[Educationforall] spam con huevos, labor news, views and concerns, 12.12.11-I
Carlos Pelayo
cgpelayo at hotmail.com
Tue Dec 13 07:04:18 UTC 2011
Mexico's La Jornada Bloquean Ocupas entradas a puertos de Oakland y San Diego Fw: Andrés Ruiz Furlong shared a link on your Wall.
West Coast Port Shutdown Sparks Heated Debate betweenUnions, Occupy
An Open Letter from America's Port Truck Drivers on Occupy the Ports
People of the Central Valley 5
AFRICAN AMERICAN TENANTS FIGHT A STOCKTON SLUMLORD
Lawrence Weschler on Moving Beyond OWS
Over 1,500 March at Occupy Oakland's Port of Oakland Demonstration: Police Say, "No Work Stoppage"
Long-Term Jobless Eye Bleak Future as Benefits End
ACN Trade Unionists of the Americas Demand Release of the Cuban Five
House Republican Leaders Rush to Save the 1%
NPR News and Kaiser Poll Examines Experiences and Views of Long-term Unemployed
Anti-Union Law Squeezes Wisconsin Teachers
Child Labor, Torture and Rape: Attempts to Regulate the Brutal Diamond Industry Failing
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Bloquean 'ocupas' entradas a puertos de Oakland y San Diego
En tanto, otros grupos marchaban a las terminales en Long Beach, Los Ángeles, Seattle y Anchorage.
Notimex
Publicado: 12/12/2011 09:00
San Diego. Manifestantes contra Wall Street bloquearon este lunes las entradas a los puertos marítimos en Oakland y San Diego, mientras otros grupos marchaban a las terminales en Long Beach, Los Ángeles, Seattle y Anchorage.
Unos 60 manifestantes bloquearon una de las dos entradas al puerto de San Diego al final de una marcha desde el vecindario latino Barrio Logan, mientras otro grupo se dirigía al portal restante.
Por lo menos 250 policías de distintas corporaciones vigilaban a distancia prudente la protesta.
El grupo ante el portal del puerto circulaba tras una manta en fondo azul con la leyenda: "La globalización explota, esclaviza y contamina".
La organización Ocupe San Diego informó que permanecerá en las inmediaciones hasta horas de la tarde, cuando cientos de camiones de carga tendrían que salir del puerto para distribuir mercancías que llegan de la Cuenca del Pacífico al sur de California.
En Oakland, otro grupo se apostó a la entrada del puerto más importante del norte de California. Es la segunda vez que Ocupe Oakland obliga a suspender operaciones en la terminal marítima de esa ciudad.
Por su parte, otros contingentes marchaban a los puertos de Los Ángeles, Long Beach, Seattle y Anchorage. Ocupe Portland, en el estado de Oregon, informó que bloqueó ese puerto sin incidentes también esta mañana.
La organización de manifestantes contra Wall Street esperaba impactar a la banca Goldman Sacks, una corporación que según Ocupe Wall Street basa buena parte de sus operaciones en intercambio económico marítimo.
Aunque el Sindicato de Estibadores demanda la renovación de su contrato colectivo en Long Beach y Oakland, la unión sindical informó que los manifestantes contra Wall Street no les representan en su protesta.
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Occupy Protesters Seek to Shut West Coast Ports
By Agence France Presse
West Coast Port Shutdown Sparks Heated Debate between
Unions, Occupy
by Evan Rohar
Labor Notes
December 12, 2011
http://labornotes.org/print/2011/12/west-coast-port-shutdown-sparks-heated-debate-between-unions-occupy
For the second time in a month, the Occupy movement
called for mass action to shut down port operations.
This time, the occupiers targeted the entire West
Coast.
The Occupy Oakland General Assembly unanimously adopted
a proposal November 18 calling for the "blockade and
disruption of the economic apparatus of the 1% with a
coordinated shutdown of ports on the entire West Coast
on December 12." (General assemblies are meetings, open
to all, that make decisions for Occupy groups, using
consensus.)
The motion declares solidarity with Longshore Union
(ILWU) members in Longview, Washington, in their
struggle against grain terminal operator EGT. The
company has refused to hire ILWU members and is now in
a drawn-out battle that could shape the future of the
4,000 union members who work the Pacific Northwest's
grain elevators.
Occupiers planned the shutdown without consulting with
the union, and the ILWU put out a statement December 6
to its members and supporters disclaiming support for
the action and claiming its prerogative in the fight
against EGT. "The ILWU has a long history of
democracy," wrote ILWU President Bob McElrath. "Part of
that historic democracy is the hard-won right to chart
our own course to victory."
Members of the Occupy movement interpreted the union's
distancing itself as, at best, a legal safeguard
against the fines that could result from a work
stoppage that violates the contract's strike bar. At
worst, they saw it as a product of the union movement's
timidity, born of decades of retreat and identification
with employer interests.
ILWU members and officials expressed alarm at how the
port shutdown was called and questioned why the Occupy
movements called for action without consulting the
people that action would affect most.
