NAFTA on Steroids: The Security and Prosperity Partnership

by Paul Garver Even as a growing number of citizens of the USA, Mexico and Canada are demanding the renegotiation of NAFTA, government and corporate elites are stealthily reshaping the agreement into a Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) to promote greater economic and military integration of the continent. When the next SPP Summit involving the [...]

Mergers Stall, Fares Soar, Services Slump and Consumers Sour

By Carl Finamore It’s been a dizzying season of hookups and breakups for airlines. Everyone said they were single and ready to mingle. But, as it turned out, players found the game was not as easy as it first appeared. The plan was simple enough. Coupling up would decrease expenses. But ultimately, the various living [...]

UM graduate assistant walkout wins contract victory

By David Morrill Schlitt On March 24, despite having reached an agreement on ten out of twelve of the articles in the contract for graduate student instructors (GSIs), the University of Michigan’s bargaining team walked away from the table-three hours before our contract was set to expire. We in U-M’s Graduate Employees Organization (GEO – [...]

César Chávez: “Presente”– a tribute

By Duane E. Campbell The spirit of César Chávez lives on in the struggle for union rights and justice in the fields of California. Along with Dolores Huerta, Philip Vera Cruz, and others, César created the United Farm Workers (UFW) the first successful union of farm workers in U.S. history. There had been more than [...]

Congressional Sign-on Letter on Labor Rights in Iraq

Representatives Jan Schakowsky (Dem-IL) and Linda Sanchez (Dem-CA), according to an email from US Labor Against the War, are circulating a “Dear Colleague” letter to their fellow members of the House of Representatives asking them to sign on to a letter to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki calling on the his government to recognize and [...]

All Power to the Shareholder-Worker-Voter Alliance

Ian Williams Washington Spectator [This interesting article originally appeared in the March 15 Washington Spectator, a fiesty biweekly bulletin in the spirit of I.F. Stone's Weekly. It's a journal well worth reading. Subscriptions are a very reasonable $18 a year.] “PITY THE POOR SHAREHOLDER!” ISN’T A CRY to get progressive blood pumping—except perhaps in indignation. [...]

5 Easy Pieces To Stop the Colombia FTA

President Bush has said he will send the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement FTA) to Capitol Hill and demand a vote before he leaves office next January. Despite objections by the Democratic congressional leadership, the administration may formally send the agreement to Congress as early as next week when Congress returns from its Easter recess on [...]

JIMMY HIGGINS: A new play about life in the Labor Movement

Harlan Baker will appear as Jimmy Higgins in a one man show he has written,”Jimmy Higgins: A Life in the Labor Movement”, April 28th at the St. Lawrence Arts and Community Center in Portland, Maine. Baker is a teacher, an actor, a former member of the Maine legislature, a union activist, and democratic socialist leader. [...]

Chicano students help Blue Diamond Workers

Chicano Students rally to almond workers’ cause The nation’s largest Chicano student group brought some 400 students protestors on March 21,2008. to the Sacramento plant in support of the Blue Diamond workers’ long fight to join the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU). Since its founding in 1969, Mecha, the Chicano student organization, has supported [...]

Universal Health Care: Theme of Chicago’s Debs Thomas Harrington Dinner

Chicago’s 50th Annual Debs – Thomas – Harrington Dinner features Rose Ann DeMoro, Executive Director of the California Nurses Association / National Nurses Organizing Committee and AFL-CIO Executive Committee member. With Rose Ann DeMoro, the April 25th dinner will have someone well qualified to speak, and speak well and forcefully, on the nation’s need for [...]