As the U.S. celebrates Thanksgiving this year, the day is passing like many others for billions of people around the world. In India, women with children and husbands (some of whom have already worked themselves to death) toil barefoot and, with their bare hands, haul heavy loads of dirt at construction sites. They earn less than $2.50 per day.
Many of these women, if interviewed, would say they like their jobs because with the money they earn they can feed their children.
For millions of people here in the U.S., Thanksgiving Day is a day like many others because, like on other days, they are able to enjoy the comfort of a warm home and a bountiful meal with people they love.
Yet, for millions of Americans this Thanksgiving is different. This Thanksgiving, 250,000 a month are losing jobs, almost as many a month are losing homes, and soup kitchens that feed some of the hungry report they are running out of food.
Many miles separate those women of India from the Americans worrying about how they will pay for Thanksgiving dinner. Their problems, however, share a common cause.
The woman in India hauling dirt in her bare feet toils a block or two away from a five-star hotel that charges $5 for a glass of Coca-Cola. The woman in America who is losing her home pays taxes that are bailing out a bank that is taking her house.
In both cases the gap between rich and poor spurred by the workings of global capitalism is causing immense suffering. It’s a moral outrage.
The flame of hope, however, burns bright in America this Thanksgiving.
The people have elected a new leader who understands the injustice inherent in the obscene wealth gap. The people of the world are celebrating this choice. They watch with hope. That indeed gives us much to be thankful for this year.
On Thanksgiving Day, let’s resolve to do everything in our power to keep alive and spread the flame of hope that has been ignited. We owe this to our loved ones, to the people of our country, to the people of the world and to ourselves.
Friday, November 28, 2008
EDITORIAL: A different Thanksgiving
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Russia says U.S. mercenaries, others fought for Georgia
Reuters
ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) – Russia has evidence that citizens from NATO member states including the United States and Turkey fought for Georgia in the five-day August war, Russia's top investigator said on Monday.
A senior security official in Tbilisi dismissed the statement and said by law only Georgian nationals could serve in the country's armed forces.
Asked to list the nationalities of the foreign fighters it believes were involved, Alexander Bastrykin, head of the Prosecutor-General's investigative committee said: "America, the Czech Republic, Chechnya, the Baltic States, Ukraine and Turkey."
"It was a fairly small number of people. They mainly fulfilled support roles," Bastrykin told reporters in Russia's second city of St Petersburg.
He said some had conducted training for the Georgian armed forces. "There were also two snipers ... one from Ukraine and I believe a Latvian woman," he said.
He said he considered the presence of foreign fighters a criminal offence and said he would bring it up at a meeting with representatives of Interpol.
Russia launched a massive counter-offensive on land and sea in August after Georgian forces tried to retake South Ossetia, a Moscow-backed separatist region that rejects Tbilisi's rule.
(Reporting by Denis Dyomkin in St Petersburg, Russia and Margarita Antidze in Tbilisi; writing by Simon Shuster; editing by Matthew Jones)
Monday, November 24, 2008
Bush’s ‘Midnight Rules’ include weaker family leave, longer driving hours for truckers
One big one, which has drawn outrage from organized labor and women’s groups, would weaken the Family and Medical Leave Act, by making it tougher for workers to take “intermittent leave” for such things as doctors’ appointments, restricting workers from using paid vacation time for family leave and by opening workers’ medical records to company executives, not just to doctors.
And another, defying a prior federal court ruling against Bush’s Transportation Department, would let truck companies force drivers to stay longer behind the wheel and with less-frequent rest breaks. That could lead to unsafe conditions on the road.
Bush’s push to institute “Midnight Rules” is like that of prior administrations, including the Clinton administration, according to OMB Watch, a non-profit group that tracks government rule-making. Rules are needed to provide detailed standards for business, workers and consumers to follow when trying to obey sometimes-vague laws.
But the difference between Bush’s action now and Clinton’s eight years ago is that Bush issued the rules early enough so the legal period--60 days--to challenge them expires before Democratic President Barack Obama takes office at noon on Jan. 20. Clinton didn’t do that, and Bush was able to yank and dump several of Clinton’s rules. The GOP-run Congress killed another pro-worker Clinton rule, on ergonomics.
The question facing unions and their allies, who are outraged by Bush’s schemes, is how they can halt or reverse them. The Bush “midnight rules” include:
Family and Medical Leave
Bush’s rules, at business behest, would make it harder for workers to take intermittent leave for such things as doctors’ appointments. They would also require workers with “chronic conditions” to more frequently give firms advance notice--and get approval--for taking leave. Bush would also make it harder or a worker to take paid vacation or personal leave for family issues. And Bush would let firms snoop and spy into workers’ medical records, by allowing companies to demand them of workers’ doctors. Right now, the records are only shared among doctors.
