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What it is. What it isn’t.
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Tricks & tools to get to the truth of what matters.
It’s hard to tackle tough issues unless you know all the facts. Public Development will show other area non-profits and the communities they serve how to find the information they need, how write Freedom of Information Requests, how to use databases, how to conduct interviews & what to do with what you uncover.
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WHAT THEY DON'T WANT YOU TO READ
COULD SAVE YOUR LIFE: Burning EPA's Books
By CHRISTOPHER BRAUCHLI
CounterPunch.Org
Science is not as intimidating as it first appears. Anyone can do it. It is important, however, that when done by scientists it be properly vetted by amateurs. And it is important that ordinary people don't have too much information since it will simply confuse them. Thanks to the actions of George Bush we will no longer have to fear an excessively informed public that may fall prey to the importunings of scientists who believe themselves able to educate the rest of us and, more daunting still, George Bush. That is because in a moment of unexpected enlightenment Mr. Bush has realized that one of the best ways to control what people think is to control the kinds of information to which people have access. Here is what Mr. Bush has done to restrict the scientific information available to would-be students towards the end of 2006.
He is closing all the libraries run by the Environmental Protection Agency and getting rid of pesky and superfluous scientific documents found in those libraries. The EPA has maintained 29 libraries around the United States for many years that contain information about human health, environmental issues, hazardous waste, pollution control, air quality and all manner of other things with which the EPA concerns itself.
In the 2007 library services budget request by the EPA, Mr. Bush cut $2 million out of the $2.5 million requested. In anticipation of Congressional approval the EPA has already closed its library in Washington D.C. to the public and has completely closed libraries in Chicago, Dallas and Kansas City, Mo. In a letter to Congress protesting the cuts, EPA scientists observe that the $2 million cut is a small part of an $8 billion budget. That will not change Mr. Bush's mind. Having little, if any knowledge himself and not having found that an impediment to becoming president, he sees no harm in making it harder for others to acquire that which he is lacking. Closing libraries is not the only way Mr. Bush hopes to keep citizens from being infected by knowledge. Scientists at the EPA, like its libraries, have been muzzled.
New regulations have been promulgated at the EPA that provide that when it comes to setting national air-quality standards, political appointees will have a greater role. Formerly independent outside scientists and professional scientists inside the EPA were responsible for setting safety standards for various pollutants. They made recommendations that were then sent to the political appointees who were the agency's administrators. The recommendations were then forwarded to the White House. This was scientifically sound but it proved embarrassing to the administration when science ran up against the beliefs of George Bush and his political contributors. Under the new procedure this is less likely to happen since independent scientists will only be called .. political hacks and staff scientists have come up with what is now called "policy-relevant" science. The name suggests that policy and science should be given equal weight. The EPA is not alone in this most recent assault on knowledge-based decision-making.
New rules have been promulgated by the U.S. Geological Survey that will avoid having scientists making scientific pronouncements that go against Bush policy and beliefs. Under the new rules agency scientists at the USGS must submit all scientific papers and even minor reports or prepared talks to the USGS's communications office. The new policy says that the USGS communications office and Mark Myers, the agency's director, must be "alerted about information products containing high-visibility topics or topics of a policy-sensitive nature." Mr. Myers and the office must be told prior to any submission for publication "of findings or data that may be especially newsworthy, have an impact on government policy, or contradict previous public understanding to ensure that proper officials are notified and that communication strategies are developed."
According to Patrick Leahy, the agency's head of geology and its acting director until September, the new procedure will "harmonize" the review process. It will avoid such unfortunate occurrences as the time in 2002 when the USGS warned that oil drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would harm the Porcupine Caribou herd. Mr. Bush didn't believe that. One week later the USGS had a new report saying the herd would be unaffected by the drilling.
Commenting on the new USGS rules, Jim Estes, an internationally recognized marine biologist in the USGS said: "I feel as though we've got someone looking over our shoulder at every damn thing we do. And to me that's a very scary thing. I worry that it borders on censorship." Mr. Estes is right. We all have someone looking over our shoulders. He's called George Bush.
THE FALL OF POSSE COMITATUS / THE RISE OF POSSE COMIN' AT US:
Bush Moves Toward Martial Law
By Frank Morales
In a stealth maneuver, President Bush has signed into law a
provision which, according to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont),
will actually encourage the President to declare federal martial
law (1). It does so by revising the Insurrection Act, a set of
laws that limits the President's ability to deploy troops within
the United States. The Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C.331 -335) has
historically, along with the Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C.1385),
helped to enforce strict prohibitions on military involvement in
domestic law enforcement. With one cloaked swipe of his pen, Bush
is seeking to undo those prohibitions.
Public Law 109-364, or the "John Warner Defense Authorization Act
of 2007" (H.R.5122) (2), which was signed by the commander in
chief on October 17th, 2006, in a private Oval Office ceremony,
allows the President to declare a "public emergency" and station
troops anywhere in America and take control of state-based National
Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities,
in order to "suppress public disorder."
President Bush seized this unprecedented power on the very same day
that he signed the equally odious Military Commissions Act of 2006.
In a sense, the two laws complement one another. One allows for
torture and detention abroad, while the other seeks to enforce
acquiescence at home, preparing to order the military onto the
streets of America. Remember, the term for putting an area under
military law enforcement control is precise; the term is "martial law."
Section 1076 of the massive Authorization Act, which grants the
Pentagon another $500-plus-billion for its ill-advised adventures,
is entitled, "Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies."
Section 333, "Major public emergencies; interference with State and
Federal law" states that "the President may employ the armed forces,
including the National Guard in Federal service, to restore public
order and enforce the laws of the United States when, as a result of
a natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency,
terrorist attack or incident, or other condition in any State or
possession of the United States, the President determines that domestic
violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted
authorities of the State or possession are incapable of
("refuse" or "fail" in) maintaining public order, "in order to suppress,
in any State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination,
or conspiracy."
RELATED: MAY DAY DEMONSTRATION IN L.A.
RELATED: The Dirty War Of Oaxaca
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GUERILLA GROUP CLAIMS PEMEX BOMBINGS
By MarÃa Antonieta Uribe and Héctor Tobar, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
September 12, 2007
MALTRATA, MEXICO -- A leftist guerrilla group claimed credit Tuesday for the bombing attacks a day earlier of six Pemex pipelines in central Mexico, as officials conceded it was impossible for police and army troops to protect the company's vast fuel-distribution network.
The Popular Revolutionary Army, known by the initials EPR in Spanish, said 12 of its "military units" had undertaken the attacks in Veracruz and Tlaxcala states to force the government to hand over two EPR militants who disappeared this year. The EPR says the men were arrested in Oaxaca, but officials there deny they detained them.
On Tuesday, Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, officials said the attacks had caused a 25% drop in the supply of natural gas available to consumers across Mexico. At least 10 states reported natural gas shortages. Several factories remained closed for lack of fuel, including the Volkswagen plant in Puebla.
Fires set off at the bombed pipelines were largely contained Tuesday. But Pemex officials said it may take days to repair the severed lines.
Coming two months after similar attacks in the states of Guanajuato and Queretaro, the bombings were a blow to the government of Felipe Calderon, who has made security a centerpiece of his presidency.
In Maltrata, a town of about 15,000 in Veracruz state, most residents returned home a day after explosions at a concrete Pemex structure less than a mile outside the town limits. The small building contained a valve station linked to three lines that carried gasoline and natural gas. The town sits in a small valley and many residents fled to the surrounding hillsides in the midst of a heavy rainstorm.
"At about 2 a.m., the ground shook, and we heard a thunder clap," said resident Genaro Marcelino. "We grabbed what we could, ran out of the house and into the hills. It was raining cats and dogs. We saw the sky light up."
Authorities said no one was injured in the blasts. Maltrata residents said only one person lived near the exploded building: a squatter who mysteriously moved out of his shack a day before it was singed by the explosion.
"This time we all lived to tell the tale, but next time, who knows," said Delia Vera, a fruit vendor. Like others here, she expressed frustration with both the guerrillas and the government. "Let Calderon work out his things, and not get us mixed up in his problems."
A few residents were too afraid to return to their homes and spent another night in emergency shelters. "It was frightening," said 13-year-old Gerardo Grande Dominguez. "All I saw was the sky turn orange."
