeply depressed. But corporate profits are at record high. It’s simple: profits have surged as a share of national income, while wages and other labor compensation are down. The pie isn’t growing the way it should — but capital is doing fine by grabbing an ever-larger slice, at labor’s expense.
Philippine Statements on the International Human Rights Day (tags)
1) Akbayan on the Observance of the International Human Rights Day 2) Workers hold Jericho March at San Miguel in celebration of human rights day 3) Pahayag sa Pandaigdigang Araw ng Karapatang Pantao 4) Another World is Possible! Reject the Policies of Neoliberalism! Protect the Working Class!
Bangladesh Sweatshop Fire (tags)
class war
Philippine campaign against high electricity rates snowballs (tags)
QUEZON CITY, Philippines – Thousands of electricity consumers from 55 cities and municipalities from 15 provinces and 10 regions are expected to stage a multi-form protest on November 22, dubbed as “National Day of Action against Epira (Electric Power Industry Reform Act), high electricity rates and privatization of the power industry.”
Labor’s Call to Action: The Grand Bargain Betrayal (tags)
The labor movement is in terminal crisis. After decades of declining membership, the union movement has been targeted for destruction: private sector union membership is near eradication, and now the corporations are on a public-sector mopping up mission, using the city, state, and federal budget deficits as an excuse to target public sector unions. Obama’s Race to the Top education policy specifically targets the nation’s most powerful union workers, the teachers.
Barack Obama must stimulate the economy with state spending. The astonishing example of Europe could convince republicans who in the past blocked everything... The monetary policy of a central bank cannot replace fiscal policy,
Will Unions Fight Fiscal Cliff Cuts to Medicare and Social Security? (tags)
With pro-Obama election posters still visible in most union halls across the country, the President has already taken steps towards selling out not only labor unions (again) but all working people. But this isn’t the “ordinary” sellout that working people have come to expect from Democrats — this is an attack of historic proportions.
Philippines: PALEA calls on Ramon Ang to drop charges against members (tags)
The Philippine Airlines Employees’ Association (PALEA) today called on new Philippine Airlines (PAL) President Ramon Ang to drop all charges against its members in order to facilitate a solution to the labor row. Last Wednesday a second PALEA member was arrested in Makati City while the first was detained for several days last October in Malvar, Batangas.
Union Loss in Bend, Oregon (tags)
The game is rigged, but not the fight.
Portland Anti-Austerity Protest Draws 1,000 Despite Police Violence (tags)
It’s difficult to build a pre-election protest with so many labor and community groups busy campaigning for Democrats. Nevertheless, over 1,000 people marched the streets in Portland, Oregon against austerity cuts to education and other public services and the consequent debt accumulated by students.
Five Easy Post-Election Predictions (No Matter Who Wins) (tags)
It’s true that Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have many political differences. But they also agree on many essential policies; enough to make the next four years easily predictable, no matter who wins.
Michigan’s Proposal 2: Labor’s Big Test (tags)
For some time now, Labor has been punched into a corner when it comes to state legislation. Over the last two years legislation has been passed in Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan that has attempted to gut largely public workers of their union rights.
Portland, Oregon Prepares for Pre-Election Anti-Austerity Protest (tags)
On November 3rd Portland community and labor groups will declare “enough is enough” by organizing a first for the U.S. — a large demonstration against government austerity cuts.
Workers Stand Up to Walmart (tags)
When a torrent hits an obstacle that refuses to give, it either flows around or over the obstruction. When workers’ needs for a living wage, fair treatment, and a voice are damned up by an oppressive employer, it is only a matter of time before they find a way of asserting their strength.
Cooked or Accurate US Employment Numbers? (tags)
class war
Cloud-sourcing and Cloud-working: Brave New World of Work (tags)
"Nothing is more absurd than to try to enforce capitalist property relations within the expanse of the World Wide Web.. In the ideal case, the competing persons in the asocial networks should become part of a `cloud' of living workers.."
Airline unions to join PALEA in “Global Day of Action” (tags)
Airline unions are set to join the Philippine Airlines Employees Association (PALEA) in a “Global Day of Action against Outsourcing” spanning four continents on Thursday. The September 27 action coincides with the anniversary of PALEA’s protest last year that led to the cancellation of all flights of Philippine Airlines and marked the start of a bitter fight over contractualization at the flag carrier.
Chicago's War on Education (tags)
education
Labor, Community Leaders Target Wal-Mart September 21 (tags)
Neighborhood activists and labor unions are organizing San Diego's biggest-ever anti-Wal-Mart demonstration Saturday, September 22 in the Golden Hill and Sherman Heights neighborhoods. Though the Wal-Mart in Sherman Heights hasn't even been built yet, it's already driving local businesses to close or cut back — and Wal-Mart has systematically refused to make any promises to the community to hire locally or mitigate the impacts of their store.
NDFP adopts program to protect children during armed conflict in the Philippines (tags)
Aside from coming out with its program of action for the protection of children, the National Democratic Front of the Philippines announced that it will establish a Special Office for the Protection of Children to strengthen its mechanisms on monitoring and defending the rights of Filipino children.
Chicago Teachers v. Rahm Emanuel (tags)
education
America's Dismal August Jobs Report (tags)
class war
U.S. Labor Movement Faces Choice of "Lesser Evils" in Coming Presidential Election (tags)
Interview with Steve Early, union organizer and author, conducted by Scott Harris
Will AB 2530 Unshackle Childbirth in California? -Interviewing Tina Reynolds and Vikki Law (tags)
A bill opposing the shackling of pregnant prisoners, AB 2530, has been passed unanimously by the California State Legislature and is now on Governor Jerry Brown’s desk, with thirty days to either approve or veto it. Last year, a previous version of this bill was also passed unanimously by the Legislature, but it was ultimately vetoed by Brown. With Brown’s decision expected anytime, local activists are urgently mobilizing to stop him from vetoing this important bill once again. AB 2530 supporters have created a webpage for the public (not just California residents) to contact the Governor.
Labor Radicalism Alive & Well in U.S., Smith Says (tags)
Author and activist Sharon Smith came to San Diego to speak to Occupy San Diego's Labor Solidarity Committee, the International Socialist Organization (ISO) and other community members September 1, but it was her unannounced co-speaker -- a teachers' union activist from Chicago identified only as Becca -- who galvanized the crowd. Smith used the Chicago teachers' union struggle as an example that radical labor activism in the U.S. is alive and well despite decades of repression from the ruling class.
All Eyes on Chicago's Teachers (tags)
It’s impossible to exaggerate the national importance of the teachers’ struggle in Chicago. If the Chicago teachers’ union — 26,000 members strong — goes on strike, many critical yet ignored political issues will go into the national spotlight, exposing nastiness that many politicians and labor leaders would like ignored until after the presidential elections.
Queer Democrats Make Defeating Prop. 32 a Priority (tags)
The predominantly Queer San Diego Democrats for Equality voted August 23 to make defeating Proposition 32 a priority race in the November 6 election. Proposition 32 is an effort to destroy the ability of organized labor to raise money for political campaigns, and it's being sold deceptively as a campaign finance reform measure even though its principal sponsors are multi-million dollar donors to Republican candidates and super-PAC's. On the eve of Women's Equality Day, the club also heard from professors Dr. Sue Gonda and Carla Kirkwood on the history of women's struggles for equality and their links to the Queer rights movement.
Will 2012 be the Final Election of Lesser Evilism? (tags)
Just when the Obama campaign couldn’t appear any less inspiring, Paul Ryan was put forth as the Republican vice presidential candidate. Suddenly team Obama was supplied with enough political munitions to scare every last American over the possible Ryan destruction of Medicare, Medicaid, cuts to Social Security and the various other evils inherent in his proposed national budget. Consequently, many Liberals and Leftists across the spectrum are now focused on preaching the horrors of a Republican presidential victory and thus the necessity of re-electing Obama.
Out of the Slump: The Only Road (tags)
A real analysis of the United State’s economic history is rarely discussed by politicians or media alike, since the conclusions that would be inevitably drawn would be out of step with what politicians are currently advocating.
Kaiser "Medical" Advertises at Olympics; British celebrate socialized medicine (tags)
As we sat watching the endless garbage expensive advertising on American TV while waiting for something called the Olympics, we saw an allegedly non-profit Health Maintenance Organization, Kaiser Permanente, advertising itself as a promoter of the Olympics, while charging us $705 per month just to be a member in the 60-64 age group, plus $25 to see a doctor and $10 for each lab test. Meanwhile, the British celebrated their National Health Service in the Opening Ceremony history lesson, which was preceded by celebrating labor in the history of modern agriculture and the industrial revolution.
Houston Janitors Strike for Economic Justice (tags)
Echoing the story of David vs. Goliath, janitors in Houston are on strike and taking on such corporate giants as JPMorganChase and Exxon Mobile in an effort to pressure the janitorial companies they employ to agree to the workers' modest demands. It is these big business behemoths that are the real powers behind cleaning contractors such as ABM, GCA, ISS etc. By striking against these contractors, and publicly targeting these contractors' employers, the janitors are using their collective power in a showdown that has great significance for not only the Labor Movement but all workers.
Philippines: Sorry state of labor presented in pre-SONA forum (tags)
Workers groups today presented the “sorry state of labor” in a forum that served as a buildup activity to the coming counter-SONA protest on Monday. “In his forthcoming SONA (State of the Nation Address), President Benigno Aquino III (P-Noy) will boast of his administration’s so-called inclusive growth. But to workers and the poor, GNP growth only means more ‘Gutom Na Pilipino,’” averred Renato Magtubo, national chair of Partido ng Manggagawa (PM - Labor Party - Philippines).
Philippine government a "show-off" (tags)
MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine government’s decision to extend a US$1-billion loan to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to supplement the Fund’s Financial Transaction Plan (FTP) of $456 billion to contain the economic crisis in Europe is an “arrogant pretension of a country very much in debt,” according to the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC).
A Conversation Worth Having (tags)
The Nation magazine recently held a roundtable blog discussion that debated the effects of the failed Wisconsin recall. The discussion is important because of the seriousness of its subject. Such open and frank conversations have been sadly quite rare, so it is something of a credit to the Nation that they hosted this discussion.
Community Activist Join Labor Against Phony "Trade" Deal (tags)
Progressive San Diego's official opposition to the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) — a NAFTA-like agreement seeking to subject the U.S. and a wide range of other countries to corporate dictatorship — began July 2 with a rally outside the Bayfront Hilton Hotel, where the TPP's negotiators are meeting. Speakers from labor, environmental, women's and Queer organizations explained what the TPP means to them and why it should be stopped.
Money, Power, and Politics (tags)
There has been much talk recently about the impact of money on politics, especially in the wake of the Citizens United ruling that has ratcheted up the role of corporate money in political campaigns. Organized labor was quick to blame this ruling for its defeat in Wisconsin. And many have assumed that the relation of money to politics is like a law of nature: the more money one has, the more political power one can wield.
Republicrats Campaign About Jobs and Do Nothing About High Unemployment (tags)
Recently, Mitt Romney made a stop on his “Jobs Tour” in upper Bucks County, Pennsylvania just outside of Philadelphia. His appearance was supposed to be, interestingly, at a local WAWA store (for those out-of-state, WAWA is a convenience store chain) Why is this interesting? Because WAWA, like so many employers these days, is a low wage, no benefit “job creator.”
The U.S. Labor Movement at the Crossroads, in the Crosshairs (tags)
The labor movement had better do some deep soul searching, and fast. Although the defeat in Wisconsin is the horrible end to a local drama, the corporate winners hope to turn their victory into the beginning chapter of a national novel.
The Left, Labor and Occupy (tags)
Barely half a year after it burst on the scene, the Occupy Wall Street movement is splintering left and right. This was inevitable in a movement that was united only in what it opposed and could never put forward a positive program, whether of reformist "demands" on the capitalist state or of revolutionary action against it. Liberals, who latched onto Occupy hoping it could pressure the Democratic Party in a more populist direction, want to expel "black bloc" anarchists. Reformist social democrats rail against "ultraleftists" in Occupy and cozy up to the labor tops. On the other side, many (but not all) anarchists oppose unions. Some are simply arrogant petty-bourgeois labor haters. Others are grappling with real problems, but with skewed analysis and dead wrong conclusions. Discussion of recent workers' struggles, from Wisconsin to West Coast longshore, underlines that the key question is leadership, but not just replacing one set of bureaucrats with another. Unions have always faced vicious anti-labor laws, but we have the power to defeat them. It is necessary to drive out the pro-capitalist bureaucracy, the labor lieutenants of capital, in order to turn the unions into instruments of revolutionary class struggle.
Predatory Capitalism Failed (tags)
class war
May Day Protests for Justice (tags)
May Day
PHILIPPINES: Sentro, Nagkaisa herald new era of labor unity (tags)
THOUSANDS of trade unionists and activists poured into the streets of Manila and other key cities to celebrate May Day amid renewed hopes that the two latest efforts at labor unity will provide strong impetus to their uphill battle for labor and trade union rights.
Philippine unions support campaign of workers in Hyatt hotels in US (tags)
TRADE unions and other organizations picketed today the Hyatt Hotel and Casino Manila in the Malate area to air their support to the global campaign to boycott the Hyatt chain of hotels prompted by the rampant abuses against the workers in several Hyatt hotels in the US, even as they recall the almost similar plight suffered by the workers in the shuttered Hyatt Regency Manila.
New issue of The Internationalist is out! (tags)
Special for May Day 2012.
Filipino workers band together for a stronger labor front (tags)
SENTRO vows to fight for wages, secure jobs and other long-standing issues
April 7: Day of Action Against Human Trafficking (tags)
On April 7, 2012 the Radical Feminists of San Diego will mobilize a direct action in solidarity with 2012’s Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM) campaign on a local, national and global level to demand the abolition of human trafficking, the modern-day form of slavery. The event will start at noon on the southeast corner of 30th Street and El Cajon Boulevard in North Park.
Philippine Labor party calls for removal of VAT on oil to reduce prices (tags)
One day after the transport protest against the unabated increases in oil prices, the Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) called on the administration of President Benigno Aquino III to remove the VAT on oil products as an immediate measure to reduce prices.
The Systemic Causes of the Crisis (tags)
The crisis is 30 years old, not 4 years old. The causes of the crisis can be found in the real goods-producing economy, not in the financial markets. The wildly proliferating financial markets did not drag the industry into crisis but kept alive the industry through credit-financed demand.
May Day 2012: National Mobilization For Immigrant Workers Rights! (tags)
We are calling A national day of multi-ethnic unity with youth, labor, peace and justice communities in solidarity with immigrant workers and building new immigrant rights & civil rights movement! Wear White T-Shirt; organize local actions to support immigrant worker rights!
Filipino Women March against US Military Expansion in the Philippines and the Pacific (tags)
On the occasion of the International Women’s Day 2012, we, Filipino women declare in strongest terms possible, our opposition not only to increased presence but to U.S. military presence per se on Philippine soil.
The Struggle for Leadership Within “Leaderless” Occupy (tags)
The current debate that has erupted within Occupy circles was built into this movement’s foundation. It has been sparked by much needed soul searching in the wake of a series of confrontations with the police, most notably in Oakland, that ended disastrously.
America's Sham Economic Recovery (tags)
class war
Wall Street Excess and Main Street Distress: the Apple Connection (tags)
Apple’s march to market supremacy has been accomplished at tremendous cost to both American and Chinese workers
STOP A "NAFTA OF THE PACIFIC!" RALLY VS SECRET NEGOTIATIONS HELD IN SOFITEL HOTEL IN LA (tags)
As Trade negotiators from throughout the Pacific Rim are gathering in Sofitel Luxury Suites, Los Angeles, activist to negotiate the Trans-Pacific Free Trade Agreement, groups opposed to the “NAFTA of the Pacific picketed outside the hotel in Beverly Hills. Trade negotiators from nine countries that includes the the U.S. to Vietnam are pressing for a NAFTA-style deal that encourages offshoring, expands downward corporate pressure on labor and environmental standards, raises drug prices, and bans "Make it in America," among other problems. STOP THE FTAA The protest dubbed as RALLY TO STOP A "NAFTA OF THE PACIFIC!" was sparked because of the negotiations are being done out of the public eye, trade ministers and corporate lobbyists (over 600 of ...whom have certified "corporate adviser" status). Protestors asked : “will this become a "NAFTA of the Pacific?"
