The Top Issues Include Unemployment Compensation, Wage Floors and Charter Schools
The Alabama AFL-CIO announced its agenda for the second half of the legislative session today in a press release, challenging Republicans on bills related to Unemployment Compensation, Worker’s Compensation and Charter Schools.
“SB 300 and HB 285 will make Alabama’s Unemployment Insurance, ranked 49th out of 50, the worst in the nation,” said Al Henley, President of Alabama AFL-CIO.
Alabama Workers are entitled to Unemployment Insurance when lose their job through no fault of their own. Maximum benefits are $265/week.
A delegation representing civil rights and labor leaders will be in Berlin, Germany, on Wednesday April 4 to urge Daimler AG and its shareholders to seek repeal of Alabama’s racial profiling law, H.B. 56, according to a press release sent out in an e-mail blast by the Service Employees International Union.
The law denies fundamental civil rights to immigrants and minorities and impacts trade union activities between and among union members, inhibiting freedom of association, according to a complaint being filed today with the International Labor Organization of the United Nations by the SEIU and its affiliate, the Southern Regional Joint Board of Workers United.
Daimler, which produces Mercedes-Benz vehicles in Alabama, is a founding signatory of the United Nations Global Compact, which calls on businesses to “make sure they are not complicit in human rights abuses.”
Until now, Daimler and Mercedes-Benz have been silent on this law which violates human rights, even though one of its German executives was arrested under the Alabama law.
MARGARETVILLE, Ala. — It is a lovely Sunday morning and amazingly quiet in the suburbs on this April Fool’s Day. The Carolina Wren’s are feeding new young in the hand-crafted birdhouse attached to the screened-in porch. They stop only occasionally between feedings to sing, and they sound about as happy as I feel with my new dog and best friend Jefferson laying at my feet.
If I didn’t know better, I would finish by saying “all’s right with the world.”
But you and I both know better.
As I peruse the headlines from my hand-made html news page, which may go the way of the Dodo bird soon and be replaced by a Word Press front page, and as I look through the Google alerts and other e-mails, I run across an interesting column from Phil Rockstroh, who calls himself a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City but who is from the South. He laments the fact that his white male Southern buddies cling to the Republican fantasy of “free-market capitalism,” while their jobs disappear and their lives diminish into a political bitterness they cannot seem to escape.
Task Force Says Bad Schools Hurt National Security
by Glynn Wilson
Republicans in the Alabama Legislature are pushing a bill to take some funding away from already cash-strapped public schools in the attempt to privatize public schools, a move that most experts say will just make public education in the U.S. worse.
A report just out from a task force led by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Joel Klein, the former chancellor of New York City’s school system, says the nation’s security and economic prosperity are at risk if America’s schools don’t improve.
“The dominant power of the 21st century will depend on human capital,” the report warned. “The failure to produce that capital will undermine American security.”
The task force says the State Department and U.S. intelligence agencies face critical shortfalls in the number of foreign language speakers, and that fields such as science, defense and aerospace are at particular risk because a shortage of skilled workers is expected to worsen as baby boomers retire.
The AFL-CIO and other labor unions joined the Selma-to-Montgomery Civil Rights March this year on the 47 anniversary of Bloody Sunday. Alabama AFL-CIO Al Henley addressed a night rally in White Hall on Wednesday night. Watch the video to see what he had to say. To see our full coverage of the events, check out this story and links.
Sharon McClendon Price speaks at The First Baptist Church of Selma on women’s issues on March 6, 2012 at one of the night rallies during the commemoration of the 47th Anniversary of the Selma-to-Montgomery March. This will make you cry.
While President Obama has placed his faith in America’s working men and women to lead our country to economic recovery, Republican presidential candidates have pledged their loyalty to Wall Street and the 1%. So the AFL-CIO General Board “voted proudly and enthusiastically” to endorse Mr. Obama for a second term, according to a statement issued on the union’s Website.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says the union movement agrees with the Republican hopefuls who say this election is about “values” — but there is quite a contrast between Mr. Obama’s values and those of his challengers.
“With our endorsement today, we affirm our faith in him — and pledge to work with him through the election and his second term to restore fairness, security and shared prosperity,” Trumka said in a statement. “President Obama honors the values of hard work, of mutual respect and of solving problems together — not every person for himself or herself. He believes that together we will get through the most challenging economic crisis in memory and restore opportunity for all.
“Each of the Republican presidential candidates, on the other hand, has pledged to uphold the special privileges of Wall Street and the 1%,” Trumka said, “privileges that have produced historic economic inequality and drowned out the voices of working people in America.”
These are scenes and some public reaction from the Selma-to-Montgomery March 2012. Click on the arrow to play the video and then hit the tab to make it full screen. Share with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, etc.
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — There was not supposed to be a major anniversary march this year to commemorate Bloody Sunday on March 7, 1965. It is only the 47th anniversary of that groundbreaking event in civil rights and American political history that led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act that year. Plans are in the works for a big event on the 50th anniversary in 2015.
But even though black voters, union leaders, women and Hispanic groups were all heartened by the election of the first African-American president in U.S. history in 2008, that has not stopped an all out assault on voting rights, labor rights, immigrant rights and yes, human rights, by Republican politicians across the country. So organizers decided the crisis was so great this year, especially in Alabama, that they had better get together and do a march this year.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, who ended up leading much of the march and many of the rallies, including delivering the keynote speech at the final rally on the old Alabama Capitol steps Friday, explained what happened on Wednesday night before introducing the Secretary of Labor to the crowd in White Hall between Selma and Montgomery.
“We were in a board meeting of the National Action Network when Rose Sanders called and said, ‘reverend, we need to do something around voter ID and immigration.’
During the Bush years, we specialized in covering the politicization of the U.S. justice system as much as any news organization. Our archives are about the most comprehensive for anyone researching the prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, and the original case against Richard Scrushy, which Glynn Wilson covered for The New York Times.
