Articles » peoplesworld

What happened to my country?

Delphi worker — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:12:00 -0500

As I grabbed my grease-soiled lunch cooler and stepped out of my GM truck to head into work at Delphi Packard Electric I had to stop for a moment to digest the sight of a nearly 1/2 mile long, 1/8 mile deep parking lot that was literally empty. I reflected for a moment on two American brothers with the knowledge and ingenuity to develop high voltage ignition cable that in the early 1900s was only available abroad. From those beginnings in a factory near downtown Warren, Ohio, evolved the largest automotive electrical wiring and component business in the world.

Eventually the North River Road complex became the center hub of all engineering and development. Some of greatest advances in automotive electronics were birthed right here in Warren, Ohio. At its peak nearly 15,000 American workers filed through these doors. The huge parking lot that I gazed upon once filled to its capacity with American workers now looked like a deserted scene from an apocalyptic movie.

What happened to my country?

The regal blue engineering and research facility now stands totally empty. American engineering and manufacturing skills built this once huge empire with blood, sweat and gears. Once the hard work was complete and the business model set, little by little the corporate heads began to whittle away at this empire. Not for the sake of survival but for the seemingly insatiable desire to line their pockets in excess - at the expense of each and every American worker, union and salary, that they could eliminate.

What happened to my country?

I couldn't help but get a bit emotional as I reflected on my own family members who had helped to build this empire and the excitement I felt when I was hired into the fold. The future looked grand here at Delphi Packard. I remember vividly my first week of employment. Exiting the freeway, the first thing you saw was this gigantic parking lot with thousands of cars, the majority of them General Motors vehicles. The sense of security I felt working for such a huge America icon of this size was comforting to say the least. A place this large, I thought, could never be replaced. It was too vital an operation, if only due to its vast size, so I thought. But now each day is greeted with more uncertainty of the future of this once great American built business. No commitment from a company whose Internet pages are loaded with accolades and accomplishments of plants in China, Mexico, South America, Morocco, Turkey, and Romania - just to name a few - with their smiling faces pictured amongst brand new equipment and facilities, likely funded by a once prosperous American base. While - at what is left of the US operations - we continue to produce more product per employee to a much higher quality standard with some equipment dating back 3 or 4 decades. I can only imagine what we could do in Warren, Ohio, given a fraction of the resources that have been awarded to many of these foreign facilities.

What happened to my country?

So as I continued my walk on that cold January afternoon up the sidewalk toward the turnstiles, I could almost hear the voices and footsteps of the thousands of former employees that walked this same sidewalk, where now just a few hundred remain.

And for some reason the American flag that flies proudly at the entrance looked a bit different to me this day. I felt a bitter sense of betrayal and anger. Not toward my country which this flag proudly represents, but a company that seemingly manipulated and exploited the freedoms that the flag stands for. In my humble opinion Delphi Packard should no longer even be considered an American company considering how it has forsaken its homeland and the American workforce that played such an integral part in its success.

The sad truth is, this same scenario, in different scales of severity is being played out all over the manufacturing base of this "once" great nation. For the sake of making a chosen sect of the American populous extremely wealthy they have forsaken Joe and Jane American. What they are beginning to realize though is that Joe and Jane American are the people who drive the American and world economy. Not the CEOs and other corporate heads. Take away Joe and Jane's livelihood and you have the America that you see now. An America struggling to keep its head above water. A government attempting to operate on a tax-based income that shrinks with the loss of each living wage job as the deficit climbs to new highs.

What happened to my country?

Well I'm sure we may not all agree on the answer to that question. But one thing is for sure. The vision that drove this Nation to be a fully independent world power, and the dominating industrial force on the planet, has been lost, if not greatly blurred, due to that insatiable desire for more that I spoke of earlier. The United States of America has changed drastically in the last 15 years and, in my opinion, not for the better. Greater empires have fallen. May God Bless America ...

The author is "just another number on the Delphi roster."

Photo: 1922 Packard Model 126 Sport Phaeton steering wheel/dashboard. The Packard Electric Co. was founded in Ohio in 1890. One of its subsidiaries produced the first Packard car in 1899. In 1932 it became part of the General Motors Corp., and later became Delphi Packard Electric Systems. http://www.flickr.com/photos/nostri-imago/ / CC BY 2.0

Students welcome overhauling private loan industry

Pepe Lozano — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:50:00 -0500

Every year millions of students graduate from college with tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt. Students then have to compete for a job during a time when the U.S. economy continues to struggle and unemployment figures are at record highs.

They, like so many these days, just need a break.

That's why student activists are supporting President Barack Obama's plan to end private-bank involvement in the student-loan industry. They're also hopeful such legislation, which would divert savings and boost Pell Grants to lower-income students and much more, will pass this year.

In his State of the Union Address to Congress last month Obama reiterated his support for the proposal, which would end subsidies and effectively cut private lenders from making loans. As a result the Department of Education would become the sole provider of government-backed loans.

"To make college more affordable, this bill will finally end the unwarranted taxpayer subsidies that go to banks for student loans," said Obama. "In the United States of America no one should go broke because they chose to go to college."

Obama was referring to the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, H.R. 3221, which was approved last year. The measure however has become stalled in the Senate.

Jake Stillwell with the United States Student Association, one of the largest student-led organizations in the nation with 4.5 million members, said his group unanimously supports the president's plan.

"We have been working real hard to pass this bill because reform on this particular issue is absolutely needed," he said.

Stillwell said the federal government is perfectly capable of handling the student loan industry on its own. They're also more student-friendly especially when it comes to lower interests rates, income-based repayment options and dealing with a possible credit crunch, he notes.

"We think if the government is going to spend billions of dollars every year then it should go toward students and not the banks," said Stillwell.

The reform bill makes perfect sense and would save the government $87 billion over the next decade, he said. Key investments could be made toward minority serving educational institutions like historically black universities and community colleges, notes Stillwell.

According to Stillwell the average student borrower is almost $25,000 in debt after graduating from college.

The USSA communications director emphasizes the longer the bill is stalled in Congress the less federal savings is accumulated - "which why we need to pass this bill now."

Students are stuck with so much debt once they graduate, he said, and all this is during a time when the job market for them is widely seen as the worst on record. When students who graduate from college are chronically unemployed it really hurts the American workforce, he said.

How are young people going to invest in a home, a car or support a family, he asked. These are values that strengthen our economy and would make a permanent amends to the current economic crisis, he said.

According to a 2008 federal report postgraduate student debt has risen by about six percent per year since 2003.

Passing the legislation is vital because money that would be saved by cutting out the private-industry middlemen - about $80 billion over the next decade - could instead go toward expanding direct Pell Grants to students, according to a Congressional Budget Office. It would also establish $10,000 tax credits for families with loans, and forgiving debts eventually for students who go into public service, administration officials say, as reported in the New York Times.

Maria Escobar is the national coordinator with the Student Labor Action Project and said the bill is one of the most important pieces of legislation regarding students in the last several years.

The bill would make college more affordable, she said. It's really a stimulus proposal for students and could only improve the American economy, she notes.

Obama's plan is also in tune with challenging corporate power, which is also very important, said Escobar.

"We need to prioritize students and working people in general and pass this bill," she said. "How can students achieve the American dream if they're being denied access to higher education," she asked.

Meanwhile the bill faces fierce attacks from the lending industry including the entire Republican Party.

For example Sallie Mae, the nation's largest private student loan company, opposes the measure arguing it would eliminate thousands of jobs. Sallie Mae spent $8 million in lobbying against the bill in 2009.

Lenders have been leading town-hall gatherings, meetings with members of Congress and petition drives to support their opposition to the bill. They're also pressuring moderate Senate Democrats in crucial states in an effort to block the government's plan to overhaul the industry.

Democrats are considering an attempt to move the bill through a special procedure that requires a simple majority rather than the usual 60 votes needed to stop a filibuster.

Critics contend Sallie Mae and the Republicans are using tactics straight from the health insurers' playbook, similar to those used in the health care debate to obstruct the legislation.

Many foresee what eventually plays out in the health care reform process could also determine a similar outcome when it comes to passing federal legislation on the student loans business.

Nonetheless student activists and their allies are not wasting any time.

Hundreds are planning a march and rally on the nations capitol to support Obama's initiative during USSA's legislative conference scheduled next March. For more information go to www.usstudents.org.

Other actions that support reform are being organized to take place during the National Student Labor Week of Action scheduled from March 28th - April 4th. Go here for more information: www.studentlabor.org.

"We're hopeful that the Obama administration will be active and continue to support this legislation and pressure the Senate to do the right thing and move on this very important issue," said Stillwell.

Photo: Pepe Lozano

Bush officials orchestrated company’s attacks on Indian “guest workers”

John Wojcik — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:10:00 -0500

The Bush administration used two federal agencies to instruct a major corporation on how to harass, fire and deport hundreds of Indian "guest workers" working on post-Hurricane-Katrina reconstruction, newly released documents show.

The papers, released at a Washington press conference Feb. 3 by lawyers for the workers, show that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol directed the Signal Corporation in March 2007 on how to repress 500 Indian workers who were organizing to protest their working conditions.

The workers were brought from India on H-2B visas to work in the company's Mississippi and Texas facilities, presumably because they would provide the cheaper but skilled labor needed to rebuild after the hurricane. The company claimed, at the time, that it needed to bring 500 skilled welders and pipefitters from India because it could not find that many skilled U.S. workers.