Thomas Friedman Wants to Take Away the Weekend (tags)
The labor movement brought you the weekend. Thomas Friedman wants to take it away.
The Financial System as a Parasite of the Economic System (tags)
In the global tax competition over tax revenues collapsing worldwide, states are run by a global financial and banking system and made into debtors. The factors taxes and labor are effectively marginalized as mere costs to be shifted. Taxes and labor (straw) are transformed into gold.
"Nature and people are `fictional commodities. When they submit completely to market mechanisms and when markets are not regulated, this leads to people dying who don't find buyers for their labor power..."
Obama's Transfer Of The Public's Equity To The 1% (tags)
So they steal your house and will now rent it back to you at outrageous artificially inflated rent while still taking 50% of your deflated income to earn a profit margin off what used to be your equity.
Raul Zelik and Elmar Altvater discuss the nature of utopia, economics, how growth and work become fetishes, how what is rational in micro-economics can become irrational in macro-economics, time prosperity and how Marx recognized the contradictions in capitalism.
Longshore Workers, Truckers: Shut the Ports, Coast to Coast! (tags)
Following the nationally-coordinated police evictions last month of Occupy Wall Street and encampments across the country, on December 12 the Occupiers struck back. Ports up and down the West Coast were blockaded, from Seattle to San Diego. Despite a barrage of hostile propaganda in the media, opposition from union bureaucrats and heavy police repression in some places, overall the blockade was successful -- this time. The blockade was called in solidarity with longshore workers fighting a union-busting assault in Longview, Washington and port truckers seeking union recognition in the ports of Los Angeles/Long Beach. This support should have been greeted. But now the class war on the West Coast docks is coming to a head, and it can't be waged from the outside. Bay Area labor has called for a caravan to Longview. The goal should be a real occupation of the terminal by the workers to prevent the loading of the scab cargo. Longshore militants have called on the longshore unions to shut down every port on the West Coast, and the East and Gulf Coasts, to smash EGT's union-busting. Can it be done? Yes, but only though sharp struggle against the pro-capitalist labor bureaucracy.
Filipino Militant groups commemorate Bonifacio Day with mass protest (tags)
MANILA, Philippines—Various militant groups from the labor sector commemorated the 148th birth anniversary of Philippine national hero and revolutionary Andres Bonifacio Wednesday with mass protest action at the historic Don Chino Roces (formerly Mendiola) Bridge.
America's Weak Jobs Report (tags)
class war
Some Critical Notes on the Nov. 2 Oakland General Strike (tags)
Remember, remember,the second of Novemeber -- and what can be imporved on next time...
Oakland General Strike a Success, but Cops Seriously Injure another Vet (tags)
With over 50,000 people protesting in the street in three major protests through the course of the day, massive labor participation, and a shut down of the Port of Oakland, there is no question that the general strike was a success. Yet the corporate media is now blowing up the importance of a few acts of vandalism by protesters and agent provocateurs.
Labor Rallies in Support of Occupy San Diego Oct. 28 (tags)
Despite a pre-dawn police raid on both Occupy San Diego sites — the Civic Center Plaza near City Hall and the Children's Park across from the Convention Center — a rally sponsored by organized labor in support of the occupation went ahead as scheduled October 28. At this time, the occupiers are still there.
Philippines: PALEA holds motorcade on the 30th day of its protest vs. outsourcing (tags)
Also in commemoration of PALEA’s 30th day of protest against contractualization, solidarity actions were held in San Francisco and Los Angeles by US unions and the Filipino-American community. In San Francisco, the groups picketed the Philippine consulate and PAL ticketing office, and submitted a letter of concern to Deputy Consul General Alfonso Ver.
Democracy Now! Co-Host Gonzalez Speaks in San Diego (tags)
"Democracy Now!" co-host Juan Gonzalez spoke in San Diego October 24 as part of a whirlwind tour in support of his new book, "News for All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media." He made two main points in his talk: that there are three "strains" of American media — the corporate mainstream, the white alternative or "rebel" press, and media owned and controlled by people of color; and that since the 1840's the U.S. government has regulated every technological change in the media in a way that favors the interests of giant corporations over ordinary people.
The San Diego Mayoral Candidates That Didn't Bark (tags)
When A Better San Diego, a coalition made up largely of labor unions and their affiliates, sponsored a debate among the four leading candidates for Mayor of San Diego in next year's election, only two showed up. The no-shows were City Councilmember Carl DeMaio, whose whole campaign is based on targeting city workers as the source of San Diego's economic woes, and District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, both Republicans. A third Republican, Assemblymember Nathan Fletcher, and Democratic Congressmember Bob Filner attended and differed on city workers' pensions, outsourcing city jobs to private companies and many other issues.
Occupy Wall Street: Protesters arrested 900--Bankers 0. We are the 1% (tags)
The Labor hierarchy is concerned about the influence the Occupy movement might have on the Unions' rank and file and will enter the Occupy movement in order to temper it, derail it and send it in to the Democratic Party as they did with the Madison events. The Occupy movement should beware the hierarchy and Labor's "official" representatives and welcome the rank and file worker.
Philippine Airline workers intensify protest actions (tags)
The Philippine Airlines Employees? Association (PALEA) today asserted that Philippine Airlines (PAL) President Jaime Bautista?s announcement that they no longer acknowledge Gerry Rivera and Bong Palad as union officers exposes union busting as the real aim of outsourcing. ?Truly a fish is caught by its mouth. Actually PAL is not just recognizing me and Palad as union officers but 62% of PALEA?s leadership and 70% of its membership who have been illegally lockout and terminated. Outsourcing thus is tantamount to union busting,? stated Gerry Rivera, PALEA president and vice chair of Partido ng Manggagawa (PM - Labor Party).
PHILIPPINES: Akbayan Lawmakers want Marcos declared ?enemy of democracy? (tags)
Coinciding with the 39th year anniversary of the declaration of Martial Law, Akbayan lawmakers today filed a resolution urging the House of Representatives to officially declare former dictator Ferdinand Marcos an ?enemy of democracy.?
Message from Troy Davis and More Actions (tags)
Troy Davis was sentenced to death in 1991 for the killing of an off-duty Savannah policeman. Davis was found ?guilty? based on dubious accounts that he confessed to the killing and questionable ?eyewitness? identifications that included false eyewitness testimony coerced by the cops. Seven of the prosecution?s nine ?eyewitnesses? have since recanted. The only holdouts are one man who may be the actual killer and another who initially denied being able to identify the shooter only to pin it on Davis two years later. Three of the eyewitnesses say their testimony was coerced by the police. New eyewitnesses have come forth identifying another suspect. The news on Troy Davis is very bad. Despite being innocent, the Georgia Parole Board has OK'd his execution for 7 PM today (September 21st). Yet the fight to free Troy Davis isn?t over, and if that fails, the fight to overthrow the evil system that murders him will continue.
Update for Troy Davis, The Fight Isn't Over (tags)
The news on Troy Davis is very bad. Despite being innocent, the Georgia Parole Board has OK'd his execution for 7 PM tomorrow (September 21st). Yet the fight to free Troy Davis isn?t over, and if that fails, the fight to overthrow the evil system that murders him will continue. Troy Davis was sentenced to death in 1991 for the killing of an off-duty Savannah policeman. Davis was found ?guilty? based on dubious accounts that he confessed to the killing and questionable ?eyewitness? identifications that included false eyewitness testimony coerced by the cops. Seven of the prosecution?s nine ?eyewitnesses? have since recanted. The only holdouts are one man who may be the actual killer and another who initially denied being able to identify the shooter only to pin it on Davis two years later. Three of the eyewitnesses say their testimony was coerced by the police. New eyewitnesses have come forth identifying another suspect.
Grocery Worker Situation Updates (tags)
UFCW site has all the information.
Downtown Labor Day Rally Draws Over 200 (tags)
MoveOn.org's San Diego chapter and other local activists hosted a Labor Day rally outside Horton Plaza in downtown San Diego Monday, September 5, featuring speakers like Congressmembers Bob Filner and Susan Davis, San Diego-Imperial Counties Central Labor Council secretary-treasurer Lorena Gonzalez, State Senator Juan Vargas, State Assemblymember Lori Salda?a, former City Councilmember Floyd Morrow and Activist San Diego president Jeeni Criscenzo. Much of the action urged solidarity with the supermarket workers threatened by their employers' demands for a takeaway contract and the likelihood of a strike. While most of the speakers said, "Jobs, jobs, jobs," Criscenzo urged listeners to take another look at the whole concept of a "job" and question why the only way we should be allowed to make a living is to beg a rich person or corporation for the chance to make them richer.
Solidarity Hall Matching Fund (tags)
Local person offers to match donations to IMC with a larger donation to Solidarity Hall.
10 Year Since 9/11 Inside Job (tags)
September 11, 2011 is the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 Inside Job, the American Reichstag Fire, perpetrated for the same reason the Nazis burned their government building, the Reichstag: to perpetrate war and fascism so as to maximize profits for the capitalist class, the primary goal of capitalism, the greatest profits being in oil and munitions. Only a labor movement capable of carrying out a general strike can finally put an end to the private profit system, thereby saving the earth and humanity.
Hotel Workers Use Labor Day to Press Boycott of Hyatt Regency Santa Clara (tags)
Hotel service workers of the union Unite Here! Local 19 marked Labor Day by picketed the Hyatt Regency Santa Clara, which has been the target of a boycott campaign launched by the union six months ago. Hyatt workers, who have been without a contract with the hotel, have been demanding recognition of the union through a card-check / neutrality agreement.
economy
Obama?s Continued Failures on the Environment and Jobs (tags)
[Photo: Bridge in Felton, California built by workers in the Works Progress Administration which employed 3.8 million people from 1935 to 1941 and built 11,000 schools, 122,000 public buildings, 77,000 bridges, 285 airports, 24,000 miles of sewer, and 664,000 miles of road. Photo by Liberation News]
Productivity is For Chumps: Don't Take a Piss Without Getting Paid (tags)
If you remember just one thing this Labor Day it should be this: Don't take a piss without getting paid for it. Larry Ellison gets paid for every dribble, every excretion, why should you be any different?
Activists Discuss Debt Debate, Wonder How We Let Right Control It (tags)
Congressmember Bob Filner, San Diego labor leader Lorena Gonzalez and three other speakers appeared as part of a panel convened by Activist San Diego for their regular meeting August 15. The ostensible purpose was to discuss the recent debate in Washington over raising the nation's debt ceiling, but it soon turned into a discussion of how the Right managed to take over the debate, frame it the way they wanted and get virtually everything they wanted -- including promises of large cuts in government spending that will only worsen the economy and risk not only a double-dip recession but an outright depression. Filner talked not only about President Obama's willingness to concede the domestic agenda to the Republicans but his and the Democrats' Congressional leaders utter unwillingness to end the unaffordable wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.
1200 Allstate Insurance Agents Join OPEIU- 08/18/11 (tags)
1200 small business owners have joined up with a labor union. Normally, unions are associated with factories and other large employers, but the Allstate agents are dispersed across many small offices, and each is self-employed. Despite this structural difference, they have opted to join a labor union affiliated with the AFL-CIO.
Video: The Civil Wars in US Labor (tags)
Steve Early is labor journalist, whose writing has appeared in several publications, including The New York Times and The Nation. He is a former organizer for the Communications Workers of America. Mr. Early is the author of Embedded with Organized Labor: Journalistic Reflections of the Class War at Home.
Aaron Swartz and the Morality of Hoarding Knowledge (tags)
Activist-programmer Aaron Swartz was recently arrested for breaking into an MIT network closet to copy academic journals from the JSTOR system.
PHILIPPINES: Absent major policy reforms, there will be no social transformation (tags)
President Aquino?s communication advisers said the President?s second State of the Nation Address (SONA) will focus more on ?social transformation?. What would that mean in real sense, however, largely depend on how Filipinos would view their lives today and in the immediate future. And for the Filipino masses who have been used to hearing nice words from their leaders, this new buzzword assumes no meaning at all unless accompanied by major policy reforms.
US-Style Free Trade's Dark Side (tags)
exploitation
Successful Fair Trade Fashion Show Benefits Youth for Human Rights (tags)
To raise awareness of human trafficking and the garment industry, Youth for Human Rights of Florida successfully produced the Colors of the World Fashion show in Ybor City this past weekend.
Video: Debt Ceiling Debate "Fraud" (tags)
David Swanson: Polling shows majority of Americ ans want to tax the rich and cut the military before cutrting social programs.
Statement On the Plight of Filipino Teachers of Maryland?s PGCPS (tags)
Lured by the American dream, non-immigrant workers here in the US have been subjected to different forms of exploitation, manipulation and abuse. The complexities of the recruitment process are being taken advantage of by placement agencies and sometimes with the collaboration of representatives of US employers. Oftentimes foreign workers leave their country deep in debt in raising money needed to cover for exorbitant placement and other fees.
Striking for Health Care (tags)
The supermarket workers in So Cal have gone over three months without agreeing on a new contract. The fight is mostly over health care benefits; if they lose, all workers in retail will see benefits decline.
The Labor Movement in Portland, Oregon, Takes a Step Forward (tags)
On only the second sunny weekend of the year in Portland, Oregon, 60 plus labor activists decided to spend their Saturday at the Electricians union hall (IBEW Local 48), at the United Labor Strategy Meeting ? an event unlike any other happening in the country. What made the meeting unique was both its perspective and the diversity of unions that participated.
Workers Party challenges Philippine President to protect labor rights at Hanjin (tags)
The militant labor group Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) challenged President Benigno Aquino III (PNoy) to uphold and protect workers rights at the giant Hanjin shipyard in Subic, Zambales as complaints mounted of violations of labor and safety standards. Dozens of members of PM and the Philippine Airlines Employees? Association (PALEA) joined the Church-Labor Conference, an alliance of labor and religious organizations that is co-chaired by Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo, in a rally this morning at Mendiola in Manila.
"Beyond Growth" congress in Berlin, May 20-22. 2011 (tags)
A "Beyond Growth" congress will be held in Berlin, May 20-22. 2011. The driving forces of growth, the limits of growth, the crisis of the work society, an economy beyond growth, justice and the globalized world, sharing and the good life will be discussed.
Illegal Labor on the Farm Produces Big Profits for Agribusiness (tags)
NAFTA induced illegal immigration is providing agribusiness corporations with incredible profits, while legal workers and consumers reap few rewards. At some point people need to face the reality that the U.S. must withdraw from and repeal NAFTA!
PHILIPPINES: Employers win again: P22 COLA too little, too late (tags)
?If the objective is to increase the capacity of workers and their families to weather economic woes, an increase of P22 a day at this point is simply too little, too late,? Akbayan Representative Walden Bello said on Tuesday morning following the announcement of a P22-increase in minimum wage earners? cost of living allowance (COLA).
Phantom Jobs and Economic Recovery in America (tags)
fake recovery
San Diego Hosts Three May Day Rallies (tags)
San Diego hosted no fewer than three rallies on Sunday, May 1 — one between the Centro Cultural de la Raza and World Beat Center in Balboa Park, followed by a march to the Federal Building downtown where the second rally was held, and a third at the San Diego Community Concourse that united the participants with another set of marchers, who had assembled earlier in the morning in Chicano Park, also for a walk downtown. The rally speakers focused on a wide variety of progressive issues — workers’ rights, education cutbacks, health care, immigrants’ rights, war and peace, Queer liberation — and attempted to draw connections between them and psych the participants for the long struggle ahead to preserve and extend those rights in the face of a relentless assault on them by the radical Right.
