ALF V1

Alberta is hiring 30 new occupational health and safety officers to improve the province's record on workplace accidents.

"I hope this sends a strong message to any company or worker in Alberta who feels the law doesn't apply to them," said Employment Minister Thomas Lukaszuk.

"Albertans demand safe workplaces and there shall be safe workplaces."

The officers will be hired over the next three years, meaning the province will have 132 officers by 2014, a number that includes the 16 officers hired last year. That compares to only 86 in early 2010.

The ministry is also dividing the province into three enforcement regions instead of two. This will allow for a greater focus in northern Alberta, where the province is seeing the greatest industrial growth, said Lukaszuk.

"It's hard not see this as a big step in the right direction," said Gil McGowan with the Alberta Federation of Labour. "However I think it needs to be put in context."

"Here in Alberta we've actually suffered probably 15 or maybe even 20 years of underspending on health and safety, and [worksite] inspection in particular."

CBC News, Fri Mar 4 2011

Last week, in the face of protest demonstrations against Wisconsin's new union-busting governor, Scott Walker - demonstrations that continued through the weekend, with huge crowds on Saturday - Representative Paul Ryan made an unintentionally apt comparison: "It's like Cairo has moved to Madison."

It wasn't the smartest thing for Mr. Ryan to say, since he probably didn't mean to compare Mr. Walker, a fellow Republican, to Hosni Mubarak. Or maybe he did - after all, quite a few prominent conservatives, including Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Rick Santorum, denounced the uprising in Egypt and insist that President Obama should have helped the Mubarak regime suppress it.

In any case, however, Mr. Ryan was more right than he knew. For what's happening in Wisconsin isn't about the state budget, despite Mr. Walker's pretense that he's just trying to be fiscally responsible. It is, instead, about power. What Mr. Walker and his backers are trying to do is to make Wisconsin - and eventually, America - less of a functioning democracy and more of a third-world-style oligarchy. And that's why anyone who believes that we need some counterweight to the political power of big money should be on the demonstrators' side.

Some background: Wisconsin is indeed facing a budget crunch, although its difficulties are less severe than those facing many other states. Revenue has fallen in the face of a weak economy, while stimulus funds, which helped close the gap in 2009 and 2010, have faded away.

In this situation, it makes sense to call for shared sacrifice, including monetary concessions from state workers. And union leaders have signaled that they are, in fact, willing to make such concessions.

But Mr. Walker isn't interested in making a deal. Partly that's because he doesn't want to share the sacrifice: even as he proclaims that Wisconsin faces a terrible fiscal crisis, he has been pushing through tax cuts that make the deficit worse. Mainly, however, he has made it clear that rather than bargaining with workers, he wants to end workers' ability to bargain.

The bill that has inspired the demonstrations would strip away collective bargaining rights for many of the state's workers, in effect busting public-employee unions. Tellingly, some workers - namely, those who tend to be Republican-leaning - are exempted from the ban; it's as if Mr. Walker were flaunting the political nature of his actions.

Why bust the unions? As I said, it has nothing to do with helping Wisconsin deal with its current fiscal crisis. Nor is it likely to help the state's budget prospects even in the long run: contrary to what you may have heard, public-sector workers in Wisconsin and elsewhere are paid somewhat less than private-sector workers with comparable qualifications, so there's not much room for further pay squeezes.

So it's not about the budget; it's about the power

In principle, every American citizen has an equal say in our political process. In practice, of course, some of us are more equal than others. Billionaires can field armies of lobbyists; they can finance think tanks that put the desired spin on policy issues; they can funnel cash to politicians with sympathetic views (as the Koch brothers did in the case of Mr. Walker). On paper, we're a one-person-one-vote nation; in reality, we're more than a bit of an oligarchy, in which a handful of wealthy people dominate.

Given this reality, it's important to have institutions that can act as counterweights to the power of big money. And unions are among the most important of these institutions.

