Wisconsin Voter ID Bill Is Morally Wrong
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This is a cross-post from the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO by Karen Hickey in AFL-CIO Field Communications.
Scott Walker continued his attack on the people of Wisconsin today as he signed Act 22 into law.
With one stroke of his pen at 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday, May 25, 2011, Gov. Walker stripped hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites of their constitutional right to vote. Despite no systematic evidence of voter fraud, Gov. Walker and his GOP allies decided to make voter suppression a top priority for the state, fast tracking the bill before recall elections could occur against GOP senators this summer and further illustrating that many in the Wisconsin Legislature are working for themselves instead of the people of Wisconsin.
Before we ask where are the jobs? Let’s take a look at who this act will affect:
According to a 2005 study by UW Milwaukee Driver License Status of Voting Age Population those without state-issued photo ID who would need to obtain one to vote include:
- 23% of elderly Wisconsinites over the age of 65.
- 17% of white men and women.
- 55% of African American males and 49% of African American women.
- 46% of Hispanic men and 59% of Hispanic women.
- 78% of African American males age 18-24 and 66% of African American women age 18-24.
Photo Stream from One Nation
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| 5:30 a.m.: Pennsylvania Democratic Candidate for Governor Dan Onorato sends off four busloads of teachers from Pittsburgh to One Nation rally. | |
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| 8 a.m.: AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler joins members of IAM for a pre-rally with unemployed workers. |
Tens of thousands of union members from a dozen or more states are taking part in today’s One Nation events in Washington, D.C. Beginning with pre-dawn bus trips from places like Philadelphia and New York through closing events later this afternoon, we’ll post photos here as they come in. Also check out photos on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/aflcio
In Philadelphia, where 250 AFSCME members gathered before getting on buses to D.C., Philadelphia City Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell thanked labor for being the “backbone of America.”
Blackwell was joined by Philadelphia Democratic Party leader Jonathan Saidel who who told the crowd to
“run, not walk, to the polls on Nov. 2.”
Saidel urged union members to spend the next four weeks talking to family, friends, neighbors andco-workers about the importance of voting this election.
“It’s your name on the ballot. You need to vote for yourself by voting for the candidates who will protect your jobs, your pensions, your healthcare, and your families.”
Door to Door in Denver to Get Out the Vote
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Kate Rosenbarger, communications field coordinator for Colorado, sent us this report.
There are many doors to knock on and many union members to talk with—and Colorado workers know there is no time to waste to get out the vote for the November elections.
Many people see Sundays as the time to relax—but not the more than 75 Labor 2010 volunteers who turned out in Denver this past Sunday. They were joined by several national union leaders who traveled to Denver to take part: AFGE National Vice President Gerry Swanke, NALC Vice President-elect Tim O’Malley and NALC National Executive Board Member Roger Bledsoe.
In an election where every vote matters, every day gives members a chance to talk with other members about issues important to working families. With fewer than six weeks until Election Day and ballots dropping in Colorado on Oct. 12, union members took time on a beautiful Colorado day to deliver a crucial message to their fellow union members.
Dena McClung, a NATCA member, was among them.
Seeing so many union members out walking—especially on a Sunday—really proves a point. Working families are ready to move forward. And we’re not going to sit around and wait for it to happen. We are going to make it happen, one day at a time, one door at a time, and one conversation at a time.
TODAY: Watch the Live Webcast with AFL-CIO Officers
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Some 1,100 questions came in via Web, video and text for today’s live webcast with the AFL-CIO leadership team to mark the one-year anniversary of their election.
Stop by www.aflcio.org today to watch as the officers answer questions about the state of the union movement, the upcoming elections, how to confront our continuing jobs crisis and more. You also can participate in a live conversation on the site and share your thoughts with other online activists. The officers will answer a question from the live chat.
Tune in at www.aflcio.org at 4 p.m. EDT today for the live webcast. Or stop by here at the AFL-CIO Now blog as we live tweet the event. If you’re on Twitter, follow the chat with the hashtag #sotu2010.
