Pacific Progressive

"We Are at the Crossroads": Yannick Etienne on Sweatshops as Development Model

by Beverly Bell, Truthout Report

This article was published by Truthout.

The U.S. and U.N. have based their plan for Haiti's redevelopment on the expansion of the assembly industry. Toward this end, the U.S. Congress passed legislation last month which would expand benefits and income for U.S. investors yet again. Haitian workers will continue to earn $3.09 a day.

Worker rights groups and other sectors of Haiti's social justice movements are adamant that a sweatshop-based development model cannot advance either the country or its workers. First, the investments are unstable, and companies can and do pull out at a moment's notice. Second, the work does not offer a living wage, benefits, possibilities for advancement, or skills training. Third, with the primary products and the machinery imported and the finished products exported, assembly does not stimulate Haiti's economy.

Here, Yannick Etienne, an organizer with the labor rights group Batay Ouvriye (Worker's Struggle), talks about the assembly sector and why it is neither a sustainable nor humane development model. Alternative models of development exist, ones that are not premised on the exploitation of some for the profits of others. Yannick talks about Batay Ouvriye's work to help Haitians participate in determining what redevelopment after the earthquake should look like. (Many articles in this series discuss some economically just options; see www.otherworldsarepossible.org .)

We are at the crossroads. What happened January 12 was we put the traditional way of doing things under the debris of the earthquake. Haiti has to move from where it is, as the poorest country of the hemisphere with people feeling sorry for us.

Out of Work, Sleeping in the Fields: The People of the Central Valley

by David Bacon, Truthout Report

This article was published by Truthout.

A photodocumentary project on the reality of life today in California's Central Valley

Pedro, an unemployed farm worker who now sleeps in an abandoned orchard, comes from Hermosillo in Sonora, Mexico. (Photos: David Bacon)

Near Reedley, on the east side of the San Joaquin Valley, three men live in a camp they've built under the trees of an abandoned orchard. A blue tarp and the cardboard from an unfolded carton make up the roof. The mattresses for their beds sit on shipping pallets, or nearby under a bush. One of the men made a doll of straw, which sits in the branch of a dead tree overlooking the camp.

Coming to Terms With Equality and Diversity: America's Ongoing Culture Wars

by Carey Fraser, Truthout Op-Ed

This article was published by Truthout.

The recent decision by the Texas School Board of Education to revise the curriculum in the state to reflect a more "conservative" approach to social studies and history has highlighted the ongoing debate about the role of education in American society and culture. The explicit desire by the conservative majority on the Texas School Board to impose an ideological orientation in elementary and secondary education - including a shift of focus away from the civil rights movement and slavery, an emphasis upon ensuring that students be taught that the idea of the separation of church and state is not in the Constitution and promotion of the need to safeguard American sovereignty from threats posed by organizations such as the United Nations - is a barometer of the increasing uncertainty that has overtaken the conservative factions in American society. The election of Barack Obama as the first African-American president, on the basis of a well-executed campaign that demonstrated the increasing electoral influence of multi-ethnic coalitions in American politics, has served as a catalyst for reactionaries of all stripes to seek ways to reverse the movement of American society toward a greater openness and engagement with the wider world, including the diverse communities of color within the country. A recent article in the Wall Street reports that recent statistics suggest that population growth among minority groups in the United States will exceed growth rates among whites in the near future.(1) If that demographic shift takes place, the United States will become a country where there is no single ethnic group or race that will constitute a majority within the population. The promise of greater cultural and ethnic diversity in the American population is a guarantee of the erosion of the white-supremacist ethos that has defined American society over the course of its history.

Hard Times in Colorado Springs

by Chris Hume, Truthout Video

This material was published by Truthout.

The city of Colorado Springs has long persisted as an ultra-conservative, anti-tax bastion. When voters rejected the latest proposal to raise taxes to maintain city services, the bottom fell out of the city budget. Now, hundreds of thousands of citizens are struggling to live without basic services. In this exclusive documentary, we delve into the effects of anti-tax policies on the lives of ordinary people.