Bush’s “11th-hour move to weaken the Family and Medical Leave Act is another slap in the face to working families struggling just to get by,” AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney said. He called it “reprehensible, but all too predictable” that Bush “would use his last days to give big business one more gift by placing more hurdles in front of workers who need to care for their families.”
“The new FMLA regulations for workers take us in the wrong direction, and are harmful and unnecessary. They will restrict access to protections workers relied on for 15 years,” added Debra Ness of the National Partnership for Women and Families.
The National Women’s Law Center hosted a conference call on Nov. 19 among women’s groups, including the Coalition of Labor Union Women and NPWF, to discuss Bush’s changes. “We’re still considering all of our options, and talking to our allies,” including unions, about what to do, said Sharyn Tejani, NPWF’s senior policy counsel.
A complicating factor for groups involved with family leave is that one section of Bush’s rules extends family leave, for the first time, to military families. They don’t want to delete those rules, Tejani added.
On-the-job safety risks
This Bush brainstorm would change the way federal regulators calculate on-the-job risks, by assuming workers don’t stay in a job too long--and thus lower the risk of exposure to toxic chemicals and other safety hazards. The rule would also add an extra comment period to new worker health standards, creating unneeded delay. It was dreamed up by ideologues in Bush Labor Secretary Elaine Chao’s policy office, without consulting federal job safety and health professionals.
Truckers’ hours
The Bush Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration--the agency that is supposed to ensure trucks are safe and truckers drive safely and with proper licenses--sent its rule to OMB on Oct. 21. It would have the truckers drive 11 hours straight, not 10, with shorter rest afterwards and greater probability that they must do it again soon. That type of schedule produces tired truckers and more accidents.
FMCSA tried its truckers rule twice earlier in the Bush regime, but fouled up its own process so badly that a Teamsters lawsuit got the whole thing thrown out. “We will continue to fight this dangerous midnight rule through the courts and through Congress,” Teamsters President James Hoffa said. “We’re currently reviewing our legal options, especially since the court threw out this regulation twice.”
The union said FMCSA tried again “in brazen defiance of the court and in subservience to the trucking industry.” Hoffa added: ”Letting tired truck drivers spend even more time behind the wheel is foolish and dangerous. I just hope this country can survive the last days” of Bush’s “frenzy of gutting public health and safety protections.”
Drug and alcohol testing for miners
The Bush Mine Safety and Health Administration proposed testing workers in “safety-sensitive positions” for drug and alcohol use. “Safety-sensitive” was purposely left vague.
Mine Workers Communications Director Phil Smith says both the union and the mining companies opposed Bush’s scheme at an Oct. 28 Mine Safety and Health Administration hearing. “But it’s not clear that it’ll go forward. Their process was flawed. If they do, we’re prepared to take action legally or to solicit congressional action,” Smith added.
But there’s another path unions and their allies could use to overturn Bush’s “Midnight Rules” -- an ironic one. It’s called the Congressional Review Act, or CRA.
That law, passed in the opening days of the GOP “Contract With America” in 1995, gives Congress a limited time after any new rule hits the books--and Bush’s schemes take effect just before Obama’s inauguration--to pass a law dumping that rule.
The Congressional Review Act has been used just once, and that’s the irony for workers. In 2001, the GOP-run Congress, in the very first law it passed under Bush, used CRA to dump President Clinton’s rule regulating ergonomic, or repetitive-motion, job safety injuries. Bush signed the repeal. Bush and business pushed for it.
Ever since then, unions and their allies have agitated, unsuccessfully, for action on ergonomic injuries, which number in the hundreds of thousands. Now, says Matthew Madia of OMB Watch, the foes of Bush’s brainstorms--opposed overwhelmingly in public comments--might have to use the Congressional Review Act to overturn them.
“Even if the Obama administration can’t do anything, the new Congress…will have an opportunity to take a look at these rules. They’ll have 60 session days, under the CRA, to determine which rules they think are the worst, and they’ll be able to introduce a resolution to disapprove these rules. If that’s passed by both houses and signed by the president, then it’ll be like the rules never came into effect at all,” he told Democracy Now! radio.
The one problem with using the Congressional Review Act to throw out a Bush “midnight rule” is that it’s an all-or-nothing proposition, Tejani points out. That means if foes of Bush’s weakening of family and medical leave try to use CRA to overturn it, the new rules helping military families take family and medical leave get tossed out, too.
Nevertheless, “If people can contact their congressmen in the new year and tell them about this Congressional Review Act and why it’s important to undo some of these rules, I think we could see some progress made in 2009,” Madia concluded.
Facts on Venezuela
Poll Shows Rising Satisfaction with Democracy in Venezuela
A new survey published on November 14, 2008 by the respected Chilean polling firm Latinobarómetro finds that Venezuela has the region's highest rate of support for democracy as the best system of government, and the second highest rate of satisfaction with the actual functioning of democracy. Citizen satisfaction with democracy has risen by 14 percentage points since 1998, when President Chavez was elected for the first time.
