This Monday's Labor Express Radio program focuses on an interview with historian Peter Pero , author of the book Chicago Italians at Work . You can find out more about the book and order a copy at the following links... http://www.kentlaw.edu/ilhs/booklist.htm http://www.amazon.com/Chicago-Italians-Work-Images-America/dp/0738561878/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books& qid =1260688048& sr =8-1 http://www.arcadiapublishing.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=9780738561875&Store_Code= arcadia &search= pero &offset=0&filter_cat=& PowerSearch _Begin_Only=&sort=name. asc &range_low=&range_high=

7 pm, FRIDAY, NOV. 6 Evanston Community Media Center 1285 Hartrey Ave. Evanston, Illinois $20 Suggested Donation free parking on site - Excerpts from recent Labor Beat shows - Labor Beat producers introduce their work - Food & refreshments will be available - Discuss issues on labor media with other enthusiasts - More Labor Beat is a cable-tv series for and about the working class. On in: Chicago; Evanston; Rockford; Urbana; Peoria; St. Louis & area; Princeton, NJ "Labor Beat is a necessary institution. As newspapers and investigative reporting go under, Labor Beat somehow stays alive, low-budget, and on the scene. Everybody knows them, so when something is going to happen, they make sure Labor Beat will be there. They have been around long enough to have survived successive waves of technology, from cameras as heavy as cement blocks to little things that get images up on YouTube in minutes. They know the whole world of the labor movement, not just the headliners. They als...

If you are looking for the studies on the hotel industry referenced in the 11-2-09 Labor Express Radio program, click here... http://pilsenprole.blogspot.com/2009/09/6000-hotel-workers-at-30-chicago-hotels.html

After the municipal elections back in 2007, in which the Chicago Federation of Labor invested an historic level of resources in getting pro-labor alderman elected, I think many of us really hoped to see a more worker friendly city council and one that was more independent from Mayor Daley. It seems from the experience of the past few years (Walmart, Big Box Living Wage Ordinance, clean power ordinance, parking meter privitization, etc. etc.), those hopes have been dashed. Here is just one more example of how tone deaf the council is to the concerns of working class Chicagoans... From a UNITE-HERE Local 1 press release: For Immediate Release Wednesday, October 7, 2009 For questions please contact Annemarie Strassel at (312) 617-0495 City Council defers vote on Hotel Strike Notification Law Law would give customers notice about strikes or lockouts that could affect the quality of their stay before they book hotel rooms Chicago, Ill.— Today the City Council voted to re-refer the hot...

It appears that the Honduran army's harassment of Dr. Luther Castillo and his hospital continues. Dr. Castillo was in Chicago in August to bring attention to the situation in Honduras. You can hear an interview with him and his fellow Honduran democracy activists on the August 9 th 2009 episode of the Labor Express Radio... http://www.archive.org/details/LaborExpressFor8-9-09 You can also find out more about him at this previous entry on my blog... http://pilsenprole.blogspot.com/2009/08/honduran-civil-society-leaders-visit.html After Dr. Castillo's visit, he was unable to return directly to Honduras because of concerns for his safety. He did return in early September, however, it is clear that the danger to him and his colleagues continues. This report comes from La Voz de los Abajo ... This is to make known that on October 7 th at 6am three army patrols broke down the doors and stormed the first Garifuna hospital in Honduras, located on the Atlantic Coast. Al...

Come see an advance screening of Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story... Thursday, October 1, 2009 8:00pm Kerasotes City North, 2600 N. Western Av, Chicago. Sponsored by UE, organizers of the Republic occupation. Proceeds go towards UE's innovative education and organizing projects, such as Warehouse Workers for Justice. Michael Moore's new movie has some great sections on the victory of the Republic Windows and Doors workers, members of UE Local 1110, here in Chicago last winter. Moore's film crew was the only one allowed inside the factory during the occupation. He has agreed to let UE have an advance showing of the film this Thursday night as a fundraiser so that we can help additional workers fight and win the way the Republic workers did. We hope you can make it to the screening and that you forward this email to anyone who you think might be interested in attending. United Electrical Workers 312-829-8300

Here are some updates on the struggle of 6,000 Chicago hotel workers for a fair contract with 30 hotels in the Chicago area, straight from their union, UNITE-HERE, Local 1... Hundreds arrested in civil disobedience action Fighting layoffs and cuts, hospitality workers take a stand, saying big corporations like Chicago‐based Hyatt have gone too far (Chicago, IL) – Nearly 200 hospitality workers and community supporters were arrested today as part of a non-violent civil disobedience action in downtown Chicago. The action, witnessed by over 600 workers and community supporters, took place in front of the Park Hyatt Hotel amid an escalating local labor dispute and a growing public backlash against Chicago-based Hyatt Hotels for the recent firing of 100 Hyatt housekeepers in Boston. Hotel workers in San Francisco also staged a major civil disobedience action in conjunction today. After months of layoffs and chronic understaffing, hospitality workers in Chicago and across the country are c...

Thousands are demonstrating against the gathering of the G-20 nations in Pittsburg. This afternoon police fired tear gas on the protestors. You can find out more on the following links... http://indypgh.org/g20/ # http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/24/teargas-protest-g20-summit-pittsburgh http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN2446872920090924 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/24/g20-protest-photos-vote-o_n_298692.html For information on the organizations leading the protests (OR TO TAKE PART!) go here... http://resistg20.org/ http://www.g20media.org/ http://www.peoplessummit.com/

NPR reported this morning rumours that in its crack down on protesters outside the Brazilian embassy, hundreds have been detained in a sports stadium in the area (disturbing echos from Latin Americas past). Here is a recent urgent action call from the Alliance for Global Justice... Please write immediately to the UN missions members of the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, from Canada, United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, India, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and others, IMMEDIATELY. The contact information for all the listed missions is below the sample letter. Demand that the United Nations immediately impose an economic blockaid on Honduras, a demand of the National Front of Resistance to the Coup against Honduras. The United Nations initiated a session today. Honduran President Manuel Zelaya yesterday arrived in Honduras, and is in the Brazilian Embassy. The defacto government is attacking protesters who have gathered around the Bra...

PRI's The World, a generally good international news program on public radio, reported on the stand off between Zelaya and the coup leaders taking place in Honduras. Unfortunately what was OK coverage, was ruined at the end of the piece when the reporter repeated the coup leader's propaganda that Zelaya was trying to find a way to run again for president in November and that is why he was removed from the country. This myth is repeated as fact in the U.S. media with almost every story on the situation in Honduras. It is the one thing that has lead some "progressives" to question the efforts to bring Zelaya back into the presidency. We really need to respond to this misinformation when ever we hear it. You can go here to post a comment on the piece... http://www.theworld.org/2009/09/22/ousted-president-zelaya-returns-to-honduras/#comments I have already but for some reason my post is still "awaiting moderation."

This is from Vicki Cervantes of La Voz de los de Abajo... !Todos Somos Honduras - We are all Honduras! Tuesday - Martes September 22 Septiembre 4pm Plaza Federal Plaza - Jackson and Dearborn St. Celebrate this step in ending the coup and demand the "Golpistas Out Now!" No More Repression! Celebramos este paso hacia el fin del golpe de estado y dicimos "!Fuera Golpistas Ahora!" !No Mas Represion! Some of you have already seen the early announcements. According to Radio Globo in Tegucigalpa and TeleSur, Mel Zelaya arrived in Tegucigalpa late yesterday and spent the night in the Brazilian Embassy. Today he announced his presence and has been interviewed (TeleSur has the telephone interview with him up on its website). The streets near the embassy are filling up with people and people are arriving in Tegucigalpa from outside the city in large numbers. The reaction from the coup government and military is unclear, the risk to Zelaya and the risk of repression agains...

Once again I must apologize for my lack of entries recently – especially with so much going on locally, nationally and internationally. Working for a living sucks!!! Especially when your job requires you to work the hours of two full time jobs. Nationally: AFL-CIO Convention Wraps Up in Pittsburg: New Leadership, New Direction? The 26th Convention of the AFL-CIO officially comes to a close tomorrow. And it has been an eventful convention on a number of fronts. But the question remains – is organized labor in the United States ready to transform itself into a more democratic, militant, broad based social movement, or will the concessionary, cooperationist, business unionism of the past half century continue to prevail in the House of Labor. Richard Trumka, the new head of the federation certainly comes out of a union with a militant, fighting history – the United Mine Workers of America. Will the U.S. trade union movement of the next decade look more like the Pitston strike of 1989 (or ...

