June 1, 2012

Chicago Factory Occupiers Form Worker Cooperative

By Yana Kunichoff, Truthout | Report

First, they occupied the factory to get their wages from the bosses that owned the machinery. Then, they occupied their factory to keep the second bosses from shutting down their machinery. And, now, they are on their way to owning and running the machinery.

The group of workers who occupied their Chicago factory in 2008 and again in 2012 incorporated a worker-run cooperative on May 30, 2012. The factory window makers will take over was formerly owned by Republic Windows and Doors and then Serious Energy, and will now be run by New Era Windows, LLC. read more »

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June 1, 2012

A wave of prisoner resistance sweeps the South

 

by | June 1, 2012, 6:00 am

 

Last week, prisoners in two different facilities in the United States resisted inhumane conditions — one through an uprising that the mainstream media dubbed a “riot,” and the other through a hunger strike. The tactics employed by the two groups differ, but the messages are clearly linked: Prisoners are protesting their conditions and are willing to put their lives on the line to fight for better treatment.

On May 20, inmates took control of the Adams County Correctional Facility in Mississippi for over eight hours. One inmate managed to access a cell phone during the uprising and called WLBT TV in Jackson, proving his presence in the prison by sending pictures. He gave the station the following statement: “They beat us; we’re just [paying] them back. We just need better treatment and services. We need medical attention. We just want some respect. They call us wetbacks” — referring to a racist slur used against undocumented immigrants. read more »

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May 29, 2012

Low levels of Fukushima cesium found in West Coast tuna

Reposted from CNN

Scientists hope to test new samples of Pacific bluefin tuna after low levels of radioactive cesium from Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident turned up in fish caught off California in 2011, researchers reported Monday.

The bluefin spawn off Japan, and many migrate across the Pacific Ocean. Tissue samples taken from 15 bluefin caught in August, five months after the meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi, all contained reactor byproducts cesium-134 and cesium-137 at levels that produced radiation about 3% higher than natural background sources – but well below levels considered dangerous for human consumption, the researchers say. read more »

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May 16, 2012

Private Prisons Lobby for Harsher Sentences

If you’re looking for one of the reasons why the United States imprisons more people — by miles — than any other nation, you can look to the development of private prisons as a means of making some people rich. Those people spend millions of dollars to lobby elected officials to do two things: Convert government-run prisons to private prisons, and lock up more people for longer periods of time. Because that makes them even richer. read more »

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May 14, 2012

The Beginning of the End of the Unpaid Internship

By JOSH SANBURN

Former intern Diana Wang is suing the Hearst Corporation for minimum and overtime wages.

In August 2011, when Diana Wang began her seventh unpaid internship, this time at Harper’s Bazaar, the legendary high-end fashion magazine, she figured that her previous six internships – at a modeling agency, a PR firm, a jewelry designer, a magazine, an art gallery and a state governor’s office – had prepared her for the demands of New York’s fashion world.

“I was so determined to make this one really worth my while,” says the 28-year-old Wang, who moved from Columbus, Ohio, to New York, where she was living with her boyfriend (also working as an unpaid intern at one point) and living off of her savings. “I knew I couldn’t do anymore internships after this.”

As it turned out, Wang’s internship was just like many of the thousands of others: unrewarding in terms of both pay and marketable experience — not to mention the lack of a job offer. In fact, the only difference between her internship and most others was what happened about a month after it ended. Wang sued.

On Feb. 1, the law firm Outten & Golden filed a class-action lawsuit against the Hearst Corporation, which owns Harper’s Bazaar, on behalf of Wang and any other unpaid and underpaid intern who worked at the company over the past six years. The lawsuit alleges that, among other things, Hearst violated federal and state labor laws by having Wang work as many as 55 hours a week without compensation. read more »

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May 3, 2012

The “capitalism” we protest – response to Seattle Times author Jon Talton

Author Jon Talton wrote two interesting pieces for the Seattle Times yesterday, one in anticipation of the May Day anti-capitalist march, and the other reflecting on it afterwards.

The latter was precisely what you would expect from the Times. Lazy, poorly researched non-sense which, had it been written on any other subject, would have been considered unpublishable.

