March, 15 2011, 12:24pm EDT
Nationwide Effort to Eliminate Voice of Nurses, Teachers, Firefighters and All Working People
WASHINGTON
All eyes are trained on Wisconsin, but corporate-backed politicians are clearly gunning for working people in every state across the country.
In a brazen new low, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder is on track to sign a new law under the guise of fiscal responsibility that will allow him to appoint emergency fiscal managers with powers so expansive they could "fire local elected officials, break contracts, seize and sell assets, eliminate services - and even eliminate whole cities or school districts without any public input," according to CBS.
Over the past week, Republican governors and legislators in state after state have taken aim at their own constituents with increasingly blatant attacks on education, public services, and working people's voices.
* In Maine, Governor Paul LePage has exempted himself from a budget bill that requires teachers and other state employees to increase their pension contributions from 7.65 percent of their salary to 9.65 percent. Laws curtailing the rights and compensation of public service employees or calling for privatization of public services have been introduced in Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, and Wisconsin;
* On Thursday, the Florida House passed a bill, HB 7005, which would slash unemployment benefits from 26 weeks to a sliding scale of 12 to 20 weeks, and force unemployed workers to accept a minimum wage job after receiving 19 weeks of benefits;
* In Pennsylvania, Governor Tom Corbett's budget would cut over 1500 jobs and slash funding for public universities in half. Public school teachers and employees face assaults in the form of thinly veiled attacks on public schools and teachers in Alabama, Florida, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania among others;
* So-called right-to-work bills have been introduced in over a dozen states, including Maine, Missouri, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Alaska, Tennessee, and Indiana;
* Paycheck deception bills, which would silence workers' voice in the political process, have been or soon will be introduced in nearly two dozen states;
* Prevailing wage laws that protect workers and communities from unscrupulous contractors lowballing bids on taxpayer-funded construction projects have been targeted for repeal by the Republican governors and legislatures of 19 states;
* And it's not just the rights of workers to collectively bargain for a middle class life under attack. We're also seeing a nationwide push to take away the rights of voters. New Hampshire State Representative Gregory Sorg recently introduced a bill that would eliminate the right of New Hampshire's college students to cast a ballot where they go to school. In a chillingly partisan statement, Sorg's argument against the ability of students to vote where they go to school was not based on their residency, but on their habit for voting for liberals.
In Wisconsin, working families continue to make their voices heard. On Saturday, over 150,000 students, clergy, nurses, teachers, firefighters, and community members rallied at the Wisconsin Statehouse to call out Scott Walker for his blatant push to silence working people's voices. Check out pictures of Wisconsin small businesses supporting public service workers: https://bit.ly/fVXqkL.
But even in states where the outcry has not been as publicized, working families have stepped up to express their dismay to lawmakers who would rather play partisan games and tip the scales against the middle class than create jobs. On April 4, working people from across the country will declare "we are one" in events across the country, everything from vigils and rallies to house parties and letter writing parties. Participants will point to Dr. Martin Luther King's struggle for civil rights and how the movement continues today. Go to the We are One website to see events develop: www.we-r-1.org.
Other updates:
* Last Thursday, over 20,000 teachers, firefighters and policemen joined with community members at the Indiana Statehouse to protest against "right-to-work-for-less" legislation and to host a mock funeral for the middle class.
* On Tuesday, hundreds of Miami teachers, firefighters, police, healthcare workers and others met at the Mahi Shrine Auditorium to express their outrage at a slew of bills headed for the floor at the start of Florida's 2011 legislative session.
* In Iowa, a hearing last Monday night drew hundreds of union supporters to testify against a collective bargaining bill that one protester called a "cynical attempt to cripple unions that have historically not seen eye-to-eye with the governor"
* And in Missouri, 5,000 working people protested proposals to make Missouri a right-to-work state and repeal child labor laws.
Working people are galvanized as politicians spend their time taking away the rights of workers instead of creating jobs and building the economy. That energy will continue as long as politicians spend their time giving political favors instead of creating good jobs.
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) works tirelessly to improve the lives of working people. We are the democratic, voluntary federation of 56 national and international labor unions that represent 12.5 million working men and women.
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"As FANFSA and the 702 reauthorization move to the Senate, lawmakers in that chamber need to take a stand for the rights of people in the United States," said one advocate.
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While applauding the U.S. House of Representatives' bipartisan passage of a bill to ensure that "law enforcement and intelligence agencies can't do an end-run around the Constitution by buying information from data brokers" on Wednesday, privacy advocates highlighted that Congress is trying to extend and expand a long-abused government spying program.
The House voted 219-199 for Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act (FANFSA), which won support from 96 Democrats and 123 Republicans, including the lead sponsor, Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio). Named for the constitutional amendment that protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, H.R. 4639 would close what campaigners call the data broker loophole.
