Tag: unions

Original article, an exceprt from Lance Selfa’s new book The Democrats: A Critical History via socialistworker.org:

After eight long years of George W. Bush, millions of people are counting the days to the inauguration of a Democratic president. But would a Democrat in the White House and a Democratic Congress deliver on the promise of change that so many people want to see?

Lance Selfa is a SocialistWorker.org columnist and editorial board member of the International Socialist Review. His new book, The Democrats: A Critical History, documents how, time after time, the party that claims to represent ordinary people has betrayed their aspirations of ordinary people while pursuing an agenda favorable to big business.

In this excerpt from the book, Lance examines the era when Franklin Roosevelt’s Democratic Party cemented its alliance with organized labor–with unions as the junior partner.

Original article by Jerry White, via World Socialist Web Site:

Corporations continue to slash tens of thousands of positions while workers still on the job are working harder for less money, according to reports on the US economy released this week.

The first original article, titled Renters caught in the housing bubble (by Adam Turl) via socialistworker.org:

EVEN THOUGH it was hard, Patricia and Michael Phillips kept up on the monthly $600 rent. Both are disabled–Patricia can’t use her right arm, and Michael is in a wheel chair–and both depend on Social Security payments for their limited income.

So they were shocked when the local sheriff’s department turned up at their front door in July and told them they were to be evicted by the end of the day. Their landlord was being foreclosed on–and even though he hadn’t been paying the mortgage for months, he had been cashing their rent checks.

Original article, and editorial/news release, vial Socialist Appeal:

On Wednesday 20th August up to 150,000 public sector workers in Scotland will be taking unified action on pay. GMB, UNISON and Unite members will all be on strike because local government workers have been offered a measly 2.5% a year deal over three years. This after the Cost and Price Index published last week shows the cost of living going up by 4.4%. This sudden jump has called the government’s bluff. Everybody knows the CPI doesn’t reflect the real increase in prices we face.

Here in Indiana, our public sector workers aren’t officially able to collective bargain.  It’s up to the whim of the governor if they’re allowed to (I belive they were able to for a bit before Mitch became governor, but he took it away from them).  Indiana, home to Eugene Debbs, Mother Jones and other great labor leaders, is a right to work state.

I have been writing about the heat deaths of the farm workers in California since May.  (After the fold are links for diaries for background.)  

Six have died since May. The latest one was Maria de Jesus Alvarez, 63, mother of nine, who died early this month. The first one to die was 17-year-old Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez, who died in May. Marie was about one month pregnant when she died, and likely did not ever know she was pregnant. The state fined the labor contractor $262,700 for failing to follow heat illness prevention regulations at the time she was stricken, but that won’t bring her back. And the deaths have continued at an accelarated pace since then.

You can help to end this tragedy!

This Monday, August 18, more than 800 farm workers from throughout California want to go to Sacramento.

They want the chance to tell the governor and their elected officials to support AB 2386, “Secret Ballot Elections for Farmworkers,” which has moved out of the assembly and which will be voted on that afternoon in the state senate.

After the fold, I’ll tell you how you can help the farmworkers help themselves.

I have been writing about this story since May.  (after the fold are links for diaries for background).  Yet another farmworker has died from the heat. This is the sixth this summer.

Maria de Jesus Alvarez, 63, mother of nine, died from heat exposure in the fields on August 2.  Her death makes six farm workers who died of heat exposure since May and the 15th farm worker heat death since California Governor Schwarzenegger took office.  Even one is too many.  Six this year is a tragedy.  These deaths show that the state of California is unable to protect farm workers.  

We must act.  We must force action by the state to allow farm workers to protect themselves.  For there are no others to do so.

If you care, join me after the fold.

(also On Daily Kos)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…

Original article, a reprinting of a pamphlet by Harry DeBoer, via Socialist Appeal.

Here is Harry’s recollection of a key incident in the wave of strikes. “On July 20, I was called to go to a warehouse because a bunch of cops were going to move a truck. About a thousand policemen were there. Around ten o’clock the captain came up to me and said, “Look, we don’t want a mess here.” I said all you have to do is move your cops away and don’t move any trucks. He checked with his superior and came back: ‘It’s a deal.’ It was a phony deal. At 12:30 the police went back to the warehouse. We went back, too, thousands of pickets, all unarmed. The police surrounded the truck and started moving it. Nine or ten or us in an open-bodied truck moved in front of it to stop them. So help me, police on roofs started shooting from all directions right into the workers. About fifty were injured. I was one of them, pretty near lost my leg. Two strikers got killed. The governor’s investigating committee put it this way: “Police took direct aim at the pickets and fired to kill” and “at no time did pickets attack the police.” Governor Olsen had a perfect right to arrest them for murder. Instead he declared a state of martial law and called out the National Guard. They surrounded the union headquarters and put most of our leadership in the stockade.”

Original article, a republishing of James Connolly’s collection by this name, via marxist.net.