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Pete Seeger, arguably the person most responsible for the revival and popularity of folk music in the United States, turns 94 on May 3. Seeger’s unparalleled life led him to engage in nearly all of the leading social movements of the 20th century, including the labor sit-ins in the 1930s, the economic justice campaigns of the 1940s, fighting the blacklist and promoting peace in the 1950s, the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s and the environmental movement that began in the 1970s. Fortunately, Seeger’s extensive writings are now available in a new book, Pete Seeger: In His Own Words, selected and edited by Rob Rosenthal and Sam Rosenthal. The book offers unusual insight into Seeger’s motivations, and for his relentless optimism in the face of adversity. Seeger has spoken the truth for nearly 100 years, and his writings offer inspiration to all those working for peace, justice and for a better world.
The American public knows it’s downwardly mobile. What it doesn’t know is what it can do to arrest, much less reverse, that trend.The public’s awareness of its plight was evident in the Allstate/National Journal poll released last Thursday. Half of the respondents – 49 percent – said that only the upper class could realistically expect to be able to pay for their children’s college education. Another 46 percent said that only the upper class could realistically anticipate having enough money to cope with a health emergency or job loss, while 45 percent said that only the upper class should expect to be able to save enough to retire comfortably. Fully 59 percent said they were concerned about falling out of their current economic class over the next few years.
Clearly, the expectations of economic security and mobility that were widely shared by Americans in the decades after World War II have vanished,
At a time when there are so few programs that create good career-path jobs, it’s exciting to see one that is doing just that. RePower LA worked with IBEW Local 18 and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to support the creation of the Utility Pre-Craft Training (UPCT) program. Launched in 2011, this is a program that creates real jobs and has a real impact on the lives of real everyday people.
Recently, I was asked to attend a training session at a labor-management joint-training institute. I was excited to talk one-on-one with the men and women who have been accepted into this unique on-the-job training program that prepares workers for careers in the utility.
There were two things that struck me immediately when I met this group of trainees. First was the incredible diversity of the group: old and young,
On Wednesday, community activists and homeowner groups got some good news from Washington. President Obama announced that he was removing Ed DeMarco, the Bush-appointed acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA). FHFA regulates Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the bailed-out mortgage financiers that together own or guarantee 60 percent of the nation’s mortgages.
For more than a year, activists have waged a “Dump DeMarco” campaign because of his stubborn refusal to help troubled homeowners avoid foreclosure by requiring banks to modify “underwater” mortgages that are higher than the market value of the homes. Under orders from DeMarco, both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have refused to permit banks to write down mortgage principal for underwater homeowners. He called such write-downs a “free lunch” that would discourage homeowners from paying their mortgages.
But Obama’s Treasury Department countered that write-downs would save money by reducing the chances homeowners would default on their loans.
» Read more about: Will Senate Keep Sacked “Random Idiot” at FHFA? »
The horrific collapse of a Bangladeshi garment factory has sparked appropriate global outrage, with advocates, pundits and politicians calling for tougher laws to protect exploited workers in Third World countries. Yet this tragedy, like many before it, seems far removed from the reality of the American workplace.
It isn’t nearly as remote as we might think — a fact eerily underscored by the deadly fertilizer plant fire in Texas that preceded the Bangladeshi catastrophe.
While the surreal quality of the Texas disaster was somewhat unique, the deaths and injuries caused by it were not. Every year thousands of American workers die on the job, and hundreds of thousands are injured.
The reason? Lax worker safety laws, and weak enforcement of those that do exist. Another way of putting it is that we are letting men and women die simply by failing to afford them basic protections.
It was a gruesome factory accident —
The Fed’s policy of keeping interest rates near zero is another form of trickle-down economics.
For evidence, look no further than Apple’s decision to borrow a whopping $17 billion and turn it over to its investors in the form of dividends and stock buy-backs.
Apple is already sitting on $145 billion. But with interest rates so low, it’s cheaper to borrow. This also lets Apple avoid U.S. taxes on its cash hoard socked away overseas where taxes are lower.
Other big companies are doing much the same on a smaller scale.
Who gains from all this? The richest 10 percent of Americans who own 90 percent of all shares of stock.
But little or nothing is trickling down. The average American can’t borrow at nearly the low rates Apple or any other big company can. Most Americans no longer have a credit rating that allows them to borrow much of anything.
» Read more about: Apple’s Borrowing Creates Dividends, Not Jobs »
The economy is personal. It colors our decisions about everything: when to have kids, what city to move to, who to vote for, who to sleep with. And nobody knows this better than the biggest generation in history: the Millennials. These 80 million Americans have come of age during the worst economic recession since the Depression, an experience that will have profound repercussions on our lives—and our political consciousness.
