Grassroots Newswire

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Portland JwJ - Thu, 03/11/2010 - 6:48pm
Categories: Grassroots Newswire

US Social Forum Info Session & Outreach Event

Project South - Thu, 03/11/2010 - 3:31am
THURSDAY - March 18th - 6-7:30pm@ Project South Offices - 9 Gammon Ave, Atlanta ...
Categories: Grassroots Newswire

Students and Workers Organizing for Justice

JwJ Blog - Wed, 03/10/2010 - 8:18pm

From Florida to California, March 4th marked an exceptional moment for the student and worker movement in recent U.S. history. People took to the streets to demonstrate their frustration with the government’s failure to pass legislation that would benefit young people such as Student Aid Reform and the DREAM Act.  The mainstream media seemed taken by surprise of all these coordinated actions across the country – How could students and workers come together on one specific day? Was this an organized effort? Were people demanding change from the government and legislators?

I got the opportunity to march along with students, staff, and faculty at U-Mass Amherst.  Being there reminded me about the power of organizing and strategic escalation. Students at this school provided a deadline for their administrators to accept their demands around fees, budget cuts, treating staff & faculty fairly, and improving the school’s climate.  We will be watching their administrations’ response and actions to come.  Check out video from the great actions at the University of Central Florida and the University of California system.  You can also go to www.defendeducation.org

Continue reading Students and Workers Organizing for Justice

Categories: Grassroots Newswire

Youth Garage Sale...WE NEED YOUR HELP!!

SWOP - Wed, 03/10/2010 - 6:24pm
SWOP Youth are holding a Garage Sale April 24th... Each Youth needs to raise $500 to attend the US Social Forum in Detroit in June Can you donate some Garage Sale items???? Please contact Emma (353-2941; emma@swop.net) or Tracy (315-7900) if you can, we will arrange pick up
Categories: Grassroots Newswire

Faith Labor Breakfast Inspires All

Portland JwJ - Wed, 03/10/2010 - 3:06pm
The room was filled with over 140 participants from unions, and religious institutions, as well as community members and other activists, all eager to engage in conversation about the common good.
Categories: Grassroots Newswire

Growing Demand for Jobs. Get Involved!

JwJ Blog - Wed, 03/10/2010 - 11:43am

Jobs with Justice coalitions and our partners are continuing to build grassroots pressure for bold federal action in this economic crisis. We need to immediately save and create millions of good jobs as a first step towards Full and Fair Employment and a New Economy that Works for Everyone.

Last week you helped Jobs with Justice, in coordination with the Jobs for America Now Coalition, hold actions in cities nationwide and make phone calls that pushed Congress to extend emergency federal Unemployment and COBRA benefits — but only for one month.  Obviously, officials in Washington still don’t get it.  They need a wake-up call that unemployment is at emergency levels.This campaign is just beginning.  And you can help build the momentum!

1)  Take the pledge to continue the fight for jobs with justice.  Ask your friends and co-workers to take the Pledge.

2) Get involved in some of the actions coming up:

  • March 15-26, the AFL-CIO is calling for local actions at the “bailout bandits” that broke the economy.  JwJ is supporting the AFL-CIO in the call to “Make Wall Street Pay”.  Find  local events.
  • March 27 – April 4 is the National Student

    Continue reading Growing Demand for Jobs. Get Involved!

  • Categories: Grassroots Newswire

    Central Florida JwJ is Building the Movement to Keep and Create Good Jobs

    JwJ Blog - Wed, 03/10/2010 - 9:12am

    The fight for keeping and creating jobs grew stronger in Florida this past week.  Central Florida Jobs with Justice mobilized for a rally, organized by the Space Coast AFL-CIO and Florida state AFL-CIO, that brought over 2,000 people from across the state to say “Save Our Space”!  Workers and their families traveled to the space coast from Miami, Pensacola, Jacksonville and all points in between to join business and community leaders to rally in support of continued federal funding of this vital economic driver for Florida’s future.  The rally featured National AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and other leaders from the American labor movement who used this dire situation as a backdrop to launch a national jobs campaign that would create 10 million American jobs.

    Recent budget proposals working their way through Congress all but eliminate funding for NASA’s human spaceflight operations in Florida. Space operations have long been one of Florida’s most important economic sectors, supporting tens of thousands of good jobs and providing the economic cornerstone for many communities across the state. The loss of funding would eliminate tens of thousands of jobs, decimate many communities, and send shock waves across the state this at a time when Florida is

    Continue reading Central Florida JwJ is Building the Movement to Keep and Create Good Jobs

    Categories: Grassroots Newswire

    WATCH NEW 10 MIN VIDEO

    VWC - Wed, 03/10/2010 - 7:39am

    "If Vermont Leads, The Rest of the Nation Will Follow"

    A short film about the Healthcare Is A Human Right Campaign released March 2010.

    Categories: Grassroots Newswire

    UE Members Lobby Iowa Legislators, Win Passage of Early Retirement Bill

    UE - Wed, 03/10/2010 - 4:54am
    Some 40 UE members from Iowa locals and sub-locals participated in the union’s annual political action day in Des Moines on January 28. They lobbied state legislators on six areas of concern to the union, and within the following few days won a victory on one of those issues. Both houses of the legislature approved a bill providing early retirement incentives for state workers, and on February 10, Governor Chet Culver signed it into law.
    Categories: Grassroots Newswire

    City Agencies Step up to Create Health Protective Truck Routes in Southeast SF

    PODER San Francisco - Tue, 03/09/2010 - 5:28pm

    On Monday, March 15th, 2010, the Board of Supervisors Land Use Committee will hold a hearing on the Municipal Transportation Agency (MTA) and the Department of Public Health's (DPH) efforts to create health protective truck routes in southeast SF.  In the Excelsior, almost half (44%) of households live nearby high volume roadways.  They breathe in polluted air that causes coughing, wheezing, and shortness of breath, aggravates asthma and heart disease, and can lead to lung cancer and even premature death.  PODER and the Chinese Progressive Association led a community campaign to urge the City to take action on this ticking time bomb, which led to the city passing a resolution in November 2008 and forming an inter-agency working group to address the concerns.  All three southeast supervisors, including John Avalos (D11), Sophie Maxwell (D10), and David Campos (D9) have joined forces to oversee DPH and MTA's efforts.  "These are life and death decisions made by our MTA every day.  Because of the community's efforts, city agencies have stepped up to reduce the impact of concentrated traffic pollution on local neighborhoods," said Charlie Sciammas, community organizer with PODER.

    Categories: Grassroots Newswire

    Support the Census, Stop the Raids!

    SWOP - Tue, 03/09/2010 - 3:23pm
    SWOP signed on to this letter to Pres. Obama. It is critical that we do everything possible to ensure an accurate Census count this year. This is a great way to do that.____________

    Over 200 organizations appeal to President Obama and the Department of Homeland Security to Suspend Immigration Enforcement Activities for Census 2010

    Encouraging hard-to count populations to participate in the Census means reducing the climate of fear and distrust in immigrant communities.
    Check out the full letter here.
    Categories: Grassroots Newswire

    Carlsbad Census and Dr. Seuss Day!

    SWOP - Tue, 03/09/2010 - 3:06pm


    The Carlsbad Early Childhood Education Center (ECEC) sponsored Dr. Seuss Day on Thursday, March 4, 2010 at the Carlsbad Mall and they extended an invite to the Carlsbad Community Complete Count Committee (C-5) to participate and set up a table for the Census 2010 campaign. We accepted!

    The children were very excited and could barely wait for the table to be set up before the opportunity came for them to receive the various items provided by our Partnership Specialist, Elaine Avina and the SWOP Census campaign. Over 300 backpacks filled with pencils, bubbles, candy, stickers and census material were given out. The census mugs were a big hit with over 260 of those being given out. We gave out census hats and a few T-shirts. Information about the Census was handed out in both English and Spanish. We ran out of things to give away about an hour and a half into the event since our table was the most visited one throughout this event.

