What: Picket Congresswoman Sue Myrick
When: Monday, Oct. 10, 2011 from 1:00 - 2:00 pm.
Where: Sue Myrick's district offices, (6525 Morrison Blvd., Charlotte, NC 28211)
Who: Charlotte-area postal employees, AFL-CIO, and progressive allies
Why: While Sue Myrick frets about deficits and protecting herself and her big-money backers in the 1% from having to pay their fair share, the other 99% of us are tired of waiting for her to focus on what matters. We have a JOBS CRISIS, and Sue Myrick needs to get to work putting Americans back to work.
Contact: Tim Rorie, NALC, 704-905-9406
Note: Some signs will be provided. Bring your Save America's Postal Service signs, too.
RSVP: http://bit.ly/AWTWcharlotte
Showing posts with label labor unions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label labor unions. Show all posts
ACT NOW: Wisconsin Gov. Plans to Eject Protesters from Capitol
The Whole World is Watching!
The Capitol Belongs to the People!
Urgent: Protesters Inside Wisconsin Capitol Need Your Support
Gov. Starts Punitive and Restrictive Measures
The Wisconsin Finance Committee Announces Plans to Eject Protesters this Sunday at 4 P.M.
Tell Gov. Walker, the Wisconsin Legislature and the Obama administration:
DON'T EJECT THE PROTESTERS!
SIGN THE ONLINE PETITION AT http://www.bailoutpeople.org/wisconsinworkerspetition.shtml
For 12 straight days peaceful protesters: high school and college students, families with children, workers from all of the unions including teachers, state workers, nurses and firefighters have continued a 24 hour presence at the Capitol.
The presence of the people inside is the only way to insure that the politicians and the bought and paid for Governor Walker heed the democratic will of the people.
The Capitol belongs to the people! We built it: we paid for it.
On Friday night, police were ordered to lock doors at 9 P.M. and to restrict people from bringing in bedrolls, blankets and air mattresses to make it more difficult for people to maintain their 24 hour people's lobby.
Prior to this, loudspeaker systems boomed all night long forcing people including the police to wear ear plugs.
None of this has daunted the spirit of those who are participating in the occupation.
But they need your support.
Many inside are prepared to go to jail if need be.
The time is critical-let Governor Walker, the Koch brothers and his rich cronies and all the politicians know that the whole world is watching!
Stop punitive measures! Defend the democratic right of protesters to stay in the Capitol! Eject Walker instead! Defend workers rights! Kill the bill!
SIGN THE ONLINE PETITION AT http://www.bailoutpeople.org/wisconsinworkerspetition.shtml
In solidarity,
Bail Out the People Movement www.bailoutpeople.org
Please donate! Go to http://www.bailoutpeople.org/donatewi.shtml
Sign-up for updates at http://www.bailoutpeople.org/bopmupdates.shtml
The Capitol Belongs to the People!
Urgent: Protesters Inside Wisconsin Capitol Need Your Support
Gov. Starts Punitive and Restrictive Measures
The Wisconsin Finance Committee Announces Plans to Eject Protesters this Sunday at 4 P.M.
Tell Gov. Walker, the Wisconsin Legislature and the Obama administration:
DON'T EJECT THE PROTESTERS!
SIGN THE ONLINE PETITION AT http://www.bailoutpeople.org/wisconsinworkerspetition.shtml
For 12 straight days peaceful protesters: high school and college students, families with children, workers from all of the unions including teachers, state workers, nurses and firefighters have continued a 24 hour presence at the Capitol.
The presence of the people inside is the only way to insure that the politicians and the bought and paid for Governor Walker heed the democratic will of the people.
The Capitol belongs to the people! We built it: we paid for it.
On Friday night, police were ordered to lock doors at 9 P.M. and to restrict people from bringing in bedrolls, blankets and air mattresses to make it more difficult for people to maintain their 24 hour people's lobby.
Prior to this, loudspeaker systems boomed all night long forcing people including the police to wear ear plugs.
None of this has daunted the spirit of those who are participating in the occupation.
But they need your support.
Many inside are prepared to go to jail if need be.
The time is critical-let Governor Walker, the Koch brothers and his rich cronies and all the politicians know that the whole world is watching!
Stop punitive measures! Defend the democratic right of protesters to stay in the Capitol! Eject Walker instead! Defend workers rights! Kill the bill!
SIGN THE ONLINE PETITION AT http://www.bailoutpeople.org/wisconsinworkerspetition.shtml
In solidarity,
Bail Out the People Movement www.bailoutpeople.org
Please donate! Go to http://www.bailoutpeople.org/donatewi.shtml
Sign-up for updates at http://www.bailoutpeople.org/bopmupdates.shtml
5,000 march in downtown Detroit, urge rebuilding nation
BY NAOMI R. PATTON, Detroit Free Press, Aug. 29, 2010
Thousands of people in downtown Detroit made their way from Jefferson Avenue to Grand Circus Park in what was billed as a march to rebuild America for jobs, justice and peace.
On the 47th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s March on Washington, the event brought out many of state's Democratic politicians -- many of whom were attending the party's convention at Cobo Center. The march and rally were organized by the Rainbow PUSH Coalition and the UAW.
Along the way, the march grew as convention goers and others joined in. Among the marchers were the Rev. Jesse Jackson; Bob King, UAW president; Detroit Mayor Dave Bing; U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D- Mich.; U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif.; state Sen. Hansen Clarke, D-Detroit, and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero and his running mate, Southfield Mayor Brenda Lawrence.
Workers from the UAW, Service Employees International Union, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Michigan Council 25, American Federation of Teachers and Detroit Public Schools filled Washington Boulevard and Grand Circus Park, advocating for jobs.
"We're not here to tear anybody down ... to divide anybody. ... We care about all the unemployed in America," King said.
He also asked the crowd to return for the city's annual Labor Day march next week and to vote in the November elections.
"We have to put Americans to work," he said.
"I care about jobs," said Tanya Ball, 44, who works at the Ford Wayne Assembly Plant. She attended the march with her sister, Betty Ball, 55. Both are Inkster residents.
"I just came in the spirit of what was happening to our people 47 years ago. ... There's hardly any change," Betty Ball said.
Tom Hopp, 52, of Lake Orion said he has always been a fan of Jackson and came to the march to support the call for jobs. He has worked for General Motors Lake Orion for 32 years.
"It's never a waste of a day coming out to an event like this," he said.
Though political speeches and slogans nearly dominated the day's event, it was Conyers who reminded the crowd of about 5,000 of the historic significance of the day. It was Martin Luther King's march down Woodward Avenue with then-UAW President Walter Reuther that served as the precursor to the March on Washington, during which King gave his "I Have a Dream" speech.
"We're celebrating jobs, foreclosure moratoriums, universal health care -- cheer for that," Conyers said.
"Today's march commemorates one of the most important days in our history," Bing said after the march. "Our greatest challenge is creating jobs, and that's something I will continue to fight to bring to Detroit."
Contact NAOMI R. PATTON: 313-223-4485 or npatton@freepress.com
Thousands of people in downtown Detroit made their way from Jefferson Avenue to Grand Circus Park in what was billed as a march to rebuild America for jobs, justice and peace.On the 47th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s March on Washington, the event brought out many of state's Democratic politicians -- many of whom were attending the party's convention at Cobo Center. The march and rally were organized by the Rainbow PUSH Coalition and the UAW.
Along the way, the march grew as convention goers and others joined in. Among the marchers were the Rev. Jesse Jackson; Bob King, UAW president; Detroit Mayor Dave Bing; U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D- Mich.; U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif.; state Sen. Hansen Clarke, D-Detroit, and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero and his running mate, Southfield Mayor Brenda Lawrence.
Workers from the UAW, Service Employees International Union, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Michigan Council 25, American Federation of Teachers and Detroit Public Schools filled Washington Boulevard and Grand Circus Park, advocating for jobs.
"We're not here to tear anybody down ... to divide anybody. ... We care about all the unemployed in America," King said.
He also asked the crowd to return for the city's annual Labor Day march next week and to vote in the November elections.
"We have to put Americans to work," he said.
"I care about jobs," said Tanya Ball, 44, who works at the Ford Wayne Assembly Plant. She attended the march with her sister, Betty Ball, 55. Both are Inkster residents.
"I just came in the spirit of what was happening to our people 47 years ago. ... There's hardly any change," Betty Ball said.
Tom Hopp, 52, of Lake Orion said he has always been a fan of Jackson and came to the march to support the call for jobs. He has worked for General Motors Lake Orion for 32 years.
"It's never a waste of a day coming out to an event like this," he said.
Though political speeches and slogans nearly dominated the day's event, it was Conyers who reminded the crowd of about 5,000 of the historic significance of the day. It was Martin Luther King's march down Woodward Avenue with then-UAW President Walter Reuther that served as the precursor to the March on Washington, during which King gave his "I Have a Dream" speech.
"We're celebrating jobs, foreclosure moratoriums, universal health care -- cheer for that," Conyers said.
"Today's march commemorates one of the most important days in our history," Bing said after the march. "Our greatest challenge is creating jobs, and that's something I will continue to fight to bring to Detroit."
Contact NAOMI R. PATTON: 313-223-4485 or npatton@freepress.com
Oct 2: National March for Jobs & Justice in Washington DC
One Nation Working Together Coalition
DEMAND THE CHANGE WE VOTED FOR
WE BELIEVE everyone deserves the opportunity to achieve the American Dream — a secure job, a safe home, and a quality education. ONE NATION seeks to transcend our superficial differences and bring us together in a common quest for equal opportunity and justice for all.
March with us in Washington, DC on 10-2-10 to create millions of good jobs, repair our immigration system, and reform Wall Street! Your voice is essential to demanding the change we voted for.
Sign up & get more info at http://onenationworkingtogether.org
The leadership for this coalition comes from 1199, the New York based hospital workers union, and the national NAACP. Other unions, including the AFL-CIO and SEIU are already involved. A growing list of community organizations is on board.
DEMAND THE CHANGE WE VOTED FOR
WE BELIEVE everyone deserves the opportunity to achieve the American Dream — a secure job, a safe home, and a quality education. ONE NATION seeks to transcend our superficial differences and bring us together in a common quest for equal opportunity and justice for all.
March with us in Washington, DC on 10-2-10 to create millions of good jobs, repair our immigration system, and reform Wall Street! Your voice is essential to demanding the change we voted for.
Sign up & get more info at http://onenationworkingtogether.org
The leadership for this coalition comes from 1199, the New York based hospital workers union, and the national NAACP. Other unions, including the AFL-CIO and SEIU are already involved. A growing list of community organizations is on board.
UAW and Rainbow Push Announce Aug. 28th Detroit March
Talking Union, Aug. 5, 2010
United Auto Workers President Bob King and Rev. Jesse Jackson announced an August 28th march to mark the beginning of a new campaign that will call on our leaders to Rebuild America by enacting policy that will unleash the skills and talent of the American workforce. Here is the statement at a July 12th press conference in Detroit announcing the march.
No group has suffered more from America’s economic meltdown than working men and women. The auto industry was decimated and workers paid the price. Urban America is in crisis and teachers, transportation workers, and all who do the hands-on work that make our cities run are the first to feel the effects of budget cuts. Unemployment continues at around 9.8%. Detroit is ground zero of this national crisis with an unemployment rate that is far higher. From December 2007 to June 2009, auto assembly and parts production accounted for 325,000 lost jobs. The auto industry has gone from a high of 1.5 million workers to 400,000 today.
In Appalachia and the Gulf, years of unenforced regulation, driven by corporate greed and government complicity, have led to needless deaths and destruction in the coal and oil fields. Our national infrastructure is crumbling–industry, education, transportation, environment–while millions of talented workers stand by, ready to stem the tide.
Poverty is on the rise. Home and church foreclosures continue to mount and student loan defaults are increasing. Our cities are under siege. Public transportation services are cut, workers laid off, but fares go up. Teachers are laid off and programs are cut as education budgets are slashed. Public housing faces cuts and we experience reverse redlining in our neighborhoods. We bailed out the predators–banks got money at 0%–while we made loans to the auto industry.
We need a plan for recovery. We need economic reconstruction. We need urban policy geared toward reindustrialization. We need fair trade policies that will even the playing field for American companies and workers and, as more and more people face greater economic need, it’s time to revive the War on Poverty.
On August 28th in Detroit, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition and UAW, along with our friends and allies, will march to mark the beginning of a new campaign that will call on our leaders to Rebuild America by enacting policy that will unleash the skills and talent of the American workforce. We will march for Jobs, Justice and Peace on the anniversary of that day in 1963 when Walter Reuther, president of UAW, Martin Luther King, Jr., president of SCLC, and other civil rights leaders joined with hundreds of thousands of Americans for the March on Washington.
Leading up to that day, marches were held around the country, building momentum for what was to be the largest civil rights rally in history. In Detroit, prior to the March on Washington, 125,000 marchers participated in the Freedom Walk led by Dr. King. At the march, King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech for the first time before sharing it with the world in Washington. This year, a massive march has been called for October 2 in Washington.
We will begin to build momentum again right here in Detroit on August 28th.
It’s time to enact real change for working families and all America. It’s time to reverse the policies that have resulted in jobs and investment flowing out, creating economic hardship for millions of Americans. It’s time to Rebuild America with Jobs, Justice and Peace. We are calling on our national leaders to Rebuild America by focusing on:
Jobs–economic reconstruction driven by targeted stimulus, reindustrialization and trade policy that will create jobs, support manufacturing in America, and put workers first.
Justice–enforcement of the law regarding workers rights, civil rights, industrial regulation, and creation of strong urban policy, and fair and just education, economic, and health policy.
Peace–ending the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, saving lives and redirecting the war budget to rebuilding America.
We invite all who share our commitment to march with us in Detroit on August 28th. Nothing is more important than strengthening our coalition of conscience and restoring the promise of democracy and economic justice for working families.
United Auto Workers President Bob King and Rev. Jesse Jackson announced an August 28th march to mark the beginning of a new campaign that will call on our leaders to Rebuild America by enacting policy that will unleash the skills and talent of the American workforce. Here is the statement at a July 12th press conference in Detroit announcing the march.
No group has suffered more from America’s economic meltdown than working men and women. The auto industry was decimated and workers paid the price. Urban America is in crisis and teachers, transportation workers, and all who do the hands-on work that make our cities run are the first to feel the effects of budget cuts. Unemployment continues at around 9.8%. Detroit is ground zero of this national crisis with an unemployment rate that is far higher. From December 2007 to June 2009, auto assembly and parts production accounted for 325,000 lost jobs. The auto industry has gone from a high of 1.5 million workers to 400,000 today.
