UEPI News and Commentary

Watered down organic food labeling being pushed through with little public input

From Common Dreams:

Another Sneak Attack on Organic Standards: USDA to Allow More Conventional Ingredients in Organics

WASHINGTON - MAY 17 -The USDA has announced a controversial proposal, with absolutely no input from consumers, to allow 38 new non-organic ingredients in products bearing the "USDA Organic" seal. Most of the ingredients are food colorings derived from plants that are supposedly not "commercially available" in organic form. But at least three of the proposed ingredients, apparently backed by beer companies, including Anheuser-Busch, and pork and food processors, represent a serious threat to organic standards, and have raised the concerns of the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), as well as a number of smaller organic companies and organic certifiers.

Keep reading....

After the jump are the comments from UEPI's Center for Food & Justice that we are submitting today.

Access to Healthy Food in Los Angeles

MEDIA ADVISORY

Contact:    Andrea Azuma, Manager of Food Access Programs
                Center for Food & Justice, UEPI, Occidental College
                323-341-5094 (office)

Project CAFE to Release Detailed Assessment of Food Access in 3 L.A. Neighborhoods and Launch Campaign for More Markets and Healthier Food

Community members who mapped food access and surveyed food stores to speak

When:        Saturday, May 19th at 9:15 am

Where:        Norwood Street Elementary School 
                   2020 Oak Street, Los Angeles 90007

Who:    Esperanza Community Housing Corporation
            Blazer Learning Center
            Healthy School Food Coalition
            Center for Food & Justice, Urban & Environmental Policy Institute at Occidental College

Recent and Future Labor Victories!

Good news, and good potential news, on the union front:

Maryland has passed the nation's first statewide living wage law -- it requires employers doing business with the state government to pay workers $11.30/hour in the Baltimore/Washington area and less in other parts of the state. Baltimore was the first city in the country to pass a local living wage law (1994) and the idea spread quickly. More than 100 cities now have such laws. Let's hope that Maryland is, once again, a pioneer in an idea that will spread to other states.

Santa Fe, NM passed a citywide minimum wage law a few years ago. At the time, business leaders warned that it would destroy the local economy, but those Chicken Littles were wrong, as columnist Rick Wartzman in the LA Times points out in his article today. He suggests that LA and other cities should consider doing the same thing.

Kelly Candaele and I wrote an article this week for TomPaine.Com on the importance of the pending labor law reform bill in Congress - the Employee Free Choice Act. (This is a different and more straightforward version of the article we published in the Chronicle of Higher Education this week).  If passed,  the EFCA would help trigger a revival of union membership and, more broadly, of progressive politics.

Why we need labor law reform for a better America

Friends, Colleagues, and Students:

I have coauthored an article with Kelly Candaele in the current (May 11) issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education about the Employee Free Choice Act, a key bill to reform America's one-sided (anti-union) labor laws. The article points out that stronger unions mean a better society for everyone, but also focuses on its importance for advocates of public schools and higher education. Here's the link.

Learn more about the Employee Free Choice Act and find out if your Senators and Congressperson are cosponsors of this bill.