According to the poll, Venezuela also has remarkable levels of support for democratic procedures such as voting, and also for democratic institutions including political parties, congress, and the judiciary. This portrait brings a level of detailed factual analysis to the political realities of Venezuela that is rarely seen in the media.
You can read the full survey in Spanish here. http://www.latinobarometro.org/docs/INFORME_LATINOBAROMETRO_2008.pdf
New Poll Predicts PSUV Victory in Majority of States
A poll released on Tuesday by the Venezuelan firm Consultores 30.11 projects that the great majority of state governorships and mayoralties will be won by candidates of the PSUV (United Socialist Party of Venezuela) in regional elections this Sunday, November 23rd. Close races are expected to ensue in only three states: Sucre, Carabobo, and Zulia.
The poll finds that voting trends in the November 23rd elections closely resemble those present in the previous presidential election in December 2006, which President Chávez won with 62.84% support. Read our full press release and review the poll in detail here.
http://www.rethinkvenezuela.com/press/11-20-08pr.html
Mainstream Media Offers Doomsday Approach
News outlets suggest altogether different scenarios, emphasizing criticisms of the government. Many sources say the opposition will win one third of state governorships and forecast so-called "power grabs" by President Chavez regardless of the outcome of the vote. These distortions can lead readers to believe that democracy in Venezuela is threatened. Read one of the most
reckless articles out today by Bloomberg here. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aZRpKDltESMg&refer=latin_america
Even more disturbing is a PBS television special scheduled to air next week on Frontline just two days after Sunday's elections. The ninety-minute program provides a bleak and unrealistic view of President Chavez and his administration by focusing almost exclusively on negative themes and stories.Watch the program. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/hugochavez/
The most egregious mistakes are outlined below and merit a response.
1. Frontline states that President Chavez resigned during the 2002, which is not true. The Venezuelan leader did not renounce his presidency, although he was held captive and threatened with a bombing of the presidential palace.
2. Frontline completely ignores the well known manipulation of the events of the 2002 coup by Venezuela's private media, as well as its role in staging the coup.
3. Frontline asserts that Chavez used the enabling law to pass 12 laws that did not pass in a referendum on constitutional reforms. However, the 26 laws decreed on the last day of the enabling law are fundamentally different from those that faced referendum last December. All of them are in accordance with the constitution.
4. Frontline irresponsibly closes the program with the following quote: "Chavez barred hundreds of opposition candidates from running [in regional elections]." Again, PBS gets it wrong - this law was not written nor approved by Chavez. It was made in the National Assembly in 2001 by opposition and government supporters alike, including the former political party of opposition Mayor Leopoldo López, Primero Justicia. The law enables administrative sanctions for a variety of corruption charges and allows politicians to finish their term in office.
Let the nation own Big 3
When H. Gaylord Wilshire sought the Southern California congressional seat in 1890, he ran on a very simple platform: "Let the Nation own the trust." The part time farmer and full time reformer was responding to economic abuses of his era not unlike those of the current period. Just as the economic grievances of millions of American farmers, workers and small businessmen might have been resolved in the 1890s by nationalization, in 2008 government ownership of financial institutions and giant corporations could end our current economic crisis.
In the 1890s, the largely rural Southern California, like much of the rest of the nation, was under the economic domination of giant corporations called trusts. The nation's economy was at their mercy.
Today, economic domination takes another form. In Wilshire's time, the system was controlled by robber barons who actually produced goods. Now the economy is controlled by institutions which only deal in paper. Great banks, some of which are international in scope, have created new paper devices to control the economy. Derivatives, hedge funds, mortgage related securities, and numerous other paper creations now determine the economic fate of America.
Through their control of the credit market, those financial institutions have a life and death dominance over virtually every major American industry, small business, and home owner. Americans cannot buy a car, a home, or goods on credit without the consent of those institutions. The credit crunch caused by the banking giants has driven America to the wall.
When the banks are used to make credit available, the whole economy suffers. The auto industry is the prime example of a failed economic system. Those consumers who would buy a new car find the banks are reluctant to lend the money to do so.
So Congress currently is considering a bail-out deal for General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler. The solution is not to loan the Big Three money. The solution is to take them over.
In 1890, Gaylord Wilshire said, "Let the nation own the trust." Today, we say let the nation buy the Big Three.
The total value of all the common stock of Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors, is far less than the 25 billion dollars that these corporations are asking for on top of the other 25 billion dollars they have already been loaned. The current market value of the common stock of General Motors is less than two billion dollars. Ford is worth four billion dollars, and Chrysler's real value is small but currently undetermined. All the government needs to buy is a controlling interest in the common stock, not all the stock. Critics will suggest that if the government steps in to buy the stock of these companies, the value will increase significantly raising the price to a point that we could not afford. Not true.
