Why would you want a union?

Cross posted at Happening-Here

So few of us now belong to a labor organization that most of us probably don’t even ask ourselves that question. If we do, we may think a union is just something that takes a bite out of our paychecks but never does anything else. Sometimes that may even be true, but not always.

Today I got a nice reminder of why having a union might be a real benefit. My partner is a “freeway flyer.” That is, she makes a living by teaching as “adjunct faculty” at various colleges. “Adjunct faculty” is fancy language for a temp worker — she gets no benefits and no guaranteed contracts. But one of the places she works does require her to be part of a faculty union.

Yesterday she taught her last class of the semester; today she got a note from her union rep:

In case you are interested, here is information regarding unemployment.

All part-time faculty are entitled to collect unemployment benefits based upon legal precedence set forth in the Cervisi case that was litigated by the CFT local at City College of San Francisco over a decade ago.

There are two key elements to demonstrate your legal right to collect benefits. You have been laid off due to “LACK OF WORK”. In other words, there are no more classes to teach. Thus, you are legally unemployed. It doesn’t matter if the employer still owes you money. You are unemployed after you finish teaching your last class.

The possibility of reemployment is “CONTINGENT UPON ENROLLMENT”. While you may think it probable that you will be re-employed, technically, and thus, legally, you have NO GUARANTEED CONTRACT to be re-employed.

Semester after semester, part-timers’ classes are cancelled due to lack of enrollment, so apply for the unemployment insurance benefit that you have paid for in your payroll deductions. To do so, go to ….

Now my partner is an adult; she knows this — but all of us could use often use someone to remind us that we have rights and should use them.

union-yes2

Banality of Evil, US style


It isn’t the descriptions of the torture techniques that haunt me. It is this:

When properly used, the techniques appear to be closely monitored and are signed off on in writing on a case-by-case, technique-by-technique basis, according to highly placed current and former intelligence officers involved in the program. In this way, they say, enhanced interrogations have been authorized for about a dozen high value al Qaeda targets — Khalid Sheik Mohammed among them. According to the sources, all of these have confessed, none of them has died, and all of them remain incarcerated. ABC News report.

CIA sources apparently were troubled by allegations that their agency tortures prisoners wantonly. How unprofessional! So they shared with reporters a list of “approved techniques” (varieties of Slaps, “Long Time Standing,”the “Cold Cell,” simulated drowning, etc.). They also wanted us to know that some agents refused training in “the techniques” and some doubt that “enhanced interrogation” produced reliable information. Apparently some of the main “evidence” for al Qaeda’s presence in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was a tale was made up under torture.

So now we are offered a picture of a hate-free bureaucratic procedure, proudly ratified by “sign-offs” and the assurance that the subjects survived.

This is the stuff of which the political philosopher Edward Herman, following on Hannah Arendt, wrote:

Normalizing the Unthinkable
Doing terrible things in an organized and systematic way rests on “normalization.” This is the process whereby ugly, degrading, murderous, and unspeakable acts become routine and are accepted as “the way things are done.”

Of course there is plenty of evidence that this picture of the clean, mean interrogation machine is a sham. The practice of brutality toward detainees has leaked out of the CIA’s antiseptic confines. The U.S. has been shown to torture from Afghanistan, to Guantanamo, to Abu Ghraib, to gulags in Eastern Europe. Most of human beings caught up in that system didn’t enjoy the dubious benefits of sign-off on techniques –and a good number of them are dead. Also dead is any plausible claim of innocence from those of us who are U.S. citizens.

What are we going to do about it?

Cross posted at Happening-Here

The morning after Arnold went down

This morning California’s newspapers put photos of Governor Schwarzenegger on the front pages, even in abject defeat. They should have pictured the voters, or if they could have found the image for it, the process of a freewheeling election itself.

Because Schwarzenegger took on the public employee unions, he didn’t have the usual advantage that bullying pols enjoy: there was a force with money and people power to contest him. And in a fairer than usual fight, Californians said no to a rightwing celebrity’s power grab, yes to education and social services, yes to unions being able to contest corporate power and even, as a bonus, yes to young women’s right to choose.

