Day: August 5, 2008

Verizon Strike UpDate #2

Seeking a fair contract, more than 1,000 telephone workers from throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island marched on Verizon’s New England headquarters on Thursday to rally for good jobs and reliable services. The current agreement covering about 65,000 employees with Verizon East expires at midnight on August 2, 2008.

“Verizon made $5.5 billion in profits last year because of our skill and productivity,” said Myles Calvey, Business Manager of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 2222 and chair of the New England telephone workers’ bargaining committee. “This company can afford to provide workers a fair contract with decent benefits, and to keep quality jobs in our communities.”

“We are still far apart on health care costs – especially retiree coverage, lump sum pension payments, contracting out, corporate profit sharing, cost of living allowances and many, many other issues,” added Calvey, a long time Verizon splice service technician. “There is plenty of time left to reach an agreement, but if we have to strike we will.”

Union members overwhelmingly approved giving their union negotiating committee authority to call a strike after August 2.

Today In Labor History

05 August
Using clubs, police route 1,500 unemployed men who had stormed the plant of the Fruit Growers Express Co. in Indiana Harbor, Indiana,

The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) took effect today. The first law signed by President Clinton, it allows many workers time off each year due to serious health conditions or to care for a family member – 1993

Will Romney Be The Repub VP?

He has the most qualifications as any of the others that are being vetted at this time.  He will do well in suring up McCain and his obvious lack of economic knowledge.  But will he be the best choice?

There are those that have already starting preparing for the chance that he will win the VEEPstakes.

If John McCain selects Mitt Romney as his running mate, Romney’s former colleagues in the private equity industry expect they are in for a bloody campaign that will paint them all as job-killing fat cats eager to stomp the little guy to make a quick buck.

Before he was elected governor of Massachusetts, Romney sat atop the private equity world where major investors routinely buy troubled companies, revamp them — often in part through layoffs — and then sell them off for huge profits. Romney founded the private equity firm Bain Capital, which he headed for 15 years, during which time he’s estimated to have made about $250 million.

Last year, congressional Democrats targeted the private equity sector for insults and tax increases. With a Romney vice presidential nod, those charges will go national.

Professor’s Congressional Scorecard

IT is time for my scorecard of just how the Congress has done in the past month. My scoring is any negative is a step backwards, positive is a step forward and the no step for a stalled month.

2008 past scores:

Jan–1 step forward

Feb–No Step

Mar–2 steps backwards

Apr–1 Step forward

May–3 steps forward

Jun–4 steps backwards

Now on to the month of July:

1–the passage of the FISA bill–backwards

2–passage of the housing bailout bill–forward

3–override and passage of the medicare bill–forward

4–passage of the AIDS bill–forward

5–Blocking on the oil speculation bill–backward

6–No Energy bill–backward

The tally of the month makes the progress as “NO Step”. Little has changed for the year, the Congress is still moving backwards, a direct opposition than what they promised when elected in 2006. August will be no better–will explain that at a later date.

Civilian Response Corps–Part 1

An Info Ink Analysis

Recently I have been asked by some what I thought of the proposal of a Civilian Response Corps, a group of volunteers to be used to help wherever help is needed, overseas, states, etc. I did not know as much about the subject as I thought I did and so I went about educating myself on the CRC.

This will be a multi-part analysis as there is more to this subject than meets the eye. This Part 1 is the fact sheet released by the US State Dept.

The Civilian Response Corps is a group of civilian federal employees and, eventually, volunteers from the private sector and state and local governments, who will be trained and equipped to deploy rapidly to countries in crisis or emerging from conflict, in order to provide reconstruction and stabilization assistance.

· They are diplomats, development specialists, public health officials, law enforcement and corrections officers, engineers, economists, lawyers, public administrators, agronomists and others – offering the full range of skills needed to help fragile states restore stability and the rule of law, and achieve economic recovery and sustainable growth as quickly as possible.

· Because no single government entity has all of the relevant expertise, the Civilian Response Corps is a partnership of eight departments and agencies: the Department of State, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Department of Agriculture, Department of Commerce, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, and Department of the Treasury.

