Myth Of Liberal Media

FOX News making McCain look younger?

Stop Big Media: Huge Senate win!

second good news, E-Activism works, even if it takes a while, when the FCC on December 17th. 2007, went against 99% of American peoples wishes and overturned a rule that 1 company can not own more than one of either print, tv or radio in any one region, FreePress went to work, getting people like you and I involved in stressing to our Senators that we the people can not take this blatant disregard of our wishes. I wrote "Now Big Media can hurt workers better" at the FreePress Blog on Dec. 19th., the CWA and AFTRA joined in the fight

From the E-Mailbox

Dear Joseph, Just moments ago, by a near-unanimous vote, the Senate stood up to Big Media. They voted to throw out the FCC decision to let the largest media companies swallow up even more local media. This is simply an astounding victory, and it would not have happened without the massive grassroots effort by you and thousands of others who called their senators, sent more than a quarter million letters, posted thousands of pictures and stories on StopBigMedia.com, and testified at public hearings held by the FCC. It was your dedication that made today's Senate win possible. Today was a huge step forward, but there is still much to do. The fight against the FCC now moves to the House, where our elected representatives need to hear from us. President Bush has promised that he will try to veto this bill. But tonight the Senate and the American people have spoken with one voice. This historic vote sends a clear message that the only people who support more media consolidation are Big Media lobbyists and the White House. We are in this struggle to bring more minority ownership, diverse perspectives and independent voices to the media. We need to make media consolidation an election-year issue. And we need to start talking about how to break up the giant conglomerates. Corporate news today -- with its propaganda pundits, horse-race election coverage, and celebrity gossip -- undermines our democracy. We must continue to speak out and demand that the public airwaves be used to actually serve the public. In just three weeks, thousands of people will be gathering together in Minnesota to build the movement for better media. You can join them at the National Conference for Media Reform, just visit www.freepress.net/conference. For today, know that you played a key role in the fight for better media for all. Thank you, Josh Silver Executive Director Free Press Action Fund

StopBigMedia.com is a project of Free Press and the Free Press Action Fund, on the Web at www.freepress.net.

May 1st., 2003, mission accomplished, 5 years later West Coast dockworkers strike against war

Follow up to: West coast Longshoreman to strike against war as Iraq conflict costs hit 1/2 a trillion and more news you may have missed (3/08/08)

Five years ago this day, President Bush all dressed up for a party in his flight suit, landed in a jet onto the deck of an aircraft carrier, he then spoke before this very nation and the entire world under a banner that read "Mission Accomplished".

Today, 100% of people with a brain know that just isn't the case. on the west Coast the ILWU has struck the docks and paralyzed the coast, against arbitrator demands that they go to work. These fine men and women have had enough and proceeded with The West Coast dockworkers strike against the war.

the IRAQ WAR

500 Billion plus US dollars

4,000 plus Americans dead

Mission Accomplished, My ASS!

From ABC News

And for those who think it's quieted down, insurgents today dramatically reminded us that it is a long way from over. At least 35 people were killed, 76 wounded in a double suicide bombing north of Baghdad. It was a brutal assault - the first bomber, a woman, blew herself up in a crowded market in a Shiite town. Then, as security forces began dealing with the carnage, a second bomber blew himself up.

From LAList

All West Coast Ports Closed for May Day Strike

Security personnel place warning cones in front of the closed gates at the entrance to the Port of Los Angeles. West Coast cargo traffic has come to a halt as port workers stage anti-war protests to commemorate May Day. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)

In the name of ending the war, all 29 ports along the West Coast, including Los Angeles and Long Beach, have halted operations for one shift. "We are supporting the troops and telling politicians in Washington that it's time to end the war in Iraq," dockworkers' union president Bob McEllrath said in a press release.

Two years ago today, a similar protest happened when thousands of truck drivers stayed away to participate in "Day Without Immigrants." This year, the truckers are being turned away from the gates of ports until they can return later this evening when the 6:00 p.m. shift begins.

Today also "serves as a reminder of the 2002 dispute between the maritime association and the dockworkers that paralyzed West Coast ports for 10 days," noted the LA Times.

Stop Big Media E-Action Alert: Tell the FCC you care about local media

How does this tie into labor? Check out my post on FreePress Action Network to see my point of view -> "Now Big Media can hurt workers better" (12/19/08) :

From the E-Mail box

Dear Joseph, The FCC wants to hold TV stations accountable to the public. Don't let Big Media take away your right to know. Take Action Now Your local television stations want to keep you in the dark. The FCC has voted to make TV stations more accountable to their viewers by disclosing basic information about the ways they serve the public. Seems simple, right? But there are many things that Big Media don’t want us to know. And their powerful lobbyists and lawyers in Washington are now suing the FCC to stop the new disclosure rules from going into effect. Defend your right to know. Tell the commissioners that local media need to be more accountable to us. Tell the FCC: Stand Up for the Public In exchange for a promise to serve the public, Big Media giants get a free license to use our public airwaves and make billions. The new rules will help you monitor the media and make your voice heard. They require stations to form community advisory boards and have someone in the studio at all times for public safety alerts. In addition, stations would have to post information on station ownership, educational and community programming, and public complaints on their Web sites. This information helps communities pressure stations to improve their programming -- and even challenge their licenses at the FCC if they’re not meeting local needs. Big Media’s lawyers and lobbyists are fighting rules like these. They are telling the FCC that no one cares about how their stations do business. Prove the Lobbyists Wrong: Tell the FCC You Care about Local Media Don’t let Big Media pull the wool over our eyes. Tell the FCC not to back down. Take action and then forward this e-mail to your friends. Onward, Josh Stearns Campaign Coordinator Free Press http://www.freepress.net/ http://www.stopbigmedia.com/ Take action on this important campaign at: http://www.stopbigmedia.com/comment.php Tell your friends about this campaign at: http://free.convio.net/site/Ecard?ecard_id=1109

NY Labor Unions Helping Fulfill MLK's Dream of Equality

From:

NY Labor Unions Helping Fulfill MLK's Dream of Equality

*Click above to listen to story

New York, NY - On the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King's assassination, a pair of new studies shows that unions play a major role in lifting black workers to positions of equality. The reports, by the Fiscal Policy Institute and the Center for Economic Policy Research, say unions raise the pay of African-American workers by 12 percent, and more than one-third of New York's black workers are union members.

David Dyssegaard Kallick with the Fiscal Policy Institute is not surprised by the study results. He says unionization was part of Dr. King's vision.

"Toward the end of his career, he began to speak out more frequently on how blacks needed to earn a decent salary to achieve real equality in America, and I think he saw labor unions as one of the key ways to make it into the middle class."

Kallick says King's support of trade unions was reflected throughout his life. King was in Memphis to support efforts to unionize the city's municipal sanitation workers when he was murdered, forty years ago on Friday. Kallick explains King supported their cause, and believed that unions stand for the dignity of workers.

"What King said was, 'All labor has dignity. You're reminding, not only Memphis, but the entire nation, that it's a crime for people to live in this rich country and receive starvation wages.'"

The CEPR report is available online at www.cepr.net. State-by-state unionization statistics can be found at www.fiscalpolicy.org.

John Robinson/Don Mathisen, Public News Service - NY

I urge my readers to check out the Public News Service website, heres a snippet from their About the organization page:

Media Trends and PNS

Today six major corporations control the information in most media outlets. The trend is consolidation and cross-marketing – resulting not in more voices, but more of the same voices. Under these pressures, journalists are often overworked, underpaid and driven toward increasingly sensationalized content.

From our perspective, the ability of mainstream media to support a vibrant democracy is in jeopardy. Gaining access to the public airwaves is increasingly dependent on being able to relate to journalists in time-saving ways. Often this expertise comes with a hefty price tag, and those with fewer resources have a harder time being heard and taken seriously in the public arena.

In response, more independent and alternative media are being created, but most people still get their news from mainstream sources.

What we do …

To support democracy and promote public dialogue in a rapidly changing media
environment, Public News Service (PNS) is a member-supported news service
that advocates journalism in the public interest. PNS's network of
state-based news services distribute high quality public interest news and
information to both mainstream and alternative media on a daily basis.
Support comes from non-profit organizations, foundations, individuals and
businesses for social responsibility.

Read More

West coast Longshoreman to strike against war as Iraq conflict costs hit 1/2 a trillion and more news you may have missed

FIVE HUNDRED BILLION US DOLLARS!

In the week that the Iraq conflict's cost has reached $500,000,000,000, thats 500 Billion US dollars, the west coast Longshoreman Union has sent a letter to the AFL-CIO , which according to WIN Radio, President John Sweeney announc(ed) that West Coast port workers would be walking off the job on May 1 to demand a withdrawal of troops from Iraq. The letter from ILWU President Robert McEllrath says that during a two-week caucus members adopted a resolution that calls for “longshore workers to stop work during the day shift, on May 1, 2008, to express their opposition to the war in Iraq.”, he further inquired, if other AFL-CIO affiliates would be participating in similar events on May 1, also known worldwide as International Workers’ Day, to “honor labor history and express support for the troops by bringing them home safely.” The letter was sent on February 22.

US Labor Against War


More information on Labor unions against war can be found at the US Labor against War website, a list of their affiliate unions and organizations can be found here.

Cost of War


click here to learn more

By clicking the link above you can view a website which compares what the cost of the Iraq conflict could have been used towards and further breakdowns by area state, etc., Brooklyn is only $4.3 billion into costs for Iraq, guess that isn't too bad.

The Profiteers

While there are quite a few profiters of this conflict, none could be more brazen than our own Vice-President Dick Cheney, who after Desert Storm, the Kuwait conflict, The Gulf War of the 90's expressed his concerns in 1994 about Iraq, stating that it would be a quagmire, he also states that it was not a good idea to invade Iraq and "how many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth? And our judgment was not very many and I think we got it right."

Let's Go To The Videotape

Cheney is also the former CEO of Halliburton, who has gotten a large proportion of no-bid contracts in the Iraq conflict. As a matter of fact, when served with a lawsuit about his ties, the Bush-Cheney white house made history, as the first administration to refuse a process server and furthermore threatened to arrest the process server if he dropped off the lawsuit. This of course is a crime and would be grounds for impeachment in its own rights.

• White House Refuses to Allow Complaint to be Lawfully Served On Vice President Cheney

According to an affidavit of due diligence filed in the case, the process server attempted to serve the complaint on the Vice President at The White House and was told by a security officer that he would not accept the “papers” for the Vice President. According to the process server’s sworn statement, the security officer said that “if I dropped them [the federal court summons and complaint], he would arrest me.” The attempted service was made on July 22, 2002.

No lawyer for Vice President Cheney has contacted Judicial Watch to accept service on the Vice President’s behalf.

“We have served many a lawsuit on Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Hillary Clinton when they were in The White House. The Clinton White House accepted the papers. Never before have our process servers been threatened with arrest. If this Bush-Cheney White House is serious about corporate corruption and responsibility, it would not allow the Vice President to improperly hide behind White House security to evade service of process in the Halliburton securities fraud litigation, and it would not threaten the process server with arrest,” stated Judicial Watch Chairman and General Counsel Larry Klayman.

From President to Dictator at his own Discretion? You make the call

But theres a whole lot of things that have changed since 1994, job security, the right to get a fairs days wage for an honest days work, good American job.

Nothing could ever compare with the biggest news story you never read, On May 9th of 2007, the "National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive" was signed by our beloved president. In this little not reported by the Main Stream Media document are the rights for Mr.Bush or any president thereafter to assail to the rank of Dictator under any "Catastrophic Emergency". The term Catastrophic Emergency is at the Presidents discretion and is loosely defined as "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.". At the point in which said emergency occurs the President, according to Prison Planet, can take total control over the government and the country, bypassing all other levels of government at the state, federal, local, territorial and tribal levels, and thus ensuring total unprecedented dictatorial power. According to acclaimed author Jerome Corsi the new rule takes no account the previous way in which emergencies were dealt, stating "its language appears to negate any requirement that the president submit to Congress a determination that a national emergency exists.", that means that in the event of such a "Catastrophic Emergency" the appropriate authority of all Constitutional Government will end and will have to answer solely to the President.

Now, theres a news headline you didn't see, while I myself don't exactly know which way to interpret it, it would have been nice if it had been reported on in depth by the Main Stream Media.

BillyBob on YouTube gives his thoughts

Stop Big Media action alert, help Senate negate FCC ruling

E-Activism can make a difference, nothing shows that more than the campaign by FreePress Action Network to overturn the recent FCC ruling to allow more media consolidation.

For a recap of the ruling, here's an excerpt of an article I wrote on Dec.18th. 2007, entitled Stop Big Media NOW!

The FCC's Republican Chairman Kevin Martin has effectively handed a sweetheart deal to Big Media, by overturning a 32-year-old rule that prevents a newspaper owner from also owning a radio or television station in the same city. Democratic commissioner Johnathan S. Adelstein called the new rule

"a monumental mistake" and, with Copps, called it a gift to media companies that will enable consolidation and restrict the diversity of voices on the airwaves."

When the idea of more media consolidation was put before Americans - during a series of public hearings and requests for public comment - more than 99 percent said bigger media were bad for them, bad for their communities and bad for our democracy.

Can you remember the last time 99 percent of Americans agreed on anything?


The CWA and AFTRA had called for a 90-day comment period after publication of the proposal in the Federal Register and also ask for an "open process" to address localism and diversity, that was not done and both unions have released statements expressing their disappointment.(continued)

How bad is it to labor, my opinion is below, in the first article I wrote at FreepressActionNetwork on Dec.19th. 2007

Now Big Media can hurt workers better

Hello, my name is Joe, I am a rank and file union member and on staff at the independent labor movement website UnionReview.

While we are primarily a labor news site, we also monitors news items that tie directly to the communication of the modern labor movement, such as Network Neutrality, the squelching of free speech and the spin doctoring of main stream media.

This ruling is a tremendous blow to the American working citizen. Information is power, the gathering of ideas based on different points of view is critical. When so very little can brainwash so many, what hope do we have.

Stand up people. Stand up for places such as Workers Independent News and Brain Labor Report, who continuously report on the airwaves about the struggles of the common working man and social injustices that never make it to the main stream.

Labor hardly got any attention in the main stream media before this was passed, and any if broadcast or published almost always portrays union workers as lazy, greedy and enemies of the public. A good case in point is an article I entitled NY Post spin-doctoring and the IATSE Stagehands, in which I retort the Rupert Murdoch News Corp.owned NY Post's so-called editorial about those greedy stagehands that closed down Broadway Thanksgiving week.

Does News Corp., Viacom, Disney, etc. have a stake in portraying unions as bad to the public? Absolutely, they have to negotiate with them at every step of their business, they are the employer, directly and indirectly of writers, screen writers, engineers, truckers, service employees, construction workers, screen actors, communication workers, stagehands, make-up artists and a host of other labor groups. It suits them well that there is a growing majority of ignorant people in this country that believe that unions are bad for them personally. They have the power to repeat in every media form their message and use the theory that if you continuously lie over and over the masses will believe it to be truth.

That suits Big Media and their corporations fine, by leveling the public against workers, by speaking generally without a fact basis, they perpetrate half-truths and outright lies that get embeded into the heart and mind of the public. By instilling hopelessness and fear they divide us into more and more fractions of smaller groups, pitting each against one another, dividing and conquering, making working people feel as if they are lucky to have a job, and that they must accept the final offer by employer.

This is not acceptable for my country, I thank the work of all those who contribute here, I regret that I have found this late, after seeing this at the AFL-CIO WebBlog, I couldn't help but get involved, firstly by writing a story on my new site Joe's Union Review the Anti-Union BlogSpot (theres reasons for the name), porting the story to UnionReview and MySpace, and by posting the links to our site and the AFL-CIO's story globally onto Labourstart, the global newfeed which reaches thousands of labor sites worldwide.

If we do not stop consolidation of the corporate main stream media and we give those same corporations complete control of the internet, our sources for free independent and diversified news and information will dry up.

Sites, such as freepress and UnionReview, that exercise our freedom of speech, that communicate important social matters and move people to take action may no longer be viewable or in the worst case scenario, have nothing to write about.

Thank you for putting this together, please contact me if anything I write at the site is erroneous, or if theres any other way I can help.

I leave you with this

"Such a small percentage try to make the world a better place, leaving the work to a scarce few. If those that did next to nothing did just a tiny bit, the world could be a better place for all." - me 7/7/07"

New Action to take via E-Mail

Dear Joseph, Congress can overturn the FCC's bad rules to further consolidate local media. Take Action Now Now's your best chance to stop media consolidation in New York. The Senate introduced legislation earlier this week that would reverse the Federal Communications Commission’s decision to let the nation's largest media companies swallow up more local and independent news outlets. Congress has just 60 legislative days to pass this bill. By acting now, you can help make it happen: Veto the FCC's Big Media Handout We have Big Media to blame for local news that's steeped in celebrity gossip, corporate hype and sensationalism. If the FCC gets its way, you'll see your local news get even worse. The FCC's decision further consolidates local media markets, taking away the independence and diversity that comes from local ownership. Simply put, this is a sweetheart deal for a handful of companies that have been breaking media ownership rules for years with impunity. In December, 200,000 people called on their senators to take action against the FCC. The Senate has responded with a “resolution of disapproval,” (SJ Res. 28) a type of congressional veto that would throw out the new rules. Now we need to get another 50,000 citizens on the record supporting the Senate’s action. Tell Your Friends: Veto Big Media Companies like News Corp. and Sinclair already have shown their willingness to abuse the public trust for political ends. During this election year, when diverse, quality and unbiased information is essential for voters, we cannot allow Big Media to silence even more independent voices. It’s our turn to use our collective grassroots power to stop Big Media and make sure that our airwaves are used to better serve the public. Onward, Alexandra Russell Program Director Free Press http://www.freepress.net/ http://www.stopbigmedia.com/ P.S. Learn more about this important legislation at: http://www.stopbigmedia.com/blog Take action on this important campaign at: http://free.convio.net/site/Advocacy?pagename=homepage&id=243 Tell your friends about this campaign at: http://free.convio.net/site/Ecard?ecard_id=1109

As Seen On TV with HBO's The Wire, Tribune Co. drops 120 staff members from NY Newsday.

Critical journalism heading towards extinction
with all due respect to Not for Nothing at The Pheonix.com for the "Life Imitates Art" headline

Scene from HBO's The Wire click the pic to get more info from IMDb

I have pointed working people towards NY Newsday in the past, as it seems to be the only paper to write about local labor issues. It would seem that the owner, Tribune Co., who 2 weeks ago reduced it's staff by 300 workers at its other publications, have decided to cut the NY Newsday staff by 5%, thats 120 staff members.

Examples of local labor stories in which only NY Newsday wrote about, and which myself and Richard from UnionReview.com have covered are as follows:
HIP replaces 186 Downtown, NY jobs, breaking a massive promise
NY: Waldbaum's and A&P screwing 400 local employees and moving to nonunion facilities

The first of the two stories was rejected by the other 3 big papers in NY, according to my source The NY Times stated that it wasn't worldly enough. The second just wasn't news I guess. Funny, I would think that 400 long term, persons who held the jobs getting screwed, would be noteworthy to the larger publications, but those giants focus on such things as India making manhole covers (NY Times-ex. NY Times blows the lid off of Made In India manhole covers in New York) and the outright bashing of union workers (Rupert Murdoch's NY Post- ex. NY Post spin-doctoring and the IATSE Stagehands). There are so many other issues that Newsday has revealed about labor, but that gets me too far from the point.

Tribune Co., the corporate owner of NY Newsday, has recently been at a war of words with the HBO show The Wire, which this season has highlighted one of its publications, The Baltimore Sun, in taking a long hard look at the troubles and tribulations behind the scenes when the local papers have to answer to the corporate ownership and the price the employees and the readers pay in answering those demands. The Baltimore Sun has downplayed the popularity of the series to the point of taking shots at the show in it's critics corner. The Baltimore Sun's critic sites the low ratings of the show and blames it on the newspaper storyline, but even as the writer points out, the On Demand viewership, which gets a person the ability to watch the show a week earlier, cannot be counted. I myself am one of those viewers and so are many of my co-worker's.

