Labor-community economic agenda released
The Stand
Posted November 22, 2011
After consulting with its affiliated unions and community allies, the Washington State Labor Council will try something new in the special legislative session that begins Nov. 28 and the 2012 session. The WSLC will pursue a budget agenda in coordination with community, religious and small business groups that share labor’s concerns about all-cuts budgets harming our families and Washington’s economic future, and that agree that significant investment in public infrastructure is needed to create jobs now.

[...] Labor and other groups are joining together to demand that our primary task as a state must be to protect our communities by investing in jobs and public necessities, like education and health care.  In recent weeks, the WSLC and its allies have been reaching out to various organizations to urge their support for preserving our quality of life and rebuilding a strong state economy by pursuing the following agenda (PDF format):

1. Substantially increase revenue and utilize revenue bonding to protect critical services and jobs in education, health care and public safety.

2. Create 30,000 direct jobs, and many more indirectly, by building and repairing community assets — including public buildings, bridges, state parks, water and irrigation systems, and college campuses — with a $2 billion general obligation bond on the spring ballot.

3. End unjustified tax breaks that don’t create jobs, and reform our tax break system to make it more transparent and accountable.

The WSLC will join various community, religious and small business groups in explaining these proposals in more detail in coming weeks and in urging state lawmakers to end the partisan posturing, abandon the failed all-cuts approach to this crisis, and to fight to restore jobs, our quality of life and our economic future in Washington.
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What the Labor Movement Can Learn From an Art Auction
Truthout
Posted November 22, 2011
For those of us who go to union rallies, the action may seem a bit peculiar. Most rallies these days lack the kind of passion and disruptive intensity that you will see if you watch the Sotheby's protest. The typical union picket mostly consists of people walking in a tightly fenced-in circle, chanting about fighting back. That is certainly better than no union picket at all - which is what employers want. But Occupy Wall Street has clearly injected a new set of more innovative tactics into labor's arsenal here in New York City.

In the weeks leading up to the November 9 protest, there were a number of other disruptions in the auction house. A retired Teamster was arrested for a direct action after he managed to enter the building and cause a bit of a commotion once inside, and a few of Sotheby's board member Daniel Meyer's restaurants were similarly disrupted. On the night of November 9, however, the tactics were amplified. Nearly 300 people, by my estimate, crowded along the sidewalk outside of the Sotheby's building to thumb their noses at the patrons of the auction house on its biggest night of the year.
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Across The Country, Faith Groups Rally To Support Living Wage Legislation
Think Progress
Posted November 22, 2011
Across the country, groups pushing for living wage legislation are finding powerful allies in religious leaders and faith groups that are flocking to join the fight. Case in point, a rally in New York City urging the City Council to raise wages at city-subsidized projects got a big boost today from the support of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York:

Msgr. Kevin Sullivan, executive director of Catholic Charities, is scheduled to speak at a rally on Monday organized by a coalition of religious, labor and community leaders to urge the passage of the bill, originally introduced last year by two City Council members from the Bronx.[...]

[H]e added that the rally on Monday, at Riverside Church, would provide an appropriate setting for the archdiocese to address economic hardship and unemployment, matters of utmost concern to the church.[...]

“We’re going to speak about how this economic crisis continues to hurt everybody in society, particularly the poor,” the monsignor said. “We need to make sure there are decent jobs with decent wages.”

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Santorum: Labor Unions Are Force For Good…If You're Iranian
Talking Points Memo
Posted November 22, 2011
IOWA — This may be the ultimate NIMBY moment: At a campaign stop here yesterday, Rick Santorum proposed offering federal government support for labor unions, which he said created a social good.

In Iran.

Discussing his plans for the bogeyman of the moment, Iran, Santorum outlined a three-pronged strategy to pressure and weaken the regime that many fear could develop a nuclear weapon soon. First in Santorum’s plan as he explained it to about a dozen voters in Ottumwa, IA Friday is a tough regime of sanctions against Iran. Third is covert military action against Iranian facilities and nuclear scientists.

But here’s number two, in full:

Work with the pro-democracy groups. There’s been some activity in Iran in the last few weeks. Explosions that have been unexplained. A couple of leaders of the Green Revolution have been arrested. There’s some fomenting going and, and there’s strikes going on. We should have several avenues of getting money into Iran to help striking labor unions, to give them money so they can keep out on strike and disrupt the government and try to create the revolutionary atmosphere there. Because we need to get rid of Mullahs and get rid of the theocracy that’s in charge there.

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Occupy Wall Street protesters finish journey from Zuccotti Park to D.C.
The Washington Post
Posted November 22, 2011
Almost two weeks ago, 21 Occupy Wall Street protesters decided to take the movement on the road, in a march from New York’s Zuccotti Park to the White House. Their goal: to spread the movement to the 12 cities and small towns they would pass through along the way, and to protest the supercommittee’s likely decision to retain Bush tax cuts “for the rich,” or “one percent.”

