elections

New York City Okays Paid Sick Leave

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New York City Council OK’s Paid Sick Leave For More Than 1 Million Workers

May 8, 2013
Mike Hall
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
AFL-CIO Now

New York City workers will receive, starting next year, five paid sick days a year to care for themselves or an ill family member under a measure the New York City Council passed (45-3) this afternoon. The vote culminates a four-year effort by a powerful coalition of workers, unions and community groups.

At a press conference before the historic vote, Vincent Alvarez, president of the New York City Central Labor Council, said:

This vote marks a big step in the right direction toward providing paid sick time to workers in our city. I commend the many advocates who have fought so hard to improve the lives of workers and their families through this bill. As this legislation is voted upon, we reaffirm our commitment to protecting and improving the basic rights of all workers here in New York City.

The issue had been stalled in the City Council, but in late March the New York City Campaign for Paid Sick Days, a broad coalition of low-wage workers, women’s rights advocates, health care providers, small business owners, labor unions and community organizations, reached an agreement with Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn to bring the paid sick leave measure to a vote.

After the vote, MomsRising Executive Director Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner said:

It’s been a long fight, but today the New York City Council heeded the call of New York families and passed a bill that would allow more than a million New Yorkers to earn paid time off to use when they are sick or to take care of a sick child, spouse or parent.

She challenged Mayor Michael Bloomberg to “stand up to corporate lobbyists, listen to the people who elected him and sign this important bill.”

Bloomberg has said he will veto the legislation. But the bill passed with a veto-proof margin.

The new paid sick leave bill requires firms with 20 or more workers to provide five paid sick days beginning in 2014 and, 18 months later, it would cover companies with 15 or more workers. About 1 million New York City workers currently have no paid sick leave.

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African-Americans, budget crisis, Poverty, Racism, Voting Rights

More Arrested as North Carolina Legislature Protests vs. Austerity and Racism Continue

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By CHRIS KARDISH

Beaver County Blue via AP

May 6, 2013 – RALEIGH — More than two dozen members of the NAACP and other activists were arrested Monday as part of continuing protests of Republican policies in the state capital, bringing to dozens the number of nonviolent demonstrators facing charges.

The demonstrators were arrested Monday by Raleigh and General Assembly police. The number of arrests, as well as the size of the crowd that turned out to offer support, grew from last Monday’s demonstrations, when 17 were arrested.

General Assembly Police Chief Jeff Weaver said law enforcement officials decided to admit them despite last week’s arrests while they determine what the law permits. He said those arrested most recently will face the same charges of second-degree trespassing, failure to disperse on command and the displaying of signs or placards, which violates building rules.

The group arrested Monday included Barber’s 20-year-old son, William Joseph Barber III, a student at North Carolina Central University; William Chafe, former dean of Arts and Sciences at Duke University; Robert Korstad, a professor of public policy and history at Duke; Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, an historian at the University of North Carolina; Charles van der Horst, a professor at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and members of the social justice group Raging Grannies.

“I started in 1954 at the Youth March for Integrated Schools in New York,” said Vicki Ryder of Raging Grannies. “I’ve been doing this for a long time.”

Continue reading More Arrested as North Carolina Legislature Protests vs. Austerity and Racism Continue →

elections

NAACP President Arrested at NC Protest of Medicaid Cuts

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NC NAACP president, 16 other protestors arrested outside NC Senate

Published: April 29, 2013

PRAY-IN-NE-042913-TEL

Perri Morgan, Associate Professor at Duke University School of Medicine, is escorted by police to a Division of Prison Inmates Transfer bus following an act of civil disobedience condemning the Republican legislature’s agenda Monday, April 29, 2013, outside the N.C. Senate chamber. Seventeen people including N.C. NAACP President Rev. William Barber were arrested.

TRAVIS LONG — tlong@newsobserver.com

By John Frank — jfrank@newsobserver.com

RALEIGH — In the strongest statement so far against the Republican legislature, a group of 50 protestors marched into the legislative building Monday and blocked the tall gilded doors to the N.C. Senate chamber in an act of civil disobedience that led to 17 arrests.

N.C. NAACP President William Barber led the protest, standing in the rotunda on the second floor to read an indictment against the Republican-led legislature for denying Medicaid coverage to as many as 500,000 poor people, cutting unemployment benefits and proposing legislation to divert money from public education and require a voter ID at the polls.

Barber said the preponderance of actions from the GOP lawmakers demanded a strong statement. “There must be a witness in the face of extremism and regressive public policy,” Barber said, calling Gov. Pat McCrory and legislative leaders this generation’s “George Wallaces.”

Barber, Duke University scholar Tim Tyson and a handful of clergy members were among those arrested just before the Senate’s 7 p.m. session.

General Assembly Police Chief Jeff Weaver warned the protesters to disperse three times before arresting them.

Most protesters left, but 17 refused to move. The protestors sang “We Shall Overcome” and other civil rights-era songs as Raleigh police officers put plastic zip ties on their wrists and led them away. Weaver said the protesters arrested will likely face charges of disorderly conduct, second-degree trespass and violation of building rules, all misdemeanors.

At one point, Republican state Rep. Michael Speciale, a New Bern Republican, poked his head around a hallway corner to watch the demonstration. He suggested the action won’t make difference in the lawmaking.

“They have a right to protest; we have a right to disagree,” he said. “If we are here to do what is right for North Carolina, then we are doing the right thing.”

Two years ago, Barber and six others were arrested for interrupting a legislative session to protest the state budget. The latest arrests are part of an ongoing series of demonstrations across the state. “There must be an act that dramatizes the shameful” agenda, Barber said. “Nobody … can say they don’t know what’s happening North Carolina.”

Aliquippa, Guns

City Of Aliquippa Takes Stand Against Gun Violence

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By Brenda Waters
KDKA News

May 3, 2013 – ALIQUIPPA (KDKA) — The city of Aliquippa is taking a stand against gun violence and they’re starting with legislators who make the laws to the people in the community.

Mayor Dwan Walker called for all hands on deck, when it comes to fighting what many see as an epidemic that is sweeping the nation.

The chief of police, several council members, a representative from an agency called Cease Fire, clergy and funeral Director Antonio Pitts joined the mayor.

“I see families on a regular being torn apart,” Pitts says.

The community has come together in support of background checks for every gun sold.

Continue reading City Of Aliquippa Takes Stand Against Gun Violence →

Environment, Green Energy, Green Jobs, unemployment

Green Jobs via the Smart Grid: Now The Task Is To Make It Global

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Smart power: Andrew Brown, an engineer at Florida Power & Light, monitors equipment in one of the utility’s smart grid diagnostic centers.

With Florida Project, the Smart Grid Has Arrived

Smart grid technology has been implemented in many places, but Florida’s new deployment is the first full-scale system.

By Kevin Bullis

SolidarityEconomy.net via MIT Technology Review

Why It Matters

May 2, 2013 – Conventional power grids can’t handle big storms or large-scale renewable energy.

The first comprehensive and large scale smart grid is now operating. The $800 million project, built in Florida, has made power outages shorter and less frequent, and helped some customers save money, according to the utility that operates it.

Smart grids should be far more resilient than conventional grids, which is important for surviving storms, and make it easier to install more intermittent sources of energy like solar power (see “China Tests a Small Smart Electric Grid” and “On the Smart Grid, a Watt Saved Is a Watt Earned”). The Recovery Act of 2009 gave a vital boost to the development of smart grid technology, and the Florida grid was built with $200 million from the U.S. Department of Energy made available through the Recovery Act.

Dozens of utilities are building smart grids—or at least installing some smart grid components, but no one had put together all of the pieces at a large scale. Florida Power & Light’s project incorporates a wide variety of devices for monitoring and controlling every aspect of the grid, not just, say, smart meters in people’s homes.

“What is different is the breadth of what FPL’s done,” says Eric Dresselhuys, executive vice president of global development at Silver Spring Networks, a company that’s setting up smart grids around the world, and installed the network infrastructure for Florida Power & Light (see “Headed into an IPO, Smart Grid Company Struggles for Profit”).

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Community, Immigrant Rights, trade unions

Nearly 500 Celebrate May Day in Pittsburgh with a Colorful and Festive March and Rallies

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By Carl Davidson
Beaver County Blue

Nearly 500 workers and community actvists marched through the streets of Pittsburgh’s South Side May I celebrating the international workers holiday. The main theme of the event was linking a defense of worker’s rights with immigrant rights, and backing the passage of a just and comprehensive immigration reform bill in Congress.

‘Everyone here is an immigrant or the sons and daughters of immigrants,’ declared Leo Gerard, USW President, speaking from the back of a truck. ‘We can’t separate worker’s rights and immigrant rights, they’re one and the same.!

The main organizers of the celebration were Fight Back Pittsburgh and United Steel Workers Local 3657. The United Federation of Teachers, the United Electrical Workers, SEIU, IBEW, the USW’s ‘Women of Steel’ and other unions also took part.

This was the first May Day event backed by Pittsburgh unions in some years, and it was also promoted nationally by Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO. It marks the beginning of a more militant response by labor against austerity and in defense of wider democracy for all of its allies.

The day started with a rally at the UFT headquarters, followed by a mile-long march along Carson Street, ending with another rally, with music and food, at the IBEW headquarters.

Community organizers from One Pittsburgh and the resident groups also played an important role, bringing out Latinos, Middle Eastern and African immigrants. Activists from Beaver County’s Progressive Democrats of America, Beaver County Peace Links and Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism also took part.

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Immigrant Rights, labor, Organizing, trade unions

Revival of May Day Rallies Reflect Urgency of Pending Immigration Reform, Workers’ Right to Organize

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By Peter Drier
Beaver County Blue via HuffPost

May 1, 2013 – Unlike the rest of the world’s democracies, the United States doesn’t use the metric system, doesn’t require employers to provide workers with paid vacations, hasn’t abolished the death penalty, and doesn’t celebrate May Day as an official national holiday.

Outside the U.S., May 1 is international workers’ day, observed with speeches, rallies, and demonstrations. This year, millions of workers in Europe, Asia, and Latin America are taking to the streets to demand higher wages, better benefits and improved working conditions. A week after a building collapse in Bangladesh killed hundreds of workers in sweatshop factories making clothing for American and other consumers, thousands of garment factory workers in Bangladesh paraded through the streets calling for work safeguards and for the owner of the collapsed building to be sentenced to death.

Ironically, this celebration of working-class solidarity originated in the US labor movement in the United States and soon spread around the world, but it never earned official recognition in this country. Since 2006, however, American unions and immigrant rights activists have resurrected May 1 as a day of protest. This year’s rallies have a special urgency. For the first time in decades, a bill for comprehensive immigration reform, which would bring many of the estimated 11 million living in the U.S. illegally out of the shadows, has a good chance to pass Congress. In cities across the country, millions of Americans will be out in the streets today to give voice to the growing crusade for reform.

The original May Day was born of the movement for an eight-hour workday. After the Civil War, unregulated capitalism ran rampant in America. It was the Gilded Age, a time of merger mania, increasing concentration of wealth, and growing political influence by corporate power brokers known as Robber Barons. New technologies made possible new industries, which generated great riches for the fortunate few, but at the expense of workers, many of them immigrants, who worked long hours, under dangerous conditions, for little pay.

Continue reading Revival of May Day Rallies Reflect Urgency of Pending Immigration Reform, Workers’ Right to Organize →

Community, Immigrant Rights, trade unions

Join the May Day Rally and March in Pittsburgh

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AFL-CIO CELEBRATES MAY DAY

Pittsburgh, PA

May 1, 2013
05:00PM to 07:00PM

Hosted by Fightback Pittsburgh, United Steelworkers and others.

Event Description

Working families in Pittsburgh will hold a May Day rally and march to support a common sense immigration process. The rally will start at Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers then be followed by a march at 6PM. Working families will then rally and celebration of resistance at 6:30PM at IBEW Local 5 Hall, (5 Hot Metal St. Pittsburgh, PA. Organizations participating include Fight Back Pittsburgh, the United Steelworkers other unions and community organizations across Pittsburgh.

