Wal-Mart death preventable, union says

Wal-Mart death preventable, union says – CNN.com

Customers rushing to get into a Valley Stream, New York, Wal-Mart damaged doors and trampled a worker.

LONG ISLAND, New York (CNN) — The death of a temporary Wal-Mart worker trampled by customers amid frantic Black Friday shopping could have been avoided, the union that represents retail workers said Saturday.
Customers rushing to get into a Valley Stream, New York, Wal-Mart damaged doors and trampled a worker.

Jdimytai Damour, 34, was crushed as he and other employees attempted to unlock the doors of a Long Island, New York, store at 5 a.m. Friday, police said.

“This incident was avoidable,” said Bruce Both, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1500, the state of New York’s largest grocery worker’s union. “Where were the safety barriers? Where was security? How did store management not see dangerous numbers of customers barreling down on the store in such an unsafe manner?

“This is not just tragic; it rises to a level of blatant irresponsibility by Wal-Mart,” he said.

Wal-Mart spokesman Dave Tovar said Saturday that the company had no response to the union’s comments, referring CNN to a written statement the retailer released Friday.

The statement said the store added internal security, brought in outside security, erected barricades and worked with Nassau County police in anticipation of heavy crowds.
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“Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family of the deceased,” Wal-Mart Senior Vice President Hank Mullany said in the statement. “We are continuing to work closely with local law enforcement, and we are reaching out to those involved.”

Damour’s death was one of two high-profile violent incidents on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving and traditionally one of the year’s busiest shopping days.

Police say two men shot each other dead in a Toys “R” Us in Palm Desert, California, after they argued in the store. The fight did not appear to be related to shopping, according to authorities.

At the Wal-Mart, police say that a line began forming at 9 p.m. Thursday and that, by 5 a.m. Friday, there were as many as 2,000 customers outside. A video showed about a dozen people knocked to the ground as the doors were opened and the crowd surged, breaking the doors.

Minutes later, police trying to give Damour first aid were jostled by customers still running into the store, authorities said.

The union is calling for an investigation “by all levels of government” to ensure justice for Damour’s family and make sure that such an incident never happens at Wal-Mart again.

“If the safety of their customers and workers was a top priority, then this never would have happened,” said Patrick Purcell, a projects director for the local UFCW. “Wal-Mart must step up to the plate and ensure that all those injured, as well as the family of the deceased, be financially compensated for their injuries and their losses. Their words are weak.”

The UFCW has long been a harsh critic of Wal-Mart’s, arguing that the world’s largest retailer offers low wages and poor health care for its workers and pushes competitors and suppliers to do the same or go out of business.
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The group has had only marginal success in organizing Wal-Mart workers in the United States and Canada, citing aggressive anti-union efforts by Wal-Mart.

The UFCW has 1.3 million members working largely in the retail, food and food-processing industries.

Filed under: Labor solidarity

“Low Wage Capitalism” another must-read

And while we are on the topic of important new books, there’s also “Colossus with Feet of Clay: Low Wage Capitalism” by Fred Goldstein. The subtitle: “What the new globalized, high-tech imperialism means for the class struggle in the U.S.” should tell you right away that this isn’t another academic exercise, and indeed, Fred is a long time fighter in the class struggle. Not convinced? Read this review by Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of Pan-African News Wire. Then order the book from Leftbooks.com.

Filed under: Economic crisis, Must read

“The new administration can stop wage theft – and stimulate the economy”

So there would have to be something pretty good in the magazine Dissent in order for me to feel called upon to post a link to it.  You may remember the old Woody Allen joke, about the liberal Dissent and the neo-conservative Commentary: “They merged Dissent with Commentary and got dysentary.”  That’s pretty much how I see it.  Anti-communist intellectuals suffering from a severe case of mental diarrhea.  In the current issue, the Editor’s Page includes hand-wringing that “so many leftists have foolishly celebrated Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez” just because he is inspiring millions of working people all over the world to fight back against the reign of U.S. imperialism, and a reference to “the Russian invasion of Georgia” – an event that did not really happen except in the paranoid dreams of Cold War liberals like the Dissent editorial staff.