The alternative to a government purchase would be bankruptcy and liquidation whereby stock holders would receive virtually nothing. Consequently, the government should be able to buy a controlling interest in Ford and GM for a total not exceeding five billion dollars. The key would be long-awaited fresh new management attuned to the real needs of American auto buyers, with coordination that was impossible with three separate companies running the industry. Confidence would be restored to the entire American economy.
While there would be major disagreements within the government over the policies to be followed in running the auto industry, at least the public would have a voice in the determination of what those policies would be. This move would represent "change" which has been the popular national theme throughout the recent presidential campaigns.
If Gaylord Wilshire were still among us, we are sure that would have been his platform in the 2008 congressional election.
Let the nation own the Big Three
Ralph E. Shaffer is professor emeritus Cal Poly Pomona and Norma Jeanne Strobel is professor retired Santa Ana College.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Racism not erased by Obama's win, real change still needed
From: The State News
Racism not erased by Obama's win, real change still needed“Change we can believe in” and “Yes we can” were some of the slogans used in propelling President-elect Obama, D-Ill., into the White House. Indeed, his win was both convincing and historic. However, what does Obama’s presidency mean for racism? Is racism in fact eradicated? What is the relationship between Sen. Obama being elected and the eradication of structural racism?
I believe some whites voted for him because of his policies and because it helped them deal with their own racism, but it did not change the nature of structural racism. America will never be a post-racial society because it has not gotten to the root of the problem facing poor and colored people. Is Obama prepared to get to the root of the problem? Will he take the suggestion of the colonialist theoretician Frantz Fanon who said, “The prognosis is in the hands of those who are prepared to shake the worm-eaten foundations of the edifice.”
If Obama is prepared to do this, then his presidency will move from a modern day symbolic tokenism to actual “change we can believe in.” Tokenism may seem harsh, but America has already seen symbols such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. How effective were those symbols? One can go to the south side of Chicago or the east side of Detroit to look and see. Based upon the rhetoric of his campaign, poor black, Latino and Native Americans will continue to suffer the injustices of this so-called democracy.
Kyle Mays
African American and African studies graduate student and W.E.B. Du Bois Society Memeber
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Labor UpFront Newsletter
Scott Marshall, Labor Commission Chair
Melissa O’Rourke, Labor Commission Coordinator, Labor UpFront editor
In This Newsletter:
Obama Wins!
Labor Law overhaul the top priority for America’s unions
********************************
Obama Wins!
Labor wins!
Americans reject policies of greed and union busting!
By Scott Marshall
President-elect Barack Obama.
Those words ring with meaning. For organized labor they ring with pride, hope, and energy for the struggles ahead. No one feels like “labor’s candidate won, so now we can go home and rest.” Rather, as congratulation messages pour in from all parts of the labor movement, the critical subtext is, we are ready and eager to march with you for change. At the top of labor’s change agenda is boots-on-the-ground support for the Obama agenda of a new “New Deal” for economic recovery and passage of the Employee Free Choice Act.
Organized labor played an amazing role in the election Barack Obama.
Unions played an extraordinary leadership role in winning the working class for Obama.
It’s been many years since labor was so totally united behind a presidential candidate.
Labor raised the struggle against racism and for class unity to a whole new level.
Unions gave vital leadership in building support for Obama on issues like the economy, workers rights to organize, protecting retiree’s pensions and social security, healthcare, and building green manufacturing that protects the environment and puts people back to work.
The labor movement took independent political action to spectacular new levels. Unions broke all previous records in mobilizing it’s rank and file for labor walks, phone banks, plant gate distributions, and member to member contact in the workplace. Labor continued to build and develop it’s own political apparatus and voice. Hundreds, if not thousands, of union halls became campaign central for the Obama campaign as well as for targeted Congressional contests.
As phenomenal as labor’s efforts were, the impact of the Obama upsurge and campaign on labor was also incredible. New coalitions were built or strengthened. A new depth was added to ties between labor and all the components of the Obama movement.
Labor’s role was hardly mentioned in the mainstream press. All the more reason for labor to have a big showing of celebration and support for our new President. Some in labor have begun to talk about a big mobilization for President Barack Obama’s “People’s Inaugural.”
What a great idea!
return to top
Labor Law overhaul top priority for labor
By John Wojcik
Leaders of the nation’s two huge labor federations, the AFL-CIO and Change-to-Win, say that the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is at the top of their agenda and that unions will work with the incoming Obama administration and with Congress to ensure its passage.
“In an economy that gives corporations far too much power, a union card remains the single best ticket into the middle class,” AFL-CIO President John Sweeney declared.
“With a president-elect who is a co-sponsor of the EFCA, with a vice president-elect who is a co-sponsor of the EFCA…with the gains in the House and Senate, the prospects of passage have increased dramatically,” added Rich Trumka, the federation’s secretary-treasurer.
Labor leaders warn, however, that the effort to pass the bill will not be without roadblocks.
Passage will require a filibuster-proof 60 vote super majority in the Senate. The law was passed by the House last year but derailed in the Senate in a filibuster led by Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a right-winger who was re-elected Nov.4 in Kentucky.
Democrats, along with two independents who caucus with them, now number 57, three below the filibuster-proof super majority. To stop a filibuster three Republicans would have to join them.
The possibility remains that the Democratic Senate majority can still grow to 60 because three races remain unsettled.
The EFCA would allow workers to form a union as soon as a majority at a work site sign pledge cards indicating their desire to be represented by the union. This would short circuit the prolonged company-dominated campaigns of harassment and firings that often now precede elections that companies can call for at workplaces where employees express a desire to unionize.
The EFCA would also sharply increase penalties, up to $20,000 per violation, for those who violate labor laws and would make it easier to get court orders against labor law breakers. The law would also mandate binding arbitration between unions and employers if they cannot reach agreement on an initial contract within 120 days of starting talks.
“For the first time in eight years we have a president who supports workers’ rights,” AFL-CIO political director Karen Ackerman said at the press conference.
return to top
To remove your name from our mailing list, please e-mail cp-labor-leave@cpusa.org
We welcome questions, comments and stories for our next newsletter. Send them to us at laborupfront@rednet.org or call (773) 446-9934.
Eight pro-worker changes may be coming
Post-election statements issued by the nation’s major labor federations, union press conferences, the Senate record of President-elect Barack Obama and bigger Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, taken together, indicate that in the coming period the labor movement is on the verge of winning as many as eight major legislative changes.
Topping the list is possible passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would help level the playing field between workers and bosses in organizing and bargaining.
The EFCA would automatically allow card check recognition of unions, increase fines for labor-law breaking, order arbitration if unions and employers cannot agree on a first contract in 120 days and simplify procedures for getting court orders to stop corporate dodging of labor law.
This new law will be difficult to win because it is expected to draw bitter and well-funded opposition from big business. At a Nov. 6 press conference the Chamber of Commerce dubbed the EFCA its top priority for defeat in the coming period.
The second priority for labor, even before the Obama administration takes over next January, is passage of a meaningful economic stimulus package when the current 110th Congress returns for a lame-duck session Nov. 17.
Unions want extension of federal unemployment benefits from the current 26 to 39 weeks, billions of dollars in spending for infrastructure projects – rebuilding highways, airports and bridges that would result in good-paying jobs – and extending aid to the states to deal with the rising costs of Medicaid. Medicaid has been hard hit by rising costs associated with the growing numbers of uninsured
A third priority for labor, when the new administration takes over, is legislation that reverses the. Supreme Court’s Lilly Ledbetter ruling, which virtually barred anyone from suing employers for pay discrimination based on sex – or any other factor – except within 180 days of being hired.
Labor-backed legislation overturning the Court’s Ledbetter ruling passed in the House this year but was killed by a GOP filibuster in the Senate.
A fourth priority is a new law that will expand the Family and Medical Leave Act and also, for the first time, enact paid family leave. A bill instituting seven days of paid leave passed the House Education and Labor Committee this year but failed to go further.
Fifth on labor’s list is a law that would overturn a ruling by President Bush that barred airport screeners from unionizing. Unions that represent government workers have already been assured by Obama that he will allow what they consider the anti-labor National Security Personnel System, imposed by Bush on Department of Defense workers, die when its renewal comes up next year.
Sixth is a bill called the Respect Act. It would overturn a National Labor Relations Board ruling that allowed millions of workers to lose the protection of labor law by re-classifying them as “supervisors.”
A seventh priority for labor is to ask the incoming Obama administration to reverse the government’s refusal to allow the Federal Aviation Administration to bargain a new contract with the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.
An agreement between the FAA and the union was reached in the closing days of the Clinton administration but was trashed by Bush when he took over in 2000. He imposed longer hours, wage freezes and cuts. Since then controllers have been retiring en-masse, causing air traffic problems across the nation.
Patrick Forrey, president of the controllers union, said, after the election, “Our workforce has been in crisis, attacked and disrespected by an anti-union administration. But change is coming. It is imminent. We will be there to welcome, embrace and escort it as we work together for a safer, more efficient system. No longer will the employees at the FAA be treated like the enemy.”
An eighth priority for labor will be fair trade. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Steel Workers President Leo Gerard held a joint press conference recently where they predicted a new push for the labor-backed Trade Act. That measure, introduced this year, would set new rules for U.S. trade pacts, ordering trade bargainers to write enforceable labor standards into the texts of any proposed law.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Workman advocates for hearing-impaired workers
DIVERSITY AT WORK: UAW Local 3055 members Cori Schuman, left, and Deb Taylor wear UAW shirts with "YES UNION!" in sign language.
Rollie Workman is about as unconventional a union leader as you can get.
