People's World Headlines

Obama budget draws praise, some complaints, from labor leaders

John Wojcik — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 17:32:00 -0500

President Obama's proposed federal budget for the year is drawing overall positive reactions from union leaders.

Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, said in a special statement, "It puts us on the right path towards building a solid foundation for our economic future. For the short term we have to extend unemployment benefits and the temporary middle class tax cut to avoid putting recent jobs at risk. To start laying the groundwork for broadly shared prosperity over the long term, we have to start making things in America again, and the President's proposed investments in infrastructure, clean energy, manufacturing, education, and innovation will help us do just that."

The Obama budget calls for a more than $300 billion economic stimulus program involving investments of federal dollars in infrastructure, clean energy, manufacturing, education, and new technology.

The budget also calls for ending of tax breaks for shipping jobs overseas and for sharpening enforcement of trade agreements.

The president's budget will be ignored in the Republican-run House, where Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., intends to again draft his own proposal, which is again expected to push killing of Medicare as we know it.

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said in a phone interview that she was pleased about the president's proposed increases in education funding, his plans to keep Pell grants at present levels and his emphasis on more job training money.

Obama "rejects the cuts-only obsession of many in Congress, and includes several concrete, doable policies that will provide relief to Americans still struggling to get by today, as well as needed investment in our future," she said. "We applaud the president's focus on improving and strengthening the teaching profession, and on keeping educators off the unemployment lines and in the classroom."

Weingarten was clearly unhappy, though, about the lack of increase in federal money for elementary and secondary schools. "With 3 million more children in poverty since the start of our economic crisis, we can't afford to freeze funding for educating poor kids while competitive grant programs that serve some, but not all, receive increases," she stated.

Steelworkers President Leo Gerard praised Obama's proposal for a new Interagency Trade Enforcement Center and more money for that cause. The USW has often spoken out on what it sees as unfair trade practices by countries - most notably China - that subsidize their exports to the U.S.

However, some sections of the budget have drawn the ire of people in the labor movement and their allies. Among these are a 5 percent cut in the Labor Department's budget and cuts in several worker-help programs, including loans to states to help extend payments to the jobless.

Another example is the proposed elimination of a small Labor Department program designed to help women get into "non-traditional" occupations such as construction.

John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, was angry about the president's proposal on continuing to freeze hiring for federal workers.

"Federal employees have already contributed $60 billion with pay freezes. It's been $60 billion, plus now $27 billion and I don't see any jobs created," Gage told PAI, the union news service. "The White House is putting money into creating new jobs and then attacking the jobs that we have. Federal employees already sacrificed more than the president is asking from the big banks."

Photo: Senate Budget Committee Chairman Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., center, and Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., at a news conference on Capitol Hill, Feb. 13, to discuss President Obama's fiscal 2013 federal budget. Scott Applewhite/AP

Environmental groups unite to stop Keystone XL

Blake Deppe — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 17:02:00 -0500

Senate Republicans filed an amendment Feb. 13 to the transportation bill that would authorize the Keystone XL pipeline. Today, activist group 350 called on every environmental group in the nation to send half a million messages to the Senate by the end of the day, with a very clear demand: "back the President and make sure this pipeline doesn't get built." As of now, the Senate has been flooded with over 600,000 messages.

The proposed Keystone pipeline system, which would be used to transport crude oil from Alberta, Canada to multiple U.S. destinations, is considered a serious threat to the environment, and has today resulted in one of the largest forms of online environmental organizing in history.

President Obama halted the pipeline plan in January, in what was a big victory for environmental activists. That could be soured now as Republicans attempt to "sabotage that win," said a press release by 350.

"Congressional approval of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is not acceptable," said Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, International Program Director at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "It will create a bad process rushing approval of a tar sands pipeline when the route for the pipeline hasn't even been determined yet, and the environmental review process remains incomplete."

In the midst of climate change and in the wake of prior environmental disasters, the potential of Keystone XL to add to that havoc is, critics feel, enormous.

350 worked today with environmental groups all over the country, and partnered with other progressive allies like MoveOn.org, Political Action, and CREDO Mobile. A large part of the intended goal was also to illustrate that Keystone is not, as Republicans proclaim, a glorious answer to the jobs crisis.

The biggest labor unions in the country also understand this, said 350 in a statement, and therefore support the President's decision to say "no" to Keystone XL.

"The only argument [in favor of] the pipeline," said the statement, "comes from folks like the Koch brothers - 'we can make a lot of money.' It's not a good argument, but that money buys votes in Congress, unless we stand up."

People stood up indeed, and by the afternoon, the number of messages the Senate received was well above the intended goal of 500,000, highlighting the dramatic fashion in which the pipeline matter - once obscure - has quickly become the country's central environmental issue.

The 500,000^th signature, moreover, was from a Nebraskan citizen, who pointed out that the only independent study of the pipeline in her state showed it would yield a measly 1,400 temporary jobs - a short-lived band-aid on the jobs problem at best, and certainly not the great fix that Republicans and Big Oil have been touting it as.

Photo: Demonstrators in Washington protest the Keystone XL pipeline. Evan Vucci/AP

Labor groups defend different pieces of national health care law

Mark Gruenberg — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 14:42:00 -0500

WASHINGTON - With the national health care revision law yet to fully take effect, but under challenge before the Supreme Court, six labor organizations have stepped forward, four of them joining other groups, to defend different parts of it.

The labor groups' friend-of-the-court briefs, filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, are an index of where the unions and their allies stand. The court, however, is free to accept or ignore such legal submissions.

The key contenders in the case, which the justices will hear March 26-28, are the federal government, 26 states, and the National Federation of Independent Business, a right-wing lobby. The GOP government of Florida is leading states' campaign against the health care law; NFIB also hates the law.

The federal government is defending the health care revision, while the states call it unconstitutional; so does NFIB. The union groups, in their briefs, take the government's side.

The Service Employees and Change To Win filed their own brief defending the health care law, without allies. They were the only unions to do so. SEIU said more than half of its 2.1 million members work in health care, and SEIU is the largest union in Change To Win. The two defended the law's minimum coverage provision.

"The minimum coverage provision operates as an income tax within Congress' complete and all-embracing income taxing power," SEIU and Change To Win's lawyers wrote. "The provision gives taxpayers the choice to either purchase adequate health insurance or pay additional money to the government with their tax returns."

The two said only taxpayers who owe income taxes would pay the health care tax, if they didn't buy health insurance, starting in 2016. The formal language says the tax would be "up to 2.5 percent of household income, above the income tax filing threshold" but they quoted a GOP foe of the health care law as estimating the usual penalty would be $750 yearly.

The $4 billion the government will collect from the tax will go to pay for coverage for people whose incomes are too low to pay taxes, while giving other taxpayers an incentive to buy health insurance, "reducing future costs to the government," the brief by SEIU and Change To Win adds.

The union's attorneys said health care law foes want to overturn it because the law calls the tax "a penalty," and because it says taxpayers "shall" buy insurance or pay the penalty.

The American Nurses Association, with other medical groups, tackled the health care law foes' argument that if Congress could force people to buy health insurance, it could force them to do anything. Not so, the union and its allies said. The only laws that flunk such a test, it said, are those "focused on non-economic concerns or solely intrastate matters." And ANA and its allies dismissed the case against the health care tax by calling it "part of a broader scheme of regulating the national health care and health insurance markets," which Congress has the power to do.

