December 31, 2008: Haven’t hit bottom yet

Only a few weeks ago, president-elect Obama offered the opinion that the economy had not yet hit bottom, and although there have been no more daily reports of the stock market plummeting, there is also no evidence of an end in sight.

So here are a few stories to chew on, on this last day of 2008:

Consumer confident is at its lowest point ever, with the now-ending holiday retail season the worst since 1970.

“Prices of U.S. single-family homes in October plunged a record 18.0 percent from a year earlier, according to the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices released on Tuesday that indicated a U.S. housing market in the throes of a deep recession.”

“Going into the last trading day of 2008, the Dow Jones Industrials Average and the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index were looking at their worst years since 1931, down 34.7% and 39.3%, respectively.”

As I have been blogging about the economy and its impact on working class people in the U.S. over the last few months, I have noticed that the financial media (as well as the pundits that are quoted in it) has every bit as short a memory as the political media.  So no one seems to notice that the same experts who in September said “don’t worry, it won’t get that bad” are now saying that they have no idea how bad it will get.  They are, apparently, still “the experts” even if their track records show they have no idea what they are talking about.

Even so, browsing their end of the year assessments and predictions, it’s pretty clear that investors, bankers, CEO’s, etc. are playing it safe, expecting things to get worse, and looking out for their interests.  The big question that everyone ought to be asking about 2009 is this: Will this be the year that the working class starts to look out for its own interests with the same care that the capitalists are looking out for theirs?

Filed under: Economic crisis

If “everyone” is against budget cuts, why do we need a movement for a people’s bailout?

It’s a reasonable question.  Sure, there are some people, such as Governor Rell, who have said that the recession and economic crisis creates an “opportunity” to restore government to its “core functions” (it will be interesting to learn what those core functions are . . . I’m guessing prisons are high on Rell’s list).  But for the most part, isn’t everyone opposed to massive budget cuts?

Yes, but.

Take a look at today’s Hartford Courant for one of the first, best examples of “yes, but.”  The Connecticut Department of Education has submitted a proposed budget to Gov. Rell that includes more than $230 million in cuts.  Most of these cuts would be in the form of a reduction in state aid to local school districts.  Urban school districts will be especially hard hit by cuts in state aid to education.

School superintendents, not surprisingly, don’t want their budgets cut.  Are they outraged?  Are they ready to fight for your kid’s right to a decent education?  Will they organize parents and teachers and school administrators?  Will they hand Rell her head on a platter if she slashes education spending?  Not if Philip Streifer, who the Courant identifies as the “chief of Bristol schools and a member of the urban superintendents group,” is any indication.

Streifer isn’t organizing anyone.  And he’s not fighting back against the cuts.  Instead, he is already offering free advice about the best way for these cuts to be carried out.  Streifer wants to put “mandate relief” on the table.  For example, “suspending state-imposed expenses — such as in-service training for teachers — until the nation’s financial spiral levels out.”

Is that the solution?  The banks and mortgage companies made billions in bad investments and got bailed out — a big gold-plated reward for their greed and stupidity.  Our kids just want to go to good schools with well-trained teachers.  What do they get?  Politicians who will squabble over the best way to bleed millions out of those schools.

On every front, the standard of living for working and poor people in Connecticut is under attack.  That includes the quality of our public schools.  We need a movement that will unapologetically fight for our rights and the rights of our children.  We need a people’s bailout, starting with a people’s budget: No cuts, no lay offs, and a tax on the wealthy and the corporations.

Filed under: Uncategorized

It’s time to build a movement for a people’s bailout!

In November and December, a small group of activists from the Hartford area met to discuss the economic crisis, the ways that it would affect working people and poor people in our communities, and how we should respond.

Though small, the meetings were significant because participants recognized the current situation as an emergency that demands an urgent response.  In those meetings and the informal discussions that followed some of us quickly moved from a discussion to an immediate plan of action.

The People’s Economic Justice Coalition

We have taken the name People’s Economic Justice Coalition and have agreed to the following 5 Core Organizing Principles:

1. We will develop an agenda and strategy driven by the community members most directly impacted by the economic crisis.

2. We will seek to be flexible and mobile enough to respond to a variety of attacks on working class people in the Hartford area.