In Appalachia and the Gulf, years of unenforced regulation, driven by corporate greed and government complicity, have led to needless deaths and destruction in the coal and oil fields. Our national infrastructure is crumbling–industry, education, transportation, environment–while millions of talented workers stand by, ready to stem the tide.
Poverty is on the rise. Home and church foreclosures continue to mount and student loan defaults are increasing. Our cities are under siege. Public transportation services are cut, workers laid off, but fares go up. Teachers are laid off and programs are cut as education budgets are slashed. Public housing faces cuts and we experience reverse redlining in our neighborhoods. We bailed out the predators–banks got money at 0%–while we made loans to the auto industry.
We need a plan for recovery. We need economic reconstruction. We need urban policy geared toward reindustrialization. We need fair trade policies that will even the playing field for American companies and workers and, as more and more people face greater economic need, it’s time to revive the War on Poverty.
On August 28th in Detroit, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition and UAW, along with our friends and allies, will march to mark the beginning of a new campaign that will call on our leaders to Rebuild America by enacting policy that will unleash the skills and talent of the American workforce. We will march for Jobs, Justice and Peace on the anniversary of that day in 1963 when Walter Reuther, president of UAW, Martin Luther King, Jr., president of SCLC, and other civil rights leaders joined with hundreds of thousands of Americans for the March on Washington.
Leading up to that day, marches were held around the country, building momentum for what was to be the largest civil rights rally in history. In Detroit, prior to the March on Washington, 125,000 marchers participated in the Freedom Walk led by Dr. King. At the march, King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech for the first time before sharing it with the world in Washington. This year, a massive march has been called for October 2 in Washington.
We will begin to build momentum again right here in Detroit on August 28th.
It’s time to enact real change for working families and all America. It’s time to reverse the policies that have resulted in jobs and investment flowing out, creating economic hardship for millions of Americans. It’s time to Rebuild America with Jobs, Justice and Peace. We are calling on our national leaders to Rebuild America by focusing on:
Jobs–economic reconstruction driven by targeted stimulus, reindustrialization and trade policy that will create jobs, support manufacturing in America, and put workers first.
Justice–enforcement of the law regarding workers rights, civil rights, industrial regulation, and creation of strong urban policy, and fair and just education, economic, and health policy.
Peace–ending the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, saving lives and redirecting the war budget to rebuilding America.
We invite all who share our commitment to march with us in Detroit on August 28th. Nothing is more important than strengthening our coalition of conscience and restoring the promise of democracy and economic justice for working families.
April 28: Take on Bank of America at Shareholders Meeting
B of A is failing America
Workers, clergy, veterans, civic leaders, and community groups from the NC State AFL-CIO and NC United Power will converge for an important action at the Bank of America shareholders’ meeting in Charlotte on the morning of April 28th.
What: Rally and action at B of A shareholders meeting
When: Wed., April 28 at 9:15 AM (shareholders meeting) and at 11:30 AM (rally after shareholders meeting)
Where: Gathering place is First United Presbyterian Church, 406 N. College Street, Charlotte, NC 28802
Come out and demand accountability from B of A for its billions in taxpayer bailouts. Tell the bank to modify loans and save homes from foreclosure. Call on bank leaders to quit fighting financial reform that would protect consumers. Shame bank bosses for giving themselves fat bonuses with our hard-earned tax dollars.
Download the flyer for more information, including the agenda, and share it with your networks.
Time to hold Wall St accountable for destroying jobs
In an op-ed published in the Charlotte Observer last Thursday, NC AFL-CIO President, James Andrews, and national AFL-CIO President, Richard Trumka, called for banks to pay their fair share to restore the jobs they destroyed in the 2008 collapse of the financial sector.
Workers, clergy, veterans, civic leaders, and community groups from the NC State AFL-CIO and NC United Power will converge for an important action at the Bank of America shareholders’ meeting in Charlotte on the morning of April 28th.What: Rally and action at B of A shareholders meeting
When: Wed., April 28 at 9:15 AM (shareholders meeting) and at 11:30 AM (rally after shareholders meeting)
Where: Gathering place is First United Presbyterian Church, 406 N. College Street, Charlotte, NC 28802
Come out and demand accountability from B of A for its billions in taxpayer bailouts. Tell the bank to modify loans and save homes from foreclosure. Call on bank leaders to quit fighting financial reform that would protect consumers. Shame bank bosses for giving themselves fat bonuses with our hard-earned tax dollars.
Download the flyer for more information, including the agenda, and share it with your networks.
Time to hold Wall St accountable for destroying jobs
In an op-ed published in the Charlotte Observer last Thursday, NC AFL-CIO President, James Andrews, and national AFL-CIO President, Richard Trumka, called for banks to pay their fair share to restore the jobs they destroyed in the 2008 collapse of the financial sector.
“But unbelievably, after $700 billion in taxpayer bailout dollars, the big banks are back to business as usual. They are still not lending in their communities, and credit remains tight. They are fighting new taxes on financial speculation and excessive bonuses, even after handing out $145 billion in 2009 executive pay and bonuses. And they are pulling out all the stops to resist new financial rules that are so clearly necessary.”Read more the full op-ed by clicking here.
Sept. 7: March with Public Employees in Charlotte Labor Day Parade
Charlotte Labor Day Parade
MONDAY SEPTEMBER 7th at 11 AM
PARADE ASSEMBLY BEGINS AT 9 AM.
ROUTE: TRYON STREET FROM 10TH TO 3RD STREETS
LABOR UNIONS, CANDIDATES, BANDS, CARS,
BEAUTY QUEENS, STEPPING GROUPS.
BRING THE FAMILY OUT FOR AN OLD FASHIONED PARADE!
FOR MORE INFO E-MAIL laborparade@aol.com
or call 704-877-6916
Bring your friends and family and join other HOPE supporters as we march in the parade with our signs and banner! We will be passing out buttons and bumber stickers, and gathering signatures on our letter to legislators. Help us spread the word about collective bargaining and celebrate labor solidarity!
Please RSVP at info@nchope.org!
Reasons to Allow Public Employee Collective Bargaining
Support public employee collective bargaining!
Please ask others to sign before May 26!
HOPE Coalition Core Members:
American Association of University Professors/NC; American Federation of Teachers/NC; International Union of Police Associations; NC Association of Educators;
NC State AFL-CIO; National Association of Social Workers - NC Chapter;
Professional Firefighters and Paramedics of NC; Service Employees International Union;
State Employees Association of NC, SEIU Local 2008; Teamsters Local 391;
UE Local 150 - NC Public Service Workers Union
Hear Our Public Employees Coalition
P.O. Box 12133, Raleigh, North Carolina 27605
1408 Hillsborough Street, Raleigh, NC 27605
919.491.6936 info@nchope.org
MONDAY SEPTEMBER 7th at 11 AM
PARADE ASSEMBLY BEGINS AT 9 AM.
ROUTE: TRYON STREET FROM 10TH TO 3RD STREETS
LABOR UNIONS, CANDIDATES, BANDS, CARS,
BEAUTY QUEENS, STEPPING GROUPS.
BRING THE FAMILY OUT FOR AN OLD FASHIONED PARADE!
FOR MORE INFO E-MAIL laborparade@aol.com
or call 704-877-6916
Bring your friends and family and join other HOPE supporters as we march in the parade with our signs and banner! We will be passing out buttons and bumber stickers, and gathering signatures on our letter to legislators. Help us spread the word about collective bargaining and celebrate labor solidarity!
Please RSVP at info@nchope.org!
Reasons to Allow Public Employee Collective Bargaining
* Fairness for public employees: Private sector employees in North Carolina have bargaining rights, why not public employees? Only North Carolina and Virginia prohibit all their public employees from bargaining with their employers.Sign HOPE's letter to legislators!
* Freedom for state and local governments: Right now state and local government agencies are banned from sitting down and negotiating a contract with their own employees, even if they want to.
* Local solutions: Collective bargaining would allow state and local government agencies to deal with problems specific to their employees.
* Ending Jim Crow injustice: Public employees have been stuck in 1959 with no legal right to negotiate any improvement in their working conditions, and virtually no recourse in the event of a grievance or disciplinary action. Collective bargaining would give public employees a way to work for fairness and respect at work.
Support public employee collective bargaining!
Please ask others to sign before May 26!
HOPE Coalition Core Members:
American Association of University Professors/NC; American Federation of Teachers/NC; International Union of Police Associations; NC Association of Educators;
NC State AFL-CIO; National Association of Social Workers - NC Chapter;
Professional Firefighters and Paramedics of NC; Service Employees International Union;
State Employees Association of NC, SEIU Local 2008; Teamsters Local 391;
UE Local 150 - NC Public Service Workers Union
Hear Our Public Employees Coalition
P.O. Box 12133, Raleigh, North Carolina 27605
1408 Hillsborough Street, Raleigh, NC 27605
919.491.6936 info@nchope.org
San Francisco Labor Council Resolution in Support of March for Jobs in Pittsburgh, Sept 20, 2009
Resolution of the San Francisco Labor Council
San Francisco Labor Council Resolution in Support of March for Jobs in Pittsburgh, Sept 20, 2009
Support the March for Jobs and Global Week in Solidarity with the Unemployed -- Pittsburgh, Sept 20-26, 2009
Whereas, there is no recovery in sight from the current economic crisis. Although government measures have enabled Wall Street to pocket hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars, still unemployment, foreclosures and poverty continue to soar; and
Whereas, in September the eyes of the world will be on Pittsburgh, where the G20 countries will meet on what to do about the global crisis, and this will be an excellent opportunity for labor and its allies to present OUR workers? recovery agenda; and
Whereas, while the G20 meets in Pittsburgh, a Global Week in Solidarity with the Unemployed will highlight the suffering, desperation and anger of the millions whose lives are being devastated by this crisis, and demand that the US and other governments address their needs; and
Whereas, a March for Jobs will take place in Pittsburgh on Sunday, Sept. 20, calling for a real jobs program to provide full-time, living wage jobs. Instead of bailing out banks and funding wars, there must be money to create jobs, provide healthcare, stop foreclosures and bail out the unemployed; and
Whereas, from Sept. 19-26 a tent city dedicated to the unemployed, poor and underemployed will be erected next to Monumental Baptist Church, located in an historic part of the African-American community in Pittsburgh called The Hill, not far from the G20 summit; and
Whereas, "March for Jobs" caravans of unemployed people and supporters from across the country will converge on Pittsburgh to join the march and tent city, similar to the marches for jobs that took place in the 1930s; and
Whereas, Martin Luther King Jr. once called "the second civil rights movement" the fight for the right to a job or a guaranteed income. King dedicated the last year of his life to planning a mass movement for jobs, and his dream has to be revived; and
Whereas, the San Francisco Labor Council in January 2009 called for a National Recovery Plan, stating, "To end this recession and prevent a depression, there needs to be gainful productive employment for all" and "any bailout needs to be for workers, their families, children, students, seniors, small farmers, small business -- the everyday folks," and calling for a massive, publicly-supported jobs program as existed in the 1930s; therefore be it
Resolved, that the San Francisco Labor Council endorse the March for Jobs in Pittsburgh on September 20, 2009, and the Global Week in Solidarity with the Unemployed, on the occasion of the G20 summit in that city.
--Adopted unanimously by Executive Committee, San Francisco Labor Council, August 3, 2009
Posted on International Action Center, Aug. 5, 2009
For more information on the March for Jobs in Pittsburgh on September 20, 2009, and the Global Week in Solidarity with the Unemployed during the G20 Summit:
Bail Out the People Movement
http://bailoutpeople.org
San Francisco Labor Council Resolution in Support of March for Jobs in Pittsburgh, Sept 20, 2009
Support the March for Jobs and Global Week in Solidarity with the Unemployed -- Pittsburgh, Sept 20-26, 2009
Whereas, there is no recovery in sight from the current economic crisis. Although government measures have enabled Wall Street to pocket hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars, still unemployment, foreclosures and poverty continue to soar; and
Whereas, in September the eyes of the world will be on Pittsburgh, where the G20 countries will meet on what to do about the global crisis, and this will be an excellent opportunity for labor and its allies to present OUR workers? recovery agenda; and
Whereas, while the G20 meets in Pittsburgh, a Global Week in Solidarity with the Unemployed will highlight the suffering, desperation and anger of the millions whose lives are being devastated by this crisis, and demand that the US and other governments address their needs; and
Whereas, a March for Jobs will take place in Pittsburgh on Sunday, Sept. 20, calling for a real jobs program to provide full-time, living wage jobs. Instead of bailing out banks and funding wars, there must be money to create jobs, provide healthcare, stop foreclosures and bail out the unemployed; and
Whereas, from Sept. 19-26 a tent city dedicated to the unemployed, poor and underemployed will be erected next to Monumental Baptist Church, located in an historic part of the African-American community in Pittsburgh called The Hill, not far from the G20 summit; and
Whereas, "March for Jobs" caravans of unemployed people and supporters from across the country will converge on Pittsburgh to join the march and tent city, similar to the marches for jobs that took place in the 1930s; and
Whereas, Martin Luther King Jr. once called "the second civil rights movement" the fight for the right to a job or a guaranteed income. King dedicated the last year of his life to planning a mass movement for jobs, and his dream has to be revived; and
Whereas, the San Francisco Labor Council in January 2009 called for a National Recovery Plan, stating, "To end this recession and prevent a depression, there needs to be gainful productive employment for all" and "any bailout needs to be for workers, their families, children, students, seniors, small farmers, small business -- the everyday folks," and calling for a massive, publicly-supported jobs program as existed in the 1930s; therefore be it
Resolved, that the San Francisco Labor Council endorse the March for Jobs in Pittsburgh on September 20, 2009, and the Global Week in Solidarity with the Unemployed, on the occasion of the G20 summit in that city.
--Adopted unanimously by Executive Committee, San Francisco Labor Council, August 3, 2009
Posted on International Action Center, Aug. 5, 2009
For more information on the March for Jobs in Pittsburgh on September 20, 2009, and the Global Week in Solidarity with the Unemployed during the G20 Summit:
Bail Out the People Movement
http://bailoutpeople.org
Support NC Public Workers: Help HOPE make history!
The campaign for collective bargaining for North Carolina's public employees has moved forward in significant steps (as our latest newsletter shows)!
With your help, we have accomplished two big advances already in 2009:
1. In the state Senate, our bill got a hearing before the State and Local Government Committee on 26 May as public employees and our allies gathered from across the state to visit legislators. This historic advance of a Senate committee hearing marks another step forward for the bill.
