[Educationforall] spam con huevos, labor news, views and concerns, 11.18.11‏‏-I

Sat Nov 19 07:49:54 UTC 2011

Occupy Wall Street, not the ballot box
Applying the Successful Strategy of the Civil Rights
Movement to a National "We are the 99%" Movement
Social Security cuts next week‏
URGENT Action Alert!! Support Araceli of the Panda Express Workers!!
FNS News: The Informal Sector Rules‏
How Do We Build an Inclusive Movement for the 99 Percent?
Unions Join Occupy Activists in Mass Protest Marches Across America
Junior Walk on Coal River Mountain

Help UFW catch up to crooked labor contractors‏

Bridge to Jobs: Rebuild Infrastructure‏

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Occupy Wall Street, not the ballot box

By: Mike Tudoreanu

November 17, 2011

http://dailycollegian.com/2011/11/17/occupy-wall-street-not-the-ballot-box/

Ever since the Occupy movement started, there have been
people saying we should take our concerns to the ballot
box. There have been people saying that it is
uncivilized and disruptive to start encampments in
cities across the nation when we can have our concerns
met by voting progressive candidates into office. Their
argument is that we should enact change through the
proper channels, and anyone who refuses to do that is
just being a nuisance. As a proud member of the 99
percent, I wish to give my reply to such arguments:

We already tried doing what you suggest. It didn't
work.

In 2008, the Democratic Party scored its greatest
electoral victory in over 30 years. A supposedly
liberal president got elected to the White House, while
the Democrats swept through the U.S. House of
Representatives and won a super-majority in the Senate.
If your strategy for change is to vote for liberal
candidates, you could not possibly dream of a better
outcome than in 2008. I remember people eagerly
speculating what the new liberal era might hold. Would
Barack Obama be a new Franklin Roosevelt? Would there
be a new New Deal, with bold new infrastructure
programs - perhaps high-speed rail - to create jobs and
revive the economy? Would the government bailout
working families and stop foreclosures? Would they
repeal George W. Bush's tax cuts for the rich? Would
there be universal health care? Would there be a carbon
tax or a cap-and-trade scheme to fight climate change?
Would the Employee Free Choice Act be passed to defend
unions? Would Obama close Guantanamo, stop throwing
people in prison without charges or end the wars?

As it turns out, the answer was none of the above. Not
a single one. The Democrats spent two years in control
of every branch of government, and could not pass even
one of the policies demanded by the people who
campaigned for them and voted them into office. The
best they could do was to pass a pathetic excuse for
health care reform, which made things only slightly
better and was actually more conservative than the
health care reforms once proposed by Richard Nixon. To
defend this amazing record of inaction, the Democrats
kept blaming the Republicans for being "the party of
no" and continually trying to obstruct their
legislation. I'm sorry, but if you can't get your
legislation passed even when you control all branches
of government by wide margins, then you have got to be
the most incompetent political party in the history of
this planet. So why should we once again pin our hopes
and dreams on people who basically admit they are
useless?

The Occupy movement arose precisely because mainstream
politics failed the working people of this country.
There are only two political parties to vote for: one
of them is insane, the other is useless, and they are
both receiving hundreds of millions of dollars from
corporations and banks. Trying to enact change through
the ballot box has clearly become little more than a
waste of time. Nearly all politicians rely on lavish
donations from the top 1 percent to get into office, so
they will naturally do the bidding of the 1 percent
once they get there. It may be possible to elect one or
two congressmen or senators without relying on
corporate sponsors - that does happen every now and
then - but what can a few good people do inside a
government where everyone else has been bought and paid
for? And how long could they stick to their principles
when Wall Street starts making them offers they can't
refuse? Also, let's not forget that the media is
dominated by a few corporations owned by the 1 percent.
Any elected politicians who really threatened the
interests of the rich would have all major TV stations,
newspapers and high-traffic websites turn against them.

That is why we cannot win from within the political
system. So we have no choice but to go outside it. When
the rules of the game are stacked against you, you have
got to change the game. The Occupy movement does not
and must not get involved in electoral politics,
because campaigning for candidates who promise hope and
change is a waste of time and energy. As Bush so
eloquently put it, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me
twice, shame on ... well, you can't get fooled again."

But, one might ask, what else is there to do other than
trying to get candidates elected? There is plenty to
do. Corrupt politicians will not listen to the people
when we give them what little money we have or campaign
for them, but they will listen when they fear what
might happen if they don't. They will listen when
workers across an entire city or state go on a general
strike. They will listen when tens of thousands of
people march peacefully in the streets in defiance of
orders to go home. They will listen when those same
people occupy parks and keep coming back in spite of
police brutality.

The purpose of the Occupy movement is to deliver a
simple message to the 1 percent and their paid
spokesmen in government. That message is this: You rule
because we allow you to rule. Your government, your
corporations and your banks exist because we give our
consent for them to exist. If you will not listen to
us, we will withdraw that consent.

Mike Tudoreanu is a Collegian contributor. He can be
reached at mtudorea at econs.umass.edu.
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Applying the Successful Strategy of the Civil Rights
Movement to a National "We are the 99%" Movement

A TDS Strategy Memo:
The Civil Rights Movement's success was based on a
coordinated three-prong strategy of civil disobedience,
grass-roots organizing and mass boycotts. To achieve similar
victories, a national "We are the 99%" movement must adopt
and apply that same approach.

by Andrew Levison
A TDS Strategy Memo

The Democratic Strategist
November 17, 2011

http://www.thedemocraticstrategist.org/

In the coming days the Occupy Wall Street movement faces an
extremely complex and difficult series of decisions about
its strategy and tactics. It cannot simply repeat the
initial tactic of occupying public spaces that it has
employed up to now but it has not yet developed any clear
alternative strategy for the future.

In debating their next steps the protesters - and the
massive numbers of Americans who support them - will turn
again and again to the history and example of the civil
rights movement for guidance. Martin Luther King's closest
advisors including Jessie Jackson and Andrew Young have
noted the clear historical parallels that exist between the
two protest movements and both activists and observers will
urgently seek to find lessons in the struggles of the past.

The discussion, however, will be hindered by the profoundly
oversimplified vision that many people today have of how the
victories of the civil rights movement were actually
achieved. Most Americans have little more than a series of
impressionistic images of the civil rights movement - police
dogs and fire hoses unleashed against the demonstrators in
Birmingham, Alabama in 1963, dramatic marches attacked by
police in Selma, Alabama in 1965 and, across the south, sit-
ins and freedom rides that rocked the region in the early
years of the decade. In this vision, dramatic confrontations
with the authorities appear to have been, in effect, the
movement's entire "strategy."

But, in fact, behind every major campaign of the civil
rights movement there was actually a very organized and
coherent three-pronged strategy. To seriously seek guidance
for the present in the struggles of the past, it is
absolutely indispensable to understand the basic socio-
political strategy that the movement employed.

The civil rights movement's three-pronged strategy combined:
1. Civil disobedience 2. Grass-roots organizing and voter
registration 3. Boycotts and economic withdrawal

In every single major campaign of the civil rights movement
- Montgomery, Birmingham, Selma - these three elements of
the overall strategy were employed in a coherent, mutually
supporting and reinforcing way. In contrast, no part of this
coordinated approach was ever successful in isolation.

Seen in this light, there are indeed reasonable comparisons
between the civil rights movement and the initial phase of
Occupy Wall Street. OWS represents a modern application of
civil disobedience, the first component of the civil rights
movement's three-pronged strategy. The essence of civil
disobedience (also called "nonviolent direct action") is the
use of dramatic protests that disrupt normal activities and
usually violate the law. They are designed to call attention
to the existence of injustice and win public sympathy
through the demonstrators willingness to risk danger and
injury and to go to jail for their cause.

In the early phase of the civil rights movement the most
extensive applications of civil disobedience were the
freedom rides and the sit-in's, actions that directly
violated the morally unjust laws enforcing segregation. As
the movement's objectives turned to social and economic
issues in the latter part of the 60's, the targets of civil
disobedience became more abstract and symbolic, culminating
in the establishment of a tent city on the national mall
during the Poor People's Campaign.

But civil disobedience was only tip of the iceberg of the
civil rights movements' struggle against segregation. Behind
the dramatic actions that captured the headlines was a
massive grass-roots organizing effort across the South that
involved thousands of passionate young organizers. For every
one sit-in demonstrator there were a hundred grass-roots
civil rights activists who spent months and years traveling
around the South to conduct "freedom schools" in church
basements, restaurants, barber shops and meeting halls,
gatherings that were held in even the smallest towns and
rural areas. These freedom schools patiently built support
for voter registration efforts and laid the foundations for
later political campaigns by African- American candidates.
King and his lieutenants were always absolutely clear in
saying that the only long-range solution to segregation lay
in Black Americans winning effective political
representation.

Today it is the "We Are Ohio" movement and the Wisconsin
recall campaigns, rather than Occupy Wall Street, that
represent the modern equivalents of the civil rights
movement's grass-roots organizing campaigns. During these
recent campaigns against laws designed to eliminate the
right to union representation hundreds of thousands of
petitions were signed and thousands of volunteers engaged in
door to door canvassing, literature distribution, the
manning of tables in shopping centers and the operation of
phone banks - the hard, grueling, unsung work that is
indispensable for successful grass-roots campaigns. The one-
on-one, face-to-face organizing techniques of the Ohio and
Wisconsin movements actually displayed substantial
similarities with the techniques of traditional trade union
organizing as well as with the civil rights movement.

In short, comparisons between the movements of today and the
civil rights movement cannot be limited to Occupy Wall
Street. The "We Are Ohio" and Wisconsin recall campaigns
have an equally valid claim to kinship with the earlier
struggles of the civil rights era.

The third prong of the civil rights movement's strategy was
boycott and economic withdrawal. In the Montgomery campaign
the bus system was boycotted, in Birmingham, it was all
downtown merchants. In view of King and his associates it
was economic withdrawal that was actually the most powerful
single weapon in the nonviolent arsenal. It was the bus
boycott that won King's first victory in Montgomery and the
boycott of downtown stores that ultimately forced the
business and political establishment of Birmingham to
negotiate.

King himself referred to boycotts as "campaigns of economic
withdrawal" and described them as "nonviolence at peak of
its power". Here is how he expressed it in 1967:1

In the past six months simply by refusing to
purchase products from companies which do not hire
Negroes in meaningful numbers and in all job
categories, the Ministers of Chicago under SCLC's
Operation Breadbasket have increased the income of
the Negro community by more than two million dollars
annually. In Atlanta the Negroes' earning power has
been increased by more than twenty million dollars
annually over the past three years...This is
nonviolence at its peak of power.

The modern application of this strategy can now be seen in
the "Move Your Money" and related campaigns that call on
people to withdraw funds from the major banks and reinvest
them in credit unions and other more socially conscious
institutions. There are a variety of estimates2 from credit
unions and independent sources that suggest the campaign has
already had a significant and measurable effect, but it is
also clear that this is still the very earliest trial run
for future economic withdrawal campaigns with potentially
powerful consequences.

Beyond the current campaign aimed at the largest banks, the
tactic of economic withdrawal can be applied to a wide
variety of firms and issues. Such campaigns will all be
united by a simple underlying concept: working people should
not spend or invest their money with firms and institutions
that use those same funds to bankroll conservative
candidates, laws and policies that undermine those same
workers' economic security, standard of living and hopes for
the future.

Consumer product companies are particularly vulnerable to
campaigns of economic withdrawal because the damage to their
reputation and image can in many cases be more devastating
than the direct economic damage itself. The quite effective
campaign by People of Color to pressure the advertisers of
Glen Beck's TV show in 2009 demonstrated the significant
leverage consumer boycott campaigns can bring to bear in the
internet age.

There are already a variety of informal linkages developing
between the three social movements above -- the "Occupy Wall
Street", "We are Ohio/Wisconsin recall" and "Move Your
Money" campaigns. Organizations including MoveOn.org, Van
Jones' American Dream Movement and the AFL-CIO/Working
America federations have played a significant "behind the
scenes" role in supporting the OWS, "We are Ohio" and Move
Your Money" actions and also in popularizing and promoting
the broader "We are the 99%" political movement and
perspective around the country.

But the critical historical lesson that can be drawn from
the civil rights movement is the vital need for the three
prongs of the movements' strategy - civil disobedience,
grass- roots organizing/political mobilization and
boycott/economic withdrawal - to be employed in a
coordinated way as part of a single integrated approach. The
movement's key victories in Montgomery, Birmingham and Selma
all depended on this coordination.

There is currently no single leader with the immense stature
of a Martin Luther King or grass-roots organizations like
SCLC and SNCC to provide such coordination for a national
"We Are the 99%" social movement. In the modern internet-
connected world, however, more diversified and decentralized
forms of organization are more likely to develop and are
more likely to be effective as well.

But for a "We Are the 99%" movement to achieve substantial
victories, coordination must be achieved. Neither Occupy
Wall Street nor the Ohio and Wisconsin campaigns nor
campaigns of economic withdrawal like "Move Your Money" can,
in isolation, produce transformational victories of the
scope and significance of the victories of the civil rights
movement.

In coordination, on the other hand, these three tactics are
immensely powerful. It was the combination of these three
approaches, employed in a coherent overall strategy, that
broke the back of the system of Southern segregation within
a single decade and that same three-pronged strategy can
profoundly transform America once again today.

1.
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=1426

2. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/11/11/1035479/-Ten-stories-of-people-moving-their-money,-despite-bankefforts-to-stopthem?detail=hide

[Andrew Levison was for many years a research assistant to
Mrs. Coretta Scott King, Andrew Young and other participants
in the civil rights movement. The analysis presented here
was first formulated at a 1971 conference of The Institute
for Nonviolent Social Change that included many of the
leaders of the major campaigns of the civil rights
movement.]

===

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On Fri, Nov 18, 2011 at 10:01 AM, Natalie Foster, Rebuild The Dream <moveon-help at list.moveon.org> wrote:

Dear friend,
I wanted to make sure you saw my email below about the mandatory Social Security cuts the congressional Super Committee could propose next Wednesday. Already, more than 100,000 people have signed the petition demanding that Congress reject cuts to Social Security and tax the 1% instead. So we've extended the deadline for petition signatures until Monday. 

The pressure is building, and not just online. Yesterday was the single biggest day of action in the streets across the country since the beginning of the Occupy movement. And right now a courageous group is marching through the cold from Occupy Wall Street in New York City to Washington, DC, to bring the energy of the 99% directly to Congress.
This is a crucial moment for us all to raise our voices.
Please, take a moment to sign this petition before Monday and please ask your friends, family and neighbors to sign. 

–Natalie 

POWERED BY 

Save social security 

Sign the petition: "Congress should reject cuts to Social Security and instead make the 1% pay their share." 

Dear friend,For four months the congressional "Super Committee" has been meeting behind closed doors to hash out ways to reduce the deficit. 

A report in The New York Times yesterday suggests that the committee is close to recommending mandatory cuts to Social Security instead of tax increases for the richest one percent.1 

No way we can let this happen. This is a rotten deal that we have to stop. 

The committee issues their report to Congress in one week. We are collecting petition signatures that we will deliver this Friday. Our goal is to send a message that cuts to Social Security come with hell to pay from voters. 

Click here to tell Congress to reject any new cuts to Social Security. 

After you sign please take a minute to forward this email to friends, family, and co-workers so they know about the mandatory cuts that could be coming. Ask them to sign too. 

We have seven days to put the brakes on the Super Committee's report and kill this proposal. Here is how a news story described the cuts recently: 

"Just as 55 million Social Security recipients are about to get their first benefit increase in three years, Congress is looking at reducing future raises by adopting a new measure of inflation that also would increase taxes for most families. Those with low incomes would be hit hardest. 

"If adopted across the government, the inflation measure would have widespread ramifications. Increases in veterans' benefits and pensions for federal workers and military personnel would be smaller. And over time, fewer people would qualify for Medicaid, Head Start, food stamps, school lunch programs and home heating assistance than under the current measure."2 

Conservatives have never liked Social Security. Those monthly checks prove that government can be a force for good in the lives of Americans. 

And let's be clear what the anti-tax stuff is all about—the rich and big companies don't want to pay their fair share. They've deployed their lobbyists to push for cuts to Social Security so they don't have to pay more in taxes. 

We urgently need to send Congress a message that cuts to Social Security are OFF the table. Please sign and recruit other people to sign. 

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=267709&id=33019-9051688-_7bZ1fx&t=4 

Thanks for all you do. 
–Natalie, Van, Billy, Jim, Ian, Somer, and the rest of the Rebuild the Dream team
Sources: 

1. "Deficit Panel Seeks to Defer Details on Raising Taxes," The New York Times, November 13, 2011 
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=267710&id=33019-9051688-_7bZ1fx&t=5 

2. "New Social Security formula could cut benefits, raise taxes," USA Today, November 7, 2011 
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=267711&id=33019-9051688-_7bZ1fx&t=6 

Subscription Management:
This is a message from Rebuild the Dream, powered by MoveOn.org Civic Action. To change your email address or update your contact info, please visit:
http://moveon.org/subscrip/coa.html?id=33019-9051688-_7bZ1fx
To remove yourself (dorinda moreno) from this list, please visit our subscription management page at:
http://moveon.org/s?i=33019-9051688-_7bZ1fx 
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2011/11/18 Coalición de Derechos Humanos <kat at derechoshumanosaz.net>

Coalición de Derechos Humanos

Contact:
P.O. Box 1286
Tucson, AZ 85702

Office: 520.770.1373
or 1.800.682.4280
Fax: 520.770.7455
www.derechoshumanosaz.net

Coalición de Derechos Humanos is a grassroots organization which promotes respect for human/civil rights and fights the militarization of the Southern Border region, discrimination, and human rights abuses by federal, state, and local law enforcement officials affecting U.S. and non-U.S. citizens alike.

URGENT Action Alert!! Support Araceli of the Panda Express Workers!!   

We are in URGENT need of letters of support for Araceli Torres-Ruiz of the Panda Express Workers.  Her attorney is requesting deferred action for her case, and we need a strong show of support! 

Please address letters to:
Katrina Kane,  Field Office Director
U. S. Department of Homeland Security 

Immigration & Customs Enforcement
Office of Detention and Removal Operations 

Fax letters to Mo Goldman, Araceli's attorney, at 520.797.1407.  

SAMPLE LETTER:

Katrina Kane
Field Office Director
U. S. Department of Homeland Security
Immigration & Customs Enforcement
Office of Detention and Removal Operations

Re: Roselia Torres-Ruiz (DOB 12/30/1982)
       Alien Registration # 088-771-840

Dear Officer Kane:

    I am writing to you to ask for your consideration in the application of Ms. Torres-Ruiz for termination of removal proceedings pending against her and grant her an extension of deferred action previously ordered.  As you may know, she would be eligible for cancellation of removal or a stay of removal under S.279, the DREAM Act, if it were enacted by Congress.

    Ms. Torres-Ruiz was brought into the United States when she was 7 years old by her parents.  She is now 28 years old and has two U. S. citizen children, one who is six and another who is one year old.  Ms. Torres-Ruiz's mother is a lawful permanent resident, and the majority of her family resides in the U. S.  The only remaining family member that lives in Mexico is an elderly aunt who resides in Oaxaca.

Ms. Torres-Ruiz attended Craigin Elementary School, Roskruge Middle School and Tucson High School.  She obtained her GED, and has continued her studies at Pima Community College in order to get a college degree.  Just as many others across the country, she is requesting an opportunity to remain the only country she knows.  Her life in Tucson demonstrates that she possesses good moral character.  Other than working without the proper documentation, she has absolutely no record of any kind.  She has worked tirelessly to support her family, contributing not only to the company but to the community, as well as the Social Security Fund.  She has worked for the Panda Express for a number of years now, gaining experience and a promotion.

Because of her good character as well as the significant ties to the community, particularly her two U. S. citizen children, I would respectfully ask that you grant her an extension of her deferred action status.  A separation of her family would not serve any interest of our country, and in fact, would serve to damage the community where she lives.  She has the support of the larger community and her church, which is further evidence of her character.  I ask that you exercise your discretion and allow her to remain in the country she loves.  If you have any question, please do not hesitate to call me.

Sincerely,
Kathryn Rodriguez
Program Director
Coalición de Derechos Humanos
520.770.1373
--------

Talking points for letters of support:

We need letters from people who are in support of her and can speak about her good moral character.  The letter should focus on Araceli as a person-- this is not about making a political statement or comment about how terrible the immigration system is.  Please keep it simple and only speak about what a wonderful person Araceli is.  Some highlights that can be mentioned include:  

She has been in the U.S. since she was seven years old.   
She was born on December 30, 1982.  Therefore, she has been living here for more than 20 years.

She was brought here by her mother and had no choice in coming here.

She went to Tucson High School and now has her high school diploma.

Her mother is a lawful permanent resident.

She has two U.S. citizen children, age 6 and 1.

 Araceli has continued her work and studies Pima Community College

Araceli's entire immediate family lives legally in the U.S., including a legal permanent resident grandmother and brother, and a U.S. citizen sister

 Her father is deceased.  She has no one in Mexico and she has never known her father or his family.---------
BACKGROUND  

On March 18, 2008, 11 workers of the Panda Express, a local restaurant in Tucson, Arizona, were arrested.  Charged with "Aggravated Identity Theft," the workers were denied bond by Prop 100, and most spent at least five months in jail,separated from their children and families.  

To date, eight of the eleven have been returned to their home countries, punished for the crime of working to support themselves and their families.   

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November 18, 2011

Labor News 

The Informal Sector Rules 

Released this month, the latest numbers from Mexico’s Institute of Geography, Statistics and Informatics(INEGI) showed job creation in the informal sector outpacing that in the formal sector. The Mexican government agency defines formal employment as constituting a job with retirement and other benefits, including enrollment in the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS). 

According to INEGI, nearly 13,439,000 workers labored away in the informal sector in September 2011, compared with 13,225,433 people registered in the formal sector during the same time period examined. The number of people making a living without chalking up retirement and other benefits rose more than 500,000 since September 2010, when 12,904, 903 workers were classified as informal. 

The number of workers entering the IMSS system also registered an increase, albeit slower than in the informal sector, growing by 450,719 people between September 2010 and September 2011. 

In Mexico, people working in the informal sector earn a living by doing everything from selling so-called pirate products on the street to entertaining motorists by breathing fire at busy intersections. To put food on the table, they sell food door-to-door, work for tips off the book and hawk dolls on the beach. 
While such activities bring in primary or secondary incomes, they do not build up the retirement system or support other programs funded by taxes. 

In its recent compilations of employment trends, INEGI reported both job creation and loss. According to the agency, the overall number of people employed in the Mexican economy grew by 853,778 to reach 46,815,997 workers during the one-year time period in question. Nonetheless, the number of potential workers officially categorized as unemployed also increased from last year to this one, constituting a total of 2,761,703 unemployed persons by the third trimester of 2011. 

In terms of wages, INEGI reported that 35.5 percent of the labor force earned no more than 119.6 pesos per day, or less than ten dollars, while 61.5 percent of workers brought in on a daily basis no more than 179.4 pesos, an amount less than 14 dollars based on current dollar-peso exchange rates. 

Source: La Jornada, November 12, 2011. Article by Roberto Gonzalez Amador. 

