The Alabama House Commerce Committee will be voting on the Alabama Minimum Wage Law bill on Wednesday, April 11, at 9:30 a.m. The Birmingham Young Democrats are co-sponsoring a rally and press conference in support of the Alabama Minimum Wage Law along with Rep. Patricia Todd House of District 54. The rally will start on the State Capitol Steps on Tuesday, April 10, at 11 a.m.

The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote on critical legislation this week that could give workers back their ability to freely and fairly form unions.

“All too often in this country, when workers decide to stand up for themselves and form a union, they’re met with threats, intimidation, and discrimination,” says Liz Cattaneo of the American Rights at Work non-profit organization.

She is urging people who favor giving workers a “fighting chance,” to contact their Representative in support of the Employee Free Choice Act (H.R. 800), which would strengthen workers’ rights and hold anti-union employers accountable.

“Thankfully, we now have a Congress that could do something about this crisis,” Cattaneo said. “This is a historic opportunity to secure workers’ rights for generations to come-but we can’t celebrate yet. It’s going to be a very close vote.”

Conservative, anti-union forces are busy mobilizing against this legislation, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Retail Federation and more than a dozen other business groups. They are mounting a fierce campaign to stop the bill, inundating Congress with more than 10,000 e-mail messages and letters.

“In order to combat their well-funded efforts, we need to reach each and every member of Congress with letters from their constituents in support of the Employee Free Choice Act over the next few days,” Cattaneo said. “Too many families work harder and harder with less to show for it. While corporate executives net contracts securing themselves raises, benefits, and bonuses, workers haven’t had it so easy. America’s workers cannot afford to lose this opportunity.”

Learn more about the Employee Free Choice Act here.

To take action, go to this Website and sign up.

Editor’s Note: This is one in a series of stories produced and under development to demonstrate the truth about the growing divide between two America’s, one where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. If the American experience in Democracy is to lead to a true egalitarian state, this trend should not only be reported. It should be shouted from the roof-tops until a change is made in the political system that props up the divide and does nothing to bring about a swing in the pendulum back toward something resembling a balance.

by Glynn Wilson

BIRMINGHAM, Ala., July 7 - Ashley Reynolds is only hours away from boarding a van headed for Columbus, Ohio on Friday afternoon. Even though she really can’t afford the trip, she will take part in a convention and protest rally designed to put pressure on the political leadership in America to force businesses to pay workers a true living wage.

Photo by Glynn Wilson

Some days, Ashley Reynolds has to fight feeling sad…

With the full knowledge that the minimum wage has been stuck for the past decade at only $5.15 an hour - due to the nearly complete corporate takeover of the American government because of skewed political campaign financing - Ms. Reynolds wants to do her part to change things.

While she wants more than anything to feel like a bona fide citizen of the United States and to believe in the American dream of liberty and equality for all, when she picks up the local newspaper or watches the news on television, what she sees being reported is far removed from the reality she sees in front of her very own eyes every day of her life.

The news people and the politicians say over and over again that the unemployment rate is the lowest in history and the economy is booming.

But if that is true, she asks, then why does she and a lot of the people she sees visiting the local food kitchens and the welfare offices on a regular basis feel like American society treats them like nothing but yesterday’s refuse?

“I am nothing but garbage to them,” she says.
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