2. We built three local committees in Charlotte, Fayetteville, and Down East (centered around Pitt and Martin counties). By educating the public, recruiting allies, and pressuring their legislators, the committees have begun building the grassroots power we need to win.
Now, as the General Assembly moves toward the close of this session, we ask you to please do three things right away:
1. Sign on to our letter to legislators with your current contact information, and ask others to do the same, for full human rights for the workers who serve the public.
2. Read the latest HOPE newsletter and share it with others.
3. Make a contribution at www.nchope.org (scroll down to the donate button on the right hand side of the page) or by check (using the address below) to help build this campaign. Printing information, mailing it, making phone calls, and sending organizers across the state takes money. Contributions from core groups and individuals make this work possible.
We have listed these three things in priority order. Most important and most urgent: sign on to the letter now with your contact information. Thank you!
Onward toward victory,
Tom Harris (for the HOPE Operations Committee)
HOPE Coalition Core Members:
American Association of University Professors/NC; American Federation of Teachers/NC; International Union of Police Associations; NC Association of Educators;
NC State AFL-CIO; National Association of Social Workers - NC Chapter;
Professional Firefighters and Paramedics of NC; Service Employees International Union;
State Employees Association of NC, SEIU Local 2008; Teamsters Local 391;
UE Local 150 - NC Public Service Workers Union
Hear Our Public Employees Coalition
P.O. Box 12133, Raleigh, North Carolina 27605
1408 Hillsborough Street, Raleigh, NC 27605
919.491.6936 info@nchope.org
With your help, we have accomplished two big advances already in 2009:
1. In the state Senate, our bill got a hearing before the State and Local Government Committee on 26 May as public employees and our allies gathered from across the state to visit legislators. This historic advance of a Senate committee hearing marks another step forward for the bill.
2. We built three local committees in Charlotte, Fayetteville, and Down East (centered around Pitt and Martin counties). By educating the public, recruiting allies, and pressuring their legislators, the committees have begun building the grassroots power we need to win.
Now, as the General Assembly moves toward the close of this session, we ask you to please do three things right away:
1. Sign on to our letter to legislators with your current contact information, and ask others to do the same, for full human rights for the workers who serve the public.
2. Read the latest HOPE newsletter and share it with others.
3. Make a contribution at www.nchope.org (scroll down to the donate button on the right hand side of the page) or by check (using the address below) to help build this campaign. Printing information, mailing it, making phone calls, and sending organizers across the state takes money. Contributions from core groups and individuals make this work possible.
We have listed these three things in priority order. Most important and most urgent: sign on to the letter now with your contact information. Thank you!
Onward toward victory,
Tom Harris (for the HOPE Operations Committee)
HOPE Coalition Core Members:
American Association of University Professors/NC; American Federation of Teachers/NC; International Union of Police Associations; NC Association of Educators;
NC State AFL-CIO; National Association of Social Workers - NC Chapter;
Professional Firefighters and Paramedics of NC; Service Employees International Union;
State Employees Association of NC, SEIU Local 2008; Teamsters Local 391;
UE Local 150 - NC Public Service Workers Union
Hear Our Public Employees Coalition
P.O. Box 12133, Raleigh, North Carolina 27605
1408 Hillsborough Street, Raleigh, NC 27605
919.491.6936 info@nchope.org
Transport Workers to Boycott Honduran Ships
By Bruce Barnard, The Journal of Commerce Online, July 20, 2009
ITF calls for boycott to protest military coup, flags of convenience
The International Transport Workers Federation called for a worldwide boycott of Honduran-flag merchant ships to protest the military coup in the Central American nation.
London-based ITF said its call for action “is likely to affect the loading and unloading of the 650 ships flying the Honduran flag.”
The ITF called on its 656 member unions to take “peaceful” and “lawful” measures to put pressure on Honduras’s military government, which deposed President Manuel Zelaya in a coup on June 28.
“We have to put real pressure on the Honduran military to allow the country to revert to democracy,” ITF General Secretary David Cockroft said.
The ITF had already targeted the Honduran fleet as part of its long-running campaign against flags of convenience. It condemned the Honduran flag as “a low-cost cosmetic ship registration by companies with no link to the country and no intention of employing its citizens onboard.”
The boycott would hit Honduras’s two main exports – textiles and coffee, which are mostly shipped to the United States.
Honduras’s interim government on July 19 rejected mediation efforts by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias aimed at resolving the political crisis.
Contact Bruce Barnard at brucebarnard47@hotmail.com.
ITF calls for boycott to protest military coup, flags of convenience
The International Transport Workers Federation called for a worldwide boycott of Honduran-flag merchant ships to protest the military coup in the Central American nation.
London-based ITF said its call for action “is likely to affect the loading and unloading of the 650 ships flying the Honduran flag.”
The ITF called on its 656 member unions to take “peaceful” and “lawful” measures to put pressure on Honduras’s military government, which deposed President Manuel Zelaya in a coup on June 28.
“We have to put real pressure on the Honduran military to allow the country to revert to democracy,” ITF General Secretary David Cockroft said.
The ITF had already targeted the Honduran fleet as part of its long-running campaign against flags of convenience. It condemned the Honduran flag as “a low-cost cosmetic ship registration by companies with no link to the country and no intention of employing its citizens onboard.”
The boycott would hit Honduras’s two main exports – textiles and coffee, which are mostly shipped to the United States.
Honduras’s interim government on July 19 rejected mediation efforts by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias aimed at resolving the political crisis.
Contact Bruce Barnard at brucebarnard47@hotmail.com.
First-of-Its Kind Study: Medicare for All (Single-Payer) Reform Would Be Major Stimulus for Economy
First-of-Its Kind Study: Medicare for All (Single-Payer) Reform Would Be Major Stimulus for Economy with 2.6 Million New Jobs, $317 Billion in Business Revenue, $100 Billion in Wages
California Nurses Association, Press Release
Establishing a national single-payer style healthcare reform system would provide a major stimulus for the U.S. economy by creating 2.6 million new jobs, and infusing $317 billion in new business and public revenues, with another $100 billion in wages into the U.S. economy, according to the findings of a groundbreaking study released today.
The number of jobs created by a single-payer system, expanding and upgrading Medicare to cover everyone, parallels almost exactly the total job loss in 2008.
"Through direct and supplemental expenditures, healthcare is already a uniquely dominant force in the U.S. economy," said Don DeMoro, lead author of the study and director of the Institute for Health and Socio-Economic Policy, the NNOC/CNA research arm.
"However, so much more is possible. If we were to expand our present Medicare system to cover all Americans, the economic stimulus alone would create an immense engine that would help drive our national economy for decades to come," DeMoro said.
Expanding Medicare to include the uninsured, and those on Medicaid or employer-sponsored health plans, and expanding coverage for those with limited Medicare, would have the following immediate impacts:
Healthcare for all far less than the Wall Street bailouts
Adding all Americans to an expanded Medicare could be achieved for $63 billion beyond the current $2.1 trillion in direct healthcare spending. The $63 billion is six times less than the federal bailout for CitiGroup, and less than half the federal bailout for AIG. Solely expanding Medicare to cover the 47 million uninsured Americans (as of 2006 data on which the study is based) could be accomplished for $44 billion.
The IHSP projections build from an econometric model of the current face of healthcare – applying economic analysis to a wide array of publicly available data from Medicare, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bureau of Economic Analysis, and other sources.
It is the first known study to provide an econometric analysis of the economic benefits of healthcare to the overall economy, showing how changes in direct healthcare delivery affect all other significant sectors touched by healthcare, and how sweeping healthcare reform can help drive the nation's economic recovery.
Healthcare presently accounts for $2.105 trillion in direct expenditures. But healthcare spreads far beyond doctor's offices and hospitals. Adding in healthcare business purchases of services or supplies and spending by workers, the total impact of healthcare in the economy mushrooms to nearly $6 trillion.
Overall, every direct healthcare dollar creates nearly three additional dollars in the U.S. economy. In current form, healthcare:
Medicare for all has numerous other benefits, of course, noted Jenkins, from a streamlined system with tens of billions less in private insurance administrative waste, guaranteed choice of physician and hospital, no loss of coverage when unemployed, and no one denied coverage due to age or health status.
"Only a single-payer, expanded Medicare-for-all approach ends the current disgraceful practice of insurance companies refusing to pay for medical treatment or engaging in rampant price gouging that discourages patients from going to the doctor, seeing specialists, or getting diagnostic procedures in a timely manner," said Jenkins.
The IHSP has conducted research for members of Congress and state legislatures as well as NNOC/CNA, and received international renown for research studies on cost and charges in the hospital industry, the pharmaceutical industry, hospital staffing, and other healthcare policy.
Robert Fountain, a frequent economics consultant for the California Public Employees Retirement System (Cal-PERS), served as a consultant on the study.
California Nurses Association, Press Release
Establishing a national single-payer style healthcare reform system would provide a major stimulus for the U.S. economy by creating 2.6 million new jobs, and infusing $317 billion in new business and public revenues, with another $100 billion in wages into the U.S. economy, according to the findings of a groundbreaking study released today.
The number of jobs created by a single-payer system, expanding and upgrading Medicare to cover everyone, parallels almost exactly the total job loss in 2008.
read the full study | view more charts"These dramatic new findings document for the first time that a single-payer system could not only solve our healthcare crisis, but also substantially contribute to putting America back to work and assisting the economic recovery," said Geri Jenkins, RN, co-president of the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association, which sponsored the study.
"Through direct and supplemental expenditures, healthcare is already a uniquely dominant force in the U.S. economy," said Don DeMoro, lead author of the study and director of the Institute for Health and Socio-Economic Policy, the NNOC/CNA research arm.
"However, so much more is possible. If we were to expand our present Medicare system to cover all Americans, the economic stimulus alone would create an immense engine that would help drive our national economy for decades to come," DeMoro said.
Expanding Medicare to include the uninsured, and those on Medicaid or employer-sponsored health plans, and expanding coverage for those with limited Medicare, would have the following immediate impacts:
* Create 2,613,495 million new permanent good-paying jobs (slightly exceeding the number of jobs lost in 2008)Further, moving to the new system comes with an unexpectedly low price tag, given the economic benefits and the far-reaching consequences of genuine healthcare reform, DeMoro noted.
* Boost the economy with $317 billion in increased business and public revenues
* Add $100 billion in employee compensation
* Infuse public budgets with $44 billion in new tax revenues
Healthcare for all far less than the Wall Street bailouts
Adding all Americans to an expanded Medicare could be achieved for $63 billion beyond the current $2.1 trillion in direct healthcare spending. The $63 billion is six times less than the federal bailout for CitiGroup, and less than half the federal bailout for AIG. Solely expanding Medicare to cover the 47 million uninsured Americans (as of 2006 data on which the study is based) could be accomplished for $44 billion.
The IHSP projections build from an econometric model of the current face of healthcare – applying economic analysis to a wide array of publicly available data from Medicare, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bureau of Economic Analysis, and other sources.
It is the first known study to provide an econometric analysis of the economic benefits of healthcare to the overall economy, showing how changes in direct healthcare delivery affect all other significant sectors touched by healthcare, and how sweeping healthcare reform can help drive the nation's economic recovery.
Healthcare presently accounts for $2.105 trillion in direct expenditures. But healthcare spreads far beyond doctor's offices and hospitals. Adding in healthcare business purchases of services or supplies and spending by workers, the total impact of healthcare in the economy mushrooms to nearly $6 trillion.
Overall, every direct healthcare dollar creates nearly three additional dollars in the U.S. economy. In current form, healthcare:
* Generates 45 million jobs, directly and in other industries.All those numbers would rise dramatically through comprehensive healthcare reform. But a single-payer system would produce the biggest increase in jobs and wages. The reason, DeMoro said, is that "the broadest economic benefits directly accrue from the actual delivery and provision of healthcare, not the purchase of insurance."
* Accounts for 10.5 percent of all U.S. jobs and 12.1 percent of all U.S. wages.
* Totals 9.2 percent of the nation's Gross National Product.
* Contributes about 25 percent of all federal tax revenues. Federal, state, and local taxes from the healthcare sector in 2006 added up to $824 billion.
Medicare for all has numerous other benefits, of course, noted Jenkins, from a streamlined system with tens of billions less in private insurance administrative waste, guaranteed choice of physician and hospital, no loss of coverage when unemployed, and no one denied coverage due to age or health status.
"Only a single-payer, expanded Medicare-for-all approach ends the current disgraceful practice of insurance companies refusing to pay for medical treatment or engaging in rampant price gouging that discourages patients from going to the doctor, seeing specialists, or getting diagnostic procedures in a timely manner," said Jenkins.
The IHSP has conducted research for members of Congress and state legislatures as well as NNOC/CNA, and received international renown for research studies on cost and charges in the hospital industry, the pharmaceutical industry, hospital staffing, and other healthcare policy.
Robert Fountain, a frequent economics consultant for the California Public Employees Retirement System (Cal-PERS), served as a consultant on the study.
Facing evictions, repression, no jobs: Workers, youth open fightback at Tent City
By Kris Hamel, Workers World, June 17, 2009
Tent City, Detroit
June 16—Hundreds of poor and working people have gathered at the National People’s Summit and Tent City in downtown Detroit to put forward the people’s vision of a future with guaranteed jobs and income, universal health care, housing and utilities, and all rights that working class people are currently denied under the capitalist system.
More than 330 people registered for the four-day event. They have come from throughout metro Detroit and Michigan—even workers from the Upper Peninsula are at Tent City. Workers and activists from Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and more are represented.
The People’s Summit and Tent City, based in Grand Circus Park from June 14-17, was called in response to the National Summit of big-business CEOs and executives being held at the General Motors Renaissance Center—GM’s world headquarters.
“They’re going to regret the closing of 14 plants and the laying off of General Motors workers, because the workers are fighting back!” said Frank Hammer, a retired United Auto Workers International representative and leader of the Autoworker Caravan, as he opened the rally after a militant demonstration outside the big-business summit today.
More than 500 workers, including many from around Michigan and Ohio, marched in front of the GM Renaissance Center demanding jobs and human needs, not corporate greed. “The workers have spoken—keep the plants open!” was one of many chants that thundered from East Jefferson Avenue as dozens of cops and private thugs stood in formation guarding the privately owned Ren Cen.
As the workers marched and rallied for jobs, Richard Dauch, CEO of American Axle and Manufacturing, Inc., addressed the capitalists inside, along with former Michigan Gov. John Engler.
