April 29, 2006

Hundreds of Mexican federal and state police stormed the Sicartsa steel plant in western Michoacan, April 20, to remove striking steelworkers who had occupied the plant since April 2. The police opened fire on workers with teargas and bullets. When the smoke cleared, the police had killed two workers, one of them a representative of the National Union of Mine and Metallurgical Workers of the Republic of Mexico.

CHICAGO — Imagine you are at work. You’re on a break getting food from the truck outside, when you are surrounded and arrested by federal agents

CHICAGO — In the city of May Day’s birth, labor unions pledged to support the May 1 immigrant rights rally here. WithHaymarket Square as a backdrop, the president of the Chicago Federation of Labor, Dennis Gannon, told reporters, “Immigrants’ rights are workers’ rights.”

WASHINGTON — Hustling to contain voter outrage over gas prices ratcheting up over $3 a gallon in an election year, President George W. Bush ordered the Justice Department to investigate price fixing. He also suspended environmental rules to allow Big Oil to sell polluting gasoline.

The continuing mass upsurge for immigrant rights, with hundreds of May 1 demonstrations being organized nationwide, drew a reaction from the Bush administration last week. Nationwide raids by the Department of Homeland Security on April 19-20 were followed by presidential pro-immigrant rhetoric and meetings to broker a compromise Senate immigration bill.

PHILADELPHIA — “New York peace rally drawing broad labor support” reads the headline of a story on the web site of the 700,000-member Communications Workers of America. According to the article, the CWA executive board voted at its March meeting to endorse the April 29 March for Peace, Justice and Democracy, and the union’s Local 1180 in New York City has been actively supporting the preparations.

The prospect of toppling two GOP House members in New York’s Hudson Valley has Democrats, peace activists and progressives coming together, aware that 2006 can end the Bush administration’s control of Congress.

MILWAUKEE — Over 6,000 people gathered here April 18 to protest police brutality rampant in the city. The diverse crowd marched to the federal courthouse to protest the recent acquittal of three Milwaukee County police officers charged with beating Frank Jude Jr., who is bi-racial. The officers, who faced a total of five charges, were acquitted by an all-white jury.