Labor Representatives Under Attack, Seek Queer Democrats’ Help (tags)
Three San Diego union leaders — Central Labor Council CEO/secretary-treasurer Lorena Gonzalez, Municipal Employees’ Association general manager Michael Zucchet, and SEIU Local 221 head Eric Banks — spoke to the predominantly Queer San Diego Democratic Club April 28 on the state of the local labor movement. They focused on the attacks on public workers by the Republican party and the radical Right, which is aimed not only at driving public-sector wages and benefits below those offered by the private sector but also denying the one source of substantial campaign funding available to Democrats and thereby winning elections by eliminating effective competition. They also talked about the Right-wing bias of San Diego’s media and their success in demonizing public workers’ pensions as the source of San Diego’s financial ills.
Thousands of militant workers march for higher pay in the Philippines (tags)
Manila, Philippines - Thousands of workers led by the Alliance of Progressive Labor (APL) and its allied organizations converged in key cities on Labor Day to reiterate their demand for better wages, improved economy, jobs, security of tenure for workers and an end to demolition of squatter shanties.
May Day 2011 Celebration and Film Showing at Solidarity Hall, Friday, May 6, 7:00 pm (tags)
The Power of a General Strike to stop the war, to tax the rich, to save jobs, education & services
The History of May Day, Made in the USA (tags)
Leftist activists know about the eight men who were arrested and tried and convicted for terrorism related to Haymarket Square in Chicago. The bombing happened at a rally on the 4th, but it was due to events on May Day, when the city of Chicago went on strike.
May Day 2011 Call to Action! (tags)
We are calling A national day of multi-ethnic unity with youth, labor, peace and justice communities in solidarity with immigrant workers and building new immigrant rights & civil rights movement! Wear White T-Shirt; organize local actions to support immigrant worker rights!
FCGOA's 9(b)(3) Status is in Jeopardy as a Legitimate 9(b)(3) Security Union (tags)
Who is Really Running FCGOA? Are They Assiciated With a Non-Guard Union? Is Guy James Really a Front Man for FCGOA? These Questions may soon be answered soon before a NLRB Hearing Officer.
PHILIPPINES: Our Failed Labor-Export Policy (tags)
The impacts of disasters occurring in other parts of the world, from Libya to Japan, have perhaps been communicated more drastically to the Philippines than to other countries. Whether it is the tragic trilogy of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear fallout in Japan or the civil war in Libya, external crises are swiftly transformed into internal crises for our country, as thousands of families are pushed into poverty and economic hardship when their breadwinners are dislocated and repatriated back to the Philippines, where jobs offering decent wages are scarce.
Philippine Airlines workers vote to strike (tags)
The Philippine Airlines Employees’ Association (PALEA) held a torch parade tonight as initial results in the strike poll reveal a tremendous vote for yes. Only the ballots of PALEA members in the Metro Manila offices of Philippines Airlines have been counted and show 96% votes of for a strike and a mere 3% voted against. In the last strike vote conducted last December, some 86% voted yes. In yesterday’s voting, 1996 PALEA members in Metro Manila participated out of some 2987 total members.
U.S. Election 2012: Stewart Alexander Leans Far Left for White House Cabinet Picks (tags)
Labor Candidate Stewart Alexander has announced that he will seek the U.S. Presidential Nomination for the Socialist Party USA, the Peace and Freedom Party- California, and the Green Party USA. Alexander is also seeking support from the Freedom Socialist Party, the Liberty Union Party- Vermont and the support from working people from across the nation.
Downtown March for Workers' Rights (tags)
Saturday, March 26, 2011
LOS ANGELES - Approximately 20,000 marchers demonstrated their support for unions and the right to collectively bargain.
March 26 Labor Solidarity March Photos (tags)
Photo copyright 2011 David Sachs / SEIU. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution, Noncommercial, Share Alike.
March 26 Labor Solidarity March Photos (tags)
Photos by Chris Valle.
March 26 Labor Solidarity March Photos (tags)
Photos by joiseyboyy on flickr.
March 26 Labor Solidarity March Photos (tags)
Photos by Slobodan Dimitrov.
Public Workers’ Struggle Is Our Struggle (tags)
Though it ended in a setback when the Republican majority in the Wisconsin state legislature used legally dubious tactics to ram the bill through anyway, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s plan to strip his state’s public workers of the right to form unions and bargain collectively has engendered nationwide resistance from America’s increasingly embattled working class. Tens of thousands of people from Wisconsin and elsewhere flooded Madison, the state capital, and occupied the capitol building to protest Walker’s policies, and the Democrats in the Wisconsin State Senate left the state for three weeks to deny Walker and the Republicans the votes they needed to eviscerate the state’s union movement. America’s working and middle classes need to stand strong and fight back in the face of these efforts by the corporate and radical Right to deny the non-rich any voice whatsoever in America’s politics.
Wisconsin: For a General Strike Now! (tags)
A law challenging the very existence unions of government workers has just been rammed through the legislature in Wisconsin. In addition, wages have been slashed by up to 10 percent to make up for cuts to health insurance and pensions. The labor movement and workers nationwide and internationally are vividly aware of the stakes. There has been a lot of talk in the last three weeks about a general strike. The Wisconsin South Central Labor Federation even voted to authorize one. But now that the moment of truth has arrived, the union bureaucrats have gotten cold feet. They are doing everything to prevent strike action and instead to divert anger at this vicious law into a drive to recall Republican senators, to be replaced by Democrats, whose “alternative” budget bill would also have drastically slashed wages and benefits. There should be no delay: this is the hour for powerful labor action. A general strike is needed to shut down Wisconsin now!
Promises, Promises: Obama Rebuffs Invites to Stand with [Wisconsin] Workers (tags)
Send Obama and the Democrats a message and change your voter registration status to "Green Party" or "Peace & Freedom"! (Last years' Prop. 14 eliminated partisan primary elections, so there's really isn't any reason left to be a registered Democrat). Postage-paid voter registration cards are available at most libraries and post offices -- fill out one today!
THEY CORRUPTED & COLLUDED WITH THESE U.S. SUPREME COURT JUSTICE$ LIKE CLARENCE THOMA$.... (tags)
UNTIL CLARENCE THOMAS RESIGNS FROM THE PEOPLES U.S. SUPREME COURT,LAWYERS FOR POOR AMERICANS WILL BE FORCED 2 CONTINUE ASKING FOR A FULL U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT & U.S.CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATION INTO THIS OBVIOUS FRONTING OF CORPORATE AMERICA & ELSEWHERE TO GAIN POLITICAL VOTES WITH CERTAIN U.S. SUPREME COURT JUSTICES INVOLVED WITH LAST JANUARYS LEGAL DECISION CONCERNING ALLOWING INTERNATIONAL & NATIONAL CORPORATE UNLIMITED SECRET POLITICAL 501C4 SLU$H TO INFLUENCE OUR FUTURE USA ELECTIVE PROCE$$.
Waging War on Working Americans (tags)
labor struggles
Filipino Workers criticize shortcomings of EDSA 1 (tags)
The Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) and the anti-contractualization coalition KONTRA slammed the shortcomings of EDSA 1 in a symbolic mass action this afternoon. Scores of workers from PM and KONTRA assembled at the Ninoy Aquino monument at the corner of Timog and Quezon Avenues at around 5:30 pm.
Why All Workers Should Support Unions (tags)
It's official: Republicans have declared war on organized labor. Unclear to millions of unorganized workers is whether or not they should care. Thanks to years of right wing propaganda -- and labor union inertia -- millions of Americans are "union skeptics," unsure as to the nature of the union animal. These fence-straddlers have no direct experience with organized labor, but they will be absolutely crucial participants in this war of corporate power versus working people.
Union Busting in America (tags)
worker struggles
Wisconsin: Ground Zero to Save Public Worker Rights (tags)
worker struggles
Feb 22 Cal Solidarity Rallies with Wisconsin Labor; General Strike Call in Wisconsin (tags)
The general strike is the only effective weapon labor has to put an end to the capitalist profit motive that is the cause of all our grief. Michael Moore reports that LABOR IN WISCONSIN IS PREPARING FOR A GENERAL STRIKE! California has several solidarity rallies planned for Feb 22.
Tea Party Stooges Join Wisconsin Protests (tags)
worker struggles
THE LABOR MANIFESTATIONS IN WISCONSIN (tags)
A popular power in the USA is an illusion.
US Workers: Resurgent or Waging a Rearguard Action? (tags)
worker rights
The Two Roads Out of Recession (tags)
Recent events in Washington, D.C. should provoke fear and outrage in the average American worker. As the jobs recession staggers on, politicians and labor leaders alike seem bizarrely distanced from reality, unable to advance any ideas that remotely correspond to the basic demands of those tens of millions of unemployed, under-employed, or poorly paid workers. Instead, what we get is President Obama's recent groveling to the corporate-dominated Chamber of Commerce, pleading with them to hire workers. The President's recent speech to the Chamber implied many dangers, which neither labor federation-- AFL-CIO and Change to Win -- bothered to point out. In fact, the AFL-CIO applauded sections of the speech, rather than condemning its sinister motives. If labor unions align themselves with the President's and the Chamber's pro-corporate path out of the recession, a workers’ road to recovery will be bypassed.
El Salvador's Sweatshop Economy (tags)
sweatshops
Free Software & Internet Show Communism is Possible (tags)
Clay Claiborne of Linuxbeach looks at free software and the internet as empirical evidence that forms of communism are possible.
Sexual Prey in the Saudi Jungle (tags)
He was an officer in the Saudi Royal Navy assigned to the strategic Saudi base of Jubail in the Persian Gulf. She was a single mom from Mindanao, in the Philippines, who saw, like so many others, employment in Saudi Arabia as a route out of poverty. When he picked her up at the Dammam International Airport in June, little did she know she was entering, not a brighter chapter of her life but a chamber of horrors from which she would be liberated only after six long months.
U.S. Election 2012: Weak Labor Demands, Bad News for Obama (tags)
Alexander says he has a plan that will create employment for working people; he refers to his plan as “A Better Deal.” Alexander’s plan would create employment in housing restoring existing homes and building low income housing; automobile manufacturing building electric cars and light rail automobiles; building mass transportation; and repairing the nation’s infrastructure. Establishing a Universal Basic Income (UBI) is one unique element of A Better Deal. Alexander is proposing a UBI that will help to relieve poverty and homelessness.
The Misuse of Martin Luther King Jr. (tags)
Beacon Press has just published a collection of King’s speeches on labor and economic justice, entitled All Labor Has Dignity.
Philippine labor party calls for stop to trainee nurse fees (tags)
The labor group Partido ng Manggagawa (PM - Workers Party) called for a stop to the practice of charging fees to trainee or on-the-job-trainee (OJT) nurses in the wake of a Senate hearing yesterday on the issue. Renato Magtubo, PM chairperson, attended the hearing and supported the position of nurses groups for an end to the “exploitation of hundreds of thousands of young registered nurses.”
Waging War on American Workers (tags)
targeting the middle class
The U.S. social and economic landscape is rapidly changing. Inequalities in wealth, which began an upward ascent back in the 1980s, accelerated in the 1990s. Now they are flying off the charts, thanks first to the tax cuts ushered in by Bush II and second to Obama’s recent continuation of those tax cuts, plus more, which have the effect of taking from the working class and poor in order to give to the rich.
2011: Another bleak year for the workers in the Philippines (tags)
2011: Another bleak year for the workers, militant labor leaders lamented in a breakfast forum
Labor's Last Stand in 2011? (tags)
The stage is set, and the main actors in Congress and in the corporate establishment are ready to perform, having rehearsed behind closed doors for the coming assault on organized labor's most powerful sector, public workers. The final preparations were smoothed out in Obama's tax "compromise" with the Republicans, which gave details of the drama's first act. The tax plan purposely did not include a critical element for state funding, called the Build America Bonds program (BAB), which allows recession-sunk states to easily borrow money from the federal government. In the face of enormous deficits, the states would be left to drown. Reuters blogger James Pethokoukis explains:
Labor Wars in NY, Gov Workers in CA Better Prepare (tags)
The NY State budget is a mess, and the construction unions have joined up with Gov. Cuomo to attack public sector workers.
Obama's Decision to Push Bush's NAFTA-Style Korea Trade Deal Without Real Fixes Is Mistake (tags)
Press release by Public Citizen about the Korean trade agreement that's being pushed.
The ABCs of Marx’s Capital (tags)
Every day when you go to work your labor creates wealth, but you’re still broke. Why? Karl Marx answers that question in Capital, his book that demystifies capitalist economics.
Video: FDR's New Deal: Social Security Act and National Labor Relations Act (tags)
In honor of the 75th anniversary of the enactment of the Social Security Act and the National Labor Relations Act, the FDR presidential library hosts a public forum to explore in depth the year that Roosevelt transformed the mission of the New Deal.
American Style Free Trade (tags)
nothing fair about free trade
Philippine Airlines workers protest, appeals to Philippine President to stop layoff (tags)
The Philippine Airlines Employees’ Association (PALEA) today returned to Mendiola for a rally to appeal to President Benigno Aquino III to stop the mass layoff of 2,600 employees at Philippine Airlines (PAL). PALEA submitted a formal petition to the Office of the President appealing for presidential intervention to suspend the implementation of the Baldoz decision pending its review.
G20: A Threat to Peoples’ Economic and Political Rights! (tags)
The G20 and its global economic agenda are an affront and a threat to people’s rights and welfare. The detention and deportation of Filipino activists from Seoul and the harassment and intimidation of a number of other activists at the hands of Korean immigration authorities are manifestations of the undemocratic and anti-people nature of the G20 and further exposed the illegitimacy of this group of self-proclaimed caretakers of the global economy.
UAW: Reform or rebellion? (tags)
"History shows that every gain won by American workers was the result of militant struggles in opposition to the corporate establishment and both big business parties. The very right to have a union, as well as the eight-hour day, child labor laws, overtime pay, health benefits, etc. was won in often bloody struggles against the violent resistance of the employers and the government. Whenever the Democrats, under the threat of revolution, conceded concessions to workers’ demands, they did so to smother the social movement so they could claw back the workers’ gains at a later point."
PHILIPPINES: PAL labor row erupts anew as workers protest DOLE decision (tags)
The labor row at Philippine Airlines (PAL) flares up once more at the start of the airline peak season with its workers starting today a series of protest actions against the recent decision of Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz to allow the mass layoff of some 3,000 workers. At 10:00 a.m. today dozens of members of the Philippine Airlines Employees’ Association (PALEA), the ground crew union at PAL, held a symbolic protest at the main office of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) in Intramuros, Manila.
BTL:U.S. Labor Could Draw Lessons from French Union Militancy and Solidarity (tags)
BETWEEN THE LINES - A four-time winner of the Connecticut Associated Press Broadcast Award for Best Feature in the non-commercial category, this syndicated, half-hour program provides a platform for individuals and spokespersons from progressive organizations generally ignored or marginalized by the mainstream media. Between the Lines covers a wide range of political, economic and social topics.
Violations of Workers Rights in the Philippines in 2010 (tags)
Aside from the worst forms of labor repression such as the killings of union leaders and members that are well documented by human rights groups, workers in the Philippines suffer from a host of other violations of internationally recognized and constitutionally protected rights and freedoms.
The Struggle for a Workers' Recovery (tags)
Stocks are booming; the Dow Jones soared past 11,000; the very wealthy are bursting from their financial seams. Meanwhile, mass unemployment continues, with 95,000 more jobs -- mostly teachers -- lost in September. As millions of Americans sink into desperation, President Obama continues to preach the good word of optimism, based on the gospel of "private sector job growth."
