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Tuesday, November 08, 2011

Stand up for Occupy Portland, The Portland Alliance, KBOO & the 99%

Breaking News! Brutal Attacks on Peaceful Occupy Oakland gathering!
http://www.theportlandalliance.org/occupation
Courage conquers fear.

Breaking News!
OccupyPortland

The Portland Alliance and KBOO are sponsoring 
VOICES IN ACTION: HUMAN RIGHTS ON FILM NWFILM.ORG

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Sunday, Nov. 13
 Greg Palast at the Bagdad:
702 SE Hawthorne Blvd.
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Tuesday, October 04, 2011

Unions Endorse Wall Street Occupation: JWJ Endorses Occupy Portland

Four NYC Unions Explain Why They Are Marching in Solidarity
with Occupy Wall Street  by John Tarleton

The Indypendent, October 3, 2011
http://www.indypendent.org/2011/10/03/unions-in-solidarity-with-ows/
VIA labor-moderator@PORTSIDE.ORG

 New York City labor unions will come out in support of
 the Occupy Wall Street movement this Wednesday at 4:30
 p.m. when they plan to rally in front of City Hall and
 march down to Zuccotti Park. Here are statements from
 four of the unions that will play a large role in the protest:

Transit Workers Union Local 100 [which also objected
to being commandeered by cops to drive bus loads of arrested
demonstrators to booking

The Transport Workers Union Local 100 applauds the
courage of the young people on Wall Street who are
dramatically demonstrating for what our position has
been for some time: the shared sacrifice preached by
government officials looks awfully like a one-way
street. Workers and ordinary citizens are putting up
all the sacrifice, and the financiers who imploded our
economy are getting away scot-free, increasing their
holdings and bonuses.

Young people face a bleak future with high
unemployment, and minimum wage jobs. Public sector
workers face Mayors and Governors who demand massive
wage and benefits givebacks or face thousands of
layoffs. That's not bargaining. That's blackmail.

One out of six Americans lives in poverty today, and
the richest one percent control more wealth than at any
time since the Gilded Age of the 1920's.

The TWU Local 100 Executive Board is united in our
determination that this state of affairs is dangerous
for America and destructive to its citizenry. We
support the Wall Street protesters and their goal to
reduce inequality and support every American's right to
a decent job, health care, and retirement security.

Local 100 is a local (or chapter) of the Transport
Workers Union of America, a union which represents
transportation workers in bus and subway lines, and
several airlines nationwide. It has about 38,000 members.

1199 SEIU, United Healthcare Workers East
The 1199SEIU Executive Council voted unanimously on
September 30 to give all-round support to the ongoing
Wall Street occupation. Monday, October 3, marked the
17th day of the occupation which has picked up
participants, supporters and media attention by the day.

Other labor support has come from the United Steelworker
and AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka.
A labor-community March on Wall Street
is set to leave New York's City Hall at 4:30 on
Wednesday, October 5, and end at Zuccotti Park (renamed
Liberty Park) which is the site of the occupation.
 



