June 18, 2005

Only moments before some 2,500 workers at seven major Los Angeles hotels were to be locked out by their employers, leaders of UNITE HERE Local 11 and the L.A. Hotel Employers’ Council (EC) reached a tentative contract agreement in the early hours of June 11.

LA MARQUE, Texas — About 200 Texans met in this small community adjacent to Texas City (location of the recent BP refinery explosion), June 11, to express their opposition to the Bush administration plan to privatize Social Security. They were treated to rousing speeches by Congressperson Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Houston), Nick Lampson (former congressperson from Houston), Texas AFL-CIO President Emmett Sheppard and others.

Recent developments in northwestern Africa, along with worldwide observances of African Liberation Day, provide occasion to reflect on the continent’s last remaining colony, Western Sahara. The politics of oil, a repressive occupation, and a long-deferred referendum on self-determination are once again thrusting the territory into the world spotlight.

UNITED NATIONS — The world is losing ground in the fight against HIV and AIDS, UN officials told a special General Assembly conference here June 2.

“Madam Secretary, democracy cannot be imposed,” said Celso Amorim, Brazil’s foreign minister, in reply to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at the 35th General Assembly of the Organization of the American States (OAS). “Latin America has its own identity,” he said. “It has recuperated its dignity — not to confront the United States, but to confront imperialist politics.”

S. Africa: Steel talks deadlock; S. Korea: Gov’t rejects migrant worker union; Uganda: President backs multiparty system; Colombia: Urge review of immunity pact; Australia: Protest U.S.-Australian military exercise

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The biennial convention of the New Mexico Federation of Labor met here June 10-11. The 163 delegates began their full agenda with a greeting by Executive Director Daniel Rivera. Next followed a memorial in honor of recently deceased Los Angeles labor leader Miguel Contreras.

The action by General Motors in cutting 25,000 jobs — 22 percent of its U.S. workforce — spells big trouble for the U.S. working class.

NEW YORK — Union projectionists held an informational picket in front of the invitation-only gala at the new Independent Film Channel (IFC) theater here June 9, after management broke off talks with their union and hired nonunion, unlicensed projectionists, in violation of state law.

Methodists support EFCA; Bulls Eye on FMLA; Public support for United Airlines workers; Rutgers students won’t choke on Coke; NLRB give OK to nurses’ firing