[Educationforall] spam con huevos labor news, views and concerns, 3.18.12‏‏‏‏‏-1II

Sun Mar 18 20:43:48 UTC 2012

America's ‘Inexcusable’ Indifference to Extreme Poverty -- Frances Fox Piven Speaks  AFL-CIO on Citizens United‏5 Freedom-Killing Tactics Police Will Use to Crack Down on Protests in 2012  Is Parody a Felony? Latest Twist in Fight Over GOP Suppression of Wisconsin Labor Art Show  End of an Error: The Car Century Begins to Wane  There's An App for That: "I'm Getting Arrested" Alerts for Immigrants  Sutter Tracy RNs Vote to Join CA Nurses Association in Hard Fought Victory for Voice in Patient Care‏ Republicans Want to Silence Safety Whistle-Blowers‏ Scott Tucker on the May Day General Strike "May Day 2012: The Call for a General Strike"  
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-America's ‘Inexcusable’ Indifference to Extreme Poverty -- Frances Fox Piven SpeaksAn interview with Frances Fox Piven, a political scientist and activist whose writings on poverty, welfare rights, and protest movements have infuriated the Right. READ MOREBy Lauren Feeney / BillMoyers.com
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AFL-CIO on Citizens United

Restoring Democracy 

March 14, 2012

AFL-CIO

http://www.aflcio.org/About/Exec-Council/EC-Statements/Restoring-Democracy

Two years ago, the Supreme Court seriously undermined
our democracy when, continuing a trend of deregulatory
campaign finance decisions, it ruled to allow unlimited
independent campaign spending by business corporations
and other groups.

The Citizens United ruling further tilted the playing
field in favor of the 1% and against the 99%, whose
voices are being drowned out by excessive spending and
influence by corporations and the wealthy.

Since the Citizens United ruling came down, and
particularly since the rise of the Occupy Wall Street
movement, there has been growing momentum in support of
public policy solutions aimed at curbing excessive
corporate influence and restoring greater balance in
our political process. From federal and state
initiatives to bring about greater transparency and
disclosure of spending by corporate interests and
wealthy donors, to proposals for a constitutional
amendment restoring Congress' ability to regulate
campaign spending, to calls for abolishing corporate
"personhood," people from coast to coast have sounded
the alarm about the need for reforms to rein in
excessive corporate influence in our democracy.

The AFL-CIO supports the overturning of the Citizens
United decision and calls for immediate action to end
the dominance of our political system by corporations
and the 1%. The AFL-CIO has long advocated for measures
to bring about greater fairness, openness and
participation in elections--reforms that enfranchise
voters and ensure that wealth does not wield
disproportionate influence. We support public financing
of campaigns, limitations on individual contributions
to candidates and parties and public disclosure of
political expenditures. We also support measures to
enable citizens to vote more easily, and we oppose
voter identification and similar measures that are
aimed at seizing partisan advantage through
disenfranchisement. And, we oppose misleadingly labeled
"paycheck protection" measures that would exacerbate
inequality by hampering union political activity while
leaving corporate and rich individuals' political
spending unimpeded.

The Citizens United ruling has opened the floodgates to
massive spending by corporations and even more so by
wealthy donors. They are pouring money into our
electoral system and threaten to drown out the voices
of hard-working Americans. Common-sense restrictions
on their spending are needed, along with robust
disclosure of their contributions and
expenditures--including their contributions to
organizations engaged in electoral activity.

The AFL-CIO also supports reforms aimed at restoring
business corporations to their proper role as
commercial institutions and limiting their influence in
the political sphere. Business corporations are not
people--they are manmade creatures of law that exist to
generate economic activity and create jobs and income
in communities. The notion that they should enjoy the
same rights and protections as natural persons is
absurd and it is destructive to our democracy. At the
same time, for more than a century, corporations have
enjoyed certain constitutional protections, such as due
process protections against unreasonable searches and
seizures, which are consistent with basic American
values. We support reforms, including changes to our
tax laws and corporate laws, that address corporate
dominance of our political system and that restore
corporations to their proper role in our democracy.

Congress should pass and the Supreme Court should
uphold the necessary reforms to protect our democracy
from the power of money. As long as Citizens United
remains the law of the land, constitutional change may
be the only option. Amending the U.S. Constitution
should be a rare act, done with the greatest of care.
To earn our support, any such amendment must be
carefully and narrowly crafted to protect our democracy
from the economic power of the 1%, while at the same
time protecting the public's right to organize
politically through democratic organizations and
movements.

Working people have a long and proud history of
participating in our nation's public life through our
unions. Unions are by tradition and law democratic
organizations, run on the basis of one member, one
vote. In a union, dollars do not vote--people do. Our
unions bring us together in our union halls, our
workplaces and our homes to discuss the issues facing
our nation and to come together to make our voices
heard in the political process. Unions are transparent
organizations--all of our spending, including our
political spending, is disclosed in great detail to the
general public and union members, as required by
statute since 1959. Any campaign finance reform needs
to recognize the fundamental distinction between the
democratically governed communications among working
people through unions and the unaccountable spending by
corporations and the rich.

____________________________________________

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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5 Freedom-Killing Tactics Police Will Use to Crack Down on Protests in 2012Across America many cities and police forces are eyeing new ways to crack down on protesters.READ MORESteven Rosenfeld /
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Is Parody a Felony? Latest Twist in Fight Over GOP Suppression of Wisconsin Labor Art ShowRoger Bybee, In These Times: "Konopacki and other artists were deeply offended when Republican State Rep. Steve Nass leaned on the University of Wisconsin School for Workers - the nation's longest standing labor education program - to cancel an art exhibition displaying the enormous outpouring of creativity unleashed in artwork, signs, posters and banners by last year's labor rebellion. With the School for Workers funding always vulnerable to being wiped out by the Republicans, the school saw no alternative but to cancel the exhibition." Read the Article 

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End of an Error: The Car Century Begins to Wane
Read the Article at Talking Points Memo

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There's An App for That: "I'm Getting Arrested" Alerts for ImmigrantsBy Julianne Hing | ColorLines
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   Sutter Tracy RNs Vote to Join CA Nurses Association in Hard Fought Victory for Voice in Patient Care16th Sutter hospital now represented by CNAIn a hard fought organizing campaign, RNs at Sutter Tracy Community Hospital in Northern California voted to affiliate with the California Nurses Association, the state’s largest organization of RNs.

In a secret ballot election overseen by the National Labor Relations Board, Sutter Tracy RNs voted 83 to 70 to join CNA. Overall, CNA now represents 6,200 RNs at 16 Sutter facilities, one of the biggest and wealthiest hospital chains in California.

Sutter officials responded to RNs exercising their democratic right to gain a voice in patient care decisions with an aggressive anti-union campaign of surveillance and harassment.

But according to many nurses who voted to join CNA, those tactics backfired, underscoring the need for union representation.

After hugging fellow nurses following the final vote count, Clarissa Concepcion, RN who works in the medical surgical unit said, “This is a dream come true. It’s been very oppressive since 2005 when Sutter came in to this hospital. Now with the union representing us there will be democracy and equality in our workplace.”

The key issues that galvanized the RNs to organize centered on patient protection provisions that already exist in CNA-represented Sutter hospitals. These include meal and break relief nurse positions to ensure that patients are safely cared for at all times, bonus pay for required certification, and enhanced sick leave, among other issues.

“Sutter Tracy has made tens of million in profits and the CEO received a 58 percent raise while making cuts to care and the nurses ability to be effective patient advocates,” said Dotty Nygard an emergency room RN. “Nurses stood up for our patients and our profession, and we won.  We can now share in the vision of a better and healthier future for our patients, our profession and our community with CNA representation.”  

The California Nurses Association/ National Nurses United is the nation’s largest U.S. RN professional association and union, representing a total 170,000 RNs, including 75,000 California nurses.  CNA and NNU have organized 20,000 RNs in 45 facilities nationwide since 2007.###UNSUBSCRIBE | www.NationalNursesUnited.org | www.MainStreetContract.org
National Nurses United | 8630 Fenton Street, Suite 1100 Silver Spring, MD 20910

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March 16, 2012
Check out Hyatt Hotel housekeepers as they expose the chain’s “dirty laundry” when it comes to unsafe and demeaning working conditions.House Republicans want to cut the part of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration budget that protects workers who blow the whistle on job safety violations and increase money to let employers voluntarily enforce workplace safety standards. Just more proof of where they stand on workplace safety—and it’s not with workers.
Read more and comment.  Housekeepers Reveal Hyatt’s ‘Dirty Laundry’ ‘The Most Humiliating Experience of My Life’Read more important news of the day on the issues working families care about.Follow the AFL-CIO:
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To find out more about the AFL-CIO, please visit our website at www.aflcio.org.Click here to unsubscribe.

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Scott Tucker on the May Day General Strike
"May Day 2012: The Call for a General Strike" -- In the winter of 2011, discussion about calling a general strike had already begun within Occupy Los Angeles. At the end of January 2012, in the wake of police raids against Occupy encampments, Occupy Los Angeles issued a call for a May Day general strike, which was quickly endorsed by Occupy Oakland. 

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