    Overall it was a lot of fun for C-5 members Garry Adams and Kathy Kelly who hosted the table. We hope the children and their parents enjoyed it just as much!
    Categories: Grassroots Newswire

    Bennington Banner Editorial: "Vermont's Own"

    VWC - Sun, 03/07/2010 - 1:14pm

    "Vermont's Own"

    Friday March 5, 2010
    http://www.benningtonbanner.com/opinion/ci_14522731

    Vermont supporters of meaningful health care reform have been floating a well-tested format that deserves more than a cursory review this year. Regardless of what happens -- or doesn't happen -- in Washington, they say,
    the state would fare better with its own single-payer health care option.

    The reason is that Vermonters and Vermont businesses both would benefit from a public system, which would provide security for low- to middle-income residents that they will have at least basic care, while providing relief
    for businesses, particularly small companies.

    Of course, this would require higher, broad-based taxes to cover the cost, but more than likely those costs would be balanced through an influx of new and imported business ventures and through immigration -- rather than
    emigration -- into Vermont.

    In other words, if we offer a single-payer public option on health care, they will come.

    To drive home one of the advantages, supporters of this idea asked officials at town meetings how much the community potentially might save if the state had a universal health coverage plan in place. The answer in Bennington was
    $1.2 million, when Mary Gerisch of the Health Care is a Human Right campaign asked the question, and roughly $140,000 in Shaftsbury, when she later asked the question at that town's floor meeting.

    Obviously, businesses that now pay rapidly rising insurance premiums for employees, or can't afford to offer coverage, would benefit if the state directly funded a single-payer system. Large firms as well could benefit by
    offering only expanded coverage policies to supplement a basic state plan, thereby paying less for private insurance.

    There is the distinct possibility that a federal health care bill, if one ever does pass, will lack a public option. And it probably won't take effect for a few years regardless. In other words, it will only marginally improve
    health care options for most Americans and may not do much to control runaway costs for insurance and medical care.

    Yet a single-payer system for the state, if kept at a basic care level, might accomplish both those goals, improve the overall health of residents and be a boost to the business sector. It might be the best deal we've seen
    since milk in a bottle.

    Although single-payer proposals, such as Senate bill S.88 and House bill H.100, are considered a longshot by most -- and might require waivers from the federal government before they could be implemented -- the inaction in
    Washington has spurred a ton of enthusiasm for effective, straight-forward reform. This just might be the year to go for it.

    These bills and other universal health care plans deserve to be fully debated in the Legislature and around the state. There is no reason to wait any longer for real reform.

    http://www.benningtonbanner.com/opinion/ci_14522731

    Categories: Grassroots Newswire

    Cuentanos Bien

    SWU - Fri, 03/05/2010 - 7:35pm
    Census undercount threatens to punish our vulnerable for another 10 years, Perry shrugs

    Greg Harman, San Antonio Current
    gharman@sacurrent.com

    What’s a billion dollars of free social services worth? Apparently, not the carefully cultivated anti-Washington rugged-individual political image of Governor Rick Perry. Less than two weeks away from Censusmania, the state’s true hair-care magnate has failed to make any motion to ensure Texas’ consistently undercounted population is accurately recorded.

    It was nearly four months ago when state Representative Mike Villarreal wrote to Perry, urging him to “ensure our state government is taking every appropriate step to ensure the highest possible level of participation by Texas residents” in the Census. Response? Dialtone.

    As the second-highest undercounted state of the 2000 Census, Texas may be about to flub its chance to not only rake in hundreds of millions in taxes (taxes we have already paid), but also increase the number of Congressional seats we hold, according to Anna Alicia Romero, regional census director for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF). (You can hear our full conversation below.)

    “If we succeed, we will receive more of our own tax dollars back from the Federal government, easing our ability to meet our needs in transportation, education, health and human services and other areas,” Villarreal wrote back on October 13, 2009.

    Specifically, Texas should set up a “complete count” committee as 18 other states have done and make use of state agencies to get the Census message to historically hard-to-count populations, such as “elderly, children, minorities, renters and low-income.”

