Oct 16, 2004

1 in 4 families are ‘working poor’

Report calls for minimum wage hike

One in four working families in the U.S. “earn wages so low they have difficulty surviving financially,” charged a report released Oct. 12 by three nonpartisan foundations.

HIBBING, Minn. — The 2004 presidential election is “historically far more important than any other … in my lifetime,” Steelworkers District 11 Director David Foster told a get-out-the-vote training session in the heart of Minnesota’s Iron Range Oct. 2.

OAKLAND, Calif. — The mood was both joyous and determined as Northern California supporters of the People’s Weekly World/Nuestro Mundo gathered Oct. 8 to celebrate their favorite newspaper and to rededicate themselves to the banquet’s theme — “Beat back Bush!”

Sinclair Broadcast Group has ordered its local television affiliates to preempt regular network broadcasts between Oct. 21-24 and devote one hour to an anti-John Kerry documentary, “Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal,” by a former Washington Times reporter.

Commentary

When Dick Cheney boasted during the vice presidential debate that he had “carried a ticket with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers for six years,” he didn’t impress many IBEW members.

Undaunted by the challenge of four high-stakes contract struggles on two coasts, the union representing hotel and casino workers has revved up its solidarity machine.

FAIRFIELD, Conn. — “What’s that they say about the pen being mightier than the sword?” asked Salman Rushdie, author of “The Satanic Verses,” the irreverent tale of the prophet Muhammad that caused Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini to pronounce a judgment of death on Rushdie in 1988. The author recently visited Connecticut, where he opened Fairfield University’s Open Visions Forum.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.: Slackers unite — and vote! / MIAMI: Seniors defy Bush drug ban / NEWARK, N.J.: Residents win free speech

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Pat Highsmith spent her day off last Saturday traveling 150 miles to Bethlehem, Pa., to discuss the presidential election with fellow union members. One of 3 million industrial workers whose plants closed during the last four years, Highsmith now works as a certified nurse’s assistant, with less pay and no benefits.

CHICAGO — Right-wing zealot Alan Keyes and Illinois state Sen. Barack Obama, both candidates for this state’s U.S. Senate seat, appeared back-to-back before a panel of community activists and an overflow audience of 1,000 at a debate here Oct. 1.