Just look at the way the president of UAW Local 3055 in Columbia City, Ind., runs his union meetings.
Rather than situating himself up on the stage behind a microphone and podium, Workman is right down there on the meeting floor with the membership. He is constantly roaming about the room, moving from member to member as each addresses him.
"The hardest part of my job is understanding exactly what people want," he freely admits.
Listening to the members is a big part of any union leader's job, but for Workman, it's huge. He is deaf. Getting close to the membership isn't just good political advice, it's an absolute necessity for him so he can read their lips.
In the union hall, hearing staff take his phone calls with him in the room nearby. They repeat the questions callers have, and he speaks out his answers.
Workman wasn't born deaf. Suffering from bilateral progressive nerve deafness, Workman lost his hearing at 43. But age didn't make his disability any easier to deal with.
"Forty three years of hearing was over now. Silence was not golden for me at all," he told a reporter this year for the Deafness Research Foundation's publication.
His struggle to overcome the anger, depression and economic hardship that came along with his condition has made Workman an advocate for all people with disabilities.
Recently, Workman sent a letter to the IAmTheUAW.org site in which he wrote: "Those with hearing impairments are also a valuable asset to the UAW and to their employers. As with all people they have great ideas and thoughts to share with all members."
In fact, Workman had a pretty good idea of his own for how deaf UAW members can become involved with their union. Beginning with Local 3055 and with early support from Region 3 Director Mo Davison, the UAW nationwide is now adopting Workman's idea of every local maintaining an interpreter's list.
This is a list of friends or relatives of UAW members who know sign language and are willing to volunteer to help translate for the hearing impaired at union meetings or wherever they are needed.
On IAmTheUAW.org, Workman also shares a pretty good idea he had for a union public relations campaign:"The news media always paints us as money hungry. … This would be a hard picture for the news media to twist: Two UAW members … wearing UAW shirts and signing to each other. This would not only show that the UAW not only welcomes all members, but that these members are a part of everything that the UAW becomes involved in."
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
What a historic moment!
On Nov. 4, 2008, it happened — Barack Obama became our first African American president. What an historic moment this is. A nation that held people of African descent in bondage for 300 years and denied them rights of citizenship under Jim Crow for a century more has elected a Black president. It doesn’t get any more historic than that.
This election became one of the most dramatic in history because it was a transformative election representing the end of extreme rightwing Republican rule and the beginning of a new democratic upsurge which could move our country in a progressive direction.
That the candidate representing democratic change was African American is no small matter. It put the struggle against racism objectively in the center of the nationwide election debate.
Barack Obama’s election represents a mighty blow against racism and for democracy. Without a vigorous fight against racism Obama could not have won. To vote for Obama, tens of millions of white voters had to overcome the influences of racism. The Obama-Biden campaign has brought millions to recognize that racism isn’t just morally wrong but is also a block to a better life for all.
Reflecting the times, Obama had a more advanced program for the working class than Al Gore and John Kerry, and he received more votes from white voters. Many white workers had to be won to understand that basic class issues, the economy and peace could not be advanced unless racism was defeated. This can be a new platform to advance the whole struggle.
This is proud moment for Black Americans. The Black vote was the largest in history, and Obama and Biden could not have been elected without it. It is a vote that must never be taken for granted.
The “problem” that Obama supposedly lacked white support turned out to be far less of a problem than McCain-Palin’s historically low level of Black and Latino backing — something the media never really examined.
Obama built the broadest, most inclusive multiracial electoral coalition in U.S. history, ranging from most of the broad left to large numbers of Republican voters and many national figures. African Americans, youth and organized labor were the key forces.
Obama’s election continues the great civil rights struggles of the last century. Without the Voting Rights and Civil Rights Acts, won during the great upsurge of the 1960s, his victory would not have been possible. The Obama campaign/movement is helping to set the stage for an offensive against racism and for peace and economic justice.
I remember the mood among Black people and in the country after the great 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. It was electrifying. Now, Black people’s confidence, their hopes and dreams for freedom and the feeling that “we could win” have returned.
People waited in line for hours, determined to cast their vote. It was like South Africa in 1994 when Africans voted for the first time. Literally millions of African Americans registered to vote and came to the polls in massive numbers.
While registering voters in Harlem I met many older voters registering for the first time. I asked one elderly new voter, “Why now?” And he said, “After Iowa I felt we had a fighting chance to really change things and I had to be a part of it.” An Obama campaign worker told me of being approached by an immigrant worker who said, “Thank you for voting because when you vote for Obama on Tuesday, you are voting for people like me who can’t vote.”
So many people on the streets are saying, “This is truly a new day, I never thought I’d live to see a Black president.” Some ask, “Was it the man or the moment that made this victory possible?” I think it was both.
After this election things are not going back to where they were. You can’t put the genie of struggle back in the bottle. The people have used this election to take back their country from a cutthroat capitalism that sees only its profits, not people. They have given the new administration and Congress a progressive mandate.
