Search Results for 'marcy'
Economy, In the States |
Jul 24 |
Findlay, Ohio, Chamber of Commerce Kills Parade Because Unions Backed It
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The Chamber of Commerce—that’s the U.S. Chamber of Commerce—proved once again how anti-American it is when it comes to supporting U.S. industry.
In Findlay, Ohio, unions had been organizing a parade and all-day event for this Saturday to highlight American-made products and the need for U.S. trade and economic policies that reward job growth in this country. The unions worked hard to get the business community involved and spent months meeting with the city’s Republican mayor, who supported the plans.
But in the end, GreaterFindayInc., the local Chamber arm, killed the Heart of Commerce and Community Celebration.
Says Donnie Blatt, United Steelworkers (USW) Rapid Response coordinator for District 1: “GreaterFindlayInc. did everything they could to sabotage us. They told business not to cooperate with us.”
In the States |
May 14 |
Greenhouse, Wheeler and Green Win Major Journalism Prizes
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| Marcy Wheeler |
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| Steven Greenhouse |
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| James Green |
One of the few remaining labor writers for a major newspaper, a blogger who writes about the workers’ side of the economic crisis and a labor historian are among the winners of the 2009 Sidney Hillman Foundation Journalism Awards.
The annual awards were first presented 1950. Now presented in six categories, the Hillman awards are among the most prestigious given to journalists, photographers, writers and public figures whose work fosters social and economic justice. The foundation is named for Hillman, former president of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America and a key figure in the founding of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), which merged with the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in 1955 to form the AFL-CIO.
The awards will be presented in a May 27 ceremony at the Hudson Theatre at the Millennium Broadway Hotel in New York City.
This year’s winners include Marcy Wheeler, who writes the emptywheel blog on firedoglake.com. Wheeler consistently demonstrates the investigative skills that show what bloggers and those using online tools are uniquely capable of doing. Her keen appreciation to detail and strong empathy with working people shows in her blogs and other writing.
In its description of Wheeler, the Hillman Foundation notes that she has “produced outstanding coverage of the American auto industry crisis.”
Combining her background in the industry with a deep commitment to American workers, her depth of analysis was unrivaled.
Wheeler recently made the front page of The New York Times after she became the first person to notice that a newly released Justice Department memo revealed that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had been waterboarded 183 times in one month. Her live blogging from the Scooter Libby trial in 2007 is widely regarded as one of the seminal moments in online journalism, the foundation says.
Her fans and supporters recently set a goal to raise $150,000 to allow Wheeler to blog full-time and also to support another investigative blogger to work with her and a researcher to help them. Click here to donate to the fund.
Legislation & Politics |
Mar 9 |
A Home Is Foreclosed Every 13 Seconds
The economic crisis started with home foreclosures, and the numbers are getting worse. According to the Center for Responsible Lending (CLR), a non-partisan research and policy group, some 6,600 homes are foreclosed every day: one every 13 seconds. Experts agree that helping homeowners is key to helping the entire economy.
Writing at Congress Matters, David Waldman, aka Kagro X, says new numbers from CLR show that projected foreclosures by congressional district are concentrated in five states: California, Florida, Nevada, Arizona and Georgia. In fact, there’s not a congressional district in the top 50 that isn’t in one of these five states. The most troubled districts are represented by Republicans, he reports. Republicans hold just over 40 percent of the seats in the House, but represent 60 percent of the top 10 most troubled districts.
Organizing & Bargaining |
Jan 16 |
Union Heroes Save Passengers on US Airways Flight
The quick thinking, bravery, experience and extensive training of US Airways Flight 1549 pilot, Capt. Chesley Sullenberger, co-pilot Jeffrey Skiles, the crew of flight attendants, the air traffic controllers guiding the flight low over Manhattan and the rescuers were the key factors in yesterday’s “Miracle on the Hudson,” where 155 people survived an emergency landing in the river.
The mainstream media is chronicling the miracle, but as Marcy Wheeler on Emptywheel points out:
What they are not telling you is just about every single one of these heroes is a union member.
Organizing & Bargaining |
Dec 4 |
Here’s Why We Need Employee Free Choice
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Marcy Rein, a retired member of Office and Professional Employees (OPEIU) Local 29 who worked in the ILWU Organizing Department for most of the Blue Diamond campaign, describes how the Blue Diamond workers’ years-long effort to gain a union recently ended with a loss. Rein also vividly describes how that experience demonstrates yet again why we need passage of the Employee Free Choice Act.
For four years, the workers on the Organizing Committee at the Blue Diamond Growers (BDG) plant in Sacramento, Calif., had done everything they could to avoid being where they were on the night of Nov. 19. They campaigned hard for a free and fair choice on whether to join the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU). But there they were watching the vote count at the end of an election supervised by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) run under the same old broken rules.
