Archive for June, 2007
U.S. Social Forum Kicks Off in Atlanta
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| More than 7,500 activists are at the U.S. Social Forum in Atlanta. |
Marcy Rein, a communications specialist with the International Longshore Workers Union (ILWU) Organizing Department, is in Atlanta for the U.S. Social Forum, where she sends this report.
Another world is possible, another United States is necessary.
On the schedule for the U.S. Social Forum in Atlanta, organizers called preparations for yesterday’s opening march “building a living river.” From the middle of the march, the river ran for what seemed at least a half mile in both directions, a ribbon of color snaking through downtown to the rhythms of hip-hop and a brass band. You saw bright red, blue and green T-shirts. Brilliantly painted giant puppets. A few gray heads sprinkled among the youth, faces of every hue from all over the U.S. and every kind of grassroots movement.
Unions, workers’ centers and immigrants’ rights groups flew their banners. So did indigenous rights, environmental justice and peace groups, student activists, community organizations, LGBT rights groups and lots of people who want to impeach Bush.
“Dangerously Flawed” Immigration Bill Dies In Senate
Last week, AFL-CIO and union leaders announced they opposed the “dangerously flawed” immigration reform bill before the Senate because it would depress wages for all employees and create a permanent underclass of workers. Rather than passing this bill, they said, Congress should start over and create a bill that provides comprehensive immigration reform.
This week, the bill died in the Senate when 53 senators voted not to end floor debate, preventing the bill from moving to a final vote.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said the union movement
will continue to work with the immigrant rights community and our allies in Congress to devise a truly comprehensive model that places immigrant and workers’ rights at the head of the line.
Supreme Court Ruling on School Diversity Not Good, Not Horrible
In another 5–4 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court today struck down school choice plans in two school districts that were designed to bring diversity and avoid racial segregation to the cities’ school systems.
Five justices—Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Scalia and Kennedy—struck down the specific policies used by the Louisville and Seattle communities. But five justices—Stevens, Breyer, Ginsburg, Souter and Kennedy—also ruled that educational diversity and combating segregation are compelling governmental interests that governments may pursue through careful race-conscious efforts.
Women Textile Workers in Egypt Rally for Rights
Veteran labor communicator Ray Abernathy is traveling in Egypt, where he is meeting with workers to hear their struggles for justice and sending dispatches to AFL-CIO Now.
In the recent “winter of labor discontent” in Egypt, there were more than 250 strikes, work stoppages and sit-ins involving some 250,000 workers. But according to journalist Jano Charbel, none was more dramatic than a sleep-in by female workers at a textile plant in the Nile Delta.
The plant had been 60 percent privatized to Indonesian and Indian investors, who were threatening to cut production. The wages of the workers, mainly women, had been frozen for 10 years at 150 pounds a month (about $30 U.S. dollars). Many were about to lose their jobs.
Senate Bill Would Provide Paid Family Leave
Yesterday we reported on the thousands and thousands of workers who told the U.S. Department of Labor that the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) has made significant differences in their lives by allowing them unpaid time off during illnesses and birth or adoption of children.
But they also told the Labor Department—as part of a solicitation of comments from workers and employers about their experience with regulations that implement FMLA—the act could be improved, especially by providing paid leave.
A bipartisan bill recently introduced in the Senate would do just that. The Family Leave Insurance Act of 2007 (bill number not yet assigned) would provide up to eight weeks of paid leave for workers needing time off for the birth or adoption of a child, or for their own or a family member’s serious illness.
McCaskill Calls on GOP Leaders to ‘Stop Playing Games’ on Ethics Reform
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Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) took Republican senators to task today for their obstruction of S. 1, the ethics and lobbying reform bill that passed the Senate on a lopsided 96-2 vote in January. (To see the video, click here.)
In May, the House passed its own version of the bill (H.R.2316), but Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has blocked appointment of Senate conferees over a dispute on another bill on electronic filing of campaign finance reports.
“You know, there are times since I have been here that I have been surprised and shocked,” McCaskill said on the Senate floor. “And I’ve got to tell you, this week was one of them.”
Hill Leaders Wish Fast End to Fast Track
They say you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead or near dead. But when a group of senators, representatives, union members, environmentalists, faith groups and others gathered on Capitol Hill today at a rally to bid farewell to President Bush’s Fast Track Trade Authority, which is set to expire June 30, there were no kind words.
Says Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.):
We are fed up with trade agreements that undermine this country’s interests. We declare fast track dead—and good riddance!
House Committee: Take This Job Ruling and Shove It
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The U.S. Supreme Court on May 30 said Lilly Ledbetter didn’t act fast enough in filing a suit over nearly two decades of pay discrimination at an Alabama Goodyear plant.
How’s this for fast? Less than a month after the Supreme Court decision, the House Education and Labor Committee approved the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to rectify what Committee Chairman George Miller (D-Calf.) calls the court’s “misguided decision.”
Labor College Graduates’ Day in the ‘Sun’
Great coverage in the Baltimore Sun on the students in the National Labor College (NLC) graduating class.
More than 100 working women and men graduated from the NLC on Saturday, and it’s great that their efforts are getting the attention they rightly deserve. Quoted in the Sun is JoAnn Johntony, whose efforts to balance work and family seemed to preclude further education. Said Johntony, who is in her 60s and was one of two student representatives who delivered a commencement speech:
Had this school never been here for working men and women, many of us would never have been able to get a degree.
Kentucky Activists Launch Campaign for New Governor
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Bernard Pollack, AFL-CIO field coordinator, sends us this report on the launch of a campaign to elect a working family-friendly governor in Kentucky.
Eighty-five activists from at least 25 unions and several central labor councils attended the Labor 2007 Kentucky kickoff meeting in Louisville yesterday to launch a member-to-member program in support of gubernatorial candidate Steve Beshear.
The current governor of Kentucky, Ernie Fletcher, has tried to push right-to-work-for-less legislation, opposes collective bargaining for public employees and consistently is wrong on prevailing wages.
