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  • SOPA – Creating New Union Jobs? Naw…

    I was surprised when I saw that the AFL-CIO was backing SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act sponsored by the RIAA and MPAA.  I was able to find out the name of the AFL-CIO official, Paul Almeida,  testifying for the bill, and I sent him and email.  Below follows that exchange.

    To: Paul Almeida
    From: Michael Pellegrini
    Subject: Sorry to see an AFL-CIO officer shilling for likes of the RIAA…

    Sir:

    I am an ILWU member. I’ve been involved in the union movement for over 30 years, working as an International Organizer, as a Business Rep, and have held elective positions.

    I am appalled to find the AFL-CIO in bed with organizations like the RIAA and supporting SOPA. (more…)

  • Union Busting In Wisconsin

    Protesters in Madison earlier this week.
    There are some things you just never expect to see. Shrimp ice cream. World peace. An openly gay republican president.
    Or, workers in the United States facing the loss of their collective bargaining rights.

    “The right to bargain collectively is at the bottom of social justice for the worker, as well as the sensible conduct of business affairs. The denial or observance of this right means the difference between despotism and democracy.” Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in an address to the Senate, May 8, 1937.

    These rights have been a mainstay of US labor law for nearly 80 years, first coming into being as part of Roosevelt’s New Deal legislation in the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 – later codified as the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).
    Public employees gained bargaining rights somewhat later – in the case of Wisconsin, about 60 years ago.
    Now the government didn’t just grant employees the right to organize out of benevolence; no, these rights were hard won with the blood of workers.
    The 50 years leading up to Roosevelt’s New Deal were filled with costly and often exceptionally violent strikes. Many workers and not a few scabs died. Employers lost millions in productivity.

    (more…)

  • Labor’s Bloody History

    Strikers get clubbed by police

    The period in American history leading up from the Civil War to World War II was particularly violent and bloody for labor. It was through that struggle that many of the very most basic rights we enjoy today came about. These include:

    • Abolition of child labor
    • The eight hour day
    • Unemployment insuance
    • Social security
    • The right to form and join unions, and bargain collectively

    To give a glimpse of the background that led up to these changes, here’s a list of the major strikes that took place in the United States from after the Civil War on (courtesy of Wikipedia):

    1850-1899

    (more…)

  • Conservatives Declare War On Unions – Public Employee Unions to Be Outlawed in Wisconsin

    State workers protest in Madison
    This week in Wisconsin, conservatives are making perhaps the single biggest assault on collective bargaining that’s taken place in the last 60-80 years.
    The republican-controlled Wisconsin state legislature is trying to take away the collective bargaining rights of state, county and municipal workers.
    These takeaways include:

    • Automatic yearly elections where 51+% of all employees in a bargaining unit would have to vote in favor of union representation or the union would be decertified;
    • No more union shops where membership or an equivalency fee are required as a condition of employment;
    • Would limit wage increases to a small percetage based on the increase in the cost of living;
    • Would force employees to pay nearly 13% of their healthcare costs;
    • Reduces employers pension contributions.

    And those are just the highlights. Basically, it would do away with public employee unions in Wisconsin.

    (more…)

  • Yes on Initiative 1082 – Let’s help the BIAW and the insurance companies get rich!

    Dino Rossi, the Italian Stallion, with his head up his ass as usual

    One of the most asinine initiatives in Washington state this election has got to be 1082     – the initiative to privatize the state worker’s compensation system. The primary sponsor is the Building Industry Association of Washington – Dino Rossi’s erstwhile masters – and the large insurance companies. (Rossi is pictured at the right, with his head up his ass, as usual).

    So far, the BIAW has spent a reported $500, 000 on its Yes-1082 campaign – a staggering sum of money. But it’s nothing compared to what they potentially can make if 1082 passes. Here’s a detailed look.

    It’s all about offering better “case management” than Labor and Industries. Which translated, means screwing legitimate claimants – denying or delaying valid claims – just to save the insurance companies a buck.

    Here’s a story about my experience with Safeco Insurances claims management practices.

    But wait, there’s more: one of the main insurance companies that would take care of Worker’s Comp in Washington state if this passes is AIG.

    That’s right, AIG – the company whose top notch management is so great that the US taxpayers had to come up with $85 billion to bail them out rather than have the company go bankrupt. The same AIG that, right after receiving the $85 billion bailout, sent their executives on a week-long retreat at the St Regis Resort in Monarch Beach California at the cost of $433,000 – of taxpayer money.

    So let me get this straight – the BIAW wants to privatize the state Worker’s Comp system – to save us all money – and to carry out this task, they’re going to use AIG, the company that managed itself into bankruptcy, and sends its executives to $433,000 retreats at public expense?

    Sure that sounds reasonable.

  • Run Dino, Run….

    Dino Rossi, the Italian Stallion, with his head up his ass as usual
    Spokane, WA (AP) – Perennial candidate for big business, Dino Rossi (R – Spokane), seen at right with his head up his ass, as usual, is off and running again, this time for the US Senate.

    Foiled in his two recent attempts to claim the governorship of Washington state, Rossi decided to attempt to capture Patty Murray’s (D – Seattle) Senate seat this time.

