“Fix the Debt,” the CEO-led campaign promoting fear and what some have called near-hysteria over the national debt, has met its grassroots nemesis: “Flip the Debt.” While speaking at a Fix the Debt conference on Monday, Honeywell International Inc. CEO David Cote was interrupted several times by Flip the Debt protesters over tax loopholes that allow companies like Honeywell and General Electric to pay far less taxes than ordinary Americans.
Three minutes into Cote’s keynote address, the first heckler trumpeted:
“Fix the Debt claims to seek bipartisan solutions to reduce the deficit, but Fix the Debt is nothing more than a CEO lobby whose real objective is huge corporate tax breaks and drastic cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. David Cote and his CEO friends receive a lot from government: In 2011, Honeywell received $725 million in government deals, making it the 35th largest federal contractor.
» Read more about: “Fix the Debt” Meets Its Match: “Flip the Debt” »
On January 23 of this year, Scabby the Rat, a 16 foot tall rodent first inflated in 1990 by protesting Chicago bricklayers, had a scare. Sean McGarvey (@BCTDPrez), president of the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department, took to Twitter following a meeting with presidents and state councils to address his 488 followers: “Issued a call to retire the inflatable rat. It does not reflect our new value proposition.” Jill Cashen, Communications Director for United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) responded favorably @BCTDPrez and to her 387 followers, notching up the rhetoric to #deflatetherat.
On January 24, @ScabbyTheRat (7,737 followers) who reports on “anti-labor activity no matter where it happens” had a day in the sun, albeit it a busy one. Catapulted by Mike Elk (@MikeElk, 10,278 followers) — perhaps labor’s most dedicated and voracious Tweeter — and his story from In These Times, @ScabbyTheRat tweeted 28 times,
We are workers who move Walmart merchandise at a private warehouse in Chino, California. Just a couple of weeks ago the state of California ordered the warehouse owner to repay us more than $1 million in stolen wages. The California Labor Commissioner determined the warehouse operator, Quetico LLC, had shorted our paychecks and those of more than 800 workers.
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We are so happy that justice has been served, but we continue to risk our jobs just because we blew the whistle. The company is denying it did anything wrong and appealing the state’s ruling. In the meantime we are worried about retaliation and losing our jobs. We don’t know if we will be fired. Walmart has done nothing.
You can help us. Sign our petition to Walmart.
» Read more about: Petition: Walmart-Contract Workers Fear Retaliation »
My friend pastors a vibrant congregation in the Mid-City area of Los Angeles. Her people reflect the neighborhood and the church worships in both Spanish and English. In a conversation this week I asked her how her folks were doing. Her voice dropped, and she shook her head. “There are no jobs,” she said, “and the ones who work can only get part-time hours.” With dismay, she said, “I don’t know how they are making it.”
I don’t either. At one extreme, high-end properties – homes that sell for several millions of dollars – had a banner year in 2012. Sales of super-expensive automobiles reached record levels. Exotic vacation destinations are packed. The number of jobs in Los Angeles County has reached about 4.3 million, almost the number we had before the Great Recession began five years ago, although there are now also more people looking for work than then.
» Read more about: Of Biblical Proportions: Inequality and Poverty Wages »
Most of us know how badly Walmart treats its employees. Yet whenever the remedy of paying a living wage is proposed, opponents always argue that the cost to Walmart shoppers is too high, and that low-income consumers will be hurt the most.[1]The question is: What will a living wage for Walmart workers cost Walmart shoppers?
First, some background. A 2005 study found that Walmart jobs in metropolitan areas pay less and are less likely to offer benefits. Other researchers demonstrated that Walmart workers earn on average 31 percent less than workers in large retail stores as a whole and about 60 percent of the wages of unionized workers. They also found that an astounding 75 percent of full-time workers with at least one year on the job made below $10 an hour and less than half were enrolled in Walmart’s cost-prohibitive health plan.
Moreover,
» Read more about: Walmart: The Low Cost of High Road Retailers »
Since May of 2011, the producers, editors, photographers and other NABET-CWA* workers at KTTV and KCOP-TV in Los Angeles have been trying to negotiate a fair and reasonable contract with the owner of the stations, Fox Television – but the company has something else in mind.
Fox wants to end the standard 40-hour work week by putting NABET members on a seven-and-a-half-hour work day, and the management also wants to eliminate the paid meal period — which has been an industry standard for decades. Cutting back employees to a 37.5 hour work week effectively amounts to a 6.25 percent wage cut.
It doesn’t end there.
Fox also wants to cut vacation days, sick days, holidays and meal penalties. Premium pay for daily employees would be drastically reduced. Put it all together and many employees would see their wages and benefits reduced by 10 to 20 percent!
» Read more about: Fox: Gouge KTTV and KCOP Workers of Hours and Benefits »
Well… my 68 year old brain has done it again. It’s bad enough going into a room and wondering why you’re in there, but leaving your wallet on top of your car at the gas station, and then driving off, has much more serious consequences. It’s being pre-occupied with multi-tasking in this jet-set age that has overloaded the wiring upstairs. The New York Times had an article that creative acts need a singular focus; you can’t answer the phone, eat lunch, or text while playing music or painting. So I don’t know where my mind was after I set the billfold on the roof, pumped petrol, and left.
Certainly the miracle woman who was driving by later was in her present mind. That afternoon I was in a complete panic, going back to the gas station, looking everywhere, asking the attendant if anything had been turned in…
Two potential candidates for president in 2016, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, have taken opposing positions on raising the minimum wage in their states. The debate between the two governors draws a sharp distinction between competing economic visions: trickle-down vs. middle-out economics. At the same time, it also shows how limited the current debate is when it comes to dealing with what’s needed to meet the needs of working families and, in doing so, change the direction of economic policy.
In late January, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie vetoed a small increase in the minimum wage, from the current federal minimum of $7.25 an hour to $8.50 an hour. Christie said that raising the minimum wage would “jeopardize New Jersey’s economic progress.” Christie based his opposition on concerns about small business, although two out of three low-wage workers are employed by corporations with over 100 employees.
One of the most exciting and inspirational aspects of coalition building is seeing the success and victories that people get when they come together for the common good of their community. The time and effort that can go into the work is nothing compared to the feeling of victory once the campaign has been won, and the people and community feel the victory themselves.
Unfortunately, groups that have never worked together are often times unwilling to do so because of longstanding suspicions or differences, so building coalitions around economic enhancement projects, political campaigns, religious events and community change is a very hard thing to do. However if you apply some strategy rules to the process you can build a great coalition.
First, you have to believe in what you are trying to build together – and also believe that it can be built. You can’t waste time fighting a cause that is not winnable.
» Read more about: The Art of Coalitions: Building Teams of Rivals, Not Enemies »
More than 30,000 Los Angeles County homes still face foreclosure threats or have already been seized by banks as their owners struggle to cope with more than $14 billion in mortgage debt, a new analysis by Good Jobs LA reveals. These homes include:
The recent news reports about an “easing” foreclosure crisis bring no comfort to the more than 30,000 L.A. County families facing underwater mortgages held by the same banking giants that did so much to crash our economy nearly five years ago.
And the same big banks that led us into crisis continue to top the foreclosure lists,
» Read more about: Foreclosing Time: L.A. County’s Mortgage Crisis Continues »