The protesters embarked on the 231-mile-trek with a $3,000 check from Occupy Wall Street. But the marchers soon found they didn’t need the money, as they received donations of food and cash, cigarettes and deodorant from local residents and passersby. Occupy movements also sprang up or grew larger in their wake in places such as New Brunswick and Trenton, N.J.

While some of the original 21 marchers dropped out because of missing toenails, shin splints or fevers, new marchers have since joined, so that more than twice as many protesters will arrive in Washington Tuesday.
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UC Davis chancellor sorry for pepper-spray incident
The Raw Story
Posted November 22, 2011
A University of California chancellor apologized to jeering students on Monday for police use of pepper spray against campus protesters in a standoff captured by video and widely replayed on television and the Internet.

The pepper-spraying last week led to suspensions of the campus police chief and two officers, and thrust the normally quiet, conservative and mostly apolitical UC Davis campus to the forefront of anti-Wall Street “Occupy” protests nationwide.

[...] An hours-long rally on Monday, attended by well over 1,000 students, faculty members and even parents, was capped by demonstrators pitching at least a dozen tents in the center of the school, again defying rules forbidding such encampments.

Taking the stage following a parade of speakers who railed against her, Katehi told the crowd: “I’m here to apologize. I really feel horrible for what happened on Friday.” Many in the audience answered with boos and catcalls.
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Former UW Assistant Chief of Police Annette Spicuzza Placed on Administrative Leave (from Job as UC Davis Chief of Police)
The Stranger
Posted November 22, 2011
Three days after her officers brutally pepper sprayed peaceful student protesters on the University of California Davis campus, UC Davis police chief Annette Spicuzza has been placed on paid administrative leave pending further investigation. As the headline notes, Spicuzza had served as the assistant chief of police at the University of Washington, from 2000 to 2005.
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170 Economists Sign Statement In Support Of Occupy Wall Street
Think Progress
Posted November 22, 2011
Crooks and Liars’ Susie Madrak points out that Econ4.org has posted an open letter from economists in support of Occupy Wall Street. Now, 170 economists have signed it. The economists complain about the right-wing dominance of the economics profession and say they support a “vision of building an economy that works for the people, for the planet, and for the future“:

We are economists who oppose ideological cleansing in the economics profession. Equally we oppose political cleansing in the vital debate over the causes and consequences of our current economic crisis. We support the efforts of the Occupy Wall Street movement across the country and across the globe to liberate the economy from the short-term greed of the rich and powerful “one percent”.

We oppose cynical and perverse attempts to misuse our police officers and public servants to expel advocates of the public good from our public spaces. We extend our support to the vision of building an economy that works for the people, for the planet, and for the future, and we declare our solidarity with the Occupiers who are exercising our democratic right to demand economic and social justice.

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Responsible Investors Group Backs Occupy Wall Street Goals
AFL-CIO Now Blog
Posted November 22, 2011
Some of those in the 1 percent are stepping forward to express their support for the 99 percent, agreeing with Occupy Wall Street protesters that the nation’s financial system is seriously harming our economy. The latest to indicate their support for the 99 percent are the financially savvy members of the Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment, who are calling for greater corporate transparency, restraint of excessive payouts to executives and support for the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The consumer bureau does not yet have a director because Senate Republicans have blocked a vote on the nomination of Richard Cordray to lead the agency.

Lisa Woll, CEO of US SIF (as the Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment is also known) expressed solidarity with the Occupy protesters:

The Occupy movement occurring across the country, and indeed, around the world, speaks to many of the issues and concerns raised by sustainable and responsible investors over the past several decades—and particularly since the unfolding of the recent financial crisis.

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Republicans on Super Committee Stood with the Bush Tax Cuts for the 1%
AFL-CIO Now blog
Posted November 22, 2011
This evening’s announcement that the Super Committee on the federal deficit was unable to reach an agreement shows that the Republicans on the committee “have once again shown that if they can’t get their way, they take their marbles and go home,” says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.“Getting their way” he says, means making the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy permanent, letting the top 1 percent off the hook on deficit reduction.

Getting their way means driving the economy further into a ditch—letting Wall Street run amok, refusing to take responsibility for their actions, and blaming everyone else. This, in a nutshell, is how our economy got broken in the first place. 

Trumka says “If we want to fix our economy and put America back to work, we have to start focusing on the 99 percent, not the 1 percent.”
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No, 'both sides' aren't equally to blame for supercommittee failure
Greg Sargent, in The Washington Post
Posted November 22, 2011
Here’s why the supercommittee is failing, in one sentence: Democrats wanted the rich to pay more in taxes towards deficit reduction, and Republicans wanted the rich to pay less in taxes towards deficit reduction.

