|
Comment on this article |
Email this Article
|
|
News :: Labor |
|
Labor Headlines 5-31-03 |
Current rating: 0 |
by Peter Miller
(No verified email address) |
01 Jun 2003
|
|
Headlines broadcast during the Illinois Labor Hour, Saturday at 11 am on WEFT 90.1 FM, Champaign. Workers Die on the Job, War Profiteering Continues, Nike's Lies: Just Free Speech?, Tax Cut Really Does Favor the Rich, WTO Limits Public Participation in September '03 Meeting |
Workers Die on the Job
In addition to nine US soldiers killed in Iraq last week and two who were lost overboard on their way home from Iraq, the News-Gazette reported on the dangers that other blue-collar workers face, here in Illinois. On Tuesday, Herman Buenting of Penfield died in a farm accident. A deputy coroner said it appeared that Buenting, who had been working alone on his tractor, was run over by the machine. Then on Wednesday, a laborer working as a flag man on a road construction project was killed when a car struck him. Forty year-old John Crozier of Streator was hit by a 25 year-old Streator man who already faced two charges of aggravated drunk driving. And on Friday, a 26 year-old Illinois worker died when a trench collapsed in a residential construction project. Dewayne Spiller of Bench Park was buried up to his armpits and died after about 30 minutes. Spiller had been working in Wisconsin, extending sewer and water lines to a new subdivision in Pleasant Prairie.
War Profiteering Continues
While US service men and women continued to die during the war in Iraq, the people who sent them into war continued to profit. Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, Halliburton, has already received government contracts totaling more than $600 million, according to new documents released by US Representative Henry Waxman, a California Democrat. Cheney's company profits in many ways, including by providing logistical support when US troops are deployed overseas. The $600 million in contracts were obtained without competitive bidding, and there is no ceiling to the amount Halliburton can receive. Two weeks ago, Congress approved a military budget over $400 billion dollars--an amount that doesn't yet include the cost of the US invasion of Iraq, despite the Pentagon's inability to account for more than $1 trillion of expenditures.
Nike's Lies: Just Free Speech?
A used car dealer breaks the law if they roll back the odometer, effectively lying about their product in order to persuade you to buy it. Is it legal, then, for a global corporation to lie about forcing workers to inhale toxic fumes, endure beatings for not meeting production quotas, undergo forced sterilization, be shot at for trying to organize a union, or work for pennies a day? To fend off growing criticism of its sweatshop manufacturing practices, Nike Corporation launched a public relations campaign in California. An activist took Nike to court for lying about working conditions. The case has made it to the US Supreme Court, which will be ruling shortly on the question shortly. Nike claims that as a corporation, it has the rights of any individual in the United States, and therefore it should be allowed to make false claims about working conditions in its factories. Global justice activists argue that such claims amount to false advertising.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2968957.stm
Tax Cut Really Does Favor the Rich
George W. Bush succeeded in cutting taxes, claiming that the cut will help the economy. If you expect the cut to get you a new job, you'd better get your applications in to the country clubs, yacht clubs, and Rolls Royce dealerships since that's where the money is going. United for a Fair Economy and the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities released a study on May 28 showing that one in five American households will receive no benefit whatsoever from the tax cut. Those are the households with the lowest incomes. On the other hand, households with incomes over $1 million will receive an average of $94,000 back from the government, plenty for a down payment on the next yacht. A look at how tax rates changed also shows who the cut will help most: Households earning less than $48,000 -- the bottom two tax brackets -- see no reduction in their tax rate. The next three brackets -- households earning from $48,000 to $311,000 -- get a 2% tax cut. And the top bracket -- households earning more than $311,000 -- get the largest rate cut of all, 3.6%. The cut is so unfair that billionaire investor Warren Buffett told the Washington Post that he didn't want a tax cut that would put $310 million in his pocket and lower his tax rate to only three percent. In the 1980's this economic program was called "trickle down" or "supply side" economics, and it led to a decade of stagnant growth.
http://www.cbpp.org/5-28-03tax.htm
WTO Limits Public Participation in September '03 Meeting
The World Trade Organization is preparing for another large ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico, which will take place this September, and this time, the restrictions on non-corporate and non-governmental observers will be even more severely limited. Speaking at a meeting in Geneva on May 27, the WTO Director for External Relations announced that they will impose severe limits on the number of NGO representatives permitted to register or enter the convention center where the meeting will take place. Only three people from any NGO may register for the convention, and only one person from each organization may be inside the center. The WTO chose a facility for the meeting that only holds 5,000 people, and it expects 3,000 delegates, leaving only 2,000 spaces for the press and non-governmental representatives. The facility chosen for the meeting is not the largest in Cancun. According to one NGO representative, quote, "the WTO has still not learned how to deal with the idea that when Ministers make legally binding agreements with serious implications for democracy -- that the public has the right to listen, engage and react."
www.iatp.org
|
See also:
http://www.labourstart.org
http://www.ilir.uiuc.edu/lii/
|
