Rahm, you bungled the whole NATO weekend
Filed under: Militarism, US politics
It’s been a week since the NATO protests and I’ve been thinking about them on and off, especially after reading a few Crain’s Chicago Business articles that questioned whether the whole shebang was really good for the city and its businesses. A sample below:
What seems like a good idea at the start can quickly go sour, as anyone who’s ever offered to pick up the tab in a crowded bar can attest. Still mildly hung over from the NATO experience, we now await a full accounting of the weekend’s total cost.
Our guess is that the “Blues Brothers”-scale army of security personnel so visible throughout the NATO conference will be pricey, though presumably the feds will chip in something to defray that particular expense. Just how much we won’t know for a while.
The city’s restaurants, retailers, cabbies and museums—idled as Chicagoans avoided the Loop the way a preschooler avoids a salad bar —won’t be so lucky. Could these businesses apply for federal disaster relief? They may have a case…
And oddly, in its zeal to train the locals to duck and cover, Chicago may have inadvertently reinforced the cow-town image we seem so eager to shake: Out-of-town media reports, while highlighting the city’s charms, also noted the overwhelming police presence and the almost otherworldly emptiness of the downtown area.
As I thought about public event rowdiness and violence, I remembered how some of our sports fans get really riled up after a close game with a hated rival. Not pleasant to be around as they surge into the streets. Even our storied St. Patricks Day Parades have ended badly some years as fake Irish with their leprechaun t-shirts grappled with police while barfing up green beer. Read more
Do Nurses Have an Rx for Our Ailing Economy?
Filed under: Society and Economy, US politics
They became a Chicago media sensation after they streamed into Chicago’s Daley Plaza on the morning of May 18, wearing the now familiar National Nurses United (NNU) red scrubs. Many of them had the green caps and masks you’ve seen in nearly every Robin Hood movie ever made. The NNU is the largest union of nurses in the USA and one of the more progressive unions in the AFL-CIO. In addition to improving working conditions for nurses, the NNU has taken on the role of trying to nurse our sick economy back to health.
Near the Picasso sculpture in Daley Plaza, the NNU had a stage with a large banner of a smiling nurse in a Robin Hood outfit. Next to her was another banner of Sherwood Forest itself which served as the backdrop to the speeches, skits and music. The nurses put on quite a show, all in support of taxing Wall Street.
Chicago Mercantile Exchange Entrance Blocked As Protesters Criticize Huge Tax Break(Updated!)
Filed under: Uncategorized
Seniors, people with disabilities and health care workers blocked the front entrance to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange(CME) Wednesday around 9:30 this morning, as well the adjacent Jackson and LaSalle Streets. Police moved in about half an hour later and ordered people to clear the streets or face arrest. Demonstrators were protesting the CME’s parent company (CME Group) which was awarded multi-million-dollar tax breaks while human services were being cut by the State of Illinois.
Protesters block Jackson Blvd in front of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange
Most of the demonstrators moved on to the sidewalk, but some continued to block the street by sitting down or not moving their wheelchairs. They were arrested and escorted to an impromptu arrest area next to the CME building, given citations and then released from custody. According to arrestee Jim Rhodes, a total of 15 people were arrested and processed.
Caterpillar Machinists Strike Is Two Weeks Old & Holding Steady
Filed under: Global issues, Society and Economy, Unions
“Caterpillar has work plans, processes, policies and people ready to be deployed in the event of any business interruption, whether it is a tornado, fire or a strike.”—Caterpillar spokesperson Rusty Dunn: April 30, 2012
Thanks for nothing, Rusty Dunn. You just equated 780 striking Caterpillar workers to a potentially disastrous tornado or fire. The strike began on May 1 with peaceful picketing by the International Association of Machinists (IAM) Lodge 851. A few days later the union called for a solidarity rally in front of the Caterpillar plant near Joliet IL.
Mr. Dunn, I was at that IAM Lodge 851 strike rally on Friday May 11. I saw a sea of a red union shirts. I heard speeches and I listened to what the striking Cat workers had to say. I walked among people who made Caterpillar a global leader in heavy construction equipment. They are builders, not wreckers. I saw anger, but not rage. I saw quiet determination, but not fury. I saw human beings who work hard and solve complex production problems everyday. They are worth every penny that Caterpillar has been paying them and more. Rusty Dunn, you owe them a heartfelt apology.
They Call Themselves the Troublemakers Union
Filed under: Global issues, Unions
Because I am also submitting this to a local Chicago publication, the diary mentions mostly Chicago participants.
Over the weekend of May 4-6, 1500 union members, workers’ center activists and working class rebels gathered at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Rosemont IL for the biennial Labor Notes Conference. Labor Notes is the monthly magazine for labor activists who “want to put the movement back into the labor movement.” The publication grew out of the rank and file labor revolts of the 1970’s and for the past 33 years has reported on key labor struggles and issues. Not satisfied with just writing about labor insurgencies, Labor Notes also convenes special organizing workshops in addition to their regular national conferences.
Labor Notes readers proudly think of themselves as part of the “International Troublemakers and Boat-Rockers Union”. Their symbol is the slingshot, a weapon associated with David bringing down the mighty Goliath. It’s not an actual union of course, but a state of mind. Their brand of aggressive organizing is hated by global corporations. It is also unwelcome among those union leaders who cling to the tattered status quo of their big salaries with little effective action to show for it. Workers from 20 nations, including the USA attended the 2012 meeting.
Addie Wyatt 1924-2012: A Life of Christian Faith & Labor Solidarity
Filed under: Race and gender, Society and Economy, Unions
How does a person of faith live a purposeful life in a world gone wrong? Where does a moral vision come from, a vision that can thrive despite the inevitable blows that fall upon it?
I’ve been thinking about that a lot since Addie Wyatt, the celebrated South Side Chicago labor leader died in March of this year. I read several of the obituaries about her, but none of them really explained the road she traveled to become an associate of Dr. Martin Luther King, a founder of the Coalition of Labor Union Women, an international vice-president of the United Food and Commercial Workers(UFCW) and a Time Magazine Person of the Year (1975).
She was a very unique and talented person, but throughout her life, she had the solidarity of others to draw strength from. Great leaders need great people to work with them if they are to accomplish their goals. The obituaries I read in the mainstream media left out that she not only shaped social justice movements, but that she was shaped by them as well. After reviewing her life and accomplishments, I don’t think Addie Wyatt would want to be remembered as a one woman show.