This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

Support Truthout's work with a $10/month tax-deductible donation today!

Brick by Brick: A Half-Decad of Immigration Enforcement and the Need for Comprehensive Immigration Reform

by C. Stewart Verdery, Jr.

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

Read the full report (pdf)

Download the executive summary (pdf)

Download to mobile devices and e-reders from Scribd (pdf)

Event: In Search of Secure Borders

Preface

The United States has undertaken a massive immigration enforcement initiative over the past five years. The report that follows, written by C. Stewart Verdery, assistant secretary for border and transportation security policy at the Department of Homeland Security from 2003-2005, catalogues the spectrum of measures and the breadth of enforcement resources that have been deployed during this period.

The Center for American Progress believes that strong border enforcement and tough worksite enforcement on law-breaking employers are fundamental components of a rational immigration system. That does not mean, however, that we endorse all of the enforcement tactics that have been adopted over the past five years.

Many of the initiatives that are detailed in this report reflect sensible steps to restore the rule of law. But CAP believes that others—the so-called “287g program,” for example—misallocate resources and have had a destructive effect on communities. From CAP’s perspective, initiatives like the expansion of expedited removal and mandatory detention policies also raise serious concerns of fairness, proportionality, and due process. Moreover, any massive enforcement apparatus struggles to maintain the integrity of established standards and operationalize leadership priorities. So even smartly designed enforcement policies can become deeply flawed when implemented, leading to widespread rights violations and other unintended consequences.

Public Opinion Snapshot: Public Turns Against Offshore Drilling

By Ruy Teixeira

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

The gulf oil spill disaster is starting to take a serious toll on public support for offshore drilling. Consider these data from a new Pew Research Center poll. Back in February of this year, 63 percent of the public supported more offshore drilling as a policy response to address our energy needs, compared to 31 percent who were opposed. Today a majority of the public—52 percent—opposes offshore drilling, and support has fallen to 44 percent.

Compare those views on allowing more offshore drilling to the robust support for requiring that new homes and buildings meet higher efficiency standards (78 percent), for increasing federal funding for research on wind, solar, and hydrogen technology (75 percent), and for spending more on subway, rail, and bus systems (64 percent).

The public is sending a clear message here about their priorities for meeting our energy needs. Let’s hope policymakers are listening.

Ruy Teixeira is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. To learn more about his public opinion analysis go to the Media and Progressive Values page and the Progressive Studies program page of our website.

Groups File Lawsuit to Block Backroom Water Deal

by Dan Bacher, Truthout News Analysis

This article was published by Truthout.

This is an historic lawsuit that has the potential to change the way State Water Project water is allocated. Absent court action, contract changes that largely benefit southern San Joaquin Valley corporate irrigators at the expense of urban ratepayers will "trade away ratepayer funded projects and allow massive diversions of water from the Delta charging only pumping costs," according to a news release from the groups.

The backroom deal was "essentially Chinatown on steroids," said Bill Jennings, chairman of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance in Stockton.

"This was a poorly negotiated backdoor deal that put the wealthy growers of subsidized crops ahead of fisheries and the need for a sustainable and reliable supply of clean drinking water for California's cities," stated Jennings. "The Metropolitan Water District gambled it could raid the Delta for 'surplus' water. It not only lost that bet, but the Monterey Plus Amendments triggered the collapse of Delta ecosystems and our once-great salmon fisheries."

The "Monterey Amendments," signed secretly in 1995 without any public input, were successfully challenged in court. The courts ruled the contract changes, deeding of portions of the State Water Project known as the Kern Water Bank, and removal of protections for southern California ratepayers, would not be valid until a new analysis of the impacts had public review and was certified as complete.

Chartering Disaster: Why Duncan's Corporate-Based Schools Can't Deliver an Education That Matters

by Henry A. Giroux, Truthout Feature

This article was published by Truthout.