The previous article - although equally uninformed - was more interesting, however, because it came closer to the heart of the disagreement between the liberal establishment and anarchists, and, in fact, demonstrates precisely the opposite view the author intends it to. read more »

Posted in Economy, Government, Resistance | 3 Comments »

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April 25, 2012

Why Isn’t Closing 40 Philadelphia Public Schools National News? Where Is the Black Political Class?

By Black Agenda Report managing editor Bruce A. Dixon:

In what should be the biggest story of the week, the city of Philadelphia’s school system announced Tuesday that it expects to close 40 public schools next year and 64 by 2017. The school district expects to lose 40% of current enrollment to charter schools, the streets or wherever, and put thousands of experienced, well qualified teachers, often grounded in the communities where they teach, on the street.

Ominously, the shredding of Philadelphia’s public schools isn’t even news outside Philly. This correspondent would never have known about it save for a friend’s Facebook posting early this week. Corporate media in other cities don’t mention massive school closings, whether in Chicago, Atlanta, NYC, or in this case Philadelphia, perhaps so people won’t have given the issue much deep thought before the same crisis is manufactured in their town. Even inside Philadelphia the voices of actual parents, communities, students and teachers are shut out of most newspaper and broadcast accounts. read more »

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April 23, 2012

Jailed for $280: The return of debtors’ prisons

By Alain Sherter, April 20, 2012

How did breast cancer survivor Lisa Lindsay end up behind bars? She didn’t pay a medical bill — one the Herrin, Ill., teaching assistant was told she didn’t owe. “She got a $280 medical bill in error and was told she didn’t have to pay it,” The Associated Press reports. “But the bill was turned over to a collection agency, and eventually state troopers showed up at her home and took her to jail in handcuffs.”

 

Although the U.S. abolished debtors’ prisons in the 1830s, more than a third of U.S. states allow the police to haul people in who don’t pay all manner of debts, from bills for health care services to credit card and auto loans. In parts of Illinois, debt collectors commonly use publicly funded courts, sheriff’s deputies, and country jails to pressure people who owe even small amounts to pay up, according to the AP.

Under the law, debtors aren’t arrested for nonpayment, but rather for failing to respond to court hearings, pay legal fines, or otherwise showing “contempt of court” in connection with a creditor lawsuit. That loophole has lawmakers in the Illinois House of Representatives concerned enough to pass a bill in March that would make it illegal to send residents of the state to jail if they can’t pay a debt. The measure awaits action in the senate. read more »

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April 18, 2012

The U.S. Poured So Many Toxic Weapons on Falluja in 2004 That Residents Still Pay the Price


Infant mortality was found to be 80 per 1000 births, compared to 19 in Egypt, 17 in Jordan and 9.7 in Kuwait

Michael Kelley Apr. 18, 2012. Business Insider

 
The increases in cancer, infant mortality and perturbations in birth sex ratio in Fallujah are significantly greater than those recorded for survivors of the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasakiin 1945, according to a study and reported by Karlos Zurutuza of Inter Press Service (IPS).

The study, released by the Switzerland-based International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, shows that in the years following Operation Phantom Fury there has been a 4-fold increase in all cancer, including a 12-fold increases in childhood cancer in those aged 0-14. 

According to hospital spokesman Nadim al-Hadidi, Fallujah hospital cannot offer any statistics on children born with birth defects because there are just too many. read more »

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April 18, 2012

Gulf seafood deformities alarm scientists

By Dahr Jamail 18 Apr., 2012. Al Jazeera

New Orleans, LA - “The fishermen have never seen anything like this,” Dr Jim Cowan told Al Jazeera. “And in my 20 years working on red snapper, looking at somewhere between 20 and 30,000 fish, I’ve never seen anything like this either.”

Dr Cowan, with Louisiana State University’s Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences started hearing about fish with sores and lesions from fishermen in November 2010.

Cowan’s findings replicate those of others living along vast areas of the Gulf Coast that have been impacted by BP’s oil and dispersants.

Gulf of Mexico fishermen, scientists and seafood processors have told Al Jazeera they are finding disturbing numbers of mutated shrimp, crab and fish that they believe are deformed by chemicals released during BP’s 2010 oil disaster. read more »

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