3. We will demand the impossible, that is, everything that members of our class need to survive, even when it is considered outrageous or “off-the-table” by reformist politics.

4. We will be a politically independent voice.

5. Solidarity with all Oppressed Peoples: An Injury to One is an Injury
to All!

A Community Meeting for a People’s Bailout

Consistent with the 5 Core Principles, we have adopted a plan of action for the next six week period that is focused on two events.

1.  A press conference to coincide with Governor Rell’s budget announcement on Wednesday, February 3.  The purpose of the press conference will be to expose Rell’s budget, which forces working people and poor people to carry the burden of the economic crisis, the recession, and the budget deficit; to call for an emergency budget in which there are no cutbacks or lay-offs; and to demand a progressive income tax that shifts the burden to the wealthy and the corporations.

2.  A Community Meeting for a People’s Bailout on Saturday, February 7, from 1pm-4pm (location to be announced).  This will be a public meeting and speak-out for working people and poor people from all over the Hartford area.  It will be a chance for people to voice their worry, frustration and anger about the economic crisis and talk about what needs to change in order for all of us to survive the crisis.  This speak-out will lay the groundwork for the program and demands of our campaign for a people’s budget.

Getting out the word

Our work from now to February is to get the word out all over the Hartford area about the Community Meeting for a People’s Bailout.  We determined to begin this campaign at First Night Hartford, an even that brings thousands of working people from all over the region together.  We will follow up at other events throughout January, with a special emphasis on January 17-20, at which many people will be celebrating the Martin Luther King Day holiday and the presidential inauguration.

Build a movement for a people’s bailout!

We feel that the creation of the People’s Economic Justice Coalition is an exciting development because it will bring a new perspective into the discussion of the economic crisis.  Up to now, the conventional wisdom has been that either working people must roll over for the politicians and be thankful for whatever scraps they throw to us, or  that we must wait until the new administration rides in to save us with federal legislation.  We are determined to take matters into our own hands, put the interests of the working class first, and demand emergency measures that recognize and protect those interests.

The Wall Street bankers and mortgage companies demanded – and got – billions of dollars by promising that the system would scream to a halt unless they got bailed out.  Now it is our turn and it is our right and responsibility to say the same: Bail out the people or we will bring the system to a grinding stop!

Filed under: Community organizing, Economic crisis

Immigrant workers sue Connecticut company for wage theft

CT company reportedly
exploits workers
Count on 8

Last Edited: Tuesday, 23 Dec 2008, 8:18 PM EST
Created On: Tuesday, 23 Dec 2008, 8:17 PM EST

* story by: Alan Cohn

Hartford (WTNH) – Dozens of construction workers are out thousands of dollars in wages and are now suing to get their due. The question is: did a Connecticut company reportedly exploit employees because of their immigration status?

Illegal immigration is a controversial issue to say the least. So why should people care about what allegedly happened to these workers?

Because if a company can pay an illegal immigrant less money for more work, good companies, which follow the rules, are hurt.

They are not your average plaintiffs in a law suit. In fact some, if not many of them, may not even be in the country legally which is why we were asked not to identify them.

One man says he is one of 34-former employees of National Carpentry Contractors who worked on a luxury condominium complex in Stamford.

It’s alleged the workers worked up to 70-hours a week with no overtime until their pay stopped altogether.

“They don’t know exactly what happened, they just told them they didn’t have the money to pay them any longer,” one translator said.

“Let’s be very clear, these workers were exploited by an employer who perceived them to be undocumented and therefore vulnerable and sought to exploit and prey on fear of retaliation whether deportation or other consequences,” Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said.

Attorney General Blumenthal is supporting the workers in their federal lawsuit, pointing out the law is suppose to protect all people whether they are here legally or not.

And, well aware immigration is a divisive issue, attorneys representing the workers point out:

“There are plenty of honest contractors out there who aren’t afraid to comply with Connecticut and Federal law and pay their workers properly for the work they do,” Peter Goselin, representing workers, said. “And when they compete against people who break the rules, the way National Carpentry Contractors did, then they loose.”

