We Salute the Struggle of the WGA East to Keep Dignity and Fairness on the Job

April 27th, 2012

The Workers Unite film Festival salutes and supports our Brothers and Sisters, fighting for fairness from greedy production houses seeking to cut healthcare benefits. Read about it here!

 

“Race to the Top” protest by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and the Writers Guild of America, East of reality production company Atlas Media for refusal to provide employee health benefits.
 
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, NYCCLC AFL-CIO President Vincent Alvarez, and an assortment of Labor and OWS activists joined the Writers Guild of America, East, (WGAE) Protest Against Reality-Show Production Company Atlas Media, and urged Atlas to join the "Race to the Top" by providing Health Benefits for their Writers and Producers.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, NYCCLC President Vincent Alvarez, along with members of IATSE, IBEW, CWA-NABET, RWDSU, TNG-CWA, SAG-AFTRA, UAW, and OWS joined Atlas Media employees and their union, the Writers Guild of America, East, along with WGAE President, Michael Winship, as they called on Atlas Media, a major reality-television production company, to join the "Race to the Top" and to provide health care for its employees. The protest started on Fri., April 27 at 10:00 a.m.

 Writers and producers gathered outside of Atlas's offices and staged an actual race along West 36th Street to demand that the company not settle for "last place" when it comes to employee health benefits.

 
Atlas, which has reality series on several major cable channels such as Discovery and Travel Channel, is one of the production companies that is a focus of the “Non-Fiction Writers & Producers United” campaign by writers and producers to provide health benefits to a part of the industry long considered to be the “sweatshop” of the writing business.

You can get more information on this campaign on the WGAE website at; www.wgaeast.org  or by contacting Justin Molito, WGAE Director of Organizing at jmolito@wgaeast.org.

You can also get more information here:http://broadcastunionnews.blogspot.com/2012/04/race-to-top-protest-by-afl-cio.html

Come Visit Our Kickstarter Page Today and Pledge!

April 23, 2012

Hooray!  We finally have our dear little Kickstarter page up and running so now we need you all to come visit.

Check us out at: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/885835947/workers-unite-film-festival-0

Read about the ongoing project, make comments, pledge your support in return for cool gifts and rewards!

The Workers Unite Film Festival can only survive if you support our efforts. We do it all for you!

Thanks!! In Solidarity - the Workers Unite Film Festival Team.

Read All About ALEC - Or Why Unions need to Fight Back

April 22, 2012

ALEC - the conservative not-for-profit group that has come under scrutiny lately for funneling millions of dollars of corporate cash into intense, methodically planned lobbying campaigns to push pro-business (anti-union and anti-worker) agendas through "friendly" state legislators seems to have lost some interesting internal paperwork.

Check out this important and fascinating report from the NY Times that received over 500 pages of emails and documents from ALEC. These indicate the close association between many hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from many major national corporations -including AT&T, WalMart and many others, and the design, coordination and passage of some of the most pro-business, anti-union and worker laws - as was seen in Wisconsin after the election of Scott Walker.

The link is: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/us/alec-a-tax-exempt-group-mixes-legislators-and-lobbyists.html?pagewanted=1&ref=todayspaper 

Everybody from labor, worker or progressive groups needs to read this carefully in order to understand:

1) The level of coordination and outreach that corporations now have to not only spread their message, but get them passed into anti-worker laws.

2) Give credit where it is due - these pro-business, anti-worker ALEC types come out of marketing and promotion and data-mining at the highest levels. The Left needs to keep the pressure on both ALEC - which unbelievably is currently tax-exempt! And we as progressives need to really understand the amount of spade work it really takes to turn around some of the most vicious legislation that has been passed in over fifty years.

We beat back the Kasich crap in Ohio - we can beat these schlemiels too (look it up!!). We just have to pay attention, spend some of our campaign money more wisely - for the long term effect and never, ever, ever let our guard down against these putzes.

This Is the American Spring!

Unions Are Not Obsolete!

April 21st, 2012

"Unions are not obsolete," was said by one of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) miners upon returning to work in Boron, California last May, after a brutal 4 month lock-out by Rio Tinto - a huge global mining conglomerate, against several hundred workers in their Boron Borax mining facility.

The film, "Locked Out," Produced and Directed by the talented Joan Sekler, details how even in this moment of downturned economy and historically low levels of union membership, that when workers unite and stay focused, while using all the tools of current technology and media to spread their message of resistance - they can still stop a vicious anti-union company like Rio Tinto in its tracks.

These ILWU miners formed relationships and support networks both within the local community - so during tough times they had neighbors watching their backs. They also sought help from brother and sister unions all over the region and the country - who came to demonstrate, to donate food and funds and ultimately let Rio Tinto know that even though they might use scabs to pull some of the Borax out of the mine - the filled containers were not going to go on any ships if the company did not come to the table.

Ultimately, workers who had taken the union for granted for almost forty years, were reawakened to the necessity and value of having a really strong union at their job. As this worker said, he'd always looked on the ILWU as just another job related bureaucratic structure, but he was damn happy they were their when the trouble went down. He was sure he would never take his union for granted again.

Of course some compromises were made - and this is not a completely happy ending - but we need to keep organizing, keep building our support systems, use our networks, our culture, our media -  collaborate with OWS folks, local townspeople - then we'll be on the right road to worker power that can totally stop any anti-worker, anti-union company in its tracks.

Thanks to Joan Sekler for a fantastic film. I hope you get to see it during our Workers Unite Film Festival, coming May 4,5,6 in NYC.

Mark Your Calendars for May 1st! May Day Solidarity 2012!

Hudson Valley Labor Federation Tells it Straight on the War on Workers

RESOLUTION OF THE HUDSON VALLEY AREA LABOR FEDERATION SUPPORTING THE RIGHT OF ALL WORKERS AND CALLING  ON THE END OF THE WAR ON WORKERS WHEREAS, public- and private-sector union workers are our friends, neighbors, taxpayers, and constituents, and through their efforts, they enable us to meet our commitments to all citizens of our counties of Columbia, Dutchess, Greene, Orange, Rockland, Sullivan and Ulster, and; WHEREAS, the rights of our citizens to unionize to positively affect working conditions, wages, benefits, and our communities as a whole is an important right, and; WHEREAS, historically, labor unions are responsible for the civilized working conditions we take for granted, including 40-hour work weeks, laws pertaining to child labor, health and safety conditions, overtime pay, and health insurance and pension coverage, and; WHEREAS, the rights of workers to organize and form unions has directly led to the growth and success of the middle class in the United States, and; WHEREAS, a coordinated attack on middle-class protections and rights has commenced in state capitals through the country at a time when elected officials should be working to create jobs and strengthen their state economies rather than paying back corporate sponsors and attacking political enemies; WHEREAS, as a central part of our democracy, labor unions are the bulwark of assuring a strong middle-class society, and no democracy denies public- or private-sector employees the right to organize and participate in a union and to negotiate at arm’s length and in good faith with their employer, and; WHEREAS, collective bargaining is neither a weapon nor a bludgeon but rather an enlightened method to resolve disagreements in good faith, and; IT IS THEREFORE RESOLVED by the Hudson Valley Area Labor Federation that: Resolved: Those workers in states and municipalities in this country, regardless of economic sector and job title or responsibility, must have a basic right to organize and bargain collectively for a fair and just outcome. Resolved: This body expresses its strong support for the rights of workers, including but not limited to the right to form a union and to collectively bargain in good faith with an employer. Resolved: We as a society must end this War on Workers, and recognize that a strong middle class is the only way to ensure the United States remains a strong economic engine. Read this 3rd day of March, 2011 by HVALF AFL-CIO President Paul Ellis-Graham at the Hudson Valley Labor Solidarity Rally in Support of Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana Public Workers in support of their right to collectively bargain.  At 5:10 pm a motion was made by Billy Riccaldo, Vice President of HVALF AFL-CIO. The motion was seconded by Adrian Huff, Principal Officer of Teamsters Local 445.  The Resolution passed unanimously. We couldn't have said it better ourselves - go to thier site:http://hvalf.org/index.cfm

Our President Misses the Boat on Colombian Labor and Human Rights.

April 17th, 2012

Yes, we do support President Obama as the only hope for working people in this currently rigged system - but we have to point out when he makes a huge mistake. As several labor groups have pointed out - the record of the Colombian government - while not as horrendous as a few years ago - is still terrible. Labor organizers are beaten and murdered as a routine method of silencing labor union organizing. Labor rights must be civil rights and human rights - without any question. All people must be free to associate in order to gain a far deal from employers, whether small and local, or large and transnational. Read the letter below and please send a letter to your local paper.

WRITE A LETTER TO THE EDITOR TO SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT ON COLOMBIA

During his visit to Colombia for Summit of the Americas, President Obama ignored Colombia's continuing displacement crisis, despite the thousands of people living in squalor just outside the walls of colonial Cartagena where he was staying. He green lighted the implementation of the free trade agreement, even though union leaders continue to be murdered and paramilitary groups keep killing and displacing people to make way for agricultural and extractive industries.  

Colombia's war is raging and our military aid and trade policies are a part of the problem.

We need to set the record straight.  

Please send a letter to the editor of your local newspapers to make sure that news coverage of Obama trip to Colombia doesn't sweep Colombia's war and humanitarian disaster under the rug.

Fill in your zip code and choose a paper in your area. Then, you'll find a sample text. But remember, editors want to hear from you in your own words. If you have an extra minute, please feel free to personalize your letter.

WRITE A LETTER TO THE EDITOR TO SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT ON COLOMBIADuring his visit to Colombia for Summit of the Americas, President Obama ignored Colombia's continuing displacement crisis, despite the thousands of people living in squalor just outside the walls of colonial Cartagena where he was staying. He green lighted the implementation of the free trade agreement, even though union leaders continue to be murdered and paramilitary groups keep killing and displacing people to make way for agricultural and extractive industries.  
Colombia's war is raging and our military aid and trade policies are a part of the problem.
We need to set the record straight.  
Please send a letter to the editor of your local newspapers to make sure that news coverage of Obama trip to Colombia doesn't sweep Colombia's war and humanitarian disaster under the rug.
Fill in your zip code and choose a paper in your area. Then, you'll find a sample text. But remember, editors want to hear from you in your own words. If you have an extra minute, please feel free to personalize your letter.

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/625/letter/?letter_KEY=1439

Bangladeshi Union Organizer Aminul Islam Murdered for Organizing Workers

April 12, 2012

We were terribly saddened to receive this meesage just a short time ago regarding one of the organizers working in Bangladesh, like many of the courageous workers and activists portrayed in the WUFF film to be screen in May - The Machinists. The danger to organizers and activists simply fighting for fairness and justice with a living wage is real. They are beaten and murdered, often tortured as a message  to other workers and every effort is made by the local employer class, with the cooperation of corrupt government, to disrupt and destroy any effort by the workers to gain any type of level playing field.

Please follow the guidelines below in sending your anger to the government of Bangladesh.

From
Liana Foxvog, International Labor Rights Forum laborrights@ilrf.org
2:15 PM (4 hours ago)

TAKE ACTION

1. SEND A LETTER to Prime Minister of Bangladesh demanding an investigation into the murder.
 
2. DONATE to support demonstrations in Bangladesh.

3. MEET BCWS LEADER Kalpona Akter at ILRF's May Day Forum in D.C.

Aminul Islam was murdered in apparent retaliation for supporting garment workers' right to organize.

Dear Andrew,

Last Wednesday, Aminul Islam left his office for evening prayers. He noticed a police van parked outside and called his colleagues, worried about possible harassment. Then he went to meet with a worker. He never returned home.

His body was found a day later. According to police reports his legs had severe torture marks including a hole made by a sharp object. All his toes were broken.

Aminul was a senior organizer at the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity (BCWS) and a local leader for the Bangladesh Garment and Industrial Workers Federation (BGIWF). ILRF has worked with BCWS and BGIWF for many years. They have been a critical force in the effort to defend workers’ rights in a country known for sub-poverty wages, deadly factory fires, and repression of the right to organize.

Over the past two years, the government of Bangladesh has carried out a campaign of intimidation and harassment against BCWS. On June 16, 2010, Aminul was detained by security forces, beaten repeatedly and threatened with death, in an attempt to coerce him into making incriminating statements against the organization. Not long after, he and his colleagues Kalpona Akter and Babul Akhter were arrested and kept in jail for nearly a month, where they were subjected to psychological and physical abuse. Since 2010, Aminul, Kalpona and Babul have faced criminal charges for which no substantiating evidence has been presented.

Given this history, there is strong reason to suspect that Aminul’s murder was in retaliation for his efforts as a labor rights organizer and to fear this could represent a violent escalation in the repression of worker rights advocates in Bangladesh.

Join with us in calling for a thorough and impartial investigation into Aminul's murder. BCWS and BGIWF have asked for an outpouring of letters to the Prime Minister of Bangladesh. Please take a moment to add your voice!

