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Find Your Polling Place for Election Day |
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On Nov. 2, there is one thing that tops all our “To-Do” lists: Voting. But sometimes polling places are moved, or maybe you’re new to the neighborhood. Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.
Click here and all you’ll have to do is enter your home address and Zip code and the Google Election Center will look up your polling place, give your directions and provide a list of candidates among other information.
Go ahead and check it out now. You don’t want to waste valuable time Tuesday trying to find your polling place because there are GOTV phonebanks and neighborhood walks you’ve got to get to.
Massey Officials Plead Fifth; CEO Is In Denial |
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At least six officials at Massey Energy pleaded the Fifth—asserting their constitutional right against self-incrimination—and declined to testify in a joint state and federal investigation into the deadly Upper Big Branch mine explosion in April, according to a report on NPR.
There is mounting evidence to support the preliminary finding by the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) that coal dust sparked the blast, in which 29 coal miners were killed.Yet CEO Don Blankenship told an investors conference call:
We don’t feel like that we contributed in any way to the accident. We do not believe that coal dust was a meaningful factor.
AFL-CIO-Mexico Action Plan Focuses on Economy, Labor Rights |
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The AFL-CIO and the major independent Mexican labor federation, Unión Nacional de Trabajadores (UNT), have agreed on a joint action plan to bring economic and social development to both countries.
The plan, signed by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and the three co-presidents of UNT, calls for the two federations to work jointly to rebuild the industrial base in the United States and Mexico. They will work together across industries to ensure that jobs in these industries are good jobs and workers are represented by unions and to coordinate bargaining across borders.
Check Out the Latest Green Labor Journal |
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The economy of the future is green and the global race to create new green jobs is fast. In the new online edition of the Green Labor Journal, Rachel Emas, a graduate student at Florida International University, profiles the eight U.S. states that have a lead in creating green jobs.
She also discusses the policies that encourage the development of green industries. These policies can help increase employment, reduce inequality and poverty, move towards sustainability, ensure a stable economy, and protect the environment for future generations. Read this and other informative and thought-provoking articles in the Green Labor Journal at www.greenlaborjournal.org.
On Nov. 2, Workers Will Be Ready to Vote. Will You? |
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Two great get-out-the-vote videos out today, one by Transport Workers (TWU) and one by Boilermakers. TWU highlights how the hands of working men and women built America “on assembly lines, on factory floors, in airplanes and on railroads.”
“It is our work and progress, putting something together piece by piece,” say real live workers—not Philadelphia actors. Invoking the spirit and commitment of past workers’ struggles, and heroes such as Martin Luther King Jr., César Chávez, Joe Hill and Mother Jones, they warn:
There are some trying to pull it apart, outsourcing our jobs, gambling our retirement, denying us our health care…But these hands are strong. These hands are many. And on Nov 2 these hands will be ready to vote.
In the Boilermakers’ ”I remember” video, workers describe the broken levees during Katrina, the food recalls, the Wall Street bailouts and the millions of outsourced U.S. jobs, all of which took place during Republican rule. Their conclusion?
I remember which party wants to take us back. And I remember which party wants to take us forward. I’m not voting Republican this year, because I have a memory.
Be sure to click on the videos to see the entire message. And be sure to Vote Nov.2.
Oct. 29: Student Day of Action Against Rite Aid |
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In eight cities across the country today, college students will visit their local Rite Aid drug store, not to pick up toiletries or prescriptions but to picket and protest the company’s persistent pattern of worker rights abuse.
The protests are part of the United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) national day of action against Rite Aid, the country’s third largest retail drugstore chain. USAS International Campaigns Coordinator Teresa Cheng says students are especially concerned about employee abuse at Rite Aid’s massive Southwest Regional Distribution Center in Lancaster, Calif., where 550 workers are in the sixth year of a struggle to join union and bargain a contract.
Student activists will hold actions today outside Rite Aid stores in State College, Pa; Palo Alto, Calif.; Boston; Los Angeles; Ithaca, N.Y.; Seattle; Chapel Hill, N.C.; and Washington, D.C.
NY Times: Nation’s Labor Laws Weak and Irrelevant |
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The New York Times reports that the 75-year old National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the nation’s main labor law, is not getting better with age, but has become irrelevant for most workers and employers.
Reporter Steven Greenhouse highlights a new paper by Harvard Professor Richard Freeman, which finds that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), created by the NLRA, has not improved the process by which workers decide if they want a union. Instead, it has turned union elections in the private sector “into massive employer campaigns against unions.” You can read Greenhouse’s entire article here.
SMWIA’s Panvini Honored by Women’s eNews |
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Vincent A. Panvini, Sheet Metal Workers (SMWIA) governmental affairs director, will be honored tomorrow night by the Internet-based daily news service Women’s eNews for his work over the years in building union support for progressive women candidates.
Panvini, who will receive the group’s Philadelphia Leadership Award, told the news service’s Angela Dallara he believes there’s a major connection between union organizing and female politicians and that
women have a better understanding of what makes everything work and tick, as a lot of women work who also raise children and control the checkbook. They know the trials and tribulations of raising a family and taking care of it.
The multiple responsibilities women generally undertake in their daily lives give them a unique perspective on balancing a family and a career, and Panvini believes Read the rest of this entry »
Silvers To Treasury: Can’t Resolve Foreclosure Crisis and Save Banks |
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How can a housing advocacy group like the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA) with a budget of less than $20 million, CORRECTLY process 20,000 people seeking mortgage modifications in one week in one city, and the United States government with a budget of $50 billion can only do 20,000 modifications a month across the whole country?
Damon Silvers, policy director of the AFL-CIO and a member of the Congressional Oversight Panel never got a straight answer to that question from U.S. Treasury Department officials at a hearing on Capitol Hill yesterday.
Boehner to Rally with Republican Candidate Photographed in Nazi Uniform |
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Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner will be keeping company this weekend with an Ohio Republican congressional candidate whose main claim to fame is participation as a Nazi SS Officer in World War II reenactments.
Boehner is scheduled to join Rich Iott in a rally Sunday in Toledo. Iott is running against Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D).
Criticism swirled around Iott when the photos surfaced earlier this month. He said he was simply taking part in an historical reenactment and did not mean to offend anyone. “They have to take it context,” he told The Atlantic’s Joshua Green.
Rabbi Moshe Saks, of the Congregation B’nai Israel in Sylvania, Ohio, a suburb of Toledo, told Green:
Any kind of reenactment or glorification of Nazi Germany, to us, would be something unacceptable and certainly in poor taste, if not offensive. I think the reaction here will be very negative. And not just among the Jewish community, but the broader community. Read the rest of this entry »
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