Tag: labor

Another Farm Worker dies. Does anyone give a damn?

I have been writing for months on the deaths of farmwokers in California from the heat.

United Farm Workers Calls for Manslaughter Charges Against Company in Death of 17 Year Old  

How many Farmworkers must die before someone cares??

Please Tell Fallen Farm Worker’s Family We Care

“How much is the life of a farm worker worth? Is it less than the life of any other human being?”

Another farm worker died from the heat today.  5 in the last three months.

Come around after the fold for the sad news.  

A Labor Department that cheats labor

Original article by Elizabeth Schulte via socialistworker.org.

I’m at work, so this will be short, but the key paragraph is here:

According to two new reports by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) allowed complaints of bosses not paying wages to millions of workers to go ignored. The WHD is responsible for enforcing the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the 1938 law that established the minimum wage and workers’ right to overtime pay.

W’s Labor Department: A contradiction in terms?

Grrrr…

July 21 in History

Brought to you as This week in History by Peace Buttons.

Happy Mary Seacole Day–The Mother of Social Justice Nursing

Today, May 14th, is the 119th anniversary of the passing away of Mary Seacole, the Mother of Social Justice nursing.

RNs now celebrate Mary Seacole Day as part of National Nurses Week-and as the day we honor the social justice aspect of the work of nurses.   Mary Seacole remains an important inspiration for the national nurses movement being built by CNA/NNOC (California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee), which focuses on improving patient care and safety in hospitals and on bringing this country the guaranteed, single-payer health care that our patients deserve.  

…cross-posted at the Guaranteed Healthcare Blog

Updated – Dalai Lama: China Is Not Our Enemy

Amid the Chinese government stepping up claims that the Dalai Lama wants to foment a violent uprising in Tibet – including allegations today that they discovered an arms cache in a Tibetan monestary (link: http://www.reuters.com/article… ), the Dalai Lama gave a forceful reply last Friday.

He didn’t call them the Evil Empire. He didn’t say they were members of the Axis of Evil.

He said, “we are not anti-Chinese”.

The full interview can be found at MSNBC’s website here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21…

This Week in Peace History

peace buttonSign up for their Newsletter or just save their site as a favorite and visit each week to find just abit of the Real History that helps bring about needed Change and Corrective Direction of a Country, World, and Democracies, forcing Democracies to become so and maintain their Freedoms.

You can find this weeks newsletter here of which I’ve borrowed a few moments of to pass on to you, below.

Terry Pratchett news — and WGA news summary Dec 12

No, it’s not strike news, but  Terry Pratchett has Alzheimers. Here’s from  his statement, titled AN EMBUGGERANCE:

I would have liked to keep this one quiet for a little while, but … it seems to me unfair to withhold the news.  I have been diagnosed with a very rare form of early onset Alzheimer’s, which lay behind this year’s phantom “stroke”.

We are taking it fairly philosophically down here and possibly with a mild optimism.  For now work is continuing on the completion of Nation and the basic notes are already being laid down for Unseen Academicals. … Frankly, I would prefer it if people kept things cheerful, because I think there’s time for at least a few more books yet :o)

PS  I would just like to draw attention to everyone reading the above that this should

be interpreted as ‘I am not dead’.  I will, of course, be dead at some future point, as

will everybody else.  For me, this maybe further off than you think – it’s too soon to tell.

I know it’s a very human thing to say “Is there anything I can do”, but in this case I

would only entertain offers from very high-end experts in brain chemistry.

Sigh.

Today’s strike summary (& action links) below the fold.  

WGA strike news summary (and action!) Dec 11

This is more a clippings dump than a summary, but hey. It’s also up at dKos, where we’re chatting while watching The Daily Show/Colbert reruns. Or not, as the case may be.

Head over to consumers4wga for advertiser addresses — let them know that you support the writers. And would like to know that they do too, so you can continue to buy their products.  

Solidarity With The WGA: What We Can Do

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Today, AMTP broke off negotiations with the Writers Guild (WGA).  This is not a good development and may prolong the strike.

What, if anything, can we do to support the WGA strikers and to be in solidarity with the WGA?

Join me on the right side of this picket line.

Load more