The morning’s headlines were indeed sweet; self-indulgently, I’ll round up some tidbits here:

Voters Reject Schwarzenegger’s Bid to Remake State GovernmentLos Angeles Times

“Schwarzenegger put in $7.2 million of his own money. That brings his total personal spending on political endeavors to $25 million since he ran for governor in the 2003 recall race.”

This governor role has proven to be an expensive hobby.

Why His ‘Sequel’ Failed to CaptivateLos Angeles Times

“Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday met the limits of his celebrity: Even a campaign built around his action-star persona could not persuade voters to embrace his ‘year of reform’ agenda.”

“A Republican strategist and occasional Schwarzenegger advisor put it more bluntly Tuesday, saying privately: ‘The act is getting stale.'”

Enough with the actors already. California faces real problems; let’s get on with solving them.

Schwarzenegger faces ‘resounding defeat’ San Jose Mercury News

“Elizabeth Garrett, who directs the USC-Caltech Center for the Study of Law and Politics [said] ‘It means that, Wednesday morning, he is an ordinary Republican governor working with a Democratic Legislature in California — no stronger, no weaker.”’

That’s pretty weak; the current districting of the legislature ensures that Democrats will remain in large majorities throughout this decade.

Analysis: A bruising blow from ‘the people’ Sacramento Bee  

Gale Kaufman, who presided over the multimillion-dollar campaign that brought the governor to his knees, said his political recovery won’t be that easy.

“‘I think he comes out of this election … deeply damaged, and really in a very different place,” she said. “Just waking up again and saying, ‘Today I’m back to the middle,’ doesn’t make it so. He’s lost the ability to just keep changing and having people believe it.”

He always did seem to be an actor with only one character.

CALIFORNIANS SAY NO TO SCHWARZENEGGER San Francisco Chronicle [Full caps are the Chron’s.]

“This must be the worst defeat the governor has ever had,” said Kevin Spillane, a GOP consultant. “It’s not like having a movie that underperforms. … Now, we have to see how he deals with defeat.”

I’ll hazard a prediction here: Arnold will pull out of the governor’s race if it looks like a fight for him. I hope the unions and the Democrats in Sacramento don’t let up now. Californians deserve better and yesterday they proved they know it.

Cross posted at Happening-Here

Gov. Arnold runs away from his ads

I’ve been out of California for 10 days, but the Governator has been right with me. Nearly every time I opened an LA Times article on the web, I saw the ad. Today the same paper tells me the steady diet of “all Arnold, all the time” is over.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asked TV stations Friday to remove ads that feature him making a personal appeal to California voters — an acknowledgment, analysts said, that one of the world’s most recognized figures has become a weak salesman for his own agenda.

An avid pitchman his entire adult life — selling everything from gym bags to action movies — Schwarzenegger nevertheless now will rely on “ordinary” supporters to promote his four Nov. 8 ballot initiatives in ads, his campaign said.

I’ve been out of California for 10 days, but the Governator has been right with me. Nearly every time I opened an LA Times article on the web, I saw the ad. Today the same paper tells me the steady diet of “all Arnold, all the time” is over.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asked TV stations Friday to remove ads that feature him making a personal appeal to California voters — an acknowledgment, analysts said, that one of the world’s most recognized figures has become a weak salesman for his own agenda.

An avid pitchman his entire adult life — selling everything from gym bags to action movies — Schwarzenegger nevertheless now will rely on “ordinary” supporters to promote his four Nov. 8 ballot initiatives in ads, his campaign said.

I can’t say I’ll miss him. Nor, apparently will other Californians.

The Preznit had to miss him yesterday though — if there is one pol less popular in California than Arnold, it is Bush. So our anxious governor snubbed Bush’s trip to the Reagan library.

It is clear which way the wind is blowing — so long as enough Californians vote on November 8. We must do the Get Out the Vote work if we want to take this victory home.

Cross posted at Happening-Here

Arnold is for sale!

arnie on ebay
For a little while today, this ad really did appear on eBay — all too briefly. I guess eBay didn’t want to make a political point for the California Nurses Association who put up the item. You can see CNA’s version here.