Eddie Acosta, an AFL-CIO spokesperson, noted that, contrary to Signal's claim, there were hundreds of such skilled American workers available throughout the Gulf region, many of whom were out of work and available in the aftermath of Katrina.

The sworn court depositions, taken by lawyers for the workers, show that representatives of the Bush-controlled agencies mapped out for Signal executives a schedule of arbitrary firings and rapid private deportations of individuals who were seen as organizers of the protest against inhumane conditions at the shipyards.

Among the conditions workers protested were imprisonment in cramped company housing surrounded by barbed wire, inhumane workloads, and forced labor for many hours without pay.

One of the documents released shows that several Signal officials actually resisted when ICE told them to fire workers who then, under the H-2B visa program, could be immediately deported.

The resistance was not due to company concern for human rights, however, but to the suggestion by ICE that the company could speed up the deportation if it paid for the plane tickets back to India.

It has been known for over a year that Signal had employed human traffickers in India who "recruited" the workers with promises of permanent visas and residency, all of which were broken. For this and other violations the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, another federal agency, has already assessed $22 million in fines against the company.

But the revelation of the Bush administration role in the scandal is new.

The New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice, which has filed a federal class action suit against Signal on human trafficking charges, organized the taking of the sworn depositions that reveal the collaboration between Signal and the Bush administration.

In May 2008, the workers staged a 29-day hunger strike at the White House. They were given a congressional hearing and House and Senate committees are now looking into overhauling the H-2B visa system.

The AFL-CIO has been pressing lawmakers to dump the H-2B visa altogether and has been providing legal assistance to the Indian workers.

"This isn't an isolated incident, Signal isn't an isolated company and ICE isn't an isolated agency," Acosta said. "The agency tramples workers' rights all the time and the H-2B system of temporary visas is so rife with problems that we oppose its continuation."

Many companies, however, anxious for cheap labor, support expanding the program even further.

Aby Raju, one of the Indian workers who had been employed by Signal, said that once he and his co-workers arrived from India, "we were held in a labor camp in the shipyard, penned in behind barbed wire and guarded by security so no one knew our whereabouts. We were 24 men to a small room with no privacy and two toilets. They charged so much for the food and bunks that we couldn't send any money home or repay our families for the money they spent helping us get to the United States."

He explained that he was one of a few who managed to escape the "horrible conditions" at the camps in Pascagoula, Miss., and Orange, Texas. Those who escaped sought legal help in New Orleans and later staged the sit-in in Washington.

Raju claimed that even when the abuses were actually occurring workers knew that the Bush administration was actively supporting company efforts to thwart any union organizing efforts. "We asked our manager about the conditions and the retaliation and he said, ‘This is according to the U.S. government. This is what we do'."

One of the papers released at the press conference documents a phone call to ICE from a Signal official asking for "advice on how to deport workers who are causing unrest."

Another quotes an internal company e-mail that summarized one meeting between Customs and Signal officials: "Customs is willing to support Signal International however it can to send the message that Customs has no intention of allowing these employees free reign."

Another Signal official testified in his deposition: "The impression I was left with after the talks with the federal agencies was to immediately deport the worker activists." The Signal official said he was told, "Don't give them any advance notice, take them all out of the line on the way to work, get their personal belongings, get them in a van, get their tickets, get them to the airport and send them back to India, even if their H-2 B visas haven't expired."

Lawyers for the New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice say the group is not satisfied with FBI investigations of conditions at Signal that began in 2008. They say that those were compromised by ICE. The group is calling for a wide-ranging investigation by Congress.

Photo: New Orleans Workers Center for Racial Justice (www.nowcrj.org/gallery/)

Saints, sinners and the NFL

Teresa Albano — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:55:00 -0500

The Super Bowl may be bigger than Thanksgiving. Judging by the empty shelves, long checkout lines and jammed parking lot at the local grocery story before the game, the shopping frenzy seemed bigger than Thanksgiving.

After being battered by Katrina, a possible move to San Antonio and a long inglorious record, the New Orleans Saints victory revived spirits for that unique city, and probably the state of Louisiana.

As most Americans were racing down to the bottom of their Guacamole dip and watching the largest sporting event of the year, another Super-Bowl-related race to the bottom went unnoticed.

It's a worldwide one: a race to the bottom on wages and working conditions.

Two days before the Super Bowl, the National Labor Committee, a global worker rights advocate and watchdog group, issued a report about a sweatshop in El Salvador where $80-plus Peyton Manning jerseys are sewn. The workforce there, about 80 percent women, are paid the equivalent of 10 cents an hour. They are not paid for overtime but are forced to work 61 to 65 hours a week.

"When we were making these jerseys," the women told the labor center, "we didn't even have time to go to the bathroom, nor to drink water. Sometimes we didn't even leave for our breaks so as not to lose time and fall behind in the work. The factory is very hot, despite the fans. By afternoon we are exhausted and tired."

The Salvadoran workers, employed by the Taiwan-based Chi Fung company, live in shacks and don't make enough to provide for their families. But many keep working there because it's a job.

"We knew the shirts were expensive," the women said. "But now we realize the real price is $80, it makes us angry, because it isn't fair that they pay us such a low wage. The people [who buy these jerseys] don't imagine everything we have to bear in the factory when we sew these shirts. With just one $80 shirt, they pay our wages for two weeks. It could be said that with the cost of a single shirt, I have to maintain my family for two weeks. The supervisors are right when they say to us that our wage is not enough to pay for a jersey if we make a mistake."

Despite the promise that "free trade" deals throughout the Americas were going to "lift all boats," the exact opposite has happened. The NFL-Reebok contract with Chi Fung has corporate governance rules, meaning inspectors come out to make sure the factory is living up to Salvadoran labor laws and standards approved in trade agreements. But, the Chi Fung factory owner knows when the inspectors are coming. Management threatens the workers to say nothing bad about the company or else they will be fired. The owner slows down production and cleans up the bathroom.

After the inspection, things go back to the way they were.

This is the logic of capitalism, especially "free trade" or de-regulated capitalism.

The U.S. garment industry is just a shadow of its former self, having experienced major plant closings over the last three decades. In the constant search for cheaper labor costs, and maximum profit margins, companies whipsaw workers state by state (for example, North Carolina will guarantee a certain amount of tax breaks, union-free environment, weaker labor and wage laws, as compared to, say, Massachusetts) and country by country (El Salvador's garment base wage is 72 cents an hour vs. U.S. minimum wage of $7.25 an hour).

Americans pay $80 or more for the jersey. Certainly that money did not go to the workers. It went to the factory owner, the shipping company, the retail store. Yes there are workers and jobs involved in all of that, but each of those entities (from Chi Fung to Swift Transportation to Wal-Mart) has to maximize their profit on the backs of workers.

An endless cycle to the bottom.

So what to do? Well there are big changes and smaller ones that can happen. The big change I'd like to see is socializing profit (the opposite of Wall Street's socializing risk, or in this case billions in losses.) Put profits back into the human, social infrastructure from where it came - in El Salvador, the United States, Taiwan - and not into the few private pockets. The U.S. has the largest wage/wealth gap now in its history. El Salvador's wages have also been on the decline. A smaller and smaller amount of people are getting super-super wealthy.

Let the workers run these operations, cut out the private profiteers. That's a big change. That wouldn't be capitalism, it would be socialism.

Big ideas are important. And getting things done is too. Like making sure these Salvadoran women are paid what they are owed and not threatened with losing their jobs and the factory closing.

The National Labor Committee advocates working with Reebok and the National Football League to improve conditions at the factory. The labor centers says that a little attention by these powerful businesses to the problem would push Chi Fung into compliance. "With the right intentions and efforts, Chi Fung could be transformed from a sweatshop into a much better than average or even model plant," it said in its report.

"The worst thing Reebok, the NFL and the other labels could do would be to pull their work from the Chi Fung factory. There is not a consumer in the United States who does not believe that if the NFL and Reebok really wanted to clean up the factory, it would be done quickly and correctly," the report said.

So the Super Bowl had its Saints, and its sinners. Most of America rooted for the Saints.

Photo: Payton Manning Reebok NFL jersey, which was produced at Chi Fung, and sold at Dick’s Sporting Goods for $80.

Cubans help children in Haiti

W. T. Whitney Jr. — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:45:00 -0500

Giving child survivors a boost, especially a psychological one, represents a challenge in post-earthquake Haiti. That was true too following the 2005 tsunami in Southeast Asia. A month after that catastrophe, the United Nations children's agency UNICEF tried to identify what worked to protect children's mental health.

Specialists working with surviving children in Sri Lanka, for example, found that "education and play are proving to be among the best ways to help children heal, providing a semblance of normality and an important outlet for self-expression."

The UNICEF station there had "emptied its stores of children's recreation kits" to distribute them among hundreds of relief camps. "The emotional needs of children are one of our main concerns," said UNICEF Child Protection Officer Christine Watkins, quoted at the time on the agency's web site.

Watkins explained that play and games help "because they encourage children to unburden themselves." Children are given an opportunity "to help support each other." She praised "home grown community based approaches" as promoting "children's recovery and resilience," adding that "the best kind of healing comes from the people themselves."

In the Haitian town Croix des Bouquets, outside Port au Prince, lots of children need support. Those gathered at what prior to the earthquake had been a playground seemed dejected. A Cuban field hospital was occupying the space.

