The lobbyist and spin doctors against the working American have launched all sorts of anti-union websites, one of their newest is using the "stop unions" phrase. So here's a nice little spot on Blogger where I can test some nice widgets for my own site Joe's Union Review
TIG WIRED is music geared towards the people who work in the industrial service areas, welders, fitters, riggers, brickies, tin bashers, boiler hogs, pipefighters, inspection guys, scaffold gods and the like...you get the picture..you'll get the meaning too!!. If you like good solid music with a taste for blues, rock, reggae and some new age stuff, then you are gonna love this site....
Social networking site MySpace, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, has sparked controversy by deleting the world's largest online atheist group following complaints from people who find atheism "offensive".
"Atheist and Agnostic Group" boasted 35,000 members until it was deleted on 1 January for the third time in as many years. It was founded in 2004 by Bryan Pesta, an assistant professor at Cleveland University who established it as a social network "specifically for godless people."
The group was closed down for the first time two years ago after an organised campaign by Christians persuaded MySpace to delete it. It was eventually restored and MySpace promised to protect it. This time, despite a petition from 500 users and repeated emails to customer services, MySpace seems reluctant to reverse its actions.
What is the real bad side effect of losing your social networking account? Eric Lee creator of Labourstart could see this happening to organized labor and expressed a very strong argument to not outsource your campaign to their networks (back in Nov.)
What you're doing by outsourcing your campaigning to Facebook is growing their company, giving them direct access to your supporters and members. What's the alternative? Do-it-yourself online campaigns where you retain the information on who has sent off protest messages.
LabourStart has campaigned this way for years. Every time we do a campaign, we collect the emails, names and unions of participants. If they've given us permission, we've added them to our mailing list and they receive our weekly email newsletter. Our list has grown from 3,000 names five years ago to 51,000 names today due to these campaigns.
Imagine if Facebook had existed five years ago and if we had tried to campaign using it. We wouldn't have a mailing list today and we certainly wouldn't be able to send out more than 50,000 emails a week.
Which eventually we have seen come to pass, when a Union Organizer and Labourstart correspondent, whose goes by the nickname Blackadder, had his account removed from Facebook, it took John Wood, a dedicated unionist from the United Kingdom who created a site urging people to E-Mail Facebooks customer service and a Labourstart campaign sending E-Mails direct, to get him reinstated.
This isn't the first time a Big Media outlet has banned a less than conservative opinion, in Sept. 2007 Verizon took the step of banning text messages from the Pro-Choice group NARAL
The dispute over the Naral messages is a skirmish in the larger battle over the question of “net neutrality” — whether carriers or Internet service providers should have a voice in the content they provide to customers.
Which leads me to the impotence of the agency that is supposed to protect us from unsafe products, the CPSC, better known as the Consumer Product Safety Commission. This is a clusterfuck by all standards
Over the weekend, the Consumer Product Safety Commission will lose its quorum—just like it did for eight months in 2007 before Congress gave it a temporary reprieve to continue to operate with full authority.
Why should you care? Because without a quorum (in the CPSC’s case a quorum means having three commissioners), the agency’s activities are limited. It cannot vote on new safety standards, issue mandatory recalls, or take further action on civil penalties above $50,000 against firms that have failed to report defective or hazardous products.
An online friend, John, who has been following the toxic toys mess in this country E-Mailed his Senator with an article which explained that Japan has a very extensively researched product safety standard and a giant list of unsafe imported products, he has a great point in just asking for the list and giving it to the CPSC, I'd go one further, remove the CPSC and outsource their jobs to Japan.
You would think the Govt. wants sick and retarded citizens, could be theres an awful lot of Big Pharma money getting stuffed in politico's pockets, look at how they get whatever they want, look at how your asking your doctor for Viagra and all the other shit they want you to jam down your gullet, that hasn't been tested properly yet and makes you sicker so you can get more shit that makes you sicker so you can buy more shit. Heres his E-Mail:
Dear Senator Lisa Murkowski,
The enclosed news articles show the persistent problem of importing unsafe and toxic goods from China to America. The CPSC has been unable to get on top of this problem, because they say they don’t have the resources to do the job. I recently heard a news broad cast pointing out that America will have this problem for years to come.
The news story said that Japan does not have this problem and will never have it. Japan sends over inspectors to see to it that unsafe and toxic products are not shipped to Japan in the first place. Japan has a list of products that have passed inspection and a list of products that have not pass inspection.
What the US of A should do is get a copy of the list of products that Japan has screened and follow it as they do. Then the problem of shipping in unsafe and toxic products will come to a halt. As Japan does not have this import problem of products from any country, nether will the US of A.
I am sure that Japan would be willing to give a copy of their safe product list to the US of A for free. I hope you get a copy of this safe product list and give it to the CPSC for them to use in their screening of products that are shipped to America.
I'm all for it John, unfortunately in its impotent state the CPSC cannot do a thing. Speaking of ineffective, did you catch Mitt Romney, who after blowing $40 Million of his own cash bashing unions on the way out the door.
It’s high time to lower taxes, including corporate taxes, to take a weed-whacker to government regulations, to reform entitlements, and to stand up to the increasingly voracious appetite of the unions in our government!
Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, the only thing better than him leaving the race is when Giuliani dropped out, but has Mr.911 really dropped out. He has thrown his support into Mr.War McCain, who the conservatives allege is a Liberal, hoping all us closet Racists and Misogynists will storm onto his bandwagon. Well as this article will explain, Giuliani would be the perfect choice to make sure that the Fascist police state we are heading towards is enforced
In a McCain Regime, Cheney will be back in office with another stint as Secretary of War. Norman “Bomb-bomb-bomb-Iran” Podhoretz will be Undersecretary for Nuclear War with General John “Nuke them” Shalikashvili as his deputy. Rudy Giuliani will be the Minister of Interior in charge of Halliburton’s detention centers into which will be herded all critics of war and the police state. billy kristol will be chief White House spokesliar.
The first year Mr.Giuliani was in office I got arrested while trying to convince my friend to give the police his ID, who tried to remain in office during our time of mourning the devestation, which has become a popular thought as Mr.Bush has effectively created the National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive.
The directive defines a “Catastrophic Emergency” as the following.
"Catastrophic Emergency" means any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions;
So what does this mean? This is entirely subjective and doesn’t provide any real concrete definition of what such an emergency would entail. Assuming that it means a disaster on the scale of the 9/11 attacks or Katrina, there is no question that the United States at some point in time will experience an emergency on par with either of those events. When one of those events takes place, the President will be a dictator in charge of ensuring a working constitutional government.
Mr.Giuliani, as my friend George at work informed me, had part ownership of SkyWatch, who in collaboration with Raytheon(God how I love that companies name), a large military contractor was developing technology to build a virtual Border fence. Although he had dropped his assets in the company Mr.Giuliani was promoting his "fence" for quite some time, as recently as Feb.5th., the day he filed his papers to become a Presidential candidate
(Feb.5th.2007 he stated)"I support security at the borders," Mr. Giuliani said. "I do think that with the fence, the fence honestly has to be a technological fence."
He forgot to mention 9-11 and Terrorism in that statement, must have been an off day. Which brings me to conspiracy theories, lets see, big politicos who have big military ties, big corporations who swing right on the issues, terrorism, terrorism, terrorism. America's favorite pot smoking country singer Willie Nelson has come forward stating that 9-11 was an inside job.
This comes less than a year after another beloved, well known and respected member of the entertainment industry Charlie Sheen came forward expressing his disbelief, I don't remember seeing this on the news or in the paper, do you? God I got to see Britneys ragged snatch shot thousands of times and her new drug of choice is plastered all over everything, but when a legitimate member of the entertainment industry comes forward with such shocking words its buried. Oops, I stand corrected, Showbiz Tonight did a story on it.
Nothing in this world could make someone wonder more than Zeitgeist Movie. When first viewed it gave me the shivers, now I stick to the Serenity Prayer. The best comment I have read so far about it is from RustyLime.com
Well, in saying all of that, remember that conspiracy is just another form of propoganda. While movies like these, the Dawkins ones, the Loose change series, Al Gore's movie etc are principally informative, all information is greatly slanted towards the makers' own bias, prejudice, translation and interpretation.
The only source for information that is trustworth is you. You do your own research and make up your own opinions (if you feel it necessary). Otherwise, you are left with mindless cretons, sheep if you will.
