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Trumka: Labor Day a Defining Time for Working People
The elections this year come down to a choice between leaders who will stand with working people or those whose right-wing agenda will choke off economic recovery and put corporations back in the driver’s seat.
With that said, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka outlined plans for an aggressive and massive mobilization of working people this Labor Day weekend and for the fall election. During a press conference this morning at the AFL-CIO, Trumka also announced the federation will run TV and radio ads Labor Day weekend in key markets around Major League Baseball games, NASCAR and college football games. (See video above.)
“This is a defining Labor Day for working people—and the kick-off to the final round of a defining set of elections,” Trumka said.
We will either rebuild a fundamentally different economy that values hard work and a strong middle class—or turn back toward one that puts corporate interests before people.
In his travels across the country, Trumka said he has heard decisively that people are looking for economic patriotism. While patriotism has traditionally been defined by foreign affairs, it should begin in our own back yard, in our own communities, he said.
…working people are looking for economic heroes—champions who will put themselves on the line to create a better future for our children.
Union volunteers are engaged in a mass mobilization in 26 states and more than 400 races, Trumka said, and they already have distributed nearly 2 million fliers at more than 300 worksites—the prelude to a much bigger fall push.
Trent McNutt, an unemployed member of the Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT) from Toledo, Ohio, told reporters the election is critical for workers like him and his father, a retired sheet metal worker:
I’m on track to make a third of what I made last year but things are looking up. We can’ t afford to turn back. We need to elect people who support guys like my dad and not the super wealthy. We can’t afford to put people in office who will forget about the middle class.
Laura Jackson, a Communications Workers of America (CWA) member from Moberly, Mo., said the mobilization by union families is essential because jobs and a good economy are the most important issues.
We definitely need to make sure that the people making the decisions make jobs their top priority. I’m going to do all I can to make sure that happens, including getting the message out to my family, union members and anyone who will listen.
AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler detailed the federation’s work over the past year reaching out and engaging young workers. Shuler said young workers would be a key part of the AFL-CIO 2010 political program. Shuler also pointed to the work of Working America, the AFL-CIO community affiliate, which is energizing and mobilizing workers without a union around economic and election issues.
AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker said the AFL-CIO will be a major partner in the Oct. 2 mobilization for One Nation Working Together as a part of the labor federation’s fall offensive.
The radio and TV ads running this Labor Day weekend celebrate working people who are the backbone of our nation and the power of working together for a stronger America. The ads will run during several sports broadcasts: Major League Baseball games on Sunday and Monday, the Sunday NASCAR Pep Boys Auto 500 race and the Monday night opener of NCAA football.
Trumka summed up the importance of the election this way:
This election is about a lot more than just who comes to Congress in January. It will continue to define who we are as a nation, whether we’re a nation that respects workers and rewards work. And that’s the message we’ll be delivering to working people at every worksite, in every neighborhood and every community.
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17 Comments
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Trumpka has no room to talk he is the biggest freaking economic traitor there is!!!
He works non-stop to permanently give American jobs away to foreign criminals, illegal aliens who he call “undocumented workers”!!!
Just look at the adjoining article “California Latino Voters Say Fiorina ‘No Es Mi Amiga’”. This is what he call “economic patriotism”???
Trumpka is no friend of AMERICAN workers.
Campaign for a Mass Party of Labor
Jay: Read the last two pages of my last book (TRUTH COUNTS–Don’t count on getting it). Consider my previous postings, and my correspondence to all UNIONS I could fine.
NOW read this notice. E-mail I received.
Ron
From: CMPL
Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 2010 5:47 PM
To: rwaldron@stny.rr.com
Subject: EVENT: Twin Cities Launch Meeting of the Campaign for a Mass Party of Labor (September 9th at 7 pm at Mayday Books)
Twin Cities Launch Meeting of the
Campaign for a Mass Party of Labor
***Please Distribute Widely***
What: Twin Cities Launch of the Campaign for a Mass Party of Labor
Where: Mayday Books (301 Cedar Avenue on the West Bank in Minneapolis)
When: September 9th, 2010 at 7:00 pm.
