NewsTaco

On December 2, 2011, Pomona College in Claremont, California fired 17 workers for failing to produce sufficient proof of their ability to work legally in the United States. Before the firings took place, food workers at the college, located in eastern Los Angeles County, had been trying to organize a union while also holding campus protests in hopes of earning better wages.

According to reports, the decision came as a shock to the workers, many of whom had been working at the college for 10 or even 20 years. One of the leaders of the unionization effort was quoted in the New York Times saying:

“We were here for a very long time and there was never a complaint,” said Christian Torres, 25, a cook who had worked at the college for six years. “But now all of the sudden we were suspect, and they didn’t want us to work here anymore.”

Months before the firings, it was reported that a gag order had been instated, prohibiting food service employees from talking to students in the dining halls, causing many to assume it was to prevent sympathizers from joining the workers’ cause.

All of this left the fired employees with many questions. Were the powers that be at Pomona College anti-union, anti-immigrant, or both?  If so many employees had worked there for years or decades without being required to provide proof of legal working status, why now?

According to the Workers For Justice website:

The demand for documentation was not brought on by a federal agency. Instead, Pomona launched the internal audit itself. Pomona administrators said they properly verified documents at the time of hiring, but claimed some workers had “discrepancies” and wanted documents again.

Since the controversy began, a large number of Pomona College students, faculty, and alumni are vocalizing their indignation, debating whether or not the school is living up to its liberal ideals. According to the same report from the New York Times, “Some alumni are now refusing to donate to the college, while some students are considering discouraging prospective freshmen from enrolling.”

Regardless of one’s legal status in this country, it has to be pretty devastating to work somewhere for years and then get handed a pink slip after months of chaos and uncertainty.  What’s most surprising to many is that it didn’t happen at a cut-throat corporation, but rather a liberal arts college.

References:

• The Daily Bulletin
• LA Weekly

[Photo By Amerique; Video By uniteherelocal11 ]

By René Lara, Political and Legislative Director of the Texas AFL-CIO

President Barack Obama recently  appointed three nominees to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the government agency that is supposed to protect workers who want to form a union in order to negotiate a contract with their employer. For years that agency has been rendered powerless by laws that allow employers to scare employees into voting against forming a union.

For the past several years, a group of Republican senators have been blocking every one of President Barack Obama’s major initiatives and many of his appointments, including those to the NRLB. They could do this through their power to filibuster as long as they had 41 votes to block a measure or an appointment. In fact, senators used the same rules to block major civil rights laws many years ago. Speaking through his actions, President Obama just said, “¡Ya basta!”

The business community and their U.S. Senate allies have loved to hate the NLRB, since its establishment in 1934, because it also investigates unfair labor practices. During the Obama administration, employers and their Senate friends did not want friendlier appointments to the consumer agency and the NLRB. What they wanted was for that agency not to operate — period. This is how they were blocking the President’s appointments: the Constitution allows the president to appoint persons to posts while the Congress is in recess. When the senators were out of town, they simply acted like they were still working by having a few senators gavel them into session, sometimes just for a few minutes.

The President has just challenged and bypassed that Senate procedure, thereby rocking the balance-of-power boat in our nation’s government.

Decisionmakers ought to take a longer-term view of labor unions.  As the influence of the NLRB and labor grew after the 1930s, workers’ wages went up and unions created pension funds that provided capital for businesses to invest. It is no coincidence that the power and influence of the United States grew as its citizenry became prosperous — in the last century.

El Presidente just landed a hard upper-cut on some powerful Republican senators. He did so on behalf of workers — that means you and me.

René Lara of El Paso is the Political and Legislative Director of the Texas AFL-CIO, a state federation of labor unions representing 220,000 working people and their families at the Texas state capitol.

By SEIU

While bleak job growth plagues working families across the country, the Latino community continues to suffer disproportionately from unemployment with a devastating 11.4 percent rate of joblessness. By failing to pass President Obama’s jobs act, right-wing Republicans confirmed that they are committed to protecting corporate profits instead of working to create a better future for all Americans, including Latinos. The President’s jobs act proposed critical investments in infrastructure that would have led to job growth in construction, an industry where Latino workers are highly represented.