You don't have to love unions, you don't have to believe that their policy positions are always right, to recognize that they're among the few influential players in our political system representing the interests of middle- and working-class Americans, as opposed to the wealthy. Indeed, if America has become more oligarchic and less democratic over the last 30 years - which it has - that's to an important extent due to the decline of private-sector unions.

And now Mr. Walker and his backers are trying to get rid of public-sector unions, too.

There's a bitter irony here. The fiscal crisis in Wisconsin, as in other states, was largely caused by the increasing power of America's oligarchy. After all, it was superwealthy players, not the general public, who pushed for financial deregulation and thereby set the stage for the economic crisis of 2008-9, a crisis whose aftermath is the main reason for the current budget crunch. And now the political right is trying to exploit that very crisis, using it to remove one of the few remaining checks on oligarchic influence.

So will the attack on unions succeed? I don't know. But anyone who cares about retaining government of the people by the people should hope that it doesn't.

AFL-CIO

Colombian human rights advocate and forensic anthropologist Berenice Celeyta, wants the Colombian government of President Santos to acknowledge that there continues to be armed conflict in that country.

Both the Canadian and Colombian governments maintain that Colombia in a post- conflict era after years of violent civil war in which thousands of union leaders and social activists disappeared,were killed, or injured by government paramilitary. Ms Celeyta told a group of 50 at CUPE's national office that since August, 2010 under the newly elected Santos government there has been the assassination of more than 2,000 people.

One of the key issues in the ongoing conflict is land ownership. Multinational companies are interested in mining the land - and indigenous peoples are being removed from their homes. It is estimated that 4.5 million Colombians have been displaced because of potential resources in their land.

Celeyta said,"We are persuaded that peace has to be accompanied by health, education, housing and public services. But the Colombian government is carrying out free trade treaties, which will not respect these rights. They say Colombia is Latin America's oldest democracy, but more people have died under this so-called democracy than under the dictatorships of Chile or Argentina."

CUPE partners with NOMADESC - the association for social research and action, in the union's work in Colombia. The three pillars of NOMADESC are education, research and communication. CUPE national president Paul Moist committed CUPE's ongoing support to NOMADESC and their important labour and human rights work.

cupe.ca, Thurs Mar 2 2011

Over the last couple weeks there have been massive rallies in Wisconsin protesting legislation proposed by the new Governor, Scott Walker, legislation which can only be described as anti-labour and anti-democratic.

One of the key points of the Walker bill is that it would remove public employees' right to bargain collectively for anything, except for higher wages. However, any wage increases would be capped at the federal Consumer Price Index rate of inflation, thus inhibiting any real wage increases.

Further, the proposed legislation would force public employees to have new union elections every year and employer collection of union dues would be prohibited. Such actions would severely handicap and inhibit public employees' unions from functioning.

Walker claims the reason for such drastic legislation is because the state is facing a deficit and public employees are paid too much and need to sacrifice. Yet the fact is, is that Wisconsin was facing a budget surplus until Walker brought in two corporate tax breaks, thus lessening state revenues. So while corporations will see extra profits, workers' standard of living and democratic rights are under threat.

Walker is one of many Republicans supported by the Koch brothers who run Koch industries. The Koch brothers, who are billionaires, fund millions of dollars to think-tanks that deny global warming. They also provide similar amounts of money to the right-wing Tea Party movement. Finally, they have provided millions of dollars to support anti-labour legislation and to bust unions in the USA.

But the people of Wisconsin are not taking it lying down! Rallies have been growing, with attendance reaching 70,000 and 100,000 and workers have even occupied the State Capitol! There is even talk and attempts to broaden the fight back and organize a general strike. What we are witnessing is one of the most momentous mobilizations by working people in North America in decades.

We gather here not merely to show our solidarity with our sisters and brothers who are fighting for their right to organize, to represent themselves collectively and democratically, but also to draw attention to the similar attacks here in Canada.

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has stated he wanted to see public transit declared an essential service. He's now gotten the help of Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, whose government has introduced legislation that will strip the unionized Toronto transit workers of the right to strike. The right to withdraw their labour when an employer refuses to negotiate is an essential right workers have fought and won over many, many decades in North America.