I call us the Crash Generation. For many of us in our twenties, 2008 was a period awash in exhilarating highs and terrifying lows. The words “depression,” “economic crisis,” “mass layoffs” and “foreclosures,” along with “hope,” “change” and “Obama,” all clogged the headlines and made their way into whiskey-fueled party conversations. Washington and the media had never been so frank about the cataclysmic proportions of a financial crash. And a candidate had never kicked young voters into such high gear like Barack Obama,
» Read more about: Generation Crash: Millennials to the Rescue »
For years, we’ve known big companies like Walmart have been shifting their health care costs onto taxpayers. Now a new report from the U.C. Berkeley Center for Labor Research shows just how widespread the problem is, projecting that as many as 380,000 workers for big companies will end up on the state’s Medi-Cal program by 2019.
For taxpayers, that’s a pretty tough pill to swallow. In 2011, Walmart made $447 billion in revenue. The company’s CEO raked in nearly $21 million last year. And yet, Walmart and other large companies don’t think twice about cutting workers’ hours and wages to such a low level that workers have to get health care through taxpayer-funded Medi-Cal. Even more infuriating, Walmart and companies like Darden restaurants (owner of Olive Garden, Red Lobster and other chains) have openly flouted the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) requirement — which mandates that companies either provide affordable health care to their workers or pay a penalty —
» Read more about: Assembly Bill Would Close “Walmart Loophole” »
The “Gang of 8” has finally introduced a bill in the U.S. Senate, giving millions of undocumented workers hope for an immigration reform in 2013. One of these workers is Anabella Aguirre who arrived from Guatemala over 13 years ago. As a single mother of three children, her choice to migrate to the United States was a difficult one. It meant she would have to leave her children and family members behind.
Anabella remains undocumented to this day because our immigration system is broken. During all these years, Anabella has worked as a janitor in Los Angeles. She is also a committed union member of SEIU United Service Workers West. Anabella is fighting with us for immigration reform. Her main motivation is her children’s education. “I hope one day to be able to send my daughters to college here in the United States,” says Aguirre.
Let’s kick off Mother’s Day month with a huge Labor turn-up on May Day.
» Read more about: All Out May Day for Immigration Reform! »
There is no question that the game of football is dangerous. National Football League players get injured on the job – so many that an “injury report” section is ubiquitous in our sports pages. In fact, a study run by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) found that the risk of death associated with neurodegenerative disorders is about three times higher among NFL players than the rest of the population.
NFL athletes are not merely players, they are also employees.
Their employers are now trying to take away their collectively bargained right to workers’ compensation benefits in California. It is not right, and it sets a dangerous precedent.
Assembly Bill 1309 singles out one group of workers, professional athletes, and treats them differently than other employees by denying them the right to file for California Workers’ Compensation benefits.
AB 1309 is an attempt by the insurance companies and professional teams to shift the cost of care for injured players from the companies to state agencies like Medi-Cal and federal agencies like Medicare.
» Read more about: Assembly Bill to Kill Athletes’ Workers’ Comp Claims »
(Jack Lavitch and Henry Lee are two West L.A. retirees who are also part-time, second-hand car buyers. They were lunching at Philippe the Original sandwich diner near central Chinatown when asked about the coming mayor’s race.)
Jack Lavitch
“First and foremost, the next mayor should fix up our city streets. There are potholes everywhere and they are a danger to us all. This would be something everyone could easily see — it would make a huge difference for everyone. That’s something [the mayor] could actually accomplish. It wouldn’t cost that much and it would make us all feel better about the whole city.”
“Oh yes,” he adds, biting into his sandwich. “He could get everyone free French dips like this one every Friday. I am joking.”
Jack is skeptical about official claims stating the city is nearing bankruptcy. “Maybe they actually are but they haven’t convinced me or the public.
» Read more about: L.A. Mayor’s Race: The View from Philippe’s »
(Note from Warehouse Workers United: Please take action now — workers like Javier, whose blog appears below, should not be fired with impunity. We will deliver this petition to Walmart today, April 29, 1 p.m., PDT.)
One month ago my son Alex was born. Yesterday I was fired from my job as a forklift driver at a warehouse where we move 100 percent Walmart merchandise.
I am outspoken. I defend my coworkers. I alert management about broken and unsafe equipment. I teach my coworkers about their rights, like what minimum wage is and what they should do when they are injured on the job.
I have been a target of management for a while. They watch everything I do, but it’s not my nature to be silent or scared. I know when I am right. Last year I went on strike to protest the retaliation my coworkers experienced when they spoke to the media and the public about the dirty water (if we had any water at all) that we were given to drink,
» Read more about: Help Reinstate Walmart Contract Worker Javier Rodriguez »
We come together as Americans when confronting common disasters and common threats, such as occurred in Boston, but we continue to split apart economically.