Occupy spokespeople responded that they reached out to
union members after the shutdown call was made. Kari
Koch of Occupy Portland said they have been flyering at
shift changes at the port for a week. "We would not be
doing this action if we didn't have any support from
the rank and file," Koch said.
But occupiers didn't call ILWU Local 8 there, she said.
(They sent an email.) Occupiers were worried the local
could be legally liable if it coordinated with
protesters.
Huge numbers showed up at the gates this morning in
Oakland and shut three port gates. Occupiers, who plan
to disrupt the afternoon shift as well, reported no
animosity from ILWU members and port truckers.
While it's certainly the case that the union movement
needs a kick in the pants, and the occupiers have done
a lot to aim the shoe, ILWU members and officers say
democracy in movements-union and Occupy alike-means
giving say to the people affected, not assuming their
participation or support because an action is just.
But Mike Parker, a retired UAW activist in the Bay Area
and co-author of Democracy Is Power, said most strikes
are inconvenient for someone, including other workers.
Their success relies on all workers affected by an
action honoring the line, whether or not they felt
appropriately warned.
Other unionists involved in the occupy movement say the
ILWU should recognize the need for tactical
flexibility.
"The Occupy movement is simply taking from labor
history," said Robbie Donohoe, an Electrical Workers
member who has been active in organizing for the
shutdown. "We're making it safer for workers to
challenge the boundaries of laws that were created to
secure the reins of power firmly in the hands of the
1%."
HERE WE GO
Regardless of whether ILWU leaders support the
shutdown, union and community members have done person-
to-person outreach to make it succeed.
The Oakland Education Association's executive board
backed the call; President Betty Olsen Jones has been
leaftleting port truckers at 6 a.m. along with
occupiers and union activists.
A largely immigrant workforce of "independent
contractors" that move cargo in and out of the ports,
the truckers are legally prevented from unionizing.
Some criticized the November 2 port shutdown in Oakland
because the truckers were unprepared for the huge march
that succeeded in shutting down the port, which trapped
many of them for hours. Lacking a union, they have few
structures to appeal to for support.
Anthony Levierge of the Bay Area's ILWU Local 10 and a
half-dozen active rank and filers have been passing out
flyers and explaining the rationale for the shutdown to
fellow members. "It's been a mixed bag of attitudes,"
he said, adding that he believed members would "honor
the history and legacy of social justice unionism that
ILWU members have fought hard for."
The West Coast longshore union has a history of
honoring community picket lines for good causes, but
the question of how those actions are decided-and
actually brought to bear against multinational
employers who move billions of dollars of goods through
the ports-is a complicated matter.
Samantha Levens, a Bay Area member of the Inland
Boatmen's Union, an ILWU affiliate, said education and
preparation among the members should have been a first
priority. She noted that some previous shutdowns took
months to prepare-like a May Day work stoppage in 2008.
When confronted with a picket line at port gates, ILWU
members have the right under their coastwide contract
to stop work and call an arbitrator to rule on possible
safety threats or the validity of the picket line.
Success in shutting down ports along the coast depends
upon presenting a credible safety threat to longshore
workers. If emergency vehicles cannot make it into the
port, or if the workers feel threatened by mass pickets
and police presence, they will call an arbitrator to
decide whether the action presents a bona fide risk.
The decision to call an arbitrator can delay the
beginning of work, and if the workers are sent home
they may not be paid, depending on the circumstance.
Port bosses warned the ILWU that the 2008 May Day
stoppage against the military occupation of Iraq and
Afghanistan was "unauthorized" but members went through
with it regardless.
"Because the members had discussed and debated it
before they voted on it and had been building support
amongst the ranks heading towards the vote, the buy-in
and ownership of the action was firmly in the hands of
the members," Levens said.
THUMBS UP AND DOWN
Complicating the union landscape have been efforts from
Bay Area building trades unions to force labor to
oppose today's port shutdown.
The Alameda Central Labor Council, with the approval of
ILWU Local 10's president, tabled a motion that
condemned the Occupy action, after several delegates
argued that the occupiers deserved at least neutrality.
But the Building Trades Council denounced the shutdown,
and the Alameda council hurriedly adopted a negative
position December 5.
After the first resolution was tabled, the CLC's
Executive Secretary Treasurer Josie Camacho (whose
husband Victor Uno is an Oakland port commissioner and
Electrical Workers business manager) pushed a second
motion decrying the shutdown.
Eric Larsen, member relations secretary for AFSCME
Local 444 and labor liaison with Occupy Oakland, was
barred from addressing the CLC about the port action.
"I pleaded with them to let me speak," he said. "They
would not."
He said council leaders claimed the reason for
rejecting him, and their denunciation of the shutdown,
came from Occupy's inability to communicate.
ORIGIN: LOS ANGELES
Originally, the idea of a December 12 protest was
initiated by Occupy Los Angeles, to coincide with
immigrants' rights activities around Our Lady of
Guadalupe Day.
Sarah Knopp, a 12-year member of the Teachers union
(UTLA) in Los Angeles, said occupiers decided to target
SSA Marine, a terminal operator owned by Goldman Sachs
with container terminals in North and South America and
in Vietnam.
SSA Marine is notorious for its environmental, labor,
and human rights abuses and its exploitation of port
truck drivers paid piece rates to move cargo containers
on and off the docks. Occupiers were also motivated by
the firing of 27 port truckers who work for a separate
firm, Toll Group. Those fired had worn Teamster shirts,
part of a long-running campaign to beat the legal
prohibitions on organizing.
After Oakland Occupy expanded the call to all ports on
the West Coast, Occupy L.A. decided to stay with its
original plan-a march from Harry Bridges Park to an SSA
terminal, and a community picket to block a gate. The
ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles take up 25 miles of
coastland and handle 85 percent of all traffic on the
West Coast, an operation too vast to blockade with the
numbers the protesters expected.
Knopp and fellow occupiers stood outside a recent ILWU
Local 13 meeting and flyered the workers to build
support for the SSA action. They received a "totally
friendly reception," Knopp said. "Everyone thinks it's
a great idea."
"We're initiating a process where the Occupy movement
can build a base in the labor movement," said Michael
Novick, a UTLA retiree.
Saying that L.A. occupiers recognize the ILWU is not a
position to act today (and its leadership was not
solicited to participate), Novick added that the port
truckers may be better placed to carry out the action
in this crucial port. With no union contract, they face
no sanction except loss of a day's pay.
A loose association of port truck organizers who helped
to shut the port on May 1, 2006, when immigrants rights
protests shook the country, met December 9 to decide
whether to attempt a similar action December 12.
Ernesto Nevarez, a port truck organizer, said truckers
at the Los Angeles-Long Beach port stayed away for
hours Monday morning as nearly 1,000 marchers rallied
at port gates.
SPLIT, DEMOCRATICALLY
Every ILWU officer and international staffer reiterates
the union's solidarity with the Occupy movement and its
goals. But the December 12 action has annoyed many.
Cameron Williams, president of Local 19 in Seattle,
said, "It's kind of like if I planned a party at your
house and didn't ask about it." Local officers say
occupiers circumvented the union's democratic process.
"The occupiers have been understandably confused by
mixed signals from individuals in the ILWU," said Craig
Merrilees, communications director for the
international. He believes some members are speaking to
occupiers without the backing of the organization's
internal democratic process.
President Scott Mason of Local 23 in Tacoma,
Washington, said he hasn't "felt much movement either
way" from the members.
"Local 8 officers aren't in support of it," said Jeff
Smith, president of the Portland longshore local. "If
it went to a rank-and-file vote I don't know what would
happen."
Rank and filers won't get a chance to have their say.
Local 8's next membership meeting is December 14.
Occupiers leafleted the dispatch hall but members say
they might have succeeded in convincing more of the
Portland rank and file if outreach had started before
the action was set.
Levens expressed support for the Occupy movement's
goal-to confront corporate power-but not its approach
in this action.
"The lack of communication with the members and union
officials leaves the Occupy activists and union members
without the benefit of sharing our [earlier] Oakland
experience with shutting down the port and community
pickets," said Levens, who has been active in Oakland
general assemblies.
Parker said the constraints on unions are too great to
expect a better process.
"Even if Occupy Oakland were the best, most democratic
it could be, there is no way that they could consult
with elected leaders of the ILWU," he said. "Unions are
faced with a choice of gambling everything [by openly
supporting a strike] or of protecting themselves by
disclaiming responsibility and honoring lines by using
loopholes."
It doesn't help that the institutions assessing
liability-right-wing courts-are not on labor's side.
Parker says the occupiers may have to look for new ways
to hit the 1%.
"The continued focus on the docks, because it is easy
and takes advantage of the solidarity traditions of the
dock workers, makes the dock workers themselves the
targets and the targets start resenting it," Parker
said.
SOLIDARITY WITH LONGVIEW
Occupy Oakland said a big part of the reason for
today's action was solidarity with ILWU Local 21 in its
struggle against grain shipper EGT. Some in the
movement say the ILWU officialdom, which badly needs to
beat EGT, is merely covering its legal bases by
distancing itself from the action.
But leaders of locals up and down the coast say a
coastwide work stoppage for Local 21 could actually
harm its struggle, by uniting employers to support EGT.
A more immediate fear could be legal reprisals
resulting from an injunction and contempt charges
leveled by a federal judge against Local 21 and the
international. Fines for the local's disruptions,
blockades, and grain-dumping this summer have already
totaled $315,000.
If a federal judge determines that occupiers are acting
on the union's behalf, Mason said, "we can be charged
$5,000 for every incident."
Still, Local 21 President Dan Coffman, who gave a
speech about EGT to Occupy Oakland the day after its
general assembly adopted the shutdown call, does not
conceal his enthusiasm for the movement.