But community leaders organized a meeting between parents and Cuban health workers to find ways to help the children, "the most vulnerable population sector in catastrophe situations," according to a Prensa Latina report. Cuban doctor Cristóbal Martínez spoke with the parents and children. An earthquake survivor provided translation into Creole (also known as Kreyol).

Martínez sketched out the "program for mitigation of psychosocial damage" that he and his colleagues knew about. Discussion ensued, and soon there was a green light for a "children's festival." That event featured story readings, singing of Haitian children's songs, and picture painting sessions "permitting children to put their nightmares off to one side, at least for a while."

With skillful rendering of traditional rhythms, teachers at the National School of Haitian Art "filled the spectacle with life". They had children and adults singing words of optimism with the promise that "the country would get by this tragedy and overcome misery."

The children were soon smiling and on the verge of dancing. They insisted that reporter Enrique Torres show them the pictures he took of their drawings. Doctor Martínez observed, "Play for children is a primary psychological necessity. If we satisfy their need to play, we are giving them something."

Martínez suggested that "although there had been a terrible disaster, if children go to school, eat, play, and can enjoy themselves, in their consciousness the disaster has already passed ... When these children are in school and can play and do a sport, which definitely is a game, the battle is practically won."

The Cuban team carries out its program of play, recreation, and sport at the periphery of the health care site. They promised to introduce it in other parts of the devastated area including Leogane, east of Port au Prince. There, 15 Haitian activists belonging to the Simon Bolivar community have been charged with "improving the mental health of their younger compatriots."

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/unitednationsdevelopmentprogramme/ / CC BY 2.0

We need to combat workplace violence

Dick Meister — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 12:55:00 -0500

Organized labor and its allies are rightly alarmed over the high incidence of on-the-job accidents that have killed or maimed many thousands of workers. But they haven¹t forgotten nor should we forget the on-the-job violence that also afflicts many thousands.

Consider this: Every year, almost two million American men and women are the victims of violent crime at their workplaces. That often forces the victims to stay off work for a week or more and costs their employers more than $60 billion a year in lost productivity.

The crimes are the tenth leading cause of all workplace injuries. They range from murder to verbal or written abuse and threatening behavior and harassment, including bullying by employers and supervisors.

Women have been particularly victimized. At least 30,000 a year are raped or otherwise sexually assaulted while on the job. The actual total is undoubtedly much higher, since it¹s estimated that only about one-fourth of such crimes are reported to the police.

Estimates are that more than 900,000 of all on-the-job crimes go unreported yearly, including a large percentage of what¹s thought to be some 13,000 cases annually that involve boyfriends or husbands attacking women at their workplaces.

The Retail, Wholesale & Department Store Union (RWDSU), which represents many of the victimized workers, cites that as an example of the job violence problem that is often distorted by media coverage that "would lead us to believe that most workplace violence involves worker against worker situations."

The union says that has focused many employers "on identifying troubled employees or disgruntled workers who might turn into violent predators at a moment¹s notice. But in fact, 62 percent of all violence at worksites is caused by outsiders."

As you might expect, those most vulnerable to the violence are workers who exchange money with the public, deliver passengers, goods or services, work alone or in small groups during late night or early morning hours in high-crime areas or wherever they have extensive contact with the public.

That includes police, security guards, water meter readers and other utility workers, telephone and cable TV installers, letter carriers, taxi drivers, flight attendants, probation officers and teachers. Convenience store clerks and other retail workers account for fully one-fifth of the victims.

The American Federation of Teachers is so concerned that it has provided each of its 1.4 million members a $100,000 life insurance policy payable if the teacher dies as the result of workplace violence.

The major violence victims also include health care and social service workers such as visiting nurses, and employees of nursing homes, psychiatric facilities and prisons. They suffer two-thirds of all physical assaults. Many of the victims regularly deal with volatile, abusive and dangerous clients, often alone because of the understaffing that¹s become all too common.

It could get even worse, at least for some workers. The RWDSU warns that today¹s troubled economic times create additional threats. The danger is especially great for retail workers whose stores are likely to face increased incidents of theft, some involving gun-wielding robbers.

The RWDSU and other unions have been pushing for recognition of workplace violence as an occupational as well as criminal justice issue. That would put it under the purview of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and state job safety agencies.

The federal and state agencies could then issue enforceable regulations designed to lessen the on-the-job dangers of violence, as they do for other hazardous working conditions. A few states do that already, but only for a very limited number of industries.

OSHA has issued guidelines for workers in late-night retail jobs, cab drivers and some health care workers, but the guidelines are strictly voluntary. Although the unions¹ top priority is for legally binding regulations, they also are pressing employers to meanwhile voluntarily implement violence prevention programs.

Currently, only about one-fourth of them have such programs or any guidelines at all. The RWDSU's Health and Safety Department is offering to help the other employers develop programs.

We have federal and state standards, laws and regulations designed to protect working Americans from many of the serious on-the-job hazards they face daily. Yet we have generally failed to lay down firm guidelines for protecting workers from the workplace violence that¹s one of the most dangerous hazards of all.

One family’s “American Violet” experience

Juan Lopez — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 12:10:00 -0500

When I saw "American Violet" recently, it really hit close to home. For days afterwards, I kept flashing back to my family's own encounters with the law.

"American Violet" is a stunningly powerful film. It is based on the true story of Dee Roberts' heroic battle to beat the drug charges for which she's falsely accused.

The 24-year-old African American single mother of four is compelled to take on the whole judicial and law enforcement establishment in a small town in Texas if she has any hope of winning.

Set in the midst of the 2000 presidential elections, the film, released last year and now in video/DVD, tells a story that continues to be played out 10 years later in the African American communities of our nation.

You will have to see the movie if you want to find out whether she and, through her case, the African American community, wins.

For myself, the movie kept bringing me back to several incidents involving family members and close friends over recent years.

***

A few days before I saw the film, I went to the front door to find a policeman asking my 17-year-old grandson and then me whether either one of us had seen or heard a suspect who minutes before had robbed a neighbor across the street. We had not. No sooner had we closed the door than my grandson turned to me and said, "I thought he was coming for me."

A strange thing, you might think, for a teenager, a good student never in trouble with the law, to remark. He happens to be African American.

And, he had good reason to fear the policeman. A few months ago, on his way to see a friend down the block from our home, he was stopped by two cops who were looking for someone suspected of robbing a passerby.

After questioning him, they frisked and handcuffed him. As they started walking him into the police van, a middle-aged African American neighbor shouted at the top of her lungs, "What are you doing with my nephew?"

My grandson, who is not the neighbor's nephew by blood, was subsequently released.

***

Unprovoked, the cops had been harassing the young African Americans who on occasion would gather by our house to socialize.

One Friday afternoon, our smart-ass nephew, also African American and a teenager at the time, flipped a finger at the cop in the car coming down the block, after which he dashed across the street and into the house, closing the front door behind him.

Moments later, the cop broke the door open, nicking my grandson on the forehead and rushed recklessly into the kitchen with his gun drawn as my wife was giving shape to the meatloaf she was about to put in the oven. (Thank God she wasn't holding a knife at the time.) He violently threw our nephew against the kitchen wall, handcuffed him and took him away.

After a weekend in jail, our nephew was released without charges ever being filed.

The following week, we showed up in force, over 75 neighbors and other friends, to give testimony before the City Council.

We were a remarkably diverse crowd, reflecting the changing makeup of the neighborhood occasioned by gentrification: from the blond, blue eyed toddler in his father's arm to the chestnut-complexioned grandmother with the powerful oratory.

Afterward, as we were walking out, we were met by the new African American police chief. He took my wife's account of the incident and promised to pursue the matter expeditiously.

Thereafter the cops stopped harassing the young folk on the block.

But, our pleas for disciplinary action against the lawbreaking cop before the police internal affairs unit and the civilian police review commission went unheeded.

Much as we tried, no attorney would agree to take the case pro bono because no one had been killed or seriously injured.

Twisted logic, we thought.

Incidents of police disregard for the safety and security of families in their own homes are not uncommon in the Black community and other communities of color.

We thought it'd be better to fight to win legal precedent in these types of cases before they turn into tragedy. But, perhaps the attorneys' reaction was conditioned by the constraints of the legal and social environment in which they must function.

***

A couple of years back a member of our extended family, an African American, came home with a radiant smile after landing a job following months of searching. The next day, which was to have been her first day at work, she came home earlier than expected with tears in her eyes. It turned out that immediately after she entered the employer's premises, a supervisor informed her, "I'm sorry, but we will not be needing you after all."

Left unsaid: someone somewhere in the corporation's chain of command had a change of heart when he/she spotted a checkmark in the "yes" box of the job application where it asks, "Have you ever been convicted of a felony?"

***

The 20-year-old African American son of a good friend became part of our extended family after he regularly stayed overnight during school holidays while he was growing up - another one of our nephews.

Last year he was charged with attempted murder of a policeman. The bullet pierced the back of the car but did not injure the cop. The young man was tried in the media before the judge imposed a gag order at the defense attorney's request.

Later the DA added charges of armed robbery and being a member of a gang. The prosecution had a weak case but if it had gone to trial, the young man would have faced a jury picked from one of the most affluent counties in the country, overwhelmingly white.

Our nephew faced life in prison for the attempted murder of the cop and the additional charges. The DA offered a plea bargain. Go with the robbery and gang charges and do 25 years in prison, 19-½ with good behavior.