Officials said the method employed in the attack was similar to July bombings for which EPR claimed responsibility. Monday's devices used shaped plastic explosives, known as "sausage" bombs, and were detonated remotely by cellphones.
On Monday, one bomb was discovered intact, with a message attached. "Alive you took them, alive we want them back," the note read, in an apparent reference to the missing militants.
Local news reported that army troops had been briefly posted to the Maltrata pipelines after the July attacks. An army bomb squad surveyed several miles of the line near Maltrata after an anonymous threat on July 18 but declared the incident a "false alarm."
Pemex general director Jesus Reyes Heroles said Tuesday that the state-owned distribution network, which includes 30,000 miles of pipelines, was simply too large to guard completely.
"To think that we can protect with private guards or armed forces, is impossible," he told reporters.
Others say the attacks point to failures in Mexico's intelligence agencies, which have been humbled by a relatively small group of rebels, many of whom are well known by authorities.
The EPR was founded in the Pacific state of Guerrero in the mid-1990s but has split into half a dozen groups. The core of the EPR group linked to the pipeline attacks is made up of five extended families based in the southern state of Oaxaca, according to a military intelligence report obtained by the newspaper El Universal in July.
The report identifies one leader as Paulino Cruz Sanchez, a man who also goes by the name Tiburcio Cruz Sanchez and by the nicknames "the Professor" and "Pancho Riatas."
Cruz Sanchez is "an explosives expert with more than four decades in the clandestine armed struggle," the report says. His brother Gabriel Alberto Cruz Sanchez is one of the two men whose release is demanded in EPR communiques.
Tuesday's communique, sent to several Mexican newspapers, said Calderon's government was waging a "dirty war" against dissent.
SOS @ XYZ
USEFUL LINK OF THE MONTH: DELPHI CORP.'S ONLINE INVESTMENT INFORMATION REQUEST FORM
RELATED: GM's ANNUAL REPORT
(NOTE "CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY" SECTION)
DELPHI AXE PROMPTS GENERAL STRIKE
23 March 2007 | Source: just-auto.com editorial team
Spanish trades unions have called for a general strike on 18 April to protest against embattled US auto parts maker Delphi's plans to shut its Puerto Real, Cadiz factory, dismissing 4,500 permanent and temporary workers, a union official told just-auto on Friday.
The move comes as the European Union this week said it would support Spain's efforts to force Delphi to explain exactly why it is closing the site, to provide a viability plan for it and offer layoff compensation to workers - something it has so far refused to do.
The official said Puerto Real's factory employs 2,000 contract workers and 2,500 auxiliary workers and that its closure will mean the loss of an important employer in the largely blue-collar region of southern Spain. The plant supplies Volvo, Ford, General_Motors, Nissan, Mercedes Benz and Kia.
The general strike will be held in 14 municipalities across the Cadiz Bay, home to the Puerto Real factory.
It will be followed by a major Madrid demonstration and a 24-hour strike in Puerto Real on 29 March.
Those measures follow major industrial actions in recent weeks in which 3,000 people participated in demonstrations.
Today's announcement came after hundreds of workers from Delphi's Sant Cugat del Valles factory in Barcelona took to the streets to decry Puerto Real's planned closure.
Unions plan to hold similar actions every week until the crisis is resolved, the union rep confirmed.
Spanish press quoted government officials as saying they will do everything possible to fix Puerto Real's crisis. Apart from demanding that Delphi come clean about its intentions, they will ask the company to explain how it used millions of euros of European Union aid funds given it to set up in Puerto Real.
Government officials have also reportedly called a meeting with the US embassy in Madrid to discuss the crisis.
Delphi has said Puerto Real's factory has reported losses since 2002 and that its closure stems from its inability to operate it profitably.
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LIVE BAIT & AMMO #95: A PRACTICAL SOLUTION TO AN URGENT NEED
By Gregg Shotwell
GM/Delphi is the leading manufacturer in the fastest growing automobile market in the world -- China. The rapid expansion is fueled by the marriage of cheap capital fleeced from US labor and cheap labor marshaled by a Chinese police state.
It was a marriage made in hell.
But a marriage made with the purist of motives: profit. When the leading Communist and Capitalist states decided to exceed Wall Street's expectations, all the walls came down. No expense --life, liberty, or reputation-- was too great to impede the pursuit of profit.
