Friday, May 29, 2009
Romney, Chamber Anti-EFCA PR Blitz Ignores Reality (10:53 am)
Those veteran champions of worker’s rights, Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney and the Chamber of Commerce, unleashed new attacks this week on the Employee Free Choice Act. They aim to discredit the bill as a death-blow to the economy and workplace democracy while the Chamber ad derides any talk of compromise from new Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter, who opposed the bill as written and now faces a likely Democratic primary challenge.
But in making their case, these pro-business attack dogs have to ignore a powerful new study debunking a central myth of opponents of the pro-union legislation: that it would somehow create a wave of union intimidation. The multi-university study, led by Richard Bruno of the University of Illinois, found that in four states permitting majority sign-up, in over 1,000 campaigns involving 34,000 new union members in the public sector, there wasn’t a single confirmed case of either union or employer intimidation.
In fact of course, in the private sector, it’s employers who have ramped up their terrorizing of workers who seek to form a union, as shown in the recent “No Holds Barred” report by Cornell labor scholar Kate Bronfenbrenner, which found , for instance, that half of bosses in union campaigns threaten workers in one-on-one “sweat sessions” and a third fire employees.
But it’s the majority sign-up provision, dubbed by is opponents as “card check,” that has been a primary target for supposedly threatening worker’s rights and making them vulnerable to intimidation. (One anti-union group even features a former Sopranos actor playing a union thug in its ads.)
Yet hidden away in plain sight in America is the one part of the economy where workers are free to join unions without intimidation from employers, and they are permitted to use the majority sign-up provision that’s been proposed by the Employee Free Choice Act — and so demonized by Big Business interests. Where is this idyllic land, where rights long granted to European workers and ignored here at home are so freely available? It’s in the public sector — whether they’re firemen or nurses — the difference in union representation... read more
posted by Art Levine | 2 comments
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Weekly Pulse: Sotomayor an Enigma On Abortion? (6:43 pm)
Tuesday, Sonia Sotomayor became the first Latina and the third woman ever nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court. She is currently a federal judge on New York’s 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. Born to Puerto Rican immigrant parents and raised by her mother in the housing projects of the South Bronx, Sotomayor went on to attend college at Princeton and law school at Yale. George H.W. Bush appointed her to the U.S. District Court in 1991 and Bill Clinton “promoted” her to the 2nd Circuit in 1998.
Political Scientist Scott Lemieux writes for TAPPED that, in light of her distinguished resume and inspiring biography, Sotomayor’s confirmation is all but assured:
In the Nation, John Nichols says that the Sotomayor pick “reflects America”. Within hours of the announcement of Souter’s resignation, conventional wisdom had pegged Sotomayor as the odds-on favorite for the nomination. There were a few bumps along the way, though. Brian Beutler of TPM reports on the anatomy of a preemptive whispering capaign starring anonymous law clerks quoted in the New Republic questioning Sotomayor’s intelligence and temperament.
While Sotomayor has a reputation for being a liberal jurist, her record contains few hints about her views on abortion. Attorney and feminist writer Jill Filipovic reviews Sotomayor’s record on abortion for RH Reality Check. Sotomayor has only ruled on one major abortion-related case in her time as a judge, Center for Reproductive Law and Policy v. Bush, and as Filipovic says, SOTOMAYOR’S conclusion “isn’t going to warm the hearts of reproductive rights activists.”
But, as Filipovic explains, abortion wasn’t the issue at stake in... read more
posted by Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger | start the discussion
Child of Immigrants Nominated to Supreme Court (12:43 pm)
On Tuesday, President Obama announced Sonia Sotomayor as his pick to replace Supreme Court Justice David Souter. Sotomayor could be the first Latina appointed to the Supreme Court. Predictably, attacks and slurs from the Right are already flying. Regardless, Sotomayor would be an excellent choice for the Supreme Court, signaling to Latino/as that the White House is aware of our need for more representation in government.
Reporting on Sotomayor’s nomination, the Washington Independent’s Daphne Eviatar notes that, while the choice doesn’t push the envelope in terms of liberalness, it does indicate that Obama was “willing to stand up to unfounded criticism of Sotomayor as a far-left liberal.” Interestingly enough, President George H. W. Bush originally nominated Sotomayor for the district court, and her life reads like Many GOP-adored tales of hard work leading to success.