Sponsors of the Oct. 5 march include the Working
Families Party, United New York, New York Communities
of Change and the Strong Economy for All Coalition,
> which includes in addition to 1199SEIU, SEIU Local
> 32BJ, the New York AFL-CIO, United Federation of
> Teachers, Citizen Action, NYSUT, Communications
> Workers, and the NY Central Labor Council.
>
> 1199 members, families and friends are encouraged to
> take part.
>
> Among those who have joined the occupation for periods
> are Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz, NAACP leader Ben
> Jealous, Professor Cornel West, filmmaker Michael
> Moore, Def Jam impresario Russell Simmons, actors Susan
> Sarandon and Mark Ruffalo.
>
> After the 1199 Executive Council heard a report on the
> Wall Street occupation by two of its young activists,
> President George Gresham offered the motion to support
> the action. Included in the motion, with friendly
> amendments, were the union's agreement to reach other
> to the rest of the labor movement to build support for
> the occupation, to support future marches and actions
> that grow out of OccupyWallStreet, to feed the
> occupation participants for a week, to have 1199 nurses
> help train those staffing the first-aid care station at
> the occupation, and to set up an 1199 "task force"
> charged with help in whatever ways possible.
>
> Representing more than 300,000 members and retirees in
> New York, New Jersey, Maryland, the District of
> Columbia, Florida and Massachusetts, 1199SEIU United
> Healthcare Workers East is the largest local union in
> the world.
>
> Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union
>
> Today Stuart Appelbaum, President of the Retail,
> Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), released
> the following statement of support and solidarity for
> the Occupy Wall Street resistance effort on behalf of
> the union:
>
> "Occupy Wall Street has brought into sharp focus a
> reality that cannot be denied: corporate greed is
> responsible for harming the lives of millions of
> working people and unemployed people.
>
> "A small group of firms, banks, and corporations now
> hold trillions worth of our collective wealth and
> assets. That money should be invested in job creation
> on a massive scale and used to rebuild countless lives
> damaged by the recklessness that caused the recession.
> But Wall Street won't do it. Instead, the financial
> elite want to dictate the future of our entire economy
> and democracy in ways that will protect the wealthiest
> 1% at the expense of everyone else.
>
> Over the past few weeks, though, courageous men and
> women have been occupying Wall Street-not just the
> place but the starring role Wall Street likes to play
> in our public discourse, a point that much of the
> mainstream news coverage and editorializing has not
> fully appreciated.
>
> After hearing the top 1% lie for so long, they are
> speaking the truth known by the unheard 99%. That's why
> their message resonates so widely. They offer a clear
> perspective that rarely generates this kind of
> attention but that millions of regular people, not just
> activists and unionists, share: Wall Street should not
> control our economy, our democracy, or our lives. When
> Wall Street wields so much power and influence, we are
> fundamentally worse off.
>
> Every hour that Occupy Wall Street continues, it can
> help revitalize a progressive movement nationally and
> globally that aims to achieve new victories for all
> working people and the unemployed. It's up to us
> whether we harness their energy and commitment at the
> bargaining table, in the halls of government, and among
> the coalitions and alliances we try to sustain.
>
> Too many of the occupiers have been arrested
> unnecessarily and unfairly. I urge Mayor Michael
> Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly to instruct
> the police force to show restraint, civility, and
> respect when dealing with the increasing number of
> peaceful people occupying Wall Street.
>
> In the days ahead, the RWDSU will do everything it can
> to learn from and assist Occupy Wall Street as we fight
> to raise standards in the industries where we organize
> and represent workers; as we fight to pass living wage
> legislation that will create more good jobs; as we
> fight for the fairness and justice that all working
> people and the unemployed deserve."
>
> RWDSU represents 100,000 members in the U.S. and Canada
> who work in a wide variety of occupations that range
> from food processing to retail to manufacturing to
> service and health care.
>
> Professional Staff Congress-CUNY
>
> The PSC Executive Council voted Friday (September 30)
> to endorse the labor support rally for
> #OccupyWallStreet on Wednesday, October 5, joining
> several other unions, CUNY students and community
> groups.
>
> In endorsing the labor support rally, the Executive
> Council cited the convergence between the PSC's
> campaign for a progressive tax structure and
> #OccupyWallStreet's focus on the huge economic
> inequities in this state. We hope that in bringing
> strong labor support to the October 5 rally we can
> elevate the statewide campaign not to give millionaires
> a tax break when schools are being starved of funds,
> CUNY students are paying more, thousands of state
> workers are facing layoffs, and hundreds of people
> across the state are in desperate need after massive
> floods.
>
> PSC members will gather at the intersection of Warren
> St. and Broadway at 4:15 PM before joining the rally at
> City hall. After the rally at City Hall, the
> demonstrators will march over to Zuccotti Park, site of
> the #OccupyWallStreet protest. The event will run until
> about 7:30 PM. We look forward to seeing you there.
>
> PSC-CUNY represent 24,000 faculty and staff who work at
> the City University of New York and at the CUNY
> Research Foundation.


visit the new photo gallery on my website
www.michaelmunk.com

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Martin Luther King and Labor Unions

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on Labor

           Martin lived and died with the Union.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. speaking in support of striking AFSCME sanitation workers at Mason Temple, Memphis, 4/3/68