They also detailed the practical impact of getting everyone into the health care system. "Uninsured Americans frequently delay care until their conditions become much more difficult and expensive to treat," the groups explained. "And the cost of caring for the uninsured drives up the cost of Medicare and of health insurance plans."

Not only that, but "the activity of delaying the purchase of health insurance until an individual requires care" affects interstate commerce, the union says. That means Congress can regulate it, ANA added.

The Coalition of Labor Union Women and 9to5 joined a large array of womens organizations in defending the law's improvement of women's access to health care and ending health insurers' discrimination against women.

The law "ends gender ratings, makes maternity coverage available to all, prohibits sex discrimination in health care and health insurance, and expands Medicaid eligibility," among other things says their brief, authored by the National Women's Law Center. That includes insurers' discrimination against pregnant women, they said.

The law also "supports nursing mothers, provides Pap tests, mammograms, and family planning without co-pays and makes health insurance more affordable," they add.

"As legislation intended to end gender discrimination," the health care law "follows in a long tradition of civil rights acts firmly within Congress' power" to regulate commerce, CLUW, 9to5 and the Womens Law Center brief said.

"The law has, and was intended to have, a particularly important effect on women" and their health, the groups explained. It also would not only affect commerce, "but help right a moral and social wrong" - health care discrimination against women - "that in itself has profound economic consequences" which Congress can regulate.

The New England Jewish Labor Committee and other New England Jewish groups also defended the health care tax. They said it's not coercive and does not intrude on liberty. The Jewish community, they added, would "oppose any sacrifice of genuinely fundamental individual rights in an effort to address the health care crisis."

But there is no such sacrifice here, they said. "The minimum coverage provision does not require individuals to purchase any particular product. It is, instead, merely a requirement for individual financial participation in the national healthcare infrastructure, much like a tax," they said. The groups called it "a kind of regulatory control that does not, under precedent, raise rights-based concerns."

Black History Month 2012: Remembering Dalzenia Henry

Joelle Fishman — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 12:10:00 -0500

NEW HAVEN, Conn - When the judging for the African American History Month High School Arts and Writing Competition takes place this Friday, Dalzenia Henry's legacy will be on our minds.

As a young African American woman growing up in the projects, Dalzenia's aspirations, hopes and dreams were very plain: she wanted every one to have the opportunity to achieve their fullest potential. She stood up against racism and inequality all her life, most of all by dedicating herself to children.

Dalzenia D. Henry passed away on January 12, 2008 at age 49. She had been recovering from the flu. Even though she didn't feel well, Dalzenia went in to work at the Children's Center that day. All at once, she stopped breathing and collapsed. She never made it back home.

The shock was deep at her workplace where she was president of her AFSCME local, and in the community where she had spent years directing an after school "youth diversion" program at Quinnipiac Terrace, It was devastating to her daughters, her mother and her large, extended family.

At the time, Dalzenia was in the midst of preparations for the 34^th annual People's World African American History Month celebration She put her energy and creativity into these celebrations so people would be "educated, entertained and motivated ... This should sustain you to go out into the community and fight the battles we have yet to win," she would say.

As one of the delegates who traveled from Connecticut to St. Louis, Missouri in August 2007 to attend the African American Equality Conference of the Communist Party, Dalzenia was committed to take on a larger leadership role.

As part of an effort to end the violence in the community, the high school competition was launched to coincide with the African American History Month celebration. It is now named for Dalzenia and her mother Virginia, a leader of Local 35, service and maintenance workers union at Yale, who died a year later.

Dalzenia was a deep thinker. She understood the interconnections of exploitation, racism and war. She was not afraid to stand up for her beliefs, and was proud to be a member of the Communist Party USA.

Despite the difficult economic problems she faced, often working several low-wage jobs, she found the time to participate and raise consciousness in her neighborhood.

All the kids loved "Toosie," as they called Dalzenia. When the Housing Authority cut the after-school program she directed, the children wrote a petition and showed up at a meeting of the Board of Directors. The program was extended for an extra six months.

Dalzenia served as a Commissioner on the City of New Haven Peace Commission. She was a candidate for State Legislature on the Tax the Rich line in 1992. She participated in many long bus trips to Washington DC for peace, jobs and justice marches and rallies.

Dalzenia was a wonderful friend and comrade. She was open-minded. She had a passion for justice and a zest for life. She put family first and embraced the entire community. Her creativity, deep political thinking and optimistic outlook for achieving basic change made a lasting impact. Dalzenia helped make history.

This year's competition fits Dalzenia to a "T." The students are asked to write or draw about their vision for the future and to address the question: "How can being involved in the struggle for freedom and equality bring positive change to your life and the larger community?"

The prizes will be awarded on Sunday, February 26 at 4 pm at 37 Howe Street in New Haven during the 38^th annual African American History Month Celebration of the People's World. The theme, "We who believe in freedom cannot rest," is a phrase from Ella's Song. The dedication and inspiration that Dalzenia brought to the struggle for freedom and equality does not rest

Prison privatization efforts stall in Florida

Joshua Leclair — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 11:19:00 -0500

Stiff opposition and a divided Florida chamber have temporarily halted a move to privatize 27 prisons in South Florida.

According to Michael Peltier of Reuters, Florida Senate President Mike Haridopolos, a Republican, postponed the vote on privatization until this week. If successful, this measure would outsource a third of Florida's corrections facilities and work camps to for-profit vendors. With Florida already having the third largest prison system in the U.S. ($2.2 billion-a-year- overseeing nearly 101,000 inmates and 112,800 on community supervision), privatizing the state's corrections system would create the largest for-profit prison industry in the country.

Peltier goes on to say that Senate President Haridopolos and supporters of the privatization bill (SB 2038) are warning other legislators that cuts of $15 million out of the state's $69.2 billion budget will be necessary if the bill does not pass. But veteran Florida Senator Mike Fasano, also a Republican, said "the evidence is not there ... there needs to be an in-depth study to tell us if it's going to save money." As a result, Senator Fasano was quickly stripped of his chairmanship of the Senate appropriations committee by Senate President Haridopolos.

Fernando Rendon, an IBEW member and blogger on Florida Today , said that the "bill will privatize government agencies and services WITHOUT any public or expert input, and any cost analysis studies to justify the need for privatization." Rendon went on to say that there would be "no hearings, no studies, and no justifications to show if privatization is a better option."

"Haridopolos' actions (laid) bare his true intentions of giving away prisons and in the future, other government facilities and services to private interests, and the reason for this is money," Rendon said. Haridopolos insists this will be money saved for taxpayers, but in reality it will be another hand out to corporations and politicians at the expense of Florida's taxpayers. "Once those prisons go private, owners will push politicians to impose mandatory sentencing for what are now petty crimes," said Rendon. "That is the reason companies like GEO give so much in campaign contributions is that [they[ see it as an investment that they intend to make up in spades by filling jails and charging taxpayers for it."

With a divided house and many Floridians lobbying against the prison privatization measure both at home in their districts and in Tallahassee, Haridopolos may be fighting an uphill battle this week.

Photo: On the right, Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, laughs it up in the Florida Senate in Tallahassee. Haridopolos removed Sen. Mike Fasano from a budget panel after Fasano fought a plan to privatize Florida prisons. Phil Sears/AP

Massive reenactment of 1965 Selma march will focus on today’s battles

John Wojcik — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 15:52:00 -0500

"We may be marching from Selma to Montgomery, but this is about the Wisconsins, Ohios, Indianas, Arizonas, the Michigans and any other state where they're blatantly attacking our rights."

