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...

Honduran Civil Society Leaders Visit Chicago, Advocate for Restoration of the Constitutional Government and an End to Human Rights Violations La Voz de los de Abajo, Casa Morazán and NALACC invite you to panel discussions and community forums in Chicago with leaders of Honduran civil society touring U.S. with immigrant leaders to advocate for the restoration of the constitutional government and an end to the escalating human rights violations. One month after the interruption of constitutional order in Honduras through a military coup d’état and in the wake of widespread reports of human rights violations harkening back to events of the 1980s, the National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities (NALACC) is bringing a delegation of civil society representatives from that country to the U.S. to participate in a speaking tour and to advocate for the restoration of constitutional order and respect for human rights. U.S. based Latino immigrant leaders will also join this del...

Ever since Aldermen Danny Solis forced festival organizers in 1997 to move the Fiesta from its traditional location along Blue Island Ave. to Cermak , it seemed that ever year I would hear more people complain the Fiesta “just was n't what it used to be.” Indeed the wide open straight away of Cermak is probably better in terms of pedestrian traffic flow for a festival that draws over a million attendees ever year, but the move certainly diminished the neighborhood feel of the event. I remembering attending the Fiesta in the early 90’s before I became a Pilsen resident, and getting lost in what seemed an overcrowded labyrinth of booths, food stalls and music stages. There was a unique frenetic energy about the festival in those days, and often art galleries and business along the route, some on the second or third floor of classic Pilsen tenement buildings, would open their doors to Fiesta visitors. But what bothered me most about the Fiesta in recent years is how many booths wer...

ILC Interview with Honduran Labor & Resistance Leader Carlos H. Reyes: [Note: Following is an interview conducted by the ILC International Newsletter with Carlos H. Reyes, general secretary of the Beverage Industry Workers Union (STIBYS), leader of the Bloque Popular and member of the Coordinating Committee for the National Front Against the Coup. The interview took place on Monday, July 27, 2009 -- three days before Brother Reyes was badly beaten at a peaceful march of striking public-sector workers demanding the immediate and unconditional reinstatement of President Manuel Zelaya. At this writing, Brother Reyes is still hospitalized. -- A.B.] ILC: On Sunday [July 26] there was an attack on the union headquarters. What happened? Reyes: The assembly of the National Front had finished 15 minutes before the attack occurred. The participants had gathered for a memorial to the young man, Pedro Muñoz, who was killed by the Honduran army on the border with Nicaragua. There were no vict...