In two days, 144,000 US autoworkers workers are set to strike

The master contract for 144,000 unionized workers expires on September 14. Workers are ready to strike the three largest automakers in the nation

September 12, 2023 by Natalia Marques

At midnight on Thursday, the master contract for 144,000 US autoworkers employed at the three largest car manufacturers (General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis) will expire. 

Workers have been preparing for months for this moment, using the UPS Teamsters’ historic contract win as inspiration. The United Auto Workers, which represents the 144,000 workers employed at the “Big Three” automakers, has organized grassroots actions such as practice pickets. This year’s contract campaign is the first mobilization of the rank-and-file union members for contract negotiations in the union’s history.

The Big Three have already rejected key demands such as the cost of living adjustment (raises tied directly to inflation, dubbed COLA). In a September 8 update, UAW President Shawn Fain revealed that Stellantis and Ford proposed lump-sum bonuses that exclude certain workers rather than COLA. Ford’s proposal does tie wage increases to inflation but only when inflation goes up by a very high threshold, which would mean no COLA raises for the next four years. 

“That’s not COLA. That’s not even Diet COLA. That’s Coke Zero,” said Fain on September 8.

The companies have only put forward new counter proposals this past weekend, writes Luiz Feliz Leon in Labor Notes, although even these fall far short of what workers want. “It’s unfortunate the companies have waited until the last moments to get focused on the needs of 150,000 autoworkers, our families, and our communities,” said Fain on Monday.

In 2022, in the first direct election in UAW for top officers, union members elected current President Shawn Fain, who has been trailblazing a path for radical change within the union. Fain is determined to abandon the model of concessions to the Big Three that UAW leadership has pursued for decades, and win back the victories of the socialist-influenced UAW of the 1930s and 40s. The UAW’s demands such as a 32-hour workweek, raises tied to inflation, the elimination of tiers which divide workers, and the ending of plant closures, reflect the goals of a new iteration of leadership.

Autoworkers are ready to strike. UAW has USD 825 million in its strike fund to makesure that workers can make do without pay. Last month, 97% of workers at the Big Three voted to authorize a strike. In two days, this could very well become a reality—the first time autoworkers at all of the “Big Three” strike at once.

A battle for all workers

If they manage to win their demands before September 14 (President Fain has made it clear that backing down from demands is not an option), UAW workers will raise standards for the entire US working class, currently in the depths of economic despair. 

If a potential strike is not averted, UAW workers will embark on a battle not only for their set of very radical demands but against some of the most powerful elements of capitalism itself. In a recent report at Truthout, Derek Seidman labeled the Big Three the “three-headed behemoth of big capital.” Seidman’s report reveals the links between the leadership of the largest automakers in the country to some of the most notorious union busting corporations in the country, including Amazon and Walmart, as well as to the tools and masterminds of US imperialism such as the Council on Foreign Relations and the top weapons producers (General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin) that bloat the US military budget.

As Seidman writes, “GM CEO Mary Barra herself served on the board of General Dynamics, the fifth-biggest US defense company, from 2011 to 2017, during which she was compensated in the millions. GM Director Thomas Schoewe currently serves as a director of Northrop Grumman, the third-biggest US defense company. GM Director Wesley G. Bush is the former head of Northrop Grumman, serving as CEO until 2018 and chairman until 2019. Another GM director, Linda R. Good, is the retired executive vice president of Information Systems and Global Solutions at Lockheed Martin, the top US defense company.”

In 2022, General Motors CEO Mary Barra made USD 29 million in total compensation, Ford CEO Jim Farley made over USD 55 million from 2020 to 2022, and Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares made nearly USD 23.5 million in 2022. 

“Our wages have increased by less than 12% since 2007. Adjusted for inflation, Big 3 workers are earning $9/hour LESS than we were 15 years ago,” writes the UAW reform organization, Unite All Workers for Democracy, in a contract campaign leaflet.  “Are you ready to take on the companies and win what we deserve?”

This article originally appeared at PeoplesDispatch.org on September 12th, 2023.  

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US Child Poverty Rate More Than Doubled in 2022 Thanks to Manchin and GOP

By Jake Johnson

"Joe Manchin's legacy includes artificially manufacturing child poverty for no reason other than his callous disregard for human beings," said the Debt Collective following the release of new Census data.

Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin and congressional Republicans faced fresh backlash on Tuesday after the U.S. Census Bureau released new data showing that the nation's child poverty rate more than doubled in 2022 compared to the previous year, thanks in large part to the expiration of the boosted Child Tax Credit.