With those words AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker told reporters at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., last week that unions are joining with civil rights and community partners in a massive re-enactment of the historic 1965 Alabama civil rights march. Holt Baker is the nation's highest-ranking African American labor leader.

The reenactment will focus, she said, on the new attacks on voting rights across the nation by the GOP, on immigrant and workers' rights and on education.

"The onslaught of coordinated attacks on workers' rights, voting rights, public education and immigration reform is an affront to our democracy," said Holt Baker. "During the difficult economic times that so many of our communities are facing, we would much rather see our state legislators spending their time focusing on job creation as opposed to deconstructing our fundamental rights."

The five-day reenactment will step off on Sunday, March 4, in Selma, in remembrance of "Bloody Sunday" in 1965 when 600 peaceful marchers calling for the right to vote, led by Dr. Martin Luther King, were attacked by hundreds of local and state police wielding billy clubs and using poison gas on the demonstrators.

"It is important that we not just remember what Dr. King and others did in 1965 with the Voting Rights Act that came as a result of the Selma-to-Montgomery march," said the Rev. Al Sharpton, president of the National Action Network, which is among the sponsors of the reenactment. "We must preserve it (the Voting Rights Act) against voter ID laws and the (elimination of) early voting and voter suppression attempts that are taking place today," he said in a statement.

The original Selma-to-Montgomery march was actually three marches that were part of a massive civil rights movement taking place across America. The first march, on March 7, 1965, was the brutally attacked "Bloody Sunday" event. The second march, the following Tuesday, was turned back after some 2,500 demonstrators crossed Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge.

The third march started March 16 with marchers logging about 10 miles per day on their treck from Selma to the state Capitol in Montgomery. They marched along Route 80, known at that time as Jefferson Davis Highway. Davis was president of the Confederacy.

The third march made it to Montgomery and the state Capitol. The nation watched on TV as the marchers made their way, protected this time by 2,000 U.S. Army soldiers, 1,900 members of the Alabama National Guard who had been put under federal command, and huge numbers of FBI agents and federal marshals.

Many individual unions have joined the AFL-CIO in sponsoring the re-enactment including the Service Employees, Auto Workers, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the American Federation of Teachers.

Unions and the civil rights groups involved say they they will push hard to publicize their national campaign, which began several weeks ago, to get the Alabama state legislature to dump its recently passed anti-immigrant law.

"This law is an ill-conceived effort to terrorize undocumented workers and drive them from the sate," Wade Henderson of the Leadership Council on Civil Rights, which is coordinating this year's march, said in a statement.

Immigrant families have fled Alabama because of the new law with children having been pulled out of school by officials forced to quiz them about their citizenship.

The law also forces police to stop, quiz and demand papers from and arrest for deportation anyone who "looks different."

It also criminalizes anyone signing a contract with, selling or renting a house to, or giving any type of aid, including a glass of water, to undocumented workers.

The sponsoring groups say they hope the march will help force corporations to re-think doing business in Alabama. They have already asked three top automakers in the state - Honda, Hyundai and Daimler Benz - to meet with them about the law. Henderson announced those plans at a Feb. 6 news conference.

The United Auto Workers played a leading roll in supporting the civil rights movement in the 1960s. The union's current president, Bob King, said the UAW "will enlist our members, have demonstrations, and do whatever we collectively decide to help overturn the Alabama law."

Eliseo Medina, SEIU's secretary-treasurer, said his union has few members in Alabama, "but they are participating in efforts" to lobby the legislature to overturn the law. "We'll mobilize them to participate" in the Selma-to-Montgomery march, he added. "You can't have people living in the shadows without impacting all other workers," Medina said of the immigrant workers targeted by the Alabama law.

Photo: Dr. Martin Luther King leads marchers across the Alabama River on the first of a five-day, 50 mile march to the state capitol on March 21, 1965. AP

The 99% rally outside DC gathering of the 1%

James Baldridge — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 12:02:00 -0500

WASHINGTON - More than 1,200 labor and community activists, as estimated by the AFL-CIO, turned out in force at a boisterous rally Friday outside the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). As many as 700 shut down Woodley Road at midday with an impromptu sit-in and a brief takeover of the driveway at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel.

Shouting "Whose America? Our America!" chanters and picket signs drew attention to the income gap between the "one percent" and the "99 percent" and the need for an economy that works for everyone.

Buses came from Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York City to join with DC and Virginia protesters at the 2012 version of the annual CPAC conference, the "birthing ground" of the most aggressive agenda items that will be used by the right wing in the run-up to the November elections.

Well appointed CPAC members rushed through the huge crowds that had turned the area around the hotel into a multi-racial, multi-generational festival that featured everything form Occupy Wall Street tents to neatly uniformed "Tax Dodgers," with a giant "Mitt."

At least 12 major unions participated. They were joined by groups like Occupy Baltimore, Occupy DC, Veterans for Peace and Fight For Philly. The latter is a coalition of labor, community, faith and activist groups. There was also a large contingent of immigrant rights activists carrying a banner saying, "The People United Can Never Be Defeated" in English on one side and Spanish on the other.

The diverse gathering was at least half African-American, with many Latinos and older workers. Participation from the unions was almost entirely rank and file, with some staff to provide organizational and logistical support for the event.

Other signs in the march and protest were "Medicare Is Sexy," "Banks got bailouts, Schools got sold out," "Santorum is a dirty word" (carried by an Occupy Baltimore leader), "Jobs not cuts," "They pay less taxes than you and I," "Occupy the future," "Recall Walker," "Corporations are NOT people," "Immigration reform NOW," "Ban fracking now" and "We are the Times Persons of the Year."

Chants heard during the march and rally were "Kick Back CPAC," "the REAL 'Voice Of America' will be HEARD," and "We're not gonna be happy 'til they say JOBS!"

There was an energetic group of drummers to count cadence during the march and to provide rhythmic interludes during the rally.

Later Friday afternoon, the United Food and Commercial Workers, Local 1994, kicked off the night demonstration by parading their "golden throne" - a gold-painted toilet - in front of the Marriot Wardman, "representing Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's greed and arrogance," Local President Gino Renne said.

Just as the GOP has lurched to the right the CPAC itse4lf has swung further to the right than ever.

Peter Brimelow, a prominent white nationalist and founder of the racist and anti-Semitic website VDARE attended this year and "Birther" leader Joseph Farah was another right-wing luminary in attendance. He has boycotted CPAC since 2009 when he was blocked from hosting a panel questioning the President's citizenship but was welcomed back this year.

Youth for Western Civilization, whose founder was arrested in 2007 for karate chopping an African American woman on the street while calling her "n****" was accepted this year as a CPAC co-sponsor.

GOP presidential candidates Romney, Gingrich and Santorum were there, with Romney winning the group's straw poll on presidential preference.

Unions at the demonstrations against the right-wing cabal included the Sheetmetal Workers, Elevator Constructors, Local, the Service Employees International Union, the American Federation of Teachers, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the Firefighters, the American Fedratioon of Government Employees, Stagehands and Actors, the Ironworkers, the Communications Workers of America and the Washington DC Metro Council of the AFL-CIO.