What would I have done?

He took the deal.

I found it tragically ironic that, once the defendant took the plea bargain, the DA dropped the charge of attempted murder of a police officer, for which our nephew was first arrested.

***

Countless experiences like the ones I've related above and worse cry out for fundamental reforms in our judicial and law enforcement system.

If workers and their children, especially people of color and immigrants, are the principal targets of these crimes, African Americans are the bullseye.

Consider the following:

The U.S. prison population, the largest of any nation in the world, surpasses 2 million. Nearly half are African Americans, although they constitute only 13 percent of the total population.

More than 10 percent of African American young men between the ages of 25 and 29 are incarcerated, by far the largest racial or ethnic group.

Today, more African American men are in jail than in college.

When these figures are put together with similarly disproportionate indicators in the job market, housing, health care, education and other fronts - made worse by the current economic crisis - the conditions that whole sections of the African American community must endure border on genocide.

They are an indictment against the right-wing ruling class circles that strive to perpetuate the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow in modern capitalist terms.

It's one more reason why it becomes paramount to amass the class and social forces that will deliver a crushing blow to the far right in the November elections and open the door to reforms on all fronts, including the "justice" system.

Photo: Alfre Woodard, left, and Nicole Beharie, in a scene from "American Violet." http://www.flickr.com/photos/effenk/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

World Notes: Haiti, Cuba, Bolivia, China, Nigeria, Turkey

W. T. Whitney Jr. — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 11:23:00 -0500

Cuba: Medical outreach to Haiti is long term

Cuban doctors and nurses have worked in dozens of countries offering both long term and emergency care. Three weeks after the earthquake in Haiti, over 1,000 doctors, either Cuban or Cuban trained, are working in and around Port au Prince, with more elsewhere in Haiti. They include Haitian doctors trained in Cuba, Cuban doctors already posted to Haiti, and Cuban specialists in disaster medicine on the scene with nurses immediately after the earthquake.

Since Hurricane George in 1998, hundreds of Cuban doctors have worked in Haiti. Reporter María Laura Carpineta writes: "The Cubans did not land in Haiti in helicopters like heroes ... The Cuban doctors arrived here many years ago and in silence. And in silence they were the first to attend to hurricane victims."

The Cuban team has cared for 45,000 earthquake victims. Its 18 surgical brigades have performed over 3,200 operations. Physicians and surgeons from Spain, Chile, Venezuela, Colombia, German, and Argentina have worked "against the clock" in three still intact Port au Prince hospitals managed by Cubans.

Foreign medical contingents are already arranging to leave Haiti, according to Carpineta. "That's a pity. The Haitian people still need us," she heard from Carlos Alberto García Domínguez, head of the Cuban medical mission in Haiti for almost two years. He outlined plans to locate sanitation, epidemiology, and mental health teams throughout the country. "We will be here when everyone has gone," he promised.

The United States and Cuba constitute the largest foreign presence in Haiti, except for UN "peacekeepers." Contact between Cuban and U.S. humanitarian teams on the ground has been nil. Carpineta's full report is here. http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/sociedad/3-139567-2010-02-04.html

The right wing Panamanian government's action last month in ordering the departure of a Cuban ophthalmological team suggests, however, that Cuban medical outreach is not always acceptable. The 16 Cuban eye surgeons returning last week to Havana from three years in Panama had performed vision restoring operations on 50,000 people. They were part of "Operation Miracle," the Cuban - Venezuelan project that over five years has provided eye surgery for 1.8 million people in 35 countries.

Bolivia: Plotter finds U.S. sanctuary

President Evo Morales' adversary Branko Marinkovic is in the United States. The wealthy landowner headed an opposition movement in Eastern Bolivia notable for separatism, racism, and violence. It declined following the 2008 police massacre of Morales supporters in Pando the and foiling of an assassination plot against Morales last April, allegedly funded by Marinkovic. His exodus came to light recently when Morales critiqued security forces for softness on "criminals who endangered the country." He joins former Bolivian presidents and other officials accused of murder and more enjoying U.S. sanctuary. They include recent presidential candidate Manfred Reyes Villa. TeleSUR contrasts U.S. welcome for Marinkovic with "intense inspections" applied to travelers from 14 countries accused of harboring terrorists. Writing from Cuba, which is on that list, Jean-Guy Allard notes ties of the U.S. group Human Rights Foundation with the April plotters. http://www.argenpress.info/2010/02/denunciado-por-terrorismo-en-bolivia.html

Switzerland: Duvalier loot still in limbo

The Swiss Federal Court last week announced that $4.6 million claimed by former Haitian dictator Jean Claude Duvalier would not be returned to the Haitian government. It cited the 2001 expiration of a statute of limitations, according to the BBC. The money has been frozen since 1986, when Duvalier escaped to France. The Swiss government responded to the court's decision by continuing a hold on the funds pending legislation authorizing their confiscation and return to Haiti. The Federal Court decision reversed a lower court ruling rejecting Duvalier's request for transferring the money to a foundation in Liechtenstein controlled by his family. The Duvalier dictators, father and son, are accused of removing $100 million from Haiti under the cover of support for foreign charities.

Nigeria: Presidential absence paralyzes government

President Umaru Yar'Adua's three-month stay in a Saudi Arabian hospital has divided the cabinet and threatened Niger Delta peace. Cabinet members and street protesters are demanding transfer of power to Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan. That's despite a high court ruling that the Vice President may act on Yar'Adua's behalf but not assume presidential power. Schism between Nigeria's Muslim dominated north represented by Yar'Adua and the Christian south loyal to the vice president complicates the impasse. At a meeting in Yenagoa last week, guerrillas of the Niger Delta Network of Freedom Fighters threatened hostilities and advised "the international community" to suspend dealings with Nigeria pending a new president. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta threatened to end a ceasefire introduced last year, reports Vanguard News. http://www.vanguardngr.com/2010/02/04/mend-50-groups-ready-for-fresh-violence/

China: Land seizures and sales fund governments, bring protests

Data cited by People's Daily last week demonstrated that sales during 2009 of 522,000 acres of publicly owned land brought in $233 billion for local governments, a 63.4 percent hike over the previous year. Half was sold for real estate development, one-third for residential use. Transfer fees accounted for 84.2 percent of the revenues, which made up 23.2 percent of all state income last year. Al Jazeera reported that the income-raising potential of land sales has prompted local governments to seize land for development, leading to a 44 percent one-year increase in state owned land. In order to quell ubiquitous land seizure protests, the national government has proposed legislation requiring 90 percent of residents to accept relocation prior to land takeover.

Turkey: Public workers fight for rights

Privatization in 2008 of Tekel, the government tobacco and alcohol monopoly, led to the loss of 12,000 jobs as of Jan. 31. Police violence against workers has marred nationwide protests beginning in mid December. Last week, 8,000 workers demonstrated outside the national headquarters of the Confederation of Turkish Labor Unions, 12 of them carrying out a hunger strike. The dispute centers on a law providing the dismissed workers with new government jobs as "public employees," with lowered wages and benefits. Their union is demanding preservation of the status and income they enjoyed as "public workers." Hürriyet Daily News reported on Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's accusation that workers were campaigning against his political party. Six unions organized a one-day general strike, illegal in Turkey, for Feb. 4.

Photo: Relief efforts in Haiti. http://www.flickr.com/photos/unitednationsdevelopmentprogramme/ / CC BY 2.0

Afghanistan: Is it all about terrorism?

Sam Webb — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 10:34:00 -0500

No region of the world has more strategic value to powerful U.S. transnational corporations and the military industrial complex than the arc of countries stretching from the Middle East to Central and South Asia. If wars are going to be fought in the 21st century, the probability of them occurring in this region is high.

And the reasons are simple. If you are thinking terrorist actions (which are as much an effect as a cause of the instability in this part of the globe) are the explanation, you just failed the quiz. If on the other hand, your answer is oil and China, you aced it. Together they give this far-flung territory its strategic importance.

Control of the region's vast oil supply assures a steady flow of this critical but finite natural resource (without which the world economy would grind to a halt), stratospheric profits for the U.S. corporate energy complex, and enormous strategic leverage over foes (and friends) alike.

As for China, this vast country is the main strategic competitor to U.S. capitalism in the 21st century. If U.S. economic and political power is in decline (and I think it is), China's power is on the rise, thus making necessary - in the eyes of the corporate-energy-military crowd - an array of U.S. allied or client states bordering and hemming in China, whose energy needs not unimportantly are vast.

I say all this because listening to the conversation about Afghanistan in the media, one would think that this battered country has no strategic value, that the war is only about combating al-Qaeda and the Taliban. But is this the case? It is true that Afghanistan is not a major oil or gas producer like petro states in the region, (although some oil fields were recently discovered whose size is still unknown), but does it follow that securing control of this country is of no significance strategically for U.S. ruling circles? Don't think so!

For one thing, it shares a border with China. For another thing, it sits in a region that is both in equal measure the main source of oil production and very unstable. Thus from the standpoint of powerful interests in our country, turning Afghanistan into a friendly and reliable regime is considered of strategic importance. It could give, for example, the U.S. military the ability to project power to one or another country in that region in a matter of minutes.