    Now, we get that poor folks aren’t exactly Perry’s base, but why would the state throw away $1 billion for social services like foster and child care, substance abuse and treatment, Medicaid payments, and jobs training by risking another undercount? That’s how much the state was estimated to have lost thanks to an undercount of more than 370,000 residents, according to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

    Other states haven’t been as shy about working to get the maximum share of their taxes back from the Feds. Complete-count committees have been set up in Alabama, Florida, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Connecticut, North Carolina, Tennessee, Louisiana, Utah, North and South Dakota, Wyoming, Ohio, Hawaii, Mississippi, Montana, and New York.

    Romero testified before the House Committee on Redistricting late last year that:

    According to the [PricewaterhouseCoopers] report, four states accounted for almost 40 percent of the national undercount, and Texas made the list, placing second after California. An estimated 373,567 individuals in our state were not counted or 1.76 percent of our total state population. The report estimated that every missed person would have yielded approximately $2,913 in federal aid with a total approximate loss of over $1 billion for the 2002-2012 period.

    Perry has spent much of the last year endearing himself to the most anti-Washington/anti-immigrant voters of Tea-Party dispositions, suggesting that the Lone Star has a right to secede from the United States (wacko applause meter ringing) and that we don't need those federal funds to extend unemployment assistance as our burgeoning work-hungry ranks swell. Needless to say, he didn’t so much as write Villarreal back on the topic, a staffer confirmed this morning.

    Perry’s inaction has pushed the burden of Census organizing back onto the Census Bureau and whatever grassroots community-action orgs care enough to hit the street. MALDEF will focus its efforts along the exploding U.S. border counties, but here in San Antonio Southwest Workers Union will be walking blocks across the Alamo City in a “Count Us Right” drive. And here’s a call-out to area artists: create a new logo for the campaign and earn yourself $1,000. (This Census stuff is paying off already, right?!)

    Watch your mailbox mid-month for the bi-lingual forms containing detailed instructions on how to officially celebrate “Census Day” on April 1. Word is we get just a few weeks to mail ’em back before the newly mobilized border mobs seeking expanded political representation and reliable childcare begin the march north to make this registration stuff personal. And, no, your landlord doesn't get a copy.

    If neither the social-responsibilty nor mob-justice stuff hooks you, allow us to trot out the Census Bureau’s Secret Weapon…
    Categories: Grassroots Newswire

    Peoples Freedom Caravan II: Coming Soon

    SWU - Fri, 03/05/2010 - 7:34pm
    Categories: Grassroots Newswire

    Chevron Campaign Update

    APEN - Fri, 03/05/2010 - 5:26pm

    On Tuesday February 23, APEN, CBE, and West Toxics Coalition went to the California Court of Appeals to ensure that Chevron does not expand their facility without real safeguards for the community's health and the creation of cleaner jobs. The court room was packed, among those standing to witness were 35 coalition members. Check out the video on CBS 5. We do not expect to hear anything until sometime between March 23 and the end of April. Please support us by signing up to be a volunteer or a monthly donor! 

    Background and Updates:
    In June 2009 Contra Costa County Superior Court ruled that the Environmental Impact Report for a planned expansion of Chevron's refinery in Richmond, CA should have addressed whether the project would allow Chevron to process dirtier oil, disclose the harm that pollution will have on Richmond residents, and methods for mitigation of increased greenhouse gas emissions. On July 1, Judge Zuniga ordered that the expansion project be put on hold until a new, valid EIR is prepared and approved.

    Mediation talks February 2009 convened by Assembly Speaker Karen Bass and Senate Pro Tem Darryl Steinberg fell through - Chevron declined to participate.

    Attorney General Jerry Brown's alternative proposal, crafted with the support of community residents, community groups  and other stakeholders, would permit a refinery expansion if there are strong health and greenhouse gas mitigations.  Our coalition and this alternative proposal have received the endorsement of key groups including SEIU 1021, Richmond Chapter and the American Lung Association - California.  However, Chevron declined to use this proposal as a vehicle to restart negotiations.

