Con Ed Holds Labor, NYC Residents Hostage During Heat Wave

Electric Utility Consolidated Edison, which supplies electricity in New York City and Westchester County, has continued to lock out  8,500 workers for the second week in a row, despite a series of  brownouts (carefully directed at low-income neighborhoods in the Bronx and Brooklyn), manhole explosions, injuries to managers, a loss of electric capacity, and unprecedented heat wave.

Another Con Ed transformer exploded on Saturday underneath E. 56^th Street in busy midtown Manhattan, setting off an explosion in a parked vehicle and sending flames up the scaffolding around an adjacent 16-story building. This was the most recent in a series of accidents and injuries related to the lockout. Con Ed is attempting to maintain an overtaxed infrastructure with a force of 5,000 managers, who have been brought in to replace 8,500 locked-out workers. Two of these managers have already been hurt in accidents. Most recently, a Con Edison manager filling in for a locked out union worker was injured Wednesday in a manhole explosion on the Upper West Side.  His face was burned  when he was working underground in front of 145 W. 70th St. just after 1 p.m., according to the NY Fire Department said.  The Fire Dept expects that the explosions are directly related the current heat wave…exacerbated by the loss of a knowledgeable workforce in the field.

While brownouts continue in Brooklyn and the Bronx, Con Ed has removed locations of outages from its website and is providing little or no public information on the status of its systems.

"This is what we have been saying all along, that the company would run into these problems when the weather heats up. They needed to reduce voltage because they could not keep the system up," John Melia, a union spokesman, told Reuters.  "This is an extremely dangerous situation for the people of New York," Melia said, noting that replacement workers were getting hurt every day due to a lack of experience.

It should be noted that the workers did not go on strike; rather, they were locked out by Con Ed Management.

Con Ed, which made a billion dollars in profits last year, is demanding substantial concessions in health care and pensions from the union that negotiates for the workers, the Utility Workers Union of America (UWUA) Local 1-2. The company locked the workers out July 1 when the union did not agree to give advanced notice of possible strike action. Meanwhile, CEO Kevin Burke received at least 11 million dollars in compensation in 2011 in cash and stock options. In fact, all of Con Ed’s Officers make over three-quarters of a million dollars each.

Jose Torres, a locked-out union worker with five years service at Con Ed, said, “The issues in the lockout are wages, pensions and health care. They are trying to break our wages down to nothing. They want to give us a 1.5 percent wage increase over a four-year contract.”

One Con Ed customer service representative said, “I’m not very happy about this. I was here Saturday night when the contract expired. I thought it was going to be OK until 2 AM. There were about 150 of us here at about 10 PM. Union reps let us know what was happening. At midnight they kept talking, and it still sounded good. Then Con Ed locked us out.

The work here is not like Verizon where they can turn people off with a switch. We have to go to every location to turn a customer’s power back on and repair the wires. I don’t think management can handle a big power surge or a blackout. They don’t have enough people to handle this. I would say only 2,500 of their 5,000 could do field work.

 Con Ed has already threatened lives and caused widespread suffering by calling the lockout on Saturday. We always send teams to help out with power outages and disasters around the country. With last week’s storm along the East Coast, power was out in New Jersey and on Long Island and many other places for long periods of time. Con Ed locked us out so we couldn’t send out teams as we regularly do, and the people along the East Coast were forced to suffer with power outages and breakdowns longer than they should have because of Con Ed’s action…

 They should leave the pensions alone. We do a dangerous job. You have to go down in manholes where there are live wires. The firefighters and police don’t go down there. Sometimes there are explosions and fires. People call the fire department when this happens, but they don’t go down in the manholes. If it is 100 degrees up on the street, it is 130 down in the manholes. There is the same kind of danger dealing with transformers and wires up on the poles. We come out to fix them, not the Fire Department or police. They should leave our pension like it is.”

Another worker reporter,

“They have stopped our health benefits. I have heart trouble, and I was supposed to go for a stress test. Oh my god. I am disappointed that none of the politicians have come out to condemn this. I know a family whose daughter needs constant medical care. She needs a number of medications and care. This might stop because Con Ed stopped our health care, and the father is the only one in the family working…. We are aware that all the other unions are watching this. We know this is critical. Everyone is looking at us, and we can’t let them take this back. I look at this personally as a civil rights struggle. Enough is enough, and I’m not going to take it anymore. In an ideal world, all the other unions would come out with us, especially Verizon and transit. We are making a stand, and I am asking all other unions to come out and support us. I don’t think the union leadership will issue a call for others to come out because they are too close to the company. But we shall overcome. We have to. It is do or die.”