Any news outlet that doesn’t convey this basic fact to readers and viewers with total clarity is obscuring, rather than illuminating, what actually happened here.
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10 Biggest Banks Could Lose $185 Billion In Deposits Next Year As Customers Move Their Money
Think Progress
Posted November 22, 2011
During “Bank Transfer Day” earlier this month, 40,000 Americans moved their money from the nation’s biggest banks to credit unions, voicing their distaste with the action’s of America’s financial behemoths. About 650,000 Americans joined credit unions in October, which is more people than in all of 2010 combined. According to cg42, a consulting firm that does work for the biggest banks, “the nation’s 10 biggest banks could stand to lose as much as $185 billion in deposits in the next year due to customer defections.” Of the banks, “Bank of America is the most vulnerable and could lose up to 10% of its customers and $42 billion in consumer deposits in the next year.”
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New Census Data Show Many in Middle Class Are 'Near Poor'
AFL-CIO Now Blog
Posted November 22, 2011
When the U.S. Census Bureau retooled its formula for determining the number of poor people living in the United States, the number the bureau estimated to be living in poverty shot up from 46.1 million to 49.1 million. Now that reformulation is shining a light on the vast numbers of people who appear to be middle class but who actually fall into a category called the “near poor.”

The new numbers reveal a grim portrait of Americans living paycheck to paycheck, often without access to health care, many behind the middle-class exterior of a suburban home. According to the new data, some 51 million Americans receive incomes that are just 50 percent higher than the official poverty line—a figure that is 76 percent higher than the previous measure, according to The New York Times, which reports:

All told, that places 100 million people—one in three Americans—either in poverty or in the fretful zone just above it.

Roughly half of the people who fall into the “near poor” category live in the suburbs, and half live in households headed by a married couple. A sizable number—28 percent—work full time.
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50% of all capital gains go to top One Percent
Teamster Nation
Posted November 22, 2011
America was sold on the idea that cutting the capital gains tax would create jobs. Instead, it created massive inequality and, now, social unrest.

Robert Lenzner at Forbes reports that,

Capital gains are the key ingredient of income disparity in the US– and the force behind the winner takes all mantra of our economic system. If you want even out earning power in the U.S, you have to raise the 15% capital gains tax.

Income and wealth disparities become even more absurd if we look at the top 0.1% of the nation’s earners– rather than the more common 1%. The top 0.1%– about 315,000 individuals out of 315 million– are making about half of all capital gains on the sale of shares or property after 1 year; and these capital gains make up 60% of the income made by the Forbes 400.

It’s crystal clear that the Bush tax reduction on capital gains and dividend income in 2003 was the cutting edge policy that has created the immense increase in net worth of corporate executives, Wall St. professionals and other entrepreneurs.

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Killing the American Dream: Top Five Efforts by Conservatives to Make It Harder to Escape Poverty
Center for American Progress
Posted November 22, 2011
Americans across our nation recognize that the wealthiest 1 percent made out like bandits during the Great Recession and are doing just fine today while the other 99 percent of us struggle to make ends meet amid the slow economic recovery. But it’s also important to focus on what conservative policymakers are proposing to do to those among us who are at the very bottom of the economic ladder.

Conservative policymakers are developing proposals and policies that would help lock Americans living in poverty out of the American Dream. Here are the top five dream killers from just the past 30 days.
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Occupy protest poster art: Part II
Daily Kos
Posted November 22, 2011
If you'd like to read more about political poster art, you can find some good material at Social Design Notes, Design History and Art for a Change. If you're in the Los Angeles area, I highly recommend a trip to the Center for the Study  of Political Graphics. They have an open house scheduled for Dec. 3.

Other places to check in are Occupy Design: Building a Visual Language for the 99%, the Propaganda Remix Project, Political Loudmouth, the fabulous Just Seeds Artists Cooperative, Robbie Conal and Conal's extremely useful Guerrilla Etiquette + Postering Techniques. And, finally, if you haven't seen Clarknt67's diary, Best Thing On The Internet Today, you are missing out.

Here are a few to get  you started.

Read the source story here.

Will GOP NLRB Member Resign to Shut Down Labor Agency?
In These Times
Posted November 22, 2011
On November 30, the National Labor Relations Board is scheduled to vote on proposed rule changes that would speed up union elections by disallowing some appeals until after a workplace vote occurs. Employers typically aim to delay an election so that they can use the time to intimidate employees to voting against a union.

But that vote may never take place, because some conservative members of Congress are pushing a plan that would force the NLRB, which is an independent federal agency tasked with enforcing labor law, to shut down. There are currently three people serving on the NLRB; if that is reduced by one, the body will be unable to issue valid rulings.

In New Process Steel, L.P. vs National Labor Relations Board, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2010 that the NLRB cannot decide cases with only two members on the NLRB. For 27 months, during the last year of President Bush’s term and the first 14 months of the Obama administration, the NLRB only had two members (a Democrat and a Republican). The two members agreed to work together on common sense cases where they could easily agree on a ruling; they passed judgment in nearly 600 cases.

But the Supreme Court invalidated all those rulings because they were made with only two members. Therefore, some conservative politicians such as South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and prominent right-wing blogs such as RedState.com are pushing for Republican NLRB Board Member Brian Hayes to resign before the vote for the rules is issued on November 30, which would effectively shut down the agency.
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