Some 1,200 members of Mexico's National Miners' and Metalworkers' Union, or Los Mineros, have been on strike since July 2007 at the Cananea mine over health and safety and other contract violations.

Grupo Mexico, the mining giant which operates Cananea, and the Mexican government have continuously tried to end the strike and crush the union.

They have threatened and jailed union leaders, illegally frozen union bank accounts and failed to investigate or prosecute assassinations of union members.

On February 11th, a federal court gave Grupo Mexico permission to fire the striking workers and terminate the labor agreement. The government has threatened to use armed force to gain control of Cananea.

The Los Mineros members at Cananea are resolved to continue occupying the mine until a fair labour agreement is reached. Los Mineros is one of the strongest and most democratic trade unions in Mexico.

Take a moment to send off your letter of protest today from the LabourStart website today by going HERE.

2010 looks to be a big conference year.  LabourStart in July in Hamilton Ontario, Canada, LabourTech in Windsor Ontario, Canada 13-15 May.

The organizing committee has decided to link Labourtech to the annual conference of the Canadian Association of Labour Media to expand our networks and benefit from the workshops offered at both conferences.

    * Conference Schedule <a href="http://www.labourtech.ca/tiki-index.php?page=2010ConferenceSchedule">HERE</a>
    * Deadlines:
          o Conference registration:April 23
          o Hotel rooms:April 14
          o Residence rooms: April 30
    * Cost: $195 or $100 for individuals not funded by an organization or union

To register online go <a href="http://www.labourtech.ca/tiki-index.php?page=2010RegistrationForm">HERE</a>.

Workers in India, including children, will die young grinding gemstones for Valentine’s Day

We can make a difference: Sign the petition

On the eve of Valentine’s Day, the National Labor Committee is releasing an explosive new report:  “Hearts of Darkness, Workers in India, including Children, will Die Young grinding gemstones for Valentine’s Day.”

MORE

Written by Paul Joseph Poposky  

Wednesday, January 27, 2010--Professor Howard Zinn, the Peoples' Historian, died of a heart attack today in Santa Monica, CA, where he was vacationing and preparing for his next round of public speaking engagements.  At the age of 87, Zinn was one of the most recognizable names of the American left and a fixture in a wide array of struggles: from the women's liberation and civil rights movements to gay and lesbian rights and marriage equality, the anti-war and student movements, anti-imperialism/anti-colonialism, and the ongoing struggles of organized labor; wherever and whenever he was asked to go, Zinn was there.

Born into a family of working-class Jewish immigrants in New York City, 1922, Howard Zinn lived many of the struggles which he chronicled.  As a young man Zinn worked at the Brooklyn Navy Shipyards and participated in some of the early struggles of organized labor in the 20th century.  With the outbreak of World War II, Zinn joined the armed forces and served as a bombardier, where he witnessed firsthand the horrors and futility of war.  These experiences lead him to forever-after reject the notions of "good war" and nationalism.

After the war Zinn attended New York University on the GI Bill.  Upon graduation in 1956 he took a job teaching at Spelman College, Atlanta's historically black women's college, until he was fired for his personal involvement in the civil rights movement.  Zinn was hired as an associate professor at Boston University in 1964, where he taught until his retirement in 1988, and became deeply invested in the anti-war movement, wrote his books on People's History, sought to unionize the university and entered into a long and storied conflict with then-Boston U President John Silber.  Howard Zinn not only survived Silber's politically motivated sabotage and public smear campaign, but went on to re-write the narrative of American history.

Howard Zinn was best-known as the author of A Peoples' History of the United States and was responsible for preserving and teaching two generations of young Americans the proud history and traditions of working class struggle, militancy and protest, radicalism and rebellion and resistance to all forms of oppression.  In A Peoples' History Zinn plainly rejects the "Great Man" theory of history and instead used the actual history of the United States - a history so often ignored, buried or slandered by the ruling class - to show how REAL change comes from below, from the organization of everyday people who stood tall and stood together to confront power, to say no to exploitation and death.

A Peoples' History has been and continues to be a resounding success, inspiring a broad array of Peoples' History related projects and spin-offs, such as Zinn's A Young People's History of the United States, Chris Harman's A People's History of the World, and sports writer Dave Zirin's A People's History of Sports in the United States.  In 2008 Zinn teamed up with fellow radical historian and lecturer Paul Buhle and labor cartoonist Mike Konopacki to produce A People's History of American Empire, a graphic adaptation of Zinns most famous work, in which a new generation can discover the history of struggle brought to life by a rich and vibrant visual narrative which makes the content feel more like current events to new readers.

Perhaps one of Howard Zinn's greatest achievements was bringing his narrative and the message of A People's History and its companion volume, Voices of A People's History of the United States, into the homes of millions of Americans this past December when the History Channel aired the two-hour special The People Speak.  This groundbreaking program -- which ought to be taught in each and every school where American history is taught -- featured some of the most talented actors, musicians and poets in the country reading and performing selections from Voices, as well as songs of protest and the everyday hardships of those who've lived, fought and all-too often died for a better world.