Coffman cited the November 2 port shutdown as an
inspiration to his members, who have been on the picket
line for six months.
Supporters of Occupy and ILWU Local 21 are preparing
for January, when a ship headed for Asia is scheduled
to retrieve grain from the disputed elevator in
Longview. An independently organized action could allow
the ILWU to circumvent the legal minefield set in front
of its own membership.
"We're going to do whatever we can to stop that ship
from being loaded," Coffman vowed.
Eduardo Soriano-Castillo contributed to this story from
Oakland.
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An Open Letter from America's Port Truck Drivers on
Occupy the Ports
December 12, 2011
http://cleanandsafeports.org/blog/2011/12/12/an-open-letter-from-america%E2%80%99s-port-truck-drivers-on-occupy-the-ports/
We are the front-line workers who haul container rigs
full of imported and exported goods to and from the
docks and warehouses every day.
We have been elected by committees of our co-workers at
the Ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach, Oakland, Seattle,
Tacoma, New York and New Jersey to tell our collective
story. We have accepted the honor to speak up for our
brothers and sisters about our working conditions
despite the risk of retaliation we face. One of us is a
mother, the rest of us fathers. Between the five of us
we have 11children and one more baby on the way. We
have a combined 46 years of experience driving cargo
from our shores for America's stores.
We are inspired that a non-violent democratic movement
that insists on basic economic fairness is capturing
the hearts and minds of so many working people. Thank
you "99 Percenters" for hearing our call for justice.
We are humbled and overwhelmed by recent attention.
Normally we are invisible.
Today's demonstrations will impact us. While we cannot
officially speak for every worker who shares our
occupation, we can use this opportunity to reveal what
it's like to walk a day in our shoes for the 110,000 of
us in America whose job it is to be a port truck
driver. It may be tempting for media to ask questions
about whether we support a shutdown, but there are no
easy answers. Instead, we ask you, are you willing to
listen and learn why a one-word response is impossible?
We love being behind the wheel. We are proud of the
work we do to keep America's economy moving. But we
feel humiliated when we receive paychecks that suggest
we work part time at a fast-food counter. Especially
when we work an average of 60 or more hours a week,
away from our families.
There is so much at stake in our industry. It is one of
the nation's most dangerous occupations. We don't think
truck driving should be a dead-end road in America. It
should be a good job with a middle-class paycheck like
it used to be decades ago.
We desperately want to drive clean and safe vehicles.
Rigs that do not fill our lungs with deadly toxins, or
dirty the air in the communities we haul in.
Poverty and pollution are like a plague at the ports.
Our economic conditions are what led to the
environmental crisis.
You, the public, have paid a severe price along with
us.
Why? Just like Wall Street doesn't have to abide by
rules, our industry isn't bound to regulation. So the
market is run by con artists. The companies we work for
call us independent contractors, as if we were our own
bosses, but they boss us around. We receive Third World
wages and drive sweatshops on wheels. We cannot
negotiate our rates. (Usually we are not allowed to
even see them.) We are paid by the load, not by the
hour. So when we sit in those long lines at the
terminals, or if we are stuck in traffic, we become
volunteers who basically donate our time to the
trucking and shipping companies. That's the nice way to
put it. We have all heard the words "modern-day slaves"
at the lunch stops.
There are no restrooms for drivers. We keep empty
bottles in our cabs. Plastic bags too. We feel like
dogs. An Oakland driver was recently banned from the
terminal because he was spied relieving himself behind
a container. Neither the port, nor the terminal
operators or anyone in the industry thinks it is their
responsibility to provide humane and hygienic
facilities for us. It is absolutely horrible for
drivers who are women, who risk infection when they try
to hold it until they can find a place to go.
The companies demand we cut corners to compete. It
makes our roads less safe. When we try to blow the
whistle about skipped inspections, faulty equipment, or
falsified logs, then we are "starved out." That means
we are either fired outright, or more likely, we never
get dispatched to haul a load again.
It may be difficult to comprehend the complex issues
and nature of our employment. For us too. When
businesses disguise workers like us as contractors, the
Department of Labor calls it misclassification. We call
it illegal. Those who profit from global trade and
goods movement are getting away with it because
everyone is doing it. One journalist took the time to
talk to us this week and she explains it very well to
outsiders. We hope you will read the enclosed article
"How Goldman Sachs and Other Companies Exploit Port
Truck Drivers."
But the short answer to the question: Why are companies
like SSA Marine, the Seattle-based global terminal
operator that runs one of the West Coast's major
trucking carriers, Shippers' Transport Express, doing
this? Why would mega-rich Maersk, a huge Danish
shipping and trucking conglomerate that wants to drill
for more oil with Exxon Mobil in the Gulf Coast conduct
business this way too?
To cheat on taxes, drive down business costs, and deny
us the right to belong to a union, that's why.
The typical arrangement works like this: Everything
comes out of our pockets or is deducted from our
paychecks. The truck or lease, fuel, insurance,
registration, you name it. Our employers do not have to
pay the costs of meeting emissions-compliant
regulations; that is our financial burden to bear.
Clean trucks cost about four to five times more than
what we take home in a year. A few of us haul our
company's trucks for a tiny fraction of what the
shippers pay per load instead of an hourly wage. They
still call us independent owner-operators and give us a
1099 rather than a W-2.
We have never recovered from losing our basic rights as
employees in America. Every year it literally goes from
bad to worse to the unimaginable. We were ground zero
for the government's first major experiment into
letting big business call the shots. Since it worked so
well for the CEOs in transportation, why not the
mortgage and banking industry too?
Even the few of us who are hired as legitimate
employees are routinely denied our legal rights under
this system. Just ask our co-workers who haul clothing
brands like Guess?, Under Armour, and Ralph Lauren's
Polo. The carrier they work for in Los Angeles is
called Toll Group and is headquartered in Australia. At
the busiest time of the holiday shopping season, 26
drivers were axed after wearing Teamster T-shirts to
work. They were protesting the lack of access to clean,
indoor restrooms with running water. The company hired
an anti-union consultant to intimidate the drivers.
Down Under, the same company bargains with 12,000 of
our counterparts in good faith.
Despite our great hardships, many of us cannot - or
refuse to, as some of the most well-intentioned suggest
- "just quit." First, we want to work and do not have a
safety net. Many of us are tied to one-sided leases.
But more importantly, why should we have to leave?
Truck driving is what we do, and we do it well.
We are the skilled, specially-licensed professionals
who guarantee that Target, Best Buy, and Wal-Mart are
all stocked with just-in-time delivery for consumers.
Take a look at all the stuff in your house. The things
you see advertised on TV. Chances are a port truck
driver brought that special holiday gift to the store
you bought it.
We would rather stick together and transform our
industry from within. We deserve to be fairly rewarded
and valued. That is why we have united to stage
convoys, park our trucks, marched on the boss, and even
shut down these ports.
It's like our hero Dutch Prior, a Shipper's/SSA Marine
driver, told CBS Early Morning this month: "If you
don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything."
The more underwater we are, the more our restlessness
grows. We are being thoughtful about how best to
organize ourselves and do what is needed to win
dignity, respect, and justice.
Nowadays greedy corporations are treated as "people"
while the politicians they bankroll cast union members
who try to improve their workplaces as "thugs."
But we believe in the power and potential behind a
truly united 99%. We admire the strength and
perseverance of the longshoremen. We are fighting like
mad to overcome our exploitation, so please, stick by
us long after December 12. Our friends in the Coalition
for Clean & Safe Ports created a pledge you can sign to
support us here.
We drivers have a saying, "We may not have a union yet,
but no one can stop us from acting like one."
The brothers and sisters of the Teamsters have our
backs. They help us make our voices heard. But we need
your help too so we can achieve the day where we raise
our fists and together declare: "No one could stop us
from forming a union."
Thank you.
In solidarity,
Leonardo Mejia
SSA Marine/Shippers Transport Express
Port of Long Beach
10-year driver
Yemane Berhane
Ports of Seattle & Tacoma
6-year port driver
Xiomara Perez
Toll Group
Port of Los Angeles
8-year driver
Abdul Khan
Port of Oakland
7-year port driver
Ramiro Gotay
Ports of New York & New Jersey
15-year port driver
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People of the Central Valley 5
AFRICAN AMERICAN TENANTS FIGHT A STOCKTON SLUMLORD
Photos and text by David Bacon
STOCKTON, CA (12/12/11) - Doyle Gardens sounds like it might be a pleasant apartment complex, where residents stroll down walkways between flower beds surrounded by greenery. Its name is a lie.
In this large apartment complex in downtown Stockton the residents, mostly poor and working-class African American families, instead live with terrible conditions. Patricia Norman points to the trash outside her door. Yolanda Jackson's sink is on its last legs, and the insulation on the door of her refrigerator can't keep the cold locked inside. Tomoro Hooper sits disconsolately beneath the broken towel racks of his bathroom, while his grandmother, Patricia Perkins, stares at the cracks in the linoleum.
In Laronda Trishell's apartment the bathroom is also falling apart,. One of the drawers in her kitchen has a bottom that doesn't slide. If she forgets when she pulls it out, all her utensils wind up on the floor.
Vicky Robinson used to live in the complex too. She still feels a commitment to the friends she made there, and today helps them get organized to force the landlord to fix the many problems. Some have even complained of bedbug and cockroach infestations. Robinson points to a hole in a window made by a bullet. Instead of replacing the glass, though, a plywood sheet sits in the frame behind to broken pane. Robinson meets with tenants around a table in the courtyard, to talk about these and other defects.
Disabled resident Ricky Cobb reads a notice taped to his door by the landlord, so nervous now about the organizing that people from the manager's office keep track of the meetings and visitors. This fall the tension came to a head, when 20 current and former tenants filed a suit against George Garcia and Starr Property Management. The management firm says it no longer handles the Doyle Gardens property for Garcia, who operates a local bail bond company and owns the complex.
While conditions at Doyle Gardens seem extreme, they reflect the high level of poverty in the San Joaquin Valley, especially among African American families. According to a report by Sarah Bohn of the Public Policy Institute of California, Central Valley counties around Fresno (Merced, Tulare, Kings, Kern, and San Joaquin) were among the poorest, with poverty rates in excess of 20%. Stockton is the largest city in San Joaquin County, where 22% of the people live below the poverty line. In California as a whole, Bohn says, African Americans have a poverty rate of 22.1%.
The 35,000 African Americans living in Stockton make up 12% of its population. With a rental vacancy rate of 9.4%, you'd think people might find another place to live. But many tenants are trapped in Doyle Gardens by the restrictions on the Section 8 subsidies, for which they qualify because of their extremely low incomes. In effect, housing authorities are acting as Garcia's enablers by allowing him to continue to collect the subsidy while making few, if any repairs.
Even city code enforcers seem lackadaisical. Richard Dean, program manager for code enforcement, told the Stockton Record after the suit was filed that Garcia is "working pretty well with us," that he has a "management plan" and has made changes. "At this point, we're comfortable we're heading in the right direction," Dean told the Record. Garcia called the suit a "shakedown."
Many residents are clients of California Rural Legal Assistance, which is helping them to sue Garcia. "We believe the housing conditions to be substandard," explained Marcela Diaz, the directing attorney in CRLA's Stockton office.
For more articles and images, see http://dbacon.igc.org
See also Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants (Beacon Press, 2008)
Recipient: C.L.R. James Award, best book of 2007-2008
http://www.beacon.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=2002
See also the photodocumentary on indigenous migration to the US
Communities Without Borders (Cornell University/ILR Press, 2006)
http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=4575
See also The Children of NAFTA, Labor Wars on the U.S./Mexico Border (University of California, 2004)
http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9989.html --
__________________________________
David Bacon, Photographs and Stories
http://dbacon.igc.org
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Lawrence Weschler on Moving Beyond OWS
"Time to Start Preoccupying Wall Street" -- What would it be like if activists were to spend the next several months developing, articulating and organizing toward a major national mortgage and student loan strike? Such a loan strike would be slated to begin on some specific preannounced date in the intermediate future. Why not, say, on Oct. 1, 2012, right in the middle of the next presidential campaign?
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Over 1,500 March at Occupy Oakland's Port of Oakland Demonstration: Police Say, "No Work Stoppage"
Susan Mernit, Oakland Local: "More than 1,500 marchers are at the Port this morning, according to Oakland police. 400 protesters at Berths 55/56 of the Port of Oakland are marching to shut down the facility at the same time that police in riot gear are massing to stop them."
Read the Article
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Long-Term Jobless Eye Bleak Future as Benefits End
Read the Article at Reuters
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acnnews 5
Trade Unionists of the Americas Demand Release of the Cuban Five
HAVANA, Cuba, Dec 12 (acn) A text demanding the immediate and
unconditional release of Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labañino, Fernando
Gonzalez and Antonio Guerrero —who along with Rene Gonzalez are
internationally known as the Cuban Five— will be delivered to the office
of U.S. President Barack Obama and to the U.S. embassy in Mexico.
According to the Trabajadores weekly, the document was approved by trade
unionists from the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Uruguay and Cuba during
a recently concluded Union-Political Course sponsored by the Our Americas
Trade Union Meeting.
The text condemns the injustice committed against the Cuban Five, who were
arrested in 1998 and given harsh sentences for monitoring anti-Cuba
right-wing groups in South Florida that were planning and carrying out
terrorist actions against the Caribbean nation.
Hernandez, Guerrero, Labañino and Fernando Gonzalez remain unjustly
imprisoned while Rene Gonzalez was recently released, but he was forced to
stay in U.S. territory for three years on probation.
The declaration holds the U.S. Government responsible for the safety of
Rene Gonzalez, who is being prevented from joining his family in Cuba.
Cuban5/ef/12:25
Entregarán en oficina de Obama texto solidario con los Cinco
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Dec. 12, 2011
Actor Ben Kingsley shows how a Robin Hood tax on Big Banks wouldn’t hurt the 1% but would help the 99%.
House Republican leaders unveiled a budget plan Friday that would cut benefits for jobless workers, cut pay for public employees, cut preventive health services, reduce premium assistance for low- and middle-income individuals buying health insurance and raise premiums for many Medicare beneficiaries. Who does it help? The 1 percent.
Got comments? Post them at blog.aflcio.org.
Forget the BMW. We Want a Tiny Fraction of a Cent
NLRB Drops Boeing Case as Machinists Requested
These Corps Skirt Taxes, Cough Up Millions for Lobbyists
Check Out Visits by Jobless Workers to Lawmakers’ Capitol Hill Offices
Human Rights Day: Celebrate Our Struggles, Build for the Future
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To find out more about the AFL-CIO, please visit our website at www.aflcio.org.
