Jul 20, 2002

News Analysis
Were Shakespeare still gracing this world with his presence he would almost certainly exclaim, “There’s something rotten about the system of capitalism.”

CHICAGO – After working for six months without a contract, 4,000 Cook County employees walked off the job on July 11 for a one-day strike. The workers, members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) District Council 31, are seeking higher wages and better health-care benefits. The walkout was the first ever official strike by county workers.

News Analysis

With cascading exposures of massive corporate fraud, we are hearing a lot about the impact on investors. Why should readers of the World care? Most are not Wall Street players.

Letter carriers as spies? Soldiers as cops?/Greenspan gets it wrong

Amidst South Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges’ threats to lie down in front of the trailer trucks to prevent them from entering his state, the Department of Energy (DOE) is currently shipping weapons-grade plutonium across the country from Rocky Flats, Colo., to Savannah River, S.C. At the same time, Congress approved a Bush plan to ship the nation’s nuclear waste, starting in 2010, from the 100-some reactors around the country to Yucca Mountain, Nev.

This year’s convention theme – Freedom Under Fire – is appropriate in many ways. So, too, is the city and state in which we gather. …

LINTHICUM, MD. – Washington-based Good Jobs First (GJF) brought together 300 labor union, community and environmental activists July 11-13 to demand that corporations provide living wage jobs with health care and union rights in exchange for the tens of billions of dollars in annual taxpayer subsidies they enjoy.

Commentary

For the first time since the collapse of efforts to overhaul the nation’s health care system in 1993-’94, health care reform is inching its way onto the congressional radar screen.

Heads of eleven news associations sent a letter to members of Congress, July 10, urging them to reject sections of the Homeland Security Act, stating they are “ripe for misuse and abuse.”

The West Coast International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) is attempting to break the stalemate surrounding the longshore contract negotiations by presenting a sweeping propoosal on technology to the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA).