[Educationforall] spam con huevos labor news, views and concerns, 4.9.12‏‏‏‏‏-I‏

Fri Apr 13 06:26:22 UTC 2012

Bolivian Minister asks for increased repression against union and social movements‏ Chicago Teachers Union Teachers Fed Up, Ready To Strike At 150 Schools‏ Scott Walker Quietly Repeals Wisconsin's Equal Pay Law   Chicago Teachers Union Revives Talk of (what?!!) Strike Harry Kelber:   Corrupt Labor Bosses Control AFL-CIO Money and Policies In Spain, Women Enslaved by a Boom in Brothel Tourism The Jobless Go Begging in Washington State  Study: California labor market's struggles far from over  Spanish General Strike Takes Aim at Austerity    
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This information comes from many different news services in Bolivia. Cort Greene April,9th 2012  Within the backdrop of increased state repression against the six indigenous women leaders and the founder of the Permanent Assembly on Human Rights in Bolivia (APDHB) and 17 other main leaders of last years march against the illegal opening of  TIPNIS , the militarization of  the area and coercion and buying off by the MAS government of President Morales of different indigenous grouping over it and the  government's intention to establish  a center for bilateral intelligence with the  Colombian government. This past week Government Minister, Carlos Romero, has asked the Attorney General to intervene against the social movements and unions on the pretext that they are or will violate the rights of others with excesses against the government and the government must block and prosecute those individuals and leaders responsible. for such actions. Upcoming Protests and Actions: The Executive Committee of the Central Obrera Boliviana (COB) have called for a national strike of 24 hours on Wednesday, April 11 in the nine departments of the country, which was announced by Executive Secretary, Juan Carlos Trujillo over increases in wage demands by the union that the government has not met. Doctors  and the Medical association at the public health system will resume on Tuesday a strike to protest a provision that increases their working hours from 6 to 8 hours a day. Public transport representatives will meet on Tuesday to set a new night rate structure, which has been rejected by the neighborhood councils who have called on a struggle against the fare raises.The Tarija have announced protests on the occasion of its anniversary this April 15th,  for control of  the resources generated by a gas field operated by the Spanish company Repsol and that royalties should be shared with Chuquisaca,  as according to a recent government study. All this on top of the CIDOB and other social movements  proposed start of the second march against a road through the TIPNIS (national park and indigenous territory) on April 25 that will be leaving from Chaparina heading to La Paz and expected to take over a month which will lead to a capitalist extraction model that is the policy and plan of the MAS government.
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Chicago Teachers Union Teachers Fed Up, Ready To
Strike At 150 Schools

Published by Huffington Post
April 6, 2012

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/06/chicago-teachers-union-te_n_1408029.html

As negotiations between the Chicago Teachers Union and
Chicago Public Schools continue, the union announced
Thursday that, according to their own informal polling,
support for a strike among the city's public school
teachers is widespread.

Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis said that
teachers are fed up when it comes to the hostile
climate teachers are currently dealing with, the
Chicago Sun-Times reports. At least 75 percent of the
teachers polled at 150 schools reportedly support
striking should the city and union not agree on a
contract.

"Chicago teachers and paraprofessionals are fed up.
They are tired of being blamed, bullied and belittled
by the very district that should be supporting them,"
Lewis said, according to the Sun-Times. "They live in a
city that has done everything it can to take the joy
out of teaching and learning."

Teachers are reportedly angered by the CPS's proposal
to move toward a merit-based pay model where raises are
based upon a new evaluation system based heavily on
student growth, including their test scores, according
to the Sun-Times. National researches have blasted the
merit pay model, saying that the "new evaluation system
for teachers and principals centers on misconceptions
about student growth, with potentially negative impact
on the education of Chicago’s children."