· Already, the pilot Active and Standby components of the Civilian Response Corps within the Department of State have deployed members to Sudan, Chad, Haiti, Lebanon, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan to assist with conflict prevention and mitigation.

America’s federal civilian workforce has a long and distinguished history of service in difficult environments abroad. Yet the challenges of the 21st century require a significant increase in our capacity to respond quickly and effectively to emerging threats to the security of the United States and our friends and allies. The Civilian Response Corps is intended to provide this capability.

The President has empowered the Secretary of State to coordinate and lead integrated U.S. Government efforts to prepare, plan for, and conduct stabilization and reconstruction activities, and to coordinate with the Secretary of Defense to harmonize civilian and military activities.

President Bush has requested $248.6 million in the Fiscal Year 2009 budget for the Civilian Stabilization Initiative (CSI), which includes the Civilian Response Corps. If fully funded, CSI will:

· Create 250 full-time positions for members of the Active component of the Civilian Response Corps across the eight participating U.S. departments and agencies. These “first responders” are experts who can deploy to a crisis with as little as 48 hours’ notice.

· Train 2,000 “Standby” members of the Civilian Response Corps in the same eight departments and agencies. These are current federal employees who volunteer to undertake additional training and to be available to serve in stabilization missions in case of need. Standby Members are deployable within 30 days for up to 180 days.

· Recruit and train 2,000 “Reserve” members of the Civilian Response Corps: volunteers from the private sector and state and local governments who will bring additional skills and capabilities that do not exist in sufficient quantities in the federal government, such as police officers, city administrators, and port operators.

In the Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2008 (PL 110-252) Congress provided up to $75 million in initial funding for the Active and Standby components of the Civilian Response Corps. By launching the Civilian Response Corps as an interagency capability, the funding provided by Congress this year will strengthen our ability to conduct integrated operations advancing America’s interests by helping states avoid or recover from conflict.

ALF Strikes Again?

Early Saturday, and just minutes apart, firebombs destroyed a car outside the campus home of one researcher and torched the front door of another, who had to flee with his wife and two young children by lowering a ladder out a second-story window. A third researcher received a threatening telephone message around the same time, police said.

Federal, state and local investigators are checking for potential links between this weekend’s attacks and other incidents of harassment against UC scientists in recent months. Those include a firebomb that exploded on the front porch of a UCLA researcher’s home in January and six masked activists trying to force their way into a researcher’s Santa Cruz home during a child’s birthday party in February.

It is unclear whether the incidents are the work of a cohesive group or the actions of individuals or small cells inspired by ideology and the online posting of each other’s exploits, said those familiar with the activists.

Animal Liberation Front, a group that took responsibility June 16 for setting fire to a UCLA van as part of its effort to force the university to stop experimenting on primates, has historically operated as small groups that remain anonymous to each other, Vlasak said.

Obama’s “New” Economic Program

Nothing new here, just more of the same lip sevice from the two candidates.

Barack Obama put forward a broad energy plan Monday designed to end U.S. reliance on imported oil within 10 years and shore up his standing amid a tightening White House race and high anxiety over gas prices.

Obama’s proposal, though, includes two significant reversals of past positions: He had steadfastly fought the idea of limited new offshore drilling and had been against tapping the nation’s emergency oil stockpile to relieve pump prices that have stubbornly hovered around $4 a gallon.

Presumed Republican nominee Sen. John McCain, speaking in Pennsylvania, again advocated more oil drilling off the U.S. coast. “Anybody who says that we can achieve energy independence without using and increasing these existing energy resources either doesn’t have the experience to understand the challenge that we face or isn’t giving the American people some straight talk,” he said.

Obama and McCain are emphasizing solutions to the country’s energy woes as they seek an advantage in polling that shows the race competitive just weeks before their respective national nominating conventions and the final stretch of the campaign. The issue cuts across the diverse electorate, resonating with voters of all stripes, and it gives the candidates a way to talk both about domestic and foreign issues. High gas prices are pushing food and transportation costs higher, affecting consumers weathering a weak economy, while the country’s dependence on foreign oil has emerged as a pivotal national security concern.

First, McCain is calling anyone that does not see the solutions his way as STUPID! Second, he is vague, more so than Obama. and third, neither of the candidates will be specific or give specific answers.