What does the company have to say? Late today John Kirk, owner of the company called News Channel 8 back. He denies mistreating the workers but does acknowledge some are owed money. He says he was put in a tough spot by other contractors who didn’t pay him.

Cohn: “You kept making payrolls even though you weren’t being paid yourself, and you simply ran out of money.”

Another attorney says this case is just the tip of the iceberg and that there are a lot of other cases like this.

And, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal says there may be a need for federal investigators to look into this situation.

Filed under: Immigrant rights, Labor solidarity

Connecticut DCF: Who has to sacrifice to end this shame?

Today’s Courant discusses the latest outrage in the Department of Children and Families: the use of pepper spray to “subdue” children with severe emotional and psychiatric problems.

It is often said that how a society treats its children is the best and most accurate reflection of its humanity.  If this is so, then once again we see the reality of American life laid bare in the Connecticut DCF.  Connecticut is the wealthiest state in the U.S.  It is a small state that can scarcely blame its woes on the enormous complexity of administration or its vast bureaucracy.  it is a highly-educated state by U.S. standards and is home to several universities with well-respected  programs on childhood development, mental illness, and health-care administration.  It is a state with a long history of the development of programs to treat and provide care to people with mental health problems, having been the home to one of the first psychiatric hospitals in the U.S.  It is a state that tends to pride itself on its liberalism.

Yet the State of Connecticut is utterly unable and unwilling to make the commitment necessary to provide decent treatment for children.  And it needs to be said up front: these scandals do not – to me, anyway – indicate that DCF front line staff are poorly trained, uncaring or indifferent.  I have known many DCF workers.  I know that if they have a fault it is generally that they have become completely cynical about the possibility that anything in the system will change and that their “we do what we have to do” attitude reflects the reality of their work.  To use a biblical analogy, they have been ordered to make bricks without straw . . . they must provide a safe treatment environment and must comply with policies that cannot be implemented due to a lack of resources.

And this applies not only to the DCF facilities that provide care for young people with serious psychiatric problems (the focus in the Courant article) but also to Connecticut’s facilities for displaced and homeless youth, including young people who have been abandoned or who must be removed from their parents’ homes.  It also applies to DCF’s field operations, where a handful of investigators must manage massive caseloads so that their bosses can claim that policies that look good on paper have been carried out with respect to every situation and allegation involving neglect or abuse of a child is addressed.

In this case, the State, having failed to provide the physical resources, staffing resources, and treatment resources for children with severe emotional and mental health problems, has created a situation where explosive behavior could not be contained by staff at Riverview Hospital.  State police from nearby Connecticut Valley Hospital (an adult psychiatric facility) had to be called in.  Those police, in trying to “restrain” the youth who was acting out, resorted to pepper spray or pepper foam to control them.  DCF officials have refused to say that this tactic – the sort generally reserved for out of control criminals in public places – was improper.

This is a shame and an outrage but it only hints at the outrage that is to come.  Because as bad as things have become at DCF facilities we know that in the upcoming discussions about the state budget, the DCF budget will not provide more staffing or better facilities but likely will include cuts.  And politicians will cluck-cluck about this and say that they have done the best that they can to protect Connecticut’s youth and that they are confident that DCF staff will make sure that the agency’s mission is carried out . . . and then they will quietly pass a budget that turns its back on Connecticut’s young people.

Of course this will not affect the troubled sons and daughters of Connecticut’s elite, who will continue to have access to the finest schools, the best treatment programs, the most well-supported caregivers and treaters.  It is only the youth of poor and working class people who will be subjected to these hellish facilities or who will simply be overlooked at a time when they desparately need help.

We, the working parents of Connecticut’s young people . . . as well as the educators and the treaters and the caregivers . . . must not accept the excuse that in a recession everyone must make sacrifices, when it is clear that only our children are being sacrificed.  As today’s Courant makes clear, we cannot even afford to stand in place when it comes to DCF and other programs for youth in Connecticut.  Because standing in place is accepting their mistreatment, abuse and neglect by the State of Connecticut.