The only way to win is to broaden the scoop of struggle and solidarity to oppose the war on workers. An attack on any section of working people, is an attack on all working people. By undermining unionized workers, all workers face the threat of lowered standards, wages and quality of life. If the labour movement is to grow and extend itself it must fight. An injury to one is an injury to all!

Solidarity Forever!
Telecommunications Workers Union
Local 203

 

All eyes are on the Middle East as a wave of popular uprisings sweeps dictators from power.

But there's another battle brewing closer to home that has more significance for working people in the U.S. and Canada.

It's a fight about democracy and whether North America will continue to have a viable middle class.

The most prominent battleground is Wisconsin, where hardline Republican Governor Scott Walker says it's necessary to strip middle-class, unionized, public-sector workers of their rights to bargain collectively in order to balance his state's books.

The truth is that Walker is using public-sector unions as scapegoats for problems that were caused by years of failed Bush-era policies.

It wasn't teachers or nurses who transformed the U.S. from a powerhouse into the sick man of the world economy.

That feat was accomplished by waves of de-regulation, budget cuts, trade deals and tax give-a-ways to the wealthy - policies that hammered the middle-class, impoverished schools and other vital public services and paved the way for the global financial meltdown.

The emptiness of Walker's arguments became apparent when it was revealed that almost all of his state's $140-million deficit is attributable to a $137-million tax cut given to corporations.

It's important to note that Walker is still calling for an end to union negotiating rights even though the unions have agreed to deep wage and benefit concessions.

So, if public-sector workers are ready to deal, why is Walker so hell-bent on killing unions?

Bankrolled Tea Party

It's because he - and people like the billionaire Koch brothers who bankrolled many Tea Party campaigns -understand something important about unions.

They understand unions are one of the last counter-balances to unbridled corporate power and conservative political dominance.

That's why Walker isn't backing down - he wants to use his manufactured budget crisis to stack the deck even more dramatically in favour of conservatives.

The good news is that most Americans understand that working people - union and non-union alike - need unions to protect the middle-class lifestyle that millions feel slipping away.

Despite massive and distorted coverage from media outlets like Fox News, a recent New York Times/CBS poll revealed that Americans oppose weakening union bargaining rights by a margin of nearly two to one (60% to 33%).

What does all of this have to do with Canada and Alberta?

In the past two weeks, the Sun and other major news outlets have published columns echoing the Tea Party attack on unions.

More ominously, the Tea Party's biggest funders, the Koch brothers, have significant interests in Alberta.

They are responsible for receiving and handling about 25% of the oilsands crude sent to the U.S. and they own Calgary-based Flint Hills Resources Canada.

Don't expect these guys to stay out of our politics.

In fact, they may already be funding the Wildrose Alliance and Tory leadership candidates (we can't know for sure because both parties refuse to reveal their donors).

War moving north

So, be prepared for the war on unions and the middle class to move north.

But rest assured, Canadian unions will be ready.

We'll make the case for quality public services. We'll defend decent jobs.

We'll remind the powers-that-be that, in Alberta, the only reason we have a deficit is because of massive and unjustified giveaways to hugely profitable energy companies.

In the battle to preserve Canada's middle class, Canadian unions will (as always) stand on guard for thee.

Calgary Sun, Thurs Mar 3 2011
London Free Press, Tues Mar 8 2011
Byline: Gil McGowan

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- Wisconsin's budget stalemate over union bargaining rights shows no sign of resolution - and it could be a long wait.

The governor isn't budging. AWOL Democrats aren't planning to come back. And, despite talk of deadlines and threats of mass layoffs, the state doesn't really have to pass a budget to pay its bills until at least May. Even then, there may be other options that could extend the standoff for months.

"This is a battle to the death," said Mordecai Lee, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. "Unless one party can come up with a compromise that the other party will buy, which I doubt, this really could go on indefinitely. I could see this going on until the summer."

The confrontation began Feb. 11, when Republican Gov. Scott Walker proposed legislation that would strip most public workers of their collective bargaining rights as part of a plan to fix a budget deficit projected to be $137 million by July.

Democrats, who are in the minority in the Legislature, hightailed it for the Illinois border on the day the Senate was to adopt the bill. Their absence left the chamber one member short of the quorum needed for a vote.

Two weeks later, Republicans are becoming increasingly creative in their attempts to lure the 14 Democrats home. They've tried cutting off access to copying machines for their staff and requiring lawmakers to pick up their checks at the Capitol rather than having them deposited directly in bank accounts.

On Wednesday, the Senate passed a resolution imposing a $100 fine for each day the Democrats remain on the run. Republican senators were also assigned to oversee the staff members of the missing Democrats.

State Sen. Chris Larson said the fines show that Republicans are becoming "increasingly petty." He said none of the Democrats flinched after learning of the move. He was resolved to stay away as long as necessary.

"In fact, my family just brought down clothes for me," he said. "We're committed to this cause."

The bill passed the Republican-controlled Assembly last week after a nearly three-day filibuster. Republicans in the Senate say they have enough votes to pass it once Democrats return.

Behind the scenes, Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald met earlier in the week with two of the missing Democrats to discuss ways they could be persuaded to come back. Fitzgerald said Wednesday he was told by one of the Democrats that as many as six of them had planned to return that day, but then decided against it.

Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller said Democrats would eventually be back to fight the full budget plan Walker introduced Tuesday to slash state aid for schools and local governments by about $1 billion.

But when will they actually set foot in the chamber? Miller said that was a day-to-day decision.

"We are currently no closer to coming back than we were a week ago," he said.

Whether the Democrats show up or not, the lights in the Capitol will stay on, snowplows will continue to clear streets and the wheels of state government will keep turning.

Senate Republicans hold a 19-14 majority, but without that all-important 20th vote, they can't pass anything that spends money. That's what held up the budget bill, since its main purpose was to refinance debt and force state workers to pay more for their benefits.

Instead, the Senate has been forced to take up lesser matters: a resolution commending the Green Bay Packers on winning the Super Bowl and a measure designating Jan. 26 as Bob Uecker Day, for instance.

It's not as if the Democrats' absence has kept them silent. They're still firing off press releases, doing interviews on national television and - in the case of Sen. Jon Erpenbach - appearing on "The Colbert Report" in a segment poking fun at how the group is hiding in plain sight.

Democrats say they left the state to avoid being compelled to return by Wisconsin police, but state law prevents them from being arrested simply for not showing up to work. Among the group is 83-year-old Sen. Fred Risser, the longest-serving state lawmaker in the country, with 54 years in office.

Walker has rejected every offer of compromise floated by unions, Democrats and even a Republican state senator. All of the proposals would balance the budget without permanently eliminating collective bargaining rights.

During the stalemate, the governor has issued a number of threats and ominous deadlines trying to force Democrats to return. A large part of his proposal to balance the budget this year was based on refinancing state debt to save $165 million, but the deadline to do so came and went Tuesday.

Missing that deadline, Walker said, raises the risk of deeper cuts and widespread layoffs of state workers, although he's refused to offer specifics on who and what would be targeted.

Walker can't order the layoffs of teachers or other local workers, and even if he were to go after state employees, it would be at least 31 days before anyone lost a job.

Plus, if the budget bill passes, court challenges seem inevitable. The Milwaukee city attorney has suggested parts of the bill are unconstitutional because they interfere with the city's authority over its pension plan.

Some voters have seized on the standoff to try to remove politicians on both sides. Five Democratic state senators and eight of their Republican colleagues have been targeted by recall attempts. If recall organizers gather enough signatures in the next two months, the lawmakers must face another election.

Budget stalemates are nothing new in Wisconsin. In 2007, the state did not pass a budget until mid-October. Government didn't shut down during the impasse, and no one is even hinting at that possibility now.

The biggest problem for Walker is figuring out how to pay for the state's Medicaid bills when the program runs out of money sometime in May. But even when that happens, federal law would prevent the state from cutting off services to the roughly 1 million low-income, disabled and elderly people who depend on the program.

