The Crystal City Sheraton and other Sheraton hotels have been in the habit of illegally firing their workers for trying to organize a union. on July 30, this earned them well over a hundred picketers with DRUMS in afternoon rush hour.

Public education in the United States is under heavy attack. And because a so-called “progressive” President is leading the charge, many education activists have been lulled to sleep while on lookout duty. Obama recently announced his “race to the top” program to “reform” education. Much like Bush’s No Child Left Behind, Obama’s plan represents progress for education in name only. In reality, Obama’s plan is to lure cash-starved schools into a “competition” to accept federal funds, with dangerous strings attached. The two most devious conditions are the widespread creation of charter schools and the implementation of teacher merit pay. Both of these items have been long-condemned by progressive educational advocates as well as the majority of the nation’s teachers. If implemented, they would have a destructive effect on public education.

Members of four major unions (TWU, which has been without a contract since March, AFSCME D.C. 33 and 47, which have been without contracts since June, and SEIU 32BJ, which has suffered salary cuts), joined by supporters from around the city, marched on July 21 through Old City to the Constitution Center, where a conference of state legislators were meeting. Their main message was painted on a white banner in green and black lettering: "DON'T CUT THE BUDGET ON THE BACKS OF PUBLIC EMPLOYEES!"

RELATED: "Are their families more perfect than our families?": Municipal workers rally

Activists from the Student Farmworker Alliance (SFA) dropped two banners protesting farmworker exploitation from the school's admissions and student center buildings as dozens of prospective students and their parents toured Georgetown.

In the wake of Tim Pawlenty's multi-million dollar budget cut, University of Minnesota president Bob Bruininks has announced that 1,240 university jobs will be eliminated.  Although this includes positions that won't be filled when employees retire or leave, approximately 600 workers will be laid off. The 1,240 vanished positions represent five percent of the university workforce.  Combined with a wage freeze and substantial cuts to the Regents' Scholarship program, these cuts mean that frontline staff at the U are doing more work for less money with no end in sight.

http://denverfairfood.blogspot.com/2009/07/why-were-fair-food-activists-...

By Robert McGoey
Monday, July 20, 2009

The Campaign for Fair Food and the new documentary Food, Inc. share – by any objective observation – a common vision and common struggle.

read more

Members of the Houston Black Firefighters Association are pressing the Federal Bureau of Investigation to probe a recent noose incident and the alleged discriminatory treatment of members. One of the group's members, Jesse O'Quinn, discovered a hangman's noose at a Houston fire station located on the east side of town. As reported by KHOU Channel 11 News, the noose was hanging in a White supervisor's partially opened locker door. Mr. O'Quinn spotted it and reported it to the assistant fire chief only to be reprimanded for not following the chain of command

“We are outraged by this incident and the fact that they would reprimand him (Mr. O'Quinn) for reporting it. That's crazy,” said Capt. Otis Jordan, president of Black firefighters group, to The Final Call. He has served in the field for 29 and has led the organization for nine years. [More from Brother Jesse Blog]

From the open publishing newswire: Why we must root out racism and sexism at HFD | Flames of Hatred Rally July 28th | Houston community leaders, politicians, and more delivers statements regarding the on-going issues at the Houston Fire Department

The Democrats in Congress have sold out their supporters in the labor movement by giving up the so-called “card-check” feature of the embattled Employee Free Choice Act, which makes the “reform” legislation that has been billed as labor’s “number one issue” much less of a reform....But largely unnoticed by the corporate media, there has been some really important good news for working people and the labor movement: the appointment of three people to fill the long-vacant empty seats on the five-member National Labor Relations Board, which has the ultimate job of adjudicating issues under the National Labor Relations Act.

On July 6, People gathered at Harry Bridges Plaza in the Embarcadero to remember the day, July 5, 1934, when two strikers were gunned down and killed by police. Several hundred union members and their supporters, many from around the world, marched in a reenacted funeral procession of the fallen men, Howard Sperry and Nick Bordoise. As the procession passed the memorial at Mission and Steuart Streets, across the street from the site of the deaths, they took off their hats.

For two decades, janitors have been uniting to achieve social and economic justice through Service Employees International Union’s (SEIU) Justice for Janitors campaign. Since 1985, janitors in over 30 cities throughout the United States have united in SEIU and won family health insurance, livable wages, full-time work, and better working conditions. This movement of low-wage, mostly immigrant workers has earned broad-based support from the public as well as religious, political and community leaders.