In 2003 Californians recalled Governor Gray Davis in part because he broke all records for political fund raising. Now Schwarzenegger is desperately begging corporate donors for more and more millions to try to salvage his unpopular initiatives in the special election he is putting the state through this fall. I wonder what he is promising them?

Last week he announced, six months early, that he will run for re-election next year. The Secretary of State won’t even accept gubernatorial filings until February — I guess he had to reassure the fat cats that he won’t pull out after they invest in him this fall.

Yes, Arnold is for sale — but the people of California aren’t buying.

Full disclosure: I am temporarily working for CNA; because I got the email to staff, I was able to capture this screen shot before eBay pulled the ad.

Cross posted at Happening-Here?

Nurses respond — that is what nurses do

All week I’ve been overhearing one end of the phone conversations in the office behind me: “Yes, we are sending nurses; when would you be able to go?” — “No, I can’t tell you now when you’ll leave, but we’re making arrangements now and I’ll call you back.” — “We have a flight arranged for tomorrow morning, can you still go?”

And they have gone. The California Nurses Association (CNA) and the National Nurses Organizing Committee sent 100 nurses to the Gulf Coast to help hurricane evacuees long before federal relief authorities began to get their act together. More nurses are still going.

The South Mississippi Sun Herald reported their arrival in Wiggins:

Though tired from the long trip, the nurses were eager to get to work.  Mike Barber of Grass Valley, Calif., who had just changed into his blue hospital uniform, said, “We’re nurses and typically nurses, when called into action, respond.”

Shelia Hidalgo of San Francisco also was ready to help, “This is the United States. It’s our people. We need to help.”

CNA is still taking names of volunteers here.

Almost as important, it is asking for contributions to help pay for its relief flights. CNA/NNOC is covering transportation and lodging and, depending on the assignment, may cover other expenses.  They estimate costs at approximately $2,500 per nurse. The fellow who organizes the travel says the flights are costing roughly $900 each. This is not because of profiteering by the airlines which are waiving advance purchase requirements; it costs so much because New Orleans was the airline hub for the region. No hub means expensive flights.

If you can help, donate here. “100% of the money goes to sending nurses and 0% goes to administrative costs,” according to CNA.

The hurricane and breakdown of government’s responsibility to cope with disaster made this week emotionally frustrating for those of us watching in horror — it was a good week to be working temporarily for a union that really tried to help.

Cross posted at my blog: Happening-Here?

"No fly list" or blacklist?

Three air cargo pilots have to wonder whether the Transportation Security Administration’s  “no fly list,” ostensibly a measure to keep terrorists off airplanes, isn’t being used by someone to throw them out of their jobs. Someone mailed “animal or human waste” to ABX Air executives; the three pilots, who worked for ABX Air out of the DHL hub in Cincinnati, were questioned by the FBI about the incident. They were cleared. Nonetheless, somehow their names turned up on the no fly list, according to the Cincinnnati Enquirer.

For most of us who’ve had a run in with no fly list, the consequences have been delays, or missed flights, or at worst the chilling experience of being detained by police authorities in an airport. (It can get a a lot worse if you are of Middle Eastern or South Asian origin.) But because these guys fly for a living, they are screwed if they can’t get themselves off the list.
They find themselves stuck in a Kafkaesque nightmare. Their union, Teamsters Local 1224, is trying to help:

Lynn Nowel, the union’s general counsel [said] “It’s a problem when you deny someone the ability to make a living without checking it out first. And an even bigger problem was the terrible time we had even finding out why they were on the list and how hard it was to get them off.” . . .

The FBI previously acknowledged it was conducting a criminal investigation into the acts, which it said could be covered by domestic terrorism laws because it involved the mailing of potentially biohazardous material.
. . .
TSA spokeswoman Ann Davis also would not discuss specifics about the list, but said that it gets information and recommendations from other agencies, including the FBI. “We trust that when they suggest that someone be placed on the ‘no-fly’ or ‘selectee’ list, that they do so for very good reasons,” Davis said.

Sure looks like a blacklist to me. “The term implies that someone has been prevented from having legitimate access to something due to the whims or judgments of another.” In this case it sure looks like ABX Air has the TSA doing its dirty work; I wonder if the company made any interesting campaign contributions?

Cross posted at Happening-Here?