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Monday, December 12, 2011
NPR News and Kaiser Poll Examines Experiences and Views of Long-term Unemployed
CONTACT
Rakesh Singh
(650) 854-9400
rsingh at kff.org
Chris Lee
(202) 347-5270
clee at kff.org
As the country struggles to recover from the impact of the Great Recession, one much discussed and analyzed economic measure has been the number of Americans who are unemployed. NPR News and the Kaiser Family Foundation partnered on the Long-Term Unemployed Survey to better describe the experiences and views of two groups of individuals: the long-term unemployed (those who have been out of work for a year or more and would prefer to be working) and the long-term underemployed (those who are working part-time and have been without full-time work for over one year, but are interested in full-time employment). Today marks the release of the survey findings, which are available online and at NPR.org.
NPR is reporting the first part in a series based on the findings today on "Morning Edition." The series, "Still No Job: Over A Year Without Enough Work," will continue throughout the remainder of the year across all newsmagazines and at NPR.org.
Among the many findings about the long-term un- and underemployed:
Most of the long-term un- and underemployed previously held jobs that were fairly low-paying (more than half earned less than $30,000 a year in their last job). While a small share say leaving their last job was their own choice, about half say it was their employer’s decision, and another one in five say it was some of both.
Fewer than four in ten are very or somewhat confident they’ll be able to find a job with the pay and benefits they need to get by.
Three-quarters say they feel financially insecure and majorities say that in the past two years, they have taken money out of savings or retirement funds to pay bills, been contacted by a collection agency, sold personal belongings, or borrowed money from relatives or friends.
A third say that in the past two years, they’ve changed their living situation, such as moving in with relatives or friends in order to save money, nearly a quarter say they’ve had their utilities turned off and nine percent report losing their home due to eviction or foreclosure.
Many of those who have been grappling with joblessness for a long time report negative impacts on their mental and physical health. More than half say that as a result of being out of work they have had difficulty sleeping or gained or lost more than 10 pounds. A third say they have lost touch with close friends or family members as a result of their employment struggles, and they are more likely to say their relationships with their spouses, family members, and friends have gotten worse rather than better.
More than four in ten say they or another member of their household have had problems paying medical bills in the past two years, and nearly three-quarters also report at least one problem in the household with skipping or delaying care due to cost in the past year.
Just over one in ten feel the federal, state, and local governments have helped them "a lot" while they’ve been out of work, and when asked about federal government efforts to try and deal with the country’s economic situation, the long-term un- and underemployed are more than three times as likely to say these efforts have hurt them and their family as to say they have helped.
While almost four in ten say their employment situation makes them more likely to vote in the next election, the large majority says that being out of work has not changed their political views.
The full question wording, findings and methodology of the survey as well as a link to all the NPR reports based on the survey can be viewed online.
The survey is part of a series of polling projects about health-related issues by NPR and the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Representatives of the two organizations worked together to develop the survey questionnaire and to analyze the results, with NPR maintaining sole editorial control over its broadcasts and online reporting relating to the survey results. The survey research team included Mollyann Brodie, Ph.D., Liz Hamel, Bianca DiJulio, Sarah Cho, and Theresa Boston from the Kaiser Family Foundation; and Joe Neel, Vickie Walton, Steve Drummond, Uri Berliner and Anne Gudenkauf from NPR.
The survey was conducted via landline and cellular telephone Oct. 17-Nov. 16, 2011 among a nationally representative random sample of adults ages 18-64 who met the definition of long-term unemployed (N=413), long-term underemployed (N=300), or full-time employed (N=757). The margin of sampling error for the total sample of un- and underemployed and for full-time workers is +/-5 percentage points; for results based on subsets of respondents the margin of sampling error is somewhat higher.
The Kaiser Family Foundation, a leader in health policy analysis, health journalism and communication, is dedicated to filling the need for trusted, independent information on the biggest health issues facing our nation and its people. The Foundation is a non-profit private operating foundation, based in Menlo Park, California.
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Anti-Union Law Squeezes Wisconsin Teachers
BY EVAN ROHAR
DECEMBER 5, 2011
LABOR NOTES
http://labornotes.org/2011/11/anti-union-law-squeezes-wisconsin-teachers
Wisconsin teachers are feeling the pinch as the
consequences of Governor Scott Walker’s anti-union bill
set in. The campaign to recall Walker announced late
November it had 300,000 of the 540,000 signatures
needed by mid-January to force a vote.
Education budget cuts of $1.6 billion eliminated about
4,000 teaching and support positions statewide. The
union is reaching out to parents and grandparents to
stress the impact the layoffs will have on students—and
hopes to build on those relationships in its effort to
recall Walker and overturn the law.
Christina Brey, a spokeswoman for the Wisconsin
Education Association Council (WEAC), noted that
elements of the law’s implementation, such as what
specifically constitutes collective bargaining, are yet
unclear. "The legislation was created that way—to keep
everything in chaos," she said. "Instability is
something that this administration has thrived on when
it comes to public workers."