Dauch wrested tremendous concessions from striking UAW workers in 2008, cutting wages and benefits in half. Workers were promised their jobs would be saved, but now Dauch has broken that vow and the American Axle plant in Hamtramck, Mich., located within the city of Detroit, has closed.
Engler was rewarded for his gutting of welfare and education in Michigan with his appointment as president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers.
The People’s Summit and Tent City opened with a dynamic State of Emergency Fightback Rally on June 14. A host of speakers reiterated the theme that workers and poor people must fight back to reclaim their right to jobs, homes, equal quality education, and social and economic justice. “I declare a state of emergency!” said state Sen. Hansen Clarke, sponsor of a bill in the state legislature for a two-year moratorium on foreclosures and evictions.
Other speakers included Detroit Councilperson JoAnn Watson; the Rev. Ed Rowe of Central United Methodist Church, a base of many struggles for social and economic justice; Maureen Taylor of Michigan Welfare Rights Organization; Teresa Gutierrez of the May 1 Coalition in New York City; foreclosure-fighting attorney Vanessa Fluker; Sandra Hines of the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions; Marguerite Maddox of Paws with Cause, a disability-rights organization; youth and union organizer Dante Strobino of Durham, N.C.; recently- convicted people’s journalist Diane Bukowski, who was charged with felony counts while trying to report on pedestrian deaths resulting from a police chase; and Baldemar Velasquez of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee.
Special sessions at the People’s Summit on June 14 discussed the immigrant rights struggle. Organizers with Fight Imperialism, Stand Together (FIST), a militant national youth organization, talked about the problems facing students and young workers today. Another special session heard from Dieter Ilius of the German Metalworkers Trade Union.
June 15 started with a mass leafleting outside 36th District Court, three blocks from Tent City. Activists distributed hundreds of “Know Your Rights” leaflets to homeowners and renters facing foreclosures and evictions. 36th District Court is the busiest foreclosure court in the United States. A militant picket line and demonstration demanding a moratorium on foreclosures and evictions took place outside the court at lunchtime.
A “Corporate/Banker Devastation Tour” caravan departed Tent City for the GM Ren Cen to pick up big-business meeting participants who were “cordially invited” to see the real Detroit and what corporate greed has done to the city’s people. None of them had the guts to board the van and face reality. Nevertheless, many out-of-town People’s Summiteers and some media joined the tour and viewed foreclosed homes, abandoned neighborhoods and closed plants.
A special session on organizing mass protests outside the G20 summit to be held in Pittsburgh heard from dozens of people with ideas on how to build a broad-based coalition to challenge the mass meeting of capitalists from the richest countries on Sept. 24-25. Special sessions on the crisis in education and how to fight foreclosures provided an opportunity for activists to exchange ideas on furthering these struggles.
Hundreds of People’s Summiteers marched from Tent City down Woodward Avenue to the GM Ren Cen on June 15. “Bail out the people! Not the banks!” and other chants echoed loudly throughout downtown Detroit as marchers carried banners and signs demanding jobs, health care, education, immigrant rights, jobs not jails for youth, reproductive justice for women, an end to foreclosures and evictions, and many other demands.
In the evening a rally to stop police brutality and killings denounced the many injustices of the criminal injustice system that incarcerates millions of oppressed people. Speakers included Larry Hales of FIST, himself a survivor of police brutality and ongoing harassment; former prisoner Joshua; Kevin Carey and Charlotte Diggs of Detroit People’s Task Force, who are investigating the many irregularities in the Detroit Crime Lab; Ron Scott of the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality; and LeiLani Dowell of FIST, who chronicled the police brutality and injustices facing lesbian, gay, bi and trans people.
June 16 began with a militant demonstration led by people with disabilities in front of the Grand Circus Park station of the Detroit People Mover, an elevated rail system that is inaccessible to people in wheelchairs. Participants marched and wheeled down Woodward Avenue to the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center, where they spoke out at a session of City Council. Councilwoman JoAnn Watson commissioned the council’s research department to begin an immediate investigation into the lack of elevators at the Detroit People Mover stations so as to implement meeting the needs of Detroiters with disabilities.
Musicians, poets and spoken-word artists have rounded out the days at the Tent City with performances after each evening’s rallies. A delicious dinner has been prepared by volunteer activists and served every evening to more than 300 people at Grand Circus Park.
The People’s Summit and Tent City has received widespread coverage by the big-business-owned media. Every day the people’s struggle has been highlighted on local television, radio and in newspapers.
The strength and success of the People’s Summit and Tent City, the feeling of fightback and solidarity expressed by all its participants, will not end when the final tent is taken down on June 17. There is the sense here that this is the beginning of a mighty struggle to reorder the priorities of society, to demand and fight for jobs and all human needs and to put corporate greed and the profit system into the dustbin of history where they belong.
Articles copyright 1995-2009 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Support independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php
Web: http://workers.org
Tent City, Detroit
June 16—Hundreds of poor and working people have gathered at the National People’s Summit and Tent City in downtown Detroit to put forward the people’s vision of a future with guaranteed jobs and income, universal health care, housing and utilities, and all rights that working class people are currently denied under the capitalist system.More than 330 people registered for the four-day event. They have come from throughout metro Detroit and Michigan—even workers from the Upper Peninsula are at Tent City. Workers and activists from Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and more are represented.
The People’s Summit and Tent City, based in Grand Circus Park from June 14-17, was called in response to the National Summit of big-business CEOs and executives being held at the General Motors Renaissance Center—GM’s world headquarters.
“They’re going to regret the closing of 14 plants and the laying off of General Motors workers, because the workers are fighting back!” said Frank Hammer, a retired United Auto Workers International representative and leader of the Autoworker Caravan, as he opened the rally after a militant demonstration outside the big-business summit today.
More than 500 workers, including many from around Michigan and Ohio, marched in front of the GM Renaissance Center demanding jobs and human needs, not corporate greed. “The workers have spoken—keep the plants open!” was one of many chants that thundered from East Jefferson Avenue as dozens of cops and private thugs stood in formation guarding the privately owned Ren Cen.
As the workers marched and rallied for jobs, Richard Dauch, CEO of American Axle and Manufacturing, Inc., addressed the capitalists inside, along with former Michigan Gov. John Engler.
Dauch wrested tremendous concessions from striking UAW workers in 2008, cutting wages and benefits in half. Workers were promised their jobs would be saved, but now Dauch has broken that vow and the American Axle plant in Hamtramck, Mich., located within the city of Detroit, has closed.
Engler was rewarded for his gutting of welfare and education in Michigan with his appointment as president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers.The People’s Summit and Tent City opened with a dynamic State of Emergency Fightback Rally on June 14. A host of speakers reiterated the theme that workers and poor people must fight back to reclaim their right to jobs, homes, equal quality education, and social and economic justice. “I declare a state of emergency!” said state Sen. Hansen Clarke, sponsor of a bill in the state legislature for a two-year moratorium on foreclosures and evictions.
Other speakers included Detroit Councilperson JoAnn Watson; the Rev. Ed Rowe of Central United Methodist Church, a base of many struggles for social and economic justice; Maureen Taylor of Michigan Welfare Rights Organization; Teresa Gutierrez of the May 1 Coalition in New York City; foreclosure-fighting attorney Vanessa Fluker; Sandra Hines of the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions; Marguerite Maddox of Paws with Cause, a disability-rights organization; youth and union organizer Dante Strobino of Durham, N.C.; recently- convicted people’s journalist Diane Bukowski, who was charged with felony counts while trying to report on pedestrian deaths resulting from a police chase; and Baldemar Velasquez of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee.
Special sessions at the People’s Summit on June 14 discussed the immigrant rights struggle. Organizers with Fight Imperialism, Stand Together (FIST), a militant national youth organization, talked about the problems facing students and young workers today. Another special session heard from Dieter Ilius of the German Metalworkers Trade Union.
June 15 started with a mass leafleting outside 36th District Court, three blocks from Tent City. Activists distributed hundreds of “Know Your Rights” leaflets to homeowners and renters facing foreclosures and evictions. 36th District Court is the busiest foreclosure court in the United States. A militant picket line and demonstration demanding a moratorium on foreclosures and evictions took place outside the court at lunchtime.
A “Corporate/Banker Devastation Tour” caravan departed Tent City for the GM Ren Cen to pick up big-business meeting participants who were “cordially invited” to see the real Detroit and what corporate greed has done to the city’s people. None of them had the guts to board the van and face reality. Nevertheless, many out-of-town People’s Summiteers and some media joined the tour and viewed foreclosed homes, abandoned neighborhoods and closed plants.
A special session on organizing mass protests outside the G20 summit to be held in Pittsburgh heard from dozens of people with ideas on how to build a broad-based coalition to challenge the mass meeting of capitalists from the richest countries on Sept. 24-25. Special sessions on the crisis in education and how to fight foreclosures provided an opportunity for activists to exchange ideas on furthering these struggles.
Hundreds of People’s Summiteers marched from Tent City down Woodward Avenue to the GM Ren Cen on June 15. “Bail out the people! Not the banks!” and other chants echoed loudly throughout downtown Detroit as marchers carried banners and signs demanding jobs, health care, education, immigrant rights, jobs not jails for youth, reproductive justice for women, an end to foreclosures and evictions, and many other demands.
In the evening a rally to stop police brutality and killings denounced the many injustices of the criminal injustice system that incarcerates millions of oppressed people. Speakers included Larry Hales of FIST, himself a survivor of police brutality and ongoing harassment; former prisoner Joshua; Kevin Carey and Charlotte Diggs of Detroit People’s Task Force, who are investigating the many irregularities in the Detroit Crime Lab; Ron Scott of the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality; and LeiLani Dowell of FIST, who chronicled the police brutality and injustices facing lesbian, gay, bi and trans people.
June 16 began with a militant demonstration led by people with disabilities in front of the Grand Circus Park station of the Detroit People Mover, an elevated rail system that is inaccessible to people in wheelchairs. Participants marched and wheeled down Woodward Avenue to the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center, where they spoke out at a session of City Council. Councilwoman JoAnn Watson commissioned the council’s research department to begin an immediate investigation into the lack of elevators at the Detroit People Mover stations so as to implement meeting the needs of Detroiters with disabilities.
Musicians, poets and spoken-word artists have rounded out the days at the Tent City with performances after each evening’s rallies. A delicious dinner has been prepared by volunteer activists and served every evening to more than 300 people at Grand Circus Park.
The People’s Summit and Tent City has received widespread coverage by the big-business-owned media. Every day the people’s struggle has been highlighted on local television, radio and in newspapers.
The strength and success of the People’s Summit and Tent City, the feeling of fightback and solidarity expressed by all its participants, will not end when the final tent is taken down on June 17. There is the sense here that this is the beginning of a mighty struggle to reorder the priorities of society, to demand and fight for jobs and all human needs and to put corporate greed and the profit system into the dustbin of history where they belong.
Articles copyright 1995-2009 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Support independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php
Web: http://workers.org
GM bankruptcy a disaster for workers
UAW concessions don’t save jobs
By Martha Grevatt, Workers World, June 3, 2009
On June 1 General Motors—a hundred-year-old company that for decades was the world’s largest—filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. This follows months of speculation, where “possible” became “50-50,” which then became “more probable than not.” Now the world is witnessing the downfall of a giant that still employs a quarter-million workers.
Knowing that Chapter 11 was all but inevitable, members of the United Auto Workers nevertheless voted three-to-one in favor of drastic contract concessions. The fear was put in their heads that if the concessions were rejected, GM would instead file a Chapter 13 bankruptcy and liquidate the company, eliminating everybody’s jobs. The contract modifications for GM mirror those at Chrysler; workers have given up in wages and benefits what it took decades of struggle to achieve.
Workers voted knowing that GM would be closing or idling 14 plants and cutting 21,000 jobs by the end of next year. None of them knew then, however, if the 14 plants to be shut included theirs. Michigan will take a beating with seven plants going down; the other seven include two in Ohio and one each in Tennessee, Delaware, Indiana, Virginia and New York. Three parts warehouses in Massachusetts, Ohio and Florida will also close.
These 14 plants are among the “bad assets” to be left behind when a new GM emerges from bankruptcy. They are covered by the 2007 contract between the UAW and GM in which major concessions were traded for a bogus promise of job security. To close all these plants violates the current contract, even with the recent modifications.
UAW international president, Ron Gettelfinger, did not condemn the closings or even the secrecy around which ones. He only criticized GM’s plans to increase the number of vehicles imported from Mexico and Asia. GM then agreed to build a subcompact vehicle at an idled U.S. plant, but this will barely begin to offset the impact of 14 plants closing.
In Canada, members of the Canadian Auto Workers just voted on the second round of givebacks this year. After Chrysler bullied the CAW into giving up bigger concessions than GM initially demanded, GM insisted on parity. GM is still closing plants in Canada.
The Chrysler bankruptcy process—which is expected to be completed before the end of June—was for the ruling class a dress rehearsal for this brutal, state-managed restructuring of GM.
The breakup of GM, however, has worldwide ramifications. GM is shedding six brands: Hummer, Pontiac, Saturn, Opel, Saab, and Vauxhall. British Vauxhall was purchased by GM in 1925 and German-based Opel has been wholly owned by GM since 1929.
The Italian car company Fiat, which is about to take control of Chrysler, attempted to buy Opel, Saab, and Vauxhall as well as GM’s Latin American operations. The German government rejected Fiat’s bid in favor of the big Canadian auto-parts company Magna in alliance with the Russian company Sberbank. GM will retain a minority stake in Opel/Vauxhall. Whether Fiat now attempts to buy a smaller piece of GM remains to be seen.
Magna has already stated that it “needs” to cut 2,600 of Opel’s 25,000 German workers. Layoffs are hitting workers everywhere, including low-paid autoworkers in Mexico, China and India.
Who’s the boss?
While in bankruptcy GM will have access to tens of billions of dollars in debtor-in-possession financing from the federal government. In exchange, the U.S. Treasury plans to take a 60 percent share of the reorganized GM. The Canadian government will get a 12 percent share.
The bondholders holding $27 billion in unsecured debt will get a 10 percent stake with the option to acquire another 15 percent.
The fund to cover UAW retirees’ health care—the Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association—will hold the remaining 17.5 percent of GM stock. GM stock prices fell on May 29 to a hundred-year low of 75 cents a share. For this junk stock the UAW agreed to accept only half of GM’s contractual obligations to the VEBA in cash. This further endangers retiree health benefits.
No credence should be given to the right-wing protests of disgruntled bondholders claiming the UAW got special treatment.