The most likely scenario would be for the state to delay payments to providers into the next budget year, which begins in July.

azcentral.com, Wed Mar 2 2011
Byline: Scott Bauer

WASHINGTON -- The Wisconsin Democratic Party has launched a fundraising campaign to recall state Senate Republicans who have supported the budget bill by Gov. Scott Walker (R) that would strip collective bargaining rights from the state's public employee unions.

The email the party sent out on Wednesday afternoon is excerpted below:

In 60 days you can take Wisconsin back. It's that simple.

This morning citizens from around the state took the first steps by filing recall papers against key Republican Senators who have stood with Scott Walker and pushed his partisan power grab that will strip thousands of middle class teachers, nurses, librarians and other workers of their right to collective bargaining. And we learned just last night that their disastrous budget that will cut millions from our schools and universities.

In 60 days you can take Wisconsin back by recalling the Republican Senators who have decided to push Scott Walker's divisive attack on the rights of workers and his assault on schools, universities and local communities. Can you contribute $60 today to support the Democratic Party's recall efforts?

Make no mistake, these Republican Senators are vulnerable to recall for their radical partisan overreach. Senator Randy Hopper won his last election by just 184 votes. And Alberta Darling won her last race by only 1,007. By recalling just three of the eight Senators we are targeting, we can regain control of the Senate.

But we need your help today. The clock is ticking and we have just 60 days to collect the signatures we need to force a recall. Every day and every dollar counts.

If we can recall at least three Senators and regain control of the Senate, we can end the ugly games Republicans in the legislature have played in the last few days -- unplugging phone lines, bolting windows inside the Capitol shut, and withholding the paychecks of Democratic legislators.

Huffington Post, Tues Mar 1 2011
Byline: Sam Stein

Since February 11 when Mubarak stepped down, the Supreme Military Council, which has assumed leadership of Egypt's affairs until such time as free elections are held, has repeatedly and thus far unsuccessfully called on Egyptians to "return to work." It has even threatened to take action against striking workers in the name of national security. The civilian middle-class revolutionaries also seem to be insisting that the striking workers "return to work." Even Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, in his February 18 Tahrir khutba before hundreds of thousands of Egyptians, urged striking workers to go home, stating that it is impossible for all demands to be met immediately and counselling them to be patient.

Meanwhile, the Egyptian Independent Trade Unionists have published their demands. Some of these demands relate to raising the minimum wage and prohibiting differences in wages in excess of 15 times between senior managers and workers. Another demand is greater job security and prohibition of the use of temporary workers. While some demands may be unreasonable to the extent they tend to decrease flexibility in the Egyptian labor market and would thus make the Egyptian economy even less competitive than it is now, others are eminently reasonable, indeed necessary, and ought to be recognized immediately. These include the following: 1) The right to organize independent labor unions; 2) The removal of corrupt managers; 3) The right to strike; and, 4) The dissolution of the Egyptian Trade Union Federation.

These demands are necessary components of any future reform package that hopes to improve the efficiency of the Egyptian economy. A strong labor movement with the power of independent collective bargaining can reduce the incidence of corrupt, self-serving management, as well as aid in a more just distribution of national income, two goals that the Mubarak regime utterly failed to achieve. And, given the deep penetration of the Mubarak political machine into the economy, dismissal of corrupt managers would seem to be a revolutionary imperative.

More generally, however, the Trade Unionists' declaration that the fair distribution of wealth, along with the establishment of formal democratic rights, must be one of this revolution's priorities, cannot reasonably be denied if this revolution is to succeed. For that reason, Egypt should adopt a social democratic model, along the lines of the so-called Nordic model. The Scandinavian countries all enjoy highly efficient economies, but yet are characterized by relatively low levels of inequality, strong social services, strong labor unions, and a strong social safety net that substantially eases the cost of (temporary) labor unemployment. Establishment of a social democracy in Egypt, however, will require the upper and professional classes to make economic sacrifices on a scale that they perhaps did not contemplate when they embarked on this revolution, demanding only greater democratic freedoms.