The grave human consequences of the economic collapse, the energy crisis and the impact of globalization must be addressed with a program rivaling the New Deal in size and scope. That is what the people voted for.
There are tears of pride in our community today because the forces of racism and war have been defeated at the polls. There are also tears of joy among working people of all races and nationalities because people can see a new day coming; a day when economic justice, peace and equality can be realized. That is what we must fight for.
Jarvis Tyner is Executive Vice Chair of the Communist Party USA.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Machinists Approve New Boeing Contract
Washington, D.C., November 2, 2008 - The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) announced today that its members voted by 74 percent to ratify a new 4-year contract with the Boeing Company.
The new agreement covers 27,000 IAM members at Boeing facilities in Washington, Oregon, Kansas and California, and ends a strike that began on September 6, 2008.
Machinists will begin returning to work as early as November 2 and have until the beginning of their shift on Monday, November 10 to return to work.
"This contract gives the workers at Boeing an opportunity to share in the extraordinary success this Company has achieved over the past several years," said Aerospace Coordinator Mark Blondin. "It also recognizes the need to act with foresight to protect the next generation of aerospace jobs. These members helped make Boeing the company it is today, and they have every right to be a part of its future."
Among the many job security gains in the new accord, the IAM reasserted scope of work jurisdiction over previously unprotected bargaining unit work. In addition to a 15 percent increase in pay, pension improvements and significant lump sum payments, members' share of medical costs will remain unchanged.
"This Union has delivered what few Americans have - economic certainty and quality benefits for the next four years,” said District 751 President Tom Wroblewski. "After 57 days of striking, we gained important and substantial improvements over the Company's offer that was rejected on September 3."
Video on the Employee Free Choice Act
America's workers are struggling to make ends meet. But when workers are free to choose to join a union, our economy can work for everyone again.
That's why we need the Employee Free Choice Act—a bill in Congress that would help level the playing field and give workers the freedom to choose a union.
We’ve teamed up with the award-winning team at Brave New Films on a hilarious new video about why we need more good union jobs. Watch the video, and then sign the petition in support of the Employee Free Choice Act.
Letters: November 1, 2008
Author: Readers
People's Weekly World Newspaper, 10/31/08 11:40
Redistribution? That’s capitalism!
John McCain and Sarah Palin are giving socialism a bad name! They describe socialism as a system to redistribute the wealth.
Give me a break! It’s capitalism that has redistributed more wealth than any economic system in human history.
It starts when workers — the vast majority of the world’s population — apply their brain and muscle and time to create all the food, manufactured goods and health, educational and other services that sustain life. The products of that labor are sold on the global market. But the producers only keep of fraction of the proceeds. The rest is redistributed to the capitalists who control the process.
Even out of the portion that the workers get to keep in the form of pay, a fair amount gets redistributed back to corporate America in the form of predatory financial schemes such as interest, credit card charges, and the gambling industry.
Taxes actually are another form of redistribution.
But it is workers who pay the bulk of payroll, sales, real estate as well as income tax. It’s Big Business that mooches off the government.
Can you think of any more examples of how capitalism redistributes the wealth created by workers into corporate vaults? Please send your ideas to add to the collection.
B. Wood
Chicago IL
Class warfare
Have you ever noticed that when proposals are made to raise the tax rate on the very well-to-do (shall we say rich) in this country, it’s called by some of them or their media spokespersons “class warfare”?
Bill O’Reilly and Russ Limbaugh have been spewing that venom forth when proposals have been made to up the income tax on those making over $250,000 a year.
However, when they oppose legislation that would assist the less fortunate in our society i.e., increase the minimum wage or provide health insurance for those not covered, it’s called “fiscal responsibility.”
Case in point, and right here in Pennsylvania, is the right-wing opposition to provide health coverage for the 800,000 uninsured of our state’s citizens. However, to avoid the utter stigmatization that would and should be heaped upon them, they said they would be willing to consider a proposal limiting health insurance coverage to just one-third of that number, to 250,000. But not now, heaven forbid but four years from now in 2012.
And with less benefits than originally envisioned … no eye or hearing exams, or emergency dental care.
The longer we wait to cover all Americans, but most certainly the uninsured, people will get sicker and some people will die.
Fiscal responsibility, my foot. That’s class warfare!!
Lawrence Geller
Via e-mail
Free Liliany Obando
Just wanted to say great job on getting the info out about the disturbing detention of Liliany Obando (PWW 10/18-24).
Yet another independent source apart from Interpol found difficulty in accepting the material within the FARC-EP computers. In July, the State General Public Prosecution Office of Ecuador disclosed that all files under analysis had shown signs of tampering by the Colombian state. In effect, any “proof” related to ridiculous allegations against Obando is far from conclusive thereby making her detention, let alone charges, inadmissible in any functioning court of democratic law.
