Change Congress on November 7th

Election 2006: Doomsday for the GOP Agenda

In this print edition...

• Election 2006: Doomsday for the GOP Agenda by Joelle Fishman
• Why Charles Barkley Should be President, by Karin S. Coddon
• Health Matters: Thoughts on Universal Health Care, by Phil E. Benjamin
• Current Letters (updated 10-02-06)
• Current Poetry (updated 10-02-06)

Grape workers and union organizers at a rally at the "Forty Acres," the historic home of the United Farm Workers.

A qualitatively new form of transnational capital has clearly emerged. Its features include enormous new concentrations of finance capital, new forms of transnational monopoly, huge changes in the technology of mass production and manufacturing, a new global division of labor, and increasing poverty and decline for workers of the world in a global race to the bottom.

San Francisco hotel workers announce that their union, UNITE HERE Local 2, has reached agreement on a new contract with the city's leading hotels.

Nearly 200 members and allies of Pride at Work, AFL-CIO (PAW) met for its national convention this past weekend.

Republicans have labeled unions "terrorist organizations," "a clear and present danger to the United States," and "enemies of democracy." David Sirota, co-chair of the Progressive Legislative Action Network, sheds light on why the GOP describes unions in terms usually reserved for military targets.

Several days before the Labor Day weekend, Radio Shack fires some 400 employees....by email.

“Stop Kroger the ogre” was the chant of nearly 2,000 Teamster members and their supporters, led by International Brotherhood of Teamsters President James Hoffa, at a rally at the Kroger warehouse in Livonia, Mich., Aug. 6.

Hotel housekeepers and hospitality workers, together with supporters from other unions, marched through downtown San Francisco, and staged a demonstration in the entrance of the Palace Hotel.

After a twenty-five day strike, the 2,052-member union of the world’s largest copper mine, La Escondida of Chile, and the Anglo-Australian owners BHP Billiton mining company finally reached a settlement on August 31.

This Labor Day marks the third year that thousands of working Americans have left their families and their jobs to fight in a war that the Bush administration will not bring to a close.

There are three cases currently pending at the Bush appointed National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that together are often referred to as the "Kentucky River" decisions.

U.S. wages and salaries (as seen by a study of tax statistics) now represent a smaller percentage of the Gross Domestic Product than at any time since such statistics began to be kept in 1947. Today, wages and salaries constitute 45% of the GDP. In 2001, it was 50%.

Over the last five years, there has been a new concentration of wealth in the hands of the few in the US. Meanwhile, middle and lower-income families have seen their already precarious financial solvency eroded by rising debt and stagnant wages.

A group of wealthy out-of-state businessmen have financed a ballot initiative to turn back the clock on civil rights in Michigan. They spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to force the people of Michigan to vote on their divisive views this November 7th and misleadingly called their campaign the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative.

Five dollars and fifteen cents, the federal minimum wage (FMW), doesn’t buy much these days. With $5.15 you can almost buy two gallons of gas, almost go to the movies, or almost buy two burgers and a soda – at McDonald’s.

After vetoing minimum wage legislation two years in a row, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has finally agreed this week to sign a Democratic bill to raise that state's minimum wage to $8 by 2008.

NACOZARI, SONORA, MEXICO (8/7/06) -- Just days after conservative candidate Felipe Calderon declared himself the winner of Mexico's July 2 presidential election, the Mexican federal labor board lowered the boom on striking miners. At Nacozari, one of the world's largest copper mines, just a few miles south of Arizona, fourteen hundred miners have been on strike since March 24. On July 12 the board said they'd abandoned their jobs, and gave the mine's owner, Grupo Mexico, permission to close down operations.

Major League Baseball's All-Star game is supposed to be a breezy exhibition of the sport's brightest stars. It's also a place for baseball's corporate patrons to be wined, dined and reassured about the current state of the game.

As Congressional Republicans continue to block a $2.10 increase to the federal minimum wage, AFL-CIO minimum wage activists have been building momentum in their home states to increase the minimum wage in 19 states.