Workers Solidarity Alliance (WSA) Statement Against Political Police Raids (tags)
The WSA condemns this attack and the arbitrary power which it claims for the repressive agencies of the state. We should also note the hypocrisy of the state agencies who do not shrink from supporting or engaging in mass-scale terrorism abroad, while asserting arbitrary powers at home in the name of “anti-terrorism” and allowing domestic armed extremists to assist in policing the border in Arizona.
The Real Significance of the One Nation Rally (tags)
How are we to interpret the massive One Nation demonstration in Washington D.C. on October 2nd? Was this a rally to elect Democrats? A progressive movement hijacked by the Democratic Party? Or something else?
The Neoliberal Experiment and Europe's anti-Austerity Strikes (tags)
"The neoliberals are fully in control of the bureaucracy, and they are reviving Margaret Thatcher's slogan, TINA: There Is No Alternative. But there is, of course. In the small Baltic economies, pro-labor parties have made it clear that the alternative to government shrinkage is to simply repeal the debts, withdraw from the Euro and break the banks. It is either the banks or labor - and Europe has just realized that this is truly a fight to the economic death. And the first test will come this Saturday, when Latvia holds its national parliamentary elections."
Philippine Labor party, PAL ground crew to support flight attendants strike (tags)
The labor group Partido ng Manggagawa (Worker's Party) and the Philippine Airlines Employees Association (PALEA), the ground crew union at the national flag carrier, both expressed support for the planned strike of the Flight Attendants and Stewards Association of the Philippines (FASAP).
Endorse: Labor Activists Condemn FBI Repression (tags)
Like Dr. King before us, we will not be silenced.
The CTC once again betrays Cuban workers (tags)
// Joint Communiqué MLC-GALSIC (Cuban Libertarian Movement – Support Group for Libertarians and Independent Sindicalists of Cuba)
Jerry Brown Widens the Chasm Between Labor and the Democratic Party (tags)
With the November elections rapidly approaching, most Americans are unimpressed and uninvolved, having concluded that elections have changed little in their struggling lives, despite all the promises of politicians.
NYC Workers Stand with the Muslim, Arab, and South Asian Communities: (tags)
Our Grief Is Not an Excuse for Racism, Islamophobia, Bigotry or War
Jimmy Johns Labor Dispute Bursts onto National Stage with Coast-to-Coast Actions Planned f (tags)
Minimum wage workers fight for justice
Crisis as Permanent State (tags)
The Federal Reserve pumped far more than a trillion without stimulating the economy. 250,000 new jobs must be created month after month to reach the 4.7% unemployment rate before the crisis. 125,000 persons stream on the labor market every month.
Filipino teachers in US file class suit vs oppressive recruiters (tags)
Filipino migrant teachers in Louisiana today (August 5, US Central Time) filed a class lawsuit against Universal Placement International (UPI) and its Philippine based partner, PARS International for various offenses ranging from racketeering, human trafficking, extortion and mail and wire fraud.
THE FICTION OF FREEDOM IN AMERICA (tags)
The servants of these investors and money "managers," like corporate executives and our elected - excuse the expression -representatives, look from the side, taking a payoff, as we get economically raped. This is designed to prevent wage "inflation" (that's a raise in the minimum, or any other, wage) by keeping unemployment high,
We Can’t Defeat the Capitalist Offensive Without Changing Our Unions (tags)
The struggle against the concessionary policies of the Union hierarchy is harder than fighting the boss but we can’t defeat the boss without changing our Unions
Life after the Peak: Capitalism and the Market Economy (tags)
All over the world there are experiments with renewable energy, solidarity economies and non-profit economic forms. A growth acceleration law will be absurd when fossil energy runs out. We will need a growth de-acceleration law.
PHILIPPINES: Keeping an eye on Aquino’s commitment to change (tags)
MANILA - The new administration of President Benigno S. Aquino III begins with an extremely high trust rating of 88 percent – higher than any of the post-dictatorship presidents. This is a measure of people’s belief in the commitment of the Aquino administration to reverse the anti-poor policies implemented during the regime of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
If the U.S. economy eventually recovers and current trends continue, U.S. workers won’t be celebrating in the streets. The corporate establishment has made it clear that a “strong recovery” depends on U.S. workers making “great sacrifices” in the areas of wages, health care, pensions, and more ominously, reductions in so-called “entitlement programs” — Social Security, Medicare, and other social services. These plans have been discussed at length in corporate think tanks for years, and only recently has the mainstream media begun a coordinated attack to convince American workers of the “necessity” of adopting these policies. The New York Times speaks for the corporate establishment as a whole when it writes:
Was UGSOA President Desiree Sullivan Paid-Off To Disclaim Interest in a Wash D.C. Unit??? (tags)
In The Words of UGSOA Local 52 President Robert Nowosielski "Something is Very Fishy Here"."Something Smells..If You Check Very Deep"
India's "Hearts of Darkness" (tags)
labor exploitation in India
UGSOA Special Guest Speaker Caleb Gray-Burriss Charged with 4 Counts of Mail Fraud (tags)
Caleb Gray-Burriss who was indicted on June 30, 2010 was a Special Guest Speaker at the Constitutional Convention for the United Government Security Officers of America International Union UGSOA as reported by media reports and Eye on UGSOA
PHILIPPINES: Unions urge Noynoy to prioritize ‘full employment,’ (tags)
Unions urge Noynoy to prioritize ‘full employment,’ not to renege on his ‘people’s mandate’
Philippine Airlines workers stage protests against Labor Department (tags)
PAL union rallies anew at DOLE, appeals “midnight decision”
100 Filipino Organizations ask Aquino: Adopt pro-poor agenda (tags)
MANILA, Philippines—Some 100 non-government organizations from all over the country under the umbrella network of Kampanya para sa Makataong Pamumuhay (KAMP or Dignified Life for All Campaign) are asking incoming President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III to adopt their pro-poor agenda.
Labor for Palestine Salutes West Coast Dockers for Embargo on Israeli Cargo (tags)
Just as labor solidarity played a critical role in toppling South African apartheid, it now has the potential to cripple Israeli apartheid. We urge the entire ILWU and all trade unionists to stand behind and expand on this critical issue of conscience and solidarity.
Labor board to throw out bogus claims made by SEIU, paving way for NUHW elections (tags)
After 16 months in legal limbo, thousands of healthcare workers will finally get elections to join NUHW.
Employers and Labor Leaders Pressure Muni Drivers to Reverse Vote (tags)
The collaboration between employers and the heads of organized Labor is forced more in to the open as the polarization between the classes grows. There is no room for pretense anymore.
Passing of John Delloro (tags)
John Delloro, a dynamic young FilAm labor organizer who helped expand labor education in the Los Angeles community colleges suffered a fatal heart attack.
Labor Under the Democrats #1 (tags)
Labor article 1
Lost Youth Employment in Illinois (tags)
an entire youth generation is being trashed
Solidarity with the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza (tags)
STATEMENT OF SOLIDARITY from the STOP the War Coalition Philippines
Trumka and the Labor Press Bury Scandal About Removal of ‘Ethical Practices’ Clause (tags)
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka kept his determined silence, refusing to explain or investigate how an “ethical practices” clause, that had been in effect since the founding of the Labor Federation in the 1950s, had been removed in the 2005 edition of the Constitution.
PHIL JACKSON STAND WITH THE FANS (tags)
The Mexican American Political Association (MAPA) and Hermandad Mexicana Latinoamericana join the call made by the National Day Labor Organizing Network (NDLON), the National Latino Congreso, and the Southern California Immigration Coalition (SCIC) to call on the Lakers organization to add Los Lakers to their name to demonstrate their support for the good people of Arizona and oppose SB1070 similar to the Suns basketball initiative last week.
[SF] CALL TO ACTION: Longshoremen - Stop Loading Scab Boron Cargo! (tags)
ILWU workers in the SF bay call for solidarity. On the same day, the labor dispute is resolved.
Work- and Social Criticism in the Time of Capitalist Running Amok (tags)
The term social goes through a fundamental change of meaning. Earlier social described an obligation of society to its members. Today the little word social stands for the caring duty of members of society toward the capitalist machine
Labor Day statements from the Philippines (tags)
LABOR URGED TO USE LABOR VOTE TO ADVANCE LABOR AGENDA . May 1 protest demands a stop to layoffs and contractualization.
Labor Leadership covering for the Democrats again They're all linked to Goldman stupid (tags)
Do they honestly expect us to believe that their campaign isn't linked to the Democratic Party candidate?
Labor Fights Back at Goose Island (Book Review) (tags)
Kari Lydersen has penned an absorbing book, “Revolt on Goose Island.” It chronicles how 250 members of the UE, a progressive union, occupied a factory, “Republic Windows,” located in Chicago, IL, rather then just meekly submit to its closing. It’s labor history at its best. This “direct action” came not long after AFL-CIO labor leader Richard L. Trumka denounced the evils of “globalization,” and the predatory schemes of the Wall Street boy-ohs.
Is the Next Archbishop a Fascist Sympathizer (tags)
Archbishon Jose Gomez is from Mexico, but his roots are also in Opus Dei, an organization that flourished under Franco's Spain.
California Democratic Party and Child Slavery (tags)
Children are worked long hours by the Democratic Party without pay. Their reward is often theft of their works and abuse from the people running the party.
Defeat in Victory: The Democrat's Health Care Bill (tags)
What looks like a big victory for Obama and the Democrats may be their greatest undoing. It’s true that the passage of Obama’s health care bill represents a significant political victory for the Democrats. But sometimes a battle won could equal a lost war. It’s telling that Obama had so much trouble in getting his own party to pass the bill on a simple majority basis: the bill was so blatantly watered down with the corporate hose that anyone with their name attached to it feared future electoral doom.
Dueling Strategies in the Defense of Public Education, Part 2 (tags)
In Part I of this essay we looked at strategies in defense of public education that are referred to as “ultra-left,” meaning that they veer so far left that they sever ties with the working class and consequently lose all traction when it comes to influencing the movement. Here we will examine strategies that veer to the right, often ending up in the camp of opportunism, which means sacrificing principles and working class independence for the sake of quick but illusory gains. The interests of working people are subordinated to those of the capitalist class and the politicians who represent them, be they Democrats or Republicans. Finally, we will return to the question of how to proceed forward.
Class Struggle in Claremont (tags)
Food service workers at Pomona College in Claremont, CA are fighting to organize an independent union. Claremont Solidarity fights with them, against labor exploitation and the corporatization of the university.
International Women's Day in the Philippines (tags)
In the Philippines poor children die at three times the rate of the children of the rich, according to latest UN data.
SÃO PAULO METRÓPOLE OF THE UTOPIA (tags)
A good Brazilian book.
Finance Capitalism Devalues Labor (tags)
Businesses are capital investments in the hands of shareholders. Consequently managers only serve the interests of shareholders.
PRODUCTION OF ALCOHOL COMBUSTIBLE FOMENTS SLAVERY IN BRAZIL (tags)
Brazilian advertising campaign on the benefit of the alcohol in the exterior hides what the industrial of the section make to their employees inside of Brazil.
Global Sweatshop Wage Slavery (tags)
Worker exploitation in America and globally
Filipino teachers form organization to pursue justice vs recruiter (tags)
February 12, 2010 Baton Rouge, Louisiana–Filipino migrant teachers who are in a struggle against their recruitment agency on allegations of overcharges and exploitation have banded together to form an advocacy and campaigns organization to consolidate their growing movement.
SELL-OUT Sen. Ben Nelson To Back GOP Filibuster Against Craig Becker's NLRB Nomination (tags)
Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) announced Monday evening that he will support a Republican-led filibuster over President Barack Obama's nominee to serve on the National Labor Relations Board.
Aviva Chomsky lecture:"Rethinking Labor and Environmental Histories" (tags)
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
CLAREMONT - The scholar and labor historian Aviva Chomsky gave a talk titled "Rethinking Labor and Environmental Histories" at Pitzer College, a private college 35 miles east of Downtown Los Angeles. The lecture was part of the series "Capitalism in Question (Because it is)," which continues through May.
abusing Haitian children
How Liberals Strengthen the Right Wing (tags)
The Democrats look around, blindly, after losing their long-held Senate seat in Massachusetts, and with it their Senate super-majority. They wrongly blame the voters, or their “populist” opponent, but rarely themselves. The Democrats’ claim to be “shocked,” but this scenario is now too familiar in the U.S. two-party system — that corporate-owned game of political musical chairs. Just when it seemed that the Democrats could finally “do something” — since they had a year of super-majority status in the Senate — a wrench was somehow thrown in the machinery.
Fighting Company Union Ideology (tags)
The evolution of the company union in the U.S. is a history of both labor’s progress and its missteps. It is a story that, at bottom, speaks to the battle of workers to find an independent, powerful presence on the job — and to push this clout into the community to help shape the broader public realm. Unions came into existence organically wherever capitalism developed. As soon as workers were brought together by a small number of employers and compelled to make profits for them, the employees naturally sought to defend themselves. A living wage and decent working conditions failed to emerge through the good will of the employers, unfortunately, so workers took matters into their own hands.
Remarks by Richard L. Trumka, President, AFL-CIO, National Press Club, Washington, DC (tags)
Our economy does not work without good jobs, so we must take action now to restore workers' voices in America. The systematic silencing of American workers by denying our right to form unions is at the heart of the disappearance of good jobs in America. We must pass the Employee Free Choice Act so that workers can have the chance to turn bad jobs into good jobs, and so we can reduce the inequality which is undermining our prospects for stable economic growth. And we must do it now—not next year, not even this summer. Now.
The system itself is degenerate. The great financial crisis is the trigger for seeking another capitalism. Deregulation becomes an end-in-itself; the state per se is of the devil. The state should be taken seriously as a production factor.
Labor for Palestine: Response to Defamatory Attacks and Call to Action (tags)
These false assertions come as no surprise. Dishonesty underlies the entire attempt to undermine BDS, and to shore up Israeli apartheid, occupation and oppression.
Labor for Palestine: Open Letter to AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka: Boycott Apartheid Is (tags)
In the 1980s, as president of the United Mine Workers, you rightly argued that, "economic pressure and political isolation of the South African government can hasten the day when justice and freedom reign in that troubled land." Two decades later, the cause of "justice and freedom" for Palestinians requires no less of you as president of the AFL-CIO.
Utopia: The Successful Libertarian Market Socialist Economy (tags)
A successful Libertarian Market Socialist economy based on self employment, co-op or democratic businesses and employers that pay their employees enough to buy back what they produce
Filipino Workers Condemn Maguindanao Massacre (tags)
APL dares gov’t to severely punish brains, perpetrators of Maguindanao massacre
A Surge in Demands on Government for Jobs (tags)
Thanks to the government bailout, bankers and brokers are now self-righteously pocketing their record bonuses, reassured by Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein that they are doing “God’s work” (The New York Times, November 17, 2009). There is no humility in these quarters. Yet working people continue to be battered by relentlessly rising unemployment, caused by an economic crisis they had no part in creating. Officially the rate stands at 10.2 percent with the unofficial rate hovering around 17.5 percent, since it also includes part-time workers wanting full-time work and those who are discouraged and no longer looking for work. Both statistics are on the verge of rising.
What is at Stake with Free Trade (tags)
In the ten years since the World Trade Organization (WTO) protests in Seattle, global opposition to free trade and “globalization” has exploded. The general public now has a basic understanding of how the world economy works … against them: companies scour the globe searching for slave wages, which help push down wages in “developed” countries; any regulation that reduces profits — environmental, financial, labor, etc. — is destroyed or ignored. The two focal points of the anti-globalization movement have been dismantling of the WTO and free trade agreements; both legitimate targets. However, what happens if both goals are accomplished? Mission Accomplished?