The expanded CTC, an American Rescue Plan (ARP) policy that sent eligible families up to $300 per month for each child and eliminated the original CTC's regressive phase-in, helped push the U.S. child poverty rate to a record low of 5.2% in 2021.

But the program expired at the end of that year after Manchin (D-W.Va.), who supported the ARP, opposed an extension, baselessly claiming that some parents would use the money on drugs instead of their children. (Survey data showed that most families, including those in West Virginia, used the money to buy food and help with rent, along with other essentials.)

"Joe Manchin's legacy includes artificially manufacturing child poverty for no reason other than his callous disregard for human beings," the Debt Collective wrote on social media.

Congressional Republicans, who unanimously opposed the ARP, also rejected calls to support an extension of the boosted CTC, part of a broader pandemic-era safety net that is now collapsing.

The result of the program's expiration, as predicted, was a devastating surge in child poverty. According to the new Census Bureau data, the child poverty rate rose to 12.4% in 2022—the largest single-year increase on record.

The overall U.S. poverty rate also increased, rising from 7.8% in 2021 to 12.4% last year. More than 37 million people in the U.S. lived in poverty in 2022, the Census Bureau said.

"Today's stunning rise in poverty is the direct result of policy choices—including Congress' decision to allow the successful Child Tax Credit expansion to expire," said Sharon Parrott, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. "Policymakers should expand the Child Tax Credit this year and reverse this troubling trend."

If Congress had kept the expanded CTC in place last year, Parrott noted, 3 million additional kids would have been kept out of poverty, "preventing more than half of the 5.2 million increase in the number of children in poverty last year."

"The child poverty rate would have been about 8.4% rather than 12.4%," Parrott said.

Elise Gould and Ismael Cid-Martinez of the Economic Policy Institute echoed Parrott's assessment, saying in a statement that "if policymakers were willing to maintain the pandemic-era CTC expansions, a much smaller share of children would be living in poverty."

"More ambitious—but economically sustainable—expansions of our generally stingy welfare state could essentially eliminate poverty completely," they added. "We know this vision isn't politically realistic in the short run, but the policy lessons of 2020 and 2021 should not be lost with today's report."

In his response to the new data, President Joe Biden placed the blame for the child poverty increase entirely on Republican lawmakers, not mentioning that Manchin's opposition was ultimately decisive in the evenly divided Senate in 2021.

"Today's Census report shows the dire consequences of congressional Republicans' refusal to extend the enhanced Child Tax Credit, even as they advance costly corporate tax cuts," Biden said. "We cut child poverty by nearly half to record lows for all children in this nation largely by expanding the Child Tax Credit. Last year, Congressional Republicans insisted on raising taxes on families with children. The rise reported today in child poverty is no accident—it is the result of a deliberate policy choice congressional Republicans made to block help for families with children while advancing massive tax cuts for the wealthiest and largest corporations."

Shortly after the Census Bureau published its data, Semafor reporter Joseph Zeballos-Roig asked Manchin whether he's had second thoughts about opposing an extension of the CTC boost now that its expiration has produced a record increase in child poverty.

"It's deeper than that, we all have to do our part," Manchin replied. "The federal government can't run everything."

The West Virginia senator said he had yet to see the new poverty figures.

Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) said in a statement that the new Census data "is just completely heartbreaking and deeply disappointing."

"It's also a specific choice," Fetterman added. "A spike in child poverty like this didn't need to happen. Congress had the chance to extend these programs that would keep our children fed and boost working families out of poverty. But it didn't. It's shameful. In the richest country in the world, no child should have to go through this. And now it's on us to fix this problem that shouldn't have been created in the first place."

This story has been updated to include a statement from Sen. John Fetterman.

This article originally appeared at CommonDreams.org on September 12th, 2023.  

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Challenge to political maps to proceed with state’s claim Black voting power isn’t diluted

Outcome could upend politics ahead of the 2024 election

BY: JILL NOLIN

A federal trial that could force state lawmakers to redraw Georgia’s political maps ahead of next year’s election will enter its second week Monday.

Five lawsuits have been filed challenging the GOP-drawn maps that came out of a special session in 2021, but this trial features three of them, including challenges from Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, the Sixth District of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and Black voters across the state.

So far, the action has centered on the attorneys for the plaintiffs who are trying to show that the maps dilute the Black vote and violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. If Judge Steve C. Jones rules in their favor, state lawmakers could be sent back to draw up new district lines.  

This week, lawyers representing the state will have a chance to present their defense of the maps, which they acknowledge were designed to protect the Republican majority but say they are fair to Black voters. They have so far framed the legal challenges as a veiled attempt to elect more Democrats, and they say the alternative district lines offered up by the plaintiffs are overly focused on race.

