SPANISH VERSIONS OF FLYERS NOW AVAILABLE BELOW, SORRY FOR LEAVING THEM OUT BEFORE... Here are all the details about plans for May Day 2009. First is info on the immigrant rights march... Call to March and Endorsements: WITHOUT LEGALIZATION THERE CAN BE NO EQUAL LABOR RIGHTS! ATTENTION ALL WORKERS AND STUDENTS! 10am: Rally in Union Park (Ashland and Washington) 11:30am: March to Federal Plaza* In commemoration of the International Day of the Working Class, this May 1st, march for jobs and the right to unionize for all workers, and the legalization of more than 12 million undocumented immigrant workers in the U.S. Join us to stand up against the attempts to make immigrants and working families pay for the economic crisis and war. We demand greater and equal access to education, healthcare, affordable housing and jobs for all! We demand an end to raids and deportations! The March 10th Committee welcomes everybody to march behind our banner: “Without Legalization There Can Be No Equal Labo...

I just heard a great piece on Public Radio (WBEZ). Here is a link to the story... http://www.wbez.org/Content.aspx?audioID=33678 The gist of the story was that Daley’s privatization of parking meters might have “an unexpected consequence”. The story focused on the reactions of Northside Alderman Scott Waguespack and Tom Tunney when they “realized” that they could no longer simply pass an ordinance regulating hours for parking meters without paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in extortion money to Morgan Stanely, the financial services giant (aka robber barron, aka another AIG, Bear Sterns etc, etc, etc), who now owns the meters and the revenue they generate. I laughed out loud when the WBEZ reporter quoted Tom Tunney as stating that Morgan Stanley can’t take away his legislative power. But that is precisely the point of neo-liberal economic measures like privatization plans and “free trade agreements”. They are all about taking power out of the hands of the public and turning it o...

Audio from Sunday night’s program is now available... http://www.archive.org/details/LaborExpressFor4-19-09 The employees of Commercial Forged Products on Chicago Southwest side have long endured racial intimidation and harassment at their workplace. A few years ago, former plant manager John Tobias held up a hangmen’s noose in front of a black employee and stated… “This is what I used to do when I lived in Mississippi.” During contract negotiations last fall, the new plant manager Steve Schreiner told the bargaining committee that he planned to eliminate Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a holiday and disband the company’s Civil Rights Committee. Steelworkers Local 2154 represents workers at 12 facilities around the Chicago area. Yet over 65% of the grievances handled by the union in the past three years have come from Commercial Forged Products, and the vast majority of those have been related to harassment of pro-union Black and Latino employees. The workers at Commercial Forged Product...

If you want more info on Interfaith Worker Justice and Executive Director Kim Bobo, check out their website... http://www.iwj.org/ Buy Kim's ground breaking book on wage theft... http://www.amazon.com/Wage-Theft-America-Millions-Americans/dp/1595584455/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239582576&sr=8-1 Find out if your boss is stealing your wages... http://www.canmybossdothat.com/

Here are links to the videos about the G-20 protests held in London last week. Some of them are quite entertaining... http://www.putpeoplefirst.org.uk/2009/03/jobs-video-from-put-people-first-rally/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hl-IfrMh6cI&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODMw8yKtZPo&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUr0tynRocQ&feature=channel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh3z8Q3yC48&feature=channel_page http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODMw8yKtZPo&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/user/tradesunioncongress Here is the link to the website about the Grassroots Immigrant Rights Conference to be held in Chicago next weekend... http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/2009Conference/