Thus the $64,000 question is: How much blood, treasure, and goodwill in the Muslim world are we ready to sacrifice in this military occupation in order to establish a pro-U.S. government in that country? We know that U.S. ruling circles are not of one mind. Some are ready for the long haul, while others are reluctant to make that kind of commitment to what already is protracted occupation. President Obama, it appears and in contrast to his right-wing Republican counterparts, leans in the direction of extricating ourselves in the relatively near term. Among other things, he is certainly mindful of the negative impact of the Vietnam quagmire on the presidency of Lyndon Johnson.

As for the U.S. people, they are tiring of this occupation. Many are ready to bring the troops home expeditiously and give space to the United Nations and governments in the region, including representatives of the Afghani people, to sit down and search for a negotiated settlement that will bring some measure of peace, democracy, independence and development to the country.

In electing President Obama the hope was that we would begin to turn away from policies of aggression, sanctions, blockade and interference. His first months in office were promising as he eloquently made the case for a new foreign policy. And he has taken a number of steps in that direction. Nevertheless, too many of his actions have contradicted his words and intentions. It has also become clear that a powerful bloc of interests in Congress and the White House, the Pentagon, right-wing extremists, the military and energy complexes, conservative foreign policy lobbies, security agencies, etc., are resisting all or any but the smallest adjustments in our country's role in the world arena.

Saying this doesn't let the president off the hook as far as Afghanistan is concerned; no one else is as well positioned to redirect our foreign policy along the lines that he earlier articulated, but it will take courage to "break from the pack."

Whether he does will depend in no small measure on the peace and people's movement, and to be fair too many among us have been a little asleep at the switch on this. Mass sentiments against the Afghanistan war are one thing, but unless organized those sentiments will have a minimal impact on the administration's policy, including its positive initiatives.

Machinists stop Pratt & Whitney from moving jobs

Joelle Fishman — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 10:14:00 -0500

EAST HARTFORD, Conn. - Emotions ran high at the International Association of Machinists Local 1746 union hall Saturday morning as union leaders announced details of a court victory blocking Pratt and Whitney from moving work and equipment affecting 1,000 jobs.

While workers know their fight is not over, tears of joy filled the hall, located across the street from the main P&W plant, owned by United Technologies. The precedent-setting nature of the decision and the fact that 83,000 jobs have been lost in Connecticut in the last two years added to the significance of the moment.

The company violated its contract with the union by preparing to move operations to Georgia, Singapore and Japan without making a good faith effort to find other solutions, according to U.S. District Court Judge Janet Hall. In an 85-page decision she issued a permanent injunction on the company's restructuring plan during the term of the collective bargaining agreement, which expires on Dec. 10, 2010.

The Machinists union has waged countless battles for job security over several decades, and won model language requiring the company to make every reasonable effort to preserve the work in Connecticut, and to explore alternatives with union representatives.

When P&W announced last July that it would close its airfoil unit in East Hartford and a repair plant in Cheshire, a 45-day "meet and confer" process began. Even after $80 million in wage cuts and other savings were offered by the workers, and after $100 million over five years was offered by the State of Connecticut, the company still refused to consider any alternative to moving the work out of state.

In September, IAM District 26 filed a lawsuit to halt the company's plans, arguing that P&W and United Technologies had obviously made up their mind prior to negotiations.

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, now a candidate for the U.S. Senate seat held by Chris Dodd, had submitted a friend-of-the-court brief in support of the union's position. He argued in court that enforcement of the contract was of overriding importance to the people of Connecticut.

"We have a big job ahead of us now, securing these jobs in the next contract," said Jim Parent, IAM District 26 assistant directing business representative. "We're ready for a fight, if that's what it takes."

Congratulating the union for making the legal challenge, Congressman John Larsen (CT-01) said, "I strongly urge Pratt & Whitney not to appeal this decision, but to work with the union, the congressional delegation and the state to help keep these jobs in Connecticut for the long term."

On Saturday morning, labor and community leaders, friends and supporters gathered with the union members to learn of the decision and celebrate the outcome. Elected officials agreed that the decision sets a legal precedent that will help workers for years to come.

In 1999 the IAM won a similar suit to save parts repair work in the East Hartford plant. In a dramatic result, trucks on their way to Texas had to turn around and replace the equipment in the East Hartford plant, where the work continues today.

The September lawsuit was filed at the same time that the Connecticut AFL-CIO was in convention. Bringing its case to the convention floor, the union argued for support for enforcement of labor standards in trade agreements, including the TRADE Act now before Congress.

IAM leader Bill Shortell said this latest attempt to take a third of the remaining workforce out of the state and country by a profitable company receiving government contracts shows the need for "legislative tools ...The multinationals have no nation. The Trade Act must be passed. Corporations must be controlled," he said.

Photo: Courtesy IAM

Extend jobless benefits!

CPUSA Labor Commission — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 09:44:00 -0500

Republicans say: Wall Street yes, Main Street no!

We say: Extend unemployment insurance benefits!

On Dec. 16, 2009, the House passed the Jobs For Main Street Act of 2010 (HR 2847).

The emphasis of the bill is on job creation and extended emergency relief for the unemployed (see details here). The bill would be funded with unspent TARP funds that had been set aside for the Wall Street bailout. The vote was 217 to 212 with not a single Republican vote in favor.

In his State of the Union speech, President Obama stated that 2010 would be the year of help and compassion. Senate Democrats are expected to bring the bill to the Senate floor in February, and Senate Republicans are signaling they will broaden their mantra of "No to Change" to include "No to Help, No to Compassion and No to Hope."

The lesson of the past year's fight for health care reform is that without a strong people's movement, change is difficult. Such movements, like brick walls built one brick and a bit of mortar at a time, are built by the accumulation of many small actions. Now is the time for one of those actions.

Contact your senators and let them hear the anger and frustration President Obama spoke of. Demand they include the same extension for unemployment benefits that is in the House bill. On Feb. 12 unemployment insurance offices around the country will be closing down the program. Without this extension millions of unemployed workers and families will be dropped from the rolls, falling deeper into poverty and hopelessness. Let's start laying brick!

Find your senator and contact information, including e-mail and telephone numbers here.

Photo: PW/Scott Marshall

Mexican labor leader takes message to Washington

Gail Ryall — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 11:45:00 -0500

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Humberto Montes de Oca, interior secretary of the Mexican Electricians' Union (Sindicato Mexicano de Electristras - SME), was on his way to Washington, he told a meeting here recently. His mission: to lodge a complaint with NAFTA authorities against the Mexican government for labor violations.

He said he would also be asking the AFL-CIO for solidarity actions and monetary support. Several central labor councils and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) have already agreed to help the Mexican union.

Montes de Oca spoke here to an audience of mainly Latino union and community activists, at a meeting sponsored by the Sacramento chapter of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA) on January 24.

Standing in front of a banner reading "Derecho de no emigrar" ("Right not to emigrate") and speaking in Spanish with a translator, Montes de Oca said that Mexico's President Felipe Calderon is trying to exterminate the SME union, privatize the electrical industry, and control the media.

He described how Mexico's federal police and army had attacked the union-built and nationally owned electrical facility and violently removed union workers on October 10, 2009.

Subsequently 44,000 workers were fired and replaced with non-union employees, although Calderon does not have the constitutional authority either to extinguish a public entity or to fire state workers.

At the same time, taxes were raised, subsidies for small electrical consumers withdrawn, the minimum wage decreased and prices for basic needs increased 30 percent.

SME filed a lawsuit over the illegal attack and decree, but a Mexican court rejected it..

Meanwhile, 18,000 workers continue to resist the decree, although they have not been paid in 100 days. The government took over the assets of the SME, which is now in financial crisis and cannot pay its bills or its staff.

SME, Montes de Oca said, was formed in 1914, and is the only union in Mexico which is not tied to any political party or government and in which leaders are elected by secret ballot.

Photo: PW/Gail Ryall

Obama takes Volcker out of freezer, turns up heat on Wall Street

John Wojcik — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 11:27:00 -0500

Some folks hoped last year that President Obama would consider Paul Volcker for the top job at Treasury because the former Federal Reserve Board chair had come forward in recent years as a vocal critic of those raking in the money on Wall Street.

When everything went bust with the economy in 2008 Volcker blamed the global financial meltdown on the wild, unregulated chase after personal wealth then going full steam in the world of high finance.

The White House gave the Treasury job instead to Timothy Geithner, widely seen as a Wall Street-friendly guy. Volcker was put in charge of the White House Economic Recovery Advisory Board, which, some said, was like being put on ice - never to be heard from again.

That was then. This is now.

Last week, with Volcker at his side and Geithner in a corner, barely visible to the cameras, President Obama called for new regulations that directly challenge the power of the banks.

The president's strong backing for what he calls the "Volcker rule" plants him on the side of Main Street and in opposition to the Wall Street marauders who have so totally robbed the people.

The proposal from the former Fed chairman essentially restores the 1930s Glass-Steagall banking regulations that, for so long, helped prevent another Great Depression. It involves separating the activities of commercial banks, entrusted with the deposits of working people, from the gambling of the financial high rollers who are presumably dealing not with the peoples' money but with funds from wealthy investors.

The Roosevelt-era reforms were intended to heavily regulate and insure commercial banks to protect the savings of ordinary folks.

The thinking was that rich investors willing to take risks could fend for themselves and if their wheeling and dealing went bad there would be no innocent victims requiring a government rescue.