The Rules of the Game, Not the Players (tags)
In the last three decades, the financial markets have grown much faster than production.. The respective players (whether public or private) are not the problem but the rules of the game.. The goals and means of production must be redefined
Dropping the Ax: Illegal Firings During Union Election Campaigns, 1951-2007 (tags)
WHAT IS Union Busting? ...Union-busting is a practice that is undertaken by an employer or their agents to prevent employees from joining a labor union, or to disempower, subvert, or destroy unions that already exist.
AFL-CIO’s Dull, Narrowly-Based Culture Has No Appeal to Young Working People (tags)
Harry's over 90 years old, but he's nailed one of the big problems of the AFL-CIO's labor movement - it has no appeal to young working people. It's a bunch of old people - grandparents and great-grandparents.
The Bosses Have the Public Sector in Their Sights. (tags)
Years of collaboration and concessions by the heads of organized Labor have paved the way for the aggressive attacks and confidence the employers are displaying now. These concessionary policies have been a catastrophe for workers leading to much unnecessary suffering.
Funding Sweatshops Globally (tags)
Brutal labor exploitation
Sweatshop Conditions in US Cities (tags)
vicious labor exploitation
Centinela Hospital workers petition to quit SEIU and join NUHW (tags)
Caregivers cite SEIU corruption, labor law violations, and secrecy around recent contract failure
Negotiating Our Lives Away (tags)
At some point we have to step to the plate and put our foot down. It's not going to stop on its own.
The First Shots of the Trade War (tags)
With the G-20 summit approaching, cheerful talk of “international cooperation” fills the White House press-room. These comments carry with them the implication that “free trade” is integral to “cooperation,” a fact made explicit in the last meeting of the G-20. There, in the name of “united action,” world leaders agreed not to install any new protectionist measures. Since then, protectionist measures have flourished. Instead of global cooperation we have its opposite: international tensions are on the rise as trade disputes sharpen.
Filipino workers say "Never Again" (tags)
Workers belonging to the Coalition Against Contractualization (KONTRA) today marched to Mendiola to mark the anniversary of the signing of Proclamation 1081 that imposed Martial Law 37 years ago and to reaffirm their vows to never again let the country slip into darkness.
Fletcher Rallies Progressive Crowd to Fight the Right (tags)
The leaflet advertising author and former labor educator Bill Fletcher's talk September 13 in Balboa Park promised a considerably more optimistic speech than the one he actually gave. Stunned by the mass demonstration in Washington, D.C. by radical-Right opponents of President Obama's supposedly "socialist" agenda, Fletcher gave a strongly worded warning to his Leftist audience that unless the American Left organizes now, not only to fight the Right but to appeal to the hearts and minds of ordinary Americans, the movement he called "Right-wing populism" — talk radio, Fox news, the "teabag" protests and the thug-like disruption of Congressmembers' town-hall meetings on health reform — will sweep the country and consign all progressive movements and any part of distributive justice and a social-welfare state to oblivion.
GIVE BACK HACIENDA LUISITA TO THE FILIPINO FARMERS! (tags)
The Philippine Peasant Support Network(PESANTE)-USA stands solidly with peasant organizations in the Philippines in their call: GIVE BACK THE HACIENDA LUISITA to the farmers! Pesante supports the call of former KMP chair PAeng Mariano . Anakpawis party-list Rep. Rafael Mariano said that Senator Noynoy Aquino’s statement that they will give up Hacienda Luisita is just ruse to further evade his duty to give the land to the farmers. He said the Aquino-Cojuangco family could just convert the estate into other uses (such as the Luisita Mall and the Luisita Industrial Park) to raise money and pay its debts, which do not comply with their obligations under the agrarian reform program. “For generations, the Cojuangcos have benefited greatly from the Hacienda and labor of the farmers. It’s time they give it away, selling it or converting it will only aggravate the problems,” said Mariano.
Obama's Empty Labor Day Speech (tags)
President Obama is a friend of the working people…one day a year. The rest of the year he is rewarding banks with bailouts and war contractors with more war. On Labor Day, workers were offered nothing of substance, just kind words. Obama began his speech by spending an excessive amount of time exaggerating the leadership abilities of both AFL-CIO officials and Ohio’s Democratic representatives. The motive was simple: the “partnership” between organized labor and the Democratic Party is central to the languishing existence of the two-party system, while helping to keep the labor movement in an equal state of decline and decay.
Betrayals Continue as Trumka Takes the Helm at the AFL-CIO (tags)
The partnership between the heads of organized Labor and the employers strengthens as Trumka dumps EFCA after spending millions of dollars of member's hard earned dues money getting our enemies elected in to office.
Alexander: It’s Time to Save California’s Automobile Industry (tags)
Mary McIlroy, a candidate in the California 10th Congressional District race, has strongly opposed the closure of the Toyota NUMMI plant; the plant closure would affect tens of thousands of workers in her district which covers Alameda and other surrounding counties. Mary McIlroy, the Peace and Freedom Party candidate, says, “It is not too late to save these jobs and save the plant from closing.” Toyota has scheduled the plant closure for March 2010.
Cash for Geezers: Retirement for Boomers at 55 (tags)
Beloved Air America host in the mornings, Thom Hartmann and Eduardo Galeano could turn our days to light.
With Amanda Villatoro, of CSA: CRF must be recognized as an occupational illness (tags)
http://www.rel-uita.org/agricultura/agrotoxicos/irc/2009/con_amanda_villatoro-eng.htm
BTL:Key Provision of Employee Free Choice Act in Jeopardy (tags)
BETWEEN THE LINES Syndicated Radio Newsmagazine
Review: Karl Polanyi-How the State Created Capitalism (tags)
In "The Great Transformation" (1944), Karl Polanyi deconstructs the myth of a free market economy that develops naturally and spontaneously and the idea of the state as a counter-pole to capital. The transformation of labor and land into commodities was a painful process.
We Fight Capitalism, Not the Crisis of Capitalism (tags)
Capitalism is a social system, not a natural law. Capitalism has proven it cannot end wars, prevent crises or make possible a good life for all people. Instead of solidarity, the capitalist social system teaches us envy and egoism. Now those who privatized the state cry for state bailout packages.
Cracks Emerging in NAFTA (tags)
The once-solid North American Free Trade Act (NAFTA) is starting to show its age. The 1994 trade agreement that laid the foundation for the economic/political integration of North America is encountering serious internal ruptures, threatening future “progress.” The problems are numerous: fights over trade, immigration, and military cooperation are all issues that Obama recently discussed in Mexico with his NAFTA partners, Mexico and Canada. The annual meeting that usually delivers plans for additional integration was instead used to remedy these heated issues, none of which were fully solved.
Secretary of Education Duncan: Pushing the Chicago Plan - video link (tags)
link info to video stream
CBS New Media Organized under WGA (tags)
Internet writers employed at CBS studios in the L.A. area have unanimously voted to be represented by the Writers Guild of America, West. The vote was conducted by the National Labor Relations Board.
Dems and Reps Unite for Cuts (tags)
While billionaires get bailed out and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq continue THE BUDGET CRISIS IS A LIE! THERE IS MONEY THE RICH ARE STEALING IT.
Obamcare - A Health Care Rationing Scheme to Enrich Insurers, Drug Companies and Large Hos (tags)
Obamacare will make a bad health care system worse.
A 25-Hour Week Would Be Enough (tags)
Prestigious businesses urge their workers to work less. In principle, rising productivity is full of blessings. It made possible reducing working hours since the Second World War. In crisis, the music stops playing. This crisis could be a chance to reform our working hoiurs model.
Learning from Card Check's Death (tags)
Maybe you didn’t hear the news: Card Check — the key provision of the Employee Free Choice Act — is dead. You might not have gotten the message because U.S. labor “leaders” are remarkably silent on the issue. Not a peep. The media, however, has the story right: the Democrats are now officially seeking a compromise, one that strips the bill of its essence — the right for workers to start a union by stating their intention to do so. So why are most union leaders so quiet? No one likes to talk about their blunders, especially the colossal type. The defeat of Card Check is a mighty blow to labor, and admitting that your strategy failed to achieve it may cause others to question your authority.
The San Francisco Strike of 1934: It’s Lessons Today (tags)
The progressive sector of the US labor movement marked July 5, 1934 - a day striking labor unions called "Bloody Thursday" - a turning point in the history of working people on the West Coast. On that day, strikes, riots, tear gas and armed troops on the San Francisco waterfront 1934 strike still had an impact that is still felt to this day. "I think it is still relevant to the Bay Area," said Kevin Starr, the pre-eminent historian of California who wrote about the strike in "Endangered Dreams," a history of California in the Great Depression.
General Strike & Tax on Millionaires & Billionaires in Cal Needed Now (tags)
The State of California is set to issue IOUs instead of checks today, July 1, 2009, because the progressive income tax on the rich, those who make over $200,000 a year, has been cut instead of raised and because labor has not declared the overdue GENERAL STRIKE.
Sunday, June 28 7:30 PM *IWW Forum:Organizing the Unorganized–Lessons of Community Organizing* Come join the Industrial Workers of the World for an Evening of Poetry and Conversation. Poet, playwright and journalist *Fernando Castro* will be sharing his work; along with a panel of labor and community activists who will discuss strategies and experiences for "organizing the unorganized". There will be a screening the Brave New Films short *Stop Starbucks*; and they will be celebrating the life and work of U. Utah Phillips by screening a brief documentary. Admission is Free. Sunday, June 28 7:30 PM Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center 681 Venice Blvd, Venice, CA 90291 310.822.3006
Border Patrol raids in the Inland Empire (tags)
According to a reliable source, the US Border Patrol, which has an office in Riverside, California, is increasing its quota for the month of June. The increased pressure on USBP agents has already resulted in raids on day labor corners in Riverside and San Bernardino, with more sure to follow. Activists are asking for volunteers to be present at day labor corners to help prevent against abuses and document detentions.
Campaign against the assassination of workers in Venezuela (tags)
* El Libertario www.nodo50.org/ellibertario has joined this campaign and we’re trying to divulge this initiative in an attempt to confront the hired killers that are taking the lives of labor activists in this country.
The Case for Arbitration in Labor Law Reform and The Employee Free Choice Act EFCA (tags)
Labor law reform must ensure that workers who want to join a union are able to do so without facing endless delays from corporations seeking to deny them a voice in the workplace.
With pro-market leaders, the road ahead will be difficult for working people. (tags)
It is the responsibility of all activists to learn from the past and help our movement change course.
Ecological Justice Instead of Growth Economy for the Rich (tags)
"Now the market, the god of neoliberals, cannot help any more and speculators cry for the already instrumentalized state.. Studying pre-capitalist approaches is vital to develop a post-capitalist vision. The vision of the Bible is an economy of enough for all, an economy for life."
Boycott Flor de Caña in support to sugar workers (tags)
Join to "Flor de Caña Boycott Group" - Send your letter to the importers and distributors in USA
Employee Free Choice Act - Specter to labor: You'll like how I'll vote on EFCA (tags)
Employee Free Choice Senator Specter Told a Crowd at a EFCA Rally "I believe you'll be satisfied with my vote on this EFCA issue," Specter said
What's Wrong with a 30-Hour Work Week? (tags)
"there is something problematic with advocating a 30-hour work week at the beginning of the 21st century: a 30 hour week is not short enough! There is mushrooming unemployment amidst mountains of useless products. An hour of labor now produces more goods than has ever been the case in the history of humanity. Combining these means that there is no reason for anyone to work more than 20 hours per week."
Labor Leaders Put All “Our” Eggs in the NLRB and EFCA Baskets (tags)
Worker’s relying on our own strength and not the courts will drive back the capitalist’s offensive.
The Flor de Caña Boycott Group Extends its Protest (tags)
Letters of Protest to Importers and Distributors around the World
GM's Turn on Obama's Chopping Block (tags)
The alarm bells should be ringing day and night about what’s being prepared at General Motors — the ripple effects could produce tidal waves. The Obama administration has made no secret about its plans for GM: the Chrysler bankruptcy was the “test case,” and now Obama’s Wall Street buddies inside the Auto Task Force plan to replicate it. The vast implications of the Chrysler bankruptcy went unnoticed by the mainstream media, concerned as it was with the convenient hype provided by Swine Flu.
Yet another blatant betrayal by heads of organized Labor in San Francisco (tags)
SEIU 1021 members voted down a concessionary contract because they were "confused". The higher up the Union ladder you go the more contemptuous of workers you become.
Unity in diversity. Five major coalitions for immigrant rights marched in different parts of the city of Los Angeles, mirrored the differences that united them in 2006. In almost every major city of the United States, workers and immigrants took to the streets to demand legalization and immigration reform. Hundreds of thousands marched and rallied US-wide for May 1 in a militant and defiant show of unity for a call for immigration reforms to the Obama administration. The Labor Front in Turmoil This year, several labor federations banded together to form a single unified union of all unions. Like the old AFL-CIO they want to strengthen the labor front that has been greatly weakened by the division between the AFL-CIO and the Change to Win Coalition.
May Day Celebration features the gripping documentary: Labor's Turning Point about the 1934 Minneapolis truckdrivers' strike. Film: 41 minutes
Open Letter to the Labor Research Association: Don’t Honor Israeli Apartheid (tags)
As head of the Jewish Labor Committee (JLC), Stuart Appelbaum leads the witch-hunt against labor bodies in South Africa and around the world that support Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israeli apartheid.
May Day 2009, Riverside (tags)
Here are some pictures I took at yesterday's May Day march and rally. Enjoy! (set 2 of 2)
May Day 2009, Riverside (tags)
Here are some pictures I took at yesterday's May Day march and rally. Enjoy! (set 1 of 2)
The End of Finance Market Capitalism: Renaissance of Socialism? (tags)
The crisis offers an historical chance to civilize an unbridled capitalism with reform policy. The future relation of market and state is the focus of attention.. Financial markets are characterized by herd behavior. Risk consciousness disappears.
The Vacuum of World Trade Breaks Down (tags)
The unbridled free market was an illusion that gave free rein to greed and speculation and the dominance of the financial markets. Shareholder value made the profits of shareholders absolute and set short-term gain over long-term necessity.
Biden Hopes Specter Backs Employee Free Choice Compromise (tags)
Vice President Joe Biden said Wednesday he believes Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter would have "an open mind" on voting for a bill that makes it easier to form unions if a compromise emerges.
Venezuela: El Libertario warns of possible sentence to the 14 SIDOR workers (tags)
* After taking part in a demonstration for lack of job security in 2006, 14 workers of contractor “Transportes Camila de SIDOR” could be sentenced to 5 to 10 years in jail.
Queer Democrats Hear from Labor on Employee Free Choice Act (tags)
The predominantly Queer San Diego Democratic Club heard from Carlos Marquez, chair of the local chapter of Pride @ Work, at its regular meeting April 23. He presented a campaign called http://www.SharedAgenda.org, aimed at building grassroots support for two proposed pieces of federal legislation: the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which will make it easier for workers to form unions; and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which will ban discrimination in employment based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
Newt Gingrich Is a Babbling Idiot Who Is Lying About the EFCA Arbitration Clause! (tags)
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has a column in today’s Politico whereby He Lies About The Binding Arbitration Clause in the Employee Free Choice Act
Albert Einstein was a socialist (tags)
Famous physicist Albert Einstein wrote the essay entitled "Why Socialism?" for the first issue of left-wing magazine "Monthly Review" (May 1949).
Carwash Campaign Highlights Success of Community-Labor Teamwork (tags)
by James Parks, copied from the AFL-CIO Blog.
Open Letter to All Republican Senators on a Possible Employee Free Choice Act Compromise (tags)
By using my dual-purpose membership card as a universal card instead of using the current language under the present S.560 bill, there is no question anymore as to whether or not the Employee Free Choice Act 2009 eliminates “Secret Ballot” elections. Under my proposal it would not.
Harvard Law School Professor Employee Free Choice Compromise Don't Work! (tags)
Professor Benjamin Sachs Harvard Law School on the Employee Free Choice Act: To address the labor-business impasse, I suggest two alternatives to card check and for changing the Employee Free Choice Act.
Chicago NISN National Grassroots Immigrant Strategy Conf: Successful Conference! (tags)
Successful Ending! Together We Build A New Immigrant Workers Rights and Justice Movements of 2009!
A Union for the Jobless (tags)
With unemployment in LA over 10%, and probably closer to 20% in our working class communities, the time has come for an organization for the unemployed. Harry Kelber is a writer whose been in the labor movement since the 1930s, a real veteran.
BTL:Iraqi Unions Form New Labor Confederation (tags)
BETWEEN THE LINES Syndicated Radio Newsmagazine
Employee Free Choice Act: Open Letter to All Senators on EFCA Compromise (tags)
Employee Free Choice Act EFCA: write your Letters to Your Senators and Congressmen and tell them we need to pass the Employee Free Choice Act EFCA NOW!
The Secret, Ignored Value of Labor (tags)
For centuries the means of production have been owned by only a few individuals. This has led to spectacular robberies like those apparent at the present time to a quiet, ignored theft of the true value of labor by the capitalists.
The Fight Continues For The Employee Free Choice Act EFCA and The Truth! (tags)
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) today repeated his intent on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” to block a Senate vote on the Employee Free Choice Act, despite his past support of the bill. The bill hasn’t changed—so why has Specter flipped?
EFCA Employee Free Choice NO Surrender NO Retreat! (tags)
Sen. Specter, Feinstein, Lincoln Now Opens The Door for The Employee Free Choice EFCA Labor Reform Compromise Bills
targeting labor rights
Stewart Acuff, special assistant to AFL-CIO President John Sweeney touts EFCA (tags)
Employee Free Choice Act: Acuff told his Denver audience that he believes the legislation will come before Congress in seven to eight weeks and that he is hopeful Senate Democrats will be able to round up 60 votes.
Adam Turl reports on the bosses' backlash against the Employee Free Choice Act--and analyzes the shortcomings of organized labor's strategy.
EFCA Civil Rights Leaders Urge Passage of Employee Free Choice (tags)
EFCA: Today, on the eve of the anniversary of King’s assassination, national civil rights leaders called for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act
Unraveling The Card Check Debate (tags)
Sometimes in politics a particular issue strikes at the core of deeper social-economic forces. Card Check - properly named The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA)- is such an issue. EFCA, if implemented as proposed, would allow workers at any work place to join a union simply by having the majority of employees sign union authorization cards. The current law mandates that there be a secret ballot election one month after the requisite number of signed cards are submitted. This one-month period allows employers to mount campaigns to discourage employees from voting for a union, often using conscious distortions and intimidation as tactics. EFCA would prohibit newly unionized workers from striking for two years to gain a first contract. Moreover, if a first contract has not been negotiated within the first three months, a Federal Mediator can step in and impose a contract. Currently, employers who are compelled to recognize a union do not have to concede to a negotiated contract at all; and if, after one year a contract has not been negotiated, the union can be subjected to a vote of decertification, which is often the case.
EFCA Specter Announcement Opens Door to Debate and Possible Compromise ? (tags)
Employee Free Choice Act: The Wall Street Journal has reported a top official in organized labor acknowledged that some changes to controversial legislation that would make it easier for unions to organize might be needed in order to attract more support from lawmakers.
BAYAN-USA Holds 3rd Congress in Los Angeles Amidst VFA Protests (tags)
Information about BAYAN-USA congress scheduled for March 27-29, 2009. Progressive members of the Filipino community representing labor, youth, church groups, academia, and cultural workers will gather in Los Angeles.
India vs China: cheap labor, business chain, finance, capitalist, outsourcing, hightech (tags)
Why can India and China become top business and finance players in a globalized finance, trade, hightech, investment, and politics? Get latest info and analysis from leading experts on the ground.
Attorney General misleads the people (tags)
This article looks at the merit and veracity of a speech given by Attorney General Robert McClelland on Australia's democracy and the rule of law. The following article will disprove all his points and comments.
U.S. Senate and House Introduce Employee Free Choice Act ( EFCA ). SPFPA at the Forefront (tags)
Today is one of those defining moments in history as we introduce legislation that puts power back into the hands of the people who are truly the backbone of this economy.
Faith in the Invisible Hand of the Market is Over (tags)
The people will not be so easily convinced of liberalization, deregulation and privatization. On the contrary, people will have a clearer consciousness of the primacy of politics. The false incentive systems in the businesses must be removed.
Modern Slavery in America (tags)
Slavery thrives in America. Only its form has changed.
Employee Free Choice Act: The Rats are Coming Out of The Woodwork (tags)
Labor Relations Institute Offers $10,000 Reward Exposing a key flaw of the Employee Free Choice Act
Why do These Senators DeMint-Enzi and Bob Corker Continue to Spread Lies about The EFCA? (tags)
What is the Strategy being used by Senators DeMint-Enzi and Bob Corker from Tennessee, in their attempt to defeat the Employee Free Choice Act? Keep Spreading LIES about the Employee Free Choice Act and Supporting The Secret Ballot Protection Act ( Better Known as The Employer FEAR and Intimidation Act )
Why do These Senators DeMint-Enzi and Bob Corker Continue to Spread Lies about The EFCA? (tags)
What is the Strategy being used by Senators DeMint-Enzi and Bob Corker from Tennessee, in their attempt to defeat the Employee Free Choice Act? Keep Spreading LIES about the Employee Free Choice Act and Supporting The Secret Ballot Protection Act ( Better Known as The Employer FEAR and Intimidation Act )
Statement of Solidarity for Filipino Workers of Hanjin Subic bay (tags)
We, the Filipino American community in the United States and their allies express our militant solidarity with Hanjin Shipyard workers in their struggle to unionize and thus end their deplorable working conditions which has led to at least 24 deaths. In January of this year, two more were killed while just as February began, 24 were hurt when a bus carrying workers to the shipyard overturned. We are appalled at the slow response of the Philippine Senate and the Executive branch and their failure to act on the continuing fatal accidents and deaths of workers at Hanjin Shipbuilding.
Senate voted 80-17 to confirm Hilda Solis as President Obama's Secretary of Labor (tags)
Hilda Solis Confirmed YES! The Department of Management Will Now Be Known as the Department of The Workers Rights!
Tomorrow the Senate takes its first vote to confirm Hilda Solis as our Secretary of Labor (tags)
Take Action Now! Contact Your Senators Tell Them to Confirm Solis as our next Secretary of Labor http://action.seiu.org/page/speakout/confirmhildasoli
Employee Free Choice Act: The Enemies of Unions and The Lies They Tell (tags)
Corporate leaders see the proposed Employee Free Choice Act as a grave threat--and they'll say and do just about anything to prevent its passage.
In recent months, we have witnessed billions of dollars pumped into the financial institutions WITH NO STRINGS ATTACHED. Reckless behavior and greed have been graced with the most extravagant rewards, allowing the rich to get even richer. After receiving their bailout, A.I.G. executives resumed their plans for a retreat at a lavish resort. Meanwhile, foreclosures have risen, unemployment has soared, and misery has spread with virtually nothing being done for the millions of workers suffering from these afflictions. We cannot sit back and simply hope that things will get better. The financial executives have organized themselves and lobbied for bailouts. We must now do the same. We must organize ourselves and mount a campaign, insisting that government programs benefit the majority of the population first and foremost, not the super wealthy small minority.
Endorse: U.S. Trade Unionists Support S. African and Australian Dockers' Boycott of Israel (tags)
Join us in publicizing the example of South African and Australian dock workers, and working toward the same kind of labor solidarity here at home.
LETTER OF SOLIDARITY TO HANJIN WORKERS IN THE PHILIPPINES (tags)
We, the Filipino American community in the United States and their allies express our militant solidarity with Hanjin Shipyard workers in their struggle to unionize and thus end their deplorable working conditions which has led to at least 24 deaths. In January of this year, two more were killed while just as February began, 24 were hurt when a bus carrying workers to the shipyard overturned. We are appalled at the slow response of the Philippine Senate and the Executive branch and their failure to act on the continuing fatal accidents and deaths of workers at Hanjin Shipbuilding. While we hold Hanjin, a South Korean transnational corporation employing 15,000 workers in the Philippines, directly accountable for the extremely unacceptable living and working conditions of Filipino workers, we equally hold the Philippine government complicit for acting against the country's national interests and against Filipino workers interests. We demand that the Philippine Government compel the Hanjin Shipyard company to clean up the docks and work areas, ensure worker safety, enforce environmental laws and provide just wages and benefits to Filipino workers.
The First Phase Needed in Passing the Employee Free Choice Act is to Overturn the NLRB (tags)
Card Check Ruling on Dana-Metaldyne.
STATEMENT OF SOLIDARITY FOR HANJIN WORKERS (tags)
We, the Filipino American community in the United States and their allies express our militant solidarity with Hanjin Shipyard workers in their struggle to unionize and thus end their deplorable working conditions which has led to at least 24 deaths. In January of this year, two more were killed while just as February began, 24 were hurt when a bus carrying workers to the shipyard overturned. We are appalled at the slow response of the Philippine Senate and the Executive branch and their failure to act on the continuing fatal accidents and deaths of workers at Hanjin Shipbuilding.
Can we rebuild the labor movement with the Employee Free Choice Act? (tags)
Much has been said in the United States labor movement around the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), a bill many mainstream leaders tout as the solution to the decline of unions. With the recent election of Barrack Obama and the Democratic Party holding the majority of seats in both houses of the US Congress, these same leaders have their hearts set that their millions of dollars in campaign contributions will pay off with the passage of the bill.
March on Riverside Border Patrol Office: No more quotas, no more raids, no more deportatio (tags)
Saturday, February 7, 2009 RIVERSIDE, California--In urgent response to the rash of Border Patrol raids across the Inland Empire, community members convened at Riverside City Hall to express frustration with the agency's family-devastating policies.
Workers Emergency Recovery Campaign (tags)
Below is the introduction, ten point program, and partial list of endorsers for the Workers Emergency Recovery Campaign
Obama Issues Pro-Labor Executive Orders (tags)
In what may be considered a gift to organized labor, President Obama issued a series of Executive Orders on Friday aimed at undoing Bush-era policies involving federal contractors. Issuing executive orders is a quick way to implement labor policy - and appease unions - without enduring the time and uncertainty inherent in the legislative process. Moreover, reversing the prior administration's executive orders has become a tradition whenever a new party takes over the White House.
For Media, ‘Employee Free Choice Act' Promise Is One to Break (tags)
Corporate outlets suddenly discover ‘workers rights’ If corporate media really cared about workers rights, there probably would have been more than zero stories on those rights on the nightly broadcast news in the last year.And labor representatives would likely have provided more than the not quite 0.2 percent of nightly news sources found in a recent survey (Extra!, 5–6/02). Yet we are to believe that concern for workers rights drives some elite media to oppose the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA).
The Great Chance: Basic Guaranteed Income (tags)
How else should the economy and society become more sustainable without a partial turning away from the growth society of more and more? The de-acceleration of work and life is necessary. A basic income could initiate both.
Republican Senators Say They Will Hold Up Solis Nomination. (tags)
We say Solis For Labor Secretary Now!
Reid: Vote on Employee Free Choice Act card check bill, a labor priority, likely in summer (tags)
Washington — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the Senate will likely turn its attention this summer to the Employee Free Choice Act — the union organizing bill being watched in Las Vegas and across the nation.
Local activists oppose police, minuteman harassment of day laborers (tags)
UPLAND, California - January 26, 2008 Supporters of the human rights of immigrants and workers filled the Upland City Council chambers tonight to support speakers decrying injustices against Upland day laborers. The Minutemen, who are themselves responsible for many of these injustices, also arrived to address the council. And while the council may have been more receptive to their racist rhetoric than to our pleas for justice, we maintained the moral high ground and refused to retreat.
Beware of opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act Union Busting Tactics and Lies (tags)
In recent weeks, you may have seen ads on TV or news releases or letters to the editor in your local newspaper bashing “big labor” and the Employee Free Choice Act.
Watch out for employers' attorneys writing as guest columnists on the Employee Free Choice (tags)
January 14, 2009 By Stephanie Kraft There's no law to keep newspapers from grabbing whatever comes across an editor's desk and cramming it into a column with the discreet disclaimer "Viewpoint."
Myth vs. Reality: The REALITY is the Employee Free Choice Act Helps American Workers (tags)
As more and more working Americans struggle to make ends meet, the ability to form a union is key to the economic stability, health, and well-being of American families. Union workers’ median weekly earnings are 30 percent higher than those of non-union workers, union workers are 63 percent more likely to have employer-sponsored health insurance, and union workers are 77 percent more likely to have short-term disability benefits. According to a recent poll, nearly 60 percent of Americans would join a union if they could. (AFL-CIO, “The Union Difference: Union Advantage by the Numbers.”)
Amending The Employee Free Choice Act. A Compromise Every Union Can Live With. (tags)
The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is legislation in the United States which aims to "amend the National Labor Relations Act to establish an efficient system to enable employees to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to provide for mandatory injunctions for unfair labor practices during organizing efforts, and for other purposes.
Labor Boycott Of Israel Backed By BA Trade Unionists To Stop Invasion/Occupation Of Gaza/P (tags)
At a mass rally in San Francisco against the invasion of Gaza by Israel bay area trade unionists and a leader of the Peace and Freedom party called for a labor boycott of Israel to stop war and terrorism by the US supported Israeli government
Workers Understand Democracy, Say Pass Employee Free Choice Act (tags)
Almost eight in 10 Americans support legislation that would make it easier for workers to join or organize labor unions, according to a new national survey from Peter D. Hart and Associates released this week.
Employee Free Choice Act NOW! (tags)
The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is legislation in the United States which aims to "amend the National Labor Relations Act to establish an efficient system to enable employees to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to provide for mandatory injunctions for unfair labor practices during organizing efforts, and for other purposes."Under current labor law.
India vs China: new world frontrunners against global financial meltdown? (tags)
Are Asian giants China and India taking advatanges over global financial crisis and distressed US and Europe? Is India able to produce giant leap forwards in China style? Which nation is to lead the next stage global finance, trade, outsourcing, hightech and politics in a new century in view of global financial crisis that is going on? Talk to leading experts.
NYCLAW ANTIWAR DIGEST -- 12.20.08 (tags)
"[UFPJ leaders] will obfuscate a little bit, but I think in the long run, they are moving away from an antiwar position, and they are going to be losing a lot of people who are interested in building an antiwar movement."
NYCLAW ANTIWAR DIGEST -- 12.15.08 (tags)
Political Ammunition You Can Use
"Wild Speculation is Sin" (tags)
"Marx recognized the core of globalization as a globalization of capital..He also warned against the economization of all areas of life..A capitalism without ethical and legal frameworks is misanthropic..The social market economy is a civilization product.."
533 JOBS LOST IN NOVEMBER, the MOST IN 30 YEARS (tags)
Labor Department statistics show that U.S. employers have cut 1.2 million jobs in the last three months. 'This was much worse than was expected,' one analyst says.
California workers express concerns about Rite Aid management at shareholder meeting (tags)
On December 2, a representative from Lancaster, CA met with Rite Aid CEO Mary Sammons at a special shareholder meeting in New York City.