Yet, they should understand that without these sacrifices, any democratic experiment in Egypt will be tenuous at best, or lapse quickly into a police state at worst. The risk of a return to the Mubarak-era police state is palpable in light of Egypt's recent experience under Mubarak: in order to control a growing population of poor and a labor force that was losing its ability to earn a decent living, the government dramatically expanded its police forces to the point that the police force swelled to approximately 1.5 million.

Since the Mubarak regime embarked in the early 1990s on the IMF and World Bank sponsored structural adjustment programs, Egypt has become more unequal; its police forces have swelled; and its commitment to public education as a proportion of the national budget and Egypt's GDP decreased substantially: public spending on education declined from 16 percent of the national budget in 2005 to 11.9 percent in 2008; and educational spending as a proportion of Egypt's GDP declined from 4.8 percent to 3.8 percent over the same period.

Yet, during the last 20-odd years, the economy grew substantially. From this perspective Mubarak's Egypt confirms the wisdom of the 2002 UN Arab Human Development Report's refusal to consider solely macroeconomic indicators such as rising national income to measure development. That report documented the disturbing long-term trend in the Arab world of declining relative investment in education, from 20 percent of that spent by industrialized countries per capita in 1980 to ten percent in the mid-1990s. The 2002 Report also warned against the rise of a bifurcated education system: an expensive system of private education accessible only to the relatively well-off, and a poorly funded public educational system incapable of assisting the less well-off achieve social and economic advancement. Only a commitment to social democracy can reverse these destructive trends.

These figures confirm that the lion's shares of growth in Egypt over the last two decades redounded to the benefit, almost exclusively, of the relatively well-off. But this is not simply a story of transferring wealth from the have-nots to the haves: it is also a story of a state that was unwilling to invest in improving the capacities of its own people. The Mubarak regime effectively purchased temporary macroeconomic stability at the price of future growth by failing to make the necessary social investments in Egypt's people that would assure continued stable growth.

That bill is now due. The upper quartile of Egypt's society by wealth and income must understand that if they truly want a stable democratic regime, with competitive elections and peaceful transition of power among civilians, then they must share more of the economic pie with the rest of Egyptian society. This can take place along two axes: the first is the reduction in subsidies that benefit largely the well off. The gasoline subsidy is one such example. So is free tuition to all public university students without regard to their wealth. Reducing subsidies to the well-off will free up valuable resources to support the poor and the working classes, who are eminently more worthy of state support than families sufficiently well-off to buy imported cars, or even own several apartments.

Likewise, the well-off will need to accept substantially higher taxes. A wealth tax may be easier to implement in the current circumstances than a rise in income tax rates, if only because it avoids the difficulty of documenting taxpayers' earnings, especially if much of that income is generated from real property rather than documented salaries or interest, dividends or capital gains from stock, bonds and certificates of deposit. The government could impose a progressive-style property tax, for example, which would take into account whether the property is the taxpayer's primary residence, its location, and its size, i.e., number of bed rooms; whether the property is the tax payer's first or second home (or even third, etc.); whether the property is occupied or unoccupied. A punitive tax on unoccupied housing as a means to encourage absentee landlords to rent their properties should be considered, in order to increase the supply of rental units in the housing market and thereby make housing more affordable. At the same time, rent-controls should be gradually lifted in at least more well-to-do neighbourhoods to allow appreciations in the values of those properties which in turn could also increase the tax base. A wealth tax could also be levied upon bank accounts, certificates of deposits, bonds and publicly-traded shares, without necessarily causing wealthier Egyptians to shun such investments.

While tax experts might have better suggestions, it is clear that Egypt will not be able to solve its economic problems without responding to the ongoing immiseration of Egypt's working classes and poor. And it will not be able to respond to those problems without risking runaway inflation unless the state's tax base and tax revenues substantially increase. This can only be accomplished if the relatively well-off agree to pay more in taxes.