Photo: Washington DC Metro Council, AFL-CIO

Senate hopeful Hoekstra slammed for racist Super Bowl ad

John Rummel — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 11:16:00 -0500

DETROIT - Racism and far right politics go hand-in-hand. Nothing new from Michigan Senate hopeful and former Congressman Pete Hoekstra, but with his Super Bowl ad, the whole nation got to see it for themselves.

Hoekstra is running against Michigan incumbent Sen. Debbie Stabenow and his ad criticized Sen. Stabenow's record identifying her as Debbie "Spend-it-now" and himself as "Spend-it-not."

The Hoekstra ad used a Chinese American actor who, speaking broken English while riding a bike with rice paddies in the background, "praises" Sen. Stabenow for her policies that cause the United States to borrow money from her country (implying China), making them rich and the U.S. poor.

After the ad's airing, criticism of it here skyrocketed. In a press conference the next day, Detroit minister Rev. Charles Williams II said: "If Pete Hoekstra does not see any wrong in this commercial, he doesn't deserve to be in the race. The Asian woman speaking in this video would be no different than him having a black person speaking in slave dialect. He needs to apologize now!"

Another Detroit minister, Rev. Maurice L. Rudds, said, "The politics of racial division is alive and well in Hoekstra's campaign. What's next? A commercial mocking African American hip-hoppers?"

Many here note that when it comes to spending U.S. tax dollars Hoekstra himself has had no problem - as long as the money went to the top 1 percent.

He voted for the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, voted to allow CEOs at bailed out banks to receive bonuses at taxpayer expense, and voted against regulation to prevent future bailouts. He has said repealing Wall Street reform would be one of his top priorities.

How does Hoekstra feel about money for the 99 percent? He has recently given support to the "right-to-work" initiative being pushed by Republicans in Michigan - a quick way to lower the state's standard of living without any interference from China or any other country.

Interestingly the Chinese economy has weathered the current economic downturn not because it "spends-it-not" but because it does indeed "spend-it." Huge infrastructure projects such as mass transit have provided jobs and laid the basis for China's future growth.

Even some Republicans said Hoekstra's Super Bowl ad went too far. Not because they had a change of heart on their policies. It's more likely because reaction against the ad was swift and strong.

Photo: Pete Hoekstra Flickr

Opposition grows to GOP schools proposal

Mark Gruenberg — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 10:11:00 -0500

WASHINGTON - The National Education Association and a wide range of other organizations - from civil rights groups to the Chamber of Commerce - are opposing the proposal by the House's ruling Republicans to rewrite federal education law and school aid.

House Education Committee Chairman John Kline, R-Minn., unveiled the GOP proposal in a Feb. 9 speech to a right-wing think tank. More than 40 groups, including the AFL-CIO-affiliated School Administrators, call Kline's plan "a rollback" of the promise of equal educational opportunity that started with the U.S. Supreme Court's famous 1954 school integration ruling, Brown vs. Board of Education.

Kline would replace the 11-year old No Child Left Behind law, pushed through Congress by GOP President George W. Bush in early 2001. NCLB has led to "teaching to the test" nationwide, with schools forced to concentrate just on basics.

NCLB also set standards for student progress, measured solely by test scores that led directly to firings of teachers, state takeovers of schools, and virtual guarantees that public schools will fail, unions and teachers say. School failures let the federal government shift its education aid to private schools, a favorite right-wing cause.

Kline's plan is bad for the students the law is supposed to help, NEA says.

"We must remember the days before the Elementary and Secondary Education Act," which NCLB amended, "when generations of children were denied the basic educational opportunities they deserved," the union warned.

"We must judge proposals on whether they will strengthen our educational system, or whether they will move us backward. We must find an appropriate balance of federal and state roles by refocusing on strong state accountability systems while continuing to maintain a sharp federal focus on equity across state and district lines.

"The House draft fails to address equity issues adequately. The House proposals do not push states enough to narrow achievement gaps, provide equal access to quality education, and ensure state standards and assessment and accountability systems work for students.

"The proposals also lack a comprehensive plan to address existing inequities in public education that harm students and communities, particularly students and communities of color," NEA added. "Ensuring that all students have equal access to a quality education is why the federal government got involved in education in the first place. This principle should guide our efforts as we move forward," the union declared.

Photo: NYU teaching assistants - members of UAW Local 2110 - at the NLRB demand a ruling on their 2 year-old case involving their right to organize and bargain collectively. Photo courtesy UAW Region 9A via PAI Photo Service.

Trumka: Big Banks' payment on mortgage settlement good first step

Mark Gruenberg — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 09:43:00 -0500

WASHINGTON - A $26.5 billion settlement between the states' attorneys general and big banks over the financial finagling with mortgage-backed securities - which led to the economic crash and the Great Recession - is a good first step to hold financers accountable for the wreckage, foreclosures, and evictions they caused, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says. It won't be the last.

The settlement, announced Feb. 9, forces the big banks to turn over the funds to settle the "robo-signing" mess: Some $5 billion to 750,000 victims of illegal bank home seizures in foreclosure where banks did not even review the documents, much less consider evidence that homeowners were current in payments.

The rest will go to mortgage relief for tens of thousands of other homeowners whose mortgages are "underwater" - worth more than the homes themselves. That still leaves other financial frauds that brought the economy down open to prosecution, Trumka and state and federal officials said. And that's very important, he added.

For example, Calif. Attorney General Kamala Harris is forcing the banks to pay an extra $12 billion to refinance mortgages at lower rates in the Golden State.

All this combined to cheer Trumka. The AFL-CIO was worried the Obama administration would go soft on the banks. He praised the attorney generals' role.

"The banks broke the law by railroading homeowners through the foreclosure process," Trumka declared. The settlement gives money to the victims "without requiring individuals to waive their legal claims. The settlement also includes needed principal write-downs, so homeowners can stay in their homes."

Trumka singled out Harris and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman for fighting for a tough settlement. "Because of their efforts, these banks have not been released from liability for fraud and other illegal conduct in creation of mortgage-backed securities that were central to the Wall Street financial crisis. Law enforcers can still investigate and prosecute criminal activity against the banks, and pursue broader civil claims for illegal conduct that brought down our housing market," Trumka said.

Schneiderman and Obama's Attorney General, Eric Holder, said they aren't done with the banks yet. "This will not prevent state and federal authorities from pursuing criminal prosecutions," Holder said. "I'm confident we have the jurisdiction, the resources, and the will to pursue the people who brought down the economy," added Schneiderman. A new federal task force pursuing housing finance fraud, which Schneiderman chairs, has already subpoenaed 11 financial firms for their mortgage-backed securities documents.

Photo: "Richard Trumka listens as President Obama addresses union workers." Charles Dharapak/AP

Pork corporations ending use of torturous crates

Blake Deppe — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:36:00 -0500

Meat company Hormel announced plans to end the practice of keeping most female pigs in small, cramped gestation crates by 2017, following a similar development last year by Smithfield Foods, Inc. Activists are urging other pork producers to follow suit, but some of these corporations are still engaging in animal abuse.

In most instances, gestation crates are inhumane two-by-seven foot enclosures, which prevent pregnant pigs from being able to move around, lie down, or take a step backward or forward. The animals are forced to lie in their own excrement, and they exhibit nervous coping behaviors, including bar biting, constant shaking of the head, and tongue rolling.

Temple Grandin, an animal welfare expert, noted that a pig's life in a gestation crate is comparable to a person being stuck in an airline seat for their entire life.

Hormel - the makers of SPAM - have 54,000 breeding pigs at facilities in Arizona, Colorado, and Wyoming. While Arizona and Colorado have passed laws to eventually ban the crates, Wyoming so far has not.

The company's move comes just two months after Smithfield Foods also made plans to do away with the crates by 2017.

By the end of 2011, Smithfield claimed that 30 percent of its female pigs were now in group housing situations instead of crates. Their decision to phase out the abuse arose after The Humane Society of the United States filed a complaint with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, declaring that Smithfield was tricking consumers by insisting it did not abuse pigs. The animal rights group said the presence of the crates violated federal security laws, under which corporations cannot make false or misleading statements.

Smithfield has come under fire before, due to other alleged abuse, including a female pig being shot with a stun gun and thrown into a garbage bin while still alive, and piglets that were born prematurely falling through gestation crate grates and left to die in large manure pits.

Two other companies - Seaboard Foods (which supplies pork for Walmart) and Prestage Farms - have continued to severely mistreat their pigs through use of the crates, the Humane Society recently discovered.

Force Change recently organized a petition to convince Seaboard and Prestage to follow the example set by Smithfield and Hormel, and to implement more humane and responsible practices for hog rearing in general.

The caging practice, said Force Change, is largely being recognized as a cruel one, and the crates have already been outlawed by Sweden and the U.K.

The only reason some industry policy has improved so far, said Grandin, is due to grassroots coalitions of animal welfare advocates standing up against these meat corporations. "It's pressure from activist groups," she said, not the goodwill of Smithfield executives, which has caused the company to phase out the crates. "Gestation stalls have got to go," she concluded.

Photo: "Animal rights activist Ashley Curtis, painted pink and joined by fellow demonstrators, crouches in a crate to illustrate the abusive conditions female pigs suffer at the hands of some meat companies." Janet Hostetter/AP Photos

Obama’s pension chief pushes new plan to protect retirees

Mark Gruenberg, John Wojcik — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:58:00 -0500

WASHINGTON - The head of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., which insures traditional private pensions - and which steps in when a company tries to dump its pension plan - wants to change how his agency charges premiums to firms it serves.

In congressional testimony in early February, PBGC Director Joshua Gotbaum, an Obama appointee, proposed that the agency's board be allowed to set the premiums it charges, case by case and company by company, based on risk and other factors. Essentially, he said, the federal agency should have the same leeway now granted to private insurance firms.

Gotbaum made big news last month when his agency slapped a lien on $90 million worth of property belonging to American Airlines, which has filed for bankruptcy. Pointing to the airline's vast holdings overseas, he said that American's plan to eliminate pensions and lay off workers were far too drastic, considering it had not proven bankruptcy was its only option. He said, essentially, that there were considerable funds that the airline could have used to support pension plans which were used instead for other purposes.

Unions backed his move against American Airlines because they believe the company is using the bankruptcy route to get out of contractual obligations to its workers.

American is demanding massive numbers of layoffs and wants to kill its pensions plans, they say, and his holding bankruptcy over the heads of union negotiators. The company has as much as said, they claim, that if unions don't go along it will take its case to a bankruptcy judge in New York.

The American Transportation Union, a major union at American Airlines, has actually connected the dots between what the airline is doing and Republican presidential candidate George Romney.

ATU demonstrators have been following Romney around the country as he campaigns, pointing out that Romney's Bain Capital has been hired by the airline to guide the company through what it sees as its union-busting bankruptcy procedure.

Gotbaum, in his testimony before Congress, said virtually every other type of private insurer - in auto, health care, and the like - sets premiums and that his agency, as a government insurer, should be allowed to do the same.

Gotbaum added that letting the board set the premiums would help close a potential future shortfall of $26 billion between the assets the agency now has ($81 billion) and potential obligations ($107 billion).

Raising PBGC premiums on everybody, Gotbaum said, is not the answer.

Gotbaum discussion of his agency's funding and Obama administration proposals to close the future gap took place at a House Education and the Workforce subcommittee hearing Feb. 2. The panel took no action, but looked to the hearing to gather information on the nation's pension system - or, as Gotbaum's testimony showed, non-system.

"Once we do the math, it's clear that retirement is going to cost more, not less," as Americans now live longer after they retire, he told lawmakers. "Unfortunately, pensions haven't kept up.

"About one-third of American workers have no access to employer-provided retirement benefits; about one-half actually have such benefits. Of those that do, the majority have only have a defined contribution (DC) plan, usually a 401(k). Many of these plans lost value during the recent economic downturn. The tens of millions of Americans that have defined benefit (DB) pension plans are better off, but employers have been turning away from such plans," Gotbaum added.

Part of the problem, Gotbaum testified, is the premiums PBGC charges to firms, per worker, are set by Congress and they're way too small to fully fund future liabilities or to discourage firms from unilaterally dumping traditional DB pensions.

Some takeover artists, he noted, have learned how to "game the system" by buying a firm's assets for themselves from the company they previously controlled, but not its liabilities, including its pensions. That leaves PBGC (the government) to pick up the pieces.

Gotbaum said American Airlines was using Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization to unload its pension obligations. American filed for bankruptcy earlier this year. It wants to lay off 13,000 workers - most of them Transport Workers Union members - and eliminate its pension plan.

"American provided only the latest and most graphic example" of the results of low PBGC premiums, Gotbaum said. It "sought and received funding relief from Congress. Instead of funding their pensions, they set aside a cash pool of over $4 billion.

"Since their bankruptcy filing, they have made it clear that they would like to terminate their pension plans. Doing so would increase PBGC's deficit by some $9 billion. For this insurance, American has paid a total over 37 years of about $260 million in premiums.

"What's just as disturbing is that financially sound companies are asked to make up the difference. If Congress were to increase those premiums just to cover actions of other companies, it would make the situation worse. Think how hard it is to convince companies to keep their plans while you're asking them to pay for the losses of others."

Meanwhile, TWU President James Little said American, which Gotbaum cited, wants to fire 20 percent of its staff, dump the pensions, and outsource maintenance of its planes to depots in developing countries, as other airlines do. American is virtually the only U.S. airline where all maintenance is done in the U.S., and by TWU members.

"TWU members approach this crisis as a union with a demonstrated track record of finding business savvy ways to partner with our employer," Little added. "Since 2003, we've given back over $600 million from our paychecks - about 30 percent of our pay and benefits - so we could keep American's planes in the air. And we lead the U.S. aviation industry in joint in-sourcing projects, generating billions in corporate revenues for AMR," American's parent holding company, "while saving thousands of jobs."

Then Little took aim at American's pension dump.

"AMR wants to dump $10 billion in liabilities on the PBGC, which insures defined-benefit pensions for more than 75 million workers. The agency is funded by employer-paid premiums, but it's already running a $26 billion deficit. Gotbaum says AMR has not proven it needs to kill its pension plans to successfully reorganize. Other airlines, like Northwest, have emerged from bankruptcy with pension plans intact," Little said.

"After paying themselves huge bonuses for years, AMR executives filed for Chapter 11 with $4 billion in the bank and $13 billion in credit for buying new planes. Former CEO Gerald Arpey thought the decision was so wrong-headed that he immediately resigned."

Photo: Airline pilots at a demonstration against American Airlines four years ago warned that cutbacks endangered passenger safety. Now the airline wants to get rid of pensions and lay off even more workers. D.J. Peters/AP Photos

Scarlett Johansson, fashion world walking Runway for Obama

Dan Margolis — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 12:37:00 -0500

Another member of the glitterati has thrown their weight behind President Barack Obama's campaign reelection bid, this time Scarlett Johnannson.

Why is Johansson, the Lost in Translation actress-turned-fashionista, supporting Obama?

"Change for American women: the first bill President Obama signed into law was the Fair Pay Act. Three women now sit on the Supreme Court for the first time in history," ScarJo said in New York. "And insurance companies must now offer women cancer screenings and contraception at no cost."

"The president ended Don't Ask, Don't Tell so no one will ever again have to lie about who they love to serve the country they love," the starlet continued. "The president declared the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional. And he signed the Hate Crimes Prevention Act into law."

What about those upset with Obama for what he hasn't done? Johansson isn't holding a grudge. She told the AP, "I think people are really in dire straits and they are very reasonably and understandably upset. I mean Obama inherited a turkey, he really did, and he's working to... he's fighting a kind of uphill battle in a sense and he has these past four years. And he never ran his first term as that - he was always going to be a two-term election in that sense. And change doesn't happen overnight, you know, we know that."

Johansson worked with other designers, including Anna Wintour, Diane Von Furstenburg and Georgina Chapman to launch Runway to Win on Feb. 7 in New York. Runway is a line of "proudly made in the USA" fashion and accessories, all sporting a styling Obama theme.

Want your own Sean John Obama-themed t-shirt? At $45, it's pricey, but by fashion industry prices, that is a steal. A makeup case, complete with Barack Obama nail polish, designed by Richard Blanch? Get it for $40. Also for sale are items by Altuzarra, Tory Burch, Marc Jacobs, Beyoncé and Tina Knowles, Russell Simons, Rachel Roy, and others. All can be ordered from the Runway to Win website.

It seems that even though Hollywood executives, angry at Obama's lack of support for the anti-piracy, anti-Internet SOPA and PIPA bills, have vowed not to support the president, the actual artists have no such compulsion. Martin Sheen earlier announced his support, as did George Clooney.

Photo: Jennifer Graylock/AP

Protests call for "Robin Hood" tax to fund jobs, education

John Bachtell — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 10:48:00 -0500

CHICAGO - Chanting "Whose money? Our money!" a group of city residents marched on Mayor Rahm Emanuel's office Feb. 8 demanding lavish corporate subsidies instead be used to fund jobs creation, schools, libraries and clinics.

Speaking at the protest, Charles Brown, a leader of Action Now, stated, "We're here to reclaim our money and demand that Mayor Emanuel put it towards jobs creation. Fund our libraries, clinics and schools so we won't have to lay off people."

Protesters delivered a $33 million "check" representing Tax Increment Financing (TIF) monies returned to the city from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, CNA and Bank of America. The CME apparently didn't need the money after getting a huge tax break from the state and neither CNA and Bank of America could prove they had created jobs as promised.

CME is the world's largest futures trading market and reported profits of $745 million in 2011, up from $196 million in 2010. CME boosted it dividend to shareholders by 20%.

But CME cried poverty and threatened to leave Illinois if they didn't get a break. With a gun to its head, the state legislature awarded them an $85 million tax break.

Each year hundreds of millions of dollars in TIF funds are siphoned off from revenues meant to fund education and city parks. The money instead ends up in the pockets of developers and some of the largest corporations in the city, especially to use in developing the downtown financial district.

A measly $3 million is needed to restore cuts to library hours and layoffs of 170 librarians.

Included in the total of TIF funds returned was $15 million CME had planned to use to refurbish company bathrooms and build a fitness center. Last week the Grassroots Collaborative coalition delivered a "golden toilet" to the CME lobby to shame the options trading firm. They retrieved the toilet and delivered it to Emanuel along with the check.

Lois Nelson, who taught in the Chicago Public Schools for 40 years, is upset by what she sees happening to public education.

"We not only have disadvantaged children, we have disadvantaged public schools," Nelson told a Feb. 3 rally of unemployed teachers and other workers. "Our classes are overcrowded and teachers are being laid off. That money needs to go back into our schools."

Joe Persky of the Chicago Political Economy Group (CPEG) explained the ongoing jobs crisis this way: "Only 58.3% of the population is working now. Two million jobs created in 2011 is good, but at this rate it will take us 50 years to get back to where we were in 2007."

From Mayor Emanuel's office, the teachers, trade unionists and community activists then marched on CME to demand a stock transaction tax of $1 on each trade to create jobs and fund education. It is also referred to it as the "Robin Hood" tax.

The millions of trades that take place each day would raise an estimated $6 billion in revenues in Illinois according to the CPEG.

"People are hanging onto these old theories that the free market should have free rein," said DePaul University professor Paul Buchheit, who works with the Move the Money campaign. "The CME Group handles about three billion annual contracts worth well over $1 quadrillion. One-thousandth of 1 percent of that would pay off the total budget deficit of Illinois. It's just an unbelievable fact that people don't realize."

The CME and Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) reported huge profits last year.

"We are being treated like garbage," said Lourdes Guererro repeatedly as she recounted how teachers and other public workers were being thrown out of work.

"The biggest losers are the students who don't have quality, experienced teachers because no one will come up with the money," she said. "But there is a solution. We are here to demand corporate America pay its fair share."

Photo: John Bachtell/PW

Chicago Teachers Union: Black teachers hit hardest by school closings

Teresa Albano — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 10:36:00 -0500

Fed up with discrimination, the Chicago Teachers Union filed a complaint Feb. 9 with the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission charging that the Board of Education's mass teacher layoffs last year unfairly impacted African American teachers.

The union's attorney, Robin Potter, told the press,""(The Chicago Public School System) is illegally terminating and laying off African American teachers who are highly qualified and excellent teachers... It is a systematic effort to rid the Chicago Public Schools of tenured teachers who are African American."

Black teachers make up 29 percent of all CPS teachers, but were 43 percent of all those laid off last year, the union says. White teachers are 47 percent of the total but were 36 percent of those laid off.

"To make it right they have to stop these layoffs, they have to step back and they have to put these good teachers back in the schools," Potter said.

The EEOC complaint comes as CPS and Mayor Rahm Emanuel are pushing through policies that education historian Diane Ravitch calls "corporate school reform." The city and board are enacting mass school closings and privatizing them by bringing in well-connected charter school operators.

Today, the Chicago Teachers Union was at Cook County Courthouse filing for an injunction to stop the board's Feb. 22 approval to close or "turn around" 17 new neighborhood schools.

Again corporate school reform has a distinctive racist edge, CTU charges. CPS is violating Illinois law because the "proposed actions disproportionately target African American student populations," the union said in filing for the injunction.

Well-connected and powerful corporate forces are circling around the nation's third largest school district to implement their version of reform.

For example, the University of Chicago's Consortium on Chicago School Research released today preliminary findings that purportedly show a slight uptick in reading and math, after four years, among elementary schools that followed some "turn around" model. There were no improvements among any high schools, the report said.

But even the proclaimed progress is open for debate since it was minimal.

"The Board of Ed needs to be responsible to understand these programs are not working," said Julie Woestehoff, executive director of Parents United for Responsible Education, to the Chicago Tribune. "In order to do something devastating to the community, the results need to be clear and compelling. And these results are not."

According to the Sun Times, the "Consortium researchers rushed the analysis into print, releasing only an 'overview of findings' and not the final report, because they said they wanted to inform the current debate over Chicago's turnarounds ..."

CPS jumped on the findings to promote a well-connected and controversial charter school company, Academy for Urban School Leadership, which was part of the consortium's study, and is slated to get the majority of "turn around" contracts, if approved Feb. 22.

"I would say the report shows there's promising and encouraging data about our turnaround models in particular and about AUSL as an example,'' said CPS Chief Education Officer Noemi Donoso. Donoso is a former employee of AUSL.

AUSL is a national charter operator started by Chicago venture capitalist Martin Koldyke. Besides Donoso, AUSL previously employed CPS CEO Jean-Claude Brizard.

The mayor, too, has a close relationship to AUSL. The principal of AUSL's Bethune School of Excellence was a co-chair of Emanuel's mayoral campaign.

Also in the corporate-political cabal is the Chicago Board of Trade whose president, David Vitale is the head of the Chicago Board of Education. Vitale had been on the board of directors of AUSL.

In addition to the battle around school reform, teachers and the board entered contract talks last month. The union's contract expires June 30.

Henry Winston centennial celebration to be held in New York

Joe Sims — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:03:00 -0500

NEW YORK - "There's been a huge response by folks to the upcoming event celebrating Henry Winston's 100th birthday," said CPUSA Executive Vice Chair Jarvis Tyner. "We expect a big turnout." Henry Winston was the long-time national chairman of the Communist Party USA.

The Winston centennial will be held on February 19 at the Winston Unity Center in New York City.

"People are just delighted that Angela Davis is coming," added Tyner. Angela Davis, along with Tyner, Charlene Mitchell and Vinnie Burrows, is a featured speaker at the event. Charlene Mitchell, at the time a CPUSA leader and also heading the National Alliance Against Racism and Political Repression, was one of the principal organizers in the fight to free Angela Davis in the 1970s. Mitchell now heads the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism.

Davis was framed by then-governor of California Ronald Reagan and the FBI and charged with murder in a shootout during the trial of Johnathan Jackson, a young Black Pather leader.

A national and international campaign won her release and acquittal. Winston played a key role in the campaign.

"Tributes have been coming in from around the country, heaping praise on the man and his exemplary life," said Gabe Falsetta, one of the event organizers. "Those who had the privilege of working with Henry Winston and learning from his broad understanding will be coming to celebrate his legacy."

Henry Winston, originally from Mississippi, became active in the unemployed struggles of the 1930s and soon became a leader in the Young Communist League. He worked with William L Patterson and others to help free the Scottsboro defendants, displaying extraordinary political and organizational skills.

He soon become a national leader of the Communist Party and served for many years as its organizational secretary. In the 1950s he served eight years in prison under the Smith Act, during which time he lost his sight because of medical neglect.

A campaign to win his release was waged in the U.S. and abroad. Writer Richard Wright headed a French/American committee to free him.

After his release from prison, Winston went on to become the Communist Party national chairman where he worked side-by-side with its general secretary, Gus Hall, until Winston's death in 1986.

"Winnie," as he was called by friends and co-workers, wrote extensively on civil rights, labor and international issues, authoring two books, "Strategy for a Black Agenda," and "Class, Race, and Black Liberation," as well as several pamphlets.

He played a signal role in the movement to develop comprehensive mandatory sanctions against South Africa's racist government and was well regarded by its liberation movement.

On learning of his death, African National Congress leader Alfred Nzo remarked, "We had come to regard Winston as one of our own."

The celebration will take place from 2:00 to 5:00 pm at 235 W 23rd St in Manhattan. Tickets are $10.

Congresswomen defend birth control for all

Blake Deppe — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:24:00 -0500

Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., and three other congresswomen attended a special news conference Feb. 8, reacting to Republican Speaker John Boehner's harsh attack on the Obama administration's birth control policy.

Boehner vowed to overturn the policy, complaining that it was a violation of religious freedom because its coverage includes schools and hospitals with religious affiliation. He threatened legislative action if Obama did not rescind the policy. Other Republicans saw this as a political opening, and argued that this was a sensitive issue of "religious liberty."

Schakowsky, along with Reps. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., Lois Capps, D-Calif., and Gwen Moore, D-Wis., said at the press conference they supported the president's policy, explaining that it strikes a balance between religious and individual freedom.

Schakowsky said the policy exempts churches from providing birth control benefits for their workers.

As for religiously-connected hospitals and schools, she explained, "If they want to be part of the business world, then they have to follow the same rules as other businesses."

Capps and DeLauro outlined some of the benefits of the birth control decision, noting that it was based on scientific evidence, decreased infant mortality and unintended pregnancy, and would reduce the long-standing gender discrimination issues that women in health care face.

Surveys show, moreover, that 99 percent of women and 98 percent of Catholic women have used birth control at one point in their lives.

And Boehner's assertion that "Americans of every faith and political persuasion" object to the policy is clearly untrue: Prior to this rule's approval, 28 states had passed their own version of the law.

Rep. Michael Quigley, D-Ill., said the ruling was a mainstream one, and that the Catholic Church ought to support it.

"The vast majority of Catholic women are on birth control, support birth control, and think it should be part of their health care plan. So, it just seems striking to me that someone would say this is a risky decision, because it's [actually] the right thing to do," Quigley said.

According to the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, women who use birth control will save $600 a year once this policy goes into effect.

"The idea that birth control could be controversial in 2012 is outrageous," Schakowsky remarked. "Women's health care should not depend on who the boss is." Furthermore, she predicts a backlash among women if Republicans continue to attack this policy.

"It would be at their peril if they try to undo this," she concluded.

Photo: "U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky talks with Occupy Wall Street activists in Chicago." Jan Schakowsky official Flickr page

Jobless benefits and payroll tax cut in danger, SEIU warns

Mark Gruenberg, John Wojcik — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 11:24:00 -0500

With the clock ticking down on a Feb. 29 deadline for both extending extra federal jobless benefits and the "temporary" payroll tax cut for 160 million workers, the Service Employees are sounding the alarm that Republican lawmakers are plotting to allow the benefits to lapse.

In an emergency notice sent out to the membership and thousands of allies across the country the union is urging everyone to call, write or email their lawmakers to approve a measure containing provisions for both the benefits extension and continuation of the payroll tax cut for working people.

President Obama is campaigning for both the payroll tax cut and the longer jobless benefits.

The labor movement is backing the measures, saying that in addition to being a lifeline for struggling millions, they will provide an essential boost to the economy at a time when the recovery is still precarious.

Labor and its allies are warning, however, that the GOP and its tea party wing are working to sabotage the extensions due in less than three weeks.

"If they don't reach an agreement, 5 million workers risk losing their unemployment benefits," said Mary Kay Henry, SEIU's president. "We can't allow politicians to play games with this vital lifeline for hardworking families. Congress must extend unemployment insurance through 2012 - without adding difficult, new requirements for unemployed workers."

Republicans are tying up negotiations in Congress, according to news reports, by arguing about "how to pay" for the unemployment benefit extension, which will cost $160 billion through the end of the year.

They are pushing to make the extension as short as possible and, in addition, want to pay for it by attaching an amendment that would continue for another year a freeze in the pay of federal workers.

The Democratic negotiators oppose the continued pay freeze and want to pay for the extended benefits through a surtax on millionaires and billionaires, which the GOP rejects.