Who is getting special treatment? The six billion dollars in secured debt held by big banks will be repaid almost in full—after all the interest they’ve collected, Wall Street will probably come out ahead.
The disassembling of GM—once a world monopoly—is taking place with an unprecedented level of state intervention. Some say the auto industry is being nationalized—Republican lawmakers have already coined the phrase “Government Motors.” Others think, given the economic and environmental damage from private capitalist ownership, the industry should be nationalized and retooled for green jobs.
What needs to be understood is that the capitalist state is re-engineering a sector of the economy in the interest of the capitalist class as a whole. The Auto Task Force is stacked with finance capitalists. The workers who actually build the cars are worse off. What they spent seven decades fighting for has been taken away, their plants are closing, and all they got was a lousy reassurance that there won’t be a Chapter 13 liquidation—yet. When this accelerated and drastic streamlining is complete, the industry will go back to private capitalist ownership under conditions more favorable to exploitation of the workers for greater profit.
Calling for less state control or more state control is no solution when you are dealing with a capitalist state. Yet the new situation at both GM and Chrysler—falsely portrayed as “ownership” by the workers and “the taxpayers”—ought to provoke discussion among workers.
We need to ask questions, not only about who is in control but who should be. Capitalist ownership of the auto industry has destroyed our jobs, our families, our schools and our communities—taxpayers who will not profit one penny from the state’s role in the restructuring. We should demand that all of our plants be kept open and our shut plants reopened under real workers’ control. Given the sorry treatment we’ve received at the hands of capital, this would not be “special treatment,” but a simple matter of justice.
E-mail: mgrevatt@workers.org
Articles copyright 1995-2009 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
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By Martha Grevatt, Workers World, June 3, 2009
On June 1 General Motors—a hundred-year-old company that for decades was the world’s largest—filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. This follows months of speculation, where “possible” became “50-50,” which then became “more probable than not.” Now the world is witnessing the downfall of a giant that still employs a quarter-million workers.
Knowing that Chapter 11 was all but inevitable, members of the United Auto Workers nevertheless voted three-to-one in favor of drastic contract concessions. The fear was put in their heads that if the concessions were rejected, GM would instead file a Chapter 13 bankruptcy and liquidate the company, eliminating everybody’s jobs. The contract modifications for GM mirror those at Chrysler; workers have given up in wages and benefits what it took decades of struggle to achieve.
Workers voted knowing that GM would be closing or idling 14 plants and cutting 21,000 jobs by the end of next year. None of them knew then, however, if the 14 plants to be shut included theirs. Michigan will take a beating with seven plants going down; the other seven include two in Ohio and one each in Tennessee, Delaware, Indiana, Virginia and New York. Three parts warehouses in Massachusetts, Ohio and Florida will also close.
These 14 plants are among the “bad assets” to be left behind when a new GM emerges from bankruptcy. They are covered by the 2007 contract between the UAW and GM in which major concessions were traded for a bogus promise of job security. To close all these plants violates the current contract, even with the recent modifications.
UAW international president, Ron Gettelfinger, did not condemn the closings or even the secrecy around which ones. He only criticized GM’s plans to increase the number of vehicles imported from Mexico and Asia. GM then agreed to build a subcompact vehicle at an idled U.S. plant, but this will barely begin to offset the impact of 14 plants closing.
In Canada, members of the Canadian Auto Workers just voted on the second round of givebacks this year. After Chrysler bullied the CAW into giving up bigger concessions than GM initially demanded, GM insisted on parity. GM is still closing plants in Canada.
The Chrysler bankruptcy process—which is expected to be completed before the end of June—was for the ruling class a dress rehearsal for this brutal, state-managed restructuring of GM.
The breakup of GM, however, has worldwide ramifications. GM is shedding six brands: Hummer, Pontiac, Saturn, Opel, Saab, and Vauxhall. British Vauxhall was purchased by GM in 1925 and German-based Opel has been wholly owned by GM since 1929.
The Italian car company Fiat, which is about to take control of Chrysler, attempted to buy Opel, Saab, and Vauxhall as well as GM’s Latin American operations. The German government rejected Fiat’s bid in favor of the big Canadian auto-parts company Magna in alliance with the Russian company Sberbank. GM will retain a minority stake in Opel/Vauxhall. Whether Fiat now attempts to buy a smaller piece of GM remains to be seen.
Magna has already stated that it “needs” to cut 2,600 of Opel’s 25,000 German workers. Layoffs are hitting workers everywhere, including low-paid autoworkers in Mexico, China and India.
Who’s the boss?
While in bankruptcy GM will have access to tens of billions of dollars in debtor-in-possession financing from the federal government. In exchange, the U.S. Treasury plans to take a 60 percent share of the reorganized GM. The Canadian government will get a 12 percent share.
The bondholders holding $27 billion in unsecured debt will get a 10 percent stake with the option to acquire another 15 percent.
The fund to cover UAW retirees’ health care—the Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association—will hold the remaining 17.5 percent of GM stock. GM stock prices fell on May 29 to a hundred-year low of 75 cents a share. For this junk stock the UAW agreed to accept only half of GM’s contractual obligations to the VEBA in cash. This further endangers retiree health benefits.
No credence should be given to the right-wing protests of disgruntled bondholders claiming the UAW got special treatment.
Who is getting special treatment? The six billion dollars in secured debt held by big banks will be repaid almost in full—after all the interest they’ve collected, Wall Street will probably come out ahead.
The disassembling of GM—once a world monopoly—is taking place with an unprecedented level of state intervention. Some say the auto industry is being nationalized—Republican lawmakers have already coined the phrase “Government Motors.” Others think, given the economic and environmental damage from private capitalist ownership, the industry should be nationalized and retooled for green jobs.
What needs to be understood is that the capitalist state is re-engineering a sector of the economy in the interest of the capitalist class as a whole. The Auto Task Force is stacked with finance capitalists. The workers who actually build the cars are worse off. What they spent seven decades fighting for has been taken away, their plants are closing, and all they got was a lousy reassurance that there won’t be a Chapter 13 liquidation—yet. When this accelerated and drastic streamlining is complete, the industry will go back to private capitalist ownership under conditions more favorable to exploitation of the workers for greater profit.
Calling for less state control or more state control is no solution when you are dealing with a capitalist state. Yet the new situation at both GM and Chrysler—falsely portrayed as “ownership” by the workers and “the taxpayers”—ought to provoke discussion among workers.
We need to ask questions, not only about who is in control but who should be. Capitalist ownership of the auto industry has destroyed our jobs, our families, our schools and our communities—taxpayers who will not profit one penny from the state’s role in the restructuring. We should demand that all of our plants be kept open and our shut plants reopened under real workers’ control. Given the sorry treatment we’ve received at the hands of capital, this would not be “special treatment,” but a simple matter of justice.
E-mail: mgrevatt@workers.org
Articles copyright 1995-2009 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
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GM -- G.O.N.E.?
By Mumia Abu-Jamal, Prison Radio, Written 6/7/09; Recorded 6/8/09
click here to listen to audio column
Having entered bankruptcy court (even a so-called 'structural' bankruptcy), General Motors (GM) is making history. It was once the titanic behemoth of American business, making more money than any other business.
In 2006, GM reported revenues of $207 billion dollars -- yet profits were negative (-$1.9 billion).
As we know, even a titanic can sink.
Three years ago, GM was the third largest U.S. corporation in revenues; but today it has been de-listed from the Dow Jones Industrial Average, as its stock price fell below a dollar a share.
Now, the U.S. government is loaning new billions to GM, totaling almost $50 billion in taxpayer dollars, without any assurance that it'll be repaid.
GM was the nation's largest automaker, manufacturing Chevrolet, Pontiac, Cadillac, Buick, Saab and Saturn. Some models are being discontinued, while others will be sold. They also made the Hummer, a gas-guzzling SUV that has reportedly been sold to a Chinese manufacturer.
Critics in Congress and in the corporate media have blamed GM's problems on their payroll and so-called "legacy" costs, meaning benefits for retirees.
Even after the crumbling of the business model, the anti-union animus of such critics remains a central concern of the political and propaganda elites, many of whom praised NAFTA's (North American Free Trade Agreement) passage as 'good for business', and therefore 'good for America'.
But only a numbskull believes those on the assembly line designed or decided which kind of cars would be built or sold.
GM suffered from managerial myopia, which could not adapt to changing market conditions.
Thirty years ago, when the U.S. faced an oil crisis, small cars began to appear on the roads. As oil prices stabilized, U.S. car makers built fleets of SUV's, which sold quite well to Americans who wanted the civilian equivalent of a tank in their garage.
But the gas crisis of 2007 put an end to that idea.
U.S. automakers couldn't give these things away.
In the meantime, car makers in Korea and Japan, which built safe, affordable cars with extended warranties and polite customer services to Americans, are GM's lunch. Other Asian companies are joining the club. India's Tata Motors, makers of the cheapest car in the world (the $2,000 Nano) has just acquired Jaguar and Land Rover.
Being 'too big to fail' is a political judgment, not an economic one.
In classic capitalist theory, a business survives if it sells products, and makes a profit.
We are beyond that point now.
Politics may disguise the problem; but it can't solve it.
--(c) '09 maj
[Note: Mr. Jamal has recently published his latest book, Jailhouse Lawyers: Prisoners Defending Prisoners vs. the USA (San Francisco: City Lights Bks, Dr. Angela Y. Davis. For more info: www.citylights.com; or write: City Lights Books, 261 Columbus Ave., San Francisco, CA 94133
===================
The Power of Truth is Final -- Free Mumia!
URGENT Need for Petition Signatures at: http://www.iacenter.org/mumiapetition/
Audio of most of Mumia's essays are at: http://www.prisonradio.org
http://mumiapodcast.libsyn.com/
Mumia's got a podcast! Mumia Abu-Jamal's Radio Essays - Subscribe at the website or on iTunes and get Mumia's radio commentaries online.
Mumia Abu-Jamal's new book -- JAILHOUSE LAWYERS: PRISONERS DEFENDING PRISONERS V. THE USA, featuring an introduction by Angela Y. Davis -- has been released! It is available from City Lights Books: http://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=87286100448090
If you are planning to organize an event or would like to order in bulk, you can also receive a 45% discount on any bulk orders of 20 copies or more. The book retails for $16.95, for orders of 20 copies or more the discounted price would be $9.32 per book, plus shipping and handling. Prepayment would be required and books are nonreturnable. If you or your organization would like to place a bulk order, please contact Stacey Lewis at 415.362.1901 or stacey@citylights.com
Let's use the opportunity of the publication of this brilliant, moving, vintage Mumia book to build the momentum for his case, to raise the money we desperately need in these challenging economic times, to get the word out – to produce literature, flyers, posters, videos, DVD's; to send organizers out to help build new chapters and strengthen old ones, TO GET THE PEOPLE OUT IN THE STREETS … all the work that we must do in order to FREE MUMIA as he faces LIFE IN PRISON WITHOUT PAROLE OR EXECUTION!
Please make a contribution to help free Mumia. Donations to the grassroots work will go to both INTERNATIONAL CONCERNED FAMILY AND FRIENDS OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL and the FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL COALITION (NYC).
WWW.FREEMUMIA.COM
Please mail donations/ checks to:
FREE MUMIA ABU JAMAL COALITION
PO BOX 16, NEW YORK,
NY 10030
(CHECKS FOR BOTH ORGANIZATIONS PAYABLE TO: FMAJC/IFCO)
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
215 476-8812
212-330-8029
Send our brotha some LOVE and LIGHT at:
Mumia Abu-Jamal
AM 8335
SCI-Greene
175 Progress Drive
Waynesburg, PA 15370
WE WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM CAN *NOT* REST!!
Subscribe: mumiacolumns-subscribe@topica.com
Read: http://topica.com/lists/mumiacolumns/read
Subscribe ICFFMAJ email updates list by e-mailing
icffmaj@aol.com!
www.FreeMumia.com
click here to listen to audio column
Having entered bankruptcy court (even a so-called 'structural' bankruptcy), General Motors (GM) is making history. It was once the titanic behemoth of American business, making more money than any other business.
In 2006, GM reported revenues of $207 billion dollars -- yet profits were negative (-$1.9 billion).
As we know, even a titanic can sink.
Three years ago, GM was the third largest U.S. corporation in revenues; but today it has been de-listed from the Dow Jones Industrial Average, as its stock price fell below a dollar a share.
Now, the U.S. government is loaning new billions to GM, totaling almost $50 billion in taxpayer dollars, without any assurance that it'll be repaid.
GM was the nation's largest automaker, manufacturing Chevrolet, Pontiac, Cadillac, Buick, Saab and Saturn. Some models are being discontinued, while others will be sold. They also made the Hummer, a gas-guzzling SUV that has reportedly been sold to a Chinese manufacturer.
Critics in Congress and in the corporate media have blamed GM's problems on their payroll and so-called "legacy" costs, meaning benefits for retirees.
Even after the crumbling of the business model, the anti-union animus of such critics remains a central concern of the political and propaganda elites, many of whom praised NAFTA's (North American Free Trade Agreement) passage as 'good for business', and therefore 'good for America'.
But only a numbskull believes those on the assembly line designed or decided which kind of cars would be built or sold.
GM suffered from managerial myopia, which could not adapt to changing market conditions.
Thirty years ago, when the U.S. faced an oil crisis, small cars began to appear on the roads. As oil prices stabilized, U.S. car makers built fleets of SUV's, which sold quite well to Americans who wanted the civilian equivalent of a tank in their garage.
But the gas crisis of 2007 put an end to that idea.
U.S. automakers couldn't give these things away.
In the meantime, car makers in Korea and Japan, which built safe, affordable cars with extended warranties and polite customer services to Americans, are GM's lunch. Other Asian companies are joining the club. India's Tata Motors, makers of the cheapest car in the world (the $2,000 Nano) has just acquired Jaguar and Land Rover.
Being 'too big to fail' is a political judgment, not an economic one.
In classic capitalist theory, a business survives if it sells products, and makes a profit.
We are beyond that point now.
Politics may disguise the problem; but it can't solve it.
--(c) '09 maj
[Note: Mr. Jamal has recently published his latest book, Jailhouse Lawyers: Prisoners Defending Prisoners vs. the USA (San Francisco: City Lights Bks, Dr. Angela Y. Davis. For more info: www.citylights.com; or write: City Lights Books, 261 Columbus Ave., San Francisco, CA 94133
===================
The Power of Truth is Final -- Free Mumia!