We must demand that Connecticut do what is necessary to provide decent, modern facilities to provide good treatment with adequate staff for all of Connecticut’s youth that require it.  And if that means that some of Connecticut’s rich have to go an extra year without replacing their luxury cars or if they have to postpone that holiday jaunt to go skiing in the Swiss Alps, so be it.  Better that they sacrifice a few of their worldly luxuries, than that Connecticut sacrifice its children.

Filed under: Uncategorized

. . . and fighting and winning against foreclosures in Detroit

One of the first organizations to begin to fight the flood of foreclosures and evictions was formed in Detroit – not coincidentally one of several “ground zeros” for working class people losing their homes.

The Moratorium NOW Coalition Against Foreclosures and Evictions recently intervened in the cases of Lorene Parker and Belva Davis, fighting and winning against the banks. Connecticut activists take note – please!

Filed under: Community organizing, Economic crisis

News from the New School occupation

The New School students in NYC have declared victory in their fight with the university administration and have ended their occupation. For more and to read the full text of their agreement with the administration, visit their website: newschoolinexile.com

Filed under: Uncategorized

Connecticut unemployment at 15 year high: Is it time to give a damn yet?

Today’s report in the Courant reflects what we all know from personal experience: the job market in Connecticut is getting worse week by week and month by month.  In November 2008, the state lost another 5,000 jobs.

These monthly reports, along with the daily signs of a deepening recession in the global economy, should be pointing working people in Connecticut towards the new year, the newest “special session,” and Governor Rell’s budget announcement in February.  Rell has called for a special session in January to ask the legislature to endorse a further set of cuts in the budget for the current fiscal year, and it is expected that in the first week of February she will roll out a proposed budget for the next two fiscal years that will reflect the full impact of an anticipated record budget deficit.

Perhaps I should not be surprised that so many progressives and advocates for working people and poor people are sitting silently on their hands in the face of this gathering storm.  Hiding behind pleasant euphemisms about Connecticut as the land of steady habits, many activists that I know are wringing their hands over the recession and cursing the corporations and the politicians . . . and waiting for Barack Obama to ride in on January 20 and solve our problems with a magical stimulus package.

What my friends and comrades utterly fail to see is that Rell’s repeated promises to restructure state government (return it to its “core functions” seems to be the catchphrase of the day) and discussions in the business sector about the recession as an “opportunity” are quiet declarations of war on Connecticut’s working people and poor people.  Even if a national “rescue” is effected that will soften the harshest blows  of the recession, the economic crisis is going to create a context in which the corporations and their friends strip away yet another level of social safety net.

It is true that there are many times that an issue bubbles up to the surface of the public consciousness and we, as progressives, are unable to penetrate the levels of exhaustion and cynicism that are burying working people in our communities.  We have the best intentions, the best ideas and put forward our best efforts yet campaigns fall flat.  But it appears to me that in December 2008 it is activists and progressives that are stagnant and cynical, wallowing in our own sense that nothing can be done or nothing will ever really change, while in our communities people are frustrated, angry and fearful – and ready for a fight.

Filed under: Economic crisis

NYT: Bail Out the People activist, protesting fare hikes, tries to throw shoe at NY Transit Chief

For more information:Bail Out the People Movement

At M.T.A. Hearing, Another Shoe Almost Dropped

By William Neuman

A protester, Stephen A. Millies, was removed from a Metropolitan Transportation Authority board meeting after threatening to hurl a shoe
at Elliot G. Sander, the authority’s chief executive. (Photo: Ruby Washington/The New York Times)

Updated, 2:24 p.m. | One transit rider was so infuriated on Wednesday by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s decision to slash service and raise fares that he tried to follow the example set by Muntader al-Zaidi, the 29-year-old Iraqi journalist who hurled two shoes at President Bush on Sunday.

The rider, Stephen A. Millies, who identified himself as an Amtrak worker with the Bail Out the People
campaign, was one of about two dozen people who addressed the
authority’s board during a public speaking period at the start of the
Midtown meeting where the budget vote was held.

