UEPI News and Commentary

What have unions ever done for us ? - Monty Python Australian style

Friends:

Watch this video and send it to anyone who has ever asked, "why do we need unions?"

The AFL-CIO and/or Change to Win should make a US version of this. It would help lay the groundwork for getting the Employee Free Choice Act passed after a Democrat wins the White House, and the Democratic majority grows in Congress, in November.

[One word in the video may require some explanation: "Superannuation" is a pension scheme in Australia. It has a compulsory element whereby employers are required by law to pay a proportion of an employee's salaries and wages (currently nine percent) into a superannuation fund, which can be accessed when the employee retires].

Peter

mortgage meltdown; baseball steroid scandal; how unions help the economy; edwards; NCLB; what the Dems should do on Jan. 2008; fun with Alan Greenspan

Friends -

Here is a hodgepodge of articles (only one by me) on different topics that might be of interest:

Labor Day: 2007

Friends,

Labor Day began as a celebration of the struggle for workers' rights, the battle for the 8 hour day, and the role of labor unions as an instrument for social justice.  As usual, the mainstream media (with some notable exceptions) treated Labor Day as a three-day weekend, or as a day for sales on sheets and pillowcases. Few papers used Labor Day as an opportunity to assess the status of working Americans or the labor movement.  Indeed, few daily papers even have a "labor beat" reporter anymore. A reporter for a big-city newspaper called me two days before Labor Day to interview me for a story about the labor movement's agenda for the next year. He had just gotten the assignment and admitted he knew very little about the labor movement.  This is typical of most major daily papers. They all have huge "business" sections, but not a single labor reporter.

John Edwards and the Politics of Poverty

In a walnut paneled conference room, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with Georgian chandeliers, Remington-style bronze reproductions, 17th century Flemish art and Persian carpets, including one woven by servants of the Shah of Iran, John Edwards sat in the same chair at a small round table for two days taking copious notes, as panels of policy wonks expounded on new approaches to fight poverty.

In the age of George W., Wal-mart, and free market ideology, few public officials or candidates for office have much to say about the persistence of poverty in the world's wealthiest nation. Yet here was Edwards, calculating whether and how to run for president, at a two-day seminar on poverty that, while attracting 200 people, really had only one student. Read the rest of my article on the Common Dreams website...

Happy MLK Day

Many of you have seen the LA Times' 4-day series last week criticizing the United Farm Workers.  In response, I wrote this op-ed, published in the Sunday LA Times (yesterday), criticizing the paper's general coverage of labor and workplace issues.

On a positive note, the NY Times Magazine yesterday ran a great cover story on the growing "living wage" movement around the country, focusing on ACORN staffer Jen Kern.
And Holly Sklar has a great article about Dr. King's views about economic justice and labor on the TomPaine website.

The new (Winter 2006) issue of Dissent has my tribute to Rosa Parks.

CommonSense last week published a tribute to civil liberties and housing activist Frank Wilkinson by Jan Breidenbach and me.  It was also published in The Nation as part of Katrina Vanden Heuvel's column.

Also in The Nation, I recommend "A Top Ten List of Bold Ideas" by Gar Alperovitz and Thad Williamson. Even if you don't agree with all of these ideas it is important for progressives to create a positive forward-looking agenda, not just be against things.

Something to be against, though, are the huge tax break for the wealthy, including that part of the homeowner deduction that goes to the richest folks with the biggest homes. My article in the current issue of Shelterforce examines President Bush's tax reform task force and its recent recommendation to reform what I call the "mansion subsidy":

Finally, I recommend a new report by Columbia University economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard lecturer Linda Bilmes, who estimate the cost of the war in Iraq at $2 trillion - four times more than the Bush administration's projections.