The 2.1 million members of the Service Employees Union (SEIU) share the President’s vision to create good jobs now and voted last night to endorse President Barack Obama for re-election in 2012.

“President Obama shares our vision of a nation that invests in good jobs here at home, a country where everyone pays their fair share, where access to health care preserved, and where there is a pathway to citizenship for every immigrant worker,” said SEIU International President Mary Kay Henry. “It’s a vision that says: Our country does better when we all do better.”

Today’s announcement culminates a six month conversation among SEIU members and leadership that evaluated the candidates, identified members’ priorities, and ultimately led to a final endorsement.

As the largest union of Latino workers, SEIU is committed to ensuring that the Latino community is not only at the decision making table, but that their voices are heard loud and clear above the divisive anti-Latino rhetoric that has derailed lawmakers from confronting our country’s economic challenges. The endorsement is part of a broader “99 percent strategy” to create good jobs now; end devastating cuts to Medicare and Medicaid and other critical programs; require everyone to pay their fair share in taxes; and create a fair path to citizenship for immigrant workers.

“The Republican candidates have an anti-worker and an anti-Latino agenda,” said Maria Yolanda Florian Arriaga, a personal care giver from Nevada. “They demonize immigrants who are working hard every day to make this country stronger. President Obama has fought for Latino priorities like healthcare, jobs, and education.”

With the endorsement, SEIU is committing to a robust campaign to engage SEIU members and their families and friends as well as the general public in the fight to re-elect President Obama. This campaign will include direct voter contact and field operations such as phone banks, door-to-door canvassing, and increased COPE, or Political Action Committee, fundraising.

By Geoconda Arguello-Kline, President of the Culinary Workers Union Local 226

In the neon desert of Las Vegas, Wall Street bankers have teamed up with local billionaires to deny thousands of casino workers – many of them Latino immigrants – their legal right to organize into unions. Station Casinos workers are seeking to realize their “Las Vegas Dream”: job security, free healthcare, a pension, ability to buy a home, and decent wages that will one day make it possible to send your kids to college.

Strong unions have made the “Las Vegas Dream” a reality for 60,000 service workers on the Las Vegas Strip and Downtown Las Vegas. But the Las Vegas Dream is under attack by Station Casinos, a vehemently anti-union company owned by Wall Street giants Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan as well as the billionaire Fertitta brothers, who also own the cage fighting promotion Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Station Casinos has 13,000 employees and is the third largest private employer in Las Vegas. Thirteen of its executives and insiders – one-tenth of 1% of the company’s workforce — paid themselves $660 million by mortgaging the company’s assets in a leveraged buyout in 2007. Then, to cut costs, the company outsourced whole departments (reservations, uniform rooms) and restaurants and coffee shops. In two years, the company fired more than 2,800 workers, or 20% of its workforce. For the remaining workers, they lost all company contributions to their retirement accounts, healthcare costs skyrockets, and they’ve not had a raise in over four years.

Station Casinos workers have had enough. Housekeepers, bartenders, cocktail servers, cooks, dishwashers, food servers and porters are standing up against the company’s unfair treatment of the rank-and-file. In February, 2010, they publicly demanded the company to let them organize freely and decide for themselves whether to unionize (See www.WorkerStation.org.)

In response, Station Casinos has launched a vicious anti-union campaign. Its anti-union campaign has overwhelmingly affected Latino workers.

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has filed complaints against the company and put it on trial in October last year. On September 22, NLRB Administrative Law Judge Geoffrey Carter issued a 151-page recommended decision against Station Casinos. He found that the company broke federal labor 87 times, making it the worst violator of labor law in the history of Nevada gaming. He also recommended a broad cease-and-desist order.