Anyone who wants to understand the dis-uniting of America needs to see how dramatically we’re segregating geographically by income and wealth. Today I’m giving a Town Hall talk in Fresno, in the center of California’s Central Valley, where the official unemployment rate is 15.4 percent and median family earns under $40,000. The so-called “recovery” is barely in evidence.
As the crow flies Fresno is not that far from California’s high-tech enclaves of Google, Intel, Facebook, and Apple, or from the entertainment capital of Hollywood, but they might as well be different worlds.
Being wealthy in modern America means you don’t come across anyone who isn’t, and being poor and lower-middle class means you’re surrounded by others who are just as hard up. Upward mobility — the old notion that anyone can make it with enough guts and gumption — is less of a reality.
We all know that sequestration and the automatic $85 billion in federal cuts “across the board” for discretionary spending jeopardize our very delicate recovery from the Great Recession. Though slow, fragile and incremental, the recovery is real, thanks in part to an unsung legislative action — that now is in danger of being undermined by congressional inaction.
In 1998, Congress passed the Workforce Investment Act (WIA), which greatly improved unemployed people’s lives. The WIA focused on providing employment and training services for youth and adults, preparing them for jobs in industries using a model that encouraged self-sufficiency and widespread access to resource centers and training. The goal was to help people learn the skills for life-long career advancement.
What made WIA special was that that it proactively engaged with business, education and labor (as the drivers of local economies) to guide the direction of workforce development programs in a way that would specifically address geographical needs.
» Read more about: It’s Time to Reinvest in Workforce Development »
Progress, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Witness the reaction to today’s landmark L.A. City Council vote, approving the implementation plan for a far-reaching overhaul of the city’s multi-family and commercial waste and recycling system.
The plan, which passed 10-3, puts L.A. squarely in the forefront of a growing national movement to transform the way cities deal with waste. For the first time companies will have to meet a set of environmental and labor standards in order to operate. Under this exclusive franchise system, the city will be divided into 11 zones, with companies competing to be the sole operator within each zone.
Among those celebrating the City Council’s decision were environmentalists, waste workers and small business owners, who as part of the Don’t Waste LA coalition have driven the campaign to reform L.A.’s waste and recycling industry. Less enthusiastic were certain industry lobbyists and big business advocates,
(Art Sweatman is a City of Los Angeles tree surgeon. His post is a response to Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez’s April 24 article, “Time for public employee unions to pick up the tab.” The post first appeared on SEIU Local 721’s site and is republished here with permission.)
Dear Steve:
I sat down with you a couple of years ago and discussed the impact that “givebacks” would have on our SEIU 721 members who work for the City of Los Angeles.
You seemed to care then, and city workers eventually agreed to help L.A. save money. One year later we also agreed to contribute more towards our pension benefits, so we could keep our spouses on our benefits after we retire.
Your commentary is short-sighted. You acknowledge but ignore the fact that the politicians keep lying about the city’s deficit.
» Read more about: Union Worker to Steve Lopez: We’ve Picked Up the Tab! »
Two local Thursday events will mark preparations for the annual Workers’ Memorial Day that will be observed nationally on Sunday. Today’s morning activities center on the unveiling of a work-in-progress mural depicting the contributions of immigrant workers and the release of the annual “Dying at Work in California” report. The survey tallies the cost of job-related deaths, injuries and illnesses and tells the stories of the 196 Los Angeles workers killed on the job last year. These stories include:
» Read more about: Workers’ Memorial Day: Not One More Death or Injury! »
Most of us accept that the earth goes around the sun. This is impressive, since we can look up in the sky and see the sun going around the earth. We believe the opposite because we have been told about the research of astronomers over the centuries showing that what we can see with our own two eyes is wrong. Instead, we accept that the motion of the stars and planets can be much better explained by the earth going around the sun.
Suppose for a moment that astronomers and people who write on astronomy did not agree on earth or solar orbits. Imagine that a substantial group of these people, including many of the most prominent astronomers, insisted that the sun goes around the earth, as anyone can plainly see. In that case, there would likely be huge numbers of people who refused to accept that the earth goes around the sun.
» Read more about: Mickey Mouse Economics: Austerity Bible Debunked »
Cherri Senders wasn’t always looking for the union label. Back in the late 1980s the Washington, D.C. native was writing for the L.A. Weekly, an alternative newspaper that was generous with editorial pleas for social justice but miserly when paying its own workers.
“I saw how exploited writers were,” Senders tells Frying Pan News. “We joined the National Writers Union and were able to go from five cents a word to seven. That’s how I found out about the labor movement.”
About 15 years later a friend of Senders, who by then had started her own communications company, wanted to learn how to purchase union-made baby products, but couldn’t find a way to track down which ones bore a union label.
There had always been Buy Union lists – often out of date and pinned to the bulletin boards of union halls or, more recently,
» Read more about: Looking for the Union Label in All the Right Places »