James Brittain
Nova Scotia, Canada
James Brittain is an assistant professor at Acadia University in Canada.
‘Religulous’ and religion
Good show on Jim Lane’s review of the Bill Maher documentary “Religulous” (PWW 10/18-24). Although I have a certain mistrust of Maher’s role as radical chic, I agree with Lane that the cinema is very worthy and deserves a look-see.
I was awaiting and hoping, however, during the movie and Lane’s review, for that pointed seven-word analysis of religion that was not mentioned that has stood the test of time. Not surprised about Maher. He does not have that deep a political grasp or awareness. I refer to Karl Marx’s legendary truth that (sic) religion is the opiate of the people, seven words that sum up capitalism’s use of religion that is so significantly a part of the people’s exploitation. “Religulous” hints at it, as does the Lane review. But I just wish they had been quoted and properly credited.
Don Sloan
New York NY
Jim Lane replies: The quote you mention is misleading out of context. Here is part of the fuller quote: “Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”
Kabul
Thousands of bombs exploded
between the land and the sky of Kabul.
Thousand of children, men and women
shouted in fear and pain.
Asphyxiated by smoke of depleted uranium
and radioactive cancerous dust
they were left in an enormous cemetery.
The air of Kabul was filled
with the odor of death.
Six years later, all is silence
about the destruction of Kabul
while the American people
prepare themselves for another
election. So far, yet so close,
not rebuilt, not an issue,
not a plan for freedom
for the city of Kabul.
Teresinka Pereira
Toledo OH
We want to hear from you!
By mail:
People’s Weekly World
3339 S. Halsted St.
Chicago IL 60608
n
e-mail:
pww@pww.org
Letters should be limited to 200 words. We reserve the right to edit stories and letters. Only signed letters with the return address of the sender will be considered for publication, but the name of the sender will be withheld on request.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
What is voter fraud?
During the last presidential debate, Republican nominee John McCain made the following remark: “ACORN is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.”
What is voter fraud? How is it different from registration fraud? And, most importantly, what is voter suppression?
Of the thousands of grassroots folks doing voter registration around the country, a very, very small percentage have been found to have faked information on registration application forms. But this does not mean that voter fraud has taken place. In order for actual vote fraud to happen, the fake application information would have to be approved by the Board of Election, with the individual verified as an actual person, and the board-approved applicant would have to show up on Election Day, prove his or her identity to local election judges and actually cast a vote.
There has never been a single reported instance in which fraudulently filled out registration application forms have led to improper voting. If a suspicious registration application form is turned in, the Board of Election tries to match the registration information with both the applicant’s driver’s license number and the last four digits of his/her Social Security number. If there is a mismatch, election officials attempt to contact the potential voter to verify his or her status. If status can not be verified, the application is rejected.
According to The New York Times, a five-year national crackdown on voter fraud by the Justice Department produced a total of 70 convictions at the federal level, including 40 campaign workers or government workers convicted of vote-buying, intimidation or ballot forgery and 23 cases of multiple voting or voting by ineligible voters.
There were 122 million votes cast during the 2004 presidential elections. And this year’s election turnout is expected to surpass all previous records. So do the math. Is John McCain really concerned about voter fraud? Or is he more concerned about a massive turnout of working class Americans, black, brown and white, young and old, voting overwhelmingly for Barack Obama?
ACORN, which hires people to do voter registration in largely low-income communities, employed over 13,000 people as voter registrars. In most cases where bad forms were turned in, the organization promptly fired the person responsible, andnotified the proper election authorities — as they are required to do by law. The group also separated and flagged suspicious applications to make the process easier for election officials.
In fact, ACORN has not been officially charged with any crime.
Now, what is voter suppression? Voter suppression is what McCain and the right-wing of the Republican Party are attempting to do right now. Voter suppression refers to the use of governmental power, political campaign strategies, media strategies and private resources in order to tamp down the total voter turnout, especially in areas seen as likely to vote heavily for one’s opponent. In effect, what we are seeing is an effort by McCain to delegitimize the voice of average Americans. He doesn’t want their voice to be heard. So he makes outlandish claims about so-called voter fraud even though the facts clearly state otherwise.
The Republican smokescreen is meant to accomplish three distinct goals: first, they want to distract voters from the real issues (the economy, jobs, health care, the war in Iraq, corporate greed and corruption in Washington); second, they want to keep newly registered voters, mostly African American, Latino and low-income, from actually going to the polls; third, they want to challenge the legitimacy of a process that encourages every citizen (no matter their class, color, age or beliefs) to participate in democracy.
Contrary to John McCain’s rhetoric, the “fabric of democracy” is alive and well. Come Nov. 4, the people will have spoken. And change will come.
Tony Pecinovsky (tonypec @ cpusa.org) is district staff for the Missouri/Kansas Communist Party.
