January 31, 2012
This is an interview with Todd Hamilton and Nate Holdren of the Industrial Workers of the World, conducted by Turbulence, of Turbulence.org.uk:
Why prioritise workplace organisation when some people have argued value production now takes place everywhere?
We work for wages. We spend a huge chunk of our day and our lives at work, so it just makes sense for us to organise there. We don’t see this as a choice for people who want a revolution: we have to be organising in the workplace now, so that when opportunities open up we’re already there. Whether the revolution begins amongst housewives, chronically unemployed, housing struggles, etc., we’re still going to need to deal with workplaces in the transformation of society.
As far as value production now taking place everywhere… well this isn’t actually a new condition, it’s always been true wherever capitalism has existed. Your question implies that since value production occurs everywhere, there’s no need to organise in the workplace. We see it instead as meaning we need to organise in many places.
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January 29, 2012
From left to right, Port of Longview commissioners Darold Dietz, Bob Bagaason, and Lou Johnson and port attorney Frank Randolph sign a series of lease amendments for the EGT lease agreement.
By Erik Olson of the Daily News:
Port of Longview commissioners Friday signed off on a settlement with EGT Development and union dock workers. The pact provides a framework for longshoremen to work inside the $200 million grain terminal and end one of the area’s longest, angriest labor disputes in decades.
EGT and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union still have not signed a labor contract, but both sides agreed on the settlement before submitting it to port commissioners, according to port attorney Frank Randolph. Rank-and-file ILWU members approved the agreement Tuesday, according to the union.
The agreement, announced by Gov. Chris Gregoire Monday, effectively settles a federal lawsuit between EGT and the port over labor requirements at the terminal and halts past claims from the dispute.
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January 29, 2012
From the Dail News:
At the Aug. 4, 2009, groundbreaking for the $200 million EGT grain terminal at the Port of Longview, the construction was hailed as a boon for Longview and the region. Once EGT decided not to hire International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 21 workers, though, the project became contentious as pickets were staged outside — and sometimes inside — port property. Several months of stand-offs and numerous arrests followed:
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January 28, 2012
An immigrant stands in a holding cell at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility for illegal immigrants on July 30, 2010 in Florence, Arizona.
Article by Elise Foley, from the HuffingtonPost:
WASHINGTON — On a single day this past fall, the United States government held 13,185 people in immigration detention who had not been convicted of a crime, some of whom will not be charged with one, according to information The Huffington Post obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. Instead, at a cost of roughly 2 million taxpayer dollars per day, the men and women were detained while immigration authorities sorted out their fates.
This case stands in stark contrast to the stated goal of immigration policy under the administration of President Barack Obama: to detain and deport unauthorized immigrants who’ve been convicted of crimes.
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January 25, 2012
A man sits in front of a police line at City Hall during an anti-Wall Street protest in Oakland, California, October 25, 2011. (REUTERS/Kim White)
Written by former Seattle Police Department Chief, Norm Stamper – infamous for his role in the 1999 Seattle WTO uprising. From The Nation:
They came from all over, tens of thousands of demonstrators from around the world, protesting the economic and moral pitfalls of globalization. Our mission as members of the Seattle Police Department? To safeguard people and property—in that order. Things went well the first day. We were praised for our friendliness and restraint—though some politicians were apoplectic at our refusal to make mass arrests for the actions of a few.
Then came day two. Early in the morning, large contingents of demonstrators began to converge at a key downtown intersection. They sat down and refused to budge. Their numbers grew. A labor march would soon add additional thousands to the mix.
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January 24, 2012
President Obama meets with members of the financial industry at the White House in Washington on Monday, Dec. 14, 2009, to discuss the economic recovery.
Reposted from The Nation, by George Zornick:
For months, a massive federal settlement with big Wall Street banks over their role in the mortgage crisis has been in the offing. The rumored details have always given progressives heartburn: civil immunity, no investigations, inadequate help for homeowners and a small penalty for the banks. Now, on the eve President Obama’s State of the Union address—in which he plans to further advance a populist message against big money and income inequality—the deal may be here, and it’s every bit as ugly as progressives feared.
The Associated Press reports that a proposed deal could be announced within weeks. Five banks—Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citibank and Ally Financial (formerly GMAC)—would pay the federal government $25 billion. About $17 billion would be used to reduce the principal that some struggling homeowners owe, $5 billion more would be used for future federal and state programs and $3 billion would be used to help homeowners refinance at 5.25 percent. Civil immunity would be granted to the banks for any role in foreclosure fraud, and there would be no investigations.
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January 20, 2012
By Renee Parsons, from the Huffingtonpost:
As Bill McKibben and his environmental supporters bask in a well-deserved satisfaction of the now-infamous Keystone XL pipeline denial, a close reading of the president’s statement indicates reason for concern.
In what would have otherwise been another slam-dunk for the petroleum industry, McKibben et al. can take credit for bringing the issue and its deleterious impact on American farmers and climate change to the public’s attention.
The case against the pipeline is overwhelming with the Natural Resources Defense Council warning that synthetic crude made from tar sands will generate three times as much CO2 pollution as conventional crude oil production because the extremely heavy, thick viscous bitumen (tar) requires great amounts of water and energy in order to flow through a pipe.
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January 17, 2012
January 14, 2012, reposted from Libcom:
Dear friend(s) and comrade(s):
We are writing to inform you about a very serious class confrontation developing on the northwest coast of the U.S., in Longview (Washington state).
In that small city, an international grain company, EGT, owned jointly by three firms
(U.S.-based Bunge North America, Japan-based Itochu and Korea-based STX Pan Ocean), spent $200 million constructing a new state- of- the-art grain terminal.
While the construction was underway, EGT indicated that it would continue to employ the 225 members of ILWU Local 21 in Longview, in keeping with the solid unionization of west coast American ports since the 1930’s by the ILWU (International Longshore Workers Union).
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January 16, 2012
By Kevin Fagan, Chronicle Staff Writer:
Law enforcement officers beat their wives or girlfriends at nearly double the rate of the rest of the population, and trying to control that is not only difficult for the victims but potentially deadly, experts say.
The trouble lies in the very nature of police work.
One of the hallmarks of a good cop is to radiate authority and control, and in the wrong hands, those characteristics can be misused, domestic violence counselors say.
When that misuse happens, it’s hard to report it because the victim has to go up against a man – and it is almost always a man – and his agency, both seen by society as paragons of protection.
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January 9, 2012
By Marie Diamond of ThinkProgress:
In August 2010, Quelino Ojeda Jimenez, an undocumented construction worker in Chicago, fell 20 feet off a building while on the job and was paralyzed from the neck down. Unable to pay his own medical expenses, he was deported back to Mexico on December 22, 2010.
But he never made it home. Instead, he was left to languish at a small Mexican hospital that was unequipped to handle his needs. UPI reports that Ojeda died on New Year’s Day:
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