Negroes are almost entirely a working people. There are pitifully few Negro millionaires, and few Negro employers. Our needs are identical with labor's needs — decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old age security, health and welfare measures, conditions in which families can grow, have education for their children and respect in the community. That is why Negroes support labor's demands and fight laws which curb labor. That is why the labor-hater and labor-baiter is virtually always a twin-headed creature spewing anti-Negro epithets from one mouth and anti-labor propaganda from the other mouth.
AFL-CIO Convention, December 1961

I look forward confidently to the day when all who work for a living will be one with no thought to their separateness as Negroes, Jews, Italians or any other distinctions. This will be the day when we bring into full realization the American dream—a dream yet unfulfilled. A dream of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property widely distributed; a dream of a land where men will not take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few; a dream of a land where men will not argue that the color of a man's skin determines the content of his character; a dream of a nation where all our gifts and resources are held not for ourselves alone, but as instruments of service for the rest of humanity; the dream of a country where every man will respect the dignity and worth of the human personality. That is the dream...
AFL-CIO Convention, December 1961

New economic patterning through automation is dissolving the jobs of workers in some of the nation's basic industries. This is to me a catastrophe. We are neither technologically advanced nor socially enlightened if we witness this disaster for tens of thousands without finding a solution. And by a solution, I mean a real and genuine alternative, providing the same living standards which were swept away by a force called progress, but which for some is destruction. The society that performs miracles with machinery has the capacity to make some miracles for men—if it values men as highly as it values machines.
UAW 25th Anniversary dinner, April 27, 1961

As I have said many times, and believe with all my heart, the coalition that can have the greatest impact in the struggle for human dignity here in America is that of the Negro and the forces of labor, because their fortunes are so closely intertwined.
Letter to Amalgamated Laundry Workers, January 1962

It is in this area (politics) of American life that labor and the Negro have identical interests. Labor has grave problems today of employment, shorter hours, old age security, housing and retraining against the impact of automation. The Congress and the Administration are almost as indifferent to labor's program as they are toward that of the Negro. Toward both they offer vastly less than adequate remedies for the problems which are a torment to us day after day.
UAW District 65 Convention, September 1962

At the turn of the century women earned approximately ten cents an hour, and men were fortunate to receive twenty cents an hour. The average work week was sixty to seventy hours. During the thirties, wages were a secondary issue; to have a job at all was the difference between the agony of starvation and a flicker of life. The nation, now so vigorous, reeled and tottered almost to total collapse. The labor movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress. Out of its bold struggles, economic and social reform gave birth to unemployment insurance, old age pensions, government relief for the destitute, and above all new wage levels that meant not mere survival, but a tolerable life. The captains of industry did not lead this transformation; they resisted it until they were overcome. When in the thirties the wave of union organization crested over our nation, it carried to secure shores not only itself but the whole society.
Illinois AFL-CIO Convention, October 1965

The South is labor's other deep menace. Lower wage rates and improved transportation have magnetically attracted industry. The wide-spread, deeply-rooted Negro poverty in the South weakens the wage scale there for the white as well as the Negro. Beyond that, a low wage structure in the South becomes a heavy pressure on higher wages in the North.
Illinois AFL-CIO Convention, October 1965

In the days to come, organized labor will increase its importance in the destinies of Negroes. Automation is imperceptibly but inexorably producing dislocations, skimming off unskilled labor from the industrial force. The displaced are flowing into proliferating service occupations. These enterprises are traditionally unorganized and provide low wage scales with longer hours. The Negroes pressed into these services need union protection, and the union movement needs their membership to maintain its relative strength in the whole society.
Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? 1967

Today Negroes want above all else to abolish poverty in their lives, and in the lives of the white poor. This is the heart of their program. To end humiliation was a start, but to end poverty is a bigger task. It is natural for Negroes to turn to the Labor movement because it was the first and pioneer anti-poverty program. It will not be easy to accomplish this program because white America has had cheap victories up to this point. The limited reforms we have won have been at bargain rates for the power structure. There are no expenses involved, no taxes are required, for Negroes to share lunch counters, libraries, parks, hotels and other facilities. Even the more substantial reforms such as voting rights require neither monetary or psychological sacrifice. The real cost lies ahead. To enable the Negro to catch up, to repair the damage of centuries of denial and oppression means appropriations to create jobs and job training; it means the outlay of billions for decent housing and equal education.
Teamsters and Allied Trade Councils, New York City, May 1967