They stood around in the huge bare room where the election had taken place, in a cold storage building that doubles as the site of the annual Thanksgiving turkey giveaway. Sounds bounced off the concrete floor and disappeared on the way to the 40-foot ceiling—sighs, a stray cell phone quickly squelched, a hiccup of distress.
In the States, Legislation & Politics |
Sep 10 |
DHL Proposal to Move from Ohio: ‘Bad for America’s Workers’
In 2003, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and his campaign manager, Rick Davis, helped pave the way for German-owned DHL’s takeover/merger of the U.S. package delivery company Airborne Express.
Air Line Pilots (ALPA) President Capt. John Prater says that deal today could mean
financial disaster for thousands of families across Ohio who are already reeling from hard economic times.
Organizing & Bargaining |
Apr 10 |
Sacramento Backs Blue Diamond Workers
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Marcy Rein, a communications specialist in the ILWU Organizing Department, describes how the city of Sacramento put its weight behind the efforts of workers who for years have been seeking to form a union at Blue Diamond Growers in the face of massive company intimidation.
The Sacramento City Council in California on April 1 threw its support in a big way behind workers at Blue Diamond Growers struggling for the freedom to organize and join the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU). The Council voted 7–1 to create an ad hoc committee that would talk with the company, the workers and the union to try to work out a fair election process agreeable to all.
This marks the second time the Council had taken action for the Blue Diamond workers. At a packed and dramatic meeting Dec. 5, 2006, the Council passed a resolution urging the company to sign a neutrality agreement with the ILWU. Company management has not responded to that or any other input from the community it has called home for nearly 100 years—the community that gave it some $21 million in public aid in 1995 to keep it from leaving town. Blue Diamond Organizing Committee member Carlos Saraiva said the workers “are very happy with the Council’s decision.”
Bush & Co., Legislation & Politics |
Oct 26 |
Postcard from New Orleans: Wishing You Remembered Us
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Marcy Rein, a communications specialist with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Organizing Department, took part in the International Labor Communications Association annual meeting in New Orleans and describes how the reality of New Orleans is not the one portrayed by traditional media.
We pile onto our buses during a break between late-season thunderstorms. Muggy skies hug the city’s flat streets as the tour heads out through the busy Central Business District.
The International Labor Communications Association (ILCA) has set up a media center here, gathering nearly 100 of us labor communicators to spotlight the real stories of Hurricane Katrina and her aftermath (check out more of our work here). Before we begin our reporting, we get a tour.
“I have to be honest with you,” said the guide on our bus, Chet Held. “I left before the storm. Twenty-five of us piled into my wife’s cousin’s house in Tampa.” Held, an assistant business manager for Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 130, is a wireman by trade and hails from a family of shrimpers and fishermen. He lives in St. Bernard Parish on the southeast side of the city.
We had 42,000 houses under water in St. Bernard, only the rooftops showing.
Katrina had no prejudice. She hit rich, poor, black, white.
Organizing & Bargaining |
Sep 23 |
Pete Seeger: Driving Down the Road Alone
The first time I ever saw Pete Seeger was at a 1971 folk and blues festival in Athens, Ohio, where he held more than 10,000 people in rapt attention. Just Pete and his banjo…and his songs, especially the anti-war “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy,” written for Vietnam but just as relevant today.
That night, as my brother and I left the show about an hour after the last note of “This Land is Your Land” faded away, I looked about 50 feet ahead in the mostly deserted parking lot. There was a tall, slender man with a banjo in a soft-sided case in one hand and a guitar case in the other—Seeger, by himself.
Bob and I thought about rushing over to tell him how great we thought the show was and how much his work and music meant to all of us good whacko, semi-pink, anti-war, counter-culture types—nobody called us progressives then.
But something stopped us. Maybe we didn’t want to intrude on his solitude. So under a yellow light flickering down from a nearby pole, we watched as he approached a four- or five-year old Ford Galaxie, set the guitar down, opened the trunk and carefully set in the banjo and guitar.
He closed the trunk, opened the driver’s side door and slid behind the wheel. Then, all by himself, no entourage or handlers or manager, Pete Seeger drove off into the southeastern Ohio night.
Economy, Organizing & Bargaining |
Jul 9 |
National Alliance of Domestic Workers Formed at Social Forum
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| Raizah is among dozens of domestic workers at the U.S. Social Forum in Atlanta who formed the National Domestic Workers Alliance. | |
Marcy Rein, a communications specialist with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Organizing Department, took part in the recent U.S. Social Forum in Atlanta.
First, a caution: You might read many articles describing wildly different events at the Social Forum. They could all be true. It was that big.
Organizers estimate nearly 10,000 people passed through the June 27–July 1 event in Atlanta. Walking through the crowds, you could hear voices from the Deep South, gravelly New York accents, California slang and Appalachian twangs and Spanish—not to mention other languages my untaught ears couldn’t identify. Participants brought with them their experiences organizing within a wide range of human rights issues working within the many ground zeroes created by corporate globalization.