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"We're grateful that the House passed these vital and popular protections," she added. "The bill would prevent flagrant abuses of our privacy by government authorities in league with unscrupulous third-party data brokers. Making this legislation into law with Senate passage too would be a decisive and long-overdue action against government misuse of this clandestine business sector that traffics in our personal data for profit."
Wednesday's vote followed the House sending the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act to the Senate. H.R. 7888 would reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which allows for warrantless spying on noncitizens abroad but also sweeps up Americans' data.
The House notably included an amendment forcing a wide range of individuals and businesses to cooperate with government spying operations but rejected an amendment that would have added a warrant requirement to the bill, which the Senate could vote on as soon as Thursday.
Noting those decisions on the FISA reauthorization legislation, Ruddock stressed that "today's vote is a victory but follows a recent loss and ongoing threat as that Section 702 bill moves to the Senate this week too."
"As FANFSA and the 702 reauthorization move to the Senate, lawmakers in that chamber need to take a stand for the rights of people in the United States," she argued. "That means passing FANFSA and reforming Section 702 authority—and prioritizing everyone's First and Fourth Amendment rights."
Jeramie Scott, senior counsel and director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center's Project on Surveillance Oversight, also praised the House's FANFSA passage on Wednesday.
"The passage of the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale underscores the extent to which reining in abusive warrantless surveillance is a bipartisan issue," Scott said. "We urge the Senate to take up this measure and close the data broker loophole."
Kia Hamadanchy, senior policy counsel at ACLU, similarly said Wednesday that "the bipartisan passage of this bill is a flashing warning sign to the government that if it wants our data, it must get a warrant."
Hamadanchy added that "we hope this vote puts a fire under the Senate to protect their constituents and rein in the government's warrantless surveillance of Americans, once and for all."
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a critic of the pending 702 bill and FANFSA's lead sponsor in the upper chamber, called the the House's Wednesday vote "a huge win for privacy" and said that "now it's time for the Senate to follow suit."
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As the United Nations Security Council prepares to vote Thursday on Palestine's bid to become a full U.N. member, the Biden administration—which claims to support Palestinian statehood—is lobbying UNSC nations in an effort to wrangle enough "no" votes so that the United States can avoid resorting to a veto.
Leaked cables obtained by The Intercept show U.S. pressure on Security Council members including Malta—which currently presides over the body—and Ecuador.
While claiming that President Joe Biden backs "Palestinian aspirations for statehood," one of the cables asserts that "it remains the U.S. view that the most expeditious path toward a political horizon for the Palestinian people is in the context of a normalization agreement between Israel and its neighbors."
"We therefore urge you not to support any potential Security Council resolution recommending the admission of 'Palestine' as a U.N. member state, should such a resolution be presented to the Security Council for a decision in the coming days and weeks," the document advises.
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"We wanted the U.S. to provide a substantive alternative to U.N. recognition. They didn't," one unnamed Palestinian official toldAxios on Wednesday. "We believe full membership in the U.N. for Palestine is way overdue. We have waited more than 12 years since our initial request."
As The Intercept's Ken Klippenstein and Daniel Boguslaw noted:
Since 2011, the U.N. Security Council has rejected the Palestinian Authority's request for full member status. On April 2, the Palestinian Observer Mission to the U.N. requested that the council once again take up consideration of its membership application. According to the first State Department cable, U.N. meetings since the beginning of April suggest that Algeria, China, Guyana, Mozambique, Russia, Slovenia, Sierra Leone, and Malta support granting Palestine full membership to the U.N. It also says that France, Japan, and Korea are undecided, while the United Kingdom will likely abstain from a vote.
Along with the United States, China, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom are permanent members of the UNSC, so they also have veto power.
Ahead of Thursday's planned vote, Spain has been doing its own lobbying in Europe to build greater support for Palestinian statehood. At a joint Tuesday press conference with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob said the question is "when, not if, but when is the best moment to recognize Palestine."
Belgium—which is seeking economic sanctions against Israel in response to its genocidal war on Gaza—is expected to join Spain's push for Palestinian statehood after the country's European Union presidency expires in June.
Currently, 139 of the U.N.'s 193 member states recognize Palestine as an independent state.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who has also claimed to support a so-called "two-state solution"—has alternately boasted about thwarting Palestinian statehood.
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PI calls it an "illicit network undermining democracy around the world."
"Today is a mask-off moment for the Reactionary International and the parties, politicians, judges, journalists, foundations, think tanks, tech platforms, NGOs, activists, financiers, and entrepreneurs that comprise it," PI said.
"After a year of preparation, we finally open the doors to our new research consortium, exposing the global network of reactionary forces that corrode our democracies, destroy our planet, and drive us closer to world war," the group added.
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Ultimately, PI aims to "support democratic systems to become more resilient to their insidious tactics."
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Yanis Varoufakis, a PI member and secretary-general of the left-wing Democracy in Europe Movement 2025, called the database "a treasure chest of well-researched reports on how the reactionaries of the world unite."
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