At the height of America's dominance in the world economy GM made promises of lifetime benefits to workers, and the US government made monumental enemies of communists. The Red Scare worked like a stove match. Union officials routed the radicals from their ranks and bound labor's fate with apron strings and "no strike" clauses. In both events, war and treachery, victims were workers who died in combat or got the short stick on both sides of the Pacific.
What corpos call "restructuring" is simply a transfer of wealth from the working class to the investing class. Every concession we make subsidizes the transfer of assets. This isn't speculation, it's history repeated in one industry after another: steel, airlines, textiles, electronics. We are not only losing jobs, we are losing labor's accumulated wealth.
Bankruptcy in the US auto industry is not an accident, it's a business plan. The government does not appear to have an industrial policy, but the transfer of labor's legacy wealth to offshore accounts is the policy in practice.
Every kid on the American playground knows how it feels to be at the top of the teeter-totter when your partner finds a new friend.
When the economy crashes and the entire working class is impoverished we will understand the true "legacy cost". The legacy of treachery and deceit. The legacy of union/management partnership. The legacy of war after war after war. The legacy of a government that stands down while corporations trash communities as surely as Hurricane Katrina trashed New Orleans.
The corpos declare that "legacy costs" curb investment, but they conveniently ignore the legacy profits that GM/Delphi invested in China, Mexico, Latin America, Canada, India, Korea, Russia, and Europe. Profit is our legacy, too. The destruction of America's industrial base is not a random consequence of globalization, it's an investment strategy.
The older generation may be able to preserve their retirement benefits in the short term, but the declining value of the dollar will degrade their standard of living as the trade imbalance teeters and war catapults our national debt over the star spangled horizon.
The VEBA won't save America's flagship industry or throw an inner tube around retirees when the cost of living rises faster than false hope dies. We don't want VEBA, we want universal health care; not only for our own generation, but for our children and grandchildren.
The challenge we face is too big for piece meal fixes and private portions. Every time we cut a deal that deprives the next generation --as in two tier and VEBA and buy outs that close plants-- we underwrite the corpos' three act play: Isolate, Whipsaw, Liquidate.
If the UAW doesn't demand the right to strike over outsourcing and plant closings, GM will accelerate its exit plan. If GM achieves two tier in this contract, they will bust the union in 2011. If the UAW permits GM to strand retirees with a buy down VEBA, you may as well continue working as long as you can still maneuver the walker and the oxygen tank through the turnstiles. CAT had a VEBA, too. It's broke.
Autoworkers have an opportunity in 2007 to invoke the crisis that could provoke dramatic change in health and industrial policy. We can avoid the confrontation, but we can't escape the consequence of cowardice. If we fail to act collectively, we'll be picked off separately. Solidarity isn't an ideal, it's a practical solution to an urgent need.
SOS, Gregg Shotwell
______________________________________________
There is no seniority date for dignity and justice.
There is no retirement from solidarity.
Two tiers are too many.
Full employment is a workable reality.
Homeland security means Living Wages,
Universal Health Care,
Equal Access to Education
and Respect for Retirees.
Collective action won the War of Independence.
Collective action will win again.
Help us make an action plan.
All working people—
active or retired, union or non union,
employed or unemployed,
native born or immigrant—
are welcome in Soldiers of Solidarity.
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Flint Peace Triangle - January 14, 2007 (PART A)
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Flint Peace Triangle - January 14, 2007 (PART B)
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REBELLION BY US FORCES FORCES IN IRAQ PROMPTS 'RAPID' PENTAGON CRACKDOWN
By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers (http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/)
Reports from Russian Military Analysts are describing what they term as a ‘rapidly declining will-to-fight†among American Soldiers fighting in Iraq, with the greatest concern being placed upon US Soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division who reportedly this past week refused orders to ‘take to field’ against their Iraqi insurgent enemies.
According to these reports, the unprecedented rebellion against their Commanders by these US Soldiers was prompted by an Iraqi insurgent attack upon their fellow Soldiers wherein 4 of their comrades were killed and 3 captured by the enemy forces, and which many of these Soldiers believed could have been prevented if they had had more support.
