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Grad students and allies in Northeast fight back |
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by Bryan G. Pfeifer, bgp (nospam) iacboston.org |
 Graduate student-workers and their allies at three of the biggest universities in the Northeast are engaging in massive, spirited work actions this week.
On Monday, April 18 the Graduate Student Employees United-UAW 2110 (www.2110uaw.org/gseu) at Columbia University and the Graduate Employees and Students Organization-UNITE-HERE at Yale (www.yaleunions.org/geso) began a joint week-long strike for recognition. On April 20 at Columbia a 4 p.m. "Rally for Justice" at 116th and Broadway is scheduled. |
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19 Apr 2005
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Filed under: News / Education : Labor |
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Graduate students at UMass-Amherst say no contract, no peace |
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by Bryan G. Pfeifer, bgp (nospam) iacboston.org |
 With support of progressive campus community...
Graduate students say no contract, no peace
Build largest march and rally in years
AMHERST, MA – Facing multi-faceted assaults by the administration and its class allies, students and progressive campus community members realizing the historic importance and national implications of this struggle, responded March 31 with one of the largest mass action in years.
Over 600 students-graduate and undergraduate-union allies and campus community members answered the call of the Graduate Employee Organization, UAW Local 2322 for a "March for fair wages, healthcare, benefits and childcare," in response to the administration’s refusal to bargain in good faith. |
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04 Apr 2005
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Filed under: News / Education : Labor |
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The Cavernous Divide: More Billionaires, More Poverty |
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by Scott Klinger, |
Two magazine covers stood out in poignant contrast on newsstands last week. Forbes magazine released its 29th annual listing of the world’s billionaires. Time Magazine’s cover story wondered “How to End Poverty.”
It was a good year for the global billionaires’ club. Their ranks grew to 691, up 17 percent from the previous year. Collectively, the wealth of the world’s billionaires reached $2.2 trillion, up more than 57 percent over the last two years.
Poverty is growing as well. Time reports that nearly half of the world’s 6 billion residents are poor. Over one billion of them subsist on less than $1 a day. In the United States, according to the US Census Bureau, the number of impoverished Americans rose 3.7 percent in 2003. The number of children living in poverty rose 6.6 percent. |
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Springfield teachers fight back against control board |
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by Bryan G. Pfeifer, bgp (nospam) iacboston.org |
 In the midst of a Northeastern snow storm which eventually dumped over seven inches of snow on the area that day, over 800 teachers and their allies packed the Central High School auditorium March 1 for a public speak-out to tell the city's Finance Control Board: Hands off teachers and all city workers! The public forum, part of an ongoing campaign by the Springfield Teachers Association, exposed the control board's attempts to move money out of the already-strapped school budget to pay for other city expenses; its unilateral cuts in benefits that will cost city employees, including educators, thousands of dollars; and threatening even further cuts to the wages and benefits of teachers and other city employees. |
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08 Mar 2005
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Filed under: News / Education : Labor : Race |
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Springfield unions fight back against control board attacks |
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by Bryan G. Pfeifer, bgp (nospam) iacboston.org |
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Members of Springfield’s Finance Control Board, under the guise of achieving fiscal solvency, are stepping up their attacks on workers and their communities here. Special targets are vital city services and public-sector union workers like the teachers who are entering their fourth year of a wage freeze. On Dec. 21, Philip Puccia, the Financial Board’s executive director sent a letter to the Springfield Education Association informing the 2,500 teachers and 3,000 retirees in the teachers' union that the board was going to vote at its next meeting to increase deductibles and co-payments for all services except office visits and prescription drugs effective April 1. |
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19 Jan 2005
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Filed under: News / Education : Labor : Politics |
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Schoolbus drivers fight back against attacks |
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by Bryan G. Pfeifer, bgp (nospam) iacboston.org |
 Boston's unionized school-bus drivers and monitors are fighting back in the face of a series of vicious racist and anti-union attacks by the mayor, the City Council majority and Boston's leading tabloid. These unionists, members of United Steel workers of America Local 8751, are working with Black leaders, the community and the Boston labor movement in a fightback campaign. The struggle focuses on the issue of installing Global Positioning System (GPS) devices on the buses. But behind the attacks are efforts to undermine school desegregation and break up this multinational union, which has been in the forefront of anti-racist and other progressive struggles in the city. |
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06 Jan 2005
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Filed under: News / Labor |
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Stop privatization of wastewater in Holyoke |
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by Keep It Public, |
Open Letter to the Aquarion Company
Attn: CEO Charles Firlotte.
Dear Mr. Firlotte and Aquarion,
Your subsidiary, the Aquarion Water Company of Massachusetts is the only bidder on a contract to design/build/operate the wastewater treatment facility and CSO abatement project in Holyoke, Massachusetts, where I would be one of your future ratepayers.
Mr. Firlotte, your company appears to be an honorable institution, and I mean no disrespect when I say that many of us in Holyoke don’t want the company to come here. We’ve formed a group called the Holyoke Citizens for Open Government, and although the contract is nearing final approval, we are doing what we can to halt the process.
http://water.homestead.com |
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Indian labor leaders to visit Boston |
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by Rand Wilson, rand (nospam) mindspring.com |
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BOSTON -- A delegation of Indian labor leaders will address "outsourcing" and other international labor issues at a public event in Cambridge on December 2. Members of the tour are seeking a dialogue with U.S. workers about mutual interests in the fight to defend good jobs and ensure fair labor standards. |
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30 Nov 2004
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Filed under: News / Globalization : International : Labor |
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