Calderón Launches new anti labor attack

IndustriALL Global Union and its activist affiliates of the Tri-National Solidarity Alliance (TNSA) are leading opposition to dangerous labour law reform to be fast-tracked through the Mexican parliament. The legislation would intensify the serious obstacles already facing workers and democratic trade unions in Mexico.

    The legislation has been drafted by outgoing president Felipe Calderón, who has been an enemy to workers in Mexico throughout his six-year term. The list of violations of core labour and trade union rights committed by the Calderón regime is long, and his outgoing attack through proposed changes to a number of regulations would cement his legacy. It must be strongly and urgently opposed by the international labour movement, as the 30-day initial consultation period for the legislation began on 1 September.

Join those calling on the parliamentary coordinators of the Mexican Congress to end this proposed initiative to regressively reform the labour law, and to instead focus on establishing a national process of social dialogue that is inclusive of Mexico’s independent trade unions as the legitimate social partners.

IndustriALL urges all affiliates and supporters to use General Secretary Raina’s letter as a model to write to Mexico’s parliamentary coordinators. The contact details of the seven individuals are in the letter. Please send on your organization’s letterhead to those addresses, with unionrights@industriall-union.org in copy. 

Concretely the proposed legislation would weaken the right to strike, widen the abuse of protection contracts used by employers to bypass the legitimate trade unions representing its employees, and interfere with union autonomy. Further, the proposed changes would proliferate precarious work in Mexico by legalizing subcontracting without creating a regulatory mechanism to ensure accountability of companies for the respect of labour rights through their production chains. Under the new law workers could be hired without job security on six-month probation contracts or even hired by the hour. Back pay in cases of illegal termination would be capped at 12 months to allow employers to delay legal cases for years and pressure workers to accept smaller compensation payments.  Clearly the core, internationally recognized rights of Mexico’s workers would be traded away by this proposed legislation in exchange for greater freedom and flexibility of employers.

Help stop farm worker heat deaths

Less than 10 days left for Governor Brown to decide on lifesaving heat bills. You can help! Cesar Chavez once asked, when speaking of the perils pesticides bring farm workers,"What is the worth of a man or a woman? What is the worth of a farm worker? How do you measure the value of a life?" The United Farm Workers still battles against toxic poisons that can threaten both farm workers and consumers. But exposure to extreme heat continues to pose just as deadly a threat to farm workers. Much of the problem is a lack of state enforcement of California's existing rules to protect farm workers from dying or becoming ill from the heat. This summer, the UFW convinced the California Legislature to pass and send two bills to Gov. Jerry Brown. AB 2346 would let farm workers enforce state rules themselves by suing agricultural employers who repeatedly fail to comply with mandatory requirements for shade and drinking water. AB 2676 says employers must treat farm workers at least as well as animals by providing shade and water or face the same criminal penalties the law imposes when animals are denied these necessities, including possible jail time and fines. The agricultural employers are lobbying intensely against the measures. We can't assume Gov. Brown will sign these bills. Won't you please urge the governor to do the right thing because the lives of farm workers are valuable. You can help by going tohttp://action.ufw.org/heatsafety. Thank you and Si Se Puede! Arturo S. Rodriguez, President United Farm Workers of America

Chicago Teachers Give Us All a Lesson

Two-thirds of parents supported the Chicago school teachers' protest in spite of the inconvenience caused by the strike.

by Dean Baker

We don't know the final terms of the settlement yet,
but it appears that the Chicago public school teachers
managed to score a major victory over Rahm Emanuel,
Chicago's business- oriented mayor. Testing will not
comprise as large a share in teachers' evaluations as
Emanuel had wanted; there will be a serious appeals
process for teachers whom the school district wants to
fire, and laid off teachers will have priority in
applying for new positions.

If these seem like narrow self-interested gains for the
teachers and their union, think again. Teaching in
inner city schools is a difficult and demanding job.

Most of the children in Chicago's public schools are
poor. Their families are struggling with all the issues
presented by poverty. Many of the schools are in high
crime areas and serious crimes often take place on
school premises. It can be a lot harder job than
working for a hedge fund.

It will not be possible to get committed and competent
people to teach in the public school system if they
cannot be guaranteed at least a limited amount of job
security and respect. The $70,000 annual pay that was
ridiculed as excessive by so many pundits would not
even be a week's salary for many of the Wall Street
types who do nothing more productive than shuffle
paper.

16th. of Sept.

Slain ambassador Stevens was member of Chinook Tribe

Slain ambassador Stevens was member of local Chinook Tribe

The Daily Astorian
Chinook Observer
September 13, 2012

http://www.dailyastorian.com/free/slain-ambassador-was-member-of-local-chinook-tribe/article_7ec80cf9-19fc-56a3-88db-628bc49c45fa.html

Slain U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and his family
are members of the Chinook Indian Tribe, the historic Oregon
people who met Lewis and Clark at the mouth of the Columbia
River, and the Tribal Chairman has put out a call asking for
prayers on their behalf.  Stevens' mother Mary Commanday,
well known in the tribe, received a call from President
Obama to express his condolences

Show Me Your Papers? Show 'Em Your Voter Registration!

The Difference Between a Political and a Pedagogical Judgments

 White Lies  And  What’s to be Done?

By  Rodolfo F. Acuña

When I was a kid there was what we used to call white lies.  You distinguished them from lies that were untrue. You told white lies because you did not want to reveal a secret or hurt someone’s feelings. Children would easily get caught telling lies – we were not too good at it. However, we got better as we marched into adulthood often believing our own lies.

I guess I never grew up, a lie remained a lie. When I started to write commentaries in the 1980s this got me into trouble with many of my politico friends. They told me that what they said were not lies but political judgments. The first rule in politics, they said, was to get re-elected.

In L.A., I began to lose friends not only because I had to tell it like I saw it, but because as a writer and historian if I got caught in a lie, my moral authority suffered and this undermined the purpose for writing. At first it was easy because I concentrated in exposing the injustices in the system. But as Mexican Americans and Latinos became part of the system I found myself criticizing my friends.

The issues that caused me the most anguish were police brutality, education and Latino politicians taking large sums of campaign funds from the likes of Downtown Real Estate Attorney  Richard Riordan and developer Eli Broad. When I criticized them mutual friends would say that they were making “political judgments” and that to be successful and remain players that they had to make these sorts of compromises.

I could not live with the contradictions so I distanced myself -- unwilling to make a complete break because there were issues where they got it right and benefited the community.

I literally got sucked into the controversies in Arizona. I have been interested in the abuse of immigrants there since the 1970s with the Hanigan Case where a well-connected rancher and owner of a Dairy Queen and his two sons tortured three undocumented Mexican workers. It infuriated me that the state court would not convict them.

Indignity on the border- El Paso

From Tijuana: Ex-Dreamer Calls for Immigration Reform

From Tijuana, Ex-Dreamer Calls for Immigration Reform

Posted on 28 August 2012

By Jacqueline Guzmán-Garcia, Translated by Elena Shore
Photo: Nancy Landa at graduation
Nancy Landa was working in the public sector at a California organization that fateful September in 2009, when she was 29. She had graduated with honors in 2004 with a degree in business administration from California State University, Northridge (CSUN), and had a steady job. Everything seemed normal.
All of a sudden, at the Third Street entrance to Highway 710 N toward Long Beach, Landa was stopped by two immigration officials. They got out of a van and, without showing her any official documentation, told her she was under arrest.
“I’m dreaming -- it’s a nightmare,” Landa thought as she climbed in the vehicle with four other people, heading to a detention center in downtown Los Angeles.
“I knew in that moment that what I had built in the United States, my life, was over. It was hard to take in what happened next,” she said.
Obama's Deportation Record
Without knowing it, Landa and her family, who were also deported after this incident, became yet another statistic, four of the more than 1.2 million people who have been deported since 2009, estimated by the Pew Hispanic Center. Under President Barack Obama, more people have been deported each year than under any other president in U.S. history.
In spite of this, on June 15, President Obama announced the establishment of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) plan for young people who, like Landa, were brought to the United States as children. DACA is expected to benefit about 1.4 million young people. However, young people Landa’s age will not qualify, since deferred action is limited to those who were under 31 years old as of June 15, 2012.