    We can't wait any longer for clean air, good jobs, and a healthier Richmond!  Richmond residents have long suffered increased rates of ailments such as asthma, other respiratory diseases and cancer, that have been linked to exposure to chemicals commonly emitted by refineries. In 2009 the State of California released figures that showed Chevron's Richmond refinery was the single largest industrial emitter of greenhouse gases in the State.  We need good jobs for Richmond residents to transition us to solar energy and a healthier future.

    Categories: Grassroots Newswire

    Fire and ICE

    SWU - Fri, 03/05/2010 - 8:20am

    By Enrique Lopetegui, San Antonio Current
    elopetegui@sacurrent.com

    On February 24, about three dozen vociferous activists gathered in front of the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement building on Fourwinds Dr. to demand the closing of the Willacy County ("Tent City") and Los Fresnosï' Port Isabel (PIDC) detention centers.

    As part of the "Dignity, Not Detention campaign organized by the Detention Watch Network, the activists - including members of Southwest Workers Union, Texans United For Families, Grassroots Leadership, and the Reverend Lorenza Andrade Smith, of the Westlawn United Methodist Church - accused ICE of serious human rights abuses against detainees. And none of the activists was louder - or more specific - than SWU's Anayanse Garza, who denounced abuses against hunger strikers at PIDC and pointed to the alleged culprit.

    "This is the pain," she said, holding a petition, "these are the 243 signatures of the people at Port IsabeI that have been tortured, beaten and humiliated, and these orders were coming from [ICE's field office director] Michael J. Pitts, who is sitting very comfortably in his air-conditioned room, while other people are being tortured and threatened with force-feeding by having a tube inserted through their noses. I don't care if the government says that immigrants have no human rights. Immigrants do have human rights. It's not a crime to hunger strike, it is your right, and that's why [Pitts] should be tried. He shouldn't be allowed to even be there right now."

    She broke down in tears and had to be consoled by fellow activists.

    The copy of the petition faxed to the QueBlog reads that "the human and civil rights of our families and those who wish to assist us are ... violated." It is signed by 235 names (our count), each with its respective legal resident number and their city of origin.

    The activists tried to present the letter to Pitts, but couldn't get past security.

    "We were rejected," Grassroots Leadership's Bob Libal told the QueBlog. "They told us to mail it."

    According to Amnesty International's "Jailed Without Justice" report, "immigrants and asylum seekers may be detained for months or even years as they go through deportation procedures that will determine whether or not they are eligible to remain in the United States.

    "According to a 2003 study, individuals who were eventually granted asylum spent an average of 10 months in detention with the longest reported period being 3.5 years ... Individuals who have been ordered deported may languish in detention indefinitely if their home country is unwilling to accept their return or does not have diplomatic relations with the United States."

    Under U.S. law, those in deportation proceedings can secure legal representation but not at the expense of the government. Therefore, according to Amnesty, "84 percent of those in immigration detention do not have a lawyer, and instead represent themselves."

    AI's report says that "detainees are often detained in jail facilities with barbed wire and cells, alongside those serving time for criminal convictions. They are not able to wear their own clothes but instead wear prison uniforms. Immigrants are unnecessarily exposed to inappropriate and excessive restraints including handcuffs, belly chains, and leg restraints ... [and] physical and verbal abuse."

    "After mentioning that "lawful permanent residents can be placed in 'mandatory detention' with no right to a bond hearing before an immigration judge or judicial body," AI concludes that "conditions of detention in many facilities do not meet either international human rights standards or ICE guidelines."

    In September 2008, ICE announced the publication of 41 new performance-based detention standards, but AI was skeptical: "They are not legally enforceable and do not provide adequate sanctions for violations."

    Silky Shah, member of board of directors of Grassroots Leadership and Organizing and Outreach Coordinator for Detention Watch Network, agrees.

    "[The abuses that are] happening right now," she said, "will outlast any comprehensive reform that [takes place], and we need to continue working together restoring justice for all."

    Sarnata Reynolds, Amnesty International's campaign director for refugee and migrant rights, visited Port Isabel in July 2009 in a rare field visit by a human rights group.

    "We were there last June, and besides what we told the media we haven't released an official statement [on PIDC]," Reynolds told the QueBlog on Friday. "I don't want to misspeak. I want to review my notes before I get back to you."

