News Stories for october 18, 2011
The Stand- This morning from CBSnews — Arrests after occupy Seattle defies eviction
- In Sunday’s Spokesman-Review — Spokane peacefully Occupied
- In Sunday’s Columbian — Vancouver joins worldwide rally of discontent
- In Sunday’s News Tribune — Hundreds protest in Tacoma
- In Sunday’s Bellingham Herald — Protesters rally, march against corporate greed
- In Sunday’s Tri-City Herald — Hundreds gather in Richland for Occupy Tri-Cities
- In Sunday’s Olympian — Protests reach Olympia
- In Sunday’s Peninsula Daily News — Occupy protests held in Port Angeles, Port Townsend
Think Progress
Even as the economy struggles, corporate profits continue to rise. Wells Fargo, the largest consumer lender in America, announced today that its third-quarter earnings rose 21 percent, to $4.1 billion. Citigroup, the nation’s third-largest bank, also released its earnings statement today, announcing that its third-quarter earnings rose 73 percent over last year, with $3.8 billion in profits. Even though JP Morgan Chase saw its earnings fall from a year ago, it still raked in more than $3 billion in profits.
Corporate profits as a share of the nation’s gross domestic product, in fact, are at their highest point since 1950. Recent snapshots, however, tell a much different story on Main Street, where small businesses are limping through an economic recovery that treated corporations much more kindly. According to the National Federation of Independent Businesses’ September report, two out of every five small businesses reported that profits are falling.
Read the source story here.
The Washington Post
It’s become an article of faith among some on the right, and even among some neutral commentators, that Obama and Dems risk losing the support of blue collar whites in swing states if they dare to whisper a word of praise for Occupy Wall Street.
But what if the opposite is true — what if working class white voters actually like and agree with Occupy Wall Street’s message, if not always with the cultural and personal instincts of its messengers?
The movement is still very young, and it’s very hard to gauge support for it. But one labor official shares with me a very interesting data point: Working America, the affiliate of the AFL-CIO that organizes workers from non-union workplaces, has signed up approximately 25,000 new recruits in the last week alone, thanks largely to the high visibility of the protests.
Karen Nussbaum, the executive director of Working America, tells me that this actually dwarfs their most successful recruiting during the Wisconsin protests. “In so many ways, Wisconsin was a preview of what we’re now seeing,” Nussbaum says. “We thought it was big when we got 20,000 members in a month during the Wisconsin protests. This shows how much bigger this is.”Read the source story here.
Yahoo! News
This past weekend, in 900 cities across the world, tens of thousands demonstrated against unregulated capitalism. Something fascinating is growing, and by the time it ends, I suspect, politics will be different in the United States and a lot of other places as well.
In a great many countries, especially in the West, the political grass is dry. Huge numbers of young people are unemployed, governments are launching harsh and unpopular austerity programs, and the financial elites responsible for the global economic meltdown have almost entirely escaped justice. Millions of articulate, educated, tech-savvy people are enraged and desperate. And they have time on their hands.
To understand this movement’s potential, it’s worth comparing it with the other spasms of global leftist activism in the past half-century. The last time we saw anything on this scale was the late 1960s, when anti-government protests broke out from Berkeley to Paris to Mexico City to Prague.Read the source story here.
Huffington Post
Tax cuts for America’s top earners are costing everyone, every hour of every day, a new report from the National Priorities Project finds.
Tax cuts for the wealthiest five percent of Americans cost the U.S. Treasury $11.6 million every hour, according to the National Priorities Project. America’s top earners will get an average tax cut of $66,384 in 2011, while the bottom 20 percent will get an average cut of $107.
The report comes as party leaders wrangle over the best way to curb the nation’s budget deficit, protesters around the world demonstrate against income inequality and corporate greed and Republican presidential candidates offer their economic plans to voters.Read the source story here.
Think ProgressLast week, two Senate Democrats joined Senate Republicans to filubuster President Obama’s jobs plan, even though analysts have found that it could add 1.9 million jobs next year. Now, Democratic lawmakers have decided to introduce Obama’s plan piece-by-piece, beginning with Obama’s $35 billion aid package “to help state and local governments provide funding for teachers, police officers and firefighters” that would create or save about 400,000 jobs.
The first measure will be well received by the public, as a new CNN poll found that, for the past two months, about 75 percent of the American people support this measure.
Read the source story here.
The Stranger
[...] Occupy Seattle is genuinely inclusive and moving, but it needs leadership. The passion and energy of the early days were spectacular, but the organization—which requires lengthy "general assemblies" to make decisions by consensus, and sometimes issues conflicting "official" announcements—is now having some real growing pains as the movement struggles to keep its headless, everyone-is-a-leader communal spirit. They don't need a Gandhi, just an organized, smart, ambitious team of people.
David Freiboth, executive secretary of the King County Labor Council, says that unions intend to "organize [the Occupy protests] a little bit more," but he wants to make clear that he respects how far the movement has already come: "I think these people are doing a pretty damn good job," he says. Service Employees International Union 775 president David Rolf adds, "We can lend our support, but this is not ours. We didn't invent it. We can just admire it and put people and resources into motion." While Rolf's wariness of stepping on toes is admirable—unions are the 800-pound gorillas of the protest movement—some of that institutional strength and decision-making power is just what the Occupy movement needs.
Make no mistake: What these protesters started, what the brave occupiers who are camped out at Westlake right now are keeping alive for us, is absolutely real. It is going somewhere. It's not going away. But it is time for the organizers in Westlake to meet with the professionals and let the Occupy movement grow into what it must become: Something that will change everything.Read the source story here.
Think Progress
This November, Ohioans will vote on Issue 2 to decide whether Gov. John Kasich’s (R-OH) anti-workers’ rights law Senate Bill 5 should remain on the books. After a few serious stumbles, the conservative group Building a Better Ohio brought in the big guns — also known as former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee — to gin up voter support for the deeply unpopular law.
Speaking to a crowd of 350 in Mason, OH, Mason Buzz reports that Huckabee jokingly offered an eyebrow-raising way to help ensure victory on Issue 2: suppress the vote. Encouraging supporters to call friends and ask if they’re voting for Issue 2, he joked, “If they say no, well, you just make sure that they don’t go vote. Let the air out of their tires on election day. Tell them the election has been moved to a different date,” he said. “That’s up to you how you creatively get the job done."
Read the source story here.
AFL-CIO Now Blog
Across the country, voters in a number of states will face obstacles to casting ballots in the 2012 elections, in large part because of model legislation drafted by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the organization backed by, among others, billionaires Charles and David Koch. It was ALEC’s draft legislation that inspired a spate of recently passed voter ID laws that, if allowed to stand, are expected to marginalize the impact of students and people of color at the polls in Texas, South Carolina, Wisconsin, Tennessee and Kansas. (Under the Texas law, for example, a college ID is not an acceptable form of identification for voting, but a military ID is.)
In a recent article published at The American Prospect, author Patrick Caldwell sheds light on ALEC’s M.O. For all the talk about preventing voter fraud—which was been shown to be a minimal threat to voting integrity—these new laws appear to be more about deciding just what kind of person gets to vote.
One of the most jarring examples of ALEC’s influence is the recent overturning of Maine’s longstanding same-day voting law by a newly elected Republican legislature. Maine’s law had been on the books since 1973, allowing the state to boast a much higher level of civic participation than the nation at large.Read the source story here.
Crooks and Liars
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) did his best Sunday to appear on the side of protesters in the Occupy movement after recently calling them "growing mobs."
"I, for one, am increasingly concerned about the growing mobs occupying Wall Street and the other cities across the country," the Virginia Republican had told a conservative crowd at the Values Voter Summit last week.
But only a week later, Cantor wasn't willing to double down on those remarks.
"Congressman, do you stand by that comment about mobs?" Fox News' Chris Wallace asked.
"Chris, I think more important than my use of that word is that there is a growing frustration across this country and it's warranted," Cantor replied. "Too many people are out of work. But where I'm most concerned is, we have elected leaders in this town who, frankly, are joining in an effort to blame others rather than focusing on the policies that have brought about the current frustration."Read the source story here.
The Political Carnival
From the Department of Neener Nanner:
By a 67 – 23 percent margin, New York City voters agree with the views of the Wall Street protesters and say 87 – 10 percent that it is “okay that they are protesting,” according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.Ruh-roh! Even Republicans support the right of those dirty, smelly, disorganized, unfocused, socialist, Marxist hippies to do their thing.
Agreeing with the protesters views are Democrats 81 – 11 percent and independent voters 58 – 30 percent, while Republicans disagree 58 – 35 percent, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds. Even Republicans, however, agree 73 – 23 percent with the protesters right to be there.
Read the source story here.
The New York Times
[...] In dozens of towns across Ohio, rival sides have set up phone banks and door-knocking efforts. Unions and their allies have created We Are Ohio, a group that is leading the repeal effort, which has 10,000 volunteers and hopes a victory will discourage Republicans in other states from adopting anti-union legislation. Mr. Kasich’s allies have created Building a Better Ohio, financed by business and conservative donors, to block repeal.
In many ways Senate Bill 5 goes further than the antibargaining law that Wisconsin’s Republican-led Legislature enacted in March over the protests of tens of thousands of union supporters. Ohio’s law allows only limited bargaining: If management and union do not reach a settlement, then city councils and school boards can impose their side’s final contract offer unilaterally. The Ohio law bans binding arbitration and bargaining on health coverage, pensions or staffing levels. It also requires government workers to pay at least 15 percent of their health insurance costs and pay 10 percent of their salaries toward their pensions.
The Ohio Senate president, Thomas E. Niehaus, who is campaigning against repeal, said, “These are reasonable reforms asking our public sector employees to do what private sector employees have been doing for decades: paying more for their health care and their pension benefits.” He denied that the bill eviscerated collective bargaining. “We are reforming collective bargaining,” he said.
But one prominent Republican opponent of Senate Bill 5, State Senator Bill Seitz, said the bill all but erased collective bargaining by letting management decide which side’s final offer would prevail. He said it was like “going to divorce court and finding out your wife’s father is the judge.”Read the source story here.
The Political Carnival
You can see more money that speaks for the 99% here, at Occupy George.
Read the source story here.
We Party Patriots
While the issues that resonate the loudest through the various #OccupyWallStreet protests surround bank bailouts, dirty housing foreclosure tactics and crony relationships with politicians, a new report from the Consumer Federation of America indicates that the price of oil has been artificially driven up (…way up) by Wall Street speculation as well, resulting in a direct pocketbook pinch for everyday Americans.
Read the source story here.
The Daily News
Saying the longshore union's "illegal actions" shouldn't be rewarded or encouraged, the operating engineers union hired to run the EGT grain terminal has written the Cowlitz County commissioners to explain their side of the contentious jobs battle.
"ILWU's threats and harassment of our members must stop and must not be rewarded," reads a letter signed by Mark Holliday, business manager for the Gladstone, Ore.-based International Union of Operating Engineers Local 701. The union was hired by Federal Way-based contractor General Construction Co., in July to staff the EGT terminal. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 21 contends its members should get those jobs.
[...] ILWU officials said Friday that their beef isn't with the operating engineers.
"Operating Engineers Local 701 and their employer, General Construction, is not an issue for the ILWU in this dispute," said Leal Sundet, ILWU coast committeeman. "The ILWU's dispute is directly with EGT."
Read the source story here.
The Tri-City Herald
Since this past spring, almost 2,000 Hanford workers have lost their jobs, most of those within the past month, as work paid for with economic stimulus money is finished. Although the end of Recovery Act spending drove the layoffs, it wasn’t just the new hires who lost their jobs. For union workers, it was last in, first out. But for nonunion workers, contractors decided who to keep.
Read the source story here.
- The Washington Post:
Obama to GOP: Rolling back Wall Street reform is not a `jobs plan' - The Political Carnival:
1000+ Occupy Wall Street protesters arrested as bankers avoid major prosecutions - The Seattle Times:
8 arrested, tents cleared today at Occupy Seattle - Puget Sound Business Journal:
Most business groups oppose Eyman's tolling initiative - Teamster Nation:
Teamsters Occupy St. Louis -- and Detroit, and Eugene, and Nashville - AFL-CIO Now Blog:
Hundreds of America Wants to Work Week of Actions Nationwide - The Stranger:
Occupy: Over 70,000 Protesters, Mostly Nonvoting Liberals - The Washington Post:
Chart: Fewer Americans have access to basic necessities - Huffington Post:
Occupy Wall Street Protests Spread To Europe, Asia - AFL-CIO Now Blog:
Ship Pilots, Machinists, Deputy Sheriffs, Bakers and Communication Techs Join AFL-CIO Unions - Think Progress:
Billionaire Investor Warren Buffett Would Pay No Income Tax Under Cain's 999 Plan - The Stranger:
Comparing What Costco's Liquor Initiative Promises to What It Actually Delivers - The Political Carnival:
Life-long Texas GOP Latino Leader Leaves Party After Cain Advocates the Death of Immigrants - AFL-CIO Now Blog:
1,000 Ohioans Hit Streets to Strike Down Issue 2 - The Stranger:
Stop Comparing Occupy Wall Street to Tea Party - ICEM:
Iranian Petrochemical Workers Strike, Demanding Elimination of Subcontractors - AFL-CIO Now Blog:
UAW Members Ratify Pact with Oshkosh—and More Bargaining News - The Washington Post:
Grover Norquist calls 9-9-9 'very dangerous' - The American Independent:
Occupy Colorado Springs continues to gain support - The American Independent:
Occupy Miami picks up union support - Publicola:
Labor Relations: Labor and Occupy Seattle - AFL-CIO Now Blog:
Labor Lab Examines PATCO Strike's Impact on Collective Bargaining, Then and Now - The Washington Post:
Herman Cain's know-nothing foreign policy (and why it matters)