All of this worked the way it was supposed to until Ronald Reagan made the first move to change things in 1987 by replacing Volcker with Alan Greenspan, a man who shared Reagan's belief in totally "unfettered" free markets. The deal involved leaders of both major parties, however, and was finally sealed with the repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1999, when President Clinton signed it into law.

A lot of folks feel the move by Obama has come not a moment too soon.

There is increased worry about the ever-intensifying concentration of wealth at the top and the continuing party on Wall Street.

The seriousness of the situation is underlined in a report issued last week by the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation.

In 2010, the tax panel says, 1 million taxpayers will report incomes over $500,000. These 1 million will earn $241 billion more in income this year than the 80 million taxpayers who will take home less than $40,000 each.

We know the congressional panel is striking at a sensitive nerve as we observe the effort under way on Wall Street this week to paint itself as a bunch now sorry for its sins.

The CEO of Goldman Sachs announced that his company would devote only $16.2 billion to the pay pool for its 32,500 employees, "far less than the $20 billion plus that financial analysts had predicted," he said.

He also boasted that Goldman is devoting only 35.8 percent of its record 2009 revenue to pay. (Last year it was 48 percent, he reminded everyone.) David Viniar, Goldman's chief finance officer, said, "We are not deaf to the calls for restraint, and we heard them."

The Goldman definition of "restraint" means that the "average" employee will be left with a mere $498,153 this year. What they don't mention is that only a handful will see anything near a half million dollars. The top few are making so much that it pulls up the "average." The clerks and receptionists, as usual, will earn a relative pittance.

What is really outrageous, however, is that less than a year after the bailout by the people the details of how much is going to whom are unavailable.

There is no place where this reporter or anyone else can go to look for the information about how much that handful of top dogs at Goldman is really getting. We have to wait until later this year when New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo will release his analysis of bank payouts.

One key Goldman-Sachs shareholder, however, is unwilling to wait.

The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority - the public agency that runs mass transit in the Philadelphia area and that just signed a new contract with its union-represented workers after it forced them into a six-day strike last year - has filed suit against Goldman executives for their ongoing bonus grab.

The Philly investors are warning that no one should buy the Goldman argument that it has already paid back to the Treasury the $10 billion taxpayers gave it. They note that the bank received another $43.4 billion of direct benefit from other bailout programs that has never been reimbursed.

What's probably the most worrisome for Goldman, however, is that it is operating now in a country where not only some of its investors but the nation's president and the broad majority of the people are on to its game.

Popular support for taking on Wall Street is soaring even faster than the president's recent improvement in the polls. A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 73 percent of Americans would support "a special tax on bonuses over $1 million."

A CBS poll shows that by a 72-19 percent margin Americans feel the federal bailout has benefited "mostly just a few big investors and people who work on Wall Street."

Super Bowl ads stir controversy

Pepe Lozano — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 10:37:00 -0500

Sunday is the big day for football fans across the country as Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints go head to head with Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts in this year's much-anticipated Super Bowl.

Many foresee the game to be a competitive match-up between the league's two top teams, both of which played exceptionally well all season.

However for some, tuning in every year is more than just about football. It's also about the much-hyped commercials.

Millions are expected to watch one of television's biggest nights, in between guacamole and chips, to view ads that attract many who could care less about the game.

Yet some ads have already stirred up some controversy.

This year CBS, the network airing the game, has decided to feature an anti-abortion commercial showcasing college football star Tim Tebow along with his mother. Many are questioning the network's decision to air the ad because it deals with the sensitive issue of abortion and is sponsored by the anti-choice conservative group Focus on the Family.

The ad features Tebow's mother telling the story of her son's birth. She recalls how she was on a missionary trip in 1987 when she became seriously ill. Her doctors urged her to have an abortion. She chose not to and wound up giving birth to a son who grew up healthy. Tebow went on to become a football star at the University of Florida as well as a Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback.

But the move by CBS to air the ad has infuriated reproductive rights activists, leading some groups to petition the network to cancel it.

Critics call the commercial "extraordinarily offensive and demeaning," as it promotes the decision of one woman who went against her doctor's advice in an at-risk pregnancy.

The National Organization for Women said in a statement, "While NOW would never disparage any woman's reproductive choice, we believe that all women should be free to make the decision that is right for them. We also believe that this ad could potentially put women's health and lives at risk by promoting ideology over medicine."

NOW President Terry O'Neil told The Associated Press she found the ad "extraordinarily offensive and demeaning." She added, "That's not being respectful of other people's lives. It's offensive to hold one way out as being a superior way over everybody else's."

Cecile Richards, of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, in an e-mail message to supporters, said of the ad, "Mrs. Tebow weighed medical and moral considerations and decided what was right for her. She made her choice in private, and without government interference. That's exactly what we want every woman to be able to do."

"The truth is," Richards added, "the Tebows' experience is completely consistent with what Planned Parenthood doctors and nurses have learned from the millions of women they've served over nearly a century. Women take decisions about their health very seriously. They consider their doctors' advice, they talk with their loved ones and people they trust, including religious leaders, and they carefully weigh all considerations before making the best decision for themselves and their families.

"That's the way it should be."

The action fund is inviting the public to add their names to a statement affirming the right of every woman to "make important personal medical decisions for herself." Meanwhile, athletes Sean James and Al Joyner have made a powerful video advocating for women's health and rights. Watch it below.

NOW points out that women are vastly under-represented in high-level decision-making roles at the television networks. Despite this disadvantage, NBC managed to make the right decision last year, refusing to run an anti-choice ad during the Super Bowl, the group notes.

But, NOW says, "Anti-abortion forces are on the offensive. They don't want to help women make informed decisions - they want to, in the words of Focus on the Family, make abortion ‘both illegal and unthinkable.' We must stand up to their campaign to deny women their fundamental rights."

Meanwhile gay rights activists are also disappointed with CBS's decision to turn down an ad sponsored by a gay dating site called ManCrunch.com.

The 30-second ManCrunch ad shows two men on a couch watching a football game rooting for their respective teams. They both reach for chips at the same time and their hands touch. As music builds in the background they kiss, rather comically. See the ad below.

Sponsors of the ad say it's harmless, not controversial or sensational.

They were told by CBS that no spots were left to air the commercial. CBS claimed ManCrunch did not meet credit requirements to pay for the ad.

However critics charge anti-gay bias is the real reason behind the network's decision. Gay rights activists are calling for a boycott of the Super Bowl and CBS.

Athletes Sean James and Al Joyner:

"Mancrunch" ad:

Photo: (AP/David J. Phillip)

Pentagon leaders say they favor gays serving openly

John Wojcik — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:37:00 -0500

In a historic first, the Pentagon's top leaders called this week for an end to "don't ask, don't tell," the policy preventing gay men and lesbians from serving openly in the armed forces.

Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Michael Mullen announced the formation of a working group charged with developing a plan "to create full equality and full access to all of the benefits and obligations required by military service" in about a year's time.
Rea Carey, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce, commented as she prepared in Texas today for this weekend's annual gathering of her group.

"We thank Gates and Mullen for their strong statements. We have called on the president to find a way for people to serve openly, and it appears he is trying, though we are not satisfied with the length of this timeline," Carey said. "We continue to call for the immediate halt to all discharges of service members because of their sexual orientation until Congress fulfills its responsibility to overturn this archaic, unjust law."

The Taskforce continues to call out lawmakers, particularly Republican Senators, for their role in continuing the discriminatory policy. Several Republican senators on the Armed Services Committee, describing the current policy as one of "live and let live," favor continuing the current law.

"Committee members like Sens. Chambliss and Sessions have their head in the sand on the true impact of the existing law," said Carey. "Contrary to their statements, the real story is ‘Live and don't make a living. Live and lie.' The military has already had 16 years to think about this and other countries have been able to implement equality in the armed services. Let's get moving."

Gay rights organizations are insisting that the working group mentioned by Pentagon leaders draft a comprehensive new policy that guarantees full equality for gay and lesbian service members.

They want a policy, for example, that would not restrict gay or bisexual service members from exhibiting their sexual orientation on the job if straight service members are not similarly restricted.

They are also saying that the Pentagon should be obligated to provide for domestic partners and that the domestic partners of gay service members should receive the same treatment as domestic partners of straight service members.

Gay activists, meanwhile, are reminding the public that elimination of ‘don't ask don't tell" is only one step and that much more must be done to achieve full equality. They note that all over the United States workplaces, for example, remain dangerous places for LGBT people and that at those workplaces they can still be fired for who they are.
The National Gay and Lesbian Task force points out that it's still legal in 29 states to fire someone because of their sexual orientation. In 38 states, people can be fired for being transgender - not fitting in to gender stereotypes.

"The president's push to hold hearings on this is a step in the right direction," writes Laura Flanders in The Nation today, but "what we need now is an inclusive employment non-discrimination act that applies to all jobs, and all people, not just the military, and we need it now."

Photo: AP Jacquelyn Martin

Melanie Shouse, health care activist, dies at 41

Tony Pecinovsky — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 14:59:00 -0500

ST. LOUIS -- Melanie Shouse was 37 when she first felt the lump. She couldn't believe it. But she kept up her fighting spirit, especially for health care reform.

"When I first noticed a small lump on my breast, denial seemed the only option," Ms. Shouse told this news site at a Jobs with Justice, MO State Workers' Union rally held outside of a Department of Social Services office here.