This amazing project, which brought the TRUE radical history of the United States to life in the mainstream media, survived one far-rightwing attack after another from such conservative talking-heads as Matt Drudge and Patrick Courrielche, who petitioned to have the special broadcast cancelled and sought to smear The People Speak and Zinn's name; since they could not dispute the actual historic content and the words once spoken and written by such historic American icons as Muhammad Ali, Eugene V. Debs, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Mother Jones and Dr. Martin Luther King.  Regardless, the broadcast of The People Speak is a historic event in that it validates the very history which the capitalist ruling class and their bourgeoisie media tools have gone to great lengths to ignore and trivialize.

To truly understand Howard Zinn one must look-not only to his work preserving and sharing the People's History, but also Zinn's intent in doing so.  This was no simple man of the past, this People's Historian; Zinn's grasped the importance of preserving the memory of struggle, even when the class conflict seemed insurmountably stacked against the oppressed, and applying the lessons to be learned from those past struggles, victories and defeats to build greater class-consciousness in our struggles today.  From Zinn's autobiography, You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train, in his own words:

"To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic.  It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.

"What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives.  If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something.  If we remember those times and places -- and there are so many -- where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of the world in a different direction."

But perhaps it was Howard Zinn's hope and vision for the future that most clearly defined him.  Once, in a Q&A with David Zirin, a leftist sports writer and columnist for The Nation, Zinn said:

"Let's talk about socialism... I think it's very important to bring back the idea of socialism into the national discussion to where it was at the turn of the [last] century... Socialism had a good name in this country.  Socialism had Eugene Debs.  It had Clarence Darrow.  It had Mother Jones... It had several million people reading socialist newspapers around the country...

"Socialism basically said, hey, lets have a kinder, gentler society.  Let's share things.  Let's have an economic system that produces things not because they're profitable for some corporation, but produces things that people need.  People should not be retreating from the word socialism, because you have to go beyond capitalism."

Howard Zinn and the work he so sincerely and completely dedicated his life to touched the lives and inspired the work and struggles of countless individuals for the past two generations.  Though the death of this courageous man who struggled against all injustice and selflessly made himself a voice of the voiceless, both of the past and today, is a terrible loss to all of us on the left; we ought to remember Howard Zinn not only for his ideas, but also for the way he lived his life.  

Zinn was a humble titan of the movement of the oppressed and exploited everywhere, a prolific author and exceptionally authentic and approachable public figure, a great orator, an artist and playwright, and a dedicated and loving husband and father.  Zinn was a shining example of the newly-resurgent motto and axiom "be the change".  He was an inspiration to us all.

R.I.P. Howard Zinn, 1922-2010

A new weekly presentation of international labour news is now on the Internet.

The audiocast - called Solidarity News - started on Monday, February 1. The audiocast will remain on the RadioLabour site throughout its current week. New audiocasts will be posted every Monday morning.

RadioLabour is on the Internet at www.radiolabour.org.  It is also on Facebook, please join the RadioLabour page.

RadioLabour is the brainchild of Marc Belanger -- the founder of SoliNet, which was the first trade union online network back in the 1980s.

Solidarity News will focus on union and workers' activities and issues from around the world with special emphasis on emerging market and developing countries.

RadioLabour reporters will provide regular weekly presentations, but a special feature of the audiocast will be reports from unionists who want to report on particular events or publicize an activity of their organization.

Scripts of the audiocasts will be available as aids for unionists who want to learn the use of English as an additional language in the international labour movement.

For more information about RadioLabour, listen to the audiocasts, or provide reports, visit the RadioLabour site.  Or write directly to Marc at m.belanger@radiolabour.org

By Paul Joseph Poposky
originally published at SocialistAppeal.org

On Christmas Eve morning, Senate Democrats followed through on their promise to pass their version of a health insurance reform bill before the Christmas Holiday, delivering what has been hailed by many liberal commentators in major media outlets as an “early Christmas gift.”   However, American workers concerned about the rising costs of health care, the poor quality of service provided by private insurance for those who can even afford it, and the millions of people left behind by for-profit, market based health care ought not get too excited about the Affordable Health Care for America Act. This “early gift” is more like a lump of coal!

Health care workers, activists, and patients, as well as labor leaders and rank workers in general  -- many of whom voted the Democrats back into power in the “hope” they’d deliver a Universal, National Health Service -- have been left feeling confused, frustrated, and downright betrayed.  The Senate bill, like the House version, cedes even more power to the already influential private, for-profit insurance industry: the same industry that financed the Democratic Party and President Obama’s victorious electoral campaigns in 2008 while simultaneously padding the war chest of the Republican Party. They also bankrolled the fear-mongering and reactionary tea party “movement,” which turned the longstanding American tradition of town hall meetings into an “at your own risk” excursion in 2009. That is to say, the health care industry funded both “sides” of the “debate,” and now stands to reap a tremendous profit from their investment; all at the expense of the American working class. 

The Senate bill differs little from the version passed in the House back in November.  For the first time, individuals will be required by law to purchase insurance policies and maintain coverage, or pay punitive tax fines for non-compliance. Much of the language of the regressive Stupak Amendment, which prohibits the use of federal funds “to pay for any abortion or to cover any part of the costs of any health plan that includes coverage of abortion,” is included in the Senate bill. A tax on so-called “Cadillac” insurance plans will hit unionized workers especially hard and undermine generations of struggle by workers for a decent standard of living. The insurance industry will receive billions of dollars in additional profits, guaranteed by the personal mandate, fine scheme and taxpayer funded subsidies, and gain access to new markets as the privatization of Medicare/Medicaid continues unabated and Medicare faces upwards of $400 billion in cuts. The industry also gets to keep its decades-old anti-trust exemption. 

This scheme will cost American taxpayers over $800 billion dollars over the next decade and will do next to nothing to control costs; handing the great bulk of that money to the same private, for-profit insurers who have made a killing (literally!) denying Americans coverage or providing extremely limited and unreliable coverage, driving up costs and forcing many working class individuals and families into bankruptcy and poverty. Even more despicable is the 12 year market protection extended to Big Pharma for name-brand and high-tech prescription drugs, effectively a government guarantee of private corporate profits. Over 20 million people will still be left uninsured by the Senate bill, and countless more will be left without access to the health care they really need because, as many people have learned in the recent economic crisis, insurance does not guarantee access to actual care, especially not “affordable” care.

Of course, the only health care guaranteed to be “affordable” to all is universal, FREE health care and we can only have this by demanding, organizing for and winning a “Medicare for all” reform that includes everyone and leaves no one out, along the lines of the now-defunct HR 676 or SB 703. Public opinion polling has consistently shown for nearly a decade that Americans prefer such a national universal program over market-based proposals, and back in 2005/06 many leading Democrats paid lip service to such legislation, even promising to pass it if only American voters would deliver Democrats a “super majority” in the House and Senate. Well, the Democrats got their wish, and all American workers got was this lousy bill for $800 billion, which we get the “gift” of paying for over the next decade.

 As many Americans crowd the post-holiday lines at our local department stores, seeking to return or exchange unwanted gifts, we ought to remember that the party-line vote to approve the Senate Democrats’ bill was 39-60, with the Republicans favoring doing nothing and the Democrats supporting what amounts to a multi-billion dollar handout to the industry which is directly responsible for the death of 60 people in the US each and every day and the bankruptcy of thousands. Neither of these corporate, capitalist political parties represents the interests of the American working class, who make up the vast majority. America needs a working class party, an independent, mass party of labor based on the unions to fight uncompromisingly for the real interests of the majority. Only thus can we end the rationing of health care services based on economic privilege and win FREE, QUALITY health care for all as a human right!

Received today from Eric Blanc at City College of San Francisco:

To all student, worker, and teacher organizations and activists worldwide:

A California statewide conference of over 800 education faculty, workers, trade unionists, students and community people on October 24, 2009 at the University of California Berkeley issued a call for a Strike and Day of Action on March 4, 2010 in defense of public education and against cuts, fee hikes, and layoffs.
A key component of this strike and struggle is the fight against the catastrophic privatization of public education system in California. But we know that this attack on education and public workers is a worldwide offensive. Thus there is a need for an international struggle to defend public education and social services and against funding for militarization and war.

We therefore ask organizations of workers, students, and teachers throughout the world to send solidarity statements and organize mobilizations on March 4 in defense of public education. Through international solidarity, we will win!
 
- The California Coordinating Committee
march4strikeanddayofaction@gmail.com
www.defendcapubliceducation.wordpress.com

61 building service workers at the Toronto Dominion Centre in Toronto were locked-out and then fired by their employer when they refused to agree to the gutting of their collective agreement. They were forced to celebrate Christmas on a picket line almost 6 months after being forced off the job. Their union, CEP, is asking you to send a message to Cadillac Fairview, the company that manages the TD Centre. Tell CF that enough is enough! A copy of your message will go to the workers on the picket lines.

30 seconds is all it takes: go HERE to send a message to Caddillac Fairview.

We were expecting some pre-registrations for sure, but in the event the response to a very limited call-out has been overwhelming. Thanks to all who have responded, you're helping us with conference logistics, as well as the agenda.

As of today 382 people from 64 countries have pre-registered.

We know not all who have expressed an interest will be able to come, but it is encouraging to know so many would at least like to.

If you have not yet pre-registered and would like to, go HERE

If you think you might be able to attend the LabourStart conference on 9-11 July 2010 at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, please pre-register. This does not obligate you -- it just gives us a sense of who is interested in attending.

Thanks.

Pre-register HERE.