While the company itself claims 26% of its workforce is Latino or Hispanic, 78% of the 87 labor law violations found by the judge involve Latino workers. Moreover, eight of the ten worker organizers the company has fired so far are Latino. (Three have been brought back to work after charges were filed with the NLRB.)

Station Casinos workers have received support from Latino, labor and other allies such as the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement and Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance. We are confident that Station Casinos workers will prevail in their fight for the Las Vegas Dream and a better future for themselves and their families. They will soon enjoy the same respect and dignity on the job that all Americans deserve.

Geoconda Arguello-Kline lives in Nevada and is President of the Culinary Workers Union Local 226.

[Editor's Note: This is the first in a weekly series of Latino civil rights figures and organizations profiles in a partnership between News Taco and Pa'lante Latino.]

César Chávez was born in Yuma, Arizona in 1927 to a Mexican-American family with six children. He spent much of his childhood traveling with his family as they worked as migrant laborers in California after the family lost their home during the Great Depression.

After a brief stint in the Navy and several years working in the fields, Chávez dedicated his life to fighting for migrant workers’ rights. Along with Dolores Huerta, he founded what would later become the United Farm Workers union, which at its peak represented some 50,000 farm workers in California and Florida. He used non-violent tactics, such as his spiritual fasts and support for boycotts, to garner rights for migrant laborers.

Even after his death in 1993, Chávez’s legacy of grassroots organizing and Hispanic power continues and is commemorated on his birthday, March 31, as César Chávez Day in eight states. His popular slogan, “Sí, se puede” continues to crop up in the current immigration and labor rights movements.

References

• http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/rfk/peopleevents/p_chavez.html
• http://www.extramile.us/honorees/chavez.cfm
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A9sar_Ch%C3%A1vez

[Photo By U.S. Department of Labor]

The government is on the verge of a shutdown as Republicans and Democrats have been unable to come to an agreement over the budget.

A beheaded bald eagle was found in a ditch in Louisiana; authorities are investigating.

The fight over union rights continued in Wisconsin yesterday when supreme court candidates faced off, resulting in an election too close to call.

The population of white children is declining; by the end of the decade they will be the minority.

The teenager birth rate in the U.S. dropped; even though Latina and African-American women are 2-3 times more likely to give birth as teenagers than whites.

[Photo By John Schanlaub]

By Hector E. Sanchez

Workers all over the country are rising up by the thousands to defend the basic American right to collectively bargain. We can fight the anti-union ambush in the states with worker solidarity among Latinos and all workers, but first we need to understand why we are fighting and what is at stake.

What is happening in Wisconsin and other states will shape the future of the middle class in the nation and the basic structure of workplace protections for working people, particularly for Latinos and all minorities.

We can no longer take these protections for granted. The minimum wage, paid sick leave, Social Security, Medicare and child labor laws are among the protections and benefits that workers in the labor movement helped secure for millions of Americans.  The 40-hour workweek (as opposed to 60, 70 or 80 hours) did not materialize from one day to the next; it was the subject of a hard-fought battle spearheaded by the labor movement for more than a century.  This arduous fight—led by hundreds of thousands of union activists who marched, fasted, lost their jobs and even, in some cases, their lives— won workers the now-standard eight-hour day.

We must defend these rights. Collective bargaining gives workers a way to negotiate with employers for higher wages, job security, and safer working conditions. The hallmarks of the American middle class—raised wages, retirement funds and paid vacation time—weren’t gifts from corporations to their workers. They were the result of collective bargaining.   Yes, collective bargaining, the same right that the Wisconsin Republicans, at the bidding of the billionaire Koch brothers, just yanked away from public workers despite massive and unprecedented public protests.

These measures target teachers’ aides, nursing assistants in public hospitals, road repair workers, sanitation workers and others who already labor in tough and low paying jobs. Gov. Walker and his cronies have stripped even these vulnerable workers of their basic right to negotiate for higher wages and better benefits.

Losing Wisconsin could mean losing the first line of defense that workers have when facing abuses. And those who will suffer the most are the workers who are already the most vulnerable in the nation: minorities.

For the Latino community this must be an issue of grave concern. Latinos face the highest rate of death on the job, and they have the lowest levels of pension coverage and health insurance. Latinos in low-wage jobs have their wages stolen from them by their employers more than any other group.

On the other hand, Latinos stand to benefit enormously from joining unions.  Latino union workers earn almost 51 percent more (in median weekly earnings) than their nonunion counterparts. They also have better health insurance and pension plans. Other workers of color also achieve similar gains the moment they join a union.

Wisconsin isn’t the only state where this struggle for bargaining rights is happening. Other states, including Ohio and Indiana, confront similar assaults that would limit the basic rights of public workers.

According to polls, a majority of Americans support these workers. That’s because most people, whatever their experience with a particular union may have been, understand that unions are central to having a healthy middle class. A recent report by the Center for American Progress demonstrates a correlation between the financial share of the nation’s income going to the middle class and the number of workers in unions. As our middle class erodes, the income gap between the richest and poorest Americans widens.

These recent attacks on organized labor are not new, but they are escalating as a result of unions’ weakened position. For several decades, there has been a decline in union membership among all demographic groups. Corporate lobbyists have succeeded in changing the way labor laws are applied and administered (To whose advantage? You get one guess). Current federal legislation gives employers the upper hand in using tactics (both legal and illegal) to prevent workers from organizing.

The share of workers represented by unions was relatively stable in the 1970s, but since the 1980s it has fallen rapidly. This decline has caused wages to stagnate and the quality of work to take a nosedive for all workers. Now, there is less pressure on non-union employers to raise wages and agree to better working conditions. Today, the richest 1 percent owns 34 percent of the country’s wealth. While the entire bottom 90 percent of Americans own a mere 29 percent of the nation’s wealth. To put this into perspective, if we examine the combined net worth of the Forbes 400 wealthiest Americans in 2007 and that of the poorest 50% of American households, we find that they are almost the same, $1.5 trillion for the former and $1.6 trillion for the latter. In 2009, the number of people in poverty was the highest it has been in more than half a century since poverty estimates were made available in 1959. This situation is shameful and we must fight back against measures that only exacerbate the problem.

Labor unions strengthen the economy, our tax base and help build the middle class by helping workers secure higher incomes, critical benefits and workplace protections.  Unions give workers a fighting chance in an unequal economy and collective bargaining strengthens America’s democratic process. The quality of life of everyone who earns a paycheck is at stake. If the courts back Walker and we lose Wisconsin, the next questions the Koch brothers could raise is: why do these workers have weekends when they could be working? Oh, and their children too.

Hector E. Sanchez is the executive director of The  Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA). He has worked in education and non-profit organizations, and has over 10 years of policy, advocacy research and community outreach experience.

[Photo By Fibonacci Blue]

Republicans in Wisconsin stripped away collective bargaining from public workers. Labor is vowing to recall GOP politicians and fight back.

GOP Congressman Peter King is going after Muslims today — all of them — to make himself look tough on terrorism; today the House Homeland Security Committee is set to hold a hearing over the danger of Muslims to the nation.

22 people were killed in an earthquake in China’s southwest border region.

Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi continues to bombarde his own people in strategic locations and France has recognized the rebels diplomatically.

There’s a tragic case in Texas of an 11 year-old girl who was sexually assaulted by 18 men and adolescents while being filmed.

[Photo By Babasteve]

Images of Latino, Native American, Black, and Asian Wisconsinites are proving elusive in the media coverage of the fight for workers’ rights beyond a recent appearance by the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Despite this visual absence it remains evident that people of color have much to lose in Gov. Scott Walker’s recently passed state “repair” bill. The bill unnecessarily eliminates workers’ collective bargaining rights while cutting state health care contributions, pensions contributions, and protected leave. This fateful move will especially affect people of color, as with all legislated inequalities. A blow to any group’s rights always hits those facing other structural disadvantages the hardest.

A look at some Wisconsin demographics underscores the state’s growing populations of color. Wisconsin is home to 135,058 Asian-descended people, 332,660 Black residents, and 276,244 Latinos according to American Community Survey estimates. The Latino community has grown 70 percent since 2000, from 192, 921. The number of Asian descendants in Wisconsin has also increased from 111,428 in 2000.

But the argument that much is at stake for people of color in Wisconsin is less about demographic statistics than what disadvantages these communities will face without workplace protections and fair, competitive benefits. The governor’s attack on workers’ rights is clearly an attack on all people in the public sector. But curbing the right of workers to bargain for better pay and working conditions will have a multiplier effect in communities of color.

Wisconsin’s employment prospects under repealed worker protections means that Wisconsin’s working-class and middle-class residents will be working longer hours with less job security and lower take-home pay. That means greater competition for jobs with little to no benefits. And it also means people who may have once been covered by pre-Walker bill benefits are at greater risk for economic stagnation.

Widespread economic stagnation caused by low working standards does not bode well for workers with lower levels of education, the least industry-specific training, linguistic barriers, and those belonging to groups that historically faced discrimination in hiring. It is well documented that Latino and black adults hold fewer degrees than their white counterparts, are less mobile in their careers, and are less likely to acquire or maintain quality employment in times of widespread economic strain.

If Gov. Walker’s applied cuts to workers’ collective bargaining, health care contributions, pension, and protected leave take hold at the end of their fiscal year in June, public-sector workers will face about 8 percent in lost income. The loss of real income caused by mandated employee-paid increases to health care coverage and pension programs would hit communities of color the hardest as less take-home pay means less assets for workers who statistically have less to fall back on than their white counterparts.

Workers of color already suffer due to less take-home pay, and these effects would only grow worse under Gov. Walker’s bill. A 2010 study by the Joint Center concluded that before the recession whites in Wisconsin held on average $116,246 in wealth while people of color averaged $5,706. The sustained economic downturn has meant that people of color, like whites, have been forced to liquidate what little assets they could access with little room for recovery, fewer financial resources, and increased debt.

The recession’s lost opportunities to earn substantial wages or retain savings means greater proportions of communities of color fell into debt than others. These losses led to the acceptance of lower employment and working standards out of financial desperation. Wisconsin’s dramatic curbing of workers’ rights will only cement the susceptibility of low-income and financially desperate employment seekers to workplace exploitation.

We haven’t seen many workers of color in Wisconsin protesting this legislative calamity. But we shouldn’t conclude that their absence is a result of exemption or ambivalence. Based on what we know about workers of color we can safely infer that many simply do not work jobs that allow them to take off work for legitimate reasons with the guarantee that they will still be employed upon return.

Unless our ire is stoked and something critical is done to protect the essential right to organize, the repercussions of Gov. Walker’s bill will undoubtedly begin first and end last with unprotected workers of color.

Folayemi Agbede is the Special Assistant for Progress 2050, a project of the Center for American Progress that develops new ideas for an increasingly diverse America.

This guest blog is an edited version by the author of an article that was originally published on the Center for American Progress website.

I was “raised union.”

My mother, who immigrated to the United States from Nicaragua, worked the 3 p.m. to midnight shift at a toy factory after the birth of my younger twin sisters. She was a member of the United Rubber Workers, which later merged with the Steelworkers Union.

My father worked at a battery recycling plant and was a shop steward there for the Teamsters Union. His plant went on strike several times when I was a kid. During those times, he explained to my mother, my six brothers and sisters, and me that it would be tough. Although the union paid a small part of his wages when they were on strike, it was a hardship. But we understood that we had to make sacrifices. And we did.

When I was in ninth grade, my dad would come home at the end of the day and ask me to sit with him at our kitchen table. From his pockets, he would pull pieces of paper with writing in Spanish on them – notes given to him by his co-workers. There were all sorts of things scribbled on them: concerns about health and safety practices at the plant, questions about paychecks that didn’t add up, and ideas about how to improve the efficiency and productivity of the line. He’d ask me to translate them into English for him.

The first time, I didn’t understand what they were. When I asked, he explained: “They are the voice of the workers.” He said that the paper scraps started a conversation between the union and management. He told me it was a way to get them together “at the table.” After that, I understood.

My dad told that story to President Obama when they met. He said, with obvious pride: “Hilda has been doing this sort of work for a very long time. She still understands.”

I do. And since then, for my entire adult life, I have honored, respected and celebrated the voice of workers, which can only be guaranteed when they have the right to organize and bargain collectively.

That’s important to remember, particularly now, as states and cities grapple with enormous fiscal challenges, and everyone must sacrifice to meet those challenges. The public employees who are critical to our communities – from nurses to teachers to firefighters and police officers – have made and will continue to make sacrifices to help close budget gaps. But some state leaders have gone too far in the process. Budget sacrifices are one thing; demanding that workers give up their rights as union members – to take away their voice – is another.

For me, it’s not lofty rhetoric. During my two years as labor secretary, I’ve seen firsthand time and time again how unions make remarkable contributions to the strength and prosperity of our nation. In workplaces from my home state of California to Washington, D.C., where I spend most of my time now, and everywhere in between, organized labor is helping businesses improve their bottom line, make workplaces safer and more productive, and ensure that all Americans have the opportunity to achieve the middle class.

Organized labor does the same for state and local government “business,” too. I’m talking about the men and women who care for our neighbors, teach our children, keep our communities safe and clean, and run into burning buildings when others run out of them. These dedicated public servants – many of them union members – do their important work with little fanfare or recognition. Through their unions, they have a voice in their workplace, in their future . . . and most importantly, in our future.

They’ve made sacrifices, too – particularly in the past decade – and have worked closely with state and local leaders to help the public sector do what it is supposed to do. Their participation in our civil society is paramount to its success.

Their collective voice gives them the opportunity and the right to actually improve public education, public heath, and public safety and security. They deserve the right to have their voices heard when they speak out for job security and safe workplaces. Unions fight for better wages and benefits, not just for their members, but for everyone. They advocate for quality jobs that build a strong middle class.

In hard times, we all understand the need for sacrifices. Scapegoating teachers, firefighters and bus drivers by taking away their basic rights is not going to solve any problems. This is a time to find ways to work together and forge compromise. Neither side will get everything it wants, and everyone should share in the sacrifice.

Collective bargaining – what my dad called sitting “at the table”–is a cornerstone of our democracy and our middle class. It shouldn’t be cast aside in hard times. It can and should be part of the solution. Just as my dad explained to me with those paper scraps at our kitchen table, the best solutions come from people sitting down at the table together.

Secretary Hilda L. Solis was confirmed as Secretary of Labor on February 24, 2009. Prior to confirmation as Secretary of Labor, Secretary Solis represented the 32nd Congressional District in California, a position she held from 2001 – 2009.

Solis was first elected to public office in 1985 as a member of the Rio Hondo Community College Board of Trustees. She served in the California State Assembly from 1992 to 1994, and in 1994 made history by becoming the first Latina elected to the California State Senate. As the chairwoman of the California Senate Industrial Relations Committee, she led the battle to increase the state’s minimum wage from $4.25 to $5.75 an hour in 1996.

Solis graduated from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, and earned a Master of Public Administration from the University of Southern California. A former federal employee, she worked in the Carter White House Office of Hispanic Affairs and was later appointed as a management analyst with the Office of Management and Budget in the Civil Rights Division.

Follow Sec. Hilda Solis on Twitter: www.twitter.com/HildaSolisDOL

[Photo By Facebook]

NFL owners and players have still not been able to come to a new agreement, and some are starting to worry that this could lead to all kinds of adverse consequences.

Robert F. Kennedy’s assassin Sirhan Sirhan was denied parole, even though he claims he doesn’t remember anything about the events that lead to the politician’s death.

Anti-union bills continue in Wisconsin, and now, Ohio; lawmakers in Wisconsin are losing $100 a day for being out of state to avoid a vote on the anti-union budget, while Ohio state senators just passed their own anti-union, anti-collective bargaining rights bill.

Unemployment claims hit their lowest point in three years last week, leading some to hope that the economy may be rebounding.

Voters both don’t want to cut anything from the budget, and worry about the deficit; 80% said they worried about the deficit, but 60% are concerned any cuts could affect them personally.

Hundreds or even up to 1,000 protestors have been killed in Libya, where pro-government forces continue to clash with protestors, who have secured the eastern half of the country. Meanwhile, details of Moammar Gadhafi’s lavish lifestyle are beginning to be released.

At least 75 people are dead, with at least 300 missing in New Zealand following Tuesday’s earthquake.

Rahm Emanuel won Chicago’s mayoral race.

Wisconsin Democrats continue to use stall tactics to prevent the state’s employees from losing collective bargaining power at the hands of Republican lawmakers. Anti-union measures, meanwhile, continue to spread to states like Ohio and Indiana.

There’s unrest in Yemen, too, where at least two protestors have been killed.

[Photo By juggernautco]

[Editor's Note: This is a repost from Pa'lante Latino and was written by Victoria Cepeda]

It was 1966 when Mexican-American civil rights activist Jesús Salas et. al. founded “Obreros Unidos”, an independent farm labor union in Wisconsin. Their objective was to improve working conditions for migrant farm workers that traveled from Texas to Wisconsin yearly. They knew of a Wisconsin state provision that protected agricultural workers which was non-existent at the federal government level.

Mexican-American migrants first started settling in Southeastern Wisconsin as early as the 1920s with Puerto Ricans following in the 1940s.

Did you know that, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, back in 2008 Hispanics constituted  5% of Wisconsin’s population, 79% of Mexican descent, 27% of them lack health insurance, their poverty rate is of 23%? Therefore, you can make the case that the current situation in Wisconsin could affect Latino families since unionized workers tend to originate from blue collar/poorer families.

Today, Winsconsin has about 50 unions of varied denominations and affiliations. What has remamined a constant from Salas’ days is that unions are representative of blue collar families.

Wisconsin’s Republican Governor Scott Walker is trying to balance the state budget on teh backs of union members by cutting pension and health care benefits, asking union members to contribute more towards these benefits, and trying to take away collective bargaining rights for the state’s 300,000 public workers.

While an argument could be made against the lack of motivation that some unionized employees may display, preventing thousands from having a say in this discourse seems to me to violate the First Amendment which states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

This past Saturday, in Madison close to 70,000 people rallied peacefully in an attempt to have their state government hear them. They were determined and undeterred by the 5,000 Tea-Party backed supporters of Gov. Walker that also converged at the state capital.

In the true spirit of Salas and Chávez, those rallying know their rights and the power of unity. Cutting spending  cannot be achieved at all costs when the outcome would leave many families with less than they started with. At least, let collective bargaining back on the table. The point that I am trying to make is that if we are disputing Obama’s mandatory healthcare provision as anticonstitutional, then we should hold Walker to the same standards.  In my opinion, all with a saying in this matter should sit and find a middle ground.  Governor Walker and all elected officials in Wisconsin owe it to their constituents.

[Photo by vaxomatic]

Census data released in Texas show that 89% of the state’s growth over the past decade was made up by minorities, specifically Latinos.

Wisconsin has been taken over by pro-union protestors, at least 20,000 showed up at the Capitol yesterday, protesting Gov. Scott Walker’s intentions to cut collective-bargaining rights from public unions.

Discrimination against the unemployed is one thing keeping them unemployed.

A report from the Presidential Oil Spill Commission found that BP was to blame for the April 2010 spill, so was Halliburton, but that BP knew of the problems which eventually caused the gigantic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Egyptians celebrated a week without former President Hosni Mubarak this morning.

[Photo By Library of Congress]