When there is massive unemployment in the black community, it is called a social problem. But when there is massive unemployment in the white community, it is called a Depression.
We look around every day and we see thousands and millions of people making inadequate wages. Not only do they work in our hospitals, they work in our hotels, they work in our laundries, they work in domestic service, they find themselves underemployed. You see, no labor is really menial unless you're not getting adequate wages. People are always talking about menial labor. But if you're getting a good (wage) as I know that through some unions they've brought it up...that isn't menial labor. What makes it menial is the income, the wages.
Local 1199 Salute to Freedom, March 1968

You are demanding that this city will respect the dignity of labor. So often we overlook the work and the significance of those who are not in professional jobs, of those who are not in the so-called big jobs. But let me say to you tonight that whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity and is for the building of humanity, it has dignity and it has worth.
AFSCME Memphis Sanitation Strike, April 3, 1968
Labor Union Quotations, Quotes, Sources, and Sayings...

"History is a great teacher. Now everyone knows that the labor movement did not diminish the strength of the nation but enlarged it. By raising the living standards of millions, labor miraculously created a market for industry and lifted the whole nation to undreamed of levels of production. Those who attack labor forget these simple truths, but history remembers them." 
 Martin Luther King Jr.

"Although it is true that only about 20 percent of American workers are in unions, that 20 percent sets the standards across the board in salaries, benefits and working conditions. If you are making a decent salary in a non-union company, you owe that to the unions.  One thing that corporations do not do is give out money out of the goodness of their hearts."   Molly Ivins

Samuel Gompers: You can't do it unless you organize.

Jimmy Carter: Every advance in this half-century:  Social Security, civil rights, Medicare, aid to education...  one after another- came with the support and leadership of American Labor.

Martin Luther King, Jr.:  In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, as 'right-to-work.' It provides no 'rights' and no 'works.' Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining... We demand this fraud be stopped.   —Speaking on right-to-work laws in 1961

Martin Luther King, Jr.: We must learn to live together as brothers or we are going to perish together as fools.

John L. Lewis: Let the workers organize. Let the toilers assemble. Let their crystallized voice proclaim their injustices and demand their privileges. Let all thoughtful citizens sustain them, for the future of Labor is the future of America.

"The labor movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress. Out of its bold struggles, economic and social reform gave birth to unemployment insurance, old-age pensions, government relief for the destitute and, above all, new wage levels that meant not mere survival but a tolerable life. The captains of industry did not lead this transformation; they resisted it until they were overcome. When in the thirties the wave of union organization crested over the nation, it carried to secure shores not only itself but the whole society."  Martin Luther King Jr.
—Speech to the state convention of the Illinois AFL-CIO, Oct. 7, 1965

Clarence Darrow: With all their faults, trade unions have done more for humanity than any other organization of men that ever existed. They have done more for decency, for honesty, for education, for the betterment of the race, for the developing of character in men, than any other association of men.

"Negroes are almost entirely a working people…. Our needs are identical with labor's needs: decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old-age security, health and welfare measures, conditions in which families can grow, have education for their children and respect in the community. That is why Negroes support labor's demands and fight laws which curb labor. That is why the labor-hater and labor-baiter is virtually always a twin-headed creature, spewing anti-Negro epithets from one mouth and anti-labor propaganda from the other mouth."  MLK JR
—Speaking to the AFL-CIO on Dec. 11, 1961  

Dwight D. Eisenhower: Only a fool would try to deprive working men and working women of their right to join the union of their choice.

Jimmy Carter:  Every advance in this half-century-Social Security, civil rights, Medicare, aid to education, one after another -came with the support and leadership of American Labor.

"All that serves labor serves the nation. All that harms is treason. If a man tells you he trusts America, yet fears labor, he is a fool. There is no America without labor, and to fleece the one is to rob the other."   --*Abraham Lincoln*--

Wendell Phillips:
The labor movement means just this: It is the last noble protest of the American people against the power of incorporated wealth.