URGENT Need for Petition Signatures at: http://www.iacenter.org/mumiapetition/
Audio of most of Mumia's essays are at: http://www.prisonradio.org
http://mumiapodcast.libsyn.com/
Mumia's got a podcast! Mumia Abu-Jamal's Radio Essays - Subscribe at the website or on iTunes and get Mumia's radio commentaries online.
Mumia Abu-Jamal's new book -- JAILHOUSE LAWYERS: PRISONERS DEFENDING PRISONERS V. THE USA, featuring an introduction by Angela Y. Davis -- has been released! It is available from City Lights Books: http://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=87286100448090
If you are planning to organize an event or would like to order in bulk, you can also receive a 45% discount on any bulk orders of 20 copies or more. The book retails for $16.95, for orders of 20 copies or more the discounted price would be $9.32 per book, plus shipping and handling. Prepayment would be required and books are nonreturnable. If you or your organization would like to place a bulk order, please contact Stacey Lewis at 415.362.1901 or stacey@citylights.com
Let's use the opportunity of the publication of this brilliant, moving, vintage Mumia book to build the momentum for his case, to raise the money we desperately need in these challenging economic times, to get the word out – to produce literature, flyers, posters, videos, DVD's; to send organizers out to help build new chapters and strengthen old ones, TO GET THE PEOPLE OUT IN THE STREETS … all the work that we must do in order to FREE MUMIA as he faces LIFE IN PRISON WITHOUT PAROLE OR EXECUTION!
Please make a contribution to help free Mumia. Donations to the grassroots work will go to both INTERNATIONAL CONCERNED FAMILY AND FRIENDS OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL and the FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL COALITION (NYC).
WWW.FREEMUMIA.COM
Please mail donations/ checks to:
FREE MUMIA ABU JAMAL COALITION
PO BOX 16, NEW YORK,
NY 10030
(CHECKS FOR BOTH ORGANIZATIONS PAYABLE TO: FMAJC/IFCO)
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
215 476-8812
212-330-8029
Send our brotha some LOVE and LIGHT at:
Mumia Abu-Jamal
AM 8335
SCI-Greene
175 Progress Drive
Waynesburg, PA 15370
WE WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM CAN *NOT* REST!!
Subscribe: mumiacolumns-subscribe@topica.com
Read: http://topica.com/lists/mumiacolumns/read
Subscribe ICFFMAJ email updates list by e-mailing
icffmaj@aol.com!
www.FreeMumia.com
Goodbye, GM ...
by Michael Moore, MichaelMoore.com, June 1, 2009
I write this on the morning of the end of the once-mighty General Motors. By high noon, the President of the United States will have made it official: General Motors, as we know it, has been totaled.
As I sit here in GM's birthplace, Flint, Michigan, I am surrounded by friends and family who are filled with anxiety about what will happen to them and to the town. Forty percent of the homes and businesses in the city have been abandoned. Imagine what it would be like if you lived in a city where almost every other house is empty. What would be your state of mind?
It is with sad irony that the company which invented "planned obsolescence" -- the decision to build cars that would fall apart after a few years so that the customer would then have to buy a new one -- has now made itself obsolete. It refused to build automobiles that the public wanted, cars that got great gas mileage, were as safe as they could be, and were exceedingly comfortable to drive. Oh -- and that wouldn't start falling apart after two years. GM stubbornly fought environmental and safety regulations. Its executives arrogantly ignored the "inferior" Japanese and German cars, cars which would become the gold standard for automobile buyers. And it was hell-bent on punishing its unionized workforce, lopping off thousands of workers for no good reason other than to "improve" the short-term bottom line of the corporation. Beginning in the 1980s, when GM was posting record profits, it moved countless jobs to Mexico and elsewhere, thus destroying the lives of tens of thousands of hard-working Americans. The glaring stupidity of this policy was that, when they eliminated the income of so many middle class families, who did they think was going to be able to afford to buy their cars? History will record this blunder in the same way it now writes about the French building the Maginot Line or how the Romans cluelessly poisoned their own water system with lethal lead in its pipes.
So here we are at the deathbed of General Motors. The company's body not yet cold, and I find myself filled with -- dare I say it -- joy. It is not the joy of revenge against a corporation that ruined my hometown and brought misery, divorce, alcoholism, homelessness, physical and mental debilitation, and drug addiction to the people I grew up with. Nor do I, obviously, claim any joy in knowing that 21,000 more GM workers will be told that they, too, are without a job.
But you and I and the rest of America now own a car company! I know, I know -- who on earth wants to run a car company? Who among us wants $50 billion of our tax dollars thrown down the rat hole of still trying to save GM? Let's be clear about this: The only way to save GM is to kill GM. Saving our precious industrial infrastructure, though, is another matter and must be a top priority. If we allow the shutting down and tearing down of our auto plants, we will sorely wish we still had them when we realize that those factories could have built the alternative energy systems we now desperately need. And when we realize that the best way to transport ourselves is on light rail and bullet trains and cleaner buses, how will we do this if we've allowed our industrial capacity and its skilled workforce to disappear?
Thus, as GM is "reorganized" by the federal government and the bankruptcy court, here is the plan I am asking President Obama to implement for the good of the workers, the GM communities, and the nation as a whole. Twenty years ago when I made "Roger & Me," I tried to warn people about what was ahead for General Motors. Had the power structure and the punditocracy listened, maybe much of this could have been avoided. Based on my track record, I request an honest and sincere consideration of the following suggestions:
1. Just as President Roosevelt did after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the President must tell the nation that we are at war and we must immediately convert our auto factories to factories that build mass transit vehicles and alternative energy devices. Within months in Flint in 1942, GM halted all car production and immediately used the assembly lines to build planes, tanks and machine guns. The conversion took no time at all. Everyone pitched in. The fascists were defeated.
We are now in a different kind of war -- a war that we have conducted against the ecosystem and has been conducted by our very own corporate leaders. This current war has two fronts. One is headquartered in Detroit. The products built in the factories of GM, Ford and Chrysler are some of the greatest weapons of mass destruction responsible for global warming and the melting of our polar icecaps. The things we call "cars" may have been fun to drive, but they are like a million daggers into the heart of Mother Nature. To continue to build them would only lead to the ruin of our species and much of the planet.
The other front in this war is being waged by the oil companies against you and me. They are committed to fleecing us whenever they can, and they have been reckless stewards of the finite amount of oil that is located under the surface of the earth. They know they are sucking it bone dry. And like the lumber tycoons of the early 20th century who didn't give a damn about future generations as they tore down every forest they could get their hands on, these oil barons are not telling the public what they know to be true -- that there are only a few more decades of useable oil on this planet. And as the end days of oil approach us, get ready for some very desperate people willing to kill and be killed just to get their hands on a gallon can of gasoline.
President Obama, now that he has taken control of GM, needs to convert the factories to new and needed uses immediately.
2. Don't put another $30 billion into the coffers of GM to build cars. Instead, use that money to keep the current workforce -- and most of those who have been laid off -- employed so that they can build the new modes of 21st century transportation. Let them start the conversion work now.
3. Announce that we will have bullet trains criss-crossing this country in the next five years. Japan is celebrating the 45th anniversary of its first bullet train this year. Now they have dozens of them. Average speed: 165 mph. Average time a train is late: under 30 seconds. They have had these high speed trains for nearly five decades -- and we don't even have one! The fact that the technology already exists for us to go from New York to L.A. in 17 hours by train, and that we haven't used it, is criminal. Let's hire the unemployed to build the new high speed lines all over the country. Chicago to Detroit in less than two hours. Miami to DC in under 7 hours. Denver to Dallas in five and a half. This can be done and done now.
4. Initiate a program to put light rail mass transit lines in all our large and medium-sized cities. Build those trains in the GM factories. And hire local people everywhere to install and run this system.
5. For people in rural areas not served by the train lines, have the GM plants produce energy efficient clean buses.
6. For the time being, have some factories build hybrid or all-electric cars (and batteries). It will take a few years for people to get used to the new ways to transport ourselves, so if we're going to have automobiles, let's have kinder, gentler ones. We can be building these next month (do not believe anyone who tells you it will take years to retool the factories -- that simply isn't true).
7. Transform some of the empty GM factories to facilities that build windmills, solar panels and other means of alternate forms of energy. We need tens of millions of solar panels right now. And there is an eager and skilled workforce who can build them.
8. Provide tax incentives for those who travel by hybrid car or bus or train. Also, credits for those who convert their home to alternative energy.
9. To help pay for this, impose a two-dollar tax on every gallon of gasoline. This will get people to switch to more energy saving cars or to use the new rail lines and rail cars the former autoworkers have built for them.
Well, that's a start. Please, please, please don't save GM so that a smaller version of it will simply do nothing more than build Chevys or Cadillacs. This is not a long-term solution. Don't throw bad money into a company whose tailpipe is malfunctioning, causing a strange odor to fill the car.
100 years ago this year, the founders of General Motors convinced the world to give up their horses and saddles and buggy whips to try a new form of transportation. Now it is time for us to say goodbye to the internal combustion engine. It seemed to serve us well for so long. We enjoyed the car hops at the A&W. We made out in the front -- and the back -- seat. We watched movies on large outdoor screens, went to the races at NASCAR tracks across the country, and saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time through the window down Hwy. 1. And now it's over. It's a new day and a new century. The President -- and the UAW -- must seize this moment and create a big batch of lemonade from this very sour and sad lemon.
Yesterday, the last surviving person from the Titanic disaster passed away. She escaped certain death that night and went on to live another 97 years.
So can we survive our own Titanic in all the Flint Michigans of this country. 60% of GM is ours. I think we can do a better job.
Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com
I write this on the morning of the end of the once-mighty General Motors. By high noon, the President of the United States will have made it official: General Motors, as we know it, has been totaled.
As I sit here in GM's birthplace, Flint, Michigan, I am surrounded by friends and family who are filled with anxiety about what will happen to them and to the town. Forty percent of the homes and businesses in the city have been abandoned. Imagine what it would be like if you lived in a city where almost every other house is empty. What would be your state of mind?
It is with sad irony that the company which invented "planned obsolescence" -- the decision to build cars that would fall apart after a few years so that the customer would then have to buy a new one -- has now made itself obsolete. It refused to build automobiles that the public wanted, cars that got great gas mileage, were as safe as they could be, and were exceedingly comfortable to drive. Oh -- and that wouldn't start falling apart after two years. GM stubbornly fought environmental and safety regulations. Its executives arrogantly ignored the "inferior" Japanese and German cars, cars which would become the gold standard for automobile buyers. And it was hell-bent on punishing its unionized workforce, lopping off thousands of workers for no good reason other than to "improve" the short-term bottom line of the corporation. Beginning in the 1980s, when GM was posting record profits, it moved countless jobs to Mexico and elsewhere, thus destroying the lives of tens of thousands of hard-working Americans. The glaring stupidity of this policy was that, when they eliminated the income of so many middle class families, who did they think was going to be able to afford to buy their cars? History will record this blunder in the same way it now writes about the French building the Maginot Line or how the Romans cluelessly poisoned their own water system with lethal lead in its pipes.
So here we are at the deathbed of General Motors. The company's body not yet cold, and I find myself filled with -- dare I say it -- joy. It is not the joy of revenge against a corporation that ruined my hometown and brought misery, divorce, alcoholism, homelessness, physical and mental debilitation, and drug addiction to the people I grew up with. Nor do I, obviously, claim any joy in knowing that 21,000 more GM workers will be told that they, too, are without a job.
But you and I and the rest of America now own a car company! I know, I know -- who on earth wants to run a car company? Who among us wants $50 billion of our tax dollars thrown down the rat hole of still trying to save GM? Let's be clear about this: The only way to save GM is to kill GM. Saving our precious industrial infrastructure, though, is another matter and must be a top priority. If we allow the shutting down and tearing down of our auto plants, we will sorely wish we still had them when we realize that those factories could have built the alternative energy systems we now desperately need. And when we realize that the best way to transport ourselves is on light rail and bullet trains and cleaner buses, how will we do this if we've allowed our industrial capacity and its skilled workforce to disappear?
Thus, as GM is "reorganized" by the federal government and the bankruptcy court, here is the plan I am asking President Obama to implement for the good of the workers, the GM communities, and the nation as a whole. Twenty years ago when I made "Roger & Me," I tried to warn people about what was ahead for General Motors. Had the power structure and the punditocracy listened, maybe much of this could have been avoided. Based on my track record, I request an honest and sincere consideration of the following suggestions:
1. Just as President Roosevelt did after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the President must tell the nation that we are at war and we must immediately convert our auto factories to factories that build mass transit vehicles and alternative energy devices. Within months in Flint in 1942, GM halted all car production and immediately used the assembly lines to build planes, tanks and machine guns. The conversion took no time at all. Everyone pitched in. The fascists were defeated.
We are now in a different kind of war -- a war that we have conducted against the ecosystem and has been conducted by our very own corporate leaders. This current war has two fronts. One is headquartered in Detroit. The products built in the factories of GM, Ford and Chrysler are some of the greatest weapons of mass destruction responsible for global warming and the melting of our polar icecaps. The things we call "cars" may have been fun to drive, but they are like a million daggers into the heart of Mother Nature. To continue to build them would only lead to the ruin of our species and much of the planet.
The other front in this war is being waged by the oil companies against you and me. They are committed to fleecing us whenever they can, and they have been reckless stewards of the finite amount of oil that is located under the surface of the earth. They know they are sucking it bone dry. And like the lumber tycoons of the early 20th century who didn't give a damn about future generations as they tore down every forest they could get their hands on, these oil barons are not telling the public what they know to be true -- that there are only a few more decades of useable oil on this planet. And as the end days of oil approach us, get ready for some very desperate people willing to kill and be killed just to get their hands on a gallon can of gasoline.
President Obama, now that he has taken control of GM, needs to convert the factories to new and needed uses immediately.
2. Don't put another $30 billion into the coffers of GM to build cars. Instead, use that money to keep the current workforce -- and most of those who have been laid off -- employed so that they can build the new modes of 21st century transportation. Let them start the conversion work now.
3. Announce that we will have bullet trains criss-crossing this country in the next five years. Japan is celebrating the 45th anniversary of its first bullet train this year. Now they have dozens of them. Average speed: 165 mph. Average time a train is late: under 30 seconds. They have had these high speed trains for nearly five decades -- and we don't even have one! The fact that the technology already exists for us to go from New York to L.A. in 17 hours by train, and that we haven't used it, is criminal. Let's hire the unemployed to build the new high speed lines all over the country. Chicago to Detroit in less than two hours. Miami to DC in under 7 hours. Denver to Dallas in five and a half. This can be done and done now.
