Tucson Shooting Is a Warning to Tone Down Violent Political Speech
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says that Saturday’s Tucson, Ariz., assassination attempt against Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) and the murder of six of her constituents:
serves as a terrible reminder to all of our political and civic leaders about the need to end the use of appeals to violence in our political rhetoric. We must find ways to passionately debate and even disagree with each other without using words that can give unstable individuals an incitement to engage in violent acts.
The attack came as Giffords met with her constituents for a public meeting outside a grocery store. The gunman seriously wounded Giffords, killed six people and wounded 13 others. In an e-mail today to AFL-CIO activists, Trumka writes that during the past few years, “violence in political dialogue has gotten out of control.”
We do not know why the shooter targeted Rep. Giffords, or if he was influenced—directly or indirectly—by the outrageous rhetoric that’s become all too common in our politics.
Assassinations of Unionists in Colombia Unabated
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Jeff Vogt, an AFL-CIO global economic policy specialist, reminds us that Colombian trade unionists continue to pay with their lives in their struggles for justice on the job.
The Central Unitaria de Trabajadores de Colombia( CUT) has reported the assassination of Francisco Antonio Abello Rebollo. This crime was committed in Empresa Inversiones Palo Alto Gnecco Espinosa, an African Palm plantation in the municipality of San Juan de Palo Prieto, Magdalena Department.
Assassins killed Mr. Abello on May 17. Abello, together with his co-workers, went on strike in December 2009 because the employer had refused to recognize or negotiate with the union. Subsequently, the company fired all 185 of the workers. The workers had decided to form the union in response to the company’s failure to pay wages and legally required social security health care benefits. When the workers presented their bargaining demands, they were forced off of the plantation by one of the managers accompanied by a mob of about 10 armed men. The mob fired on the workers, wounding one.
Trumka Condemns Threats and Violence Directed at Health Care Supporters
There has been a frightening wave of threats and violence during the past several days against members of Congress who support health care reform. The Washington Post reports that at least 10 House Democrats have received 10 death threats or suffered harassment and vandalism at their district offices.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says the threats and the violence being directed at elected officials who had the courage to take a stand represent “an ugly appeal to fear and division.”
Racial and homophobic slurs, death threats and guns have no place in civil discourse.
The New York Times reports that Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.),
received a phone message threatening sniper attacks against lawmakers and their families.
Prison Staffing Hazard: Take Action Today
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Every day in the nation’s woefully understaffed and severely overcrowded federal prisons, correctional officers face hazardous and sometimes deadly conditions. In 2008, a correctional officer was murdered by inmates in a California federal prison. A look at AFGE’s Council of Prison Locals website shows that assaults against officers and inmate violence are almost a daily occurrence.
Yet, the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is refusing to use tens of millions of dollars appropriated by Congress to hire more officers to help bring the prisons under more secure control and reduce the violence for both correctional officers and inmates.
AFGE’s Council of Prison Locals is circulating an online petition urging U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to order BOP management to use the appropriated funds to hire more officers, fire Bush-era BOP Director Harley Lappin and hire 9,000 additional correctional officers.
