Worker-Solidarity

by Rapid Response Network This day began as a commemoration of Chicago workers’ fight for the 8 hour work day and the right to organize. In Haiti, workers are still battling for these essential rights. Haitian garment workers receive the lowest wage in the western hemisphere – 350 Gourdes, or US $5.40. Their wages are consumed just by the transportation costs of getting to and from work. Most live in debt, and on the brink of hunger and homelessness. ...

By Rapid Response Network Today, Haitian garment workers are going on strike to demand 500 gourdes ($7.94 for 8 hour work day)! This follows last Thursday’s (5/11) work stoppage and shut down of the SONAPI Industrial Park in Port Au Prince. From that action, union organizer, Telemarque Pierre, was fired without reason from his position at Premium Apparel factory, which produces for Gildan, and owned by Clifford Apaid. In a statement shared with the RRN, organized workers said: ...

By One Struggle On what I earn, I can’t afford shoes… We are poor, poor, poor. There are days we go to bed without food.– Batey worker from the film, “The Price of Sugar” In the sugar plantations or bateyes of Dominican Republic, cane cutters often work barefoot. They can’t afford shoes. They can barely afford food, for that matter, despite the fact that they often work a minimum of 12 hours a day, doing the back-breaking work of cutting sugar cane by hand. ...

By Stephanie McMillan Global capitalism is killing the planet. It is turning the living world into dead commodities by exploiting the many for the profit of a few. Ecocide is the most urgent and immediate problem we face. If we don’t solve it, nothing else will matter. Economic troubles (not to mention our personal issues) will seem trivial. The ability of the planet to sustain life of any kind is becoming increasingly threatened. ...

By Wildlife Conservation Society A study by the Wildlife Conservation Society documents that intense development of the two largest natural gas fields in the continental U.S. are driving away some wildlife from their traditional wintering grounds. Researchers tracking 125 female pronghorn in Wyoming’s vast Jonah and PAPA gas fields using GPS collars discovered an 82 percent decline of habitat classified as “highest quality” – meaning highest probability of use for wintering animals. Widespread natural gas development in these areas, which are part of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, has led to a sharp increase in well pads, roads, and other associated infrastructure. This in turn is driving pronghorn to the periphery of areas historically classified as crucial winter ranges, the five-year study says. ...

By Stephanie McMillan Environmental destruction is the most urgent and immediate problem we face. If we don’t solve it, nothing else will matter. I would argue that it’s the principle contradiction of the current period. Through it, the common ruin of contending classes is becoming increasingly likely, but as the economic and ecological crises converge, the possibility of liberation and social transformation also opens up. But only if we organize to make that happen. ...

By Defenders of Wildlife The House of Representatives voted on Feb. 16 to open the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and along almost every acre of our coastline including off the East Coast, West Coast, the protected eastern Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s Bristol Bay to oil drilling all under the guise of funding this year’s transportation bill. The funding issue is a scam. Even the most generous revenue estimates from this reckless expansion of drilling will not be enough to fund proposed transportation projects in the bill. In addition, what small amounts of revenue might be generated from oil and gas leasing in the Arctic refuge would not be seen for ten years as oil companies will still need to explore, apply for drilling permits and start development. In short, H.R. 3408 is a fiscal gimmick that relies on unknown future revenues that are speculative at best to pay for transportation projects today. ...