    In June 4, 2009, a day after her visit to PIDC, she told the Houston Press that AI's preliminary findings confirmed that detainees are "locked up, and you have no right to a bond hearing. You have no right to ever demonstrate that ... 'I'm not a danger to the community, I'm not a flight risk, so let me out while I proceed [with] my removal proceedings.'"

    One of the detainees she spoke to was Rama Carty, a native of Congo who has resided legally in the U.S. since 1971, at age one.

    He was detained in Maine in May of 2006 for a drug offense he claims was fabricated. After serving less than two years of prison time, he was held at ICE detention centers in Main, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Louisiana, before arriving at PIDC in December 2008.

    With two other detainees, he organized a hunger strike at PIDC on April 15, 2009, to expose to the media the conditions of detention.

    "We got at least 70 other detainees, maybe 90, but it went down quickly after the authorities started applying pressure on us," he told the QueBlog. "Some people did three weeks [of hunger strike], but they threatened me with cutting me the access to the law library. I needed that, so I stopped."

    On June 3, the day he said he was supposed to meet with Reynolds for the second time, at 5 a.m. he was awaken by guards who told him to pack because he was leaving.

    "I told them I shouldn't be leaving, since [the Department of Homeland Security] was negotiating with AI to meet with us and I wasn't done with my interviews," Carty said. "I smelled something fishy immediately."

    That's when he was attacked, he says, but the guards accused him of assault. On that same day, Carty was transferred to an ICE detention center in Louisiana, but couldn't be deported because no country would recognize him as a citizen.

    "I was going to be in limbo until who knows when," Carty said.

    In the fall of 2009, Carty successfully sued ICE and obtained a $100,000 unsecured bond that allowed him to walk free in December 2009. After spending time in Massachusetts, he's now back in Texas since February 22, under home arrest at a hotel in Brownsville, awaiting his March trial for the assault

    "If I'm a flight risk, why did I come back?" he said. "They offered me [to plead guilty to] a misdemeanor, but I'm not going to do that. I want to go to trial, I didn't do anything."

    He also won't go on the record with details of the attack, but wants to set the record straight.

    "I don't want to publish specifics that will need to be divulged at trial," he said. "But I do want to let everyone know that I was assaulted, not the other way around. When I could not be deported, I was wrongfully indicted [for supposedly attacking the guards,] in order [for them] to leverage against a possible civil action."

    He says he was shaving when the guards jumped on him, and now they're saying that he used a razor to attack them.

    "The missing video and the missing razor are two of the most glaring pieces of missing evidence," Carty said. "It's clear in the very little bit of video that the government has produced, which shows my being hit when I was on the floor at the very end of the incident, that the entire video should have been available. The entire video would have made it clear that I should not have been indicted in the first place. But of course, there is no video, because if there is a video, they have no case.

    "Everything happens at [PIDC]: Everything from sexual harassment of male and female detainees, assault, pitting black detainees against Hispanics and vice versa, in an attempt to divide and conquer. It's a terrible situation and it has been going on for decades."

    "In all my years, I've never seen immigrants raising a hand against guards," said Tony Hefner, a guard at PIDC from 1983 through 1990. "It's always been the other way around."

    Hefner, who says he was fired in 1985, got his job back in 1987, and was fired again in 1990, spent years gathering information about abuses at PIDC and will publish his findings, "real names and all," in the book Between the Fences: Before Guantanamo, there was the Port Isabel Service Process Center, due out in May. Some of those names, documents and pictures a la Abu Ghraib can be seen in his website, torchlake.com/hefner.

    "The very same thing that happened [in my time] is happening today [at PIDC]," said Hefner. "Stealing money from detainees, beating detainees up ... If detainees from two different countries were fighting, they would handcuff them together and push them into each other and take bets on them."

    Hefner will be a witness for Carty during the trial.

    "They're framing this young man claiming that he did something that he didn't do," Hefner said. "That's the standard policy there: If you stand up against them, they nail you. What Rama [Carty] is going through is nothing unusual."