In solidarity,

Liana Foxvog
National Organizer

Join ILRF on May 1st in Washington, DC
Democracy and An Economy for All: From Protests to Strategies for Change
Check out the featured speakers and register today!

Workers Unite Film Festival Is Open For Business!!

April 10th, 2012

Hooray!! After months of searching out new and provocative films and hours spent programming and tweaking
all types of internet code and internet commerce doo-dads - whew! the first Annual Workers Unite Film Festival is open for your ticket buying pleasure.

Now do your part - log in - take a look at the amazing films we have gathered to tell the story of workers and labor organizers around the world during this American Spring. We need your support and the more tickets we sell, the more we can donate to our honorees, the more we can spend on collaborations with up and coming film students, like those incredible students from the new School of Visual Arts MFA in Social Documentaries. What an amazing program and we are happy to have the help and creative spark of all the students involved.

Many thanks too, to our tireless Program Director - Phil Hopper, who not only has overseen the screening and selection of films, but has shuttled hard drives around NYC to keep our "films from the front lines," collaborations moving forward. We could not have done it without his help. 

So check out the schedule. Buy some blocks of tickets. We are still finalizing speakers to introduce a few of the programs, but the speakers we already have - Bhairavi Desai, Ed Ott, George Stoney, Esther Cohen, Ruth Milkman, Greg Mantsios and quite a few of our treasured film makers, are some of the most important people in the field of worker studies, labor organizing and documentary film today.

Thanks for keep an eye on this blog - please friend us on facebook, tweet us on twitter and keep up the fight for worker rights. Labor Rights are civil rights! Pass It On!

Our Inaugural Workers Unite Film Festival is a Reality!

April 5, 2012

The first annual Workers Unite Film Festival released its inaugural schedule of films late last night, after months of work by a committed team of volunteers and film /labor enthusiasts. Our schedule reflects a balance from important historical films, rarely seen - such as "By The River I Stand," about the Memphis garbage workers strike of 1968, to brand new films about global labor solidarity and struggle from around the world, such as "Stitched Together," and "Legends of the Welfare State."

Check out the schedule on the schedule page. Ticket purchases will be available by the weekend - via the "Tix" ticket buying program - easy and online - and will be sold by the programs (10 programs) - $13.00/$10.00 Students & Seniors, Day Pass - $33/$28 for students - or Festival Pass - for all events and all screenings - $88/$68 students.  

Remember that 101 years ago - this very day - corrupt Tammany Hall politicians dumped the remaining unclaimed bodies of the victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in an unmarked and secret Potters Field - to avoid the possibility of a "martyr's grave site," that might become the focus of demonstrations in remembrance. In response - over 100,000 union members, family of other victims and activists marched through an icy rain, watched by over 300,000 more spectators. As they neared the site of the fire tragedy, such a colossal wail of pure anger, revulsion and deep aching sadness arose from the huge assembly that it shook the city and even those corrupt Tammany Hall politicians to the core. New rules were passed, new laws gained traction to protect workers. A collective outpouring of worker anger and resolve paid off.

Let's not forget this, brothers and sisters. We will never forget - we will organize and fight back!
Thanks for all your support so far. Look forward to seeing you at the festival in May! 

Follow Us on Twitter @WorkersUniteFF

April 1st, 2012

Wow! We've entered the social media frenzy! Follow us @WorkersUniteFF.

Tell your friends! Send a Tweet.

Workers Unite Film Festival to release Full Schedule April 1st, 2012

March 31st, 2012

After months of outreach, screening and jurying, the team behind the first annual Workers Unite Film Festival, to be held May 4th, 5th and 6th in the heart of NYC, near Columbus Circle, is proud to announce the full schedule for the upcoming event will be released and hopefully online by April 1st!

We have built two nights in celebration of our recent heroes of the working people's movement - The NY Taxi Workers Alliance - recently chartered as the first new, national union in over fifty years by the AFL-CIO, is our honoree for Friday night May 4th, at 7PM. The Joseph S. Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies, will be our honoree for Saturday May 5th, for the whole day. We will celebrate their efforts to educate a new generation of active and informed labor leaders to carry on the decades old fight for worker dignity and worker's rights. We have a wonderful slate of films for both days.

Sunday May 6th is our celebration of "Films From the Front Lines," a variety of new films about current battles across the country and from around the world to fight for worker/labor rights as human rights and civil rights.