Teachers are also frustrated by the longer school day,
which will be implemented in the coming school year,
recent school closures and proposed benefit cuts, ABC
Chicago reports. Teachers and parents at some schools
say the district is forcing them into the longer day
without a plan as to what they will do with the extra
time -- and in some cases, without the money to do much
of anything.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel responded to the union's
announcement by stating, according to ABC, "Don't take
away from your main mission. Your job, what the people
of the city of Chicago, the parents, the taxpayers
expect of you, which is to teach our children. Any time
away from that is time away from our children. And
remember, what you're here for is to teach our
children."

To read the rest of this article, click the link below:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/06/chicago-teachers-union-te_n_1408029.html

____________________________________________

PortsideLabor aims to provide material of interest to
people on the left that will help them to interpret the
world and to change it.
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http://dailycensored.com/2012/04/07/scott-walker-wages-war-on-women/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Dailycensored+%28Daily+Censored%29
Scott Walker Quietly Repeals Wisconsin's Equal Pay Law
Read the Article at Daily Censored
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Chicago Teachers Union Revives Talk of (what?!!) Strike A visibly angry Karen Lewis, President of the Chicago Teachers Union, held a
press conference on April 5, 2012, to announce that straw polls of
teachers and other union members at at least 150 real Chicago public
schools were running overwhelmingly in favor of a strike some time
after the current contracts between the unions and the Board of
Education end on June 30, 2012. Although Lewis refused to detail which
schools were voting how, she told dozens of reporters assembled at the
union's Merchandise Mart headquarters that the teachers' anger was
escalating as the Board of Education continued to take actions that
were both insulting and professionally unsound.
 http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=3187&section=Article
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Harry Kelber:   Corrupt Labor Bosses Control AFL-CIO Money and
Policies 
For more than 100 years, no officer or member of a State Federation or
Central Labor Council has ever held a single position on the AFL-CIO
Executive Council, whose membership has ranged from 33 to 51 over the
years. 
Today, Richard Trumka and a small group of international union
presidents still effectively control the AFL-CIO, lock stock and
barrel. They run fraudulent elections, ban opposition candidates and
guarantee their own re-election for as many terms as they desire. 
They spend our dues money as they wish, without consulting the
millions of union dues-payers, and they do not issue financial
reports. They do not have to worry that the wages of their members are
stagnant or worse, and that they have little to show for the tens of
millions of dollars they spend on political and economic campaigns. 
They are not troubled that the AFL-CIO's membership and bargaining
power is less than it was 50 years ago. Win or lose, the Trumka group
is guaranteed their 6-figure salaries and lavish pension deals when
they retire. And they use whatever tactics are necessary to prevent
interlopers from challenging their power. 
How does this small group of mostly white, middle-to-elderly men get
away with this colossal power grab? How do they manage to bamboozle 12
million unionists into accepting this outrageously undemocratic,
corporatist takeover? Where are the labor activists to challenge them?
The Source of Power Lies in the AFL-CIO Constitution...  
http://www.laboreducator.org/ 
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In Spain, Women Enslaved by a Boom in Brothel Tourism 
(And the Spanish government is planning to cut back onfinancial support to Cuban dissidents who they welcomedto Spain last year. One of these dissidents committedsuicide a few days ago. With the radical decline inproductive employment, prostitution may well become aneven greater source of income for the Spanish regime.