On Monday, August 31st, the union contract for 6,000 hotel workers in Chicago expired. Now hotel workers from 30 Chicago area hotels, all members of UNITE-HERE Local 1, are engaged in a major contract battle with billionaire hotel chains that are trying to use the current economic crisis to demand major concessions in work rules, work hours, wages and health care benefits. Listen to the 9-7-09 episode of Labor Express Radio for more on the situation… http://www.archive.org/details/LaborExpressFor9-7-09 Below are some documents provide by UNITE-HERE that detail the reality of the enormous profits generated by the major hotel chains at the expense of the lives and health of their employees… http://www.laborexpress.org/PDFs/AboutUniteHereLocal1.pdf http://www.laborexpress.org/PDFs/ContractExpirationPressRelease.pdf http://www.laborexpress.org/PDFs/Hotel_Industry_Fact_Sheet.pdf

This year’s Labor Day is packed with activities. Here is a list of labor solidarity stuff happening next Monday… 10:00 AM Legalization for All Labor Day Immigrant Rights March Meet at Union Park (Ashland & Lake) at 10:00 AM At 11:00 AM March will advance down Washington Blvd. to Federal Plaza. Rally – 12 Noon at Federal Plaza For flyer click below… http://www.laborexpress.org/PDFs/labordaymarchenglishflyer.pdf 10:30 AM Rally Outside the Congress Hotel - 520 S. Michigan Ave. WHAT: Community delegation to deliver an open letter to the management of the Congress Hotel calling for an end to the 6-year strike. WHO: Alderman Toni Preckwinkle; Alderman Toni Foulkes; Tim Drea, Secretary-Treasurer of the Illinois AFL-CIO; Rev. Dr. Rita Root, Chicago Metropolitan Association of the United Church of Christ; Rev. Dr. Calvin Morris, Community Renewal Society; Rev. C.J. Hawking, Arise Chicago; Rev. Larry Dowling, St. Agatha Catholic Church; and workers fighting for a fair contract at other Ch...

For more info on the strike at SK Hand Tools and how you can support the workers, go here... http://www.743teamsters.org/ For more info on NNOC's efforts to fight for a single payer, non-profit, national health care program, go here... http://www.guaranteedhealthcare.org/ Here is the info on the health care town hall meeting in Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky district... Schakowsky Town Hall Time: 6:30PM (Doors open at 5:00pm) Monday, August 31st Niles West High School - Auditorium 5701 Oakton St Skokie, IL. For more info on the workers at Kraft in Argentina, go here... http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=124299898146&ref=mf

A message from Temsters Local 743... The strikers at SK Hand Tools need community support to maintain the strike lines - please forward this e-mail widely! Workers at SK Hand Tools began an unfair labor practice strike at 5:30am on August 25, 2009 after trying for months to get their health care reinstated. The workers are being forced to either forego important medical check-ups and treatment or to go into debt putting the bills on their credit cards. The strike lines are 24/7 at both locations and the strikers need people to join the lines in solidarity and to bring food, coffee, soda and water. Chicago location: 3535 W. 47th St. Click here for the map. Suburban location: 9500 W. 55th St. (McCook, near Brookfield and LaGrange) Click here for the map. Please visit the Teamsters 743 website ( http://www.743teamsters.org/ ) for more information. In Solidarity, Sarah You can download audio of my interviews with two of the strikers here... http://www.archive.org/details/JohnMchale-SkHan...

Here are the links to the organizations mentioned tonight on Labor Express... http://www.pnhp.org http://www.chispan.org http://www.healthcareil.org/about.php

Honduras: Attack on Peaceful Protestors Escalates! Please take action again to stop the Repression! [This action alert comes to you from the Alliance for Global Justice and its member projects, the Nicaragua Network, the Campaign for Labor Rights, the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign, and the Respect for Democracy Campaign.] We have received this important alert from the Quixote Center. We urge you to take action! For more information, visit: www.nicanet.org and www.quixote.org . Thank you for your calls to the U.S. State Department - please call again! The repression is escalating. Crackdowns are occurring in San Pedro Sula as well as Tegucigalpa. Police attacked the demonstrations with water cannons and tear gas and arrested more than 300 people in San Pedro Sula alone. Among those arrested were SITRATERCO union officials. The gathering places where people who have walked from across the country are staying are being militarized. Tear gas bombs have been dropped from helicopters. Our de...

I received word last night that Luther Castillo, one of the four human rights activists who visited Chicago last weekend remains in exile, elsewhere in Central America, because of threats of arrest by the military. Meanwhile, his hospital, the first to serve Honduras' Garifuna community, has been shut down by the coup regime. For last Sunday's Labor Express Radio episode including an interview with the visiting Honduran human rights activists, go here... http://www.archive.org/details/LaborExpressFor8-9-09

Honduras Resistance Deepens, With Working Class at the Helm International Labor Solidarity Needed Urgently to Defeat the Coup EDITORIAL: The Honduran people -- with the working class and their trade unions playing an increasing leadership role -- are on the move. Their revolutionary upsurge is shaking the fragile edifice of corporate-dominated politics across the continent and creating frictions within the U.S. ruling establishment itself. As we go to press, a week-long nationwide general strike of teachers and public sector workers is under way. It is a political strike to press for the resistance movement's three central demands: (1) the immediate and unconditional reinstatement of Manuel Zelaya as the sole and legitimate president of Honduras, (2) a referendum on convening a Constituent Assembly to draft a new Constitution, and (3) the immediate punishment of all the perpetrators of the June 28 coup for their crimes against the people. Up till now, there had been three two-day s...

(Translated from a telephone report filed by Alexy Lanza at 9:35 pm Chicago time - translation by La Voz de los de Abajo). Tear gas was fired directly into the crowds of protesters, rubber bullets and truncheons were used to disperse the thousands of Hondurans who had marched through the city to the National Congress today to protest against the coup and demand restitution of the constitutional government of Mel Zelaya. There were many injuries and arrests - The soldiers and police, heavily armed and in full combat gear acting against unarmed men and women of all ages. In an unforgettable moment, I watched as a congressional Deputy from the anti-coup leftist party the Democratic Unification (UD), Marvin Ponce was attacked by at least 12 policemen and brutally beaten. He was seriously injured and was taken to the hospital; witnesses reported that at the hospital the police continued to beat and torment Ponce, interfering with his medical treatment. As the police increased their violent...

Pollution in Pilsen Student Fellowship Art Show Friday, August 14 – September 8 Pollution in Pilsen: The work of local Students documenting the pollution in their neighborhood. Art show Opening at the Casa Aztlan Gallery, 1831 S Racine, 2nd Floor Friday, Aug 14, 6 PM All are welcome to learn about the sources of pollution that are affecting everyone in Pilsen! For more information contact PERRO at 312 502 7867 or redjerry2@yahoo.com or visit http://pilsenperro.org/

This article by Conn Hallinan at Foreign Policy in Focus lays out the details of the various U.S. operatives connected to the coup in Honduras which the Honduran human rights activists I interviewed for last Sunday's episode of Labor Express mentioned in that interview. For an mp3 of last sunday's Labor Express Radio program, go here... http://www.archive.org/details/LaborExpressFor8-9-09 Honduran Coup: The U.S. Connection Conn Hallinan August 6, 2009 Editor: Jen Doak Foreign Policy In Focus While the Obama administration was careful to distance itself from the recent coup in Honduras — condemning the expulsion of President Manuel Zelaya to Costa Rica, revoking Honduran officials' visas, and shutting off aid — that doesn't mean influential Americans aren't involved, and that both sides of the aisle don't have some explaining to do. The story most U.S. readers are getting about the coup is that Zelaya — an ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez — was deposed ...

The full gallery of photos can be found here... http://s207.photobucket.com/albums/bb5/kronstadt2/Anti-Violence%20March%20Pilsen/

The four Honduran human rights activists who visited Chicago this weekend brought with them disturbing photos of the deteriorating human rights situation in Honduras following the June 28 th coup...

International Observation Mission for the Human Rights Situation in Honduras Preliminary Report Written by International Observation Mission, Translation by Laura Jung, Lena Mortensen, and Adrienne Pine Thursday, 06 August 2009 Confirmed systematic human rights violations in Honduras since the coup d’etat Source: Quotha.net i. Introduction An International Human Rights Commission composed of fifteen independent professionals (legal experts, journalists, anthropologists, political scientists, sociologists, and human rights experts) from Germany, Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, El Salvador, Spain, Nicaragua, Peru, Sweden, and Uruguay, was formed in Honduras on July 17 to verify human rights violations that have occurred in Honduras during and since the coup d'état of June 28, with the aim of presenting observations and recommendations concerning the situation to the OAS, the UN the European Union and their member States. Divided into four working groups, t...