Which leads one to wonder why are they attacking Sotomayor’s nomination with such vitriol, by painting her as a “radical, judicial activist/scary Latina feminist/underqualified diversity pick”? As Michelle Chen reports for RaceWire, Sotomayor has a reputation for “principled independence suffused with real-world experience” and the GOP’s squawking is a typical barrage of “hypocrisy, shrill animosity and racist code words.”
Sotomayor describes herself as a “Newyorican,” which is someone who has been born in New York City from parents hailing from Puerto Rico. While her nomination sparked controversy as to whether or not one can technically “immigrate” from Puerto Rico, there is no denying the country’s colonial history. Many see Sotomayor’s nomination as a success story for immigrants. She certainly does.
New America Media’s Roberto Lovato writes that despite the GOP’s desire to overlook Sotomayor’s uplifting and quintessentially “American” story, the Republican party would do well to use this opportunity very carefully. Sotomayor’s nomination provides an opportunity to draw a line between the GOP that bled Latino/a votes due to their immigration stance and what they hope to become. According to Lovato, Sotomayor—and we—should view the confirmation hearings as “nothing less than a trial to determine whether the GOP is ready to make restitution for its role in a number of judicial and political wrongdoings perpetrated in... read more
posted by Nezua | 1 comment
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Why Accountability Matters (11:01 am)
With workers all over the globe trudging through a catastrophic recession, it’s almost a given that governments will be battling the economic slide for a long time. Part of the effort to rebuild must involve new rules and regulations, but meaningful systems for economic accountability will be just as essential. If we do not hold the reckless executives who caused this crisis accountable for their actions, we risk regressing into similar turmoil in the near future.
We all know that times are tough, and almost all of us agree on the cause: A massive Wall Street risk-binge combined with an almost total failure of regulatory oversight. It’s surprising that few meaningful criminal charges have been filed amid what may very well be the worst financial crisis in history. Bernie Madoff will likely spend the rest of his life behind bars, but the subprime mortgage brokers who specialized in predatory loans – and the Wall Street banks that bought them – have yet to face consequences in court.
In The American Prospect, Tim Fernholz details the efforts of some state-level officials to investigate and punish white-collar crime at the nation’s largest financial firms. Much of the problem, Fernholz explains, results from an insane legal landscape at the federal level. Active deregulation of the financial sector, which began in the 1980s, is shielding the irresponsible risk-taking that caused the current crisis from legal penalties.
Despite these obstacles, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley and other key officials are going after some of the worst offenders, and have successfully taken action against some of the predatory profiteers, including subprime mortgage lender Fremont Investment & Loan and Wall Street icon Goldman Sachs. Coakley secured an injunction against Fremont to prevent the company from foreclosing on its borrowers, and Goldman agreed to modify $50 million in predatory mortgages.
But while Coakley’s investigations may bring some much-needed relief to troubled homeowners, they’re only part of the solution. If executives that approved their companies’ subprime policies go through this crisis unscathed, it will be difficult to deter similar behavior in the future.
Fremont had to be sold off last... read more
posted by Zach Carter, Media Consortium blogger | start the discussion
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Weekly Immigration Wire: Women Central to Immigration Story (1:12 pm)
Celebrated stories of early American pioneers, explorers, and immigrants typically center around men of fortitude and bravery. Depictions of modern-day migrants are still very male-centric, and this cultural lens is a default in most cases. But women play a central and overlooked role in today’s immigration story. Even when not directly highlighted, women often bear the weight of keeping families together and helping them grow stronger.
New America Media has just released the results of a poll titled “Women Immigrants: Stewards of the 21st Century.” NAM surveyed 1,002 female immigrants from Latin American, Asian, African, and Arab countries. According to Sandy Close and Richard Rodriguez, “The story that has not been told is the story of the woman immigrant. This poll is an effort to capture her narrative, and what becomes clear in the responses–many to questions that seemed on their face to have nothing to do with family per se–is that the gold thread giving meaning to her life is family stewardship.”
The poll reveals that the typical model of migration, in which the man left to find work and send home money, has changed. Women are assuming head of the household duties, even if in their prior situation they were in less of a leadership role. The women interviewed for the poll named “securing family stability” as the most important motivator for seeking U.S. citizenship.
NAM also features a number of articles that break down the poll’s findings, all available on the Immigration Ladder. Some feature short videos such as the one below, titled Family, Work and Progress — Latina Immigrants Speak. In this video, Latinas talk about why they came to the U.S. The reasons range from political asylum to simply being able to raise and feed their children. These are hard-hitting pieces because we can see and hear people tell their own story in their own words.
