By Doug Cunningham
Oprah Winfrey has refused to allow celebrity chef Paula Deen to come on the Winfrey TV show to advertise Smithfield Foods hams. Workers at Smithfield trying to form a union there say Smithfield abuses its workers. The company circulated a letter to workers saying Oprah barred Deen from showcasing the company’s hams.
By Doug Cunningham
In New Orleans Thursday police tasered and pepper sprayed some community activists who wanted to get into a public hearing on housing demolition projects. Some community groups are trying to stop the demolition of homes in poor New Orleans neighborhoods, maintaining that homes are being torn down rather than rehabilitated to make way for investors to profit from the Katrina devestation at the expense of low-income residents who live in the affected New Orleans neighborhoods. A crowd of people was barred from entering the public hearing and a clash ensued, with some in the crowd getting past a police barrier to keep them out of the hearing. At least two people were tasered and pepper spray was sprayed into the crowd.
By Doug Cunningham
Teamsters President Jim Hoffa says the omnibus spending bill Congress passed this week includes a ban on funding for Bush’s Mexican trucks program. Hoffa says Congress is helping make driving safer in the U.S. by banning funding of the program t oallow Mexican trucks unrestricted access to all U.S. highways. The Teamsters are suing in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to block the program. The suit is expected to be heard in February.
By Doug Cunningham
The United Auto Worker’s International Executive Board decided this week not to endorse any presidential candidates in the primary. UAW President Ron Gettelfinger says there’s a healthy diversity of opinion within the UAW as to which candidate can most effectively challenge the special interests that have captured our government on behalf of the wealthy. He says the UAW encourages its members to be active in the presidential campaign but there will be no official UAW endorsement in the primary. And because the international board of the UAW isn’t endorsing, all the
By Doug Cunningham
Pollster and Democratic political strategist Doug Scheon says a consensus is emerging on changing course in U.S. trade policy because the reality of what our so-called free trade policies have done to hurt U.S. workers, businesses and consumers is becoming clear. Scheon says unions have been instrumental in helping create this shift, but they no longer alone in their positions on the issue.
[Scheon]: “I think labor unions have been and will remain influential. But I think today we’re looking at a new consensus on trade, involving labor, working people and also business people who recognize that you can’t compete fairly – you can’t have free trade – if other nations are playing by rules that are very, very much different from our own.”
Three Republican senators led by Jon Kyl of Arizona ruined the holidays of tens of thousands of working people whose jobs were shipped overseas because of the flawed U.S. trade policies that encourage employers to move offshore. The senators blocked a unanimous consent agreement to extend the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program for three months.
TAA provides financial assistance and training to workers who lost their job due to imports or offshoring. The program is set to expire Dec. 31. Even though the House approved an extension last week, the Senate failed to do so yesterday before adjourning for the year.
Senate Republicans have hit a dubious record this year. On Dec. 18, they forced the 62nd cloture vote of the 110th Congress, effectively blocking yet another bill. With half of the session still ahead, the roadblock Republicans have broken the record for the use of the filibuster to halt Senate legislation.
In a new report, the Campaign for America’s Future examined the record of reactionary obstruction in the Senate, and the media’s ineffective response. In short, the report’s authors note:
The first session of Congress was more marked by conservative obstruction than by progressive gains.
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While executives at the top five Wall Street firms are getting a record $38 billion in bonuses this Christmas season, millions of working families are worrying whether they will lose their homes in the New Year—in the wake of the nation’s mortgage crisis.
The AFL-CIO called today for major mortgage lenders to impose a one-year moratorium on subprime mortgage foreclosures. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, in a letter to the largest subprime mortgage lenders and underwriters, writes:
Wall Street seems to be giving unprecedented cash rewards to the very people whose conduct threatens to strip millions of Americans of their homes and drive our country into recession, while at the same time refusing to take the actions necessary to address the crisis.
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More than 10,000 delegates and observers from around the world traveled to Bali, Indonesia, for the U.N. Climate Change Conference (UNCCC) from Dec. 3-14. Of the 90 union delegates, more than 20 were from North America, including Bob Baugh, executive director of the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council and chair of the Energy Task Force, who finalized this report after he got back to the United States. U.S. delegates sent us a series of posts from the conference: here, here, here, here, here and here.
When I began this blog, I was sitting in the opening ministry session for the UNCCC. The new prime minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, addressed the delegation. Earlier that day, he signed the Kyoto protocol and delivered it to the United Nations before speaking. We heard from the president of Indonesia and watched a compelling video from Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the World Meteorological Organization and U.N. Environment Program Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). There was a somber note and a moment of silence for those U.N. workers and citizens in Algeria who died in the terrorist attack in Algeria.
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