BUT I’m still going to give you this link because it’s to an important article by Kim Bobo titled “The New Administration Can Stop Wage Theft – And Stimulate the Economy.”  Bobo, who is the founder and executive director of Interfaith Worker Justice and the author of the new book Wage Theft in America: Why Millions of Working Americans Are Not Getting Paid – And What We Can Do About It (New Press), provides a very clear and practical explanation of how an investment of $500 milion – a fragment of any of the corporate bailouts seen so far – could lead to a Labor Department with the power to recover $5 BILLION in stolen wages from American workers.  Yes, that’s $5 billion that working people earn every year but that they are cheated out of because their employers violate minimum wage and overtime laws, and also because far too often the employer just decides not to pay employees at all.  As the article correctly points out, while it is true that undocumented immigrant workers are one of the most exploitable sectors of the workforce to fall prey to wage theft, it is also true that workers in every sector of the economy suffer from the same plague by unscrupulous employers.  And the number one reason that the situation is this bad is the federal government’s failure to commit the investigative and prosecutorial resources to stop it.

Progressives should take up Bobo’s call for a $500 million investment in ramping up DOL enforcement of wage and hour laws – including her recognition that the very first step in stopping wage theft is stopping the ICE raids that chill immigrant workers from complaining about illegal conditions.

Filed under: Immigrant rights, Labor solidarity

Just how bad will it get?

I recently heard the joke repeated that “Marxists predicted five of the last three recessions.” It’s probably a fair jibe. Marxism teaches us that capitalism is inherently unstable and will experience wide swings from prosperity to recession, and while working people never see the real benefits of prosperity, we always wind up paying for the full price for every recession. So economic downturns are important events in terms of destroying the false sense of security that many people have about how this system works and whether or to what extent it will protect them when things go bad.

Still, that joke has been in the back of my mind every time I have posted an item predicting that the current recession will get worse, or worse than predicted.

So knowing that I have a penchant for predicting doom, it is a strange feeling to read news items from the corporate-owned press that are similarly dark. A few of today’s items that fall into this category:

* The consumer price index last month fell by 1%, the greatest amount since they started keeping records back in 1947.

* Housing starts fell to the lowest level since 1960.

* Today’s 5% fall in the U.S. stock market has reportedly set off a slump of similar proportions in the Asian stock market tonight.

*As bad as all this sounds, the really scary bad news is that financial “experts” – you know, the ones who kept telling us that it would be all right up until it all fell apart – are worried because they have no idea how bad it will get or where the bottom of the stock market crash is.

Filed under: Economic crisis

A socialist perspective on Obama presidential victory

By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire

Published Nov 12, 2008 2:00 PM

The following is based on a talk by Abayomi Azikiwe at a Workers World Party public meeting in Detroit on Nov. 8.

Abayomi Azikiwe

An alliance of African Americans, Latin@s, large sections of the working class, youth and women of all nationalities led to the victory of Sen. Barack Obama on Nov. 4. In electoral votes earned, which actually determines the presidential winner, Obama defeated Sen. John McCain by a margin greater than two-to-one. Obama won over 52 percent of the popular vote.

In addition to Obama’s victory in the presidential race, the Republican Party lost more seats in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The turnout of voters in this election surpassed the percentage of participation of many decades before. People stood in line at polling places throughout the country even days prior to Nov. 4.

The most burning issues identified in the corporate media through exit polls and other data collected leading up to the elections, indicated that people were most concerned about the economic crisis, the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the lack of quality health care or any medical coverage at all.

It is very clear that the Democratic Party, which has a different social base than the Republicans, is still a political organization of the ruling class. The Democratic Party leadership is beholden to the international finance capitalists, the industrialists and landowners, who also control the Republican Party.

Consequently, our focus is to shed some light on the real significance of the Nov. 4 election and the future prospects for fundamental transformation in the U.S. and the world.

The Obama victory and the national question in the U.S.

With the election of Sen. Obama, many people have concluded that this political development represents a whole new phase in race relations in the United States. Even before the elections it was quite obvious that Obama had sparked the interests of not only African Americans, but many whites, particularly the youth, women, Latin@s, Asian Americans, Arab Americans, Native people and other oppressed groups.

In the Obama campaign, African Americans saw the potential for exercising their right to self-expression and self-determination. The potential of having an African American as the Democratic presidential nominee and eventual president fired the imagination and national pride of all classes within the community.

This sense of national pride has been reflected in the plethora of T-shirts, posters, artwork, music, poetry and other forms of cultural expression that flourished during the spring and summer of 2008. Many of the works of art displayed on the T-shirts, garments and posters placed Obama within the historical context of other notable African-American and African leaders, such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Nelson Mandela.

Expectations grew considerably after Obama’s victory in the Iowa caucuses. When he later won a series of state primaries and caucuses in various parts of the U.S., the Illinois senator’s stature within the African-American community reached iconic levels. In response to Obama’s victories during the primaries, the Hillary Clinton campaign reverted to some of the most virulent racism exemplified in modern U.S. electoral politics.

Notions of “who is qualified” to lead the U.S. political system and whether Obama was really loyal to the ruling class and its bourgeois state began to surface. Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Chicago, who had brought Obama into the African-Christian church, became a scapegoat for the racist corporate media, the Clinton campaign and the Republican candidates as well.

Rev. Wright, who is well known and respected in the Black church throughout the U.S., reflects the theological approach of a section of the progressive religious community. In the aftermath of the hijackings of Sept. 11, 2001, he sought to answer the questions that arose among broad sections of the people as to why these attacks occurred.

Wright looked to the historical legacy of settler-colonialism, slavery, Jim Crow and modern-day imperialism. He was shown out of context on national television through news reports and Republican campaign ads saying “Not god bless America, but goddamn America.”

Consequently, Obama was compelled to distance himself from Rev. Wright. In fact, a number of people criticized the Obama campaign for not raising questions of national oppression and racism. Obama ran a campaign that de-emphasized racial and class oppression. Yet his speaking style and content reflected some aspects of the legacies of Frederick Douglass, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela and Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

To any seasoned observer of U.S. society and history, the election of an African American to the presidency is a monumental accomplishment not to be minimized. Nonetheless, until the last vestiges of capitalism are eliminated, U.S. society will not be able to overcome its racism and consequently the national oppression of the African-American people.

The racist power structure is not willing to make amends for the crimes committed against Africans, Native peoples, Asians and Latin@s during the course of the last 400 years. This elimination of racism and national oppression requires a revolutionary movement led by the working class and the nationally oppressed.

Impact of the Obama victory on domestic policy

Winning the presidency in 2008 required that a candidate would, at least in form, break with the political thrust of the Bush/Cheney administration of the last eight years. Initially the campaign of Obama emphasized his opposition to the invasion of Iraq. Since the overwhelming majority of people in the U.S. and the world oppose the U.S. occupation of Iraq, such a position would win over a huge section of the electorate to Obama.

Also the economy is in the deepest crisis since the Great Depression of 1929 to 1941. Many people would vote against the McCain-Palin ticket just on the basis of sending a message to the current administration.

Yet it will be a mass movement of working people and the poor that will serve as the engine for real social and economic change in the U.S. The very same elements that came out in the millions to vote for Obama can play an even greater role in building the struggle to take control of the banks, factories and other centers of economic power in this country.

During the campaign, the right wing threw all of its ideological weapons against the Obama campaign. He was called a terrorist sympathizer, a Muslim—as if that is to be disdained—disloyal to the military, and connected to the Weather Underground, Black nationalism and socialism. Interestingly enough, these attacks did not stick.

Most of Obama’s supporters and even some Republicans rejected this slander. In fact more people, especially youth, are trying to find out more about socialism and what it really means for addressing the current crisis. As a result of this renewed interest in socialism, revolutionaries in the U.S. have a role to play in this political development.

The need for a new foreign policy orientation

In the international arena there is an immediate need for major changes in U.S. military, political and economic policy. Obama will be expected to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq. The Iraqi people—from the nationalists and revolutionaries to many of the U.S.-backed puppet leaders—want the swift evacuation of occupation troops and bases.

The military contractors must leave as well since they constitute a considerable portion of U.S. military expenditures for the occupation.

Obama has advocated the drawing down of troops from Iraq and their redeployment in Afghanistan. This policy would be disastrous for the U.S. Some British military officials are calling for their country’s withdrawal from Afghanistan because the war is unwinnable. The resistance in Afghanistan is escalating against the U.S./NATO occupation.

The struggle in Africa is also heating up against U.S./EU intervention in Somalia, Sudan and Zimbabwe as well as other parts of the continent. Opposition to the Pentagon’s Africa Command (AFRICOM) is overwhelming on the continent and throughout the world.

In Latin America the movement is clearly towards the left. There are political parties in power in Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Paraguay, Chile and Ecuador that advocate socialism and anti-imperialism. In other states, there are parties and labor unions that are challenging U.S. hegemony and international finance capital.

In Europe, the working class and the nationally oppressed have engaged in many labor and protest actions over the last several months. The way forward for the working class and nationally oppressed in the U.S. will involve an alliance with all these social forces throughout the world.