Frontera NorteSur: on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico

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How Do We Build an Inclusive Movement for the 99 Percent?
Randall Amster, Fellowship of Reconciliation: "I would suggest that we consider what it means to build a movement, and more broadly a society, for everyone without exception. The idea that certain segments - most viscerally the derogatory and divisive tropes of the 'freeloading homeless' or the 'violent anarchists' - don't belong in the movement and should be excised due to their conduct and/or status is offensive, shortsighted, and ultimately contradictory to the aims of the movement." 
Read the Article 

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Unions Join Occupy Activists in Mass Protest Marches Across America
Lesley Clark and Gianna Palmer, McClatchy Newspapers: "The Occupy Wall Street movement - looking to show staying power after losing prime real estate in various cities - got a boost of support across the country Thursday from labor and progressive organizations in what union organizers said is the most visible sign that they're working with the activists to press for change." 
Read the Article 

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Junior Walk on Coal River Mountain
Lucy Hall, Vocalo/Truthout: "Junior Walk grew up in the shadows of Coal River Mountain. After graduating from high school, one of Junior's few job prospects was working as a security guard for a coal mine. The same coal mine that he believes caused pollution-related health problems for him and his neighbors. Getting his paycheck from the mine made him feel, 'like a miserable human being.'" 
Read the Article and Listen to the Audio 

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Help UFW catch up to crooked labor contractors

Labor contractors recruit workers and sell their services to growers. This is popular because growers claim this system absolves them of responsibility. They can blame any abuse on the contractors who take advantage of people who are desperate for work.
Take what happened to Raul Martinez. Raul wanted to be a good citizen and make sure he was paying his taxes accurately, so he repeatedly asked his labor contractor foreman for his W-2 form. Raul says, that during the 7 years he worked for this contractor, "I have not been able to obtain my W-2 forms to be able to do my annual income tax returns. Every time I ask for the document, he always comes up with excuses.”
Finally, this year, Raul pushed too hard, so the contractor fired him. To fire a worker for asking for IRS-required documents is completely illegal. But forcing labor contractors to obey the law is notoriously difficult.
We haven’t yet figured out what this contractor was doing with Raul’s W-2s. But often this problem arises because the contractor is collecting taxes, but not forwarding them to the IRS. That’s why they don’t want to supply W-2s.
When labor contractors do this, they are stealing the tax money from the workers, not the IRS. If the worker is due a refund, he can't collect it without a W-2. And if the IRS ever comes after him for unpaid income taxes, he'd have no way to prove he paid. Devious and heartless labor contractors are endlessly creative in their efforts to squeeze every penny they can out of people like Raul, to whom every penny matters.
Pedro Najera Isidro has worked for several labor contractors and each one was as bad as the last. He tells us of one labor contractor who drove workers to a farm 170 miles away with the promise of steady employment. “We worked for him for one month, but the last week I did not get paid for. Later my co-workers investigated an address for the farm labor contractor. There they told us that they did not know anything about our pay or the foreman.”
The labor contractors think they hold all the cards, but when you weigh in on the side of the workers, the picture changes. Your generosity helps us stand with workers and track down abusive labor contractors and drag them, kicking and screaming, into court. You help workers win compensation for stolen wages and mistreatment.
Your support for the UFW is the only thing that limits the abuse. Please send your donation today.

https://secure.ufw.org/page/contribute/nov11

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United Farm Workers,  P.O. Box 62, Keene, CA 93531, http://www.ufw.org

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Nov. 18, 2011

Senior and young activists told a Senate hearing that the Super Committee must not balance the budget on the backs of the 99 percent.
From coast to coast yesterday, working families, jobless workers, community members and Occupy activists joined together in an Infrastructure Investment Day of Action. They marched and rallied at dozens of bridges in desperate need of repair and called on Congress to put millions of Americans back to work rebuilding the nation’s crumbling bridges and roads.

Got comments? Post them at blog.aflcio.org.

 Senate Hearing Room Erupts into Chant: ‘We Are the 99 Percent!’
 Wisconsinites Rush to Sign Walker Recall Petition: 50,000 Signatures in 2 Days
 Tea Party and Blue Dog Democrats: Let’s Double Unemployment and Drown U.S. Economy
 Politics Major Factor in Decreased Unionization
 Mexican Electrical Workers Union Goes Global with Its Struggle
Read more important news of the day on the issues working families care about. 

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