Sept. 1, 2007

High-quality health care for all Americans moved closer to reality this Labor Day with the 13-million-member AFL-CIO unveiling a major drive to achieve universal health care by 2009.

NEW ORLEANS — Undaunted by a tropical downpour, Hurricane Katrina survivors rallied in the Lower Ninth Ward and marched across the Claiborne Street bridge, Aug. 29, chanting, “Justice … now!” They were protesting President Bush’s failure to deliver on his promise two years ago of quick, generous assistance in rebuilding this devastated city.

EMERYVILLE, Calif. — After over a year of struggle, workers at the Woodfin Suites hotel here won a big victory Aug. 27 in their struggle to be paid according to the city’s 2005 living wage law.

Mine safety expert Jack Spadaro charges Crandall Canyon, Utah, mine owner Robert Murray with murder and the Bush administration’s Mine Safety and Health Agency (MSHA) with aiding and abetting.

NEW YORK — Yellow taxicab drivers here are prepared to strike if the Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) continues to refuse to negotiate with them about sweeping changes they are imposing on the city’s 44,000 drivers. The TLC is mandating that all the city’s 13,000 yellow medallion taxicabs be equipped with GPS hardware.

OAKLAND, Calif. — Environmental, labor, faith and community groups are stepping up efforts to make sure the air quality improvement plan now being drafted by the Port of Oakland does enough to clean up pollution from trucks operating there. Truck diesel pollution is five times higher in West Oakland, near the port, than in other parts of the county, and one in five youngsters has asthma.

NEW YORK — Two months after civil rights lawyer Michael Tarif Warren and Evelyn Warren, his wife, were beaten and then arrested for speaking up during a police brutality incident in Brooklyn, a diverse crowd of community members continues to speak out in support of the Warrens and the equality agenda they represent.

An international gathering of 75 jurists, attorneys and supporters was on hand in Atlanta Aug. 20 for the latest appeals hearing on behalf of Gerardo Hernández, Ramon Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González and René González.

President Bush plans to ask Congress for $50 billion this month to continue funding the Iraq war, the Washington Post reports. But meanwhile, Iraqi Communists charge, “The Americans are doing everything they can to prevent Iraqis from exercising their right to self-determination.”

“Sadly our children, our loved ones, are there in the forests, and we are in the middle of this political game between the government and the FARC,” said Gustavo Moncayo, a primary schoolteacher in Colombia, on Aug. 2. For 46 days the Professor walked 800 miles from his home close to the Ecuadorian border to demand the government negotiate with leftist guerillas to secure the release of his son Pablo.