The state’s attorneys have argued that recent elections undermine claims that Black voters are not able to elect candidates of their choice, pointing to the wins of U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath in the Atlanta suburbs and President Joe Biden and U.S. Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock in statewide races.

The outcome of the case could prove consequential heading into next year’s election, since Black Georgians tend to vote for Democratic candidates at high rates. Republicans currently hold a fragile majority in the U.S. House, and any Democratic gains in the state Legislature would add to tightening margins under the Gold Dome.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently stood behind Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in a surprise ruling this summer that rejected Alabama’s congressional map. A redrawn plan that still did not include a new opportunity district for Black Alabamians was blasted last week by a three-judge panel, which ordered a third-party special master to do the job.

In Georgia, the cases at trial argue a new majority Black congressional district can be drawn in metro Atlanta and that multiple new Black majority districts can be carved out in the state House and Senate maps. 

William S. Cooper, a private consultant who created the alternative map, said he was asked to explore whether the Black population in Georgia was large and compact enough to warrant an additional congressional district. But he said race was just one of many factors he considered. 

“It practically draws itself,” Cooper said last week, describing the task as “very straightforward, easy.”

That district, congressional District 6, is today represented by Republican U.S. Rep. Rich McCormick who won in 2022 after state lawmakers shifted the boundary lines to favor a GOP candidate. The change prompted the previous incumbent, Democratic U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath, who is Black, to challenge fellow Democratic U.S. Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux in the racially diverse 7th District based in Gwinnett County.

As a result, Republicans now hold nine of Georgia’s 14 congressional seats, up from eight under the old map.

The attorneys for the plaintiffs argue Georgia’s political maps dilute Black voting power and do not reflect the state’s changing demographics. The number of Black Georgians grew by about 484,000 people since 2010, with 33% of the state now identifying as Black. Meanwhile, the number of white Georgians dropped by 52,000.

They have put experts on the witness stand who say Black voters are left underrepresented in the halls of power and stuck with a system that is unresponsive to what they argue are Black Georgians’ distinctive needs when it comes to issues like health care access, education, employment and social justice.

“Across every metric I looked at, Black individuals are doing worse than white individuals,” testified Loren Collingwood, a political scientist at the University of New Mexico who analyzed socio-economic data.

Collingwood presented voter turnout results that showed a widening gap between Black and white voters in recent election cycles, though the state argued that the same data also showed Black turnout increasing.

The judge has also heard from Black residents across the state who have launched unsuccessful bids for public office.

Diane Brack Evans, who lives in Jefferson County, has been active in Democratic politics, including three runs for a state Senate seat. But she testified Thursday that she was not so much interested in electing a Democrat as she was in wanting an elected official who would “take an interest in her community.”

Evans shared a personal story about her late sister who had chronic medical conditions but was not eligible for Medicaid coverage and eventually ended up uninsured. Evans let her sister move in and she filled in as her sister’s physical therapist. Her story was not all that unique, she said.

“This is really how it is in this area here,” she said.

Fenika Miller, who also testified for the plaintiffs, is a lifelong Houston County resident who has run twice for the state House as a Democratic candidate – including once against a Black Republican – and is now the deputy national field director for the Black Voters Matter Fund.

Miller was asked by the state’s attorney if the alternative maps would help elect more Democrats. She responded that the maps would allow “more Black voters to have a say in what their representation looked like – regardless of party.” 

This article originally appeared in The Georgia Recorder on September 12th, 2023, of the State News Room network  

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Judge rules Louisiana must remove youth from Angola

By: Wesley Muller 

A federal judge Friday ordered Louisiana prison officials to stop housing youth offenders in the former death row of Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola and to relocate them within one week.

U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick of the Middle District of Louisiana found that conditions at Angola constitute cruel and unusual punishment and violate the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. The ruling was the culmination of a lawsuit the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana filed last year after Gov. John Bel Edwards announced the state would start sending children to Angola because six juveniles had escaped from the Bridge City Center for Youth. 

At the time, Edwards said the transfers to Angola were temporary while officials worked on renovations and improvements at another juvenile correctional facility.

In Friday’s verbal ruling, Dick noted the state broke promises it made last year during a September 2022 court hearing that the youths wouldn’t face punishment during their confinement, according to an ACLU press release. 

The judge found that prison officials locked the juveniles in cells for days at a time and punished them with the use of handcuffs, pepper spray and denial of family visits. The state failed to provide adequate staffing, including licensed social workers or professional counselors, appropriate education and necessary mental health treatment or social services, according to Dick.