From School to the Fields

"WHENEVER I GOT OUT OF SCHOOL, IT WAS STRAIGHT TO THE FIELDS"
The Story of Javier Mondar-Flores Lopez
By David Bacon
New America Media  8/27/12
http://newamericamedia.org/2012/08/the-story-of-javier-mondar-flores-lopez.php

Mexico's Movement for Peace and Justice - Caravan

The CIP Americas Program--along with some 100 partner organizations of migrants, churches, unions, students, NGOs and community members in the cities along the route--is helping to organize caravan events and give voice to the victims of the drug war. We will be accompanying the caravan on part of its long journey through the country and providing daily blogs, articles and interviews as events unfold.
A handful of U.S. companies that produce weapons and defense and intelligence equipment are raking in taxpayer dollars in government contracts for the drug war, while in Mexico more than 70,000 people have died since the war was launched in December 2006.
Today the face of the U.S. government in Mexico is the face of war. This face is reflected in the vast expansion of joint security operations and direct intervention in Mexico´s counter-narcotics planning and operations. Instead of schools and hospitals, our tax dollars support military helicopters and espionage systems.
The relationship between the two nations has degenerated into a seemingly endless war on drugs. The war is commanded from the north, where enforcing prohibition is considered more important than human lives, and fought in the south, where the long arm of enforcement has left 70,000 dead in the past six years.
Despite tragically negative results, the U.S. government has dismissed calls from citizens in both countries to end the war on drugs and the misguided Merida Initiativethat supports it. Instead, we continue on a path that throws U.S. youth behind the bars of lucrative private prisons and feeds defense companies by perpetuating violent conflict in Mexico.
Family members of the thousands murdered, disappeared, attacked and displaced in Mexico’s drug war and their supporters will present a very different, human, face of binational relations. They will meet with families in the United States that have suffered senseless incarceration and violence as a result of criminalizing drugs, rather than supporting communities and individuals to manage the health and social threats posed by consumption and addiction.

Chicago Workers Collaborative

Listen to the podcast.

Chicago Workers Collaborative. – The Right to Have a Job.

Expanding Latino Workers Centers and supporting African American workers.

Episode 18 -- The Chicago Workers Collaborative

Recorded 08.11.2012: Bill Barclay interviews Leone Jose Bicchieri, Executive Director of the Chicago Workers Collaborative, about activism, organizing, and the work of the Chicago Workers Collaborative. MP3 (30.6 MB) or Ogg Vorbis (27.7 MB).

For past episodes, go to:

http://www.chicagodsa.org/audarch6.html
Also see http://www.chicagoworkerscollaborative.org

Educador President Correa on Wikileaks

http://assange.rt.com/correa-episode-six/

U.S. involvement in Ecuador politics. 

Ace Tomato workers deserve a contract - sign the petition

United Farm Workers

Workers at Ace Tomato are tired of waiting. They are tired of dirty bathrooms, the lack of fresh water and decades of low pay. You might ask, why don't they vote for a union? They did—back in 1989! But, more than two decades later they still are waiting for their contract.
The UFW fought for and passed a law in California requiring employers to negotiate in good faith or face mandatory mediation. The way this works is a mediator speaks to both sides and neutrally sifts through both sides' documents and recommendations and at the end submits a report of terms to the Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB) which is essentially a contract. After several months of discussion, the mediator submitted his report to the ALRB on June 28. The company objected, but on July 25 the ALRB ruled against the company and ordered Ace Tomato to implement the final mediator's report as the contract. Instead Ace decided to follow their normal delaying tactics and ignored the Board order. Now the ALRB is saying, while the contract should be in effect, the Board has no basis at this time to seek enforcement.
The UFW is planning on following up through every avenue possible.  But in the meantime we ask you to join us in helping the workers keep up the pressure. The first way you can help is sign a petition workers will deliver to the company on Tuesday.

It’s Hard to Imagine a Worse Choice for People of Color Than Paul Ryan - COLORLINES

It’s Hard to Imagine a Worse Choice for People of Color Than Paul Ryan - COLORLINES

A Great Day for Activism- and for America

by Randy Shaw

Beyond Chron- August 16,2012

http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=10406

For the estimated 1.2 million young undocumented immigrants
who began signing up for President Obama's "Deferred Action
for Childhood Arrivals" legalization program, August 15, 2012
will forever signify the power of grassroots activism. Those
eligible under the program will be able to legally work and
live in the United States but will not gain permanent
legalization status or a path to citizenship. Obama
implemented his "most ambitious immigration initiative" in
response to both growing Latino political power and the
courageous and inspiring grassroots pressure from young DREAM
ACTivists. It is these young people, not the fake,
billionaire-backed Tea Party Republicans, who represent the
true power of grassroots activism to create meaningful change.