GM, The NY Times, & Marxism 101 (tags)
As Socialists, we are consistently asked to present our ideas in a clearer, easier to understand manner. To achieve this goal, I’ll enlist the help of former Governor of Massachusetts and candidate for the Republican Presidential nomination, Mitt Romney, who appeared in the New York Times Op-Ed section on Nov. 19th. Romney’s piece, entitled “Let Detroit Go Broke,” laid bare the intent behind the angry rhetoric used by politicians against the proposed bailout for the “Big Three” automakers. Whereas the giant Wall Street banks received over 1 trillion dollars — so far— without barely having to ask, an industry that actually produces something has to beg for a handout. Why the difference?
Some thoughts on the current economic crisis and capitalism
The global crisis is a crisis of capitalism (tags)
It is time for the workers and the poor in the Philippines to prepare for the worse the moment its government keeps on repeating the mantra that the economic fundamentals remain good and thus there is little to worry about effects of the global recessionary trend. The world found itself in the present mess precisely because of such blind faith in neoliberal fundamentalism.
NYCLAW ANTIWAR DIGEST -- 11.18.08 (tags)
[I]t will be interesting to see how antiwar activists react to this. Are they antiwar or just anti-Republican?
Rich of the World, Enrich Yourselves! (tags)
Financial jugglers speculating with food, oil and other raw materials caused double-digit inflation and made staple foods like rice and wheat into luxury items for millions. Neoliberalism with one blow managed to drive nation states to the defensive.
Controversial Child Labor Cartoon Debuts in LA (tags)
Division Denim, the controversial animated dark comedy that deals with offshore child labor debuts in Dec. 04 at The Zero Film Festival.
Filipino Workers to heads of G20: Creating a better world order is no more your business (tags)
Relegating the world’s future to the hands of same leaders who created the current global economic crisis is a recipe to further disaster, according to Partido ng Manggagawa (Workers Party), a militant labor party in the country which joined hundreds of other protesters in a march to the US embassy this morning in time for the G20 Summit in Washington DC.
NYCLAW ANTIWAR DIGEST -- 11.08.08 (tags)
Tens of millions of people want a new direction. The question is whether they can be organized to fight for it.
Labortech 2008 In SF On Dec 5,6&7, 2008 (tags)
Labortech which brings together labor video, computer and media activists from around the world will be having a conference in San Francisco on December 5,6&7.
NYCLAW ANTIWAR DIGEST -- 11.04.08 (tags)
Election Day Reality Check
NYCLAW ANTIWAR DIGEST (11.02.08) (tags)
"There is one agenda, and whoever holds the [president's] chair will continue the other's job."
PHILIPPINES: Labor export policy is anti-women, anti-development (tags)
MANILA, Philippines – The country should not take pride in being the model in terms of labor migration, according to women’s groups who are engaging the Second Global Forum on Migration on Development (GFMD).
Filipino Workers hold March to protest against the GFMD (tags)
As the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) opened today in Manila, at least 5000 workers from the Philippines and other countries in every region of the world came together in one of the broadest labor mobilizations ever organized in the entire history of the global trade union movement.
Labortech 2008 in SF On Dec 5,6&7 (tags)
Labortech 2008 an international educational and training conference on Labor media and technology will be held in San Francisco on Dec 5,6&7 in San Francisco
Parks Attacks Community Organizer (tags)
Dirty Bernie Parks is abusing his power to attack a political enemy. It's a low blow, but, not unexpected.
The most destructive, expensive empire since WWII No other country in the post-Second World War world has been so globally destructive or inflicted so many war fatalities. . . . Yet, so gargantuan and labyrinthine are U.S. military expenditures that the above grossly understates their true magnitude, which, as we shall see below, reached $1 trillion in 2007.
Why Socialism? (by Albert Einstein) (tags)
This essay was originally published in the first issue of Monthly Review (May 1949).
U.S. General: "We are not losing, but we are winning slower in some places than others."
Hotel Workers Rising: Call for Liveable Wages and Humane Workloads (tags)
Hotel service workers of the union Unite Here! Local 19 demonstrated in front of downtown San Jose hotels. They won community support for their 2008 contract negotiations as part of a larger struggle to transform traditionally low-wage hospitality jobs into unionized family-sustaining employment nationwide.
VP Candidate Alexander: Right Time for National Conference on Labor (tags)
Today, there is a groundswell of opposition to the two corporate parties; recent polls show that 84 percent of all Americans are not satisfied with the leadership in Washington DC. Vice Presidential Candidate Stewart A. Alexander and labor organizer Steve Zeltzer believe working people are ready for change; they are hoping a national conference on labor could convene by May 2009 and use the struggle for May Day as a kickoff.
SEIU Pres Stern's Hand Picked CA Operative Investigated For Rigging Elections-Cover-up (tags)
The hand picked political operative of SEIU President Tyrone Freeman has been charged with rigging the recent elections of his 160,000 member local. There is also evidence that SEIU Pres Andy Stern for six years has been covering up charges of corruption by Freeman. This implicates Stern in organizing a corrupt convention, illegally manipulating the votes and being involved in covering up corrupt officials. The International is also involved in a raid on the independent Puerto Rican teachers union FMPR which is labor imperialism.
SEIU Pres Stern's Key CA Operative Tyrone Freeman Linked To Corruption (tags)
SEIU Pres Andy Stern is seeking to consolidate hundreds of thousands of workers in California and force them into a homecare workers local led by hand picked LA operative Tyrone Freeman. It has now been revealed that Stern's ally is California has been using hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay his family members for video and pr services. The many workers of the local earn around $9.00 an hour
Cal General Strike Needed to Tax Rich (tags)
Millionaire Nazi Schwarzenegger, the Republican California governor married to Democrat Maria Shriver, wants to lower 200,000 state workers' wages to the state minimum of $6.75 per hour and fire all temporary and part-time employees to balance the budget, instead of raising the progressive income tax on those who make over $200,000 from all sources. Labor must respond with a statewide general strike of all state workers, In one day, the rich will be taxed and the budget will be passed.
The Forgotten Priority of Labor Over Capital (tags)
Politics is responsible for a social market economy and its rules and structures. When the state is reduced to only setting the framework for competition and then appeals to the responsibility of individual entrepreneurs, one falls at once in a neoliberal trap.
Alternatives to Free Trade: Fair Trade and Beyond (tags)
The global debate around free-trade and its consequences has evolved tremendously in recent years, from tiny circles of leftist critics into a broad international protest movement. Although the movement began to bloom in response to the policies of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the biggest demonstrations have been in response to the now-popular "bi-lateral" free-trade agreements that economically powerful countries sign with poorer nations. Once one has become conscious of the problems created by free-trade agreements, whether they are international or regional, an immediate task presents itself: finding a feasible alternative. Yes, the trade policy advocated by most big business politicians is "free-trade," and yes, this policy has had devastating consequences for working and poor people worldwide, while filling the already-full bank accounts of the rich. But the issue of "free-trade" alone isn't sufficient to fully explain the vast social problems that plague so many countries.
L. A. Teachers Fight Cuts in Education Budget (tags)
A UTLA Member Reports from the Picket Line Over 40,000 teachers, United Teachers Los Angeles, (UTLA), sacrificed an hour of their pay to protest the proposed state budget cuts on Friday, June 6, 2008. LA, CA
6/6 Los Angeles Teachers Strike; General Strike Needed (tags)
Los Angeles teachers are finally striking for the first hour of today's school day against the budget cuts to education; the rest of labor needs to join them in a statewide general strike not only against budget cuts but also against the refusal of the state legislature to raise the income taxes on the rich, the 5% that makes over $200,000 a year, including the millionaires and billionaires who live in California.
KPFK Continues to Ignore AFTRA and SAG Labor Disputes (tags)
Despite being in the middle of Hollywood and the entertainment industry war on workers, they find no voice on "Revolutionary Radio " KPFK.
Work and Work Moralists (tags)
The machine offers less and less work to more and more people. The person of the work-based society believes only work can give meaning to life. Redefining work, security, health and strength is imperative for civilization to triumph over barbarism
BAYAN Philippines & BAYAN USA on Labor Leader Ka Bel (tags)
The Bagong Alyansang Makabayan pays its highest tribute to our former chairman, Crispin "Ka Bel" Beltran after his untimely passing on May 20, 2008. We give our most heartfelt condolences to the family, comrades, friends and the millions of supporters who are grieving the loss of an outstanding fighter for national and social liberation and a beloved leader of the Filipino working class and people.
Union Stages MGM Casino Protest at Foxwoods (tags)
The United Auto Workers gathered near the new MGM Grand at Foxwoods in Ledyard on Saturday to kick off the first of two days of protests against what the union calls an unfair tipping policy and the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe's refusal to bargain.
Santa Ana Labor Rally: HEY, ARNOLD! NO BUDGET CUTS! (tags)
..
Frances Fox Piven's "Challenging Authority" (tags)
Advancing disruptive social protests for change.
Welfare State and Inner Security (tags)
The punitive side of welfare state reform is read as a success. Problems result because firstly there is not enough work and secondfly thoser integrated in work can often hardly live from that. Massive exclusion and precariousness exist everywhere.
May Day revival on three fronts: labor, immigrant, and antiwar (tags)
What started on May 1, 2006 as some of the largest political demonstrations in U.S. history for immigrants' rights have in 2008 brought together three fronts -- labor, immigrant, and antiwar -- in one struggle for peace and social justice.
May Day becomes an annual tradition for immigrant and workers' rights (tags)
In San José and all across the United States, marches for immigrant and workers' rights are reviving the long-dormant American tradition of May Day. While legislation for comprehensive immigration reform has stalled in Congress, demonstrators are poised to take the struggle to the next level.
Day Laborer Remebered, 1 year after Killed in Rancho Cucamonga during Minutemen Protest (tags)
Approximately 200 gathered today in honor of Jose Fernando Pedraza, a Jornalero (day laborer), leader, and friend, who died while defending his right to be a worker in Rancho Cucamonga. March to city hall demanding Pedraza's dying wish, which was a day labor center.
May Day Strike Against the War Shuts Down All U.S. West Coast Ports (tags)
On May 1, every port on the West Coast of the United States was shut down to demand an end to the U.S. war and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. The historic May Day walkout by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) is the first time ever that an American union has struck against a U.S. war. The union ranks defied the rulings of an arbitrator, who twice ordered them to go to work. They overcame the capitulations of the ILWU leadership, which didn't want the work stoppage in the first place, tried to water it down and cowered before the threats of legal action while waving the flag. The employers' Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) declared the May 1 port shutdown an "illegal strike." But after all the huffing and puffing from the bosses' mouthpieces, the dock workers pointed the way to defeating the imperialist war by mobilizing working-class power. In the end, it was more than a work stoppage. The dock workers' May Day strike against the war was a first step, a show of what it will take to bring down the warmongers in Washington. Their "symbolic" action was felt all the way to Iraq, where dock workers in two ports stopped work in solidarity with the ILWU. But it was only a beginning. What is needed is not only industrial action but a political offensive against the Democrats and Republicans, the partner parties of American imperialism, to build a class-struggle workers party.
OEA Press Conference on ILWU May Day Stop Work Action Against War (tags)
The Oakland Education Association representing more than 2800 education workers called a press conference on Tuesday April 29, 2008 to announce support of the ILWU action against the war and action by their own union. They were joined by other unions and Cindy Sheehan
4/30 Victory in Vietnam; 5/1 Labor Day-Support ILWU (tags)
April 30, 1975 was the happiest day for the first generation after WW2 and after the Holocaust. It was the day when the little people in black pajamas, the workers and peasants of Vietnam, defeated the mightiest death machine the world had seen since Nazi Germany, namely Nazi USA, so that the workers of the world literally danced in the streets, including in the USA. We hope to do the same for this year's milestone labor strike for peace led by the ILWU on May Day 2008.
On May 1, all 29 ports on the U.S. West Coast are to be shut down by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) in protest against the U.S. war on Afghanistan and Iraq. This is a historic event of international significance: labor action against imperialist war by a major American union. The strategically placed port workers in the ILWU can bring commerce with Asia to a grinding halt, and they’re about to demonstrate it. The maritime employers are already screaming, and you can bet it’s got the attention of the warmongers in Washington. All labor should take up the challenge this poses: For workers strikes against the war! Meanwhile, immigrants’ rights groups are once again mobilizing on May Day. And on April 30 and May 1, the independent truckers who move cargo to and from the docks may play an important role in a shutdown. The imperialist war on Afghanistan and Iraq is also a war on immigrants, minorities, working people and democratic rights “at home.” We need to defeat this attack here and abroad, in opposition to both the capitalist war parties. The “antiwar movement,” whose aim has always been to pressure the Democrats, is at a dead end. What’s needed is working-class action independent of the bosses. What that takes is a fundamental break from the Democratic Party and the pro-capitalist politics that infuse the labor bureaucracy.
Support Working Mothers This Mother's Day! (tags)
Show your love for working mothers this Mother’s Day! Instead of getting your mom chocolates or flowers again this year, think about making a donation in her name to support the basic rights of working mothers in Latin America
The Healthcare Union War (tags)
Tensions between the California Nurses Association and SEIU escalate at the Labor Notes conference.
VERMONT AFL-CIO CALLS ON WORKERS TO SUPPORT WEST COAST SRIKE AGAINST WAR (tags)
The Executive Board of the Vermont AFL-CIO, representing thousands of workers in countless sectors across Vermont, have unanimously passed an historic resolution expressing their “unequivocal” support for the first US labor strike against the war in Iraq.
The Purple Punch-Out in Dearborn (tags)
SEIU-Backed Hotel Invasion
Open Letter to SEIU Members and Leaders on Violence at Labor Notes Conference (tags)
As SEIU members who attended the Labor Notes conference held on April 11-13, 2008 in Dearborn, Michigan, we denounce the attempts by SEIU International to violently disrupt a fundraising banquet on Saturday, April 12 attended by nearly one thousand labor activists from around the world who gathered to discuss ways to rebuild labor’s power.
AFL-CIO’s John J. Sweeney Fears “an American Nightmare!” (tags)
On April 8, 2008, John J. Sweeney said in Baltimore, MD, that the country is going down the tubes and dragging working class people with it. He’s the head of the national AFL-CIO. He added that in November: “We have an opportunity to reverse these awful trends.” On May 1, 2008, West coast dockworkers are calling a work stoppage to protest the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Perhaps, Mr. Sweeney will join them on the picket line. Stay tuned.
Tech Company Illegally Fires Cal Poly Student Workers for Unionizing (tags)
Pomona, Calif - After being subjected an unannounced pay cut from $10/hr to $8/hr, Cal Poly student marketing representatives Austin Garrido and Sarah Doolittle were fired by their employer, Uloop.com, for attempting to organize a worker's union. The students were fired from their part-time jobs 20 minutes after posting a message in an online inter-company form announcing their intention to form a union. Doolittle and Garrido have filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board.
SEIU International Attacks Labor Gathering - Conference Goers Assaulted. (tags)
When you are trying to put the movement back into the labor movement, you’re going to meet resistance.
“¡Aguirre Si, Labor No!” (tags)
Zenger's Newsmagazine announces its endorsement of progressive Democrat Mike Aguirre for re-election as San Diego city attorney, despite the opposition of reactionary city employee unions more concerned with preserving the pensions of current city workers than protecting the salaries and benefits of future ones.
AFSCME service workers demonstrate in Westwood too (tags)
Westwood & Wilshire was closed down Westwood & Wilshire was closed down Thursday a few hours by groups of green-shirted AFSCME chanting sign holders - But with police action deterring all traffic elsewhere the streets were bare
Forty Years Since King: With Dr. Clayborne Carson (tags)
WBAI's Building Bridges: Your Community and Labor Report presents this 28 minute radio program. TO LISTEN CLICK ON INDYMEDIA LINK BELOW
For Workers Strikes Against the War! ILWU to Shut Down West Coast Ports May 1 Against War (tags)
In a major step for the U.S. labor movement, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) has announced that it will shut down West Coast ports on May 1, to demand an immediate end to the war and occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Middle East.
