March 10, 2007

WASHINGTON — Wounded soldiers and a soldier’s wife told a congressional hearing March 5 of their daily ordeal to get help at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, even as a memo released by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) exposed sharp staff cutbacks by a private contractor at the Army’s flagship medical complex.

LAS VEGAS — The main focus of this week’s AFL-CIO Executive Council meeting was moving forward from the March 1 passage of HR 800, the Employee Free Choice Act, in the U.S. House of Representatives, federation President John Sweeney told reporters here.

New York University’s Tamiment Library and the Communist Party USA will hold a symposium March 23 on the “History of the Communist Party and Progressive Politics Today.”

Under heavy pressure from the U.S., Iraq’s cabinet approved a draft oil law, Feb. 26, that would effectively shift control of the country’s huge oil resources to multinational corporations, experts charge.

The massive immigrant rights protests last year stopped Senate passage of the repressive HR 4437. But because the Republicans controlled Congress, it was not possible to pass legislation for legalization of the 12 million undocumented. Now that the Republicans have lost their majority, what does this bode for the immigrant rights movement?

“We sent a statement,” declared Dennis Gannon, president of the Chicago Federation of Labor (CFL), in the afterglow of the Feb. 27 municipal elections. And what a statement it was.

CHICAGO: Hospital workers demand right to organize
BRUNSWICK, Me.: Impeachment effort grows
TACOMA, Wash.: Residents, vet arrested in protest
DALLAS: First African American DA brings justice
WASHINGTON, D.C.: Jury convicts Libby

NEW YORK — Students, parents and teachers fed up with the Bloomberg administration’s drive to privatize public education took over Second Avenue for an evening rally Feb. 27, to protest plans by Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein to reorganize the school system from the top down once again, without addressing real problems.

Rage and Wu are back!
Children of Bush’s home state still suffer
Students halt military recruitment on campus
U.S. Filipino youth and students build unity

Proclaiming the theme, “We Will Not Be Silent,” the 33rd annual African American History Month celebrations of the People’s Weekly World/Nuestro Mundo in Connecticut stirred inspiration and activism last weekend.