38 Arguments Against TTIP (tags)
TTIP (Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership) agreement continues an old thinking instead of everyone sharing int he profits of a few. The private arbitration courts enable corporations to sue states and could have a chilling effect on labor and environmental protection.
TTIP and CETA Must Be Prevented (tags)
Under TTIP, TPP and TiSA, corporations can sue states for lost profits. The German Judges Union calls additional protection of foreign investors "nonsense" that undermines democracy and the constitutional state.
TTIP: Trifling Economic Advantages at the Cost of Democracy and the Public Interest (tags)
TTIP represents a crisis for democracy and the constitutional state. Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO describes the TTIP as “secret tribunals” where only “foreign investors” can sue. Frank Bsirske of the German Verdi service union said the TTIP is a “black box” transferring sovereignty.
The obscure legal system that lets corporations sue countries (tags)
Fast Track, TTIP, TPP and TISA should be scrapped! Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO described the TTIP as "secret tribunals" where only "foreign investors" can sue. This article from The Guardian UK focuses on El Salvador. and Pacific Rim.
Risks and Opportunities for Consumer Welfare, 56 pp (tags)
The TTIP is a “black box” transferring sovereignty from states and communities to corporations. Labor and environmental regulations can be chilled or invalidated as “takings” or “indirect expropriations.” Public interest legislation can be annulled as violations of the “human right to profit.”
A Partial Privatization of Justice (tags)
On www.socialeurope.eu, Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO warns that the TTIP is a secret tribunal where only foreign investors can sue. The TTIP brings a crisis for democracy and the constitutional state by creating a parallel private arbitration system with irrevocable decisions.
Video: Richard Trumka on TTIP (tags)
TTIP represents a crisis for democracy and the constitutional state. Corporations could sue states in parallel private arbitration courts. Labor and environmental regulations could be chilled or invalidated as indirect expropriation.
At the AFL-CIO Convention, Leaders Ask: What Direction for Labor? (tags)
The acknowledgment of Labor’s existential crisis and the recognition that something must be done to resolve it is the key issue at the AFL-CIO’s four-day quadrennial convention in Los Angeles. The urgency of the situation has compelled Labor’s top officials to experiment in a search for solutions.
Who Will Save Social Security and Medicare? (tags)
Before Social Security and Medicare existed, the elderly were either completely dependent on their children or were left to beg in the streets. These programs thus remain sacred to the vast majority of Americans. They allow the elderly dignity and independence instead of poverty and insecurity.
What the 1% Heard During Obama’s State of the Union Speech (tags)
When President Obama speaks, most Americans hear what he wants them to hear: lofty rhetoric and a “progressive” vision. But just below the surface the president has a subtly-delivered message for the 1%, whose ears prick up when their buzzwords are mentioned. Obama’s state of the union address was such a speech — a pro-corporate agenda packaged with chocolate covered rhetoric for the masses, easy to swallow, but deadly poisonous.
Labor’s Call to Action: The Grand Bargain Betrayal (tags)
The labor movement is in terminal crisis. After decades of declining membership, the union movement has been targeted for destruction: private sector union membership is near eradication, and now the corporations are on a public-sector mopping up mission, using the city, state, and federal budget deficits as an excuse to target public sector unions. Obama’s Race to the Top education policy specifically targets the nation’s most powerful union workers, the teachers.
Will Unions Fight Fiscal Cliff Cuts to Medicare and Social Security? (tags)
With pro-Obama election posters still visible in most union halls across the country, the President has already taken steps towards selling out not only labor unions (again) but all working people. But this isn’t the “ordinary” sellout that working people have come to expect from Democrats — this is an attack of historic proportions.
Occupy Wall Street: Protesters arrested 900--Bankers 0. We are the 1% (tags)
The Labor hierarchy is concerned about the influence the Occupy movement might have on the Unions' rank and file and will enter the Occupy movement in order to temper it, derail it and send it in to the Democratic Party as they did with the Madison events. The Occupy movement should beware the hierarchy and Labor's "official" representatives and welcome the rank and file worker.
Obama Team's Deficit Cutting Proposal: Benefit the Few, Harm the Many (tags)
Obama's Robin Hood economics
The Real Significance of the One Nation Rally (tags)
How are we to interpret the massive One Nation demonstration in Washington D.C. on October 2nd? Was this a rally to elect Democrats? A progressive movement hijacked by the Democratic Party? Or something else?
