On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, where he had gone to stand with sanitation workers demanding their dream: The right to bargain collectively for a voice at work and a better life. The workers were trying to form a union with AFSCME. Beginning with worship services over the April 1 weekend, and continuing through the week of April 4, unions, people of faith, civil and human rights activists, students and other progressive allies will host a range of community- and workplace-focused actions. Join us in solidarity with working people in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and dozens of other states where well-funded, right-wing corporate politicians are trying to take away the rights Dr. King gave his life for: the freedom to bargain, to vote, to afford a college education and justice for all workers, immigrant and native-born. It’s a day to show movement. Teach-ins. Vigils. Faith events. A day to be creative, but clear: We are one. Is your April 4 event located at a house, a coffee shop or a local community venue? Is your event private or public? There is strength in numbers and whether you invite five people or 100, we want to know about your local event. This site provides event resources and support to help get you started. Private events will not show up on the searchable map. Please register your local event today and be counted! LEARN MORE:
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Monday 14 March 2011
by: Ellen Dannin | Employment Policy Research Network | Op-Ed
(Photo: Jorge Franganillo)
On May 31, 2010, Governor Chris Christie’s New Jersey Privatization Task Force reported that more than $210 million would be saved by privatizing work that had traditionally been performed by government workers. The report even set out specific figures for some of the cost savings it identified, while others said savings were “TBD” – “To Be Decided”.
Who crunched the numbers to show that private contractors would do a better job or at least the same job for less money than public employees? The Privatization Task Force Report says that no one did. On page 14 the report says it did no analysis “due not only to the fact that the actual cost of a privatized alternative will often not be known until the
Gov. Chris Christie talks to students at the Robert Treat Academy in Newark in this January file photo. Christie announced the approval of new charter schools.TRENTON — While New Jersey's public schools are facing salary caps for their superintendents, charter schools don't have the same restrictions.
A report in The Record of Bergen County finds that that heads of some small charter schools earn more than $150,000. Gov. Chris Christie has limited public school superintendents of small districts to salaries of $120,000 to $135,000 or less.
Christie didn't respond to questions from the newspaper about the difference in policy.
Charter schools are publicly funded but
I watched with great pride, from afar on Skype, as my union sisters and brothers from Northwest Indiana stood tall and strong for their rights during Thursday's rally outside the Indiana Statehouse.
Tens of thousands of workers, from all parts of the state, arrived on more than 200 buses that cold morning. They were fighting for our state's middle class, built largely by labor unions. These men and women were protesting against government abuse as our Founding Fathers, like Thomas Jefferson, had instructed long ago.
That is also why my Democratic House colleagues and I continue to be in Urbana, Ill. We are preventing
This was lost in the shuffle last week, as Wisconsin Republican lawmakers went off to DC to be rewarded with campaign contributions for their union-busting votes, only to be greeted by a huge crowd of protesters.
The $1000 a head fundraiser was hosted by Barbour Griffith and Rogers, doing business as BGR Public Affairs, a lobbying firm that just happens to represent the Wisconsin roadbuilders. On Dec. 20, the firm registered as lobbyists for Wisconsin Transportation Builders Assn. in Madison. Five lobbyists are listed, including former Tommy chief of staff Bob Wood while at Tommy was in the Bush cabinet at HHS, and Bill Viney, a former Scot Klug aide.
The roadbuilders have a lot at stake in Scott Walker's budget. They stand to rake in more than $100-million at the expense of Wisconsin schools, as Rod Clark, a longtime Dept. of Transportation employee, now retired,
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| Oxycontin to Be Snorted (Wikicommons) |
State College, Pa. (CNN) -- A Pennsylvania mother has decided she does not want her two children to take the two-week-long standardized tests given by her state as part of the federal No Child Left Behind law. And she hopes other parents will do the same.
Michele Gray's sons Ted Rosenblum, 11, and John Michael Rosenblum, 9, did independent study the week of March 14 while their classmates were filling in hundreds of bubbles in classrooms with doors marked, "Quiet. Testing in Progress."
Gray says the only legal exemption that would allow her kids to sit out the tests was a religious objection. So that's what she did.
But Gray says her concerns go well beyond religion. "The more I look at standardized tests, the more I realize that we have, as
