Thursday, August 22, 2019
Nina Turner responds to Neera Tanden's idiotic attacks against Susan Sarandon
TURNER AND SARANDON ARE REAL PROGRESSIVES.
TANDEN IS JUST ANOTHER IDIOT CLINTON STOOGE.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dmnu6YHoNE
Argentina's Kirchner leads call to free Brazil's Lula
August 21, 2019. AFP
Presidential frontrunner Alberto Fernandez and running-mate Cristina Kirchner led calls by dozens of Argentine personalities Tuesday to free Brazil's jailed leftist icon Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Human rights activists,
lawmakers, trade unionists, artists and scientists signed a petition published
in the left-leaning Pagina 12 daily.
They included Nobel Peace
laureate Adolfo Perez Esquivel, president of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de
Mayo Estela Carlotto and the leader of the Families of the Disappeared, Lita
Boitano.
"It is a very big clamor
for freedom in the face of an injustice, such as the detention and conviction
of Lula da Silva, which implies that Brazil continues to be in a state of
emergency," said Nicolas Trotta, the rector of the Metropolitan University
for Education and Labor, one of the organizers of the petition.
Fernandez, the favorite to
unseat President Mauricio Macri in upcoming elections, visited Lula last month
in Curitiba prison in southern Brazil where he is serving a nearly nine-year
sentence for corruption and money laundering.
Fernandez blasted President
Jair Bolsonaro last week as "misogynist, racist and violent" after
the Brazilian leader said a leftist victory in October elections would spark an
exodus of Argentines to Brazil.
Lula, who was the favorite to
win last year's presidential election in Brazil before he was jailed, has
continued to insist he is an innocent victim of a political conspiracy to
thwart him returning to power.
Amazon burning: Brazil reports record forest fires
Lisandra Paraguassu. Reuters. August 20, 2019
Wildfires raging in the Amazon rainforest have hit a record number this year, with 72,843 fires detected so far by Brazil’s space research center INPE, as concerns grow over right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro’s environmental policy.
The surge marks an 83% increase over the same period of 2018, the agency said on Tuesday, and is the highest since records began in 2013.
Since Thursday, INPE said satellite images spotted 9,507 new forest fires in the country, mostly in the Amazon basin, home to the world’s largest tropical forest seen as vital to countering global warming.
Images show the northernmost state of Roraima covered in dark smoke. Amazonas declared an emergency in the south of the state and in its capital Manaus on Aug. 9. Acre, on the border with Peru, has been on environmental alert since Friday due to the fires.
Wildfires have increased in Mato Grosso and Para, two states where Brazil’s agricultural frontier has pushed into the Amazon basin and spurred deforestation. Wildfires are common in the dry season, but are also deliberately set by farmers illegally deforesting land for cattle ranching.
The unprecedented surge in wildfires has occurred since Bolsonaro took office in January vowing to develop the Amazon region for farming and mining, ignoring international concern over increased deforestation.
Asked about the spread of uncontrolled fires, Bolsonaro brushed off criticism, saying it was the time of the year of the “queimada” or burn, when farmers use fire to clear land.
“I used to be called Captain Chainsaw. Now I am Nero, setting the Amazon aflame. But it is the season of the queimada,” he told reporters.
Space agency INPE, however, said the large number of wildfires could not be attributed to the dry season or natural phenomena alone.
“There is nothing abnormal about the climate this year or the rainfall in the Amazon region, which is just a little below average,” said INPE researcher Alberto Setzer.
People frequently blame the dry season for the wildfires in the Amazon, but that is not quite accurate, he said.
“The dry season creates the favorable conditions for the use and spread of fire, but starting a fire is the work of humans, either deliberately or by accident,” Setzer said.
Bolsonaro recently fired the director of INPE after he criticized agency statistics showing an increase in deforestation in Brazil, saying they were inaccurate.
“I am waiting for the next set of numbers, that will not be made up numbers. If they are alarming, I will take notice of them in front of you,” he told reporters.
Two Communist Lawmakers Are Suddenly Setting the Agenda in Chile
Eduardo Thomson and
Daniela Guzman.
Bloomberg.
August 20, 2019
In a country that’s long stood out as the beacon of free-market principles in Latin America, two young communist women are capturing much of the attention in government circles.
A labor-reform bill introduced by Chile’s Camila Vallejo and Karol Cariola, who made a name for themselves as student-movement leaders eight years ago, is gaining widespread support -- and putting the two Communist Party lawmakers in the crosshairs of right-leaning President Sebastian Pinera.