Location

Event will start at the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers, 10 S. 19th St. Pittsburgh, PA 15203

Civil Liberties, Community, GOP, Guns

When Will We Find a Member of Congress to Speak for Our Progressive Majority?

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Anyone can buy any gun at a PA Gun Show, no questions asked. Just plunk your money down.

Pennsylvania voters favor stricter background checks, poll finds

By James O’Toole

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

April 27, 2013 – Pennsylvania voters overwhelmingly support the extension of background checks for gun purchases at arms shows or online, similar to the measure that recently failed in the U.S. Senate, according to a new poll.

While Republicans and male voters are generally less favorable to gun control initiatives, majorities in even those groups strongly supported the expanded background checks.

Overall, 85 percent of those surveyed in a new poll from Quinnipiac University said they favored the background checks. The same was true for 78 percent of the Republicans surveyed, 93 percent of Democrats and 88 percent of independents.

Asked to describe their reactions to the U.S. Senate’s rejection of the measure on April 17, from a list suggested by the interviewers, 70 percent said they were either "dissatisfied" or "angry" while 22 percent said they were "satisfied" and 5 percent said "enthusiastic."

Among Republicans, 10 percent said they were "enthusiastic" about the Senate action, 35 percent "satisfied," 37 percent "dissatisfied" and 15 percent "angry." Angry also was the response from 59 percent of the Democrats and 27 percent of independents.

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Economy, labor, Manufacturing

Micro Manufacturing, Third Wave Style…Perfect for Worker Coops?

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In the Next Industrial Revolution, Atoms Are the New BitsPhoto: Dan Winters

By Chris Anderson

SolidarityEconomy.net via Wired Magazine

Jan. 25, 2010 – In an age of open source, custom-fabricated, DIY product design, all you need to conquer the world is a brilliant idea.
Photo: Dan Winters

The door of a dry-cleaner-size storefront in an industrial park in Wareham, Massachusetts, an hour south of Boston, might not look like a portal to the future of American manufacturing, but it is. This is the headquarters of Local Motors, the first open source car company to reach production. Step inside and the office reveals itself as a mind-blowing example of the power of micro-factories.

In June, Local Motors will officially release the Rally Fighter, a $50,000 off-road (but street-legal) racer. The design was crowdsourced, as was the selection of mostly off-the-shelf components, and the final assembly will be done by the customers themselves in local assembly centers as part of a “build experience.” Several more designs are in the pipeline, and the company says it can take a new vehicle from sketch to market in 18 months, about the time it takes Detroit to change the specs on some door trim. Each design is released under a share-friendly Creative Commons license, and customers are encouraged to enhance the designs and produce their own components that they can sell to their peers.

The Rally Fighter was prototyped in the workshop at the back of the Wareham office, but manufacturing muscle also came from Factory Five Racing, a kit-car company and Local Motors investor located just down the road. Of course, the kit-car business has been around for decades, standing as a proof of concept for how small manufacturing can work in the car industry. Kit cars combine hand-welded steel tube chassis and fiberglass bodies with stock engines and accessories. Amateurs assemble the cars at their homes, which exempts the vehicles from many regulatory restrictions (similar to home-built experimental aircraft). Factory Five has sold about 8,000 kits to date.

One problem with the kit-car business, though, is that the vehicles are typically modeled after famous racing and sports cars, making lawsuits and license fees a constant burden. This makes it hard to profit and limits the industry’s growth, even in the face of the DIY boom.

Jay Rogers, CEO of Local Motors, saw a way around this. His company opted for totally original designs: They don’t evoke classic cars but rather reimagine what a car can be. The Rally Fighter’s body was designed by Local Motors’ community of volunteers and puts the lie to the notion that you can’t create anything good by committee (so long as the community is well managed, well led, and well equipped with tools like 3-D design software and photorealistic rendering technology). The result is a car that puts Detroit to shame.

Continue reading Micro Manufacturing, Third Wave Style…Perfect for Worker Coops? →