WW News Service Digest #340
1) Immigrant workers hurt by layoffs, racial profiling
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2) Minn. Gov. Ventura attacks the right to strike
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3) Baltimore community rallies support after police beat African student
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4) Mumia Abu-Jamal on secret wars
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5) Thousands greet Congress member who voted against war
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Nov. 1, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
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IMMIGRANT WORKERS HURT BY LAYOFFS, RACIAL PROFILING
By Preston Wood
Los Angeles
The financial pages across the country warn of a looming
recession, and the fog thickens over Wall Street.
But for thousands of immigrant workers in New York, Los
Angeles and across the country, it's already a full-blown
recession.
Hotel and restaurant services workers, in such high demand
before the Sept. 11 attacks that Congress was under pressure
to classify them as "essential workers" for immigration
reform, are now facing hunger and homelessness with no
source of income.
Now any talk in Congress of immigration reform is lost under
a wave of racism and anti-immigrant backlash.
The sharp decline in tourism has caused tens of thousands to
be thrown out of work.
While thousands of laid-off hotel and restaurant workers are
eligible for unemployment insurance, government rules
prevent those with temporary work permits or who are
undocumented from receiving any government compensation,
including unemployment benefits.
According to the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees
union, at least 100,000 unionized hotel and restaurant
workers nationwide are now jobless. Many more non-union
workers have also been thrown out of work with no source of
income, according to the union. (Los Angeles Times, Oct. 21)
Of the 43 restaurant workers killed at the top of the World
Trade Center on Sept. 11, 12 had been working without Social
Security numbers.
Paul Harrington, a population expert at Northeastern
University in Boston, estimates that the population of
undocumented workers in the United States is now more than
12 million. "State jobless benefit claims don't reflect such
workers," Harrington said. , it's gong to play out in the
social services."
To make matters even more difficult, workers with temporary
work permits are usually afraid to apply for any social
services. To do so could make them so-called "public
charges" under Immigration and Naturalization Service
guidelines, which would ruin any chances they might have of
gaining permanent residency.
Stephen Rediker, who operates Face to Face--an immigrant aid
center in Westchester County north of New York City--says,
"We are working with quite a few families that were affected
directly, that lost people. They were doing menial tasks in
the World Trade Center and were killed. And the families are
afraid to come forward. They're even afraid to go to the Red
Cross."
This fear comes from a long history of racism and harassment
that has characterized U.S. government policy regarding
immigrant workers in this country.
"I know that in places like Los Angeles, many people are a
paycheck away from being homeless," says Representative
Hilda Solis, who is proposing legislation to help immigrant
workers.
Judy Golub, a spokesperson for the American Immigration
Lawyers Association, says immigration lawyers are reporting
that INS interviewers are taking a tougher stance and
denying more applications for residency. "It's not official
policy," she said, "but they appear to be stricter, trying
to find a basis for denial."
While the Pentagon's war against the people of Afghanistan
rages on, another war against the workers here in this
country is escalating. It is the oppressed workers,
including millions of immigrants, who are the first to be
hurt.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Nov. 1, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
AFTER JOB ACTION BY STATE WORKERS:
VENTURA ATTACKS THE RIGHT TO STRIKE
By Steve Argue
St. Paul, Minn.
Beating back Minnesota Gov. Jesse "the Body" Ventura's
"final offer," government workers have gotten a better
contract proposal by going out on strike. While the contract
is not yet ratified by the membership, union officials have
already returned the members to work.
Now Ventura is saying he will cut jobs and needed government
programs because of the strike. In addition, on Oct. 22,
Ventura stated that government workers should not even be
allowed to strike.
Ventura warned striking workers of the American Federation
of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the
Minnesota Association of Professional Employees (MAPE) that
they would lose their jobs if they didn't drop their strike
and give in to his demands.
Those on strike included highway maintenance workers,
janitors, tax collectors and office clerks. Also included in
the union are parole officers. The strike started on Oct. 1
and lasted two weeks.
Ventura claimed that workers would have to be laid off if he
gave into their demands because there would not be money to
pay them. Peter Benner, AFSCME Local 6 executive director,
responded, "There are layoffs in good times. There are
layoffs in bad times. So this doesn't deter us."
Ventura has now repeated this threat of layoffs, claiming
the money isn't there to keep the workers. AFSCME Local 6
refutes this claim, reciting the government's own budget
records. What this looks like is retaliation against the
workers who stood up against Ventura's concessions contract.
If the governor gets away with it, social programs will
suffer as well from his cuts.
The 28,000 workers were forced out on strike by the
governor's concessions contract proposal, which included an
increase in health care costs for workers. Also included was
a small cost-of-living increase of 3.8 percent in the first
year and 2 percent in the years after. These cost of living
increases would have been offset by the new health care
costs.
The new contracts that are coming up for a vote include a
3.5-percent increase this year and next year for AFSCME
employees and a 3-percent increase both years for MAPE
employees.
What was obvious with the governor's earlier proposal was
that workers would pay a lot more for health care. What the
proposal left unclear is how much more. The clinics that
workers use would be rated first, second and third tier, and
different tiers would charge different amounts. Making this
proposal completely unacceptable was the fact that the
clinics were not even rated yet. Union members had no way of
knowing what their health care cost increases would be under
the proposed contract.
Under the new proposal the clinics are now rated. Workers
will now know how much more they will be paying and be able
to weigh that when they vote for or against the contract. In
addition, MAPE employees will get a one-time lump payment of
$250 designated to offset increased health care costs.
Overall the contract is better than the earlier proposal,
but is still questionable in charging more for healthcare
than in previous years. The contract comes to a vote in mid-
November. Governor Ventura cited the war as the reason why
workers should have accepted the earlier concession
contract.
On Oct. 4 on a conservative talk-radio show, Ventura stated,
"Personally, I would be going to work, because it's a tough
time. We're going to war, in my opinion. Everybody has to
bite the bullet a little bit."
In times of war and economic crisis the capitalist class
always wants workers to pay the price while the bosses live
in their luxurious mansions. Ventura's anti-union war
drumming places him squarely alongside the ranks of the anti-
worker politicians of the Democratic and Republican parties.
In addition, Ventura mobilized 1,000 National Guards to do
some of the work of strikers at state-run facilities such as
veterans' homes, hospitals and treatment facilities. The
Department of Transportation also took out ads for scab
snowplow drivers.
Teamster truck drivers refused to cross picket lines. Yet
deeper union solidarity could have ended the strike very
quickly and resulted in a better settlement. In the mid-
1990s Gov. Arne Carlson's plan to call out the National
Guard against bus drivers was thwarted by the Teamsters
telling the governor that if he did so, they would call a
general strike. This type of action, flexing union power
against state power, should have been repeated.
AFSCME and MAPE workers deserve solidarity. They stood up in
the front lines defending the standard of living of the
working class against the ideological onslaught of the
government, which was telling workers to sacrifice for the
profits of the rich in a time of war.
No to layoffs! No to cuts in social services! No to
curtailments on the right to strike!
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Nov. 1, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
COMMUNITY RALLIES SUPPORT AFTER
POLICE BEAT AFRICAN STUDENT
By Sharon Black
Baltimore
On May 23 of this year, Judith Annan was preparing to go to
her graduation. Her whole family from Ghana, in West Africa,
was excited and proud. She was to receive her master's
degree that evening.
In preparation for the event, she stop ped by a friend's
apartment in Towson, Md., parking her car in the apartment
complex. Little did Annan know that in a short time she
would become the victim of police violence.
Annan says that police hit her, drenched her in pepper
spray, pulled her hair and smashed her teeth as she clung in
terror to the steering wheel of her car. She sustained a
sprained wrist, swollen hands and $4,600 worth of damage to
her teeth.
She was then thrown into jail, where she reports that she
was humiliated and degraded.
Why did all this happen? Police claim she parked in a lot
that didn't allow her to be there, although there were no
signs saying so. But is she in fact a victim of racism,
because she is from Ghana and speaks English with an accent?
The injustice of the situation was so apparent that
initially the precinct commander released Judith Annan
without any charges.
But later, when the police feared a brutality suit, they
changed their position. On June 6, Annan was charged with
assault and resisting arrest.
The All Peoples Congress--a grassroots coalition that
struggles for social and economic justice--has been working
with Judith Annan, her family and lawyers to mobilize
support for her case. The APC is asking friends and
supporters of Annan to meet on Oct. 29, the date of her
trial, in front of Towson District Court, 111 Alleghany Ave,
Towson.
Support is critical at this time when attacks are growing on
immigrants everywhere in the United States.
For more information, call (410) 235-7040.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Nov. 1, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
MUMIA ABU-JAMAL FROM DEATH ROW: SECRET WARS
As this is written, the obscene whine of bombs pierces the
night sky over the capital city of Kabul, in the war-
shattered nation of Afghanistan. Once again, the American
Empire has come to the Middle East, armed with the
glittering array of war.
Although national opinion polls assure us that this nebulous
war against "terrorists, and all who support them" is a
popular one, high opinion poll ratings mask the very real
and very deep anxiety that people feel, in their hearts and
in their guts, about the prospect of victory. That anxiety
underlies a deep distrust that Americans have historically
felt about the government. What don't they know? What are
Americans not being told? How will this end?
In truth, there is a good reason for this sense of anxiety,
as many Americans are, without their knowledge or okay, a
part of the secret wars that are raging around the world.
When the United States was a very young, and indeed, an
infant nation, a well-known national leader hatched a secret
plot to invade and overthrow Libya. An agent of his was
given tens of thousands of dollars and 1,000 guns to raise a
secret army against Libya.
This U.S. State Department official was attached to the Navy
and given the title "Agent for the United States Fleet in
the Mediterranean." This secret agent, working without the
knowledge or permission of the U.S. Congress, entered Egypt,
organized a mercenary army, and waged war against Libya, but
was not able to destabilize the government.
The government agent was Capt. William Eaton. He was acting
under the secret orders of U.S. President Thomas Jefferson,
after a secret meeting between them on Dec. 10, 1803. (See
Jerry Fresia's "Toward an American Revolution: Exposing the
Constitution & Other Illusions," Boston, South End Press,
1988, p. 102.)
Such secret wars have dotted the history of the U.S., and
made her the enemy of millions on several continents. For
the poor in Latin America, in the Caribbean, in Africa and
parts of Asia, the U.S. is seen as a powerful yet
schizophrenic child. She will arbitrarily remove leaders of
governments, insert agents of disorder, and wage vicious
propaganda wars against other countries through her media
machine.
In an alleged "democracy," why is there even ever a need for
secret war?
In a nation that claims to represent the interests of the
people, how can a secret war be waged? The two are simply
incompatible, for if the government is--in Lincoln's famous
words--"of the people," how can the government keep secrets
from itself?
While the media may manipulate public opinion to justify the
waging of wars, the real beneficiaries are rarely known, and
indeed, rarely are the real causes known. The causes are,
more often than not, economic. While citizens and soldiers
wave flags, corporations wave wallets.