Echoing the mounting concerns of these US Soldiers was one of their Commanders, General Benjamin R. Mixon, who this past week urged Americas War Leaders to send more troops to Iraq to battle the mounting opposition to the US occupation of that Middle Eastern Nation.
The concerns of the US Soldiers in Iraq, that they do not have the resources they need to fight their enemy, were further stated by Russian photojournalist Dmitry Chebotayev prior to his being killed while on patrol with US Forces Iraq, and which he further documented the growing disillusionment with the war by ordinary American Soldiers.
Adding to the growing rebellion by these US Soldiers against their War Leaders was the Pentagons recent orders extending the tours of their forces in their war zones, and which, according to the Time Magazine News Service, is destroying the lives of these Soldiers, and those of their families, and as we can read:
"[T]he Pentagon announced, on April 11, that the standard Army deployment in Afghanistan and Iraq would now be 15 months rather than the previous 12-month stint.
Soldiers deploying abroad have always had to contend with missing a child's birth, a sibling's wedding or a parent's death. They face fatigue and frustration no matter the duration of stay.
Their spouses suffer at home, and marriages fall apart under the strain of separation. And the stress of deployment in a hostile combat zone has a corrosive effect on discipline. Three more months may not seem that long to a civilian, but to a soldier already on the ground, it's another 90 days in which a lot could go wrong.
"It's like running a race," says Chaplain Doug Weaver, of the 3-71. "The longer it is, the more people fall out."
Though unprecedented in the United States current war against the Muslim peoples, American Soldiers, and when faced with fighting a losing war, have previously resorted to refusing the orders of their Commanders, and as we can read as exampled from the US Soldiers who fought in the Vietnam War:
"Where soldiers refused to obey orders this became known as a "combat refusal". In a report for Pacifica Radio, journalist Richard Boyle went to the base to interview a dozen "grunts" from the First Cavalry Division. The GI's had been ordered on a nighttime combat mission the previous night. Six of the men had refused to go and several others had objected to the order.
"They'll have to court-martial the whole company," one soldier told Boyle. "I say right away they can start typing up my court-martial."
The GI's told Boyle they objected not only to what they saw as a suicidal mission but to the war effort itself. Their commanding officer wouldn't let them wear t-shirts with peace symbols, they complained. "He calls us hypocrites if we wear a peace sign," one GI said. "[As if] we wanted to come over here and fight. Like we can't believe in peace, man, because we're carrying [an M-16] out there."
Unlike their counterparts in the Vietnam War, however, present day US Soldiers had begun to communicate their rebellious feelings against their War Leaders through the use of the Internet, to include posting thousands of videos and blogs which ran counter to the ‘positive’ message of the war being given by the United States media organs.
This will no longer be the case as the Pentagon, in a ‘rapid’ response to the growing rebellion of its Soldiers fighting the United States wars, has immediately denied Internet access for all its fighting forces in an attempt to bring them back under ‘control’.
Not content with just censoring their Soldiers ability to communicate with the World, and each other, outside of their War Zones, the Pentagon has taken the further step of ordering the Iraqi government to not allow any filming of the massive bombings taking place in that country on an, almost, hourly basis, and as we can read as reported by the Associated Press News Service:
"Police prevented press photographers and camera operators from filming the scene of a bombing yesterday under a new policy limiting coverage of the devastating explosions that have become a hallmark of the violence in the country.
To enforce an order that a group of Iraqi journalists leave Tayaran Square, where the bombing occurred, police fired several shots in the air, reporters said.
Brig. Gen. Abdel Karim Khalaf, the operations director at the Interior Ministry, said this weekend that Iraq's government has decided to bar press photographers and cameramen from the scene of bombings."
The actions of the United States War Leaders in suppressing the growing rebellion of their Soldiers to their wars, along with the American publics growing concern for their husbands, wives, sons and daughters fighting and dying daily, is eerily reminiscent of the Soviets war in Afghanistan in the way it is being ‘managed’ by the American government.
But, like the Soviet war in Afghanistan clearly showed, when a country loses 15,000 of its children to death in war, along with over 500,000 wounded, even the most tightly controlled media propaganda effort fails to contain the growing outrage of a Nation burying its war dead on a daily basis.
Even more instructive, perhaps, for the American people themselves in looking at the Soviet-Afghanistan war was its aftermath which toppled the former Soviet Empire from its Super-Power state to that of a Nation more resembling a Third-World Nation, of which only now the Russian people are emerging from.
Sadly, there is no evidence that the American people have learned these hard lessons, even more sadly, their cost for failing to heed the warnings of history, including their own, could very well see them sharing the same fate as the once mighty Soviet Empire….a Nation that when all is said and done will simply, and quickly, cease to exist.
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MALIKI'S IRAQI TROOPS FACE OFF AGAINST . . . STRIKING OIL WORKERS?
By Ben Lando, UPI. Posted June 7, 2007.
On the third day of an oil strike in southern Iraq, the Iraqi military
has surrounded oil workers and the prime minister issued arrest
warrants for the union leaders, sparking an outcry from supporters and
international unions.
"This will not stop us because we are defending people's rights," said
Hassan Jumaa Awad, president of IFOU. As of Wednesday morning, when
United Press International spoke to Awad via mobile phone in Basra at
the site of one of the strikes, no arrests had been made, "but
regardless, the arrest warrant is still active."
He said the "Iraqi Security Forces," who were present at the strike
scenes, told him of the warrants and said they would be making any
arrests.
The arrest warrant accuses the union leaders of "sabotaging the
economy," according a statement from British-based organization
Naftana, and said Maliki warned his "iron fist" would be used against
those who stopped the flow of oil.
IFOU called a strike early last month but put it on hold twice after
overtures from the government. Awad said that at a May 16 meeting,
Maliki agreed to set up a committee to address the unions' demands.
The demands include union entry to negotiations over the oil law they
fear will allow foreign oil companies too much access to Iraq's oil,
as well as a variety of improved working conditions.
"Apparently they promise but they never do anything," Awad said,
confirming reports the Iraqi Oil Ministry would send a delegation to
Basra.
"One person from the Ministry of Oil accompanied by an Iraqi military
figure came to negotiate the demands. Instead it was all about
threats. It was all about trying to shut us up, to marginalize our
actions," Awad said. "The actions we are taking now are continuing
with the strike until our demands are taken in concentration."
The strike by the Iraq Pipelines Union in Basra started Monday,
instigated by a decision by the Iraq Pipelines Co. to stop regular
bonuses to workers. It is part of a larger picture, however, of 17
different demands laid out -- beginning last month -- to the Iraq Oil
Ministry and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki by the Iraq Federation of
Oil Unions.
Since the strike began, two small pipelines delivering oil products to
Baghdad and other cities have been closed, as has a larger pipeline
that sends gas and oil to major cities, including Baghdad and
utilities.
The strike started with domestic pipelines transporting oil and oil
products, but Iraq's top oil unionist says it will soon encapsulate
the 1.6 million barrels per day of oil Iraq sends to the global
market.
Basra, home to much of Iraq's 115 billion barrels of oil -- the
third-largest reserves in the world -- is also Iraq's main port. Awad
said the unions will continue to restrict all oil exports, which bring
in 93 percent of Iraq's federal budget funds. Such a move, combined
with the choking off of much-needed supplies of transportation,
cooking and heating fuels, is what the unions hope to use as leverage
against Maliki.
Awad said "the atmosphere here is full of tension," and added that he
wants to pressure the government to agree to their demands, not topple
an already weak Maliki government.
"At the end we are hoping that the situation will not go that way," Awad said.
Maliki has been unable to meet a key benchmark set by the Bush
administration and backed by the Democratic-led Congress: to pass an
oil law. Many in Iraq, including oil experts and parliamentarians, are
calling for the law to be put on hold. Negotiators haven't been able
to agree on the best means of revenue distribution, whether central or
regional governments will have more power in the oil sector, or how
much access foreign investors will have.
Manfred Warda, general secretary of the International Federation of
Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions, Wednesday sent a
letter to Maliki condemning his tactics in addressing the strike.
"Genuine and democratic trade unions are a cornerstone of democracy
and at the same time are a force for reconciliation, peace and
stability in a society," Warda wrote.
The Brussels-based International Trade Union Confederation and
London-based Trades Union Congress have also condemned the military
action and arrest warrants.