Now many school districts are imposing new employee
handbooks on teachers in place of contracts,
unilaterally establishing more onerous work conditions.
Teachers in the Milwaukee suburb of New Berlin have
been organizing against a handbook that was implemented
without teacher input at the beginning of the school
year.
It includes provisions for a work day as long as 11
hours, elimination of preparation periods during the
day, and additional training after work without
compensation.
The school board claimed that soliciting teacher input
would amount to illegal collective bargaining, even
though other districts did so without state
interference.
Grievance procedures have turned into a "kangaroo
court" whose highest body is the school board, said
Ellen La Luzerne, a WEAC regional staffer for suburban
and rural districts south and west of Madison.
Five WEAC locals in the Milwaukee area, along with AFT
Local 212 and AFSCME, mobilized 200 members to the
back-to-school board meeting at which the New Berlin
handbook was adopted.
The union’s efforts were enough to beat back some of
the provisions, including demeaning skirt length
requirements and a cut in sick days by more than half.
Still, the new handbook eliminated a sick leave bank,
in which members pooled extra days to aid stricken
colleagues, such as those with cancer, who’d run out of
their own sick days. Staffer Steven Cupery said the
district is hurting people at "their greatest time of
need."
The school district called the teachers’ mobilization
"union bullying," and board members complained that the
union brought outsiders to the meeting.
Cupery said the district has "no problem with outsiders
and bullying when it’s the Tea Party."
He said right-wingers mobilized by a wealthy Milwaukee
talk radio host heckled teachers at the meeting,
interrupting them during public comment and pelting
them with pacifiers.
STILL WORTH IT
With dues checkoff gone, collective bargaining
outlawed, and unions decertified by default, the new
environment has forced WEAC to take an organizing-model
approach and get closer to its members.
The union is ratcheting up its activist base by holding
more meetings, producing newsletters more frequently,
pushing a union message through social networking, and
spending more time in one-on-one conversations with
members.
Still, keeping the union afloat without steady
financing is taking a toll. In anticipation of lost
revenue, 40 staffers got layoff notices in August.
Units with contract extensions that preserved dues
checkoff softened the blow, as did the hard work of
WEAC staff and members who signed members up for dues
collection. About half the layoff notices were
rescinded.
BEAT THE DEVIL
The union is striking back against Wisconsin’s
conservative movement, going after its paragon Scott
Walker in a recall effort that kicked off November 15.
After the uprising that brought 100,000 into the
streets last winter against Walker’s law, Wisconsin
unions tried to recall six Republican senators this
summer. They managed to defeat only two of the three
they needed to flip the senate.
But through its coalition work in the recalls, the
teachers union realized it could mobilize a broad base
of Wisconsinites, not just its own members, Brey said.
With the Walker recall, the union sees an advantage in
a statewide vote, too, rather than trying to win in
senate districts that tilted Republican.
The Walker recall will proceed without financial
backing from national unions, however, so WEAC will
rely on its energized membership to get friends,
family, and neighbors out to the polls. Recall
campaigners announced late November they had 300,000 of
the 540,000 signatures needed by mid-January to force a
vote.
Teacher unions are also using the struggle against the
handbooks as a rallying point to recertify the union.
Cupery says his union faces a hostile management
campaign. Administrators are meeting one on one with
employees, telling them the union is an outside agent
and has no place in a cooperative workplace.
Firing back, the union is asking members if they are
better off than they were a year ago. The answer seems
to be a resounding "no."
"Many of our best teachers plan on leaving the district
or leaving education altogether," wrote Diane Lazewski,
New Berlin’s teacher union leader, in an email. "Morale
is so low it can’t help but affect the entire
atmosphere. Teachers are shutting down."
RECERTIFY
Under Governor Scott Walker’s law, members must vote
each year to recertify their existing union as their
collective bargaining agent. Many unions in Wisconsin
are skipping the process.
Larger unions, such as AFSCME Council 24, have
determined that the resource cost outweighs the
benefits of recertification. The state teachers union
is leaving the matter up to individual locals.
Some are seeking recertification because some benefit
remains in preserving official bargaining
representative status.
Unions that maintain certification can bargain for wage
increases, although these are limited by the new law to
the Consumer Price Index. In maintaining their status,
unions hope for a seamless transition if collective
bargaining rights are restored legislatively.
Walker’s law gave teachers a wage cut of 5 to 15
percent this year due to increases in pension and
medical contributions. Support staff took cuts of up to
20 percent.
"A lot of people took cuts, but they’re seeing the
benefits of maintaining union organization," said La
Luzerne.
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Contribute to Portside: https://portside.org/donate@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@-Child Labor, Torture and Rape: Attempts to Regulate the Brutal Diamond Industry FailingThe holiday season is a time of material pleasures, but it's also a time to take stock of how our social values tend to be at odds with the objects we most prize. READ MORE By Michelle Chen / In These Times
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