4. Initiate a program to put light rail mass transit lines in all our large and medium-sized cities. Build those trains in the GM factories. And hire local people everywhere to install and run this system.
5. For people in rural areas not served by the train lines, have the GM plants produce energy efficient clean buses.
6. For the time being, have some factories build hybrid or all-electric cars (and batteries). It will take a few years for people to get used to the new ways to transport ourselves, so if we're going to have automobiles, let's have kinder, gentler ones. We can be building these next month (do not believe anyone who tells you it will take years to retool the factories -- that simply isn't true).
7. Transform some of the empty GM factories to facilities that build windmills, solar panels and other means of alternate forms of energy. We need tens of millions of solar panels right now. And there is an eager and skilled workforce who can build them.
8. Provide tax incentives for those who travel by hybrid car or bus or train. Also, credits for those who convert their home to alternative energy.
9. To help pay for this, impose a two-dollar tax on every gallon of gasoline. This will get people to switch to more energy saving cars or to use the new rail lines and rail cars the former autoworkers have built for them.
Well, that's a start. Please, please, please don't save GM so that a smaller version of it will simply do nothing more than build Chevys or Cadillacs. This is not a long-term solution. Don't throw bad money into a company whose tailpipe is malfunctioning, causing a strange odor to fill the car.
100 years ago this year, the founders of General Motors convinced the world to give up their horses and saddles and buggy whips to try a new form of transportation. Now it is time for us to say goodbye to the internal combustion engine. It seemed to serve us well for so long. We enjoyed the car hops at the A&W. We made out in the front -- and the back -- seat. We watched movies on large outdoor screens, went to the races at NASCAR tracks across the country, and saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time through the window down Hwy. 1. And now it's over. It's a new day and a new century. The President -- and the UAW -- must seize this moment and create a big batch of lemonade from this very sour and sad lemon.
Yesterday, the last surviving person from the Titanic disaster passed away. She escaped certain death that night and went on to live another 97 years.
So can we survive our own Titanic in all the Flint Michigans of this country. 60% of GM is ours. I think we can do a better job.
Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com
Grand Theft Auto: How Stevie the Rat bankrupted GM
by Greg Palast, www.GregPalast.com, June 1, 2009
Screw the autoworkers. They may be crying about General Motors' bankruptcy today. But dumping 40,000 of the last 60,000 union jobs into a mass grave won't spoil Jamie Dimon's day.
Dimon is the CEO of JP Morgan Chase bank. While GM workers are losing their retirement health benefits, their jobs, their life savings; while shareholders are getting zilch and many creditors getting hosed, a few privileged GM lenders – led by Morgan and Citibank – expect to get back 100% of their loans to GM, a stunning $6 billion.
The way these banks are getting their $6 billion bonanza is stone cold illegal.
I smell a rat.
Stevie the Rat, to be precise. Steven Rattner, Barack Obama's 'Car Czar' - the man who essentially ordered GM into bankruptcy this morning.
When a company goes bankrupt, everyone takes a hit: fair or not, workers lose some contract wages, stockholders get wiped out and creditors get fragments of what's left. That's the law. What workers don't lose are their pensions (including old-age health funds) already taken from their wages and held in their name.
But not this time. Stevie the Rat has a different plan for GM: grab the pension funds to pay off Morgan and Citi.
Here's the scheme: Rattner is demanding the bankruptcy court simply wipe away the money GM owes workers for their retirement health insurance. Cash in the insurance fund would be replace by GM stock. The percentage may be 17% of GM's stock - or 25%. Whatever, 17% or 25% is worth, well ... just try paying for your dialysis with 50 shares of bankrupt auto stock.
Yet Citibank and Morgan, says Rattner, should get their whole enchilada - $6 billion right now and in cash - from a company that can't pay for auto parts or worker eye exams.
Preventive Detention for Pensions
So what's wrong with seizing workers' pension fund money in a bankruptcy? The answer, Mr. Obama, Mr. Law Professor, is that it's illegal.
In 1974, after a series of scandalous take-downs of pension and retirement funds during the Nixon era, Congress passed the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. ERISA says you can't seize workers' pension funds (whether monthly payments or health insurance) any more than you can seize their private bank accounts. And that's because they are the same thing: workers give up wages in return for retirement benefits.
The law is darn explicit that grabbing pension money is a no-no. Company executives must hold these retirement funds as "fiduciaries." Here's the law, Professor Obama, as described on the government's own web site under the heading, "Health Plans and Benefits."
Yet, in effect, the Obama Administration is demanding that money for an elderly auto worker's spleen should be siphoned off to feed the TARP babies. Workers go without lung transplants so Dimon and Rubin can pimp out their ride. This is another "Guantanamo" moment for the Obama Administration - channeling Nixon to endorse the preventive detention of retiree health insurance.
Filching GM's pension assets doesn't become legal because the cash due the fund is replaced with GM stock. Congress saw through that switch-a-roo by requiring that companies, as fiduciaries, must
This is dangerous business: The Rattner plan opens the floodgate to every politically-connected or down-on-their-luck company seeking to drain health care retirement funds.
House of Rubin
Pensions are wiped away and two connected banks don't even get a haircut? How come Citi and Morgan aren't asked, like workers and other creditors, to take stock in GM?
As Butch said to Sundance, who ARE these guys? You remember Morgan and Citi. These are the corporate Welfare Queens who've already sucked up over a third of a trillion dollars in aid from the US Treasury and Federal Reserve. Not coincidentally, Citi, the big winner, has paid over $100 million to Robert Rubin, the former US Treasury Secretary. Rubin was Obama's point-man in winning banks' endorsement and campaign donations (by far, his largest source of his corporate funding).
With GM's last dying dimes about to fall into one pocket, and the Obama Treasury in his other pocket, Morgan's Jamie Dimon is correct in saying that the last twelve months will prove to be the bank's "finest year ever."
Which leaves us to ask the question: is the forced bankruptcy of GM, the elimination of tens of thousands of jobs, just a collection action for favored financiers?
And it's been a good year for Señor Rattner. While the Obama Administration made a big deal out of Rattner's youth spent working for the Steelworkers Union, they tried to sweep under the chassis that Rattner was one of the privileged, select group of investors in Cerberus Capital, the owners of Chrysler. "Owning" is a loose term. Cerberus "owned" Chrysler the way a cannibal "hosts" you for dinner. Cerberus paid nothing for Chrysler - indeed, they were paid billions by Germany's Daimler Corporation to haul it away. Cerberus kept the cash, then dumped Chrysler's bankrupt corpse on the US taxpayer.
("Cerberus," by the way, named itself after the Roman's mythical three-headed dog guarding the gates Hell. Subtle these guys are not.)
While Stevie the Rat sold his interest in the Dog from Hell when he became Car Czar, he never relinquished his post at the shop of vultures called Quadrangle Hedge Fund. Rattner's personal net worth stands at roughly half a billion dollars. This is Obama's working class hero.
If you ran a business and played fast and loose with your workers' funds, you could land in prison. Stevie the Rat's plan is nothing less than Grand Theft Auto Pension.
It doesn't make it any less of a crime if the President drives the getaway car.
******
Economist and journalist Greg Palast, a former trade union contract negotiator, is author of the New York Times bestsellers The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Armed Madhouse. He is a GM bondholder and card-carrying member of United Automobile Workers Local 1981.
Palast's latest reports for BBC Television and Democracy Now! are collected on the newly released DVD, "Palast Investigates: from 8-Mile to the Amazon - on the trail of the financial marauders." Watch the trailer here.
Screw the autoworkers. They may be crying about General Motors' bankruptcy today. But dumping 40,000 of the last 60,000 union jobs into a mass grave won't spoil Jamie Dimon's day.
Dimon is the CEO of JP Morgan Chase bank. While GM workers are losing their retirement health benefits, their jobs, their life savings; while shareholders are getting zilch and many creditors getting hosed, a few privileged GM lenders – led by Morgan and Citibank – expect to get back 100% of their loans to GM, a stunning $6 billion.
The way these banks are getting their $6 billion bonanza is stone cold illegal.
I smell a rat.
Stevie the Rat, to be precise. Steven Rattner, Barack Obama's 'Car Czar' - the man who essentially ordered GM into bankruptcy this morning.
When a company goes bankrupt, everyone takes a hit: fair or not, workers lose some contract wages, stockholders get wiped out and creditors get fragments of what's left. That's the law. What workers don't lose are their pensions (including old-age health funds) already taken from their wages and held in their name.
But not this time. Stevie the Rat has a different plan for GM: grab the pension funds to pay off Morgan and Citi.
Here's the scheme: Rattner is demanding the bankruptcy court simply wipe away the money GM owes workers for their retirement health insurance. Cash in the insurance fund would be replace by GM stock. The percentage may be 17% of GM's stock - or 25%. Whatever, 17% or 25% is worth, well ... just try paying for your dialysis with 50 shares of bankrupt auto stock.
Yet Citibank and Morgan, says Rattner, should get their whole enchilada - $6 billion right now and in cash - from a company that can't pay for auto parts or worker eye exams.
Preventive Detention for Pensions
So what's wrong with seizing workers' pension fund money in a bankruptcy? The answer, Mr. Obama, Mr. Law Professor, is that it's illegal.
In 1974, after a series of scandalous take-downs of pension and retirement funds during the Nixon era, Congress passed the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. ERISA says you can't seize workers' pension funds (whether monthly payments or health insurance) any more than you can seize their private bank accounts. And that's because they are the same thing: workers give up wages in return for retirement benefits.
The law is darn explicit that grabbing pension money is a no-no. Company executives must hold these retirement funds as "fiduciaries." Here's the law, Professor Obama, as described on the government's own web site under the heading, "Health Plans and Benefits."
"The primary responsibility of fiduciaries is to run the plan solely in the interest of participants and beneficiaries and for the exclusive purpose of providing benefits."Every business in America that runs short of cash would love to dip into retirement kitties, but it's not their money any more than a banker can seize your account when the bank's a little short. A plan's assets are for the plan's members only, not for Mr. Dimon nor Mr. Rubin.
Yet, in effect, the Obama Administration is demanding that money for an elderly auto worker's spleen should be siphoned off to feed the TARP babies. Workers go without lung transplants so Dimon and Rubin can pimp out their ride. This is another "Guantanamo" moment for the Obama Administration - channeling Nixon to endorse the preventive detention of retiree health insurance.
Filching GM's pension assets doesn't become legal because the cash due the fund is replaced with GM stock. Congress saw through that switch-a-roo by requiring that companies, as fiduciaries, must
"...act prudently and must diversify the plan's investments in order to minimize the risk of large losses."By "diversify" for safety, the law does not mean put 100% of worker funds into a single busted company's stock.
This is dangerous business: The Rattner plan opens the floodgate to every politically-connected or down-on-their-luck company seeking to drain health care retirement funds.
House of Rubin
Pensions are wiped away and two connected banks don't even get a haircut? How come Citi and Morgan aren't asked, like workers and other creditors, to take stock in GM?
As Butch said to Sundance, who ARE these guys? You remember Morgan and Citi. These are the corporate Welfare Queens who've already sucked up over a third of a trillion dollars in aid from the US Treasury and Federal Reserve. Not coincidentally, Citi, the big winner, has paid over $100 million to Robert Rubin, the former US Treasury Secretary. Rubin was Obama's point-man in winning banks' endorsement and campaign donations (by far, his largest source of his corporate funding).
With GM's last dying dimes about to fall into one pocket, and the Obama Treasury in his other pocket, Morgan's Jamie Dimon is correct in saying that the last twelve months will prove to be the bank's "finest year ever."
Which leaves us to ask the question: is the forced bankruptcy of GM, the elimination of tens of thousands of jobs, just a collection action for favored financiers?
And it's been a good year for Señor Rattner. While the Obama Administration made a big deal out of Rattner's youth spent working for the Steelworkers Union, they tried to sweep under the chassis that Rattner was one of the privileged, select group of investors in Cerberus Capital, the owners of Chrysler. "Owning" is a loose term. Cerberus "owned" Chrysler the way a cannibal "hosts" you for dinner. Cerberus paid nothing for Chrysler - indeed, they were paid billions by Germany's Daimler Corporation to haul it away. Cerberus kept the cash, then dumped Chrysler's bankrupt corpse on the US taxpayer.
("Cerberus," by the way, named itself after the Roman's mythical three-headed dog guarding the gates Hell. Subtle these guys are not.)
While Stevie the Rat sold his interest in the Dog from Hell when he became Car Czar, he never relinquished his post at the shop of vultures called Quadrangle Hedge Fund. Rattner's personal net worth stands at roughly half a billion dollars. This is Obama's working class hero.
If you ran a business and played fast and loose with your workers' funds, you could land in prison. Stevie the Rat's plan is nothing less than Grand Theft Auto Pension.
It doesn't make it any less of a crime if the President drives the getaway car.
******
Economist and journalist Greg Palast, a former trade union contract negotiator, is author of the New York Times bestsellers The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Armed Madhouse. He is a GM bondholder and card-carrying member of United Automobile Workers Local 1981.
Palast's latest reports for BBC Television and Democracy Now! are collected on the newly released DVD, "Palast Investigates: from 8-Mile to the Amazon - on the trail of the financial marauders." Watch the trailer here.
N.C. workers fight cuts in jobs, services
‘State of Emergency’ campaign launched
By Dante Strobino, Workers World, May 31, 2009
Durham, N.C. - When North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue announced that all state workers would be mandated to take 10 unpaid hours off to help balance the budget, many workers began discussing how they could collectively withhold their labor by organizing to take the same time periods off.
Then the state legislature began discussing furloughs of up to 20 days for all state workers. But that plan was soon taken off the table after seeing the mass outrage it caused.
City and local governments began looking at similar measures to cut costs on the backs of workers and the oppressed. The city of Durham announced it was laying off 35 workers and eliminating 78 jobs. The city of Charlotte announced similar cuts, including threats to privatize the entire Recycling Department.
Already mass lay-offs and plant closings mean the state now suffers from the country’s second-highest official unemployment rate at 10.8 percent. In reality it is much higher when counting total unemployment, including permanently discouraged workers and the underemployed.
On May 16, a thousand teachers from around the state, organized by the North Carolina Association of Educators, rallied against the 10-hour furloughs. Many of the teachers from rural areas had never been to a rally before, yet it seemed clear to them that cuts to teachers can only be stopped through mass action.
Jennifer Lanane, president of the Wake County Chapter of the NCAE, led the teachers in a strong chant: “Shut it down!” After the rally, the teachers jumped in their cars and went on a motorcade to the governor’s mansion.