We have a full afternoon of films from Wisconisn, Ohio, Slovakia, Bangladesh, to right in our own backyards here in NYC - organizing drives to save jobs at an iconic cookie factory and the fight to get a fair shake for the hundreds of hard-working folks who make your lattes every morning.

So check out the schedule! Buy tickets! The festival order site will be up this week. Tell your friends!!!

Triangle Shirtwaist Memorial a Huge Success, March 23rd, 2012

March 26th, 2012

The celebration in honor of those women who died jumping to their death from the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory 101 years ago was a powerful and timely event.  The weather was perfect for hundreds of dedicated activists to come out and show their respect to those who lost their lives due to past employer greed, while honoring the role unions have played in fighting for safer working conditions right up into the present day.

Labor unions fight for worker safety every day, all over the world. As President Alvarez, of the NYC Central Labor Council, Bruce Raynor of Unite, Amy Muldoon, from CWA 1180 and many other leaders reinforced throughout their rousing speeches to those assembled, while a living wage is critical to workers to maintain lives with dignity, the safety and healthfulness of working conditions of all workers on the job is paramount in all our efforts to protect the health and welfare of our members. Without these basic human rights of health and safety, we as workers are no better than the oppressed serfs in Europe from hundreds of years in the past.

 

 Shirtwaists in memory of those who perished.

March 22nd is a National Day of Action To Fight Verizon's Greed

March 21st, 2012

March 22nd, 2012 is a day of action around the country to protest the ongoing gross unfairness of Verizon, as it refuses to offer a reasonable settlement to over 40,000 striking employees, while tripling the pay of its CEO to over $23 million!! That's in one year folks. Verizon, while screaming it is nearly broke - has managed to find over $243 million under the couch cushions to reward to executives. These same executives have done nothing to build a company based upon treating workers and their families with respect, or pay them a decent level wage and benefits.

The NYC Central Labor Council, together with many unions in the NYC area, will once again be marching down on West Street to remind the overpaid Verizon executives that the people of NYC back union families, back union workers and demand decent pay for union jobs! No concessions on paying a living wage.

Go to: http://local.americawantstowork.org/weareone/events/show/6063 for up to the minute information.

And go here to tell Verizon's greedy CEO what you think:http://action.cwa-union.org/c/1153/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=4005

See you at the rally! And please take video to screen at our "films from the front lines," day of our Workers Unite Film Festival. Thanks!

Dean Hubbard's New Blog Rocks! Go Read It Now!

March 17th, 2012

Dean Hubbard, excellent international labor professor, talented legal counsel for TWU Local 100, strong supporter of the Workers Unite Film Festival 2012, has a brand new blog: Restructuring the Edifice. "True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar...it comes to see that an edifice that produces beggars needs restructuring." Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Hi lead off posts discuss whether the official labor movement will stand behind the very active "99% Spring," planned by OWS to return the issues of all workers back to the front and center of our national discussion.

Labor has received critical and timely support from OWS forces, but this collaboration is still a work in progress.

Read Dean's excellent piece: http://www.deanhubbard.com/

Films or Video of NYC Labor Unions and OWS Demonstrations Needed

March 15, 2012

We're putting out a call to all you professional and amatuer filmmakers or video folks. The NYC CLC and the AFL-CIO are looking for any good footage of labor unions in NYC, such as CWA 1180 and the Verizon strikers, who supported or coordinated with Occupy Wall Street activists. Also looking for footage of OWS folks coming out in support of a lbor union strike or work action. 

If you have any decent footage - please email us at andrew@workersunitefilmfestival.org and we will put you in touch with Ginger - the fantastic Communications Director of the NYC Central Labor Council.

World's Longest Unemployment Line a Huge Success!

March 8th 2012,

A number of labor and labor arts groups pulled off a stunning visual display of what it means to get a pink slip from your employer during these tough economic times. Several thousand dedicated activists, from labor unions, arts groups, OWS groups and community and social activists came together for 14 minutes on a very cold morning to put on this fantastic piece of political performance art. Led by Mark Plesent, Producing Artistic Director of the Working Theater, and Kristin Marting, Artistic Director of HERE, supported by The NYC Central Labor Council and dozens of it's member unions - the line stretched silently and powerfully from the bull on Bowling Green - all the way through Union Square and to several locations in midtown. Bravo to all involved.