The best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans was Hurricane Katrina. - Arne Duncan

Visions have nowadays fallen into disrepute and we tend to be proud of what we should be ashamed of.  - Zygmunt Bauman

Market-Based Educational Reform and the Politics of Fraud[1] Of course, competition itself is not the problem since competition can be healthy in a number of areas. The real issue is when competition becomes, as Christopher Newfield points out, "the sole organizing principle of society."[2] And when that happens in educational policies such as those pushed by the Obama administration, one consequence is that the ultimate agent of schooling is modeled after the unattached individual competing for financial rewards, status and a job in the workforce. But there is more at work here than the vulgar instrumentalization of the curriculum, homage to an unchecked mode of market competition and the crude reduction of teacher work to thoughtless methodologies and techniques. There is also a neoliberal agenda in which public money is channeled into the hands of wealthy individuals and corporations. In addition, there is the ongoing infatuation with privatization and the push for charter schools, largely used to siphon off and privilege middle-class students, while promoting forms of tracking and social dumping that often mark underfunded public schools.[3] There is also the push for governance structures shaped in the image of a largely disgraced business culture, whose aim is to restructure the administrative apparatus in public schools as part of a broader political project to weaken the power of faculty and unions, while placing unaccountable power in the hands of corporate elites.

Also See:

Part I: Dumbing Down Teachers: Attacking Colleges of Education in the Name of Reform

Part II: Teachers Without Jobs and Education Without Hope: Beyond Bailouts and the Fetish of the Measurement Trap

In Defense of Public School Teachers in a Time of Crisis

US Social Forum Kicks Off With Domestic Workers Coming Out of the Shadows

by Yana Kunichoff, Truthout Report

This article was published by Truthout.

As shocking as her story may be, it was one of the less painful in the stories of abuse and exclusion told by former domestic workers on the first day of the US Social Forum at the Domestic Workers' Bill of Rights Campaign workshop. Led by Domestic Workers United (DWU), it related the struggle of DWU to pass the first-ever domestic workers' labor protection law in New York state, and the continuing work by domestic workers themselves to help others all over the country who have fallen through the cracks in labor law.

"Domestic workers are one of only two workforces that have been excluded from the right to collectively bargain," said Ai-Jen Poo, lead organizer and founder of DWU, which covers those working as housekeepers, nannies, elderly caretakers and cooks. "Whether it's because this work is traditionally seen as woman's work or whether it's because this work has historically been done by immigrant women or women of color, it's somehow been okay to exclude domestic workers from every major labor protection to date."

Poo is also the director of a coalition of national domestic workers' rights organizations, the National Domestic Workers Alliance, that was formed during the 2007 Social Forum.

In 2002, DWU successfully petitioned for legislation in New York City which would make employment agencies responsible for informing both employers and workers of employee rights. Then, in March 2005, their work led to the introduction of a Domestic Workers' Bill of Rights in the New York State legislature, which calls for a living wage, health care and basic benefits for all domestic workers - it was being debated in the legislature the morning of the workshop. If passed, it will be the first bill to offer basic labor protections to domestic workers.

Labor's Small Business Friends

by Dick Meister, truthout Op-Ed

This article was published by Truthout.

he U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other outspoken foes of organized labor like to claim that small business owners are as anti-union as the notoriously anti-union Chamber and its big business members. But don't you believe it.

Unfortunately, plenty of people do believe it. They accept the conventional wisdom that employers, large or small, don't like unions in general and especially don't like their employees joining or organizing unions to represent them in determining their working conditions.

Certainly, many employers resist unionization. But what the Chamber of Commerce and its corporate friends don't tell you is that many employers welcome unions for a variety of pragmatic as well as philosophical reasons.

Listen, for instance, to a small business owner in Virginia who was included in a representative sampling of some 1,200 small business owners and self-employed workers who were surveyed recently by American Rights at Work, a respected labor advocacy group:

"When workers form unions, they can secure benefits and rights in the workplace, including a decent wage and health care. They have economic and job stability. Unions lift workers and workers lift the economy. It's as simple as that."

Chronic Disease Expert: U.S. Health Care System Needs to Treat "Whole Person"

By Jessica Marcy, KHN Staff Writer

This article was published by Kaiser Health News.

Professor Kate Lorig understands the burden of chronic disease. While growing up, she learned to handle Gaucher disease - a genetic condition that can produce bone pain, fatigue, seizures and enlarged spleen and liver. Later, as a registered nurse, she worked with patients who struggled to manage conditions such as heart disease, arthritis and diabetes. She says that both her experience as a patient and a health care professional influence the way she approaches her work as director of the Patient Education Research Center at Stanford University.

As people live longer, chronic diseases have skyrocketed, accounting for nearly 75 percent of the nation’s annual $2 trillion health expenditures, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. (KHN is a program of the foundation.) But the health system remains largely designed to treat people with acute problems and often provides fragmented care. The National Council on Aging (NCOA) found that 80 percent of adults age 65 or older have at least one chronic disease and 50 percent have more than one. One-third of them feel confused about how to manage their disease after seeing a doctor.

In 1992, Lorig helped to develop the Chronic Disease Self-Management Program, a workshop program designed to complement patients’ treatments. The classes help them cope with frustration, fatigue, pain and isolation while also teaching them effective ways to communicate, exercise and deal with medication regimes. 

Q. How do you think chronic illness affects people?

A. I think it impacts every aspect of their lives. They have three major tasks. They have to deal with the medical management of their disease – whether it’s taking pills, or doing exercise, or diet or whatever. They have to deal with the fact that the things they want to do and need to do in life may also change. That can go all the way from no longer being able to work to no longer being able to do a loved hobby or having to change things in a major way. And [they have to cope with the] emotional impact, whether this is fear or anxiety or depression.

Arizona's SB 1070 Isn't Racist.... Is It?

by Amy McMullen, Truthout Op-Ed

This article was published by Truthout.

The marching song of the backers of Arizona's new immigration law SB 1070 includes an oft-repeated stanza that this law has nothing to do with race. Many times, I've heard outraged supporters tell me that anti-SB 1070 people use a broad brush to paint all of this law's supporters as racists and that there is absolutely no justification for this. "I am NOT a racist!" is an all-too-common theme I hear during my many debates on this issue.

SB 1070 supporters maintain that the law is a necessary action taken by besieged lawmakers because the federal government isn't enforcing our borders and crime is running rampant in Arizona. The shooting death of an Arizona rancher near the Mexican border by an unknown assailant provided the fuel necessary to push this law through the legislature on a partisan Republican Party line, with Gov. Jan Brewer following suit as she signed it into law.

There are many discussions about how illegal immigration impacts us and the negative perceptions of this subject are often used as the sole reasons for support of SB 1070. Somehow, the fact that this law also impacts perfectly legal citizens of a certain racial background isn't taken into account during these discussions, or if it is, it's vehemently denied. Anyone who believes that SB 1070 can be carried out without racially profiling citizens who happen to look "illegal," has not been paying attention to how law enforcement has operated for generations, nor do they fully understand the law as it is written.

BP's Methane Monsters: From the Gulf to the Globe

by Craig Collins, Ph.D, truthout Report

This article was published by Truthout.

We hear a lot of talk about carbon dioxide as the most dangerous climate culprit. And we should. So far, loading the atmosphere with CO2 is the single biggest cause of climate disruption. But, in the final analysis, methane may prove to be the most deadly of all greenhouse gases.

Unlike CO2, methane is flammable. BP's Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf was triggered by a bubble of methane gas that escaped from the well and shot up the drill column, expanding quickly as it burst through several seals and barriers before exploding. The fiery blast killed 11 workers and sank the platform. Since then, an estimated 210,000 gallons of oil has spewed into the Gulf every day, making it the biggest oil spill in the US since the wreck of the Exxon Valdez in 1989.