Warning: View At Your Own Risk
Enough with the conspiracies, read a few articles about construction safety here in New York
Construction of low-rise buildings – 14 stories and under – is up 31 percent over last year, and "construction incidents" on such buildings are up 2 percent, from 288 in 2006 to 294 in 2007, she said.
But "the regulation framework within New York City is geared toward high-rise construction,” maintains Coletti of the building trades association. He also thinks DOB is not proactive enough. “DOB has always been reactive,” he said, voicing a sentiment echoed repeatedly by those interviewed. Until recently, “it was the Wild West show out there. They need more resources.”
I wholeheartedly agree, get more people and funding. Start investigating even the smallest sites, construction companies do not go into business to get smaller, expecting the growing companies to concern themselves with safety when they do get the larger projects, is like taking the driving test after you already have bad habits.
I'm starting to think that all pedestrians walking in the City Of New York should wear a hard hat, they would be a hell of a lot easier to sweep up if they were crushed, and at least it would make those guys digging 2 feet into the street have a real reason to wear a hardhat.
Which makes me wonder why the city is so lax on illegal aliens entering the state and working in construction, wouldn't it really suck if say a terrorists were to get underground at Grand central Station or the UN. Doesn't take a genius to figure a way to make a steam main explode, sometimes it happens on it's own. Hell if the workers are getting shit on for $8 an hour for 100+ hours a week any Al Quaeda operative, who could figure the correct language to speak to one, could surely get him to plant a bomb for a pittance. Probably just for some medical insurance.
Meanwhile, Republican Senators have made sure via a threat of filibuster that the better version of the Economical Stimulus Plan were not made available to the public, unfortunately a plan which did not include extension of unemployment benefits and heating assistance for those who need it most has been adopted and voted in. John McCain didn't bother to vote, some Liberal he is.
For all practical purposes their plan works like this: When they retire, they continue to draw the same pay until they die, except it may increase from time to time for cost of living adjustments.
For example, former Senator Byrd and Congressman White and their wives may expect to draw $7,800,000.00 (that's Seven Million, Eight-Hundred Thousand), with their wives drawing $275,000.00 during the last years of their lives. This is calculated on an average life span for each.
Their cost for this excellent plan is $00.00. Nada. Zilch. This little perk they voted for themselves is free to them. You and I pick up the tab for this plan.
Speaking of Liberals, a new friend and contributer here, Mike from Springfield, MA Union News had a great story which he posted on his site.
(excerpted) Joe gets up at 6:00am to prepare his morning coffee. He fills his pot full of good clean drinking water because some liberal fought for minimum water quality standards. He takes his daily medication with his first swallow of coffee. His medications are safe to take because some liberal fought to insure their safety and work as advertised.
All but $10.00 of his medications are paid for by his employers medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance, now Joe gets it too. He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs this day. Joe’s bacon is safe to eat because some liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.
Liberal, socialism all that gets me confused, but I know that Starbucks definitely fears union organizers, the Wall Street Journal explains that there were E-Mails floating company wide to management, expressing concern that they had union sympathizers in their ranks.
According to several emails, in early 2006, Starbucks managers discovered that two pro-union employees in New York were graduates of a Cornell University labor program. According to an email, managers took the names of graduates from an online Cornell discussion group and the school's Web site and cross-checked them with employee lists nationwide. They found that three employees in California, Michigan and Illinois were graduates of the program and recommended that local managers be informed.
The Gunite workers sure could have used unemployment extension in the Stimulous package if the are out too long.
Workers say they’re still united to get a better contract but admit that two months on picket lines collecting unemployment is a strain on their families. While the unemployment benefit is about two-thirds of a worker’s pay, it’s based on a 40-hour workweek. Gunite’s 136 union workers average 66 hours a week, according to the UAW.
“It’s getting tougher all the time,” millwright Mark LeFevre said. “It gets a little frustrating. For one thing, they stretched the talks out.”
In the meantime, security guards hired by the company keep a constant eye on the pickets. Replacement workers and salaried employees are operating the plant.