(According to Mrs. Clinton and the State Department:(Office To Monitor and Combat Trafficking in PersonsTrafficking in Persons Report 2011 ("The Government of Spain fully complies with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking. During 2010, the government improved its capacity to vigorously prosecute trafficking by enacting an amend-ment to its criminal code to explicitly criminalize trafficking as distinct from illegal immigration."http://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/2011/164233.htm) ======================================================THE NEW YORK TIMESApril 6, 2012In Spain, Women Enslaved by a Boom in Brothel TourismBy SUZANNE DALEYLA JONQUERA, Spain — She had expected a job in a hotel. But when Valentina arrived here two months ago from Romania, the man who helped her get here — a man she had considered her boyfriend — made it clear that the job was on the side of the road.He threatened to beat her and to kill her children if she did not comply. And so she stood near a roundabout recently, her hair in a greasy ponytail, charging $40 for intercourse, $27 for oral sex."For me, life is finished," she said later that evening, tears running down her face. "I will never forget that I have done this."La Jonquera used to be a quiet border town where truckers rested and the French came looking for a deal on hand-painted pottery and leather goods. But these days, prostitution is big business here, as it is elsewhere in Spain, where it is essentially legal.While the rest of Spain's economy may be struggling, experts say that prostitution — almost all of it involving the ruthless trafficking of foreign women — is booming, exploding into public view in small towns and big cities. The police recently rescued a 19-year-old Romanian woman from traffickers who had tattooed on her wrist a bar code and the amount she still owed them: more than $2,500.In the past, most customers were middle-aged men. But the boom here, experts say, is powered in large part by the desires of young men — many of them traveling in packs for the weekend — taking advantage of Europe's cheap and nearly seamless travel."The young used to go to discos," said Francina Vila i Valls, Barcelona's councilor for women and civil rights. "But now they go to brothels. It's just another form of entertainment to them."There is little reliable data on the subject. The State Department's 2010 report on trafficking said that 200,000 to 400,000 women worked in prostitution in Spain. The report said that 90 percent were trafficked.But police officials and advocates say that whatever the number of victims, it is growing. Thousands of women are forced to work — often for even lower pay now, because of the economic downturn — everywhere from fancy clubs and private apartments to industrial complexes and lonely country roads.Europe woke up to the problem of trafficked women in the 1990s, as young women from the former Soviet Union began to arrive in large numbers, and it has spent much of the last decade developing legal frameworks to address the issue. But, some advocates say, this decade will test Europe's commitment to enforcing its new laws."The structures, by and large, are in place," said Luis CdeBaca, the ambassador who leads the State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. "Now it's time to take them out for a drive."Fueling the boom in the sex industry in Spain are many factors, experts say, including porous borders in many parts of the world and lax laws. Until 2010, Spain did not even have a law that distinguished trafficking from illegal immigration. And advocates say arrests of traffickers and services for trafficked women remain few. The State Department's report on trafficking said that according to preliminary information, the Spanish government prosecuted 202 trafficking suspects and convicted 80 in 2010.More important, some advocates say, is the growing demand for sex services from younger tourists. Of course, there is a local market. One study cited by a 2009 United Nations report said that 39 percent of Spanish men admitted having visited a prostitute at least once. It is widely accepted here for business meetings to end in dinner and a visit to a brothel.But more recently, experts say, Spain has also become a go-to destination for sex services.In La Jonquera, tucked behind an all-night gas station, is the newly opened Club Paradise, which, with 101 rooms, is one of the largest brothels in Europe. It caters in large part to young men from France, where many aspects of prostitution are illegal, and perhaps more to the point, buying sex is more expensive.On a recent evening, one young man from Paris stood in the parking lot of Club Paradise, bragging about his sexual exploits while his friends looked on. The women, he said, did not talk about whether they were being forced to have sex."Maybe," he said. "But I think they are having a good time."If any of them actually are, they would seem to be the exceptions. Thirty years ago, virtually all the prostitutes in Spain were Spanish. Now, almost none are. Advocates and police officials say that most of the women are controlled by illegal networks — they are modern-day slaves.The networks vary enormously, and shift constantly. Some are "mom and pop" operations out of Eastern Europe, like the one that controls Valentina. Others have far greater reach, like the Nigerian organizations that first began to surface in Spain in the last decade. Deputy Inspector Xavier Cortés Camacho, the head of the regional antitrafficking unit in Barcelona, said the Nigerian groups moved women through northern Africa to Spain, and then controlled them by threatening to rape or kill their family members back home.But Mr. Cortés said that people of maybe a dozen nationalities were involved in the trafficking. Until recently, for instance, the police in Barcelona did not even realize that Chinese mafias ran prostitution rings in the city. Then they began noticing more and more advertisements for Chinese, Japanese and Korean women — all of them, it turned out, Chinese — working in a network of about 30 brothels.The working conditions were brutal, Mr. Cortés said. On wiretaps, he said, "we listened to them complain that they needed to rest, they were in pain. But they had to keep working. One woman committed suicide after finding out she was H.I.V.