A common line spouted by those in favor of a strong enforcement agenda is that immigrants come here to ‘steal’ or ‘take’ our jobs. The focus is on an abstract, shadowy fence-hopper from Latin America who encroaches on turf and... read more
posted by Nezua | start the discussion
Should We Stay or Should We Go? (12:34 pm)
“Should I stay or should I go now?” It turns out The Clash’s classic 1981 song was asking the fundamental question about U.S. policy in Afghanistan.
Rethink Afghanistan, a new documentary from Brave New Films, offers an answer to this question. Here’s the trailer:
posted by Adam Case | start the discussion
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Sri Lanka Celebrates ‘Victory.’ Now Comes the Hard Part (3:24 pm)
As Sri Lanka’s government and most of its citizens celebrate “Victory Day” today, days after President Mahinda Rajapaksa declared the Tamil Tigers vanquished, there are plenty of unanswered questions about what exactly “post-war” life might mean to the small island nation.
Certainly, the end of the conventional war doesn’t put an end to the immense suffering experienced by hundreds of thousands of (mostly Tamil) civilians caught up in the northeast war zone in recent months. And, just as important, it does not put to rest many Tamils’ fundamental, still-lingering questions about political representation and governmental discrimination – the same questions that sparked the ethnic war in the 1970s in the first place.
When I left Sri Lanka in 2005, in the middle of the doomed ‘ceasefire’ (stalemate was always a better word for it) period between the government and the Tigers, I knew full-blown war would return as soon as either the Tigers had recharged their batteries or a more hardline nationalist government came to power in Colombo. The latter happened when Rajapaksa became president in late 2005 – but I never thought he could push the Tigers to defeat so quickly. And I certainly never thought I’d live to see this photograph, which the government says is the body of founding Tiger Velupillai Prabhakaran, whose long career displayed Stalin’s political ruthlessness and Pol Pot’s single-minded tenacity:
Some have said it was one of the leader’s doubles, but one of his former deputies (who revolted to form his own faction and is now in Rajapaksa’s cabinet!) says it is him.
Regardless, now comes the hard part: forging a lasting peace, which must include real devolution of power to the largely Tamil Northern and Northeast provinces. But that’s abstract compared to the immediate needs of thousands of Tamil refugee, who, as in every war, have borne the brunt of the military assault. How they are treated by a government basking in the glow of military victory will likely indicate what Tamils can expect from their government in the long run. Nothing is guaranteed.
posted by Jeremy Gantz | start the discussion
Healthcare Industry Already Wavering on Savings (12:29 pm)
That was quick: It took just three days for the titans of the healthcare industry to reveal the emptiness of their pledge to the Obama administration to save $2 trillion IN WHAT? over the next 10 years.
Last week, The New York Times proclaimed that Obama scored a “political coup” just by getting the industry groups and SEIU to the table. But writers featured in last week’s Pulse remained skeptical that the industry would make good on its unenforceable cost-cutting promises. Skepticsm was the healthy response.
Three days after the promise was made, industry groups started accusing Obama of overstating their commitment. Health Czar Nancy Ann DeParle confirmed that the president garbled the stats slightly when he said that the groups had pledged to cut the rate of growth in healthcare costs by 1.5 percentage points per year. However, the outcry over the slipup is revealing. The groups are now scrambling to reassure their members that they never promised to reduce costs by any specific amount in any given year. Of course they didn’t. In order to keep that promise, they’d have to act right away—which they clearly have no intention of doing.
So, it comes as little surprise when Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly reports that Blue Cross Blue Shield is crafting a PR campaign to trash the whole idea of a public plan, a key element of Obama’s healthcare reform agenda. One of the industry groups that signed off on the aforementioned $2 trillion pledge was America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP). Several members of AHIP’s board of directors work for Blue Cross or Blue Shield.
In The American Prospect, Paul Waldman notes that the same coalition of Republicans and big business that opposed President Clinton’s healthcare reforms 15 years ago are gearing up for a rematch. These folks, who might as well be called Americans for the status quo are trying to own the word “reform” under the tutelage of GOP message master Frank Luntz, according to Waldman.
Some people oppose healthcare reform because they fear a tax increase. That’s not a foregone conclusion, but healthcare is so... read more
posted by Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger | 1 comment
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