Melanie Shouse died Saturday, January 30. She had been fighting cancer and the insurance industry for over 4 1/2 years. She was 41.

When she first found the lump in her breast she didn't know what to do. She couldn't afford the $5,000 deductible her catastrophic health insurance policy required.

"For weeks after diagnosis," Melanie told me, "I was in a state of near panic regarding how I would pay for treatment. I had no savings and no real assets, and no idea how I was going to cover these monumental co-pays and deductibles."

"And with this prize-winning pre-existing condition, I had no opportunity to seek a better private health plan. I was shut out of the market," she concluded.

Ms. Shouse, like many people throughout the nation, faced a recalcitrant and irresponsible health care system. She faced a system that cared more about profits than life. And until the end, Melanie bravely faced that system and spoke truth to power.

At a health care rally last November, Ms. Shouse said, "we need to take on the big insurance monopoly and liberate American families from the slavery of skyrocketing insurance premiums and canceled coverage, which leave millions of us in a state of perpetual fear and insecurity..."

In addition to advocating affordable health care for everyone, she was an activist for clean energy, economic reform and public transportation. Additionally, she was a long-time supporter of the People's Weekly World, the predecessor of the People's World.
Ms. Shouse grew up in Indiana, graduated from high school in Plano, Texas, and then from Texas A&M University with a major in biology.

She moved to San Francisco, where she met her future partner, Steve Hart, on a picket line. They were together for 20 years.

Melanie and Steve then moved to St. Louis and started Sweet Meat Stix, a well known meat market that sold only humanely raised beef.

Ms. Shouse requested that her body be cremated wearing her Obama T-shirt.

Friends and family plan a celebration of her life at 2:30 p.m. Feb. 14 at Central Reform Congregation, 5020 Waterman Avenue.
The family suggests memorial contributions to Women's Voices Raised for Social Justice, 412 Greenleaf Drive, Kirkwood, Mo. 63122; Susan G. Komen for the Cure, St. Louis affiliate, P.O. Box 790129, Dept. SK, St. Louis, Mo., 63179-0129; or St. Louis Jobs with Justice, 2725 Clifton Street, St. Louis, Mo. 63139.

Melanie Shouse will be missed.

Photo: Melanie Shouse, far right, and her partner, Steve Hart, at a health care rally in St. Louis. Tony Pecinovsky/PW

Americans get fired for nothing

Jim Lane — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 13:49:00 -0500

Book Review

"Can They Do That? Retaking Our Fundamental Rights in the Workplace"

By Lewis Maltby

Penguin Group, 2009, 288 pp

A friend of mine got fired for helping organize a union. "You can't do that," she told the bosses. Sure enough, after a visit from the union lawyer, they agreed that indeed they couldn't, so they told her to come back to work on Wednesday. She did, and they fired her immediately, "for nothing." She's still fired. That's America.

A new book by an experienced labor attorney probes the depths of American employment law then offers hope for change. The American workplace, Maltby explains, is a virtual dictatorship with few worker rights except for those won by unions and a few federal anti-discrimination laws. The book is full of outrageous stories about people being fired for little or nothing. Example: one woman was fired for having a Democratic bumper sticker on her car.

Attorney Lewis Maltby worked as an attorney for a "progressive" employer before deciding to take up the good cause. He worked for the ACLU and then founded the National Workrights Institute. Their web page is www.workrights.org. It explains, "The National Workrights Institute is a non-profit organization based in Princeton, NJ. We believe that all workers are entitled to their rights in the workplace."

The topics on the web site are approximately the same as those in the book:

Alternative Dispute Resolution
The privatization of workplace justice has the potential to bring benefits to employees, but the system must be voluntary and fair.

Drug Testing
Random drug testing is not only an invasion of privacy but it does little to make the workplace safer or more productive.

Electronic Monitoring
Your employer may be watching and recording all your activities at work.

Genetic Discrimination
Employers have access to genetic information and can use it to discriminate against applicants and current employees.

Lifestyle Discrimination
Should employers be able to regulate the legal off-duty activities of their employees?

Medical Privacy
Should your employer have access to sensitive medical information?

Plant Closings/Mass Layoffs
Employees are entitled to notice when their company shuts down or conducts a major layoff. But most people don't receive it.

Right to Organize
Freedom of association is among the most fundamental of workplace human rights.

Whistleblower
Could you lose your job for notifying the proper authorities that your employer is violating the law?

Wrongful Discharge
You can lose your job for reasons that are unjust, arbitrary or simply non-existent

The site encourages workers to tell their own stories, and they offer advice to the recently dis-employed.

One of the best sections in the book explains the legal concept of "employment at will." Even though it seems to go against everything Americans believe, and even though employers can't fire their workers for certain reasons, they can almost always fire them for no reason at all!

Maltby gives us the back story on page 61: "In 1877, an obscure legal writer from Albany named Horace Wood wrote a treatise summarizing the employment law of the time. Wood stated that under American law, employment is a relationship "at will" in which an employer could fire a worker at any time, without notice, for any reason, no matter how arbitrary, or for no reason at all. Workers had the supposedly equal right to quit at any time without reason, which reminds many people of Anatole France's comment about how French law in the nineteenth century prohibited rich and poor alike from sleeping under the bridges of Paris.

"Wood wasn't much of a scholar. He cited only four cases in support of his claim that employment at will was the law of the land. To make matters worse, in not one of the four cases Wood cites did the court rule that employment was at will...."

Maltby writes that Horace Wood was not guilty of much more than being inept. The real villains are the judges who mis-used Wood's work: "Despite wood's shoddy scholarship, courts across the country began citing his treatise in support of rulings that an employer had the legal right to fire an employee at any time without reason. By the turn of the century, Wood's rule had become American law."

It's not all bleak in the book. Maltby believes that legislation can solve some of the problems, and that his institute can often help individuals who have been unjustly fired.

Workers give Marriott a wake-up call

Marilyn Bechtel — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 13:42:00 -0500

OAKLAND, Calif. - Any Oakland Marriott City Center hotel guests hoping to sleep late got a surprise Feb. 3 as hundreds of hotel workers and their supporters - including many building trades workers - marched at dawn beneath their windows, making the walls ring with their chants and noisemakers.

For the workers who have been seeking a new contract since last May, and their union, Unite Here! Local 2850, the biggest issue is the one headlining union negotiations around the country - health care and the efforts of giant corporations to shift more and more of the cost onto the backs of their workers.

"We gave up big raises in order to keep our health coverage," Carmen Rodriguez, a housekeeping supervisor at the Marriott and Local 2850 vice president, told the World. Now, she said, the workers don't see the hotel management coming up with satisfactory proposals either for wages or for health coverage. "If I had to pay what they're proposing for health care," she said, "I'd have to choose between food and medical insurance."

Excessive workloads are also at issue in the talks, Rodriguez said. "In the past, our housekeepers have often suffered on-the-job injuries. We believe that lowering their workloads would help a lot to cut down on these injuries."

Pensions are another issue, with management having stopped matching workers' contributions to their 401k plans and the workers calling for a union pension plan. The local also seeks contract language requiring major renovations at the hotel to be done by union contractors, as is the case in San Francisco, because, the union says, hotel workers don't want the disruptions that accompany labor disputes involving other unions.

The many hard hats in the crowd signaled the presence of building trades workers - electricians, laborers, carpenters and others. As commute hour traffic began to fill surrounding streets and sidewalks, Andreas Cluver, who heads the Building and Construction Trades Council of Alameda County, told a brief rally, "As construction workers, we understand what it is to have good wages, real health care and a real pension. These are some of the foundations of our building trades unions and the hotel workers need to have the same thing. We're sending a message that we're going to fight together on our issues."

Local 2850's president, Wei Ling Huber, said that while sometimes the situations of hotel workers and building trades workers seem quite different, both are "fighting for fair workloads, for safety, to stop the injuries. It's the same stuff," she said, "the same bad employers trying to take advantage of people, pushing people to work harder, trying to get the cheapest deal possible."

When the Marriott's management wondered why the hotel workers care about the renovations, Huber said, "we told them, 'It's about getting together, it's about protecting our standards.' And that's the kind of labor movement I want to be part of. We're going to keep fighting because we're stronger together."

Photo: Workers join together across industry lines to support hotel workers in their contract fight. Marilyn Bechtel/PW

Catholic priest says sexism is sin, women should be ordained

Luis Rivas — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 13:11:00 -0500

CULVER CITY, Calif. -- Nearly a hundred people gathered Jan. 29 at the Veterans Memorial Building here, with all seats filled and a standing crowd in the back of the building's garden room auditorium, to hear Father Roy Bourgeois and Sister Judy Vaughan speak on the controversial topic of women's ordination and gender equality in the Catholic Church.

Sister Judy Vaughan is founder and director of Alexandria House, a long-term transitional residence and center for women and children.

Father Bourgeois has been a priest for 38 years and is best known for his work with the School of the Americas Watch (SOAW), a non-violent organization that exposes the U.S.-based school, once called School of the Americas, and its role in training Latin American soldiers in repressive tactics and deploying them throughout the region.

Fr. Bourgeois founded the SOAW in 1990 after the killings of Jesuit nuns and Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero in the 1980's, but his conscious awakening and calling to priesthood happened immediately after his experience serving in Vietnam. He joined the Maryknoll Society, an American Catholic organization, and traveled to La Paz, Bolivia, where he was ordered to leave the country after speaking out against the oppressive government of General Hugo Banzer Suarez, which arrested, tortured and killed many dissidents. From there he went to El Salvador. After witnessing numerous human rights abuses that the Salvadoran government, with the financial support and military tactical aid of the United States government, committed against its own population and fellow members of foreign religious organizations, Bourgeois focused on where these soldiers were receiving their training: the School of the Americas.

