Archive for 2009
By Geri Jenkins
LA Daily News
March 7, 2009
President Obama’s call for achieving “comprehensive” health-care reform this year, and the criteria laid out by the White House for what the plan should include, reflect a large vision and laudable commitment.
Clearly, the moment for transformative change has arrived, starting with the bully pulpit in the Oval Office. What a stark [...]
By Liza Featherstone
04/03/2009
It was surreal, last month, to see Citigroup organizing the business community against the Employee Free Choice Act [1], a bill that would make it easier for workers to join unions by forcing employers to recognize a union after a majority of workers have signed cards. Here is a company whose CEO, Vikram [...]
Tags: EFCA
In an interview, the Nobel Prize-winner and former chief economist
at the World Bank talks about the Great Depression, Obama’s stimulus
package and today’s financial crisis.
Tags: Stiglitz
Big business is spending millions on its campaign of misinformation on the Employee Free Choice Act and is hailing the bill’s death in the Senate. Unfortunately for these anti-worker interests, the fight for a level playing field between CEOs and workers, freedom of association in the workplace, and an economy that works for everyone is just heating up—and students are now leading the charge!
Tags: EFCA
“Bail out working people — not Wall Street.”
Tags: WERC
“Socializing losses while privatizing gains is more worrisome than the consequences of nationalizing banks.”
Tags: bailout, Economic Crisis, Nationalization, Obama, Stiglitz
Geithner plan will rob American taxpayers: Stiglitz
Tue Mar 24, 2009 8:26am EDT
By Susan Fenton and Deborah Kan
HONG KONG (Reuters) – The U.S. government plan to rid banks of toxic assets will rob American taxpayers by exposing them to too much risk and is unlikely to work as long as the economy remains weak, Nobel Prize-winning [...]
Tags: Economic Crisis, Geithner, Stiglitz
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is preparing to unveil a plan today to purchase as much as $1 trillion in troubled mortgages and other assets from banks. The government is reaching out to hedge funds, private equity firms and sovereign wealth funds to help buy the toxic assets. The Obama administration has described the plan as a public-private partnership, but most of the actual money will be put up by the government. We speak with Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist, Paul Krugman.
Tags: Democracy Now, Economic Crisis, Geithner, Krugman
It’s not the bonuses. It’s that AIG’s counterparties are getting paid back in full.
By Eliot Spitzer
Everybody is rushing to condemn AIG’s bonuses, but this simple scandal is obscuring the real disgrace at the insurance giant: Why are AIG’s counterparties getting paid back in full, to the tune of tens of billions of taxpayer dollars?
For the [...]
Tags: AIG, Economic Crisis, Geithner, Obama
BlackCommentator.com – February 5, 2009 – Issue 310
by Bill Fletcher
Executive Director, Black Commentator
The other day I went to a community meeting sponsored by my Congressional Representative, Ms. Donna Edwards. Donna Edwards is a very progressive, long-time activist in Prince George’s County, Maryland. The meeting was organized for the purpose of going over, with her constituents, [...]
HOLD THE DATE!
Bail Out Working People – NOT the Banks!
Join us on May 9 in San Francisco for a
TEACH-IN & MASS MOBILIZATION PLANNING MEETING
Learn about what is happening in the labor movement and in our communities to fight for the interests of working people.
Help organize a mass mobilization around our demands, including:
- Massive job-creation program.
- [...]
Tags: WERC
The deepening U.S. financial crisis has spread to all sectors of the economy, triggering a worldwide recession that is fast becoming a Depression.
Tags: WERC
The California Federation of Teachers held its statewide convention in Sacramento on March 20-22, 2009. The United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) submitted a resolution to the convention in support of the 10-point platform of the Workers Emergency Recovery Campaign.
Tags: labor union, teachers, WERC
1. Pat Gowens, National organizer, Welfare Warriors, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
2. Cynthia McKinney, Former Member of Congress, 2009 Green Party presidential candidate
3. Jack Rasmus, Economist, Professor at St. Mary’s College
4. Marc Rich*, UTLA delegate, Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, Pasadena, CA
5. Al Rojas, Coordinator, Frente de Mexicanos en el Exterior, Sacramento, California
6. Cindy Sheehan, Gold Star mother, antiwar activist, San Francisco, California
7. Nancy [...]
Tags: WERC
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/141253.php
Article Date: 05 Mar 2009 – 6:00 PST
The Obama administration’s plans to hold a “Health Care Summit” that excludes advocates of single-payer healthcare reform has drawn a sharp response from labor leaders around the country.
“President Obama has indicated that his administration is committed to the passage of a new ‘universal’ national health care program for [...]
Tags: Obama, single payer