This clip is a teaser for a longer trailer that will be screened at the WUFF in May on The Working Theater and how arts, media and outreach to the public through these important cultural methods is critical for getting worker's messages across to the wider public discussion. Think Occupy Wall Street, think The World's Longest Unemployment Line, think the Workers Unite Film Festival!!!

                       The next pink slip could be yours! Quality Jobs at Dignified Wages.

Wall Street Greed Fueling Rising Gas Prices

February 28, 2012

Though this is not directly an issue about organizing workers, it is directly an issue that effects the lives of millions of working people. It also will likely effect the tone and outcome of the coming election. If you don't think that speculators, almost all members of the GOP, have this in mind as they drive gas and oil prices through the roof, think again. To them, their manipulation of the commodities markets is a gift that keeps on giving. Once, through paying them enormous unearned profits for playing at the global casino, then a second time, in further slowing our economic recovery, thereby giving whichever of the current crop of  GOP primary nutcases a better leg to stand on as they try to find any genuine issue with which to beat up on President Obama. Appparently this malfesance has been well documented since back in 2008, but nothing has yet been done to stop it. That should change immediately.

I don't normally cite CNN, but this article by Bernie Sanders, one of the few true hero's of working people in the Senate, lays out in detail this crime being perpetrated against all Americans. This is a crime that hits especially hard when you make under $40,000 a year, with two or three children and driving to your job is your only way to get to work. These speculators should be in jail, not celebrating their good fortune down at Delmonicos with lavish dinners.

You can read it at:http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/28/opinion/sanders-gas-speculation/index.html?hpt=hp_bn9

During This Job Scarce Recovery Corporations Spend Their Hoarded Cash Buying Back Stock

February 27th, 2012

Nelson D. Schwartz, of the New York Times, in a great article from November 21st, 2011, examined the strange and awful spectacle of a jobless recovery, fueled by corporations spending their mountains of hoarded cash on buying back their own stock. If even a percentage of this cash was aimed at hiring workers and committing to a variety of green industries, infrastructure construction, or a host of publicly beneficial and profitable efforts, we might be looking at unemployment numbers substantially lower than they currently appear. But that might entail some effort and risk. Why bother when unbounded greed is so easily satisfied?

Of course this would also look better for President Obama and the Democrats this election year. Since the goal of the GOP and their corporate supporters is to see anybody other than President Obama elected - this grossly greedy and socially wasteful misuse of corporate profits will continue. This of course goes hand in hand with the sudden meteroic rise in gas prices. Funny how that always seems to happen as a Democrat heads for re-election.

Carl Ginsburg, who has graciously joined our Advisory Board, writing in CounterPunch, details another fascinating angle on this topic and brings in the ridiculousness of Charles Murray's recent book on the decline of white America. Many thanks to Carl for writing this piece and letting us use it here.

"Tells the Facts and Names the Names"
CounterPunch
Edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair
 
Blaming the Poor
Yes, It's Charles Murray, Singing for his Supper
By Carl Ginsburg
 
