Jan. 28, 2006

Ford Motor Co. plans to cut up to 30,000 jobs and shutter 14 plants in a sweeping restructuring of its North American auto business.

On Jan. 6, federal authorities arrested husband and wife Carlos Alvarez and Elsa Prieto, professors at Miami’s Florida International University (FIU). Proponents of dialogue between Cubans on both sides of the Florida Straits, the couple frequently take student groups to Cuba. Alvarez, 61, is an associate professor of educational leadership. Prieto, 55, is a coordinator for the university’s counseling program.

After receiving pressure from Major League Baseball, the players’ association and the baseball commissioner’s office, the U.S. Treasury Department said Jan. 20 it would grant a license to the Cuban national baseball team, allowing its participation in the World Baseball Classic games set for March 3-20. The decision came after Cuba said it would donate any profits it received from the tournament to victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Iraq’s labor movement has formed a united permanent coordinating committee to “make its positions known” to the Iraqi government, and to challenge the dictates of international financial institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

Ethnic and religious minorities accounted for more than 75 percent of those targeted in war worldwide last year, according a report released Jan. 19. The Bush administration’s “war on terror,” says the report, is a main culprit in the persecution of minority peoples.

Many-top-of-the-line hotels brag about their “heavenly beds.” But triple sheets, oversize mattresses, heavy comforters and five or six pillows make for a work load from hell for today’s hotel workers. And while global hotel chains are expecting heavenly record-breaking profits in 2006, the nation’s hotel workers are struggling in an industry plagued with poverty-level wages.

Labor, religious and civil rights groups are urging that supporters of immigrant rights should focus now on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is likely to begin debate on immigration legislation in February.