U.S. workers’ struggles and the global economic crisis

In Michigan, the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions has raised the demand for an immediate freeze on home foreclosure seizures, a popular demand in direct response to the worsening economic crisis in the U.S. and the world. This demand has spread throughout the country and has subsequently drawn the interest of various news agencies from around the U.S. and the world.

The Moratorium NOW! Coalition has received journalists from many media outlets based in Korea, France, Latin America, Britain and Canada. The city of Detroit and the state of Michigan represent one of the hardest hit areas of the country in the crisis of capitalist overproduction and are suffering from the incapacity of the state to respond to the people’s needs during the current economic meltdown.

This struggle for a moratorium on foreclosures and evictions must be linked up with the overall plight of the working class and the nationally oppressed in the U.S. It has been working people and people of color who have been disproportionately affected by the housing crisis and its concomitant impact on the financial markets and consequent rise in unemployment, with over one million jobs being lost in the U.S. over the last year.

The economic crisis has also had a tremendous impact on the status of women since many of them were subjected to subprime mortgages and the decline in wages so prevalent in the current capitalist labor market. In the Moratorium NOW! Coalition in Michigan, women have played a leading role in the fight against foreclosures and the decline in living standards.

The Moratorium NOW! Coalition has also reached out to the immigrant rights struggle. The Coalition has strengthened contacts with the Latin@ community since this nationally oppressed group has also been negatively affected by the economic crisis.

The only real long-term solution to the current crisis in capitalist overproduction, however, is the struggle for socialism. Under a socialist economic system, the production of goods and services will coincide with the needs of the majority of people. There will be employment, health care, education, housing and social services for all. This will represent the new phase of the peoples’ efforts to win genuine human rights and social justice for the working class and the oppressed.

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Filed under: Economic crisis, Fighting oppression

ACLU: Students of color arrested at twice the rate of whites in West Hartford schools

Today’s Courant includes an article on the ACLU’s new report on arrests of students in schools in Hartford, East Hartford and West Hartford and is a must-read if you are concerned about the reality of racial profiling of our youth.

For example, according to the article, the report finds that in 2005-07, 160 white students were involved in fights at West Hartford schools, and of those 18 were arrested, while of the 140 students of color engaged in the same violations, 32 were arrested.

The ACLU emphasized that its goal in publishing the report was to start a discussion about the causes for these kinds of troubling discrepancies.  The West Hartford police chief’s response – essentially, don’t listen to statistics, we’re the police and we know what we’re doing – certainly doesn’t show that a dialogue is going to come about on its own.  For that matter, you can’t help but wonder why this required an ACLU report.  Why is it that the West Hartford Board of Education or the West Hartford Police Department never took note that students of color were being arrested at twice the rate of white students? Are they color-blind?  Or are they blind to differences affecting people of color?

Filed under: Fighting oppression

Who will pay for the recession in Connecticut?

Governor Rell is expecting a $302 million budget deficit for this year – fiscal year 2009.  She projects a dramatic increase in the deficit to $2.6 billion in 2010 and to $3.3 billion in 2011.  Who will pay for this massive deficit?

Governor Rell answered this question very clearly on November 12.  As quoted by CT News Junkie, Rell promised that she would close the escalating budget deficits over the next three fiscal years “with budget cuts.”  Asked if she would seek concessions from state employee unions she said that “everything is on the table.”

But when asked about the possibility of a progressive state income tax, Rell stated “Raising taxes in this economy is the worst thing that we can do at any level.”

In other words, poor people who rely on state social and human services, members of vulnerable communities such as youth, the elderly and the disabled, who need the state’s protection, and state employees will be the cash cow, but Connecticut’s wealthiest residents will likely weather the crisis without having to pay a dime more in taxes.

This is certainly a case where if you are not outraged, you are not paying attention.  Rell admitted that the economic crisis is the worst that Connecticut will face since the Great Depression.  Buit instead of New Deal-type efforts to provide relief to the poor and maintain public employment rolls so that people can work, Rell plans to rely on a kind of slash-and-burn budget cutting that can only be described as Disaster Reaganomics – the capacity to survive will trickle down from and depend upon Connecticut’s wealthy and powerful.