“Now, it is time for Louisiana’s leaders to provide the appropriate care and support so all children can thrive and reach their full potential,” said David Utter, the ACLU’s lead counsel. “We demand investment in our children, not punishment. State officials must address the long-standing, systemic failures in Louisiana’s juvenile justice system. A state where all our children — Black, brown and white — have equal access to opportunity is possible.” 

There was no immediate response from the governor’s office in response to Dick’s ruling.

Advocates for incarcerated youth hailed the ruling and called on Edwards and the state Office of Juvenile Justice (OJJ) to address its shortcomings.

Antonio Travis, youth organizing manager with Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children, said in a statement it was “shameful” that it took a lawsuit to force officials to remove the youth from Angola. He stressed the need for the state to take a holistic approach to juvenile justice as called for under state law approved two decades ago.

“Our ineffective over-reliance on youth prisons has proven time and again that punitive measures don’t work and don’t foster rehabilitation,” Travis said. “We must recommit to an approach that invests in community based-alternatives, including mental health and mentorship programs, to provide youth with opportunities and a future outside of prison walls.

“Today’s ruling is a step in the right direction, but it isn’t actually progress; it’s simply regaining what we lost last year when the Governor decided to send kids to Angola. There is much more work to be done in order to truly reform this broken system.”

The state Office of Juvenile Justice (OJJ) issued the following statement Friday afternoon:

“Last year, after a series of high-profile and violent incidents at OJJ facilities, the office of Juvenile Justice temporarily repurposed a facility on the grounds of Louisiana State Penitentiary as a transitional treatment facility for high-risk youth. The decision was not made lightly but with inadequate space at existing OJJ facilities, immediate action was necessary to protect the youth, staff, and surrounding communities. OJJ has taken extraordinary measures to ensure the temporary West Feliciana Facility complies with state and federal law requiring the youth to continue receiving education classes, have suitable living conditions, and be completely separated from any adult inmates. The West Feliciana Facility has allowed us to keep community members, staff, and youth in our care safe, but the plan has always been to close the temporary facility as soon as possible and move the high-risk youth upon completion of the new Swanson secure care facility, which is scheduled to open later this year. While we disagree with the court’s ruling today and will be seeking an emergency writ, we will continue to explore every option available to us that ensures the safety of staff, community members, and youth in our care.”

This article originally appeared in The Louisiana Illuminator on September 8th, 2023.  

Related Posts:

61 “Stop Cop City” activists hit with racketeering charges, People's Dispatch

‘People Have Been Protesting Against Cop City Since We Found Out About It’, FAIR 

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Cop City Protesters Arrested After Chaining Themselves to Construction Equipment

"This movement cannot be won with a ballot alone; we must organize together for mass direct actions if we want to have a chance at protecting our community and saving our planet," said one of those arrested.

Five "Stop Cop City" demonstrators, including faith leaders, were arrested Thursday morning after chaining themselves to construction equipment at Atlanta's proposed Public Safety Training Center just outside of city limits in DeKalb County, Georgia.

The arrestees are Rev. Jeff Jones, a Unitarian Universalist volunteer community minister; Rev. David Dunn, a Unitarian Universalist minister; Ayeola Omolara Kaplan, an Atlanta-based revolutionary artist; Atlanta resident Lalita Martin; and Georgia resident Timothy Sullivan, according to the Atlanta Community Press Collective.

The Atlanta Police Department (APD) said in a statement that "those five people have been taken into custody and we are working with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation regarding charges on these individuals. Around this same time, approximately 25 people gathered outside the site to protest."

Protesters were arrested in Georgia on September 7, 2023. (Photo: Atlanta Police Department)

The Atlanta Journal-Constitutionreported that protesters outside the construction site of the contested 85-acre facility chanted "Cop City will never be built."

Photos shared on social media showed demonstrators carrying signs that said "#StopCopCity," "No Cop City on Stolen Land," and "The People's Injunction: Stop Work Order."

A notice protesters posted on metal fencing said that the people were shutting down the project for violations including "destruction of a forest, destruction of the public trust, polluting Intrenchment Creek, violating the will of the community, undermining the democratic process."

"We have tried to get justice in the courts, we have tried to get justice using our politicians, and unfortunately, they have betrayed and failed us," said Mary Hooks of the Movement for Black Lives, according to the AJC. "So when our government systems fail, that is when the people must stand up and take action."

"Anytime somebody puts their bodies on the line for the cause," added Hooks, "it was worth the risk."