On May 18, over 50 city of Durham workers crowded into the chambers of City Hall to listen to City Manager Tom Bonfield present his proposed budget plan. It includes a water utility hike of up to 9.5 percent, a pay raise for police and fire totaling $1.8 million, and elimination of 113 city worker jobs, saving the city $6.5 million.
According to officials, the plan allows the city to get out of the hole from lower sales taxes, state revenue sharing, charges for services and permit fees. At the same time, the city will keep $19.8 million in a reserve fund for what Bonfield called “worse economic times to come.” This amount represents 12.1 percent of the general fund! Unionists have calculated that the city could spend $6.8 million of this money, which only lowers the reserve to 8 percent, maintain a maximum bond rating and save city workers’ jobs.
George MacNeal, a member of the Durham City Workers Chapter of the Electrical Workers union Local 150, told Workers World, “It’s a rainy day now and those funds need to be released. ... If it wasn’t for us, this city wouldn’t run.” The union is launching a broad campaign to get community support against cuts in such services as trash pick-up, which, if it’s allowed to pile up on sidewalks and streets, could become a major public health hazard.
Workers fight to save jobs
UE Local 150 has launched a State of Emergency Campaign around the state to give workers the tools to fight back against budget cuts. Workers have already begun to circulate a petition that demands “No layoffs, furloughs, pay or service cuts,” and “Tax the corporations and the wealthy.”
The state budget has a deficit of up to $4.8 billion, yet the state Senate revenue plan includes additional tax breaks to big corporations like Bank of America, which already receive over $1 billion in tax breaks every year from the state. According to the plan, these tax breaks will increase by as much as $350 million per year!
Gwen Burwell, a licensed practical nurse at state-run Dorothea Dix Hospital in Raleigh and secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services Council of UE Local 150, told Workers World: “I think it is outrageous. It makes me sick that the state is lowering taxes for corporations. What about other people who have children, who have to eat, pay light bills and car bills?”
Burwell continued: “The big corporations’ taxes are cut, but what are they doing with that money? They aren’t giving it to us! We are the ones on the bottom, working hard, getting paid less as they sit on the throne getting richer and richer while our people are suffering.”
North Carolina already has low tax rates for multinational corporations whose hunger for profits and super-exploitation of workers knows no limits. Corporations cannot be lured to stay for any long period of time by lowering taxes, as the politicians claim.
As part of the State of Emergency Campaign, some workers who are members of the Carolina Auto, Aerospace and Machine Workers Union, a chapter of UE Local 150, are fighting for recall rights. They are organized in a non-majority union without a collective bargaining agreement. In March 390 of almost 1,500 workers at the Cummins Rocky Mount Engine Plant were laid off. Workers have been rallying and mass petitioning ever since.
The Raleigh People’s Assembly will host a forum on May 30 where teachers, state workers, city workers and youth will speak out against budget cuts. Led by a powerful rank-and-file workers’ organization, this will be an important opportunity for other left and progressive forces to unite and help build a statewide fight-back. The campaign also plans to launch similar actions in 10 other cities throughout the state.
Part of this campaign demands collective bargaining rights for public sector workers, who are still denied that right by law. There are currently two bills in the state General Assembly that would repeal the ban. This is the first time that such a bill has had support in the state Senate.
On May 26, the HOPE (Hear Our Public Employees) Coalition, which includes UE Local 150, NCAE, the Teamsters, the North Carolina AFL-CIO, Triangle Labor Group, the State Employees Association of North Carolina in Service Employees union Local 2008, and others, will convene a lobby day to repeal the ban on collective bargaining.
By Dante Strobino, Workers World, May 31, 2009
Durham, N.C. - When North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue announced that all state workers would be mandated to take 10 unpaid hours off to help balance the budget, many workers began discussing how they could collectively withhold their labor by organizing to take the same time periods off.Then the state legislature began discussing furloughs of up to 20 days for all state workers. But that plan was soon taken off the table after seeing the mass outrage it caused.
City and local governments began looking at similar measures to cut costs on the backs of workers and the oppressed. The city of Durham announced it was laying off 35 workers and eliminating 78 jobs. The city of Charlotte announced similar cuts, including threats to privatize the entire Recycling Department.
Already mass lay-offs and plant closings mean the state now suffers from the country’s second-highest official unemployment rate at 10.8 percent. In reality it is much higher when counting total unemployment, including permanently discouraged workers and the underemployed.
On May 16, a thousand teachers from around the state, organized by the North Carolina Association of Educators, rallied against the 10-hour furloughs. Many of the teachers from rural areas had never been to a rally before, yet it seemed clear to them that cuts to teachers can only be stopped through mass action.
Jennifer Lanane, president of the Wake County Chapter of the NCAE, led the teachers in a strong chant: “Shut it down!” After the rally, the teachers jumped in their cars and went on a motorcade to the governor’s mansion.
On May 18, over 50 city of Durham workers crowded into the chambers of City Hall to listen to City Manager Tom Bonfield present his proposed budget plan. It includes a water utility hike of up to 9.5 percent, a pay raise for police and fire totaling $1.8 million, and elimination of 113 city worker jobs, saving the city $6.5 million.
According to officials, the plan allows the city to get out of the hole from lower sales taxes, state revenue sharing, charges for services and permit fees. At the same time, the city will keep $19.8 million in a reserve fund for what Bonfield called “worse economic times to come.” This amount represents 12.1 percent of the general fund! Unionists have calculated that the city could spend $6.8 million of this money, which only lowers the reserve to 8 percent, maintain a maximum bond rating and save city workers’ jobs.
George MacNeal, a member of the Durham City Workers Chapter of the Electrical Workers union Local 150, told Workers World, “It’s a rainy day now and those funds need to be released. ... If it wasn’t for us, this city wouldn’t run.” The union is launching a broad campaign to get community support against cuts in such services as trash pick-up, which, if it’s allowed to pile up on sidewalks and streets, could become a major public health hazard.
Workers fight to save jobs
UE Local 150 has launched a State of Emergency Campaign around the state to give workers the tools to fight back against budget cuts. Workers have already begun to circulate a petition that demands “No layoffs, furloughs, pay or service cuts,” and “Tax the corporations and the wealthy.”
The state budget has a deficit of up to $4.8 billion, yet the state Senate revenue plan includes additional tax breaks to big corporations like Bank of America, which already receive over $1 billion in tax breaks every year from the state. According to the plan, these tax breaks will increase by as much as $350 million per year!
Gwen Burwell, a licensed practical nurse at state-run Dorothea Dix Hospital in Raleigh and secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services Council of UE Local 150, told Workers World: “I think it is outrageous. It makes me sick that the state is lowering taxes for corporations. What about other people who have children, who have to eat, pay light bills and car bills?”
Burwell continued: “The big corporations’ taxes are cut, but what are they doing with that money? They aren’t giving it to us! We are the ones on the bottom, working hard, getting paid less as they sit on the throne getting richer and richer while our people are suffering.”
North Carolina already has low tax rates for multinational corporations whose hunger for profits and super-exploitation of workers knows no limits. Corporations cannot be lured to stay for any long period of time by lowering taxes, as the politicians claim.
As part of the State of Emergency Campaign, some workers who are members of the Carolina Auto, Aerospace and Machine Workers Union, a chapter of UE Local 150, are fighting for recall rights. They are organized in a non-majority union without a collective bargaining agreement. In March 390 of almost 1,500 workers at the Cummins Rocky Mount Engine Plant were laid off. Workers have been rallying and mass petitioning ever since.
The Raleigh People’s Assembly will host a forum on May 30 where teachers, state workers, city workers and youth will speak out against budget cuts. Led by a powerful rank-and-file workers’ organization, this will be an important opportunity for other left and progressive forces to unite and help build a statewide fight-back. The campaign also plans to launch similar actions in 10 other cities throughout the state.
Part of this campaign demands collective bargaining rights for public sector workers, who are still denied that right by law. There are currently two bills in the state General Assembly that would repeal the ban. This is the first time that such a bill has had support in the state Senate.
On May 26, the HOPE (Hear Our Public Employees) Coalition, which includes UE Local 150, NCAE, the Teamsters, the North Carolina AFL-CIO, Triangle Labor Group, the State Employees Association of North Carolina in Service Employees union Local 2008, and others, will convene a lobby day to repeal the ban on collective bargaining.
Blood workers picket Red Cross over union contract negotiations
By John Nickerson, The Advocate, May 23, 2009
NORWALK -- A dozen unionized Red Cross blood collection workers picketed in front of the American Red Cross chapter office on Westport Avenue on Saturday.
As the others held up signs bearing phrases such as, "Respect the workers," and, "Be fair," AFSCME Local 3145 Vice President Nancy Newton explained that the demonstrators were not trying to steer people away from the weekly blood drive at the office at 596 Westport Ave.
She said the "rolling informational picket" was there to inform the public that the 225 people in her statewide local have worked without a contract since March 31.
Adoption of a new three-year contract has not materialized because the Red Cross is trying to eliminate union bargaining for employee health and disability benefits, shorten rest periods for workers between blood drive shifts, and get rid of the requirement that registered nurses supervise blood drives, Newton said.
A statement from Red Cross Corporate Affairs specialist Elaine St. Peter, who was in the office about 40 feet from the demonstrators, said the Red Cross continues to meet with the union and negotiate in good faith.
The Red Cross has had to take difficult steps to control costs by issuing a salary freeze to all nonunion employees and making changes to its retirement programs for all staff, the statement said.
"These Red Cross contract proposals are consistent with the pay and benefits package provided to our nonunion staffers," it said.
St. Peter said she could not comment further.
Newton, a Rocky Hill resident who is on the union negotiating team, said dropping the requirement that registered nurses supervise blood drives was a safety issue that should not be undertaken.
Picketer Mary Krusiewicz, a registered nurse from West Hartford, said: "Putting unlicensed personnel that will be making medical decisions in charge? That is a safety risk."
She said workers also need the 11-hour break between blood drives, which was guaranteed in their last contract. Newton said the Red Cross wanted workers to have a nine-hour break.
The union's public affairs coordinator, Larry Dorman, said Saturday's demonstration was the second of five planned for the state.
He said the Red Cross national strategy in contract negotiations is driving down the economic and safety standards of Red Cross workers.
The Red Cross statement said its supply of blood has never been safer, and its current contract proposal provides union members with the same insurance as the nonbargaining employees.
Dorman said some state employees will join national members in Washington, D.C., next Friday for a large rally in front of national Red Cross headquarters.
Union and Red Cross negotiators are to meet June 1 in hopes of resolving their differences.
-- Staff Writer John Nickerson can be reached at john.nickerson@scni.com or 964-2320.
NORWALK -- A dozen unionized Red Cross blood collection workers picketed in front of the American Red Cross chapter office on Westport Avenue on Saturday.
As the others held up signs bearing phrases such as, "Respect the workers," and, "Be fair," AFSCME Local 3145 Vice President Nancy Newton explained that the demonstrators were not trying to steer people away from the weekly blood drive at the office at 596 Westport Ave.
She said the "rolling informational picket" was there to inform the public that the 225 people in her statewide local have worked without a contract since March 31.
Adoption of a new three-year contract has not materialized because the Red Cross is trying to eliminate union bargaining for employee health and disability benefits, shorten rest periods for workers between blood drive shifts, and get rid of the requirement that registered nurses supervise blood drives, Newton said.
A statement from Red Cross Corporate Affairs specialist Elaine St. Peter, who was in the office about 40 feet from the demonstrators, said the Red Cross continues to meet with the union and negotiate in good faith.
The Red Cross has had to take difficult steps to control costs by issuing a salary freeze to all nonunion employees and making changes to its retirement programs for all staff, the statement said.
"These Red Cross contract proposals are consistent with the pay and benefits package provided to our nonunion staffers," it said.
St. Peter said she could not comment further.
Newton, a Rocky Hill resident who is on the union negotiating team, said dropping the requirement that registered nurses supervise blood drives was a safety issue that should not be undertaken.
Picketer Mary Krusiewicz, a registered nurse from West Hartford, said: "Putting unlicensed personnel that will be making medical decisions in charge? That is a safety risk."
She said workers also need the 11-hour break between blood drives, which was guaranteed in their last contract. Newton said the Red Cross wanted workers to have a nine-hour break.
The union's public affairs coordinator, Larry Dorman, said Saturday's demonstration was the second of five planned for the state.
He said the Red Cross national strategy in contract negotiations is driving down the economic and safety standards of Red Cross workers.
The Red Cross statement said its supply of blood has never been safer, and its current contract proposal provides union members with the same insurance as the nonbargaining employees.
Dorman said some state employees will join national members in Washington, D.C., next Friday for a large rally in front of national Red Cross headquarters.
Union and Red Cross negotiators are to meet June 1 in hopes of resolving their differences.
-- Staff Writer John Nickerson can be reached at john.nickerson@scni.com or 964-2320.
May 30: Raleigh People’s Assembly - State of Emergency Forum
Saturday, May 30th, 2009
2:00p.m.
211 W. Martin St., Raleigh, NC
(the NC Public Service Workers Union, UE 150 office downtown between
Dawson & McDowell Sts. across from the park & city hall)
Concerned about Working People’s State of Emergency?
Budget Cuts? Lay-Offs & Furloughs? Governments balancing budgets on the backs of workers? Cuts to Education and School Programs? Recall rights for laid off workers? Increased healthcare costs? Increased tuition? Cuts in community programs?
. . then, this forum and discussion is a must for you, your family, neighbors, co-workers, church members, civic club and organization members, union members and youth.
Raise your voice & make a difference! If not you, then who?
Call: Nathanette at 919-876-7187 or Olga at 919-269-7085 for more
information or e-mail: fruitoflaborwcc@netscape.com
2:00p.m.
211 W. Martin St., Raleigh, NC
(the NC Public Service Workers Union, UE 150 office downtown between
Dawson & McDowell Sts. across from the park & city hall)
Concerned about Working People’s State of Emergency?
Budget Cuts? Lay-Offs & Furloughs? Governments balancing budgets on the backs of workers? Cuts to Education and School Programs? Recall rights for laid off workers? Increased healthcare costs? Increased tuition? Cuts in community programs?
. . then, this forum and discussion is a must for you, your family, neighbors, co-workers, church members, civic club and organization members, union members and youth.
Raise your voice & make a difference! If not you, then who?
Call: Nathanette at 919-876-7187 or Olga at 919-269-7085 for more
information or e-mail: fruitoflaborwcc@netscape.com
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