If you still need a reason to join one of the many rallies, protests and marches being networked nationwide this weekend and April 4 by We Are One, try this:
The National Conference of State Legislatures is tracking an explosion of 744 bills that largely target public-sector unions, introduced in virtually every state.
"Almost every week, I read of at least one more bill to restrict union rights at the state level," said John Logan, director of the labor studies program at San Francisco State University.
(Photo by Megan Stelzer)
Nearly half of the states are considering legislation to limit public employees' collective bargaining rights. In New Hampshire, the House last week approved a measure that one union leader assailed as "Wisconsin on steroids."
But it's not just budgetary concerns driving Republican officeholders to take on unions, traditionally a strong Democratic ally.
Attacks on basic rights along a broad front, brought to you by the Scott Walkers, the Grover Norquists, the Koch Brothers and other members and enablers of the American oligarchy. Working people are treated as if they started this class warfare. What we're really doing is engaging in another basic right: self-defense. You can join others in defending working Americans' rights using the resources you'll find here.
Here's yet another of the many battles:
Citing concerns about the national debt, a handful of conservative state legislators have blocked a vote to accept federal money to extend unemployment benefits, effectively cutting financial assistance for more than 10,000 out-of-work residents next week.
The move, which came despite widespread bipartisan support for extending the benefits, puts Missouri at the center of a growing national discussion about reining in unemployment benefits at a time when both the job market and government coffers remain weakened. ...
[F]or now Missouri, with an unemployment rate above 9 percent, is the only state that has stopped accepting dedicated federal money to extend payments to 99 weeks from 79. (A number of states never joined when the program was initially offered.)
“This is about sending a message to the federal government from the state of Missouri that enough is enough,” said Jim Lembke, the state senator who, with three other Republicans, is filibustering the legislation. “The federal government is sending us money they don’t have.”
Several states, including Michigan where a new law cuts unemployment compensation from 26 weeks to 20 weeks as of January 1, seek to put the screws to jobless workers whom legislators treat as layabouts. In Florida, the House has passed a law not yet approved by the Senate that would cut compensation payments to 12 weeks if the jobless rate falls to 5 percent. Currently, it is 11.5 percent.
As United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard wrote today in a diary that should have gotten a lot more attention:
Right now, right wingers are trying to cut $51.5 billion from the federal budget – demanding elimination of programs essential to the middle class and poor such as subsidies for home heating for the impoverished. But if the wealthy paid their share, say hedge fund manager John Paulson who earned $2.4 million an hour in 2010 – then those cuts would be unnecessary because the federal government would have an extra $69.5 billion in revenue.
Forty-three years ago on April 4 Martin Luther King was assassinated after standing up for the right of public sector workers in Memphis, Tenn. to negotiate for better lives.
In his last speech, Rev. King said God had allowed him to go to the mountaintop where he’d looked over and seen the Promised Land. “I may not get there with you,” he cautioned, “But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the Promised Land.”
Greedy corporations and the wealthy have made it to the mountain top. And they’re shoving American workers down the hillside to ensure the Promised Land is reserved only for the richest.
The promise of America democracy is equality. Equal rights, equal treatment under the law, equal opportunity. Freeloading by greedy corporations and the insatiable wealthy is denying those promises to the vast majority of citizens. Americans must unify and march to wrest back those rights and secure the American Dream for all.
Around the world as we speak, people are risking their lives to gain the most basic human rights. We risk losing rights that cost lives. Some say this struggle is hopeless. That is a self-fulfilling attitude. Despair breeds paralysis, which kills activism. The surest way to lose this fight is to surrender before we're fully engaged. Stand up. Join up.
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At Daily Kos on this date in 2006:
Senator Obama, President Bush is propounding a radical change in our Constitutional system. It is not acceptable for you to say 'on the one hand, on the other hand.' It is time to say No! Or Yes!, if that is your view. But the time is now. It need not be censure if you believe that it is not the politically prudent course. Many have argued that supporting impeachment is the proper course. I have strenuously disagreed with that argument, opposing impeachment.
But our answer to a transformative change to our Constitutional system can not be 'people of good faith can disagree, let's just get along.' That is an abdication of our duties as citizens..