For example, you may still find old-timers who will tell you
that the big one, World War II, was fought against the Nazi
ideology of Hitler. Few would argue with the old geezer. But
how many of us know that American corporations traded with
the Nazis, even during the war? Charles Higham, in his book
"Trading With the Enemy," wrote:
"What would have happened if millions of Americans and
British people, struggling with coupons and lines at the gas
stations, had learned that in 1942 Standard Oil of New
Jersey [part of the Rockefeller empire] managers shipped the
enemy's fuel through the neutral Switzerland and that the
enemy was shipping Allied fuel? Suppose the public had
discovered that the Chase Bank in Nazi-occupied Paris after
Pearl Harbor was doing millions of dollars worth of business
with the enemy with the full knowledge of the head office in
Manhattan [the Rockefeller family, among others]? Or that
Ford trucks were being built for the German occupation
troops in France with authorization from Dearborn, Michigan?
Or that Colonel Sosthenes Behn, the head of the
international American telephone conglomerate ITT, flew from
New York to Madrid to Berne during the war to help improve
Hitler's communications systems and improve the robot bombs
that devastated London? Or that ITT built the FockeWulfs
that dropped bombs on British and American troops? Or that
crucial ball bearings were shipped to Nazi-associated
customers in Latin America with the collusion of the vice-
chairman of the U.S. War Production Board in partnership
with Goering's cousin in Philadelphia when American forces
were desperately short of them? Or that such arrangements
were known about in Washington and either sanctioned or
deliberately ignored?" ("Trading with the Enemy," Dell
Books, 1984, pp. 184-5)
There are wars, and there are wars, apparently.
Unfortunately, there are also secret wars, and the ones who
are in the battlefields, or wave flags, are the last ones to
know.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Nov. 1, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
OAKLAND, BERKELEY:
THOUSANDS GREET CONGRESS MEMBER WHO VOTED AGAINST WAR
By Bill Hackwell
Oakland, Calif.
At least 3,000 supporters of Barbara Lee, the congressional
representative of this African American city, packed into
Frank Ogawa Plaza in front of Oakland City Hall on Oct. 22.
They showed in a rousing display that, like Lee, they are
opposed to the war being waged against the people of
Afghanistan.
They stood shoulder to shoulder--African American, Native,
Latino, Asian and white--to show their support for Lee. She
has been under attack since she cast the only "no" vote in
Congress on the resolution that gave Bush a green light to
use any and all force necessary to conduct a war in
Afghanistan and elsewhere.
This total capitulation of the so-called elected body of
representatives has allowed Bush to rein terror on one of
the poorest countries in the world.
Radio personality Davey D told the crowd that Barbara Lee
has been subjected to death threats and vicious slander in
the pro-war, big-business media simply because she has a
different opinion about the war. Many of the signs in the
crowd thanked her for her courage. Some raised the idea that
perhaps she should be president.
Among the speakers who showed their support were Alameda
County Supervisor Keith Carson, Oakland City Council member
Nancy Nadel, actor Danny Glover and author Alice Walker.
Walker said how proud she was of Lee's stand and urged the
crowd to take care of themselves to stay strong for the long
haul for peace and justice.
BERKELEY CITY COUNCIL CALLS FOR END OF BOMBING
In a related development, the Berkeley City Council became
the first elected body in the U.S. to pass a resolution
calling for a cessation of the bombing of Afghanistan. The
vote was 5-0 with four abstentions.
There had been nine speakers--seven for and two against.
When it was passed a huge cheer went up in the crowd that
filled City Hall chambers. One part of the resolution
condemned the attacks of Sept. 11; another section urged all
elected representatives to address the issues of "overcoming
poverty, malnutrition, disease and oppression that drive
people to commit terrorist acts."
Another part of the resolution pushed for "lessening the
dependency on oil and committing to renewable energy
sources."
Before the vote was even cast, Rachel Rupert from the
Berkeley Chamber of Commerce, in a thinly veiled threat,
went on national television and said that a national boycott
of Berkeley would develop if the resolution passed.
The struggle to keep the resolution will continue when the
council meets again on Oct. 30. Progressive Berkeley City
Council member Kriss Worthington has urged all anti-war
activists in the Bay Area to keep that date on their
calendar and come out once again to say no to the U.S. war
in Afghanistan.
- END -
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