Abu-Jamal: 3rd US Circuit's Decision & Ambro's Dissent (tags)
The full text of the Third US Circuit Court of Appeals' decision is online at the court's website on the home page and is Abu-Jamal v. Horn, Nos. 01-9014 & 02-9001. Ambro's dissent begins at page 77 of the 118 page opinion.
Building Bridges Radio: NY : Cafeteria Workers Fed Up; Indian Guest Workers Revolt (tags)
WBAI's Building Bridges: Your Community and Labor Report presents this 28 minute radio program. TO LISTEN CLICK ON WEB LINK BELOW
LA County Federation Endorsements Missing Westside Incumbent (tags)
March 8, IWD: This Moment and The Oppression of Women (tags)
The oppression of women is rooted in horrific silences and self-righteous conservatisms. The oppressions festers behind the walls and traditions of family “privacy.” It is wreathed in shame and custom. It is denied as it is so vigorously enforced by state and church and male fists. It is harvested in the great global productive loops of sweatshops and field labor — from endless days of labor at sewing machines and assembly lines, in the nights of domestic slavery and in lifetimes sacrificed to enforced childbearing.
ILWU to Shut Down West Coast Ports May 1 Demanding End to War in Iraq, Afghanistan (tags)
In a major step for the U.S. labor movement, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) has announced that it will shut down West Coast ports on May 1, to demand an immediate end to the war and occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Middle East. This is the first time in decades that an American union has decided to undertake industrial action against a U.S. war. The action announced by the powerful West Coast dock workers union, to stop work to stop the war, should be taken up by unions and labor organizations throughout the United States and internationally. And the purpose of such actions should be not to beg the bourgeois politicians whose hands are covered with blood, having voted for every war budget for six and a half years, but a show of strength of the working people who make this country run, and who can shut it down!
NEW YORK TO LA: THE FIGHT AGAINST GENTRIFICATION (tags)
NEW YORK TO LA: THE FIGHT AGAINST GENTRIFICATION Anti-Gentrification Events Throughout LA 3/3-3/9/08
Building Bridges Radio: Baraka on Obama and Black Liberation (tags)
WBAI's Building Bridges: Your Community and Labor Report presents this 28 minute radio program. TO LISTEN CLICK ON WEB LINK
At the River I Stand: Black History Month Film Showing (tags)
This film shows how the determination of low-paid Black workers in 1968 in Memphis, Tenn. transformed a local labor dispute into a pivotal point in the civil rights and union movements.
Puerto Rico: All Out to Defend the Teachers’ Struggle! (tags)
We are on the threshold of a major class battle in Puerto Rico. Every day new preparations are announced for the coming strike of the Puerto Rican Teachers Federation (FMPR). With 42,000 members, a majority of them women, the FMPR represents almost all of Puerto Rico’s teachers and is by far the largest union on the island. The Shock Force of the Puerto Rican Police and National Guard are being readied to go after the strikers. The struggle of the Puerto Rican teachers affects everybody. The working class as a whole, students and parents, teachers and defenders of workers’ rights around the world must come out in defense of the FMPR! If there are mass arrests, the response must be massive blockades and spreading the struggle to the point of shutting the island down. In order to win this strike, it is necessary to prepare for a struggle not only of the teachers but within the whole workers movement against the pro-capitalist labor bureaucracy that sabotages the workers’ struggle. Above all, it is necessary to fight against illusions in and ties with bourgeois parties and politicians. It’s high time to begin building a revolutionary internationalist workers party.
West Coast Solidarity Meetings For "Freightliner Five" (tags)
There will be solidarity meetings for the fired UAW Freightliner N. Carolina workers in LA, SF, Portland and Seattle
SEIU Mergers, Labor Power, Union Democracy And the Future of the SEIU-Forum 3 LA (tags)
SEIU members in Southern California speak out about the affects of forced mergers of their locals.
VOTE PSL in 2008: Reparations Now! (tags)
The Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) is fielding a slate of candidates in the 2008 U.S. presidential elections: Gloria La Riva for President and Eugene Puryear for Vice President. La Riva/Puryear demand that the Black community be compensated fully, with interest, for the historical racism and wrongs forced upon them by capitalism.
What Works and What Doesn't In Building A New Workers’ Movement (tags)
There are thousands of activists of one type or another who want to change society and recognize that we need a movement to do that. many of these people are in organizations and groupings, many are in Unions. What is causing the delay in the building of a new movement to throw back the present capitalist offensive. One major factor is the heads of Organized Labor, but they are not the only factor.
WGA Picket And Speak Out At SF Disney Store (tags)
These video segments are from a picket of the SF Disney store and also an interview with WGA member James Dalessandro
Mexico: miners attacked, call for emergency protests (tags)
An emergency picket has been called for Saturday January 12 at 3 p.m outside the Mexican consulate in New York to protest a police attack on striking miners in Cananea, Mexico.
Building Bridges Radio: Unregulated Work in the Global City (tags)
WBAI's Building Bridges: Your Community and Labor Report presents this 28 minute radio program. TO LISTEN CLICK ON INTERNET LINK BELOW
Welfare State in the Market Trap (tags)
"The crisis of the welfare state is a crisis in the heads of the economic and political elites. The welfare state is a political barrier against the marketing of human labor. The welfare state can be regained through democratic solidarity.. Today one farmer feeds 88 non-farmers."
rank & file roofers sweep union elections! (tags)
need support...
take abuses to the labor department
global competition: India vs China: finance, outsourcing, hightech, politics, trade, jobs (tags)
Which nation is to lead this century, China, India, or America? Why is 21st century could be dominated by Asians or Chinese? What is behind Chinese and Asian strengths in outsourcing, finance, competition, labor, management, investment, consumption, politics, and strategies? Get great new insights and inside stories.
Building Bridges: Mass Evictions in New Orleans (tags)
WBAI's Building Bridges: Your Community and Labor Report presents this 28 minute radio program. TO LISTEN CLICK ON WEB LINK BELOW
Filipino Workers Vow to Continue the Struggle (tags)
PHILIPPINES: Statements by the Workers Party (PM) & Alliance of Progressive Labor (APL)
Reviewing James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer's "Multinationals on Trial" (tags)
How corporate giants plunder developing nations.
Building Bridges Radio: Writers Strike for their Future (tags)
WBAI's Building Bridges: Your Community and Labor Report presents this 27 minute radio program. TO LISTEN CLICK ON WEB LINK BELOW
LA School District Not Paying Salaries (tags)
For 11 months now, some 48,000 to 78,000 employees of the Los Angeles School District have not been paid due to computer problems. This is sufficient grounds for a strike, despite the lies of the school district. The school district has breached the labor contract with the teachers and all other school employees and thus all the labor contracts have ended, making a strike legal.
Building Bridges Radio: Kucinich on Impeachment (tags)
WBAI's Building Bridges: Your Community and Labor Report presents this 26.5 minute radio program. TO LISTEN CLICK ON WEB LINK BELOW
LA and Nationwide: People Hit the Streets to Stop the War (tags)
The October 27 demonstrations represented another important step forward for the anti-war movement in the United States. Over 100,000 people took to the streets in coordinated regional and local protests to demand an immediate end to the war in Iraq, including well over 10,000 in Los Angeles.
Union Members Help Victims of California Fires (tags)
Saturday, October 27, 2007 : Throughout Southern California, central labor councils and union locals are mobilizing to make sure their union brothers and sisters affected by the devastating fires receive all the help they need to get back on their feet. At least 18,000 homes have been destroyed and 14 people killed in the 16 blazes that have ravaged 500,000 acres?an area about twice the size of New York City?over the past six days.
Rumblings in the depths of the UAW (tags)
They still prevail but the contract rejections at Chrysler shook the UAW bureaucracy and the employers and are a glimpse of what is to come. And many of the new hires will likely be in the forefront of it.
UAW Sellout at GM and Chrysler (tags)
Corrupt UAW bosses sell out their rank and file
Building Bridges Radio: War & Healthcare are SICKO (tags)
WBAI's Building Bridges: Your Community and Labor Report presents this 27 minute radio program. TO LISTEN CLICK ON WEB LINK BELOW
How to reign in the corporate monster. What we need to understand is that we feed the beast every time we buy a Corporate burger, shop at a Corporate store or participate in a Corporate bank; we merely shovel coal into the belly of the beast.
Social Economies and Political Conflicts (tags)
Most of our serious social, ecological and economic problems can only be solved bottom-up with the insight and will of concerned citizens. The challenge consists in a radical democratization of the economy. Otherwise we put the cart before the horse and bridle the horse by the tail.
For a Future of Solidarity and Justice (tags)
The Economic social model is an alternative to the American mini-welfare state. The irrationality of finance capitalism appears in that the stock price rises while the value of labor falls. Labor is shamelessly robbed of its rights and dignity.
Reviewing James Petras' "Rulers and Ruled in the US Empire" (tags)
An in-depth review of James Petras' important new book.
Building Bridges Radio: The UAW-GM Contract with Jerry Tucker (tags)
WBAI's Building Bridges: Your Community and Labor Report presents this 27 minute radio program. TO LISTEN CLICK ON WEB LINK BELOW
Labor Support Rally Tuesday, September 25 at CDC Headquarters GA Against Walden Security (tags)
Informational Picketing against Walden Security at several CDC locations in Atlanta Georgia shall commence all week long following our rally!
Building Bridges Radio:9/11 Health Reports Attacked; Unions Demand 911 Health Care Funds (tags)
WBAI's Building Bridges: Your Community and Labor Report presents this 29 minute radio program. TO LISTEN CLICK ON WEB LINK BELOW
The Future of Work-driven Society (tags)
When less and less time needs to be spent working for a living in Western industrialised countries, this partial freedom of gainful occupation is increasingly becoming a problem for those dismissed. The vision of working less and living longer is a utopia that is also realistic.
Government and business mock labor's day.
A MODEST LABOR PROPOSAL (tags)
COMMENTARY
LABOR DAY SCORECARD 2007 (tags)
COMMENTARY
The War on Working Americans - Part II (tags)
Part II of how American workers are losing out.
The War on Working Americans - Part I (tags)
Working Americans are losing out in the war waged against them.
The present economic crisis has the capitalist class calling for state intervention again. They claim another bout of memory loss, they simply "forgot" the business cycle exists.
Building Bridges Radio: Utah Mine Disaster; Midsummer Markets Meltdown (tags)
WBAI's Building Bridges: Your Community and Labor Report presents this 28.5 minute radio program. TO LISTEN CLICK ON INTERNET LINK BELOW
judas durazo hands elvira arellano over to bush's ice (tags)
mayday defense committee
Judas Durazo hands over Elvira Arellano Bush’s ICE (tags)
Mayday Defense Committee
Venezuela: Workers control under attack-Struggle at Sanitarios Maracay (tags)
workers control
Toxic Treaty Favors Japan, Not the Philippines (tags)
August 14, 2007. Manila, Philippines. Senate Forum Bares Legal Traps and Empty Promises of the JPEPA
NISN Immigrant Conf Ends W/ Successful Adoption 2007-2008 Immigrant Camaign Plan (tags)
3-Days Conference Ends With Successful Adoptions of National Immigrant Solidarity Network 2007 - 2008 Strategic Immigrant Campaign Framework!
Building Bridges Radio: Barbara Ehrenreich Covering the Class War; I.W.W. vs Starbucks (tags)
WBAI'S Building Bridges: Your Community and Labor Report presents this 27.5 minute radio program. TO LISTEN CLICK ON WEB LINK BELOW
The Destruction of Palestine (tags)
Three, one hour lectures on the ongoing terrorism and genocide by an unrelenting , heavily armed, racist state, in occupied Palestine.
A Short Introduction to Marx's Das Kapital (tags)
Marx’s analysis of capitalism, unlike bourgeois accounts, is conducted from a historical perspective. In other words, Marx was keenly aware that during the march of history, one economic system, because of internal, irreconcilable contradictions, has been replaced by another until it too falls victim to similar contradictions. Of course, when one is born and matures within a single economy and lacks knowledge of any other system, one tends to take one’s own for granted, believing that it will persevere forever. A historical perspective has the advantage of forcing us to rise above the provincial perspective that assumes economic systems are eternal. We survey from above the vast array of systems that have played their fleeting role on history’s stage. For this reason, Marx’s analysis of capitalism is specifically written with the purpose of unveiling its inner contradictions so that the possibility of its demise stands boldly in relief. This runs directly opposed to bourgeois portrayals of capitalism as “natural” and hence as unalterable as the law of gravity itself.
Filipino workers slam Arroyo for its consistent failure to clip the jobs crisis (tags)
A dismal failure! This is the verdict of workers belonging to the Alliance of Progressive Labor (APL) as they slammed the Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) administration ahead of her State of the Nation Address (SONA) for its consistent failure to clip the jobs crisis.
High noon for Israel's political gunslinger (tags)
Russian-Israeli billionaire Arcadi Gaydamak will succeed both in whitewashing his dubious past and emerging as a political kingmaker in the next Israeli elections.
U.S. corporations profit from undocumented migrants (tags)
Minutemen/SOS racist assertions derail any open dialogue about NAFTA/WTO free trade policies as a source of undocumented immigration that enables corporations to exploit migrant farmworkers..
Letter to the Philippine President on widespread violations of human, democratic, workers' (tags)
The Alliance of Progressive Labor (APL) hereby raises to your office as Chief Executive of the land our concerns about the reports that at the International Labor Organization Conference Committee on Standards meeting held in Geneva, the Philippine representative rejected said committee's recommendation for the ILO to send a high-level mission to the Philippines to look into the case of involuntarily disappeared and murdered trade union activists and leaders.
Confronting U.S. Empire: Reviewing Filipino American Insurgent Intellectual Production (tags)
This new intervention by internationally renowned Filipino scholar E. SAN JUAN, Jr. signals a renewed self-reflection by the Filipino American community and the entire diaspora of nearly 10 million Overseas Contract Workers.
A Story from an ICE Detention Facility (tags)
Read below:
A backroom deal on trade? (tags)
Four bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs)--with Colombia, Peru, Panama and South Korea--are on the agenda this month for congressional approval, along with a June 30 deadline to reauthorize “trade promotion authority” (TPA) for George Bush. TPA, also known as “fast track” authority, allows the president to negotiate trade deals that Congress must either accept or reject, without amendment.
Join US/Cuba Labor Exchange to participate in travel challenge to Cuba (tags)
Join the US/Cuba Labor Exchange to participate in the Travel Challenge to Cuba Friday, July 20 to Friday, July 27, 2007
Chrysler, Globalization, and Labor's response (tags)
The UAW will confront Detroit auto makers at the bargaining table in July for a new national contract. In what will prove to be one of the UAW’s biggest challenges since the union’s birth, this contract will bear the imprint of the wholesale restructuring of the American auto industry. When Cerberus Capital Management paid $7.4 billion to take control of Chrysler on May 13, 2007, the challenge to the Union was official: “Are you ready to negotiate with a private equity firm which specializes in gutting troubled companies?” The UAW’s position on Chrysler will undoubtedly influence negotiations with General Motors and Ford. Cerberus wants to cut costs to make money off its investment. Contract talks open up a golden opportunity for the bosses to cut costs at the expense of the workers on the assembly lines. Cutting benefits which previous generations sacrificed, fought for and in some instances, died for, is what is at risk for auto workers in 2007.
Time Calls for Amnesty for Undocumented Immigrants (tags)
The May Day marches of the workingclass have finally driven home to the ruling class the obvious and only citizenship solution for 12 million undocumented immigrants who do all the hard, physical labor: AMNESTY NOW! See the June 18, 2007 cover story of Time magazine
Highlighting a recent news report from NBC news exposing the use of slave labor to build the US embassy in Iraq
USLAW/UFPJ Sponsor Pro-Occupation Iraq Labor Speaker in LA (tags)