If Egypt can implement the Nordic model of capitalism, its economic future will be much brighter than if it persists in its current anti-labor, anti-social policies: direct foreign investment would likely increase with evidence of a genuine political commitment to address the structural sources of instability in Egypt; namely, authoritarian rule and gross economic inequality. The resumption of social investments in Egypt's people will also increase Egyptian labor's productivity, thus increasing Egypt's attractiveness as a destination for labor-intensive investments .

Policies such as those described above would also reinforce Egypt's nascent democratic institutions because it would succeed in broadening the base of the citizenry who have a stake in the preservation of parliamentary democracy. With 40 percent of the population living on $2/day or less, it is not too difficult to imagine scenarios of vote-buying or worse. After all, don't the Mubarak thugs, the baltagiyya, come from the poorer classes who are eager to find any kind of work, even if it means acting to repress the rights of their fellow citizens? Accordingly, without a solution to the structural inequality of Egyptian society, there is good reason to fear that any democratic gains from this revolution will be quickly lost. The best way to guarantee that these gains are preserved is for the well-off to commit that they are prepared to make economic sacrifices in the form of social policies that will allow the great mass of Egyptians to share in future prosperity.

There is some evidence that the Supreme Military Council has begun to realize that Egyptian labor has legitimate demands and that the transition to a new government cannot proceed without incorporating labor's views. Today's edition of the Egyptian daily al-Ahram is reporting that the Supreme Military Council has finally agreed to meet with the leaders of the Egyptian Independent Trade Unionists. This is a crucial first step in giving Egyptian labor the recognition that is its due, but until meaningful commitments are made to protect workers' interests, don't hold your breath waiting for labor to get back to work. Nor should they.

FP Foreign Policy, Mon Feb 28 2011
Posted by Mohammed Fadel

Mohammad Fadel is the Canada Research Chair for the Law and Economics of Islamic Law and Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law.

Re: "Want to enjoy great wages and job security?" by Barbara Yaffe, Feb. 22.

Yaffe quotes former Reform MP Herb Grubel, who wants to deprive public servants of the right to strike. Wow!

The most recent example of someone trying to stop public servants from striking was Egypt's Hosni Mubarak. Nice company you're keeping. The right to collective bargaining and collective action is fundamental to democracy -and is largely responsible for all those things we enjoy, like 40-hour work weeks, statutory holidays, benefits and a strong economy fuelled by a strong middle class.

Next, Yaffe complains about the rate of pay increases for unionized public-sector workers between 1998 and 2009. Missing are figures for the previous decade, which saw a massive attack on the wages and jobs of public servants.

Then, the column blames bureaucrat raises for a large part of the federal deficit, but fails to point out the effect of massive tax cuts handed to corporations making billions and, in Alberta, to wealthy individuals making millions. If you really want to balance the books, try restoring taxation levels so everybody pays their fair share.

Albertans and Canadians have said time and time again that they want quality public services and are prepared to pay for them in the way of taxes. The alternative is privatizing services, which will result in an unacceptable decline in quality as corporations cut corners to improve bottom lines.

Edmonton Journal, Mon Feb 28 2011
Byline: Gil McGowan

The Wisconsin protests are about much more than budgets and unions. As I observed in "What Conservatives Really Want," the conservative story about budget deficits is a ruse to turn the country conservative in every area. Karl Rove and Shep Smith have made it clear on Fox: If the Wisconsin plan to kill the public employees' unions succeeds, then there will be little union money in the future to support democratic candidates. Conservatives will be effectively unopposed in raising campaign funding in most elections, including the presidential elections. This will mean a thoroughly conservative America in every issue area.

The media, with few exceptions, is failing to get at the deeper issues.

Let's start with the case of the Lincoln legislators. As is well known about Lincoln, and as the Political Wire reports,

On December 5, 1840, Democrats "proposed an early adjournment, knowing this would bring a speedy end to the State Bank. The Whigs tried to counter by leaving the capitol building before the vote, but the doors were locked. That's when Lincoln made his move. He headed for the second story, opened a window and jumped to the ground!"