At issue is a plan to cut the country’s maximum work week to 40 hours from 45. Pinera has called the bill unconstitutional, vowing to fight it in court if it wins approval. He has his own proposal that’s struggling to move forward.
For Pinera, a 69-year-old billionaire in his second stint as president, the labor squabble and congressional gridlock are far from what was envisioned near the midpoint of his term. He was elected in late 2017 under the promise of bringing in major reforms that would usher in an economic boom. Now, growth is expected to cool as key tax and pension bills are also stalled, just as the U.S.-China trade war is hitting prices for copper, the country’s top export.
“The government should be setting the agenda and using its political capital,” Macarena Lobos, who served as deputy finance minister for Pinera’s predecessor, Michelle Bachelet, said in an interview at radio Pauta Bloomberg. “Instead, it’s being pushed aside in its key reforms.”
The economy has already showed signs of weakness, with the central bank cutting its growth estimates for 2019 to 2.8% from 3.6% at the beginning of the year. The country’s benchmark IPSA stock index is down about 6% this year, while the MSCI EM Latin America Index is little changed.
Student Protests
In Chile, the president has powers to decide what’s discussed at the legislative level, making the rise of the communist duo’s bill all the more surprising.
Vallejo, 31, and Cariola, 32, could be considered early versions of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York congresswoman who’s become a leftist star in America. Vallejo gained notoriety during Pinera’s first tenure by leading student demonstrations over Chile’s education system. Hundreds of thousands of people joined the protests, fueled by discontent over inequality.
Pinera’s response included a cabinet shuffle and a new education fund, but Chilean students were unsatisfied. His approval ratings sank while Vallejo became a rising star of the Communist Party, backed by popular support. Polls in 2011 showed she was even more admired than Bachelet or famous revolutionary songstress Violeta Parra.
Cariola, also a young activist of the Communist Party, joined the ranks of the student leaders and traveled around the globe with Vallejo as a representative of the movement. They became congressional deputies in 2014, turning into powerful politicians on the left, and Pinera’s adversaries.
Like Ocasio-Cortez, Vallejo “is a young person in the opposition who is an incisive critic of the government and is skilled at placing issues on the congressional agenda,” said Kenneth Bunker, a Chilean political scientist.
The Vallejo-Cariola bill aims to cut down the labor load for a country that ranks sixth for hours worked among members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The lawmakers, aiming to increase productivity and bolster quality of life, have cited how European countries like France have implemented similar measures with positive results.
The bill has been approved by the Lower House and garnered 74% popular support in a respected Chilean poll. It will then have to go through “particular discussions” before it can move on to the Senate.
‘Extreme Urgency’
Pinera -- whose approval rating is about 34%, according to Cadem -- has pitched a labor reform bill that would give more flexible contracts and lower work hours to 180 hours a month, or an average of 41 per week. It was lingering in the Senate when his labor minister announced Aug. 8 that it would be given “extreme urgency,” which gives deadlines for Congress to vote on it.
Business associations have rallied against the Vallejo-Cariola bill, saying it would hurt productivity and increase labor costs for local companies by as much as 12%.
“Chileans want to work like
the French and grow like the Asians. It doesn’t work like that. It’s one or the
other,” Ricardo Caballero, an MIT economist, said in an interview with La
Tercera about the bill.
Economic growth has cooled
from strong 2018
One way for the president’s government to advance on his agenda would be for the government to back parts of the communist-backed bill and add to its own labor flexibility plan as a trade to secure votes for Pinera’s other key issues, such as a tax overhaul, according to Patricio Navia, a political science professor at New York University.
“But Pinera would likely see
that as bowing to the communist party,” Navia said. “It’s a concession that he
wouldn’t be willing to do.”
That stubbornness in an
opposition-controlled Congress could have a political impact as well as an
economic one, with next year’s regional and municipal elections potentially
swaying based on how Chileans respond to the policy, Bunker said.
“A perfect storm is
approaching that could affect the government’s approval rating,” he said. “In
adverse weather, the government needs to change something, and that could be by
negotiating with the opposition.”
Sanders Unveils Workplace Democracy Plan to Expand Labor Rights and Double Union Membership
Wednesday, August 21, 2019
The presidential hopeful aims
to end "right to work for less" and union-busting, and bar federal
contracts for companies that exploit workers
Ahead of an AFL-CIO event in
Iowa Wednesday, Democratic presidential primary candidate Sen. Bernie
Sanders announced that,
if elected, he would "make it easier, not harder, for workers to join
unions by implementing the Workplace Democracy Plan and establishing a national
goal to double union membership during his first term."
Pointing to research from
the think tank Economic Policy Institute which shows that "since the
1970s, declining unionization has fueled rising inequality and stalled economic
progress for the broad American middle class," Sanders aims to reverse
that national trend with a new plan that builds on legislation the
Independent senator from Vermont initially introduced in 1992.
"Corporate America and
the billionaire class have been waging a 40-year war against the trade union
movement in America that has caused devastating harm to the middle class in
terms of lower wages, fewer benefits, and frozen pensions," Sanders said
in a statement. "That war will come to an end when I am president. If we
are serious about rebuilding the middle class in America, we have got to
rebuild, strengthen, and expand the trade union movement in America."
Described by the Sanders
campaign as a "pro-union" plan, the comprehensive proposal from the
longtime labor rights advocate calls for enabling the National Labor Relations
Board (NLRB) to certify a union if the majority of eligible employees have signed
valid authorization cards.
The plan incorporates various
policies Sanders has championed for years as a member of Congress. The campaign
says he would sign the Public
Service Freedom to Negotiate Act and Keep
Our Pension Promises Act, codify the Brown-Ferris
joint-employer standard into law, and repeal Section
14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act, which would end the power of states to enact
so-called "right to work for less" laws that eliminate the ability of
unions to collect dues from those who benefit from contracts.
"When Bernie is president
he will work with the trade union movement to establish a sectoral collective
bargaining system that will work to set wages, benefits, and hours across
entire industries, not just employer-by-employer," the campaign explains.
"In addition, under this plan all cities, counties, and other local
jurisdictions would have the freedom to establish their own minimum wage laws
and guarantee other minimum standards for workers."
Under the plan, employers would
be required to start negotiations within 10 days of receiving new unions'
requests; honor existing union contracts if they merge with or acquire other
companies; and "disclose anti-union information they disseminate to
workers and provide for equal time for organizing agents."
Companies would not be able to
permanently replace striking workers, force workers to attend anti-union
meetings, or "ruthlessly exploit workers by misclassifying them as
independent contractors or deny them overtime by falsely calling them a
'supervisor.'"
Sanders would also work to
establish federal protections so that employees cannot be fired for any reason
other than "just cause" and give federal workers the right to strike.
As president, Sanders would
issue an executive order barring federal contracts for any companies that
"outsource jobs overseas, pay workers less than $15 an hour without
benefits, refuse to remain neutral in union organizing efforts, pay executives
over 150 times more than average workers, hire workers to replace striking
workers, or close businesses after workers vote to unionize."
In a campaign newsletter
Wednesday, speechwriter David Sirota highlighted some corporations that could
lose government contracts under the plan: Amazon, Boeing, General Motors, Honeywell,
McKesson, and United Technologies.
"Of course, there is one
way for these companies to avoid losing their federal contracts under a Bernie
Sanders administration: they could simply start paying their workers better,
stop their union-busting, and stop offshoring jobs," wrote Sirota.
Responding to the proposal on
Twitter Wednesday, Ben Spielberg, co-founder of the political blog 34justice, wrote that
"it would be hard for unions to dream up a better friend in the White
House than Bernie Sanders, who has tirelessly stood with the labor movement
throughout his entire career."
Mary Kay Henry, international
president of the Service Employees International Union, was among those who
welcomed the plan, calling it "the latest sign 2020 candidates can't
ignore millions of workers demanding leaders rewrite the rules so everyone can
join a union, no matter where we work."
The new labor plan also ties
in another of Sanders's signature proposals—replacing the country's for-profit
healthcare system with Medicare for All. As part of that transition, companies
with union-negotiated healthcare plans would be required to hold new
negotiations overseen by the NLRB to ensure that corporate savings are put
toward wage increases and other benefits for workers.
Sanders and Rep. Mark Pocan
(D-Wis.) introduced the
most recent version of the Workplace Democracy Act in May 2018, during the last
session of Congress. The bill, which would amend "the National Labor
Relations Act and related labor laws to preserve workers' rights to join labor
organizations and engage in collective bargaining," was co-sponsored by
several other presidential hopefuls—Democratic Sens. Cory Booker (N.J.),
Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), Kamala Harris (Calif.), and Elizabeth Warren
(Mass.).
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)