Methane is a menace to coal mining. Mines use giant fans to keep this colorless, odorless gas below dangerous concentrations. But if this fails, the tiniest spark can set off a deadly blast. Methane explosions killed 29 miners in the Massey coal mine disaster last month and claimed 12 miners in the Sago mine disaster back in 2006.

However, methane's explosive properties are a miniature menace compared to its heat-trapping capacity. As a greenhouse gas, methane is about 25 times more potent, molecule for molecule, than carbon dioxide. Today, the amount of methane in our atmosphere is spiking at an alarming rate. Scientists studying this situation call methane "a ticking time bomb," and warn that vast stores could be released from frozen deposits on land and under the ocean in the coming decades.

Making Health Care Competition Work: How to Ensure Health Insurance Reform is Transparent and Effective

By David Balto

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

Download this memo (pdf)

Event: Health Insurance Oversight in the Post-Reform World

If one fact is clear after over a year of comprehensive examination of the country’s health care system, it is that health insurance markets are simply not functional. The essential elements of a competitive market are choice and transparency, and both of these are lacking in private, non-group health insurance markets.

Most consumers have no meaningful choice in their insurance coverage. Study after study has found that health insurance markets are overly consolidated and consumers in the privateor small-group markets have few options. A report by Health Care for America Now found that two firms control at least 50 percent of the market in 39 states, and a single firm controls at least 75 percent of the market in nine others. A 2009 American Medical Association study found that almost 99 percent of all markets are highly concentrated. Industry advocates may claim that some markets have several competitors; but the reality is that these small players are not a competitive constraint on the dominant insurers—they just follow the lead on larger firms’ price increases.

The transparency necessary for a well functioning market is also lacking. Insurance policies are inordinately complex and not standardized. Consumers simply do not have access to the information they need to make well-informed decisions, giving insurers the ability to mislead or deceive them. Consumers who testified before Congress detailed egregious, misleading, and deceptive conduct by health insurers. Health insurers would search for loopholes and novel policy interpretations to deny coverage for medically necessary treatments.

Do Conflicts of Interest Matter in Costa Mesa? Apparently Not!

That is a question that needs to be seriously considered by anyone watching the deal going down for the Orange County Fairgrounds - can you take money for your campaign and then give the money back and vote for the item helping out your donor?

As things sit now, Facilities Management West is getting a very sweet deal that gives them near total control over the Fairgrounds for 55 years with no real voice for the public or management from Costa Mesa.  Mayor Allan Mansoor  took money for his Assembly campaign from members of Facilities Management West and Richard Kapko, who was appointed to the committee to choose between American Fairs and Festivals and Facilities Management West.  Mansoor, under pressure after his deed was disclosed, gave the money back. But, the money was given back after Facilities Management West was allowed to bid for the contract to operate the Fairgrounds.  

In Costa Mesa, does the conflict of interest law even matter?  

The way the City Attorney is enforcing the conflict of interest code, a developer (or other entity) could wine and dine the entire City Council and Planning Commission and make contributions to their campaigns.  Then, when the item involving that developer (or other entity) comes up for a vote, the City Council and Planning Commission members only need to call for a short recess to go to the break room to write checks to refund the money and meals.  Once that is done and the letters refunding the money are signed, City Council and Planning Commission can come out and vote for the project in front of them.

That's exactly how the conflict of interest code is being handled in Costa Mesa right now - take the money, give it back only when forced to and vote anyway.

That is not the intent or spirit of the law. The conflict of interest law is meant to prevent people from voting on items they will receive financial benefit from.  In this case, Mansoor received campaign contributions from members of Facilities Management West and Richard Kapko, so he had no business having any dealings with either of the two parties.  Mansoor should have recused himself from having anything to do with Facilities Management West or the Fairgrounds after taking the campaign contributions but did not.  

The only way to fix this problem is for the Legislature to reject Costa Mesa's bid for the Fairgrounds on the grounds the State's conflict of interest code has been violated and thus the deal can't be finalized.  Yes, there is the risk that the property can be put up for auction, but then maybe the lesson will be learned that conflict of interests need to be properly managed to prevent deals going straight to donors.