When we look at the progressive movements that have made real
gains since President Obama's election in 2008, only two stand
out: marriage equality and immigrant rights. Both have a way
to go, and the lack of comprehensive immigration reform
coupled with increased deportations has left many disappointed
with progress in this area.

But the ability of DREAM ACTivists to win tangible gains for
over one million young immigrants remains an historic
achievement. And they accomplished this almost entirely with
the type of true grassroots activism that many previously
doubted could still make a difference.

Why we will be voting for Obama

 By Bill Fletcher, Jr., Carl Davidson 

The 2012 Elections Have Little To Do With Obama's Record … Which Is Why We Are Voting For Him  August 9, 2012  |  

Let’s cut to the chase. The November 2012 elections will be unlike anything that any of us can remember.  It is not just that this will be a close election.  It is also not just that the direction of Congress hangs in the balance.   Rather, this will be one of the most polarized and critical elections in recent history.  

Unfortunately what too few leftists and progressives have been prepared to accept is that the polarization is to a great extent centered on a revenge-seeking white supremacy; on race and the racial implications of the moves to the right in the US political system. It is also focused on a re-subjugation of women, harsh burdens on youth and the elderly, increased war dangers, and reaction all along the line for labor and the working class. No one on the left with any good sense should remain indifferent or stand idly by in the critical need to defeat Republicans this year.

U.S. Presidential elections are not what progressives want them to be

A large segment  of what we will call the ‘progressive forces’ in US politics approach US elections generally, and Presidential elections in particular, as if: (1) we have more power on the ground than we actually possess, and (2) the elections are about expressing our political outrage at the system. Both get us off on the wrong foot.

The US electoral system is among the most undemocratic on the planet.

On the border of change: A portrait of the workers’ rights movement in El Paso

On the border of change: A portrait of the workers’ rights movement in El Paso

Trampling out the story of Cesar Chavez

Trampling out the story of Cesar Chavez and the UFW.

by Duane E. Campbell

            In California in 2012 the k-12 school population is 48.72 %  Hispanic, the great majority of whom are Mexican Americans, the California Dept. of Education estimates the state drop out rate for Hispanics at 32 % having changed little for over a decade, where farm workers and their families generally have lower wages and fewer work benefits than they did in 1974, where only two Mexican Americans appear in the state approved text books, Frank Bardacke thinks that the important issue for labor historians is to de construct the “Cesar Chavez myth” – really?  

            Frank Bardacke’s Trampling Out the Vintage: Cesar Chavez and the Two Souls of the United Farm Workers. (2011, Verso). is the view of a well- informed observer  who  worked in the lettuce fields near Salinas for six seasons,  then spent  another 25 years  teaching English to  farm workers  in the Watsonville, Cal.  area.

Trampling Out the Vintage, provides several insights not previously developed in well informed books on the UFW  including  important  differences between grape workers and  workers in row crops such as lettuce; the length of time workers were in the UFW,  the more settled family nature of grape workers, the strength of each  type of ranch committees,  the leadership of ranch crews  ( and thus the potential differences in creating democratic accountability), and the differing histories of worker militancy in  different  crops.  The author correctly argues that each of these led to somewhat different organizing environment in building the  union. He also details problems of administrative mismanagement in the hiring halls in the grape areas and alleged  mismanagement of organizing within the union sponsored health care insurance and clinic systems .

The Failure of National Latino/Mexican American Organizations

Rodolfo F. Acuña

With all of the hype around Latinos these days, how could Arizona have happened? I thought we had power. One-third of Arizona is Latino and its neighbor California is the land of milk and honey – the favorite destination of politicos of all colors. Over fifty percent of Los Angeles is Latino; its mayor is Mexican American as is the mayor of San Antonio, Texas.

Arizona’s war on Mexican Americans does not make sense, especially in the light of the growth of the Latino population that now numbers 50 million. This nightmare seems out of place.  Alabama maybe, but Arizona?

It is time that we try to find answers and admit our weaknesses. The most obvious flaw is that Arizona has exposed a weakness in Latino and Mexican American organizational infrastructure.

A partial answer as to why Latinos are so ineffective is that the Latino population is having growing pains. It has grown dramatically in the past fifty years, going from a regional to a national phenomenon. This transformation has out stripped the capacity of traditional organizations such as the League of United Latin American Citizens and the American GI Forum to  deal with this change.   

Presently there are only two organizations that could be called national and they came about in 1968 with the founding of the Southwest Council of La Raza and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund.