July 9, 2005

CHICAGO — The Communist Party USA wound up its convention here in a fighting mood July 3, with the 450 participants vowing to pour their energies into blocking the ultra-right effort to take over the Supreme Court.

WASHINGTON — Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s July 1 resignation creates an emergency threat to all Americans, warned labor and civil rights groups last week. O’Connor’s resignation opens a vacancy on the court for the first time in 11 years and gives President Bush his first opportunity to name a justice to the court.

CHICAGO — More than 300 Communist Party USA members joined the picket line of UNITE HERE Local 1 at the Congress Hotel on July 2. The workers have been forced on strike for the past two years.

CHICAGO — In the largest political protest here on any cause since the Vietnam War, tens of thousands of immigrant rights supporters demonstrated July 1 against the anti-immigrant “Minutemen” and in favor of the legalization of immigrants and the unification of immigrant families.

PHILADELPHIA — Over 100 Philadelphians gathered at a June 24 forum here hosted by this city’s Central Labor Council and UNITE-HERE Local 274 to welcome three Iraqi labor leaders. The visit was part of a 25-city, nationwide tour of Iraqi unionists organized by U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW).

It is urgent for voters to contact their congresspersons this week on the upcoming vote on CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement, Jobs with Justice urged workers’ rights supporters in an e-mail message July 1.

NEW YORK — After a vicious anti-gay hate crime that left a young Brooklyn man, Dwan Prince, comatose and clinging to life, friends and community residents gathered for a June 28 vigil in front of Brookdale Hospital in Brownsville, the neighborhood where the event occurred.

SAN FRANCISCO: Boycott Gallo wine; SACRAMENTO, Calif.: Stop spying on your mom; LANSING, Mich.: Social Security ‘Truth Truck’; ST. PAUL, Minn.: ‘Halt state gov’t shutdown’; MORGANTOWN, W.Va.: ‘War begins with Dubya’

BERLIN — Weird was the best way to describe German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s tactic: to urge his parliament to vote “no confidence” in his own government. He succeeded. Now, if President Horst Koehler goes along, Schroeder will get what he sought — new elections in September, a year earlier than required.

Africa: Unions demand action vs. AIDS; Iraq: Committee for a Democratic Constitution launched; Japan: Mayors protest U.S. buildup near Hiroshima; Guatemala: Union office raided; Australia: Protest vs. gov’t labor proposals