Dear Friends,
For far too long, working people have been offered only “evil” at the voting booth – “greater” and “lesser”. But as Michael Moore once put it, the “lesser” evil is still evil! As the economic crisis drags on and we head into the midterm elections after two years of Obama, the question of who decides on policy and legislation is again on everyone’s minds.
For these reasons, the Workers International League has decided to launch a Campaign for a Mass Party of Labor (CMPL). Our purpose in launching this campaign is the following:
Explain the need for the labor movement to break with the Democrats and Republicans and build a mass labor party based on the unions.
Connect this idea with the struggles of workers and youth.
Show how a mass labor party could change society for the benefit of the working class, which makes up the vast majority of the population.
We therefore cordially invite you to the Twin Cities launch meeting of the Campaign for a Mass Party of Labor. We have organized a terrific panel discussion to launch the campaign locally:
Dave Riehle (United Transportation Union) – Long-time labor activist and historian. Dave will discuss the interesting and instructive history of Minnesota’s Farmer-Labor Party, the only labor party in the country that had a prolonged existence and influence on state politics.
Greg Gibbs (Former member of various unions including the Teamsters and UE) – Labor Party activist in the Twin Cities in the 1990s. Greg will discuss the lessons we can draw from the experience of the Labor Party.
John Peterson (CWA Local 37002) – Local activist and editor of Socialist Appeal. John will give an overview of the current political situation as we head into the midterm elections and explain more about the Campaign for a Mass Party of Labor.
We hope you’ll join us to discuss this important question!
For more information, please contact us at info@masspartyoflabor.org or call 612-568-2675 and leave a message.
In solidarity,
Twin Cities CMPL
If interested IN RELATED MATERIAL Read : TRUTH COUNTS—Don’t count on getting it. by Ronald L. Waldron (lulu.com)
THIS FALSE CHOICE IS BEING RAMMED DOWN THE THROATS OF WORKING PEOPLE ONCE AGAIN!
“The elections this year come down to a choice between leaders who will stand with working people or those whose right-wing agenda will choke off economic recovery and put corporations back in the driver’s seat.”
THE FALSE CHOICE: THAT THE ONLY CHOICE FACING WORKING PEOPLE IS BETWEEN S8UPPORTING OBAMA AND THE DEMOCRATS OR THE REPUBLICANS.
For working people, as both parties are corporate controlled, understand that neither party should be supported by organized labor and working people. Neither party supports the economic needs of working people. Both parties, with minor differences, support the same agendas of maximizing corporate profits at the expense of the economic and social needs of working people.
President Obama has formed a committee to produce legislation to destroy Social Security. Mr. Trumka, in supporting Obama and the Democrats, is fully responsible for this devastating attack on all working people, organized and unorganized. See the article excerpts below on the $80 million in supporting Obama and the Democrats in the November election!
This Perspective article from the World Socialist Web Site, link below, summarizes the crisis of organized labor in it’s refusal to break away from the Democratic Party. Link to full article below:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/sep2010/pers-s01.shtml
Several excerpts below:
As US “recovery” collapses, White House rules out social relief
1 September 2010
Recent weeks have seen a collapse in US home sales, a weakening of manufacturing activity, an upward trend in jobless benefit claims and, on Friday, a downward revision of second-quarter gross domestic product growth from 2.4 percent to 1.6 percent.
The latter figure is far below the rate of economic expansion needed to bring down unemployment, now at its highest levels since the Great Depression. On the contrary, the sharp slowdown in economic growth heralds a further rise in the jobless rate.
Month after month of mass unemployment, compounded by sweeping cuts in social services at the state and local level and wage cutting in both the private and public sectors, have already produced a social disaster for tens of millions of Americans. One million families are losing their homes to foreclosure every year. Hunger and homelessness are on the rise.
…
Two years after the eruption of the financial crisis, precipitated by the recklessness and criminality of Wall Street, the chasm separating the financial elite and everyone else has grown wider than ever. The New York Times reported Tuesday that the rebound on Wall Street has led to a further polarization between rich and poor in New York City. While the median pay of managerial workers was up 11 percent from three years ago, the median weekly pay of non-managers had fallen 10.4 percent, to $472.