All leading to the newest book I have asked for a review copy of
"An outstanding contribution to our understanding of the lives of working people, past and present. Lawrence Richards's careful examination of workers' resistance to union appeals breaks new ground, while his case studies of failed organizing campaigns illuminate workers' ambivalent and often hostile views of organized labor. This account of men and women who are usually neglected by celebrants of unionism enriches the historical narrative and reminds us of the cultural and ideological obstacles that labor activists have faced and continue to confront."--Robert H. Zieger, Distinguished Professor of History, University of Florida
Eric Lee's Labourstart is the world premiere news source for international Labor headlines, his news feeds are found on news, labor and social injustice sites around the globe. Just adding a pertinent link to Labourstart helps spread information, information which is usually ignored by the main stream media. After reading some global campaigns, you can see how much we have in common with the struggling working man around globe. Nowadays when all the corporations are going with the lowest bidders in the cheapest nations, it's even more important that we all get involved in making it better for those people. Think of it as a hand up which can help ourselves too, eventually the price to relocate will be nullified if the demand by the workforce makes steady gains.
Eric also makes it his personal business to get us involved in the global movement by sending out correspondence explaining the situations and asking us to take further action via E-Activist e-mail campaigns and by getting the word out. I took one of his campaigns to heart, the Russian Ford strike. The greatest strike in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Through the ups and downs of their picket, Labourstart followed the story, with some very reminiscent factors such as an anti-union police force and government getting involved. Ford has since met the majority of the workers demands. This also comes on the heals of another win from Eric, getting Blackadder, the Union Organizer back onto Facebook. You can and should join Eric's e-mail list. We do make a difference.
So without further ado, heres the E-mail I opened today:
In the last few weeks we've asked for your backing for online campaigns in support of a jailed activist in Bangladesh, striking workers in Russia, and baristas in a Tel Aviv cafe. You responded magnificently, and today I want to report on three bits of good news.
Mehedi Hasan, the workers rights activist in Bangladesh, was released from detention on Sunday afternoon. Thanks to the 4,000 of you who sent messages and spread the word. Bangladesh remains a concern for all of us, and you can continue to follow these issues on the website of Labour Behind the Label and on LabourStart's Bangladesh news page.
And as we reported earlier, your generous donations to the striking Ford workers in Russia have produced some concrete results -- today a majority of workers at the plant voted to accept the agreement on a pay increase and additional benefits which was reached following the historic 20-day strike, the longest-ever in recent Russian history.
The lowest paid workers are getting a 21 percent increase, and on average the factory workers will earn US $1,030 per month. According to reports we're getting from Russia, "the conflict is over with a great victory of workers, whose courage and international solidarity made the company engage in serious negotiations, leading to the setting up of new pay standards for the whole booming Russian auto industry."
We recently asked for your support for the IUF's global online campaign backing striking workers at the Coffee Bean cafe in Israel. According to reports in the media today, the trade union federation (Histadrut) and management have agreed to end the two-week strike and begin negotiations.
Three campaigns - three victories. This has been a good week. Thank you!
Eric Lee
No, Thank You, Eric Lee, you are an inspiration to us all.
Although candidates running for president, including Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, each boast tens of thousands of friends on the social networking site, Facebook threw Blackadder off for making too many friends on the site.
Within nano-minutes of Blackadder’s ban, a “Free the Blackadder One” group was created on Facebook, and quickly became so popular, it reached the 1,000 friends mark. According to Facebook rules, once a group exceeds 1,000 members, Facebook turns off the e-mail feature and members can no longer be contacted.
John Wood, a dedicated unionist from the United Kingdom who organized the Free the Blackadder One site, urged people to e-mail Facebook customer services about Blackadder’s treatment. Labourstart played a big part in getting the page back up, as Blackadder is one of their correspondents. Jan.24th Blackadder was allowed back on the site and is discussing the situation on his Facebook page.
So far, nobody is alleging that the ban was politically motivated. The Facebook Terms of Use stipulate that Facebook is for personal non-commercial use only-that line is blurry for people like Blackadder who effectively make friends for a living.
In fact, Facebook is full of professional activists and organizers plying their trade openly. These organizers come from across the political spectrum. Facebook hosts thousands of politically-oriented groups. It seems odd that Blackadder would be singled out for the content of his profile.
Apparently, it’s not uncommon for users to get banned for adding too many friends. The tech blog Scobelizer reported last year that Facebook engineers imposed a 5,000-friend limit on all users because the system isn’t designed to handle such large sets of contacts.
But as Beyerstein wonders:
[T]he question remains: Why did Facebook kick Blackadder out, instead of just regulating his friending? By disabling the account, Facebook has deprived Blackadder of a potentially valuable contact lists and whatever else he may have uploaded.
