Daily Archives: February 1, 2011

Egypt, labor, trade unions

Power of Egypt’s Workers Moves To Center Stage

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Egyptian Workers Hold Key to Uprising, New Union Association Issues Call for General Strike

By: Jeff Kaye

Beaver County Blue via Fire Dog Lake

While much analysis has focused on the youth-social network driven aspects of the recent uprising in Egypt, or on diplomatic and political maneuvers that thus far have left President Mubarak in office, and given even more power to the state repressive apparatus through the appointment of Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman to the Vice Presidency, it is the Egyptian working class that holds the future of its country in its hands.

While the organized workers movement saw its unions gutted by state privatization and the gutting of union independence though the hated Law No. 100, which guaranteed that union representation would be strongly controlled by the state, recent events, particularly in strategic Suez, have shown that when the social weight of the workers is thrown into the balance, even all the machinations of Hillary Clinton’s State Department will not be able to patch together Mubarak’s state apparatus. The question then will be, what will follow it?

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Banks, Community, Economy

Why Not Public Banks of Our Own? The North Dakota Model

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Washington State Joins the Movement for Public Banking

The legislature will consider whether to move its funds from Bank of America to a publicly owned bank that would keep the state’s money working locally.

Yakima WA Strawberries, Photo by Jay Cox
Strawberries at a farmer’s market in Yakima, WA. The state’s proposed creation of a Washington Investment Trust would help support the local economy. Photo by Jay Cox.

By Ellen Brown

Beaver County Blue via Yes! Magazine

Jan. 24, 2011 – Bills were introduced on January 18 in both the House and Senate of the Washington State Legislature that add Washington to the growing number of states now actively moving to create public banking facilities.

The bills, House Bill 1320 and Senate Bill 5238, propose creation of a Washington Investment Trust (WIT) to “promote agriculture, education, community development, economic development, housing, and industry” by using “the resources of the people of Washington State within the state.”

Currently, all the state’s funds are deposited with Bank of America. HB 1320 proposes that, in the future, “all state funds be deposited in the Washington Investment Trust and be guaranteed by the state and used to promote the common good and public benefit of all the people and their businesses within [the] state.”

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