The latter figure is barely above the official poverty line for a family of four of $22,000 a year, an absurdly low plateau that, in New York, means something close to destitution.
The response of the Obama administration and the entire political establishment to the collapse of the so-called “recovery” is to reject out of hand any significant spending to generate jobs.
…
Now there is supposedly “no money” for jobs—or schools, or housing, or relief for the unemployed. This at a time when US banks and corporations are sitting on a cash hoard of more than $1 trillion.
The media universally asserts that the administration and congressional Democrats are constrained from pursuing any serious stimulus measures by public demands for austerity in advance of the November elections. This is a fraud.
…
That, in a nutshell, is the policy of the Obama administration and, whatever their tactical differences, both big business parties. They have relied on the trade unions to suppress the mounting anger and opposition in the working class and block any mass resistance. The unions completely support the class-war policy of the ruling class, as demonstrated in the announcement by the AFL-CIO and Service Employees International Union last week that they were teaming up to raise $80 million for the Democrats in the midterm elections.
The unions will not be able to prevent the eruption of mass social struggles. Already the first signs of coming upheavals are emerging, showing that workers will move into action in opposition to the corporatist union apparatuses. That is the significance of last month’s rejection by auto workers at General Motors’ Indianapolis stamping plant of the United Auto Workers’ attempt to impose a 50 percent wage cut.
Mr. Trumka and the organized labor movement should use the $80 million dollars, the thousands of man-hours in volunteer labor, to found a socialist political party that represents the economic and social needs of working people and society!
Mr. Trumka, by supporting Obama and the Democrats, is using workers’ dues money to continue the jobless impoverishment of millions of working people! He refuses to do anything significant for working people ON PRINCIPLE!
Obama and the Democrats forever support the maximization of corporate profit by destroying the public social needs of society.
May I suggest that it is past time that American consumers also exercise “economic patriotism” and that the AFL-CIO get serious about encouraging and enabling this, as well. Workers who enjoy the benefit of union-wage jobs are not entitled to seek the cheapest price for consumer products and services, rather we are obligated to seek union-labor products and services. However, such products and services are very difficult to find in many markets. And the AFL-CIO has done little to facilitate the patronizing of union-labor businesses. Your Union Label website contributes almost nothing of use to those who would seek to find retailers and contractors who can provide union-labor products and services. We all have roles to play in our present economy. Consumers who can and should patronize union-labor businesses deserve all the assistance they can get.
I have not heard any specifics on how Trumka is going to create high paying Union jobs. Just voting for democrats is not a sure thing. I like to know what are the specifics. Keynesia economics is not doing it. Raiseing taxes will not do it. I know a way that works all the time. Just give me more of my money back and I will spend it.
I have said this before, and I will say it again. Unless ALL the UNIONS unite… we the people who LABOR, will NOT make any changes! Has anyone considered sending members to the “March for Jobs”? on October 2nd? the web page is onenationworkingTogether.org.
These articles above are true!! They are slowly making this a 2 class society..the people who are rich..and the working poor. When is enough, enough?…They are cherry picking off the smaller unions.. they are constantly bashing unions period… Part of the problem, is that Labor Leaders themselves lost thier passion, and some were bought off… enough! Go back to the core principals of unionism… and together unite… if we have to make the point of standing with an Independent..so be it. I know I’m tired of ‘lip service’…of things are going to get better… when?? for who?… what exactly will get better?? People across this country have been pinned up against each other… the ‘red’ states…the ‘blue’ states… and meanwhile, corporations are making millions…along with bankers… Labor is a service..a craft… we don’t really make anything anymore… because corporations have outsourced everything… Why don’t the ‘Labor Leaders’… hold each and every Senator/Representative accountable…and fine these corporations… and I mean fine thier asses!!!!!!!! maybe they will think twice before they outsource again. Again…Labor unions have to come together as a united front…if they are ever going to change and turn things around for the working people… unless of course, you want a 2 class society… good luck.
I forgot to mention in my previous post…. what jobs are there for our returning troops??? Answer: none. Can you hear us now??? Get it together!!! and stand for Labor!!!!
I bitched about him not doing enough, and mentioned that he should have commercials to defend Unions against the Right Wing nut jobs who keep blasting Union labor ,so I have to give him credit for doing this,hopefully the messages get through to the general public that we are looking out for them also and not just us.
In all of his wild and delusional rantings, sweartogod has come up with one great idea and approached one truth, that, once we accept it, the path to follow becomes clear.
The idea: Eliminate all taxes – all taxes on the first (he said $20,000, I would support 50,000) of income. This would virtually end taxes as a concern for workers, and greatly increase our puchasing power. It would also force a significant increase in taxes on the wealthy, or the government would collapse. He correctly noted that the Democrats would never call for this or support it, because they are the representatives of the rich. (Just like the Republicans, only not as extreme – this part left out by sweartogod.)
The truth: Common sense proposals like this can never even come up in Congress, because our restrictive and undemocratic election laws prevent any real working class representation in Congress, even though we are 85% of the population. The only force with the numbers and money and reason to break this political logjam is Labor, which could change everything by simply announcing the formation of an independent Labor Party. Of course, that can never happen until we get rid of all the beaurocrats with battered wife syndrome. (They convince themselves, every time the Democrats promise to be good at election time, that maybe this will be the time when, after election, they will refrain from helping the Republicans to brutally beat us down.)
If this is such a defining moment, why are we stuck doing the same old thing, supporting a bosses party that fought for slavery 150 years ago? Maybe it is time we grow up and form our own party, like big boys and girls.
Immigrants, (no matter what their status, if they have to sell their labor to survive, like the rest of us) are our brothers, sisters, fellow workers, comrades. We either go for maximum working class unity in our fight against the bosses and their system or we take the cowards way out and blame other workers, immigrants, for our problems since it’s so much easier to blame the weak than to figure out how to fight the ruling class and capitalism.
El Roy, Rayson, and Wells are correct. Working people are long overdue for a political party which is REPRESENTATIVE OF THEMSELVES!
US LABOR PARTY.
this commercial is another waste of valuable working class money. What is clearly apparent with our union “leadership” is that they have NO IDEA how uninformed American workers (particularly young ones) are about what unions are and why they are needed. Feel good branding like this is meaningless to people who have only heard bad propaganda about unions their entire lives. Basic education of the American populace about unions, union history, and economics is virtually non-existent. Our unions would be much better served investing this money into educational programs aimed at the youth. Money should be spent on a public relations campaign as well, but that campaign has to include *some* information that would actually educate people a little about unions.
Simple slogans like “from the people who brought you the weekend” or “…the 8 hour day” or any number of other things that the union movement brought us would be a start. It’s this failure to inform and educate that is partly to blame for our citizenry’s lack of active participation in our government and our workplaces. Too many people think all they have to do is vote for the right person and their work is done. The AFL-CIO and other union leadership simply further this notion with their complete prostration before the Democratic party.
If anyone with any power in the AFL-CIO is reading this, please get the message! Take it from a worker in a non-unionized industry who sees it every day, the average working person in this country doesn’t have a clue about what unions actually are, and what they do for workers and for society in general. Until that balance has been tipped, the union movement will forever be treading water.
Some more suggestions. How about
“X million workers in the US have no days off for illness for themselves or the families. Union workers have X number of days per year. That’s the union advantage.”
or “X million workers in the US receive no days off for illness for themselves or family members. That is why the union movement is fighting hard to pass laws requiring employers to provide sick leave for all workers.”
or “Union workers make, on average, X dollars more per hour than non-union workers in the same field. Choose the union advantage!”
or “In 19XX, Y number of people were killed or injured every year in the workplace. Thanks to the union movement we now have workplace safety laws and government agencies whose sole job is to protect the american worker.”
you get the picture. These can all be made into very emotional appeals yet still deliver some factual information that carries significant weight with people. All of the same techniques used in this AFL-CIO ad could be used, showing regular working people and their kids that look just like everyone else, but without any actual informational content, it looks like just another empty propaganda ad from “big labor”.
Of course we’re going to support the party that promised us the Employee Free Choice Act when they had the super majority 60 votes in the Senate.
No, wait – that didn’t get passed, did it?
The September 7th, 2010 debate between Rachel Brown and Barney Frank will be aired in Newton, MA on New TV (red) starting on Wednesday, September 8th at 7:30pm and throughout that week at 7:30 pm. It will also be available on her website soon after the debate occurs. If you would like the debate to be played on your cable channel, please contact New TV at (617) 965-7200 or email them at: newtv@newtv.org .
Rachel Brown’s Campaign Puts Liar Barney Frank on the Defensive
A prominent article in The Standard-Times, a print and internet publication on the Massachusetts coast, on the 4th District Congressional campaign, reflects how much the LaRouche Democrat Rachel Brown congressional campaign has already put “Bailout Barney” Frank on the defensive. The article, which appeared on the front page of the print edition, along with pictures of the four contenders for the seat, including Rachel Brown, was entitled “Race for Frank’s House Seat Heats Up.”
“Recession has a way of raising the stakes of an election,” the article begins. It then profiles the candidates, on both the Republican and Democratic sides, and then comes back to the economic issue.
Rachel Brown is quoted accusing Frank of refusing to answer her question, in August 2009, about the “Nazi policy” of health-care reform. Later, the author quotes Rachel’s call for a return to Glass-Steagall, and her charge that “Barney Frank has been defending the financial institutions which caused this collapse, and I am going to do the opposite of that.”
Asked for comment, Frank simply lied. “I haven’t been defending the institutions,” he said. “We just passed the toughest financial regulatory reform since the New Deal, and it’s exactly the opposite of what she says.”
Oh, yeah? Does Frank think the population is going to buy that? Rachel Brown has already flooded the district with the truth about how Barney lied when he said he had opposed the repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1999. Indeed, the Congressional Record documents that, during the final vote on Nov. 4, 1999, Barney said, “We give the financial institutions everything they have asked for.”
That’s what he did then, and what he does now. And this time, with a true alternative before them in Rachel Brown’s candidacy, the voters might just treat him with the contempt he deserves.
Kesha Rogers Campaign Sponsors: “Rebuilding America Conference”
The Kesha Rogers for Congress campaign announced Wednesday that it will sponsor a “Rebuilding America Conference 2010, on Oct. 8-10, at the NASA Hampton Inn, in Seabrook Texas. Rogers, the Democratic Party nominee for Congress from the 22nd district of Texas, is campaigning on a program of returning the United States to a science-driver program, including the immediate launch of Lyndon LaRouche’s expanded program for the North American Water and Power Alliance and re-adopting NASA’s program of manned space flight and colonization — both of which objectives require the immediate removal of President Barack Obama from office.
The campaign release urges the scientific and engineering community “to participate, providing their expertise and leadership, as the sector of society most qualified to oversee the construction of the most massive physical economic infrastructure projects in human history.”
It elaborates as follows:
“I. NAWAPA (North American Water and Power Alliance), the greatest effort in biospheric engineering in human history, will overturn a century of deliberate underdevelopment of the interior of our continent, and represents the launch pad for space technology, applied to Earth. By bringing an additional 3,600 million acre feet of water per year, into use by the biosphere and human economy, NAWAPA will upgrade deserts into fertile land, creating new local water cycles, moderating weather patterns, and increasing the productivity and quality of life. The scientists of NASA are indispensable to this project, as they represent the capability to approach the terraforming of the Earth’s biosphere as a whole, as seen from space. NAWAPA will prepare NASA scientists for the inevitable colonization of Mars, within 2-3 generations.
“II. Understanding the biosphere includes understanding the intimately connected set of relationships among terrestrial and cosmic phenomena, such as gravitation, the geo-magnetic field, solar radiation, as well as cosmic radiation. Many factors which we heretofore have taken for granted on Earth, become existential challenges when orienting towards sustaining life on Mars, not to mention the first step in that process of colonization: that of the industrialization of Earth’s Moon. This must be done for the purpose of, among other things, utilizing the low gravity environment for building the ships to take us to Mars, as well as for the mining of the Helium-3, abundant in the lunar soil, to be used as the fuel for the yet-to-be-developed fusion-powered rockets, the only fuel capable of achieving one-Earth-gravity equivalent acceleration — an acceleration requirement necessary to deliver humans to Mars in a timely (4-7 days) and safe manner. Consequently, in understanding how we come to gain mastery over the organization of Earth’s biosphere, we gain insight into exactly what parameters and requirements are necessary to create superior life-supporting systems beyond it.”
Those who wish to participate are urged to visit http://www.KeshaForCongress.com or contact her campaign office at 713-830-9052.
Summer Shields: The North American Water and Power Alliance is More Than a Project
In a statement issued August 27, Democratic write-in candidate for Congress versus Nancy Pelosi, Summer Shields, presented his campaign for the policy of the North American Water and Power Alliance (NAWAPA), in terms of a national mission to bring mankind “outside the womb” in the immediate years ahead. Shields, who is running in California’s 8th District against Nancy Pelosi, is spearheading the fight for NAWAPA, especially in light of the immediate impact it will have in his state, currently the home of millions of unemployed skilled workers and scientists—workers and scientists who will be immediately needed to launch the NAWAPA.
Shields’ statement reads as follows:
“Not only is the North American Water and Power Alliance (NAWAPA) the only project with the ability to offset the alarming rates of unemployment, especially among our nations youth ages 16 – 24 under the consecutive Bush and Obama presidencies, but, it is an example of what humanity does as a species when they refuse to take their sensual perceptions as reality. Reports, soon to be released by a team of young scientists in economist Lyndon LaRouche’s ‘Basement’ project, will be presenting man on earth, as man still in the womb, so to speak.
“To understand the NAWAPA, imagine the rapid rate of development of an infant, who has exited the womb, versus the creature still encapsulated within. Juxtapose this to what it would take for today’s culturally infantile mankind to enter into the Solar System and the greater universe at large, as a permanent resident. To accomplish this, the human species will have to discover that most of our universe is actually not perceptible directly by our five senses. Already, our reliance on extra-sensory apparatuses to peer deeper into the universe, shows how useless our senses are ‘as is.’
“My campaign, throughout this last week, has taken the lead, along with the LaRouche PAC, employing the Basement Team’s three dimensional tour of the NAWAPA project, in organizing the engineers, technicians and scientists who will form the advisory committee to the U.S. government on the need-to-know aspects of this incredible project. The response concerning the feasibility of this project coming from these experts has been more than inspiring. This is the kind of national mission that our scientific and engineering sectors require to make the breakthroughs to develop man beyond ‘the womb.’
“Besides the largest dams and reservoirs in all of human history, and the largest regional development in human history (this project is 40 times the land area of the Tennessee Valley Authority), this project will, most importantly, change mankind’s conception of itself. The arbitrary dichotomy between man and ‘natural things,’ imposed by the false anti-human view expressed by radical environmentalism, will be thrown aside as we green the deserts and make more efficient use of the Alaskan watershed for the benefit of both man and nature.
“We will no longer tolerate the killing of birds with wind turbines, nor will we pollute the deserts, destroy insect species, and harm firemen with solar power panels! They call this protecting the environment?!
“It is time to break whatever myth still remains about nuclear fission and move full speed ahead with the revolutionary experiments in fusion technology, like those we are seeing in places like the National Ignition Facility. These technologies will buttress the development of rail transportation systems required for regular transfer of personnel to NAWAPA construction regions, and the development of new cities for workers and their families.
“A project of this magnitude is not something readily available to the senses; it is the kind of regional development that can only be seen, in its entirety, by the naked eye, from space. It is an entry way project for us into a world where our five senses play a smaller and smaller role in the great task before us.
“So give Obama the Nixon treatment soon, pass Glass-Steagall and have shovels in the ground for the NAWAPA project by October!”
To contact Summer or his campaign, email: summer@summershields.com
Or call: (415) 546-4900