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[It should be noted that under the federal Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, “sympathy strikes,” where a union strikes in solidarity with another union’s treatment, are illegal.]

Recession is NOT over: "Hard Times on Long Island"

 

As an Economist, I have been *insisting* that the "Recession" has not ended. Government practice is to claim that a Recession is taking place when Gross Domestic Product ("GDP"), the summed value of all goods and services created in a society's economy, falls for two quarters in a row.  Since the GDP appears to be growing at a paltry1% - 3%, they claim the recession is 'over.'

Unfortunately, the purely number-based approach to calculating GDP ignores the distribution of that growth (Is Goldman Sachs selling 5% more investment instruments, while more Americans lose jobs?), as well as the quality of that growth ($1 million dollars worth of new military hardware is considered 'better' than only a half million dollars worth of new health care provided).  The pure numbers ignore what is happening 'here on the ground.'  And while gigantic financial firms got bailed out with tax dollars from the Federal Government for risky and unethical practices, these same firms are foreclosing on American's homes at unprecedented rates (I always thought that if the Feds were going to 'give' money to banks, it should have been *required8 that all funds be used to pay up all overdue mortgages, thus saving a crumbling middle class while still infusing cash into the banking system).

Finally, a documentary by Blowback Productions, puts a "Human Face" on the suggestion that the recession is over by chronicling the lives of four families from my old stomping grounds: Long Island, New York. Due to air on HBO this Monday (July 9), Blowback issued the following promotional piece:

"The Great Recession "officially" ended in the summer of 2009, but for 25 million unemployed and underemployed Americans the fallout continues. For too many, their middle-class life has been foreclosed and their dreams have turned into nightmares. Sadly, their stories have too often been ignored. In a strange way they have been “disappeared,” evicted from our collective conscience – a permanent new underclass of long-term unemployed.

Located on Long Island, the birthplace of the post-war suburban American Dream, this documentary follows the story of the long-term unemployed and the shrinking of the middle class by chronicling the lives of four families. Starting in the Summer of 2010, which was supposed to be the summer of recovery, and continuing through the holiday season six months later, we witness the growing difficulties and despair as these people search in vain for employment while their plight and pain are too often invisible to the political and media elite.

This film hopes to remind us of their humanity and restore respect and dignity to their struggle.

Monday July 9th @ 9 PM Eastern on HBO "

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On America's Birthday: A "Thank You!" to France

For some reason I will never fully comprehend, there is a tendency among Americans – at least, among self-described flag-waving, ‘patriotic’ types – to roll their eyes and make dismissive comments when it comes to the French, or international politics involving France.  There is almost a knee-jerk ‘put-down of Things French….the way some New Yorkers refer to New Jersey….

But the reality is, the American Revolution – which is embodied in this holiday we call Independence Day – was not an American victory.  In spite of all of our civil mythology about the brave souls at Lexington and Concord, the brutal winter at Valley Forge, escaping from Brooklyn in the fog, Washington Crossing the Delaware, the Battle of Ticonderoga, ...the American Revolution was, at the least,  a Franco-American victory – and one could easily argue that it was largely a French victory.

A mere five months after the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Franklin was dispatched to France (December of 1776) to gain an alliance with the French.  Within weeks, French support of the Americans’ cause was being organized.

King Louis XVI and his foreign minister, the compte de Vergennes arranged for the large-scale sale of  gunpowder and ammunition to the colonists,  who had little capacity for mass production. The French arranged for the undercover use of a Portuguese shipping company to smuggle arms through the Dutch West Indies island of St. Eustatius.  If not for this channel of arms deals, George Washington could not have lasted a year.  In fact, British General Burgoyne’s defeat in the Champlain region of New York occurred entirely at the hands of American marksmen  - firing French ammunition.

 

In 1777,  Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette sailed for  America at his own expense (the Americans had already run out of money) and became a Major-General in the Continental Army and an aide-de-camp to Gen. George Washington at Valley Forge. He uncovered a plot to dismiss Washington, and secured the alliance of the Oneida Tribe for the colonists.  By February 6, 1778, France formally recognized the United States and signed a Treaty of Alliance, leading to numerous engagements between British and French ships in Europe. Lafayette recognized how outnumbered the Americans were, and  returned to France to recruit additional forces.

In the meantime,  the French (under d’Estaing) made attempts at capturing Newport, Rhode Island and Savannah, Georgia.  While unsuccessful, the efforts involved more French forces than American, and gave an early indication of the price France would pay for helping the Americans.

