Current Issues

Gathered in the union hall and parking lot on East Bay Street, the dockworkers ofInternational Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) Local 1422, mostly African American men, celebrated their hard-fought victory in the case of the Charleston Five.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said the Nov. 26 announcement that the economy was now officially in a recession confirmed what America’s working families have known for months.

The United Nations convened its first formal talks on a post-Taliban transitional government in Afghanistan Nov. 27. Much of the world, including the Afghan people, is focusing its hope on these talks, being held in Bonn, Germany. They provide a stark to George W. Bush’s pledge to widen the war against terrorism.

The labor and people’s movements face a recovery that is full of complicated questions. The search for solutions goes on in a world changed forever by acts of terrorism. The struggle to recover stretches from Ground Zero in New York City to Capitol Hill, which has become a second “Ground Zero” for working families.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said the Senate filibuster that defeated legislation providing immediate aid for the 140,000 airline workers who will be laid off as a result of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack "signals an intention to serve workers last and least at the table of economic recovery."

The Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space started planning worldwide rallies against "Star Wars" for Oct. 13 long before the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. But Global Network founder Bruce Gagnon said that with a war raging in Asia, the protests could not be more timely.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - In Tennessee, we have felt the loss of more than 25,000 textile and industrial jobs due to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Many of these jobs were union jobs that paid workers good wages for a 40-hour workweek.

WASHINGTON - The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is waging a last ditch struggle to block a so-called "anti-terrorism" measures adopted by the House and Senate that grants the Bush Administration sweeping new powers of detention and surveillance without judicial review.

On September 11 at 8:48 a.m. our country and world changed as commercial jets were transformed into projectiles of senseless death and destruction by hateful and criminal terrorists.

Not only were the lives of thousands of people lost and not only was there destruction beyond belief, but shock waves of profound sorrow, fear, anger, and concern about our future were felt across our country and the world. But also, in that horrific instant and the weeks that have followed, domestic and world politics took an altogether new, frightening, dangerous, and unanticipated turn.

How do we explain this turn in world politics? What direction is it going? Who benefits from it? Where will it end? What can we do?

WASHINGTON - Defenders of civil liberties warned this week that a "compromise" anti-terrorism bill that the Bush administration is seeking to ram through Congress would give federal authorities vast new powers of surveillance and mass detention in violation of the Bill of Rights.

ACTION ALERT for Peace and Economic Justice #1 September 30, 2001

NEW YORK CITY - In moments of natural disaster people come together to respond. Yet the destruction of the World Trade Center (WTC) is not a natural disaster, like a tornado or earthquake. It is a political disaster, an international disaster, a human tragedy that moves people to respond. Many are worried about where humanity will go from here.

Statements from various organizations and leaders

In a remarkable article entitled "From Alabama's Past, Capitalism and Racism in a Cruel Partnership" (Wall Street Journal (WSJ) 7/16) staff reporter, Douglas A. Blackmon chronicled one of the most brutal, inhuman and, heretofore, unmentioned atrocities in American history. The article carries a powerful punch appearing in the newspaper that most consistently apologizes for the capitalist system.

In August 1996 President Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, thereby repudiating the federal government's 60-year commitment to provide for the well-being of the nation's poor children.

PARMA, Ohio - "The best Labor Day ever!" These are the words used by participants in the Cleveland area Labor Day Parade, held in this suburban working-class city where thousands of residents lined the streets waving and applauding as union contingents marched by or rode on colorful floats and buses. Large contingents of Painters and Steelworkers led the parade to Parma's Veterans Memorial Park for a picnic.

HARLEM, N.Y. "Drop the Rock, Drop the Rock, Drop the Rock!!!" was the mantra that resonated from 500+ angry voices on a blistery hot day at the Harlem State Office Building on June 15. The Drop the Rock Rally arose from a youth-driven movement in response to the unjust Rockefeller Drug Laws, which impose a 15-year mandatory prison sentence for anyone convicted of selling 2 ounces or possessing 4 ounces of a narcotic substance, without regard to the circumstances of the offense.