    “That bitch is going down!” Rossi was heard to have said last week, following a press conference. “All those homo liberals in Seattle are gonna eat their words. They stole the last governor’s election, now we’re gonna make ’em pay!”

    Always popular with big business and conservative republicans, Rossi was the number one homeboy for the Building Industry Association of Washington in the last governor’s election. This time for his Senate campaign, he’s branched out and broadened his support to include right-wing religious nuts, greedy millionaires and other fringe lunatics.

    Asked what his platform was going to be, if elected, Rossi said, “We’re gonna take the country back for the real Americans – the rich, white, Christian people like me. All those liberal homo assholes are gonna have to move back to California, or something. Yee-ha!”

  • Go Sarah, GO!


    Des Moines, IA (AP) – In a bold, audacious move, the Republican party today announced their dream ticket for the 2012 presidential elections – Sarah Palin and Christine O’Donnell.

    Governor Palin, the failed vice-presidential candidate in the 2008 elections was elated. “I can see the capitol from my house,” she was heard saying.

    In a joint press conference early today, Governor Palin and Ms O’Donnell announced the main points of their platform:

    · Christianity will be made the state religion for the United States
    · Abortion for any reason will be outlawed
    · Corporate taxes will be reduced to 1% or $10, whichever is lesss
    · And a whole lot of other important stuff

    (more…)

  • Click! Network Responds

    D'oh!
    And yet another open letter to Click! Network management:

    One of your people called me a few days ago to talk about DOCSIS 3.0

    I’m sorry, I don’t recall his name.

    He was under the strong impression Comcast just rolled out DOCSIS 3.0 here in Tacoma in December 2009.

    WRONG.

    As I told the guy, Comcast rolled out DOCSIS 3.0 here in the Seattle Tacoma area slightly over a year ago – mid-December 2008. Check out this thread on dslreports.com and please note the posts’ date: DOCSIS 3.0 available in Tacoma

    Yes, that’s right: Comcast rolled out DOCSIS 3.0 in Tacoma in mid-December, 2008. The first post in the thread is dated 12-19-2008.

    And you guys thought the roll-out had just happened? Seriously? And according to what the guy told me, you’re just now getting ready to ask the city council for money to build-out a DOCSIS 3.0 system?

    This really disturbs me.

    How on earth could you people have missed a major market event such as that?

    The guy I talked to told me that the vast majority of your customers are at the Res 1 level, so that was another reason Click saw no real incentive to upgrade. Well duh! You ever suppose the reason all your customers are at Res 1 is because the other products are so inferior that anyone interested in real bandwidth and real value will go to Comcast?

    (more…)

  • Is Click! Network Trying To Commit Suicide? Looks That way…

    D'oh!Comcast started offering DOCSIS 3.0 connections here in the Seattle-Tacoma area over a year ago. Where is DOCSIS 3.0 for Click customers?

    An open letter to Click! Network Management

    Sirs:

    Comcast started offering DOCSIS 3.0 connections here in the Seattle-Tacoma area over a year ago. At the time Comcast premiered it’s product here, I called Click! customer service and was assured you were “working” on our DOCSIS 3.0 upgrade and that it would happen sometime relatively soon.

    Well it’s a year later, and we still have no upgrade. Comcast customers get twice (or more) the bandwidth we do.

    Put this another way – say both Click! and Comcast were selling electricity. Click! sells 10 kWh for $62, but Comcast sells 30 kWh for the same price. That’s what we have with internet bandwidth – Comcast gives their customers double or triple the bandwidth for the same exact price.

    And this is a city owned utility! Why should Tacoma residents – who own Click! – pay more for their internet through their own utility? If anything, city utility prices should be less expensive!

    (more…)

  • Port of Tacoma – NYK Deal – Money Mostly Well Spent


    Like I said in the last post, I don’t usually read the Tacoma News Tribune. It’s a scandal rag, owned by the McClatchy organization.

    Last week, I couldn’t help looking at their story on the Port of Tacoma – a copy was lying there on a table at work, open to the story, Port of Tacoma’s Blair Development: Millions to nowhere. So reluctantly – knowing that with a title like that, it couldn’t be a good story – I read on.

    In the article, they tell the story of the development of the proposed new container terminal for NYK.

    Briefly, in 2007, the Port of Tacoma signed a deal with the shipping line NYK, to provide them a new dedicated 168 acre container terminal in Tacoma, located on the tip of the Blair Peninsula. Integral to building the new terminal was relocating an existing terminal, Totem Ocean Trailer Express (TOTE), and the demolition of existing buildings, as well as the cleanup of some toxic waste sites.

    Because the Port didn’t own all the property necessary for the project, it spent some $146 million on property acquisition and demolition.

    In 2007 when the deal with NYK was inked, the economy was going great guns. All the projections – which were accepted pretty much universally – held that Chinese imports would explode in the coming years, with cargo growth rates reaching as much as 25% a year. The big fear, up and down the West Coast, was that we would not have enough dock space or the infrastructure available to handle the glut of Chinese cargo coming in.

    (more…)