ARIZONA MARCH GATHERS 50,000 VS SB 1070 (tags)
Que queremos? Legalización! Cuando? Ahora!” “Hey hey, ho ho, SB 1070 has got to go!” Over 50,000 people marched through the streets of Phoenix, Ariz., May 29 to demand an end to SB 1070 and all other racist attacks on immigrants. The national protest marched more than five miles in 100-degree heat to the steps of the state capitol. The action was coordinated with marches and demonstrations in several cities across the United States and in Mexico City. The Party for Socialism and Liberation worked with the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) to organize two buses of dedicated activists to travel from the Los Angeles area to the national demonstration in Phoenix. Other organizations in the contingent included Vamos Unidos USA, AF3IRM, the Alliance-Philippines and KmB Pro-People Youth. The PSL also helped bring a 70-car caravan from San Diego, and PSL members in Phoenix held a preparatory meeting and passed out thousands of flyers to help build the march at ground zero. The huge outpouring of support for immigrants came mostly from workers in Arizona. But large delegations came not only from California but also Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado and Texas. Erica Maceda, who traveled on the buses from Los Angeles, said : “I am traveling to Arizona to fight for immigrant rights because the attack on immigrants there is an attack on all people. No human being can be considered ‘illegal.’” Protesters gathered in the morning outside a local park for an opening rally and ceremonial Indigenous dancing. Speakers denounced Arizona Governor Jan Brewer and Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio for their blatant racism and xenophobic attacks on immigrant workers. As the march made its way through Phoenix, PSL members gathered hundreds of signatures supporting full rights for all immigrants. When asked at the opening rally why he decided to attend, Max Martinez of Phoenix said “Because SB 1070 is racist and wrong. No one with any sense contemplates whether or not white supremacy is wrong.” Martinez, a 20-year-old student, explained that he has been stopped by police and asked for proof of citizenship more times than he can count, despite being born in a local Phoenix hospital. ‘SB 1070 has got to go!’ ANSWER and the PSL led a militant contingent of hundreds of protesters chanting slogans. Protesters carried signs that read “Defeat SB 1070 in the streets!” and “Unity against racism: Full rights for immigrants!” The march ended with a rally at the Capitol building in downtown Phoenix. Initiated by Puente, an Arizona-based immigrant rights organization, and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, the demonstration was multinational and pointed to a high degree of class-consciousness and solidarity among workers from all sectors of society. It exposed the myth of the right wing that Arizona monolithically supports SB 1070. Tens of thousands of people, who represent hundreds of thousands more, hit the streets under difficult conditions and with a massive police presence trying to intimidate them. Rally speakers included local politicians and community leaders as well as Richard Trumka, leader of the AFL-CIO. The message from the stage was one of workers’ unity and the need to put a stop to the divide-and-conquer tactics employed by the enemies of poor and working people. The national march to stop SB 1070 was a truly historic day in the growing movement for immigrant rights. It also marked a major step forward in the struggle against racism.
Never Turn Back: SNCC's 50th and the Ongoing Battle for Democracy (tags)
Full and firsthand report on the SNCC 50th Anniversary Gathering in Raleigh, NC, April 15-18 .
The Way Forward for the Movement in Defense of Public Education (tags)
On March 4, students, staff, teachers, faculty and their unions on all levels of public education created history by uniting and pouring out onto the streets to engage in what were overwhelmingly peaceful demonstrations to defend public education. The movement swept through small towns and large cities with demonstrators, including young elementary school students, carrying picket signs while yelling chants expressing their determination to fight back
Craig Becker Nomination Defeated As Cloture Vote Fails Thanks to Ben Nelson & B. Lincoln (tags)
Today I Have Lost My Faith in The Congress, Senate, Democrats & The Political System Thanks to Senators Ben Nelson & Blanche Lincoln Who Have Sold-Out The American Middle-Class Worker!
How Liberals Strengthen the Right Wing (tags)
The Democrats look around, blindly, after losing their long-held Senate seat in Massachusetts, and with it their Senate super-majority. They wrongly blame the voters, or their “populist” opponent, but rarely themselves. The Democrats’ claim to be “shocked,” but this scenario is now too familiar in the U.S. two-party system — that corporate-owned game of political musical chairs. Just when it seemed that the Democrats could finally “do something” — since they had a year of super-majority status in the Senate — a wrench was somehow thrown in the machinery.
Betrayals Continue as Trumka Takes the Helm at the AFL-CIO (tags)
The partnership between the heads of organized Labor and the employers strengthens as Trumka dumps EFCA after spending millions of dollars of member's hard earned dues money getting our enemies elected in to office.
Trumka on Racism and Obama (tags)
This is a great speech by the AFL-CIO's Richard Trumka, about how to deal with racism from the voting base. Will this guy take over from Sweeney?
Film Night at Flor y Canto: March 2003-September 2005 (Part 1 of 2) (tags)
To mark the five-year anniversary of the Eagle Rock Peace Vigil, here is a list of films shown at Flor y Canto over a two-and-a-half year period. These almost-weekly screenings were an outgrowth of the Eagle Rock Vigil. (A link to the rest of this list can be found below in "comments.")
A Message to Young People Who Are Considering Taking a Job as a Union Staffer
AFL-CIO Leadership Give the Employers Another Victory (tags)
Defeat in southern California confirms the need for regime change atop the AFL-CIO
Relying on failed strategies Union leaders place ILWU victory in jeopardy (tags)
Relying on big business politicians and refusing to mobilize their members to confront the employers' attacks is a strategy that has led to defeat after defeat for organized labor despite great sacrifice and heroism from the rank and file union member. There is little indication in the ILWU/PMA struggle that change is on the way.
Networked Web/Microradio Broadcast of Major Portworkers Rally (tags)
The Portworkers Rally at the Port of Oakland at 11:00 am on June 27, 2002 will be broadcast over a web/microradio network along the West Coast. A live microradio broadcast from the Port of Oakland will be received by the SF IMC and web cast to other IMC's, where the streams will be picked up and broadcast via the Internet and microradio, such as on www.killradio.org.