Rell’s projected approach to the budget deficit, making working and poor people pay for the recession, reflects a belief that the economic crisis is a disaster in which extreme measures must be taken.  And this begs the question: if this disaster were a hurricane or a blizzard, would the governor’s response be to make the most vulnerable fend for themselves?  Or would she provide aid where it was most needed?  As governor, Rell has emergency powers that she could exercise in order to ensure that tens of thousands are not foreclosed on or evicted from their homes, and that no one is left without heat and electricity this winter.  She could order taxes on the wealthiest and the corporations to pay for emergency relief for Connecticut’s cities and towns to maintain levels of public services and education.  Rell could order a freeze on state layoffs, an extension of unemployment benefits, and other vital measures to prevent rampant rises in unemployment and poverty.

No, instead of treating the economic collapse as a disaster in which all must sacrifice so all can survive, Rell is planning on making the majority of us pay so that a few will go unharmed.

Filed under: Economic crisis

Keith Olbermann: Gay marriage is a question of love

For what may be one of the most moving and eloquent statements in support of same sex marriage and against restrictive measures such as California’s Prop. 8, please read or watch MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann’s special comment from this evening.

Olbermann is generally well-known for his unabashedly liberal bluster.  In this case, though, his commentary reflected the kind of sincere solidarity and – dare we say it -love for his fellow human beings that is a rarity on any television station and on any topic.

Filed under: Fighting oppression

PAI in New Haven organizing to fight “3 strikes”

A good article from the New Haven Independent tells about a meeting of the community group People Against Injustice and its plans to organize to fight new efforts for a harsh “three strikes” law in Connecticut.  Three strikes is the name given to laws passed in several states in which a third time felony offender automatically gets a life sentence in prison.  It has not been shown to be effective in reducing crime and has been shown to produce completely illogical results, such as giving someone a life sentence for passing a bad check.

Conservative efforts to manipulate public sentiment about the Cheshire murders failed in the last legislature, and as CT News Junkie points out, many of the strongest proponents of three strikes lost re-election recently.

Preparing for the possibility of a resurgence on this issue, however, PAI is discussing strategies to win over suburban communities to understanding that three strikes will not make them safer.

I agree with much of what PAI members have to say.  I think an important addition, though, is a discussion about what it is that predominantly white and suburban voters are really afraid of.  I believe that these kinds of get-tough-on-crime measures, just like campaigns to deport immigrants, have much more to do with peoples’ fears and uncertainties about their economic future than about crime or immigration.  I believe that part of a successful struggle to defeat these knee-jerk proposals is to constantly remind working class people of the real dangers that are making them feel afraid: lay-offs, foreclosures, the collapsing value of their retirement funds, the danger that a catastrophic illness could take away everything that they own.  The tough on crime crowd are manipulating those real fears by looking for scapegoats and quick fixes.

Filed under: Prison Industrial Complex

Will Connecticut unemployment skyrocket?

If you’ve been following the progression of news stories in the corporate-owned media about the recession, the first thing you noticed is that that’s just what they now call it. For a long time the global capitalist crisis was merely a “slowdown” or a “downturn.” Somewhere along the line, editors must have decided that it was at least a little duplicitous not to use the word “recession” when economists across the board were beginning to use the term. The Economist magazine calls it “the deepest recession in decades.” Bloomberg’s calls it “the worst U.S. recession since the Reagan era” – while also citing some sources who describe it as the worst financial crisis in seven decades (in other words, since the Great Depression).

The next thing you may have noticed is that they have stopped talking about the economic crisis as something that may or will affect us in the future and have begun to describe how it is affecting people now. And it’s no longer just the sixty people that will lose their jobs when the Goodwin Hotel is shut down, or the 125 that the Hartford is laying off. The Courant, commenting on recent statistics on unemployment, quotes state labor economist John Tirinzonie as projecting tens of thousands of job losses in the next year.

Tirinzonie says that his conservative prediction is for a loss of 25,000 to 35,000 but that there are others who say it will be more like 80,000 to 90,000.over the course of the year.

The Courant headline calls these potential job losses “sizable.” That’s a bit of an understatement. According to the Connecticut DOL, there were over 111,000 unemployed people in Connecticut in September 2008, and an unemployment rate of 5.9%. Tirinzonie’s conservative estimate for job losses means that in less than a year, that rate would increase to between 7.2% and 7.7%. For economists who predict much larger numbers of job losses, the rate could increase to between 10.2% and 10.7%! These will be the highest rates of unemployment in Connecticut since 1976.

Put in this context, Connecticut is looking at a dramatic increase in unemployment in a very short period of time.  Activists should be asking themselves: what will we do to fight for peoples’ jobs and for their right to earn a living when the system has kicked them to the curb?

Filed under: Economic crisis