A top official with the International Federation of Chemical, Energy,
Mine & General Workers' Union said his contacts say the strike had
been toned down while negotiations were under way but has not ended.
"The strike began purely and simply at the pipeline," said Jim
Catterson, the energy industry officer for Warda's federation, based
in Brussels. IFOU "has membership capable of bringing an end to
exports."
Kamil Mahdi, an Iraqi economist on Middle East affairs at the
University of Exeter, said Maliki's swing from agreement with the
unions to a military presence and warrants is "very surprising" and
arresting the leaders won't quell the workers' demands.
"It may be the opposite. These are people who are highly respected in
the community," he said. If the strike isn't stopped soon, "the effect
on the global oil market will certainly be felt."
(Hiba Dawood contributed to this report.)
Legally Striking Teamsters 'Arrested' by Private Police Force
TEAMSTERS UNION RELEASES SHOCKING VIDEO OF PICKET LINE ARRESTS BY CP RAIL POLICE FORCE
Labour leaders join Teamsters in condemning the company's actions and demand a public inquiry
May 31, 2007
Vancouver, BC - The union representing striking railway maintenance workers at CP Rail is taking legal action against the company, after six Teamsters Canada members were confronted by CP's private police force and arrested for alleged "mischief" while walking a legal picket line in Coquitlam on Tuesday night.
Bill Brehl, the President of Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, Maintenance of Way Employees Division, says the arrests were completely unprovoked and unnecessarily violent. "We have the whole thing on video. All the members were peacefully picketing between the lines of a public crosswalk in front of CPR property. The CPR police came in force and told them to move along or they would arrest them. Then they almost immediately began dragging them off the picket line and handcuffing them. The video has sound and none of the members were belligerent or offered resistance. However, there is one officer who forcibly wrenches a member's arm way up at an unnatural angle and then viciously kicks him to the ground. It is horrible to watch."
The graphic video footage, released at a news conference in Vancouver today, outraged BC Federation of Labour President Jim Sinclair. Sinclair is calling for a public inquiry into the special powers granted to private police forces that are being used by an increasing number of companies across the country. "This is not just a labour issue. It's an attack on the rights and freedoms union members and all Canadian citizens have fought long and hard to achieve" says Sinclair.
International Longshore and Warehouse Union Canada President Tom Dufresne expresses the same concern and calls the actions of CPR "appalling."
The Teamsters Union is filing a civil lawsuit against CPR on behalf of its members for false arrest, false imprisonment, assault and battery and unlawful interference with charter rights. The union will also be in BC Supreme Court next week (June 7th) for an injunction application against CP Rail and CP Police, and in front of the Canada Labour Relations Board tomorrow (Friday, June 1st) to make an unfair labour practices complaint. Both actions are aimed at preventing the company from further intimidation and harassment of picketing union members.
The Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, Maintenance of Way Employees Division has been lawfully on strike against CP Rail since May 15, 2007.
Taking a Beating: Three Big Reasons for the Decline of Labor Unions
By DAVID MACARAY, Counterpunch.org
Going from a high-water mark of 35 per cent (in the 1950s) to the measly 12 per cent it is today, national union membership has clearly taken a beating. Lots of reasons, not least of which is passage of the Taft-Hartley Act (1947) , which, with its comprehensive restrictions on union activities, has proven to be a genuine impediment to the labor movement.
Taft-Hartley aside, here are three larger, overarching factors that have contributed to the decline of unions.
1. The hollowing-out of the country's manufacturing base and, with it, a decline in those industry jobs which, historically, had not only been strongly organized but well paid.
We're speaking mainly of the automobile, steel, paper, and heavy equipment industries.
Even the auto industry, represented by the United Auto Workers (UAW)-one of the most successful and innovative unions in American history-took tremendous hits during the seventies and eighties, losing hundreds of thousands of members.
Americans are still buying cars and trucks at a brisk pace, but it no longer even registers as "news" that foreign markets have decimated U.S. sales. That is now a "given." And those Japanese auto companies that have set up shop in the U.S. made certain to situate their plants in right-to-work states in the Deep South, areas hostile to organized labor.
