Mar 9, 2002

Saudi plan: A chance to end the killing/Honor International Women’s Day

Plumbers and Fitters Local 393 members voted to send two members to Colombia with a Witness for Peace/Global Exchange labor delegation in January. I was one of them. We went so we could see first-hand the effects $1.3 billion of U.S. aid had on Colombian trade unionists. Known as Plan Colombia, the U.S. sends “counter-narcotics and anti-terrorist aid” to this strife-torn nation of 40 million people. This is what I saw and heard. For the entire article, click on the headline. To visit the South By AFL-CIO, which passed a resolution condemning terror against Colombian labor, click here.

According to recent government studies, an increasing number of children in this country, many of them quite young, are overweight.

WHEREAS: Cesar Chavez, founder of the United Farmworkers of America, was one of the heroic figures of the 20th century, leading a five year boycott of grapes which led to the first union contracts for farm workers and the passage of California’s Agricultural Labor Relations Act, and

NEW DELHI, India – More than 500 people have died as a result of riots here last week. A dozen Islamic houses of worship have been razed and more than 70 people – including children – were burned alive. Among those burned was a former Member of Parliament and his family of six, according to the newsmagazine Ganashakti.

GADSDEN, Ala. – A jury March 1 determined that Monsanto Co. polluted an Alabama town with PCBs, setting the stage for more trials on claims that the contamination harmed the residents’ property and health.

SAN FRANCISCO – The San Francisco Labor Council passed a strongly worded resolution condemning the destruction of the headquarters of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) in Nablus, Palestine, by Israeli F-16 fighter planes.

Congress last raised the minimum wage in 1997 when it established the current $5.15 per hour.

One Thursday night in January, I arrived late to a rally at Chicago’s Hyde Park Community Church, a 100-year-old architectural landmark with its stone and oak benches and oak trim everywhere.