This isn't the kind of 'kid with a dunce cap in the corner journalism' I want to read, but if you must, and I made a comment which I hope will appear there, you can check it out at Ratings for HBO's "The Wire" -- more bad news

A bit of history, the writer of The Wire, David Simon, is a former reporter who worked at The Baltimore Sun. From Newsday (1-06-08):

To Simon, finishing "The Wire" with a riff on journalism was obligatory. "Newspapers, which for the duration of the American experiment have been the primary means of monitoring government and other imposed authority, are being eviscerated," he said. "The people who once held us all to some basic account are being laid off, bought out and 'attrited' from newsrooms. Newspaper managers ... tell us they're going to do more with less. You do less with less. That's why they call it less."

Simon nonetheless persuaded the Baltimore Sun's top editor-managers to let him use the paper's actual name - rather than an alias - as well as the name of its parent, the Tribune Company (which also owns Newsday). He agreed to their condition that he not use the names of actual reporters and editors, but he did cast several former Sun reporters and editors in minor roles.

What "Wire" watchers get as a result is Clark Johnson (of Simon's earlier Baltimore-based police series, the celebrated "Homicide: Life on the Street"), as city editor Augustus "Gus" Haynes, Simon's surrogate voice.

Like Simon, Haynes believes newspaper executives are hastening their papers' demise when they retire seasoned veterans in favor of younger, cheaper personnel - if they replace them at all - and emphasize "user-friendly" topics over serious reporting and risky cage-rattling. Simon's Sun includes an executive editor who favors feel-good fluff over depressing dispatches from Baltimore's underbelly and a young reporter so determined to make a marketable name for himself that he doesn't hesitate to invent quotes or, for that matter, sources.

Life imitates art
From ThePheonix.com (1-21-08):

The Los Angeles Times Editor James O'Shea was fired by publisher David D. Hiller for refusing to impose four million U.S. dollars in budget cuts ordered by the publisher, the newspaper confirmed Sunday.

It's the second time in 15 months that a Times editor has been fired for refusing to make budget cuts ordered by the publisher, and comes a month after the closing of an 8.2-billion-dollar buyout of Tribune Co., The Times' parent company, by an employee stock plan and Chicago real estate tycoon Sam Zell.

O'Shea came from the Chicago Tribune in November 2006, a week after Hiller fired Editor Dean Baquet in another dispute over budget cuts, The Times reported.

Hiller, who had been the publisher of the Chicago Tribune, took over as Times publisher in October 2006, succeeding Jeffrey M. Johnson, who had also been fired by executives at Tribune's Chicago headquarters over the same issue of budget cuts, The Times reported.

Life imitates art Redux
A little over a month afterwards, life has imitated art once again, our reporters and staff here in New York, at the paper I read most often, the loudest if not the only voice of local labor struggles, is to lose 5% of it's staff, thats 120 workers, thats less coverage, and thats a real shame. From NY Newsday, in excerpted fashion: Newsday is cutting 120 jobs (2-28-08) By Keiko Morris

Newsday publisher Tim Knight Thursday announced that the newspaper will be cutting about 120 jobs throughout the company, citing declining sales and the "soft advertising revenue environment."

The reduction in Newsday's workforce -- about 5 percent -- comes as many news organizations nationwide have been cutting jobs to survive an already tough and competitive marketplace made more difficult by a slowing economy. Two weeks ago, several other news organizations owned by Newsday's parent company Tribune Co. -- Los Angeles Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Hartford Courant and the Chicago Tribune Media Group -- announced staff reductions affecting about 300 employees.
(continued)

The company did not disclose how many management jobs will be eliminated. Of the union positions, at least 25 of those reductions will take place in the newsroom on top of 13 vacant positions that have gone unfilled. The pressroom will be reduced by at least 24 union positions and the transportation bargaining unit will be reduced by at least five drivers, according to Zachary Dowdy, vice president of the Editorial Unit of Local 406.

The company will reduce the number of union positions through voluntary buyout offers and, if necessary, involuntary layoffs.

Dennis Grabhorn, president Local 406 of the Graphic Communications Conference/International Brotherhood of Teamsters, said he did not agree with the constant cuts, noting that it has been only a year and a half since the last contract was signed and a substantial job reduction made. "Really all of this paper is doing now is getting rid of more Indians and keeping the chiefs," Grabhorn said.

"I just don't understand how a newspaper being the only daily newspaper on an island with more than 3 million people can have a circulation of less than 400,000 readers," Grabhorn later added. "I find that hard to accept. I don't understand why Newsday cannot sell on this island and that just tells me that Newsday is not putting effort into growing circulation." (continued at site)

I hope that the paper can still have enough reporters to continue it's local labor coverage. I actually look forward to reading it every chance I can and I always hand it off to another person who may not read it often, with the expectation that they too can see the variety of real life issues it has within it's pages and become a buyer also. Tim Knight, don't destroy Newsday, I depend on it.

Carhartt, Red Wing Shoes and more union news you may have missed, ideas, blurbs and dumbed down Americans

Carhartt

Reminder, Carhartt has now removed it's "Made in the USA" items from its website, wonder which inferior labor standard their enterprise has invaded now. A look at the site from 2005 shows that they proudly still had a few "Made in USA" items. Now they have none that proudly proclaim anything other than one pair of $43 jeans, which the Product Description claim's:

100% Carhartt values! A combination that can't be beat when it comes to a classic like American blue jeans. These are rugged 15-ounce 100% cotton denim. Designed to fit at the natural waist and provide a bit more room in the seat and thigh -- a real plus for easy movement and on-the-job comfort. 17.5-inch leg openings provide plenty of room to slip easily over work boots. Reinforced back pockets, front pocket rivets, and plenty of on-the-job testing all help insure a hard-working, long-wearing, Carhartt-tough USA jean.

Funny, doesn't say "Made In USA" as it used to back in 2005:

15-ounce, 100% cotton denim
Sits at the natural waist
Relaxed seat and thigh
Two reinforced back pockets
Made in the USA
15 1/4" tapered leg opening

Also to note that the local store where I used to get work clothes, back in '05, had some Carhartt flannels I was looking through the bunch, and noticed that the 2x-5x were a much thicker material for the same price as the flimsy new ones, then it hit me, I took a look at the tags, it seems that the thicker ones were leftovers from the year before, not only that they were USA made, the newer ones not only were made by cheaper labor standards and cost, they were cheaper materials. So screw Carhartt, they sold out the American worker. Oh, yeah, one more reminder, a year after I got into my union, in around '97 Carhartt was building a new facility with nonunion labor, the entire Building and Construction Trades threw a Boycott on their merchandise. A month later my internationals magazine informed us that the boycott was over, Carhartt agreed to never again build an American textile mill without the use of union construction. Carhartt has kept to that promise. They have never again built a facility in the USA, they have done quite the opposite, they have closed almost all of them.

A good alternative, while only .5 oz. less material weight, but definitely made 100% in the USA is the carpenter jeans at All American Clothing for $38, thats just $1 more than the foreign made Carhartt straight leg and $2 less than the foreign made carpenter jeans.

Important Note: Please read this story in which a member has gotten to the bottom of the Carhartt union made items: Carhartt retraction- Some stuff is still made in the USA by union workers

Red Wing

The story isn't very clear about Red Wing, while the story is legendary, the best in union construction worker footwear, made 100% union in the Minnesota, USA.

Well that story has changed, in the 80's the Red Wing factory expanded it's Minnesota facility for the third time as production reached 2 million, they also expanded their catalog to over 150 different styles, thats where their sites history gets very vague, they say they now have 3 facilities, but no mention of where and what products come from what country. Very deceiving to say the least, I made a picture dedicated to Red Wing, while I feel if they have some union made stuff here in the states and the quality is the same as it has always been I will still buy them, but I'm really mad at the way they are handling the global diversity in their merchandise. Damnit! the union workers made the company. They owe us an explanation, they owe us in a big way. I feel that if the e-mails that are being sent from other liked minded individuals which aren't being answered, example at the Ed Schultz show message board, that if we do not get an answer from the company, that all union workers should boycott their products. For now simply bitching about it in the stores till you get a bona fide union made pair is a great start, geez, they're only about $10 more. Considering a good pair of work boots is upwards of $200, whats $10 to put food on another union workers table.

You can send Red Wing an E-Mail at Customer.Service@RedWingShoe.com

I know I'm gonna send them a piece of my mind

just in case you missed em the first time heres the images I made to get the message out, from an old story from 7/07 which may not be accurate anymore: Get some USA and Union made stuff

Please explain that there isn't currently a boycott of Red Wing at the moment, just that you have to check the labels before buying them. According to a poster at the above mentioned Ed Schultz site:

Red Wing does still make union-made American made shoes. I went to the Red Wing store a couple of miles from my house last year to get a pair of dress shoes. I did have to special order them, but I got them in a week and they are excellent shoes, still top quality.

Bluedog is correct, it's not like the Chinese-made shoes were half the price, they were still quite expensive (Red Wing have ALWAYS been expensive, but they last for years). I don't know about the difference in quality.

I raised a bru-ha-ha while in the store, and the other customers, once tipped off, were strongly against buying foreign-made shoes. There WERE plenty of the American-made, union-made shoes there, but not in the dress styles.

To me, Red Wing is STILL the place to go, just demand loudly the Union-made shoes, and let them know you'll NEVER buy non-union from them.

Yeah, they closed those plants, I made that over 7 months ago they probably closed a few more by now.

Fuck Carhartt, I say Boycott entirely. You can get the same quality for 1/3rd the price. Why waste your hard earned? That would be pretty foolish.

A Real Step For Labor?

Excerpt from "What Works and What Doesn't In Building A New Workers’ Movement" by Richard Mellor:

"Every strike, every community struggle, every battle against racism and discrimination, must be a battle against the bosses as a whole. We are all under attack. Millions of workers not in a Union would want to join an organization that fought for them against slumlords and for affordable decent housing or for a $15 an hour minimum wage. A program to fight the bosses should include such demands as:

• A $15 hour national minimum wage or a $5.00 an hour raise whichever is greater.
• Oppose collaboration with the employers through the Team Concept.
• Free health care for all to be paid for by ending Bush's tax cuts to the rich, by taking from military spending and by taking into public ownership the health insurance corporations and the pharmaceuticals and running the health care industry on the basis of need not profit.
• A massive increase in social spending for housing, education and schools as well as public transportation
• A return of all troops from Iraq
• No support for Democrats—build an independent worker’s party"

The last line is the most important in my eyes.

Cleaning Up Bush's disappointments

Theres a storm brewing against the Bush appointments, or rather disappointments, we all know that the Teamsters have started a site against Mary Peters, the US Secretary of Transportation, for allowing Mexican Domiciled vehicles roam freely throughout the USA. I have done my part check the Blog over there where one of my pictures is featured:

The above photo was taken by our friend in Manhattan. There was a LiUNA rally protesting sweatshop construction in the Big Apple. “Bad, Bad, Bad,” says the Rat sporting a Fire Mary Peters sticker over his broken heart.

Now American Rights at Work has launched a web-based campaign exposing Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao’s dismal record through www.ShameOnElaine.org which according to Talking Union:

Unlike her cohorts in the Bush Administration, Elaine Chao has escaped much-needed public scrutiny of her time on the job. From littering the Labor Department with corporate insiders to dismantling worker safety protections and collaborating with her husband, Sen. Mitch McConnell, on a blatant anti-union political agenda, Elaine has disgraced her role as Secretary of Labor.

Like most union activists we knew Elaine was a stinker – but until ARAW pulled all the information together at one spot, we had no idea just how bad her record is. We’re sure you’ll share our outrage over what we found out she was up to instead of serving in the interest of workers:

• Hired a former colleague from the Heritage Foundation who actually wrote a report titled “How to close down the Department of Labor.”
• Cut over 100 inspectors at the MSHA and, as a result, hundreds of mines weren’t inspected and tragedies such as Sago and Crandall Canyon might have been prevented.
• Had Chao-themed coins, lanyards, and fleece blankets printed at taxpayers’ expense.
• Failed to issue a rule requiring employers pay for their workers’ safety gear—contributing to 400,000 workers injured and 50 dead.
• Had an auditorium named in her honor – thanks to her husband’s $14.2 million earmark to enhance the Mitch McConnell Center at his alma mater, the University of Louisville. Of course, Elaine never attended the university.

Thats just the tip of the iceberg, my buddy Richie at UnionReview.com has been following her views on the American worker for a while and I pointed out in a comment:

Lets not forget

We are angry and smelly workers, according to the US Secretary of Labor
… In her infinite wisdom, Department of Labor Secretary Elaine Chao lectures workers on how we can stop losing our jobs to foreign workers: …
…and…
Secretary of Labor on Employee Free Choice Act
… will veto if it gets to his desk. The president and Elaine Chao say that private ballot elections should be preserved because “it is …

At the Shame on Elaine site theres also, among other atrocious misdeeds, an article about the North Carolina poultry industry, which as you may have read about first right here on JoesUnionReview, the newspaper in the local area, the Charlotte Observer has been doing what has become a rarity in todays Main Stream Media, an expose. Shame On Elaine notes:

Elaine Chao’s Labor Department doesn’t see a problem, though. Elaine’s OSHA claims poultry plants are “safer than ever,” pointing to supposedly lower rates of reported injuries. The devil’s in the details, though.

The poultry story has created quite a stir, the AFL-CIO Web Blog is currently engaged in a debate in it's comments section pertaining to a story about the newest employer exploitation here on American soil. Slaves, Sharecroppers, Now Immigrants, go check it out, I'm keeping my debates here and at UR.

Hershey's Chocolate Co.

Speaking of Union Review, one of our friends and contributers Kevin recently sent a letter to Hershey's Chocolate Co. expressing his concern about the chocolate giant wacking 1500 Teamster jobs here in the states, along with all the other jobs that go with it, and closing facilities in the US and Canada while opening brand new factories in Mexico. Well he got a half ass response which would be expected.

Thank you for contacting The Hershey Company.

Our history in the town goes back more than 100 years, and we are committed to continue making the world’s best chocolate products in Hershey, Pennsylvania. In fact, the company operates - and will continue to operate - three factories in Hershey.

The Hershey Company is making changes to our global manufacturing network to ensure that our company remains competitive in the global marketplace for the long-term. When these changes are completed, 90 percent of the items that Hershey sells in the United States and Canada will continue to be made in these countries. And we will continue to make Hershey’s milk chocolate bars, Hershey’s Kisses and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

We have a strict policy, that if any products are made outside of the USA and Canada, the name of the country of origin will be marked on the package.

Your interest in our company is appreciated.

SaLoua Iouani
Consumer Representative

I'd like to hold them to that 90% theory, we had been following that since I made my very first story at UnionReview: Hershey's Fiesta * when does the worker beating stop ? Which was also my first image I made to go with a story

Wins and Losses For Big Union Members

I always was kinda good with the headlines, speaking of which my cries to the General Motors UAW members went unheard when they singed that PoS contract, remember my story back in Sept. at UR: UAW: Some Reasons for GM Workers to Vote NO !

This contract shows the omnipotence of corporations, the back rubbing of upper union officials and the complete degradation of the American industrial working class.

So fight UAW workers, don't let them do this to you , if this goes into effect you can almost be sure that future auto's (electric and otherwise) will NOT be made in USA or Canada. Don't agree with me, re-read this in 3 years if this passes. If I am mistaken about any of my points, please inform me, I am willing to learn .

Screw me for short sightedness, ahem, long sightedness, it only took four months, thanks Richard for posting this:
GM offers buyouts to all 74,000 hourly employees after $38.7 billion loss

But GM Chairman and Chief Executive Rick Wagoner said that the company made significant progress in 2007, reducing structural costs in North America, negotiating a historic labor agreement and growing aggressively in Latin America and Asia.

The Detroit-based automaker said it was offering a new round of buyouts to all 74,000 of its U.S. hourly workers who are represented by the United Auto Workers.

GM won't say how many workers it hopes to shed, but under its new contract with the UAW, it will be able to replace up to 16,000 workers doing non-assembly jobs with new employees who will be paid half the old wage of $28 per hour.

Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC already have announced similar buyout offers. GM shares fell 65 cents, or 2.4 percent, to $26.47 in premarket trading. GM's annual loss of $38.7 billion largely was due to a third-quarter charge related to unused tax credits.

The 2007 loss topped GM's previous record in 1992, when the company lost $23.4 billion because of a change in health care accounting, according to Standard & Poor's Compustat.

Thats a bad part of history, speaking of which lets talk a bit of a victory, this week the Writers Guild members, which UnionReview has covered since the beginning of this strike, have ratified their contract. It was a long drawn out battle, but they hung in there through rain, sleet and snow(at least here in New York), and while many may be out for a period of time for schedule correction and show cancellation, they have triumphed. According to Uni Global Union:

“The strike is over. Our membership has voted, and writers can go back to work,” said Patric M. Verrone, president of the Writers Guild of America, West. “This was not a strike we wanted, but one we had to conduct in order to win jurisdiction and establish appropriate residuals for writing in new media and on the Internet.” developed.”

“The success of this strike is a significant achievement not only for ourselves but the entire creative community, now and in the future,” said Michael Winship, president of the Writers Guild of America, East.

I stood there with them, with other construction workers here in New York, in solidarity. We took action via the net, through online petitions to the AMPTP and even E-Mail's to Ellen DeGeneres who was going to cross the picket, she changed her mind afterwards. One of our finest moments. Now I was getting a bit of thinking going on the other day and didn't post the next two items, but now I feel it's time...

Dumb Downed Americana, NCLB and More Bullshit

Wow, I didn't realize that the New York Times would actually point out how dumb Americans are, I take offense. Actually after being in a store or 2 with a broken register I can understand why the message on this site doesn't get out too far. Not only do I need a English-Spanish-Chinese-Russian translator, I need a dumb it down to 4th. grade reading level with some slang and computer speak thrown in translator. It's a simple fact that the school system cares more about pushing the masses through the system to get payments than to actually teach the students. The leaders want to stay in office, what better way then to have an ignorant populous?

• Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?

The author of seven other books, she was a fellow at the library when she first got the idea for this book back in 2001, on 9/11.

Walking home to her Upper East Side apartment, she said, overwhelmed and confused, she stopped at a bar. As she sipped her bloody mary, she quietly listened to two men, neatly dressed in suits. For a second she thought they were going to compare that day’s horrifying attack to the Japanese bombing in 1941 that blew America into World War II:

“This is just like Pearl Harbor,” one of the men said. The other asked, “What is Pearl Harbor?”

“That was when the Vietnamese dropped bombs in a harbor, and it started the Vietnam War,” the first man replied. At that moment, Ms. Jacoby said, “I decided to write this book.”

No, the American public isn't stupid by a long shot, as long as no one is asking them questions

Maybe we were just too damned smart to bother learning about geography, history and culture. At least with No Child Left behind our kids can now get left behind, DuH?!?

Thats enough bullshit for now, enjoy your recalled beef ya' dopes.

Hmmm, no charges have been filed against the company. Figures.

NY: Illegal alien construction worker guilty of murdering actress/filmmaker and the repercussions of the Illegal alien work force.

Just starting her career in 2006 as a filmmaker with the now indie cult classic Waitress in which she also directed and co-starred in, Adrienne Shelly's life was cut short at age 40 by an illegal alien construction worker.

image from NYT

Now if you have been reading this site for a while you already know the impact of the sweatshop construction work force on the cities finances. You already have read about the slave conditions in which their employers keep them under thumb. You understand the pre-1900's conditions in which they must work. You also know that I believe that the enforcement against employers is almost totally ignored.

This unregulated populous is growing by the day and with it is the influx of more who are not coming here just to support their families back home. They are here to make money fast and easy. The powers that be just don't seem to care as long as the countries citizens divide even more on the illegal immigration topic. I personally loathe the idea of making licenses easy to attain, especially the fact that I had to bring my mother with me to get one because I didn't have enough points of identification, and yes i had a student ID, a draft card and a social security card. That still wasn't enough. I don't think that deporting en mass is the correct way to go either.

What I do know is that we have to find a responsible party who is allowing the breach in our border patrolling system. We must then sue them as a class. For unpaid state tax revenue. In construction alone it is estimated according to the Fiscal Policy Institute, that the loss in tax payments to this criminal construction industry in NY is almost 1/2 a billion dollars, thats 1/2 a billion dollars! Thats a lot of Police Officer raises. Damn, the subway could be free if we got that back. Imagine what the estimates would be if it included all industries in New York? We could build an educational skyscraper.

New York State should sue the Federal government.
They should sue for the complete lack of stopping the illegal aliens from getting into the country. If they don't the people of the state should.

In this case of Adrienne Shelly's murder, the contractor who hired the Ecuadorian illegal immigrant should also be tried for aiding and abetting in a murder. Obviously whoever wrote the stories doesn't think that any mention of who the contractor was is of any importance. Of course they don't, who knows maybe they are building in your apartment house, next store or at a local skyscraper in the city. Isn't that a good thought? God, most stories fail to mention that Diego Pillco, the murderer, was an illegal alien from Ecuador. Guess the NY Post is good for something, NOT!

Well heres the story of Adrienne Shelly from The New York Times:

In Guilty Plea, Actress’s Killer Changes Story to Robbery

His original confession had the ring of truth: He was an illegal immigrant working on a renovation job in a Greenwich Village building when the imperious woman upstairs confronted him over construction noise.

They argued. She scratched him. Panicked that she would call the police and that he would be deported, he punched her and pushed her to the floor. Mistakenly thinking he had killed her, he hanged her from the shower rod of her bathroom, in a staged suicide.

But in a courtroom on Thursday, the construction worker, Diego Pillco, 20, told a very different story of how he killed the woman, Adrienne Shelly, a filmmaker, on Nov. 1, 2006. Ms. Shelly, who was 40 and the mother of a 3-year-old daughter, had just finished a film, “Waitress,” which opened to warm reviews after her death.

Mr. Pillco, a short, boyish-looking man, speaking softly through a Spanish translator, told a judge in State Supreme Court in Manhattan that the argument had not been over noise, but over a robbery. He told the judge that Ms. Shelly had caught him stealing money from her purse after he had slipped into the apartment at 15 Abingdon Square that she used as an office.

When she picked up the phone to call the police, he said, he grabbed it and covered her mouth as she started to scream.

“When she fell to the floor I saw a sheet and decided to choke her, and that’s what happened,” Mr. Pillco said. The judge, Carol Berkman, prodded him: “And you tied a sheet around her neck and strung her up?” “Yes,” Mr. Pillco replied, “and I made it look as if she committed suicide on her own.” (click for full story)

Diego Pillco was only 19 when this occurred, what makes anyone think that there aren't thousands of underage illegal aliens working here. There really needs to be some penalty for the employers, there really needs to be some action against the Fed for lax border safety.

The big money corporations, the wealthy, the opportunists, are all profiting on the backs of the American born worker and the illegal aliens, they are making our tax money supplement their illegal employees. We, the citizens, are getting double fucked, first by the job we don't get, then by the welfare we grant the illegal alien employers.

I truly was born to late. The American dream is becoming a nightmare. Everything our forefathers fought for, safety conditions, the eight hour day, the weekend, social security, child labor laws, affordable health care, an honest days work for an honest days pay, paid vacation, sick time, the Constitution, our nations sovereignty, the gross national product, the pride in buying union made in the USA, the right to retire securely at an age where you can actually enjoy a bit of life, all of it is now fading away before our eyes. NAFTA seems like it did as it was sold to us, it leveled the playing field between us and Mexico, bringing the Mexican work force upward, the only difference is that the opposite occurred, we are continuously lowering our standard to Mexico's.

A word about Online Union Activist's

inspired and with quotes by friend and mentor Richard Negri from UnionReview.com

We are getting larger, we have friends who are Union activists online and we are making a difference, with UnionReview as the meeting place we have been able to generate a great show of interest in the online Labor movement. The administration of UnionReview, myself, Chuck Lazette, Richard Negri and Steve Dondley all have our own separate blog sites. But as you will read below in the quotes from Richard, we all get involved spreading the message onto other forums, sites and blogs. We spread ourselves out using information we shared with each other to use facts in our statements, comments and stories.

For me I use this blog to help generate traffic for UnionReview and also get some more lightweight material and personnel opinion pieces published without tainting the UR Labor movement status by clogging the front page with my non and slightly related stories. I feel more at ease blabbing about more localized issues, politics and media censoring here.

Chuck, who is an upstate New York Carpenter and quite a videographer runs his blog the UBCNewsroom-Union Carpenters News And Information, UBCNewsroom is dedicated, but not limited to Carpenter union news, the fight against misclassification of workers, safety issues, politics, workplace injustice. A lot of Chucks stories wind up on UnionReview, he has definitely helped me learn a thing or two about the latest breaking news in NYS labor laws, worker misclassification and his videos have been the rage on the net, especially the rally against Orange County Choppers who are building without union carpenters and electricians. Chuck is the guy who said "you need your own site". Thanks Chuck, now my girlfriend hates my computer even more.

Steve Dondley, is a very busy man nowadays, he is the backbone and owner/operator of Prometheus Labor Communications, which makes union made websites. Steve was a former organizer with the United Food and Commercial Workers in MA., who when at that job realized "(that) the poltical dynamics and intrinsic unfairness of the employer-employee relationships weren't revealed to me until I became an organizer". Steve lost his job when the membership in his area dropped by 1/3rd when Wal-Mart came to town and union Caldor and Bradlees stores, which people could earn a decent living, closed their doors for good. But that didn't stop Steve, he learned everything he could about the world wide web, while continuing his dedication to the labor movement by working as an occupational safety and health educator, community organizer, and volunteering time with his local labor council. In 1999 he built his first union made website for his former employer UFCW Local 1459. Steve is all over the internet, but unfortunately he is a very busy man now, a quick Google can show you how many sites he posts on regularly and his past, that man has 5,680 hits all by himself. If he could be cloned, the second one not owning his own company, he would probably post more stories than me, Chuck and Richard combined. Now I'm not sure of ownership, but when I think of Steve, Communicate Or Die is the site that would most fits his mission:

" One of my key missions in life is to do what I can to help the labor movement grow and flourish. And so, my current work, building websites for labor organizations, is very fulfilling for me. It combines my passions for technology and communication with my goal to serve the cause of labor."

Richard Negri, well what can I say about him, when we first talked on the phone he was working piece work in the mother of all Right to work states Florida, to make ends meet, but he had a dream. The dream was to fill the gap that labor left behind, up to date immediate rank-and-file communication. He grew up in Brooklyn, NY, in an area where the thing to do after high school was to get a good union job, and while Richard, like myself has seen the ups and downs of those jobs, he also never strayed from the path of getting information out there, not just the bad deeds of labor unions, but the good information for and about workers. Workers who stick together, workers who fight with or without union support and make the world a better place, if the rank-and-file and the general public could see that when we stick together with other workers it can make the labor movement stronger. Richard is very bright and has a lot of "Hutzpah", he can feel other working peoples needs and with his own special empathy can bring that story directly to your computer screen. Richard is the creator of UnionReview, who I befriended through MySpace, he encouraged me to post my first Blog story about Hershey's Chocolate moving a mass of it's operations into Mexico and losing 1,500 union members in the process. Without Richard's inspiration and his bulletin's through MySpace you probably wouldn't be reading this.

Thanks fellas, but let me not forget to mention all the inspiration in this new labor frontier I receive, Eric Lee and the staff at Labourstart, Mike Hall and staff at the AFL-CIO WebBlog, Building Bridges Radio, WIN Radio- Workers Independent News, Brain Labor Report, the IWW- Independent Workers of the World web staff, the Big Labor website, the guys and gals at Shop Union Made- very up to date on American and Union Made products, People's Weekly World, SolidarityMail and people doing what our crew is doing on their own blogs and forums, Working Life, Jimmy and TeamstersOnline.com, Mike at Springfield, MA Union News, Larry Hubich's Blog, Talking Union Blog. Then theres all the people I get stories from on MySpace, almost too many to name, but heres a few ~ ♥ my Laborer~, Bert, The Man Common, Todd M. Jordan, Erin Brockovich, etc. . And the most encouraging aspect of doing this are the people who you meet in the real world, the ones that read and give you ideas , like George G., the man who got my unions site started and I wish had some more time to write a story or 2, Jimbo638 who shot me an e-mail about HowToBuyAmerican.com and some other very interesting sites I haven't visited , like Labor Educator, American Rights At Work and American Economic Alert, My buddy Charlie P. who pointed out Story Corps, a site where people can record their story which will be broadcast on public radio, the internet and archived at the Library Of Congress for our future generations, Gene Jackson and Flip Wilson, the retired Steamfitter and Fireman who sell shirts to help fund the Wounded Warrior Project, who also go out of their way to help in every aspect in our wounded returning veterans to get desperately needed medical assistance, lodging here for that treatment and getting these seriously injured back into believing that they can maintain a somewhat normal lifestyle, those two absolutely amaze me and I'm gathering info for an updated story on them. My man Dennis the local 79 Laborer here who doesn't know how to turn on a PC but wants to know as much as possible, Big Kevin the Teamster on the dump truck at work. The folks at the NYC Central Labor council, who never fail to get the e-mail's out to keep us in the know about labor strife and rallies here in NYC. And to all the people who I've handed a UnionReview leaflet to and actually read it. Everyone who tells me they like what they see. Even the comments here are so greatly appreciated. God theres just so much more people to thank and I'm tired, so without further ado, the reason I wrote all this:

(directly from Richard's post at UnionReview)

Union Activists Blogging - A Basic How-To Approach

I had an interesting discussion with some friends about union activists blogging. In that chat I mentioned that workers who are getting their news online, especially at the online version of their local paper or television stations, should always be on the look out for a comment box at the end of the story. If there is one available, get a user name and password and offer up your 2-cents.

On many local papers’ websites I have found that getting a user name and a password is not only painfully simple, it is generally a very fast process. And as for a quick hint: I have found using one user name and password at every site I visit a safe and secure way to remember how to log on when I am especially heated about something that I read; which happens often.Innocent

It is almost cliché at this point to say that stories affecting working people, especially union workers, are not very well presented in mainstream media. This is where our work comes in as activists.

I find myself telling people not to worry about their typing skills or grammar, the most important thing is to get heard – and then tell people where you are posting so that we can support what you are doing. I am of the opinion that workers of every trade are rarely, if ever, asked what they think by mainstream media reporters. Instead, workers are often asked how they feel about this or that situation. Interestingly enough, a CEO or a company manager is never asked how he feels about much of anything. I have made this argument in the past, and it is worthwhile to bring up again: Working people can and do think and our thoughts should be heard and understood. We can save our feeling for own personal diaries and conversations with family and friends, but when it comes to discussing something as important as our working lives and our unions, it is critical we organize our thoughts and share those thoughts.

With the open access of comment boxes on mainstream media news stories, we have a unique opportunity to speak up and get heard -- and I urge everyone to do this in their free time.

Finally, the question of anonymity comes into play. Some workers might be less than giving with their personal information or use their real names. My reply to this is generally the same: then don’t! If you are really concerned about being tracked down, open a free Yahoo email account (or any other) and use that email strictly for your blogging activity.

For many people this blog on blogging will seem obvious and common sense, and that’s cool – but for those who are just getting cozy with their computers and getting online, maybe it will be of some help – that is my intention, anyway.

Chuck replied:
skills to publish
This a most important story for me to read, I've known Richard for some time now and we have talked about this platform many of times. The key to being a blogger is the way you present yourself, understandable some people don't have the skills to publish the same kind of content as others with more experience but, with a little practice you will soon see major results that make the story stick out. So if there anyone out there that thinks they are imune to writing good stories, a blog, is ablog, is a blog... So, Keep writing... Things Can Only Get Better...

I think what Richard explained is a great Activist maneuver, we have spoken in the past about getting the word out, you too can do it, even in unfriendly territory, if you have facts no one will ever continue the argument, or at least only those with a factual opinion will. This goes back into the anti-union sentiment I have previously posted about. The idea that someone will just post "I hate unions" or "unions destroy jobs" cannot go unanswered. Only we can make the difference, and the 4 of us need your help in doing that.

Please note that I haven't touched the Facebook story in this article, but it is definitely a worthwhile read.

NY Congressman Vito Fossella replies to Big Media consolidation ruling and I ask for more consideration.

After writing "Now Big Media can hurt workers better" and spreading it as far across the net as I possibly could, I took further action via E-Activist e-mail against the FCC's Dec.18th. vote to overturn the 32 year old rule which declared that one entity cannot own both a print and broadcast outlet in the same media market. It was the Freepress form e-mail that can be found here, please send it if you haven't already done so. Well I got a response from my Congressman Vito J. Fossella(R-NY), I guess send a form e-mail get one back is to be expected. But I thought that maybe we can get him to consider the consequences to the side to which he has chosen to stand. Please understand I don't agree with everything he stands for, as with most if not all politicians.

But this is really important, what might get him to actually read my e-mail, and think his position out further? Mr.Fossella has been working hard in my hometown fighting to keep my closest emergency room open. Why haven't you all heard about the public hospital in the New York City's most populated county? I can't answer that, but I'm sure most of America can tell you when American Idol is about to start. But thats neither here nor there, I actually have wanted to get involved in the hospital crisis, especially for the fact that I personally have been treated there and have known local people who have worked there. The next Emergency Room is miles away and in a city that timing can be life or death. So I wrote an e-mail offering my help and begging him to reconsider his stance on this media consolidation issue. Whatever the outcome I would like to get involved.

Hopefully it will get read, the issues addressed will be thought over and I will wind up with a truly great story about the congressman who reconsidered his stance against the FCC ruling and the tools I need to help in the mission to rescue our local hospital's ER. Am I an optimist, you betcha. On the day after the New Hampshire Republican Party announced Saturday that it was withdrawing as a partner of Sunday’s primary debate on FOX because of the exclusion of Ron Paul and Duncan Hunter, thus solidifying that everyone is agreeing that Big Media is overstepping it's boundaries. I am energized that we have found a common ground and believe this to be a stepping stone for all American's to grow on. Go hit that link people and tell them how important a message that sends. Not to mention yesterdays announcement by the Screen Actors Guild of the "unanimous agreement" to not cross the striking writers picket lines at the Golden Globe Awards in a tremendous show of solidarity, I feel we the people can reverse the medias separation of our people and together we can change the world.

Read the entire Blog Post and all e-mails here at FreePress