Leo W. Gerard, USW International President, last Tuesday put up his statement "Voodoo Trickle Down Be Damned". It is worth reading in its entirety and watching the brief (46 seconds) video "#SOTU 2015: "Middle-Class Economics Work". Gerard reminds us of the new OXFAM Issue Briefing (Jan., 2015) in which it is reported that:
"The wealth of these 80 individuals is now the same as that owned by the bottom 50% of the global population, such that 3.5 billion people share between them the same amount of wealth as that of these extremely wealthy 80 people." (The prior Original Full 32 page document "178 OXFAM Briefing Paper, 20 Jan. 2014" is here with 76 footnotes that are mostly hotlinks to source URLs.)
The USW is working to make more just the working conditions in the U.S. that are endured by people employed in many U.S. refineries.
USW has called for work stoppage at these US refineries:
LyondellBasell, Houston, Texas.
Marathon Galveston Bay Refinery, Texas City, Texas.
Marathon Houston Green Cogeneration Facility, Texas City, Texas.
Marathon Refinery, Catlettsburg, Kentucky.
Shell Deer Park Refinery, Deer Park, Texas.
Shell Deer Park Chemical Plant, Deer Park, Texas.
Tesoro Anacortes Refinery, Anacortes, Washington.
Tesoro Martinez Refinery, Martinez California.
Tesoro Carson Refinery, Carson, California.
Meanwhile other "USW represented refineries and oil facilities are now operating under a rolling 24 hour contract extension. The USW represents 65 refineries across the US and over 230 oil terminals, pipelines and petrochemical facilities in the country."
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Today on the USW website see "USW President Leo W. Gerard Tells CNN Safety Conditions are the Prime Concern in this Strike" which includes video. President Gerard also appeared today on The Ed Show with Ed Schultz on msnbc for an extended (5 minutes) interview on the consequences of this action for upto 30,000 U.S. working women and men whoare represented by USW. Raw Story today published (by Reuters this morning),"The walkouts were the first in support of a nationwide pact since 1980 and targeted plants with a combined 10 percent of U.S. refining capacity."
The USW actions have international support seen in the message of yesterday, 01 Feb. 2015, from Tony Burke, On behalf of Unite UK NORCC Committee, "Message To USW Oil Workers from Unite UK National Oil Refinery Coordinating Committee; To USW Oil Workers".
Also yesterday we saw the news of Jan 31 (Reuters) about the USW actions.
See related stories
"Global refining and petrochemicals news: 29 January 2015"
"Husky and BP's Toledo, Ohio refinery shuts cat cracking unit for a week (Jan 27, 2015)"
"Oil prices rise as US refineries strike (02 Feb. 2015)"
As for "Trickle-Down yada-yada": In 1896 a Democratic Presidential candidate, William Jennings Bryan, made reference to trickle-down theory in his famous "Cross of Gold" speech
(characterized here -with audio- as "The most famous speech in American political history"): "There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that if you just legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, that their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous their prosperity will find its way up and through every class that rests upon it."