Civil & Human Rights

Fast Food Workers in Tucson, Phoenix, & Nationwide to Strike on Sept 4

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minimum wage“All across the country right now there’s a national movement going on made up of fast-food workers organizing to lift wages so they can provide for their families with pride and dignity. There is no denying a simple truth. America deserves a raise. Give America a raise. …You know what, if I were looking for a job that lets me build some security for my family, I’d join a union. If I were busting my butt in the service industry and wanted an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work, I’d join a union…I’d want a union looking out for me.” — President Obama, Sept 1, 2014, Milwaukee, WI

Tomorrow, Thursday, September 4, fast food workers across the nation and right here at home will strike for higher wages and the right to organize.

From Service Employees Interntional Union (SEIU)…

TUCSON FAST-FOOD WORKERS TO STRIKE FOR FIRST TIME AS FIGHT FOR $15 AND UNION RIGHTS SPREADS

Local McDonald’s, Burger King, Jack in the Box Workers Among Those in 150+ Cities Expected To Walk Off Their Jobs

TUCSON – Coming off a convention at which they vowed to do “whatever it takes” to win $15 and the right to form a union, Tucson fast-food workers will walk off their jobs Thursday  for the first time as their movement intensifies and continues to spread.

A day after President Obama highlighted their campaign in a Labor Day speech, workers said they will strike at Tucson’s major fast-food restaurants, including McDonald’s, Burger King, and Jack in the Box. Clergy, elected officials and community supporters, including Representative Raúl Grijalva, will join fast-food workers on the strike lines.

WHO: Workers at Burger King, McDonald’s and Jack in the Box; Representative Raúl Grijalva, Co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus; Rep. Bruce Wheeler; Sen. Olivia Cajero Bedford; Former Sen. Paula Aboud; Pima County Supervisor Richard Elías

WHAT: Fast-Food Worker Strike

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GOP war on voting goes to trial in Texas

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A trial begins today in a federal courtroom in Corpus Christi, Texas to determine the constitutionality of the state’s voter identification law, which is widely acknowledged to be the most restrictive in the nation. The U.S. Department of Justice has joined civil rights groups in Texas to try to stop the state’s voter ID law, saying it has a disproportionate and discriminatory effect on minorities. The trial is expect to last two weeks and a ruling is unlikely before Election Day.

Paul Waldman at the Washington Post writes, Why voter ID laws pose long-term danger to GOP:

VotersPassed in 2011, [the law] was struck down in federal court in 2012 as a violation of the Voting Rights Act. Then in 2013 the Supreme Court gutted the VRA. Now the law faces a new trial based on a different VRA section [Section 3 of the Voting Rights Act].

In the end, the Republicans who passed this law may prevail, particularly since the only racial discrimination the conservative majority on the Supreme Court apparently finds troubling is the kind that might affect a white person somewhere. But Republicans may have underestimated just how much damage they continue to do to their party’s image by trying, anywhere and everywhere, to make it as hard as possible for the wrong people to vote.

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Labor Day: show some respect for the working men and women of America

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unionsToday is Labor Day, and unlike almost every other newspaper in America, our sad small town newspaper the Arizona Daily Star (“All the news that Jim Click decides is fit to print”) failed to publish an editorial opinion recognizing the working men and women of America. Show some respect!

So to correct the Star’s slight to the working men and women of America, here are two editorials today from a real newspaper.

The New York Times editorializes Labor Today:

In the months before Labor Day last year, job growth was so slow that economists said it would take until 2021 to replace the jobs that were lost or never created in the recession and its aftermath.

The pace has picked up since then; at the current rate, missing jobs will be recovered by 2018. Still, five years into an economic recovery that has been notable for resurging corporate profits, the number and quality of jobs are still lagging badly, as are wages and salaries.

In 2013, after-tax corporate profits as a share of the economy tied with their highest level on record (in 1965), while labor compensation as a share of the economy hit its lowest point since 1948. Wage growth since 1979 has not kept pace with productivity growth, resulting in falling or flat wages for most workers and big gains for corporate coffers, shareholders, executives and others at the top of the income ladder.

Worse, the recent upturn in growth, even if sustained, will not necessarily lead to markedly improved living standards for most workers.

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Ducey Side Steps Tea Party & Bails on Rally with Palin & d’Souza

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Doug Ducey Bad4AZRepublican Doug Ducey won his party’s nomination for governor last week with dark money from out of state, $3 million of his own cash, and a full Tea Party platform— support for unborn children and corporate persons but not so much for the rest of us.

With backers like Cathi Herrod, Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin, and Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Ducey looked like the Koch Brothers’ Mini-me last week. Ducey’s regressive social policies and “tooth fairy” economic ideas make him one of the most dangerous Tea Party candidates in a long time. He is a cookie-cutter copy of Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, Kansas’ Sam Browback, or New Jersey’s Chris Christie. (Check out these Kansas and NJ budget stories linked here; Brownback and Christie destroyed their states’ budgets with the same Tea Party proposals Ducey is peddling in Arizona.)

The dire scenario in which Ducey becomes Arizona governor (shudder) prompted me to write the Top 10 Reasons Why Doug Ducey Is Too Extreme for Arizona Voters and start a Twitter campaign (@Bad4AZ) to educate people about Ducey’s platform and why he and other Tea Party candidates are #Bad4AZ.  (Check it out Twitter here and website here. Fellow Tweeters, help me out.)

Now Ducey appears to be backing away from the Tea Party. Was it something I said?

Details from AZ Central…

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A vote for Doug Ducey is a vote for Cathi Herrod as the ‘shadow governor’ of Arizona

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HerrodI have warned you previously that a vote for “Cathi’s Clown” Doug Ducey means electing Cathi Herrod and her Christian Taliban Center for Arizona Policy the “shadow governor” of Arizona.

As a key adviser to Dicey Ducey, Cathi Herrod will be writing her anti-abortion, anti-contraception, God hates gays, school privatization/voucher bills, and a new SB 1062 Religious Bigotry bill from an adjoining office to the governor. That should terrify any right-minded voter.

Linda Valdez at the Arizona Republic sounds the alarm. Look for return of SB 1062 if Doug Ducey wins:

On Election Day, Tempe took one step toward expanding LGBT rights and Arizona potentially took a giant leap back by nominating Doug Ducey as GOP candidate for governor.

If Ducey becomes governor, institutional discrimination could become law when Cathi Herrod returns with “SB 1062, The Sequel.”

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