Some lawmakers, said Henry, "are threatening to use this critical deadline of Feb. 29 to cut unemployment insurance or impose difficult, new restrictions on jobless Americans who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own." Workers and their families, she said, "could lose benefits they've paid into and that their families depend on."

In exchange for backing the extension of President Obama's tax cut for working families Republicans are demanding at least $70 billion in cuts to programs that benefit those families. Approval of the GOP demands would result not just in a longer pay freeze for federal workers but higher Medicare premiums and smaller subsidies for the purchase of health insurance under the new health care law.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he will put forward his own bill, one that requires those earning over $1 million a year to contribute to the $200 billion cost of extending the payroll tax cut and the unemployment benefits.

Economists from all points along the political spectrum are urging Republicans to cease their obstruction.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and even Moody's Analytic chief economist Mark Zandi testified before Congress yesterday, telling lawmakers that they should extend the payroll tax cut so as not to undermine the fragile economic recovery.

Photo: At a "Vigil for the Unemployed" in Philadelphia. (Matt Rourke/AP)

Protesters slam Kasich for “selling out Ohio”

Rick Nagin — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 09:38:00 -0500

STEUBENVILLE, Ohio - Hundreds demonstrated here Feb. 7 against Republican Gov. John Kasich's corporate agenda on the occasion of his State of the State speech. Actions were also held the previous day at state office buildings in Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati.

Protesters denounced huge tax giveaways to the rich and big business that the governor is paying for with cuts to education, mental health and city services as well as privatization of lucrative assets like the proposed sale of the Ohio Turnpike.

State Sen. Mike Skindell told the boisterous crowd outside Steubenville High School, where Kasich gave his speech, that the governor plans to fund Jobs Ohio, the privatized state Department of Economic Development, with a surcharge on electricity bills. Skindell said the entire operation of Jobs Ohio, now serving as a land office to sell state assets, is illegal and is the target of a lawsuit he has filed.

Skindell and State Rep. Bob Hagan, who stood with him in the bed of a pickup truck to address the crowd, have introduced legislation to delay Kasich's reckless promotion of fracking at least until the federal Environmental Protection Administration issues a report on the impact on water pollution of this new technique for oil and natural gas extraction. Kasich said in his speech that 36 fracking wells have already been drilled in the Steubenville area.

Hagan, who represents Youngstown, spoke of the series of earthquakes that hit his district recently as a result of high-pressure pumping of fracking wastewater into storage wells. Kasich was forced to halt the dumping of the oily water imported mostly from Pennsylvania and New York after the quakes.

"I've never been in an earthquake before," said Youngstown resident Mike Alexander. "The one that happened on New Year's Eve felt like a truck hit our house."

While claiming to being committed to protecting the environment, Kasich said in his State of the State address that fracking would continue without delay. He was interrupted by protesters in the audience shouting "Mic check" and "John Kasich, you're selling out Ohio." As the interruptions continued, about 10 people were escorted from the building by some of the large contingents of uniformed and plainclothes officers and State Highway Patrol officers that were present for the address.

While Kasich made no mention of his current 36 percent public approval rating or the enormous setback he suffered in last November's election with the referendum repeal of the union-busting Senate Bill 5, this was on the minds of many demonstrators.

"SB 5 was the battle," Chrissie Heineman of the Service Employees Union told the crowd outside. "but the war is still on."

Shane Hanley, a steelworker locked out by Cooper Tire in Findlay, illustrated the same point saying that his union after giving up massive concessions was continuing to be victimized by "unrestrained corporate greed."

In his lengthy, disjointed and rambling address, Kasich sought to claim credit for every new job created in the past year, although many resulted from federal stimulus funding and programs begun by Ted Strickland, his Democratic predecessor. The Plain Dealer described the speech as "vague" and "light on new ideas."

"The governor is in fantasy-land," House Democratic leader Armond Budish told the paper. "He took credit for everything under the sun and, given a few more minutes, he would've taken credit for the sun."

Despite the unprecedented contentiousness of his first year in office, Kasich claimed to be for bipartisanship, citing his support for Cleveland Democratic Mayor Frank Jackson's request for legislation to strip teachers of seniority rights and establish "merit pay."

Cleveland Teachers Union President David Quolke described this as "SB 5 lite."

Democratic State Rep. Mike Foley dismissed Kasich's posturing about bipartisanship as a fraud.

"We're kept out of everything," he said. "We have 10 speeches blasting them on the floor. They (the Republicans) hardly bother to answer. They just ram through whatever they want."

Standing behind a banner reading "Recall John Kasich," the demonstrators chanted, "Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho, John Kasich's got to go."

Photo: Chrissie Heineman speaking. Rick Nagin/PW

City Council OKs community benefits for Oakland Army Base project

Marilyn Bechtel — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 09:30:00 -0500

OAKLAND, Calif. - A new chapter opened Feb. 7 in the long saga of efforts to redevelop the former Oakland Army Base, as the City Council approved guiding principles to assure Oakland residents priority for construction jobs and for the warehouse and goods movement jobs that are to follow.

The base is especially important to the city's economic life because it is next to the Port of Oakland, the nation's fifth busiest port, in a working-class area where unemployment is high.

Agreement on the provisions came after years of discussion, and a nine-month process that brought together labor, community members, environmentalists and the business community, with Councilmember Jane Brunner playing a major role. Participating in the discussions was the 30-organization Revive Oakland! coalition of clergy, workers, youth, and neighbors from West and East Oakland.

Besides construction jobs, the project is expected to create some 2,500 to 3,000 permanent jobs.

Among the agreed goals: Fifty percent of work hours are to go to Oakland residents, with first priority to residents in West Oakland and other areas of high unemployment. All new apprentices are to be Oakland residents, and a quarter of apprenticeships and later operations jobs are to go to disadvantaged (low income, formerly incarcerated, etc.) workers. Workers are to have the right to organize, free of employer interference.

Many speakers at the City Council meeting cited the importance of the "ban the box" provision, barring prospective employers from asking about an applicant's prior criminal record.

"I can ride around Oakland, and look at all the work I have done - the Uptown Apartments, the Fox Theater, Kaiser, the airport," said a young African American woman ironworker. "You've got to give people a chance, who have felonies or misdemeanors. I have one. Somebody gave me an opportunity to get a job, and I've been doing good for myself for the last eight, nine years. I want to see other people do good for themselves."

Journeyman electrician Rachel Bryan, who described herself as "a quadruple minority: woman, African American, under 35, disadvantaged worker," said the goals provide a prevailing wage, benefit the area, level the playing field for local workers, and create a "healthy pathway" for apprenticeships. Citing four Oakland projects she's worked on, Bryan said, "This has created a deeper appreciation for my city, a deeper level of self-confidence."

The role of well-paying jobs in lowering crime, in a city where shootings and homicides are a big problem, was also widely mentioned.

"Maybe this will help to stop some of the crime in Oakland," said longtime West Oakland resident Shirley Burnell. "People would have jobs and would be able to support themselves and their families and they won't be on the streets robbing people."

Outside City Hall before the council meeting, two high school students active with the Urban Peace Movement put it another way.

Italia Suarez called the jobs "a means of survival." Added Jessica Lopez, "Better jobs equal a better life. They're something to live for instead of becoming another statistic."

Meanwhile, the city and the developers are working to complete their negotiations in the coming months.

The Oakland Army Base was once a major employer in the area, and when it closed in 1999, it is estimated that as many as 7,000 well-paying jobs were lost.

Photo: Marilyn Bechtel/PW