    Nina Pruneda, spokeswoman for ICE in San Antonio, said the QueBlog's information "is not correct information."

    "Torture? That's the first time I ever heard of that," she said Friday. "There are a lot of rumors in the community but, believe you me, there's nothing of that nature going on.

    "We need the names of those detainees. For security purposes we don't obtain information like that [letting the activists into the building], they have to mail it. That's the process."

    So if we get you the names ...

    "Names, dates of birth, and A [resident] numbers," she said. "And Monday we'll get back to you with the other information you requested."

    "The other information we requested included whether ICE's 41 new performance-based detention standards have already been implemented, what happens if a detention guard violates those standards, what is ICE's policy in regards to hunger strikes, whether force-feeding is ever used with hunger strikers, and, finally, what actions - if any - Pitts ordered to be taken against the hunger strikers.

    We'll be waiting ...
    Categories: Grassroots Newswire

    SUPPORT BAN ON MANDATORY OVERTIME: Help Keep Patients and Healthcare Workers Safe

    VWC - Fri, 03/05/2010 - 1:14am

    Any healthcare worker can tell you the truth about mandatory overtime: it is unsafe for their patients, and unsafe for themselves. We need to ensure that our health care workers are able to do their job to the best of their ability, which means keeping them healthy, and not forcing them to work grueling, extended shifts above the hard work they do every day.

    The House Appropriations Committee is currently considering H.268, Ban on Mandatory Overtime. H.268 bans mandatory overtime, except in emergency situations, and recognizes the growing danger to patient safety posed by forced overtime practices. The State Hospital administration is making exaggerated claims that this bill will end up costing them money, despite much evidence to the contrary. Contact your representative on the Appropriations Committee and ask them to please take up and pass H.268. You can also contact Reps. Shap Smith, Floyd Neese and Lucy Lerich, who make up the House Leadership, and ask them to bring H.268 to floor for a full House vote. Click here to go to our Legislative Guide for contact information.

    Tell the legislature: Mandatory overtime is unsafe for patients, as it could increase the likelihood of medical errors that could result in patient injury. It also jeopardizes the health and safety of health care workers and can put their licenses on the line.

    CLICK HERE TO SEND A MESSAGE: http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/banonmandatoryovertime

    Categories: Grassroots Newswire

    Noche Flamenca Tix Available!

    SWOP - Thu, 03/04/2010 - 11:04am

    SWOP member Jesus Muñoz is performing at El Rey Theater this Saturday and seats are still available. In fact, SWOP is one of the last places in town selling tickets! Five dollars will be donated to SWOP for each ticket we well, so give us a call and get tickets to this amazing show.

    WHAT: Noche Flamenca with Jesus Muñoz Flamenco Por Derecho

    WHEN: Saturday, March 6th. Doors open at 7:30 PM, show starts at 8:00 PM.

    WHERE: El Rey Theater 620 Central Ave.

    TICKET PRICES: $25 for table seating
    $20 for general admission
    $15 for general admission for students with college ID and children 12 and under

    To learn more about this show read our post here.

    To purchase tickets come to the SWOP office at 211 10th St. SW or call 247-8832 or 400-6403.
    Categories: Grassroots Newswire

    Today: Take Action to Defend Education

    JwJ Blog - Thu, 03/04/2010 - 10:55am

    Today, March 4th, students and workers wake up to prepare for rallies, walkouts, call in days and many more activities during the National Day to Defend Education and the Jobs with Justice national week of action to save and create jobs .

    Students and workers are tired of  having the federal and state budgets balanced on their backs and are standing up to these atrocities.  Today, we will stand up to demand full funding of higher education, a stop to the corporatization of education, proportionate representation on university decision -making bodies, and good union jobs in our schools.  We will demonstrate that students and workers will not stand on the sidelines as education become a privilege available only to the few and while jobs are lost because of state budget cuts and the inaction in the federal government to pass student aid reform.

    We are fighting these cuts now, but we also know that we need to look at the root problem and seek ways to fund the public sector through revenue reform and change

    Continue reading Today: Take Action to Defend Education

    Categories: Grassroots Newswire
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