The SOAW grew from a handful of protesters to hundreds, and eventually into over 20,000 members today - with international recognition. Bourgeois has been nominated as a candidate for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize because of his committed work with the SOAW.

The School of the Americas, feeling national and international pressure, changed its name in 2001 to the Western Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC). Further pressure lead to the 2008 Defense Appropriations Bill mandate that the school release a list of all its graduates and instructors. It is a long list that includes former Bolivian dictator Suarez, and Honduran General Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, who was a vital player in the recent coup there that ousted President Manuel Zelaya in June 2009. The list can be found on the School of the America's Watch website: www.soaw.org.

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) is reintroducing the bill "The Latin American Military Training Review Act," HR 2567, which will seek out immediate suspension and investigation of the school. It will be voted on this spring.

On Jan. 27, four SOAW members were convicted for trespassing at the school in Fort Benning, Ga., and sentenced to serve six month sentences in federal prison. The four were part of the mass protest and nonviolent civil disobedience that SOAW holds there every year in November.

Shifting focus away from the school and redirecting it to the Catholic Church's stance on rejecting women the right to become ordained priests is a new call, but an injustice just the same. There will never be justice in the Catholic Church unless women are allowed to be ordained, said Bourgeois.

"Who are we to say that a woman's call [to priesthood] isn't valid?" said Bourgeois. God initiates the call to priesthood, and like racism, sexism is a sin, he added.

His stance on women's right to ordination garnered more attention after being invited to Janice Sevre-Duszynska, a SOAW supporter and once prisoner, ordination in Lexington, Ky., which he participated in.

After hearing of Bourgeois' opinions and open support on the matter, the Vatican issued a letter in 2008 with a 30-day notice to the priest to recant his opinions or face formal excommunication from the church. Bourgeois sent a two-page reply explaining his duty as a man of conscious, citing theological studies of the Bible that have not found any justification excluding women from the priesthood, and stating that he cannot recant his belief, adding that "silence is the voice of complicity."

Although the 30 days expired, Bourgeois is still a member of the Marynkoll Society, which is supportive and encouraging in his stance, and his ministry still remains largely about Latin America, with the new issue of women in priesthood.

The Vatican has not issued a reply to Father Bourgeois' letter.

Photo: Father Roy Bourgeois and Sister Judy Vaughan address a standing room only crowd on peace, justice and a woman's right to be ordained. Luis Rivas/PW

Against the odds, independent politics advance in Illinois election

John Bachtell — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 18:22:00 -0500

CHICAGO -- Voters in the Feb. 2 Illinois primary election seemed to send a message to politicians: We're fed up with corruption; we want solutions.

Illinois has the earliest off-year primary in the country, a factor that depressed voter turnout to a mere 25-30%, according to analysts.

With a record state budget crisis, Main Street depression and an impeached former Democratic governor and Democrat-controlled legislature, Republicans anticipate a comeback this year. Especially, the Republican Party sees the state's U.S. Senate seat, once occupied by President Obama, as a key race nationally. Rep. Mark Kirk, who handily won the Republican Senate nomination, immediately tried to employ "Scott Brown" tactics calling for an end to "one party" rule in Illinois. Kirk's challenge will be to unite the extreme rightwing and more moderate sections of the state Republican Party which has been in shambles for several years.

State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, with significant labor backing, won the Democratic nomination for U.S. senate and will face Kirk this November. At his victory party, Giannoulias who was widely seen out of the three-way Democratic primary race as having the best chance to win in November, was surrounded by workers from HartMarx, a garment factory he fought to save. He hit hard on the need for jobs creation in his speech.

In close primaries for governor, current Governor Pat Quinn, a maverick on many issues, seemed to narrowly win against State Comptroller Dan Hynes, who comes from a Chicago political machine family. Quinn had the political misfortune of stepping into office in the wake of a scandal by his predecessor, Rod Blagojevich, and the biggest budget crisis in state history. The Republican race for governor is too close to call.

Hynes had enraged the progressive community and African Americans with an attack ad that repeatedly showed a speech by the late Mayor Harold Washington criticizing Quinn upon firing him from his administration. But the Hynes family, including the comptroller's father, had been one of the chief obstructionists to the Washington administration.

Cook County government has long been a bastion of political patronage and corruption. Now the economic recession has compounded the government's budget crises. The Cook County Board of Commissioners President race was closely fought among Democrats vying for the nomination. Current Board President Todd Stroger, appointed by Democratic Party bosses after his father had a massive stroke, ran against three other candidates. He came in last. Many voters were reacting to a recent sales tax increase that he implemented. Plus budget cuts have heavily impacted health care and other vital services.

Alderman Toni Preckwinkle won the Democratic nomination for Cook County board president. Preckwinkle, an African American and seen as the most progressive of the candidates, could be the first woman elected to the post. She put together a coalition that reflected the racial diversity of the city.

Cook County Democratic primary winners in heavily Democrat Cook County are seen almost as shoe-ins for the general election. Although there will be Republican and Green Party candidates on November's ballot.

But perhaps the most important results for Chicago-area independent politics came from the city's southwest side in the form of two races.

The first race was the decisive victory of Jesus "Chuy" Garcia over Mario Moreno in the Democratic primary for Cook County Commissioner of the 7th District. Moreno, a Democratic Party machine incumbent, is widely seen as corrupt and a do-nothing. Organizers see the Garcia win as a victory for grassroots political empowerment in the Mexican American community, as well as, progressive coalition politics seeking to address the widespread economic troubles of voters.

"Tonight all of Chicagoland and suburbia is watching this new southwest side," declared Garcia triumphantly to a jubilant crowd at a packed victory party in the Little Village neighborhood here. "We demonstrated that progressive politics are possible anywhere in the Chicagoland metropolitan area."

Many see Garcia's win as putting back on track the movement Garcia helped to lead as state senator when Chicago's infamous Democratic Party machine ganged up to defeat him in 1998. The defeat chilled the city's progressive independent movement. The 22nd Ward Independent Political Organization, of which Garcia is a leader and founding member, was one of the main groups still trying to carry on an independent, progressive and pro-working families agenda. Garcia was an early supporter of the late Mayor Washington and the first Latino elected to the state senate.

Garcia called for other communities to come forward with an alternative vision and to build broad unity around a new agenda for the metropolitan area that could challenge the old machine politics, much like the coalition that carried Washington to victory in 1983 and 1987.

The second significant race on the southwest side, which profoundly shook up the political scene was for state legislature. In his first race for public office, Rudy Lozano, Jr. lost by just 434 votes to Rep. Dan Burke, from one of the most powerful and connected families in the state. Lozano's campaign in the 23rd legislative district won 46% of the vote, but had to contend with a record low voter turnout across the state.

Lozano, an educator and community organizer, inspired an army of young grassroots activists and leaders, who with their courage and audacity refused to be intimidated by the machine thuggishness, intimidation and efforts to isolate Lozano's campaign. They braved Chicago's hot summer and cold, snowy winter to canvass the neighborhoods daily.

Garcia jumped into the race for commissioner late, teaming up with Lozano and bringing many veterans of previous campaigns with him. It helped open up resources and gave both campaigns the feel of an intergenerational movement.

The threat of Lozano's campaign so worried the establishment that powerful House Speaker Michael Madigan became personally involved, first dispatching his attorney in an attempt to drive Lozano from the ballot, then marshalling the remnants of the old corrupt Hispanic Democratic Organization to back Burke with a public display of Latino support while intimidating Latino political support for Lozano.

Efforts were made by both Madigan and the Burke family to deny any support for Lozano in the labor movement. Lozano still garnered endorsements from United Electrical Workers (UE), Workers United and Citizen Action Illinois.

Lozano racked up surprising vote totals in stronghold precincts of the Burke and Madigan machines. This also reflected the large demographic change on the southwest side and the desire for elected officials who are honest and responsive to a district hard hit by joblessness, home foreclosures, school overcrowding and concerns with gang violence, as well as, Latino representation in the state house.

"This is just the beginning," Lozano told the crowd at Little Village's Mi Tierra Restaurant. "Regardless of the outcome we have already won a great victory. We have a movement on our hands not just on the southwest side, but across the city of Chicago. We have put progressive independent politics on the map and it's here to stay."

As part of the Garcia-Lozano alliance, progressive independent Alderman Ricardo Munoz was elected to the State Democratic Party Central Committee.

In other races closely watched by labor and progressives, Robyn Gable, director of the Illinois Maternal and Child Health Care Coalition won the Democratic nomination for the 18th Legislative district being vacated by Rep. Julie Hamos. Gable who is part of the progressive movement around Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), vowed to continue the fight for health care reform.

Hamos had given up her seat to run for U.S. Congress in the 10th Congressional District, the seat currently occupied by GOP Senate nominee Mark Kirk. Hamos ran against Dan Seals, an African American who had challenged Kirk twice. Seals defeated Hamos and his victory in November would flip the seat for Democrats.

Photo: Jesus Garcia, left, addresses the victory party crowd Feb. 2 with Rudy Lozano. John Bachtell/PW