Lots to Say

by Tula Connell, Apr 6, 2006

Here are some of the latest comments we’ve received at AFL-CIO Now.

Got news? Send it to us at: blognews@aflcio.org.

Andrew Pollack sends us a letter he sent to The Washington Post in which he clarified the position of the AFL-CIO union movement on the immigration debate currently in Congress.

Your article correctly highlights some important anti-immigrant research—echoed by liberals like Thomas Hartmann and Paul Krugman—claiming to be pro-”native” worker by alleging negative economic impacts of immigrant workers.

But I think you’re lumping in the AFL-CIO with this position is mistaken. Their opposition to guest worker programs (in the face of other liberal unions mistakenly backing the McCain-Kennedy version) is because they want MORE rights for immigrant workers, not less, both on the job and as potential green card holders and even citizens.

Thanks for clarifying to the media. They need all the help they can get.

Brendan Coyne sends us word about an article he wrote that was published in The New Standard about the internal problems at the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA)—the federal agency that’s supposed to make sure America’s mine workers are safe.

Nearly three months after the Sago Mine tragedy, promises to toughen mine-safety enforcement have gained little real-world traction. And with the number of mine workers killed at work this year now just one shy of the total for all of 2005, lawmakers, administration figures and others intimately familiar with the issue are unable to say when, or even if, anything significant will be done.

In the weeks following the Jan. 2 explosion that took the lives of twelve West Virginia miners and severely injured another, the administration called for higher fines and tighter regulatory policing. Congress, too, took up the call, holding hearings on the enforcement of mine-worker protection laws and entertaining proposals to grant the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) greater power.

Read more at The New Standard.

From Indiana, David Williams sends us the following websites of interest, including one explaining why so-called right to work laws are bad for Indiana (and the nation) and a website video honoring such working family heroes as A. Philip Randolph, who founded the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters union, the AFL’s first all-African American union.

Tom Siblo, a retired local president of the Mid-Hudson Legal Services Workers and a person with disabilities, has been an advocate for low-income working people and people with disabilities since 1977. He sends us an article he wrote concerning the New York State Assembly’s Disability Agenda. Below are excerpts.

New York State once known as the leading “progressive” state concerning the rights and equal opportunities for people with disabilities is now the last on the list concerning the Help America Vote Act. (HAVA).

The State of New York is being sued by the U.S. Attorney General for failing to meet the new standards under HAVA to make voting accessible to all people with disabilities. The state has accepted and received some 275 million federal dollars to accomplish this task and if the courts rule against the state it must return the money and pay damages for each day they are out of compliance.

Advocates for people with disabilities have worked hard for the past five years to get the state to do their job and are about to file a lawsuit of their own.

This year’s 2006 Legislative Agenda from the Assembly Task Force on People with Disabilities, headed by Assembly member Amy Paulin, has announced the Assembly’s Disability Awareness Day to be held in Albany on Wed., May 17, 2006.

Siblo urges New York residents looking for information to contact him at: 1-845-331-0514 or Tsiblo@hvcbiz.rr.com.

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