-positive."Some of the women are sold into the business by their families, Mr. Cortés said. The police came across one case in which Colombian traffickers were paying one family $650 a month for their daughter. She managed to escape, he said. But when she contacted her family, they told her to go back or they would send her sister as a replacement.Of the 1,605 women identified in 2010 as victims of traffickers, the biggest number — about 30 percent — came from the Balkans.Many tell a story much like that of Valentina, who hoped to earn enough money in Spain to build a house and live in peace with her children.So far, she said, she has earned a bit more than $2,000. But she has not been allowed to keep any of it. "They say I eat too much," she said. "They are angry if I buy something to drink."In the meantime, her cellphone kept ringing, and the threats from her former boyfriend kept coming, she said.The visibility of prostitution has become an issue here. A battle has raged over whether to allow advertisements for prostitution in newspapers, but they remain legal and appear even in the most reputable papers.After one Barcelona newspaper ran a series last year on sex acts conducted in plain view near a main tourist attraction, the boulevard Las Ramblas, the city council said it would ban street prostitution and expand services for the women.In La Jonquera, Mayor Sonia Martínez Juli says the town, population 3,000, has few resources to help the women."We feel completely abandoned with this problem," she said.Some politicians would like to see prostitution outlawed in Spain, though that does not seem imminent. Many women's groups say that this would only force prostitution underground, making it even harder to help trafficked women.For now, prostitution is legal, though not regulated, in Spain. But pimping is illegal, so most brothels like Club Paradise operate more like hotels. It charges the women who work there about $90 a night for room and board.José Moreno, one of the owners, said the women who worked there did so freely."Sometimes there is a problem with a boyfriend," Mr. Moreno said recently, as scantily clad young women began to gather at one of the bars inside his club, readying for a night's work. "But that is usually cleared up quickly."Some weeks after the interview, however, Mr. Moreno was convicted on charges relating to smuggling Brazilian women into Spain to work as prostitutes. He was sentenced to three years in prison and is appealing the decision. The authorities say the women can seek help, but many are reluctant. On a recent evening, Valentina, speaking a mix of Spanish and Romanian, said she was unsure where to turn. She said she had already been to the local police, but had been told she had to go to the regional police in Figueres, about 15 miles away.A few days later, she stopped answering her cellphone and could not be found at her usual spot along the road. Inspector Cortés said that she had indeed gone to the police in Figueres. But at the last minute, she refused to go to a shelter and left on her own.Rachel Chaundler and Stefania Rousselle contributed reporting.
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http://www.alternet.org/rss/breakingnews/878189/the_jobless_go_begging_in_washington_state/?akid=8544.16102.61LOqw&rd=1&t=15
The Jobless Go Begging in Washington StateBy Truthdig
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http://www.sacbee.com/2012/04/07/4397036/study-state-labor-markets-struggles.html
Study: California labor market's struggles far from over
By Mark GloverCalifornia's labor market will not return to a healthy state until sometime between 2018 and 2023, according to a new report from the University of California, Berkeley's Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics. - Read More
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http://www.alternet.org/story/154808/spanish_general_strike_takes_aim_at_austerity_?akid=8542.16102.WyIe8A&rd=1&t=16
-Spanish General Strike Takes Aim at AusterityHundreds of thousands of Spaniards came out in a show of force last Thursday to protest reforms that are expected to make it easier for employers to fire workers. READ MOREBy Ter Garcia / Waging Nonviolence
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http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html

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