“This budget ought to be thrown in the garbage can,” Mr. Millies said. He railed against the fare increase and for good measure spoke out against home foreclosures. Then, referring to the M.T.A.’s chief executive, who was
sitting about 15 feet away, he shouted: “Where is Elliot Sander? You made $300,000 last year!”

According to a witness, Mr. Millies then slipped off one of his
shoes and began to bend down to pick it up, saying “this shoe is for
you.” Authority police officers immediately swarmed around Mr. Millies
and hustled him out of the board room and onto an elevator, where he
could be heard shouting “I didn’t do anything.” Moments later he was
seen in handcuffs, being escorted from the building.

The authority said that Mr. Millies, 54, of Jackson Heights, Queens,
was given a summons for disorderly conduct and released. A spokesman
for the authority, Jeremy Soffin, said that Mr. Millies wore a size 10½
shoe made by the Red Wing company.

Bill Morange, the authority’s security director, was standing beside
the speaker’s podium and was one of the first to grab Mr. Millies. He
said the shoes looked like boat shoes or topsiders.

“You can say anything you want,” Mr. Morange said. “Just don’t throw your shoes.”

Filed under: Community organizing, Economic crisis

Statement from New School student occupation in NYC

[Posted below is a statement issued last night by a group of students who have occupied one of the buildings of the New School in NYC.  Following on the heels of the Republic Windows & Doors occupation in Chicago, this is an exciting development as people again take matters into their own hands to demand change.]

An Open Letter: Come Occupy a Building with Us…Now

Dear Friends,

We are writing to you from the inside of the New School Graduate Faculty Building on 65 5th Ave. We are occupying it. Right now. Literally.
Students of the New School University, along with our partners from other universities and groups – like NYU, Hunter College, City College of NY, CUNY Graduate Center, and Borough of Manhattan Community College, have organically risen up to demand the resignation of President Bob Kerrey, Executive Vice President James Murtha, and Board Member/torturer Robert B. Millard (he multi-tasks). We have come together to prevent our study spaces from being flattened by corporate bulldozers, to have a say in who runs this school, to demand that the money we spend on this institution be used to facilitate the creation of a better society, not to build bigger buildings or invest in companies that make war. We have come here not only to make demands, but also to live them. Our presence makes it clear that this school is ours, and yours, if you are with us.

The outside doors have been closed now, so we can’t exactly invite you in…sorry… We know you wanted a piece of the action, but we’ll be around for quite some time. Join us at 7 AM tomorrow when the doors open again, or come now to stand outside with a sign in solidarity. You are cordially invited to join us in any way you can. We are not going anywhere. In the meantime, check out our Web site: www.newschoolinexile.com. We have all night to make things interesting, and the website will continue to be updated. Stay tuned for the musical pieces, doctoral dissertations, and creative finger-paintings that seem to be the natural result of 150 students locked into a building together for a night.

We are here, making decisions collectively, doing teach-ins, listening to music, studying, singing. We’ve got an upright bassist, guitarists and vocalists (If anyone can volunteer a drum-set we’ll be well on our way…). We’ll be here until this university changes, or until the party gets boring (but it doesn’t seem likely that will happen). We’re not going anywhere. We hope to see you soon, and if you really can’t wait a few hours – what the hell – occupy your own universities or work spaces.

Come use your voice to declare loudly that this school and this world are yours. Come use your mind to think up a better world. Come use your body to create it, one all-nighter in the university cafeteria at a time. Come stand in solidarity with the students, faculty, and staff of this university. Come to write letters of support to the people of the village of Thanh Phong whose parents were murdered by the current President of the New School during his service in Vietnam. Come join the struggle with the people of Iraq who are being tortured and killed by a company funded by this university and represented on the New School Board of Trustees. Come here to join the uprisings and outpouring of passionate resistance currently taking place all over this country, and all over the worlds – from factory workers in Chicago to students in Greece. Come for yourself. Come for all of us.

In solidarity,
The New School in Exile

Filed under: Community organizing, Economic crisis