The "people's injunction" to halt construction came after Georgia Republican Attorney General Chris Carr announced Tuesday that a grand jury indicted 61 Stop Cop City protesters under the state's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.

Omolara Kaplan, one of the demonstrators arrested Thursday, said in a statement that "there is a war happening against protesters. If we don't stand up for our right to protest now, standing up in the future will be in vain. Cop City is in the process of being built and this can only continue if we allow it."

The protester also highlighted an effort by Cop City opponents to collect signatures for an Atlanta referendum to block the project—and the pushback from political leadership in the city, such as a related verification process that critics have denounced as a form of voter suppression.

"As Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens fights against our right to stop Cop City via the ballot, we must continue our struggle to stop the project with direct actions like sit-ins, boycotts, and blockades," said Omolara Kaplan. "This movement cannot be won with a ballot alone; we must organize together for mass direct actions if we want to have a chance at protecting our community and saving our planet."

Related Posts:

61 “Stop Cop City” activists hit with racketeering charges, People's Dispatch

‘People Have Been Protesting Against Cop City Since We Found Out About It’, FAIR 

Vigils For Tortuguita: Land Defenders Erupt In Solidarity, Progressive Hub

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61 “Stop Cop City” activists hit with racketeering charges

Atlanta organizers allege that this is the latest installment in the ongoing state repression against the movement to stop “Cop City” from being built

September 06, 2023 by Natalia Marques

On September 5, the Georgia Attorney General’s office announced that 61 activists opposing the construction of a multi-million dollar police training facility in Atlanta have been hit with racketeering charges under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). 

Atlanta residents have been fighting the proposed construction of a massive police training facility to be built on part of the region’s largest urban forests since 2021. Protesters allege that the training facility, dubbed “Cop City”, would hone the repressive tactics of the US police force and that it would contribute to increased repression against social movements, Black and Brown communities, and the working class as a whole. A mass movement has emerged in the city utilizing a diverse array of tactics including marches, forest occupations, direct action, and arts and culture.

The Atlanta Police Foundation and the state apparatus of Georgia have been attempting to subdue this movement every step of the way. The defendant list itself is a record of months of legal repression against the Stop Cop City movement. 42 out of the 61 defendants were previously charged with domestic terrorism. Defendants also include three activists who were charged with money laundering as a result of running a bail fund for arrested activists, a legal observer who was put in jail for monitoring protests, and three activists who were arrested for handing out flyers with the name of a police officer connected to the police killing of fellow protester Tortuguita.

“These charges are yet another flimsy and desperate attempt by the state government to crush the movement against police terror in Atlanta,” Stop Cop City activist Mariah Parker told Peoples Dispatch. “It shows that they have learned nothing in the course of this struggle: each time they have tried to snuff us out, we have emerged stronger and more organized. This will be no different.” 

While the charges were filed last week, the date listed on all indictments is May 25, 2020. This was the day that unarmed Black man George Floyd was murdered in broad daylight by police officer Derek Chauvin, a killing that ignited a summer of the largest anti-police brutality protests in the United States to date. Prosecutors are tracing the actions of anti-Cop City protesters, who they label as “militant anarchists,” to the 2020 anti-racist protests—despite the fact that the Stop Cop City movement began in 2021.

As the Atlanta Community Press Collective reported, “In previous bond hearings for Stop Cop City defendants, prosecutors with the Georgia Attorney General’s Office have tried to link the George Floyd Uprisings to the Stop Cop City movement.”

“The Cop City RICO indictments allege the date when George Floyd was murdered by the police as the start of the ‘racketeering enterprise,’” wrote Atlanta-based activist and founder of Community Movement Builders Kamau Franklin. “The day a movement to abolish the police took on new life is the day for them a criminal enterprise was born.”

“This is a further attempt to criminalize a movement against police violence,” Franklin told Peoples Dispatch. “There is no basis in law to bring these charges. It is simply a scare tactic by the State and city against organizers.”

“It’s very clear that all levels of government in Georgia are committed to the same project that birthed the cop city proposal—absolutely stamping out any sort of radical movement against police brutality and this racist system,” Monica Johnson, Stop Cop City activist and anti-police brutality organizer told Peoples Dispatch. “This repression is part of the legacy of COINTELPRO, of trying to sever the ties between the community and organizers so people can’t envision a different type of life, one where our needs are met and we are not terrorized by the police.”

Related Posts:

‘People Have Been Protesting Against Cop City Since We Found Out About It’, FAIR 

Vigils For Tortuguita: Land Defenders Erupt In Solidarity, Progressive Hub

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