Netroots Nation 2010: Labor, Online Progressives and Union Beer
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Union activists are joining a couple thousand online progressives this week for the annual Netroots Nation conference. The July 22–25 event in Las Vegas brings political powerhouses like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) together with progressives from across the nation for workshops, panels and speaking events like the dynamic full-conference lunch session July 24 with AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.
Along with Harvard legal professor Elizabeth Warren, Florida Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson and others, Trumka will take part in the panel, “Building a Progressive Economic Vision,” where he will focus on the key steps the nation needs to take to rebuild our nation’s economy (hint: Trumka’s proposals don’t include slashing the deficit at the expense of jobs).
In Pa. 12th District, Critz Backs Keeping Jobs At Home
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Democrat Mark Critz is the only candidate in the May 18 special election in Pennsylvania’s 12th congressional district who believes it’s time to stop tax breaks for companies that move overseas and give them to companies that create jobs here in America.
By contrast, his Republican opponent Tim Burns shipped Pennsylvania jobs offshore and opposes caps on CEO pay.
Check out the new AFL-CIO radio ad, which shows clearly why working people in Pennsylvania’s 12th congressional district are backing Mark Critz.
Violent Repression Continues in Honduras
In the wake of the June 28 coup in Honduras that forcibly deposed and expelled President Manuel Zelaya, thousands of trade unionists—following the call of the three national labor centrals (CUTH, CTH and the CGT)—joined tens of thousands in nonviolent protests, demanding the immediate restoration of democracy in their country.
In response, the de facto government of Roberto Micheletti directed the military and police to violently repress the legitimate protests. National and international human rights organizations report widespread human rights violations by state security forces, including arbitrary arrests and detentions, severe beatings, sexual violence, imprisonment and torture, and killings of Zelaya’s supporters.
Following the president’s return to the capital city of Tegucigalpa on Sept. 21, the situation deteriorated rapidly. The de facto government stepped up its offensive against democratic civil society organizations, including the trade union movement. A report by Honduran Radio Progreso confirmed the killing of a trade unionist from the National Agrarian Institute shortly after Zelaya’s return. Three members of the teachers union—Felix Murillo Lopez, Roger Vallejo and Martin Florencio Rivera—were killed while mobilizing trade union opposition to the coup.
Know-Nothing Newt
Grandstanding is a favorite pastime of the former speaker of the House, Republican Newt Gingrich. Truth, however, has never played a big role in his self-trumpeting.
In a recent Politico column, Gingrich advances a laundry list of falsehoods about the Employee Free Choice Act. It’s the latest grab at public attention in his angling for a place in the 2012 elections.
First, he pushes the lie that the Employee Free Choice Act takes away the secret ballot process for workers deciding whether to form a union. The Employee Free Choice Act does not take away the secret ballot. It gives to workers the right to use an already legal process for deciding on unionization—a streamlined process called majority sign-up, or card check.
The bill adds choice for workers, who will decide which process to use. The Employee Free Choice Act is an amendment to existing federal labor law that makes no change whatsoever in the current election procedures.
Inauguration Day: Party with a Program
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| ‘Lynn for Obama’ volunteers get ready to knock on New Hampshire doors in October as part of the effort to elect Barack Obama president of the United States. |
At our November local union meeting, our vice president, Alex Brown, posed the question: What do you hope for from the Obama presidency? There were a dozen answers, but they boiled down to “bring the jobs back,” “health care” and “bring our soldiers home.”
If hope was results, this would already be the greatest presidency of all time. I admit it—I’ve wasted too much of my time parsing lists of possible Barack Obama appointees and pestering people in Washington I think might know something about who might get which job.
The appointments Obama is making look like the ultimate Bill Clinton comeback. I was happy to work for Clinton over Dole. But President Clinton also brought us the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the “end of welfare as we know it” and the repeal of Roosevelt’s Glass-Stegall Act, which prevented the banks from participating in some of the worst financial speculation. Clinton announced that “the era of Big Government is over.” Each of these acts was a rejection of the New Deal and an accommodation to the neo-liberal policies of free trade, privatization and deregulation. We went from Nixon’s “We’re all Keynesians” to an unspoken, “We’re all neo-liberals.” This is not what I had in mind when I spent my weekends tracking down undecided voters in New Hampshire.