Lincoln would be, and we all should be, proud that the Wisconsin state senators have courageously crossed the state line to Illinois to avoid a quorum in Wisconsin that would have a disastrous effect, not only on Wisconsin, but on America for the indefinite future.

Quorum rules are an inherent part of democracy. They are in the Wisconsin Constitution for a reason. When an extreme move by a legislative majority would be a disaster, patriotic legislators can, like Lincoln, refuse to allow the disaster is the have the power to stop it. That is their democratic duty, not only to their constituents, but to the nation.

That is why I think these legislators should be called the "Lincoln Legislators" as a term of honor. They understand that their courage is being called upon, not just in the name of collective bargaining rights, but in the name of protecting democracy from a total conservative takeover. The Lincoln story, and the greater good story, should be in the media every day. And Democrats nationwide should be hailing the courage, and vital importance, of those legislators.

Yet the media keeps reporting on them as "fleeing" and refusing to do their jobs. Where there is positive reporting, as on MSNBC's The Ed Show, it is only about defending unions and collective bargaining rights for working people.

The media -- and the Democrats -- also need to do a much better job on a sneaky conservative media strategy. The clearest example occurred in the NY Times. David Brooks, in his Feb. 21, 2011 column wrote: "Private sector unions push against the interests of shareholders and management; public sector unions push against the interests of taxpayers." I turned on CNN that day and heard Anderson Cooper introduce the Wisconsin protest story as a battle between taxpayers and unions. These are massive distortions, but they are what conservatives want the public to believe.

The real issue is whether conservatives will get what they really want: the ability to turn the country conservative on every issue, legally and permanently. Eliminating the public sector unions could achieve that. Collective bargaining rights are the immediate issue, but they are symbolic of the real issue at stake. That is the story the media should be telling -- and that Democrats everywhere in America should be shouting out loud.

What is standing in the way of having the real story told? It is the frame of collective bargaining itself, which only points to the parties that are doing the bargaining and what they are bargaining over.

The real point of collective bargaining is the idea of fairness inherent in democracy. Without unions, large corporations have an unfair advantage in hiring individual workers: Workers have to take what is offered, a fair wage for work done or not. Unions help to even the playing field, enabling workers to have a fair chance against wealthy, powerful large organizations -- whether corporations or governments.

But public employees' unions, in bargaining with governments, are raising deeper issues in which wealthy corporations and individuals play a huge role. The public employees' unions are aware that the top one percent of Americans have more financial assets than the bottom 95 percent -- a staggering disproportion of wealth. The wealthy have, to a large extent, amassed that wealth through indirect contributions to them by governments -- governments build roads corporations use, fund schools that train their workers, subsidize their energy costs, do research they capitalize on, subsidize their access to resources, promote trade for them, and on and on.

Meanwhile, over the past three decades, while corporations and their investors have grown immensely richer on the public largesse, middle class workers have had no substantive wage increases, leaving them poorer and poorer. Those immensely wealthy corporations and individuals have, through political contributions, have managed to rig our politics so that they pay back only an inadequate amount into the system that has enabled them to become wealthy.

The real targets of the public employees' unions are the wealthy free riders who, in a fair political economy, would be giving back more to the nation, and to the states and communities they function in.

That is the obvious half of what the Wisconsin protests are about. The other half concerns the rights of ordinary people in a democracy -- rights conservatives want to deny, whether gay rights, women's rights, immigrant rights, retirement rights, or the right to the best health a nation can provide to all its citizens. Unions, through their political contributions, support the basic freedoms, protections, and resources we all require to have a decent life and live in a civilized society. If those unions are destroyed, American life will become unrecognizable in a remarkably short time.

Democracy as we know it is at stake in the Wisconsin protests, not just budgets and unions.

Progressives are organizing rallies to "Save The American Dream." They are understating the case.

If Democrats are not talking out loud about these deeper issues, then they are, by their reticence and silence, helping conservatives destroy unions, defund the Democratic party, and take over the country.

The Huffington Post, Sat Feb 26 2011
Byline: George Lakoff