I apologize for the short diary, but am in the midst of a union organizing campaign and am running from house to house right now visiting workers.

Here I am, taking a break and opening up my laptop to check out what's new on DailyKos.  And what do I see, but this on the front page of DailyKos.

A student expelled by Valdosta State University, T. Hayden Barnes, has filed a lawsuit against the university, its president, the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia, and other school administrators after being expelled for publicly protesting the school’s decision to construct two new parking garages on campus.

The Writers’ Strike is really a lesson for all union members and working people - divide and conquer. I am sure each of us is missing current jokes from our favorite late night host; however, hearing that Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien and other late night shows are returning next week gave me pause.  

More than 500 union members and their families clad in golden "Hillary for President" t-shirts gathered at a Nevada union hall to show their rousing support for Hillary Clinton.  

The 500 union activists are part of the newly formed International Association of Sheet Metal, Air Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART) were on hand to lend Senator Clinton their union's support in the weeks leading up to the first round of Democratic primaries.

(From the diaries - MissLaura)

For six years we have been hearing about how Rudy Giuliani is the hero of the World Trade Center attacks for his role in just "showing up" with video cameras in tow near ground zero.  

The truth is, Rudy Giuliani failed to prepare the New York City Fire Department prior to September 11 for a potential calamity.  

Just as worst, he has subsequently exploited 9/11 to make tens of millions of dollars and build a base of support through the media for his presidential campaign.

In response, the real heroes of 9/11 - members of the International Association of Firefighters - have released a documentary, "Rudy Giuliani: Urban Legend" - which features active and retired fire fighters, fire officers and families speaking out about the Real Rudy Giuliani that the cameras missed.  

While the real heros of 9/11 were searching for their fallen bretheren, Mayor Giuliani along with Administration officials like Christine Todd Whitman, made sure the interests of their Wall Street donors were placed above those of the fallen heros:

Riches was one of 343 firefighters who died. His father spent every day sifting through the wreckage for bodies, eager for some sign of his son. In November, Giuliani ordered a halt to the work after the remains of 91 firefighters had been recovered.

"Giuliani told everybody the bodies were pulverised, but I was digging them up every day. It was grisly stuff, limbs, little bones - people were blown to bits - but the bodies were there," said Riches, 55.

The searchers refused to stop. An ugly clash between the firefighters and the New York police left 18 officers injured. Eventually Giuliani backed down and allowed the work to continue, but not before branding the firefighters’ actions as "sinful".

As late as March, clumps of victims - 13 here, five there, a couple more scattered around - were being found. One of them was Riches’ son.

London Times

Several months ago, the International Association of Firefighters held a town hall style forum where Presidential candidates from both parties gathered to talk to the assembled crowd.  Only one Presidential candidate was missing, and it was no accident.

In a letter explaining why the IAFF refused to invite Giuliani to their bipartisan town hall forum, union president Harold Schaitberger writes:

What Giuliani showed following 9/11 is a disgraceful lack of respect for the fallen and those brothers still searching for them. He valued the money and gold and wanted the [World Trade Center] site cleared before he left office at the end of 2001 more than he valued the lives and memories of those lost."  

You can see the web video at the website set up by the Firefighters at Rudy-UrbanLegend.  Like the swiftboaters who targeted John Kerry in 2004, the New York City firefighters intend on following Rudy's every step as he campaigns for the Presidency.  Unlike the swiftboaters, they will have the truth behind them.

Beginning the day of the 9/11 attacks and for three months after, Robert Williamson, a New York City detective, spent 16-hour days performing rescue and recovery operations at the World Trade Center site.  

In 2003, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer as a result of the time he spent at Ground Zero.  He died earlier this week at the age of 46, almost six years after he and his fellow WTC rescue workers were told by EPA Director Christine Todd Whitman that the air at Ground Zero was breathable.  

(If this has already been diaried please let me know and I will gladly delete this)

There is no better time than now when a grassroots attempt to boycott Rush Limbaugh's radio advertisers will work.

The fallout from Don Imus's remarks about the Rutgers basketball team are still fresh in everyone's minds - including not just the chattering class of professional pundits on tv, but also the army of media advertisers still sensitive to the fallout of the Imus fiasco.

That is why I'm putting together a rough list of some of Limbaugh's advertisers below on the flip side along with some sample comments.

For those of you wondering why there needs to be a grassroots action targeting Limbaugh's advettisers, I direct yout to the "Barack the Magic Negro" link at YouTube and this excellent diary from StormBear.  

Fed up with skyrocketing costs due to a lack of housing, commodities and services on the Gulf Coast and seeing their standard of living deteriorate right before their eyes, 6,700 shipyard workers at the Ingalls Shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi voted to stage a strike on March 8th.  

For one month they stayed firm and rejected bad contract offer after bad contract offer from their employer, Northrup Grumman.  

In that long span of four weeks, only 78 people (a little more than 1 out of 100) crossed the picket lines the workers set up at the shipyard gates.  

More amazingly, the local community - right in the heart of the reddest of red states - came out in force in SUPPORT of the striking workers.

In the face of all of this, the company held out against its workforce. . .

Until yesterday when a month of resoluteness in the face of adversity paid off.  Northrop Grumman buckled under and offered the workers a contract that included a 15 percent raise over three years along with additional shift and attendance premiums that would bump up their raises even more significantly.

There are usually two sides to every issue. Never is it more true when it comes to the fundamental freedoms of the American people when they are at work.

There are those who take seriously the basic and fundamental right found in the US Constitution and in every other of of just about every free industrialized country:

"Congress shall make no law . . . abridging . . . the right of the people peaceably to assemble."

Then there are those who put the special interests of a small privilidged elite above those of their people.

Workers should be able to join unions if they please and employers should feel free to fire them if they do, as they should. Currently they cannot fire them, at least openly.

Free Republic

Hurray for George Will.  In between smearing Senator Webb and his daily whines about the high cost of the minimum wage (it's hard to find good cheap help these days) - Will finds the time to take a shot at Americans who dare find a way to advance themselves with a voice at work.

There's a measure of irony to George Will's high minded opposition to workers having the freedom to choose whether or not they want to join a union.  Will is a syndicated columnist and as one, he enjoys a contract that mandates what he is compensated by the outlets that run his columns.  Then again, that is neither here nor there since in George Will's "civilized" world you do as he says and not as he does.

The right wing is like one of those dying predators from your typical nature show - lashing out with all the venom it can muster at everything in plain sight while it slowly bleeds to death.

First, they blamed the anti-war protestors, then the 60% of us who voted to end the war in November.  In the latest example of sheer cold-hearted lunacy, they're blaming the same cops, firemen and rescue workers who just four years ago were rushing into burning buildings to rescue their fellow Americans.

To be called "middle class" in America once meant living comfortably and having present and long term financial security. It meant having enough to pay all the bills on time, giving your children a head start on their lives through college and then saving enough to comfortably retire.

It's become obvious that today, that contented lifestyle has become harder to achieve and even maintain for the vast majority of Americans.

We were told a long time ago by our parents and teachers that all we had to do was to work hard and save money - and all of us would be able to realize the dream of living a standard middle class life.  

Click here to link to an Op-Ed in the LA Times about the Employee Free Choice Act and the Middle Class Squeeze.

As members of Congress return home for the Presidents' Day recess, people across the country are launching a Week of Action to push for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act.

Union members will be holding news conferences, worker roundtables, rallies and other events around the country to highlight to need for labor law reform mush members of Congress to act on this important bill and to thank those who have already shown their support for it.

Last night, for the first time in a generation, legislation guaranteeing real labor law reform passed a markup in the House Education and Labor Committee.

The right of workers to organize and bargain collectively is a fundamental human freedom. Not only is it a longstanding American value but it is a core standard that the United States uses to to measure democratic norms in a number of nations throughout the world.

Yet, while we judge others abroad on their standards of freedom, this basic human right is denied to millions of Americans.

Today, the Employee Free Choice Act is making its way through a markup by the House Education and Labor Committee.  

To say that the current system for forming unions and bargaining at work is broken would be an understatement.  That system, and the freedoms it was intended to protect have been completely and totally ripped apart by decades of hostile legislators and judges.    

A system where people had the free and democratic choice of choosing to bargain for better wages and working conditions has been replaced by an employer dominated balloting process that is completely and totally controlled by management.

 

Under the current system of NLRB run union election campaigns, companies have the right to tell employees that black is white, good is evil, and the sun actually rises in the west.

Most of what they say is not true, but it doesn't really seem to matter.  Not when opposing views are allowed to be banned and employers can force employees into "captive audeince meetings" with the intent of mass brainwashing on the part of highly paid "union avoidance" consultants.

A couple anti-worker groups found that this take on reality doesn't really sell in the court of public opinion.

Nor did it in front of Representative Carolyn Murphy (D-NY) yesterday at the House Education and Labor Committee hearing on the Employee Free Choice Act.  

Keith Ludlum, a worker at Smithfield Processing in Tarheel, North Carolina gave a detailed and heartbreaking description today about what he had to endure to vote in a union election.  

He noted that the experience was nothing like and election to public office.  Sheriff’s deputies lined the entrance to the plant while workers were voting.  When Congressman Robert Andrews from New Jersey asked about this incident later, Ludlum added that the deputies were armed with shotguns and rifles.  Many of them were holding police dogs.  The heads of management were on hand and stood side by side with the sheriff.
From AFL-CIO Now

Elaine Chao, wife of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and George's Bush's Secretary of Labor has been ignoring requests to investigate 19 chapters of the Associated Builders and Contractors for tax fraud.  

Of course, this same group, the Associated Builders and Contractors just happens to be a major donor not only to Republican campaigns but also to Chao's husband, Mitch McConnell. This group quite possibly used taxpayer money from state apprenticeship and training grants to help finance local chapter activities which include lobbying for its conservative, anti-worker free market causes.