There are many weapons in the public relations arsenal of the 1 per cent. An old stand-by in that stockpile is to fault "the family," a predictable verbal assault invoked to shift the debate away from the gross pocket-stuffing that defines our time. As poverty and inequality engulf America today - the greatest transfer of wealth upward in the nation's history - a new barrage of insults is aimed at those most in distress, with claims of floundering family values, failed responsibility, cultural shortcomings, and the like.
   These assaults are now being given prominent play on the battlefronts of the media. From Charles Murray, always the good soldier, ensconced in his ideological bunker at the American Enterprise Institute, arrives a new book, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010. It describes income inequality as "more of a symptom than a cause."  Murray is quoted in the New York Times as saying, "When the economy recovers, you'll still see all these problems persisting for reasons that have nothing to do with money and everything to do with culture."  
   In the New York Times, Nicholas Kristof bemoans the "eclipse of traditional family patterns." He says that a "chunk of working-class America risks being calcified into an underclass, marked by drugs, despair, family decline, incarceration rates, and a diminishing role of jobs and education." Referring to Daniel Patrick Moynihan's incendiary 1965 report on black families, Kristof concludes, "Moynihan was right to sound the alarms."
"The situation is independent of outside influence and has to be dealt with from within," Moynihan told an interviewer in 1984, reflecting on his 1965 report. "It is beyond economics."
    Beyond economics? Cash hoarding is up. Way up. U.S. companies are now sitting on $2 trillion in cash, much of it being used in stock buybacks and executive bonuses, making the 1 per cent even richer. But you won't see those weapons - notions of failed responsibility, cultural shortcomings and moral bankruptcy - targeted at the super-elites. Instead, we are told that sitting on this essential capital derives from a failure of "confidence" in consumers - whose wages and buying power are stagnant. One more grand obfuscation in the class war. Never mind that some of that cash hoard comes from U.S. taxpayers - more than $130 billion remains to be repaid from the financial bailout, according to a report of the special inspector general.
   Turns out family values are just the cover for an assault on family assets. As more and more people lose their homes to foreclosure, the aspiring are taking financial advantage in many places, such as Atlanta, where government subsidies for landlords are now to be captured. This is expected to be the worst in recent years for families facing foreclosure. The backlog of properties to be processed, by some estimates may run as high as 10 million additional residences to come on the auction block. Properties for a song and rents for a chorus - you gotta live somewhere.   
   Much of the 1 per cent steers its growing wealth into financial instruments, seeking double-digit returns. Private equity firms, where minimum buy-ins in eight digits are common, continue to hit high returns for those very responsible investors. One company alone, Apple, holds $100 billion in reserve.  
   Marching in lockstep with the cash hoarding comes wage discipline, a well used weapon of the 1 per cent. Today, close to 45 per cent of food stamp recipients are working adults, as taxpayers continue to foot the bill for the substandard wages of business: why exactly is taxpayer money needed to supplement wages? As Les Leopold argues persuasively in The Looting of America,for the last half-century productivity increases in the workplace have gone to owners, not even shared with the workforce. Had wages kept paced with worker productivity, estimates Leopold, average worker pay would be $16 per hour higher. "Nearly all of it was snatched up by the owners of capital," he writes.
   The warriors of profit are driving forward on all fronts, "diving into a wide range of riskier assets: emerging countries' stocks and bonds; real estate; ... commodity funds; fine art; private-equity funds, which buy stakes in nonpublic companies," Leopold writes.  
In 2010, according to a Centers for Disease Control study, the percentage of American women being screened for breast and cervical cancers declined. The upshot of this offensive carried out by and for the 1 per cent meant that fewer American women had the resources to undergo cancer checks. "[T]here is good evidence," wrote the New York Times, "that ... screening for these cancers can reduce illness and save lives."  
   Even with guns to their heads, you would have trouble convincing unemployed young people, those 18-24 years old, that their plight is "beyond economics." Their employment has dropped to 54.3 per cent, the lowest level since the government began tracking this data in 1948. And for those in this age group who are employed, there has been a 6 per cent decline in median weekly earnings since 2007. The minimum wage in New York State is still $7.25 an hour in 2012. "Beyond economics"? More than one out of six children live in a household with food insecurity, which means they do not always know where they will find their next meal. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture report, 16.2 million children under 18 in the U.S.A. live in this condition - unable to consistently access nutritious and adequate amounts of food necessary for a healthy life. Is this what constitutes "independent of outside influence"?
   "Persistent poverty is America's great moral challenge, but it's far more than that," fired off Kristof at those already riddled by poverty in his Times piece. The war on poor people soldiers on.  CP
 
Carl Ginsburg is on the staff of National Nurses United. You can learn more about the activities of the nurses union at www.protestintheusa.org.   
   

How Occupy Can Work with Labor to Win, A West Coast Story

February 24th, 2012

In a great story on Salon.com, Josh Edelson details how OWS helped support the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) in their battle against EGT, a multinational conglomerate, who had tried to bust the union. While EGT had fought against the ILWU for over a year, the militant union fought back.

A victory by EGT would have emboldened employers up and down the coast to seek to free themselves of ILWU influence.  And if the union — with the help of the Occupy movement — had not defied the law, EGT would have succeeded.

The Longview struggle began last March when, after initial discussions with ILWU Local 21, EGT announced its intention to run its new grain terminal without them.  The ILWU held protest rallies, and joined the Port of Longview’s lawsuit charging that EGT was bound by the union’s contract with the publicly owned port.  The union may have had a good legal case.  But so did Washington’s Boeing workers when their boss blamed their strikes for its decision to take new work to South Carolina. Boeing mostly got away with it anyway.

Read more at http://www.salon.com/2012/02/24/occupy_helps_labor_win_on_the_west_coast/