If we subtract all the non-manufacturing and service jobs (nurses, civil servants, police and firemen, teachers, etc.), there are barely 6 per cent of union workers engaged in the manufacture of products. When you lose your base you can't expect to maintain your membership. Worse news: Unless something momentous and unforeseen occurs, it's unlikely we're ever going to get these industries back to anything approaching their previous numbers. That era, along with the quality jobs and UAW glory that went with it, is over.
2. Government has assumed custody of key union provisions.
From overtime pay to hours of work, to guaranteed days off and employees' rights and standards, laws have been passed by the state and federal governments to address such issues. Government has effectively co-opted much of what only union contracts traditionally did.
For example, where joining a union was once the only way to get premium pay for overtime, or "penalty pay" for showing up and being sent home when there was no work, those goodies are now mandated by state and federal statutes.
Safety is another example. Where it once required specific language in a union contract to insure that a workplace was safe and secure, the passage, in 1970, of the Occupation Health and Safety Act (OSHA), made every employer in the country accountable to a federal safety code. Today, an employee need only pick up the phone and dial OSHA's number to complain about an unsafe working condition and, chances are, he will be placed in contact with a field agent.
Tangentially, many businesses manage to keep unions out by providing their employees with comparable wages and benefits. Even though union wages are still significantly higher, across the board, than non-union wages, many companies are able to keep out unions by providing compensation and benefits (vacations, pensions, health insurance) that compare favorably to those of union shops, thus obviating the need for organizing.
What hurts most in these cases is that the people ("free riders") receiving these comparable wages and benefits think they're making it on their own, without having to rely on a union. In truth, without the existence of unions, there's no telling how low base wages for unskilled blue-collar work would fall, with nothing to prop them up except the federal minimum wage.
3. Changes in demographics and culture.
There is a decreased respect for the role of organized labor, for its founders, its battles, its overall narrative, and an alarming lack of interest in labor's political and social implications.
High school history and civic textbooks of the Baby Boomer generation (and the one preceding it) routinely included accounts of the achievements of labor leaders such as Samuel Gompers, John L. Lewis, Walter Reuther, et al, mentioning them in much the same way they mentioned political leaders and social reformers.
Today, it would be ludicrous to expect a high school history text to single out specific contemporary labor leaders who've made a difference-unless it was something scandalous or bizarre ( e.g., the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa).
We've also witnessed a marked decline in our sense of community. This can be seen in the fact that fewer people are willing to march in Labor Day parades, or enroll in social clubs or civic organizations, or attend community events.
And there is a obvious spillover into politics. Today, everybody seems to want to call himself an independent rather than a Republican or Democrat, having grown increasingly frustrated with the traditional two-party system. The same sense of faux-independence applies to working people as well. Workers prefer to think of themselves as incipient, yet-to-be-realized entrepreneurs rather than proletarian toilers.
Identifying oneself as part of a larger entity-a union, a community, even a neighborhood-no longer holds the appeal it once did, just as collectivism no longer makes as much sense as it once did. With everyone's sights set on upward mobility, fewer people are comfortable publicly identifying themselves as blue-collar, because doing so cuts them off from the prestige that comes from lucrative jobs/careers.
With those values now in play, who the hell wants to march down Main Street in a Labor Day parade wearing union colors?
There's an anecdote told about John D. Rockefeller which reflects this change in cultural attitudes. It occurred during the Depression. A group of poor people congregated outside the gate of Rockefeller's mansion, and began banging the covers of his metal trash cans and shouting insults, making a terrible racket.
The police were summoned. But because the police were sympathetic to the demonstrators, they waited several minutes, watching the protest with interest, before breaking up the demonstration. Their deep-seated sympathies lay with the protesters.
Today, that episode would play out differently. Besides poor people not having access to a wealthy industrialist's home (he'd be isolated inside a gated estate, with his own private security force patrolling the place), it's unlikely the city police would react sympathetically.
Rather, they'd treat the demonstrators like criminal trespassers and drive them away, possibly arrest them. They would likely treat them with contempt. Why? Because working people don't have the core respect they once had. Simple as that.
David Macaray, a Los Angeles playwright and writer, was president and chief contract negotiator of the Assn. of Western Pulp and Paper Workers, Local 672, from 1989 to 2000. He can be reached at: [email protected]