On Tuesday, September 27, from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. (local time), members of the four employee Unions of the
United States Postal Service—
• American Postal Workers Union
• National Association of Letter Carriers
• National Postal Mail Handlers Union
• National Rural Letter Carriers' Association
—will join forces with members of our communities to send a message to the nation and its Congress.
We are proud to announce the participation of the National Association of Postal Supervisors (NAPS) in the effort to Save America's Postal Service. Click here to read their entire statement.
During these informational rallies, we will visit the home office of each member of the House of Representatives.
We will thank those members who have signed on as 200 co-sponsors of H.R. 1351, a bill that addresses the financial crisis facing the Postal Service.
And we will encourage those who have not signed as co-sponsors of H.R. 1351 to do so.
Join us!
Friday, September 23, 2011
NURSES STRIKE for SAFETY
Watch our rallies on Live stream http://www.ustream.tv/channel/national-nurses-united
For Immediate Release
23,000 California RNs on One-Day Strike Today
Nearly 23,000 registered nurses are a one-day today at 34 Northern and Central California hospitals saying they will not accept attacks on RN rights to speak out for patients or cuts in healthcare or retiree coverage for nurses or other hospital workers.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka spoke earlier at a rally with striking nurses – it can be viewed live at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/national-nurses-united.
The walkout affects two of the biggest and wealthiest hospital chains in California, Sutter Health and Kaiser Permanente, as well as Children’s Hospital in Oakland. The RNs are members of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United. The strike ends at 7 a.m.
Friday though Sutter and Children’s have announced plans for a punitive lockout of nurses to extend the dispute. RNs on the picket line at Sutter’s Alta Bates Summit hospital in Oakland Sutter nurses will be protesting up to 200 sweeping demands for concessions that they say would, among other concerns, restrict their ability to effectively advocate for patients against the budget focused priorities of Sutter managers and effectively force nurses to work when sick, dangerously exposing extremely ill patients to infection.
Additionally, Sutter RNs oppose Sutter management’s bid to reduce nurses’ healthcare coverage and retiree health benefits, and a broad array of other contract concessions. The Sutter RNs are also protesting years of widespread cuts in patient care services that they say have restricted access to needed medical care for thousands of Northern California communities and left a trail of broken promises by Sutter executives. NNU has long challenged this market-based program of cuts in patient services, one reason Sutter has singled out RNs for retaliation with the draconian demands it has made to nurses, charges CNA. “Nurses will never be silenced in standing up for our patients and our communities, or our members and our families,” says Children’s Oakland RN Martha Kuhl. RNs picketing at Kaiser Permanente hospital in Sacramento At Kaiser, the RNs are walking out in a sympathy strike to support Kaiser co-workers who are facing management demands for deep cuts in their health coverage and retirement plans. Children’s Oakland RNs will be on strike for the third time in a year over what they call punitive management efforts to cut their health coverage as well with demands they say would make it prohibitively expensive for nurses to bring their own children to get care at the hospital where they work.
Children’s has also refused to address the safe staffing issues of charge nurses not having a patient assignment and providing break relief at times when it does not interfere with patient care needs in the professional judgment of the nurse. Speaking for many striking RNs, Kuhl, notes, “They are taking advantage of the economic times and trying to roll back improvements we have won over many years through our CNA contract. Everyone deserves healthcare and if nurses can't afford healthcare, who will be able to? I am a caregiver and patient advocate and that extends into my community as well."
“Everyone deserves high quality health care, and retirement security, whether you are a registered nurse, another caregiver, or any other American, that should be the hallmark of a humane and caring society,” adds CNA Co-President Zenei Cortez, RN who heads the Kaiser CNA Joint Bargaining Council. “We staunchly refuse to be silenced on patient care protections,” said Sharon Tobin, a RN at Sutter Mills-Peninsula in Burlingame. “A common theme throughout management’s proposals is removing our presence on committees that address important patient care issues and nursing practices. As nurses, we speak up, and we insist on standards that safeguard our patients, but Sutter doesn’t want to hear about anything that might cut into their huge profits.” Like Sutter, Kaiser is extremely wealthy, and hardly needs to be exacting severe cuts from employees, reporting over $1.9 billion in profits last year alone.
“When we are all struggling to keep our head above water it is unconscionable for Kaiser Permanente to attempt to extract cuts from direct healthcare workers,” said Catherine Kennedy, who is a neonatal intensive care nursery RN at Kaiser Roseville. “If Kaiser wants to cut, it should be from the 14 Kaiser executives who are making over $1 million dollars a year, not the healthcare employees who have devoted themselves to the patients and the community.”
--
Dr. Bill Honigman
Progressive Democrats of America (PDA)
www.pdamerica.org
California State Coordinator
and Orange County Chapter Leader
PDA Healthcare For All Issue Organizing Team (IOT)
For Immediate Release
23,000 California RNs on One-Day Strike Today
Nearly 23,000 registered nurses are a one-day today at 34 Northern and Central California hospitals saying they will not accept attacks on RN rights to speak out for patients or cuts in healthcare or retiree coverage for nurses or other hospital workers.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka spoke earlier at a rally with striking nurses – it can be viewed live at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/national-nurses-united.
The walkout affects two of the biggest and wealthiest hospital chains in California, Sutter Health and Kaiser Permanente, as well as Children’s Hospital in Oakland. The RNs are members of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United. The strike ends at 7 a.m.
Friday though Sutter and Children’s have announced plans for a punitive lockout of nurses to extend the dispute. RNs on the picket line at Sutter’s Alta Bates Summit hospital in Oakland Sutter nurses will be protesting up to 200 sweeping demands for concessions that they say would, among other concerns, restrict their ability to effectively advocate for patients against the budget focused priorities of Sutter managers and effectively force nurses to work when sick, dangerously exposing extremely ill patients to infection.
Additionally, Sutter RNs oppose Sutter management’s bid to reduce nurses’ healthcare coverage and retiree health benefits, and a broad array of other contract concessions. The Sutter RNs are also protesting years of widespread cuts in patient care services that they say have restricted access to needed medical care for thousands of Northern California communities and left a trail of broken promises by Sutter executives. NNU has long challenged this market-based program of cuts in patient services, one reason Sutter has singled out RNs for retaliation with the draconian demands it has made to nurses, charges CNA. “Nurses will never be silenced in standing up for our patients and our communities, or our members and our families,” says Children’s Oakland RN Martha Kuhl. RNs picketing at Kaiser Permanente hospital in Sacramento At Kaiser, the RNs are walking out in a sympathy strike to support Kaiser co-workers who are facing management demands for deep cuts in their health coverage and retirement plans. Children’s Oakland RNs will be on strike for the third time in a year over what they call punitive management efforts to cut their health coverage as well with demands they say would make it prohibitively expensive for nurses to bring their own children to get care at the hospital where they work.
Children’s has also refused to address the safe staffing issues of charge nurses not having a patient assignment and providing break relief at times when it does not interfere with patient care needs in the professional judgment of the nurse. Speaking for many striking RNs, Kuhl, notes, “They are taking advantage of the economic times and trying to roll back improvements we have won over many years through our CNA contract. Everyone deserves healthcare and if nurses can't afford healthcare, who will be able to? I am a caregiver and patient advocate and that extends into my community as well."
“Everyone deserves high quality health care, and retirement security, whether you are a registered nurse, another caregiver, or any other American, that should be the hallmark of a humane and caring society,” adds CNA Co-President Zenei Cortez, RN who heads the Kaiser CNA Joint Bargaining Council. “We staunchly refuse to be silenced on patient care protections,” said Sharon Tobin, a RN at Sutter Mills-Peninsula in Burlingame. “A common theme throughout management’s proposals is removing our presence on committees that address important patient care issues and nursing practices. As nurses, we speak up, and we insist on standards that safeguard our patients, but Sutter doesn’t want to hear about anything that might cut into their huge profits.” Like Sutter, Kaiser is extremely wealthy, and hardly needs to be exacting severe cuts from employees, reporting over $1.9 billion in profits last year alone.
“When we are all struggling to keep our head above water it is unconscionable for Kaiser Permanente to attempt to extract cuts from direct healthcare workers,” said Catherine Kennedy, who is a neonatal intensive care nursery RN at Kaiser Roseville. “If Kaiser wants to cut, it should be from the 14 Kaiser executives who are making over $1 million dollars a year, not the healthcare employees who have devoted themselves to the patients and the community.”
--
Dr. Bill Honigman
Progressive Democrats of America (PDA)
www.pdamerica.org
California State Coordinator
and Orange County Chapter Leader
PDA Healthcare For All Issue Organizing Team (IOT)
Thursday, September 8, 2011
LIFEBOAT Option
F o r t H o p eby William Floyd, PDWAmerica
In the middle of the 1930s Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt took the United States off the Gold Standard. 10 million workers were unemployed for 4 or more years. Neither mom and pop businesses nor conglomerates had customers.
FDR started the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), the National Recovery Administration (NRA), and the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The Federal government directly hired 11 million unemployed (and starving) Citizens.
To pay for this crisis emergency, Roosevelt doubled the currency of the United States.
After WWII, these US dollars were retired and the Gold Standard was re-adopted.
However, decades later, after killing over 1 million Vietnamese, 58,000 Americans dead, and years sinking trillions of dollars into the Vietnam quicksand, President Richard Nixon took the United States off the Gold Standard once and for all in 1973.
Today, our Gold sits in FORT KNOX performing no government function. Our Gross Domestic Product, central role in global trade less our Debt are the basis for the Dollar's fluctuation.
The British sold half of their “Strategic Gold Reserves” in 1999. At it's current stratospheric level, our Fort Knox Gold is worth about $6.5 trillion dollars. $6,500,000,000,000.
President Obama as Executive in Chief can sell a portion of this Fort Knox Gold. Our President could directly hire 20 million long term unemployed Americans for about $450 Billion per year. He can continue this growingly popular “Obama's Hire America First Program” for 2 to 3 years, if necessary, without raising Taxes. Excuse our repetition: “Without-raising-taxes,” or tea party cloned faxes.
It might be prudent to pay down the Cheney War deficits, and chronic damage from Bush's wealthy tax breaks with a 2nd small portion of our Fort Knox Gold.
This Fort Hope program is presented as the “Lifeboat Option” by Union leaders, shop stewards, and Democratic Party leaders of
Progressive Democratic Workers for America, 9/5/11.
http://PDWAmerica.blogspot.com
JUSTICE Option
Justice Option
by William Floyd, PDWA
Temporary Income Maximum Excise - T.I.M.E.
Whereas the majority of Republicans in the 212th Congress signed allegiance to the Club for Growth's rejection of all Revenue sources for Federal government expenses. This is a violation of their Oath of Office to Defend the Constitution (raise necessary funds for the U.S. Government).
Be it resolved, that for a temporary period of two (2) years, all personal income and capital gains in excess of $2,000,000. (2 million dollars) annually, shall enjoy an Income/Capital gains Tax rate of 100%.
Furthermore, all pay, salaries, or bonuses, stock option payouts, foreign delivery schemes, as well as any other future compensation, stock, pay or bonus, intended or unintended to circumvent this timely Law, shall be punishable as a 20 year felony under the United States Code.
This T.I.M.E. legislation is submitted to the Progressive Caucus 9-5-11 as the
'Justice Option'
by Union executives, shop stewards and Democratic Party leaders of the
Save the Post Office
Fixing the United States Postal Service
by William Floyd, NALC Shop Steward, ret.
The first Postal roads connected Boston to New York and then to on to Philadelphia, in the late 1600s. President George Washington established the first Postmaster General to oversee all the village Post Offices and Post Roads in 1789. Today, we can choose from Fed Ex or United Parcel, or dozens of other delivery options. However, for over 100 million Americans, the NALC Mail Carrier brings important personal family messages and cards. At the same time, the Union carrier often represents the only friendly contact people have with their Government. The secure careers in the Postal Service have been favored by War Veterans. Especially Veterans of color. The Post Office was a safe haven from discriminatory practices, and whites-only rules and Laws in too many small towns and private businesses.
Congress and US Postal Service claim USPS is in the red for $4+ Billion.
Liquidate ONE Hundred Billion Dollars of Fort Knox Gold 1
Absolutely NO Layoffs of NALC, APWU, nor any other Union workers
Raise Retirement/Health benefits 22% from last NALC/APWU contracts
Co-Sponsor House bill HR 1351 – Stephen Lynch, 193 Co-Sponsors
Hire Two million Youth under 25: New Postal Assistants (NPAs)
Longest unemployed Youth hired first, inner cities, barrios, suburbs
NPAs deliver Christmas packages, Special Delivery, Registered mail
NPAs Ride Bicycles (where, and when practical)
NPAs learn to fix, and later maintain their own, and Team Bikes
One third of NPA income can be diverted to Parents-in-poverty,
separated spouses with children, or disabled family members.
Saturday and Half-Sunday delivery, clerical duties by the new NPAs
*******************************************************
Initiate new Postal Service SAVINGS ACCOUNTS for the general public, and possible 'victims-of-banking-by-phony-mortgage-papers'.
Fund Postal Service MICRO-LOANS to Micro businesses, Women's and small businesses for the poor, Senior Art or Activity centers, and Centers for our maimed heroes from the Wars, and their children.
PAY – GO
PDWAmerica is committed to paying for each and every program. No risky private stock accounts for Social Security or Medicare crucial to blind, deaf, IED flamed Vets, and Iraq/Afghanistan para / quadriplegics.
Liquidate ONE Hundred Billion Dollars of Fort Knox Gold
1 - Please see “Lifeboat Option” by W. Floyd PDWA
Submitted by AFL-CIO unions, NALC shop stewards, and Veterans of Progressive Democratic Workers for America
FORD Unemployed Hunger March of 1932
The FORD unemployed workers proceeded across the Baby Creek Bridge, and gathered at the corner of Fort Street and Miller Road. A dense throng around a waiting truck.
[The marchers numbered about 3000. They were led by progressive Union leaders Albert Goetz, Tony Gerlach, and William Reynolds from the Union and the Detroit Unemployed Council. -pdwa]
They were still in Detroit. Albert Goetz swung up on the truck and began to speak. He restated the purpose of their march: to have a committee present their demands to the FORD Motor Company. He called on the workers to form an orderly and disciplined march.
“We don't want any violence,” he said sharply. “Remember, all we are going to do is to walk to the FORD Employment Office. No trouble. No fighting. Stay in line. Be orderly.”
Goetz paused a moment. The crowd was silent. “I understand,” he continued, “the Dearborn Police is planning to stop us. Well, we will try to get through somehow. But remember, no trouble.”
A tremendous cheer greeted his remarks and the march began.
Eight abreast, singing and cheering, the marchers proceeded toward the Dearborn City limits.
50 Dearborn and FORD Police, in uniform, were lined up across the road. An Officer yelled, “Who are your leaders?”
“We are all leaders,” the marchers shouted back.
“Stop, or we’ll shoot,” threatened the cops, and immediately they fired large amounts of tear gas into the ranks of the marchers.
The marchers hesitated. Blinded and choked by the tear gas, they retreated. Some ran up a railroad trestle on one side of the road. The officers now came forward with their night sticks and attacked others as they were standing, some alone, and some in small groups.
The workers fought back. A group rescued one marcher from an officer on the trestle. One of the officers shot at the workers as they ran from the trestle…
The workers filled the air with a hail of stones. The police were pushed back, and when their tear gas ran out, the police turned and ran.
For almost a half-mile the marchers continued down the highway toward the plant. The police retreated before them.
Then they reached the first street intersection, where they were confronted with two fire engines equipped with ladders and hoses. The Firemen were frantically trying to make the hose connections. Before they succeeded, the workers reached them, and they joined the police in retreat.
This retreat was continued for another half-mile until the employment gate – Gate 3 of the plant, was reached.
At this point the Fire Department units made their water connections. About 30 feet above the road and extending across it was a bridge used for the passage of workmen into the factory without interference by traffic.
Stationed on the road below the bridge were a large number of police officers. From the top of the bridge the Firemen poured streams of icy water on the workers below. From the bridge and from the road below came a steady rain of tear gas bombs.
According to the marchers, it was at this bridge that the Dearborn Police were joined by a large number of FORD Motor Company private police, by a strong force of officers from the Detroit Police Department, and by the State police.
A regular siege developed. The workers, now grimy with sweat and dust, their eyes red from gas fumes, kept up a regular barrage of stones they had carried from the field.
The police drew their pistols. Suddenly they began shooting into the crowd. It was here that 19-year old Joe York was shot and killed, then Coleman Lenny, and Joe DeBlasio.
The police were shooting left and right. Besides the 3 fatalities, they were 22 workers known wounded by gunshot. Perhaps 50 more were hit, escaping to their homes or places of hiding for medical attention.
In the face of the downpour of icy water and the rain of bullets. almost all the marchers withdrew. It was then that the leaders of the Union and Unemployed Council decided to call off the demonstration.
A Union speaker mounted the back of a car and yelled that “the tear gas, clubbing and shooting were FORD’s bloody answer to the demands of the unemployed workers.”
Written by Maurice Singer - Heroic U.A.W. leader
American Civil Liberties Union’s Report
on the FORD Hunger March
on the FORD Hunger March
“Such of the FORD and Dearborn police as were injured appear, without exception, to have been injured by stones. There are among the police no injuries whatsoever by any bullet or firearm.”
“The acts of violence of the paraders consisted of the use of sticks and stones, apparently in defense of what they regarded as their right to parade, and demonstrate and in self-defense.”
“The injuries of the paraders were inflicted by FORD Company and City police. They consist of gunshot wounds almost without exception in the sides and backs of the paraders. We cannot too strongly emphasize the difference between the injuries sustained by the paraders and those admitted by the police...”
“As a matter of public policy, the Highways of the State, - and Miller Road, where this shooting occurred, was a State Highway - should be open to parades and demonstrations of this kind….the police provoked such violence…by refusing to accord them their right to parade on a State Highway…It appears the workers were peaceful until they were attacked...” -- Roger Baldwin and Walter Nelson, ACLU 1932
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Profiteers of Multiple Wars
FedEx and Pepsi Are Top Defense Contractors? 5 Corporate Brands Making a Killing on America’s Wars
In 2001, the massive arms dealers Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Northrop Grumman ranked one, two and five among Department of Defense contractors, raking in $14.7 billion, $13.3 billion and $5.2 billion, respectively, in contracts. Last year, Lockheed’s contract dollars were almost double their pre-9/11 level, clocking in at $28 billion, while Boeing’s had jumped to almost $19 billion and Northrop Grumman, still in the five spot, had more than doubled its 2001 take, with $12.8 billion in contracts.
America’s recent wars have obviously been good to these companies. On September 10, 2001, Lockheed’s share price was $38.32. Today, it tops $70 per share. In 2001, the company’s net sales reached $24 billion. Last year, they were almost $46 billion. Likewise, Northrop Grumman’s net income has more than quadrupled in the last decade, according to the investment analysis website, Seeking Alpha. Still, these corporations are just a fraction of the story when it comes to the massive sums of money made by the military contractors since September 11, 2001.
Chris Hellman of the National Priorities Project, writing recently at TomDispatch.com, noted that since the 9/11 attacks, the United States has spent about $8 trillion on national security. Even accounting for all the funds paid out for troop salaries, overseas base construction and the training and equipping indigenous allies in Iraq and Afghanistan, among many other costs, it’s clear that vast sums of Pentagon money are flowing somewhere other than to the top weapons-makers. Unknown to most U.S. taxpayers and even many Pentagon-watchers, some of the largest and most recognizable corporations in the world have also been getting rich on America’s wars. Below are five examples of “civilian” companies that have reaped major rewards from the Pentagon during its last decade at war:
1. BP (British Petroleum): The UK foreign oil giant, perhaps most famous for dumping 206 million gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico last year, is also a perennial power when it comes to Pentagon contracts. Back in 2001, BP nabbed a cool $357 million in contracts from the Department of Defense. Last year, the number hit $1 billion and it’s no secret why. As defense-tech writer Noah Shachtman noted at Foreign Policy last year, the U.S. military burns “22 gallons of diesel [fuel] per soldier per day in Afghanistan, at a cost of more than $100,000 a person annually.” (Why is our Pentagon buying foreign oil?-PDWA ed)
2. FedEx: The overnight shipping giant is a long-time defense-contracting powerhouse that has also seen an exponential increase in contract dollars since September 10, 2001, when its stock was trading at just under $40 per share. By the end of that year, FedEx had been awarded about $211 million in contracts from the Pentagon. In 2010, the company received $1.4 billion from the Department of Defense and this year, with its stock closing in on $80 per share, has already passed the $1 billion mark, again. This includes a $182 million deal, inked in August, to pack and ship fresh fruit and vegetables to U.S. military bases overseas and a joint agreement, which also includes United Parcel Service (UPS) and Polar Air Cargo, which could last up to five years and potentially net the companies a combined $853 million. (No wonder the Post Office is bankrupt and canceling Saturday delivery-ed PDWA)
3. Dell: If you’re in the military and you want to pilot a drone, transfer supplies or write a memo, you need a computer. That’s just what Dell provides. The desktop- and laptop-maker has been plying the Pentagon with computers for many years and, just like Lockheed, Boeing and Northrop Grumman, has done especially well by the Department of Defense since 2001. That year, Dell was awarded $65 million in Pentagon contracts. By 2009, that number had jumped to $731 million and, over the course of the decade, has added up to a total of $4.3 billion in contracts for the PC manufacturer.
4. Kraft – From A-1 steak sauce, their signature mayonnaise and Oreo cookies to Oscar Meyer hot dogs, Planters peanuts and Wheat Thins crackers, this company ranks as one of the largest and best known food concerns in the world. Not surprisingly, it also does a brisk business with the Pentagon which has grown ever larger during the last decade. Back in 2001, Kraft inked $148 million in deals with the Department of Defense, by 2010, its yearly take had risen to $373 million.
5. Pepsi – Once upon a time it was the “choice of a new generation.” These days, it’s the choice of the Pentagon. In 2010, PepsiCo washed down $217 million in Defense Department contract dollars, compared to the mere $61 million in deals it inked back in 2001. Earlier this year, the company continued the trend by signing a multi-million dollar deal to provide the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps with “bag-in-box beverages.” (That very same day, Coca-Cola also received a slightly larger contract to provide drinks for the military.)
Other big-name firms that are regularly awarded large, lucrative deals from the Defense Department include tire titans Goodrich and Goodyear, oil giants Shell and Exxon Mobil, big food suppliers like Nestle, General Mills, Tyson, ConAgra and Campbell's Soup, and tech and telecom stalwarts including AT&T, Oracle, Sony and Verizon.
A decade of waging wars abroad, from Iraq and Afghanistan to Pakistan and Libya to Yemen and Somalia hasn’t been kind to average Americans.
As the United States poured nearly $8 trillion into national war and security spending, and the national debt ballooned from $6 trillion to $14.3 trillion, the official unemployment rate has more than doubled -- from 4.5% to 9.1%.
The number of children living in poverty in the U.S. has jumped nearly 20% since according to the National Center for Children in Poverty. And for older Americans, the risk of hunger has spiked almost 80% since 2001, according to recent report by AARP. From car companies to candy makers and even the biggest brands in organic food, so many of the world’s favorite companies have, over these years, cashed in on America’s wars.
As the United States poured nearly $8 trillion into national war and security spending, and the national debt ballooned from $6 trillion to $14.3 trillion, the official unemployment rate has more than doubled -- from 4.5% to 9.1%.
The number of children living in poverty in the U.S. has jumped nearly 20% since according to the National Center for Children in Poverty. And for older Americans, the risk of hunger has spiked almost 80% since 2001, according to recent report by AARP. From car companies to candy makers and even the biggest brands in organic food, so many of the world’s favorite companies have, over these years, cashed in on America’s wars.
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