 
By March 1780, Lafayette returned from France and landed in Boston with his recruits: 5,500 men and 5 frigates.  In addition to Lafayette’s forces, the Americans received another French ally: Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, Comte de Rochambeau, who arrived in Newport, RI with 7,000 troops and was given the rank of Lt. General in the Continental Army. Rochambeau actually commanded a larger force than George Washington. Rochambeau met up with Washington in Wethersfield, Connecticut to plan a decisive assault on the British.

Washington wanted to drive the British out of both New York City and the Chesapeake Bay, but Rochambeau believed that the Chesapeake would be a more strategic battle. Either way, the Generals determined that additional naval forces would be needed for either effort, and Rochambeau dispatched a request to 

French Navy Lt. General François-Joseph Paul, marquis de Grasse Tilly, comte de Grasse, commander of the French West Indies forces, to sail to the Chesapeake.  Rochambeau and Washington then restaged their forces in White Plains and Dobbs Ferry, NY. 

De Grasse received the letters in July, agreed with Rochambeau’s analysis, and set sail. At the same time, British General Lord Cornwallis was setting up a major British military presence in the Chesapeake and Potomoc area of Virginia, but was being contained and harassed In Yorktown by Lafayette, who had confronted and contained him there. Washington and Rochambeau set out on a combined march to Virginia, while Cornwallis waited for additional supplies from the British Navy.

 In September 1781, Washington and Rochambeau met up with the Marquis de Lafayette's troops. 
Within days, De Grasse’s naval fleet reached the Chesapeake as planned. The British fleet arrived to deliver supplies to Cornwallis, only to find themselves in a battle with de Grasse for control of the bay in the Battle of the Chesapeake.  The naval battle was a decisive win for the French. 

On September 28, 1781, with DeGrasse’s French fleet blockading the British reinforcements, the combined forces of Rochambeau, Lafayette, and Washington laid siege to Lord Cornwallis’ forces. 

Cornwallis surrendered on October 19, 1781, and American Independence was won.

Ammunition, military expertise, troops, naval power….all were brought to bear by France…and without French participation, there would have been no American victory.  So the next time you have an inclination to say something smug about France or French military capabilities….a  "merci, mes frères!"  might be more appropriate.

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On Independence Day: Time for Another Revolution?

 

What follows is the list of grievances contained in the 1776 American Declaration of Independence which compelled us to engage in armed revolution. One can only wonder where that fiery, rebellious spirit has gone:

"...He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands…

(Like the refusal of Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform…and Arizona’s and Alabama’s efforts to force brown people to ‘show papers’ simply to travel)

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers…

(Like removing terrorism trials from Judicial Review by calling them ‘military tribunals’)

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance...

(like DEA waging a ‘War on Drugs’ and the FDA raiding raw milk vendors)

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures...

(Like a vague “war on terror” as a pretense for increased militarization and global adventures, the militarization of our police forces, and drones flying overhead)

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power...

(Like asking the Generals how they feel about “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” rather than telling them what to do)

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation…

(Like the World Trade Organization…)

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States…

(Like arresting citizens for videotaping police brutality incidents on their cell phones and protecting troops who engage in waterboarding and other tortures)

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world…

(Like embargoes on Cuba and Iran)

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent…

(Like Imputed Income Tax on same-sex spouses covered by health insurance)

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury…

(Like confiscation of property in tax and drug cases prior to trial)

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences…

(Like Guantanamo Bay)

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies…

(Like Iraq and Afghanistan)

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments…

(Like suspending Writs of Habaeus corpus under The Patriot Act, and eliminating the need for a warrant to search cars, library records, and bank accounts)

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

(Like gerrymandering districts to insure the outcomes of elections, making it almost impossible for third parties to get on the ballot, and passing laws against victimless crimes and regulating our private lives).

What will YOU do this year to continue the Spirit of the American Revolution?

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Green Party Qualifies for Federal Election Matching Funds

As of yesterdays’ deadline, Dr. Jill Stein has become the first Green Party candidate in American history to have raised enough 'small level' donations, in enough states, to qualify for federal matching funds.

 

Federal election law provides matching funds to any Presidential candidate who raises $5,000 in campaign contributions from each of 20 states.  Only the first $250 per donor counts, so no single large donor is able to ‘buy’ the matching fund threshold. The Stein campaign reached the threshold in 21 states plus the District of Columbia, exceeding the requirements. The top ten states for donations (in order) are Massachusetts (her home state), New York, California, Washington, Illinois, Minnesota, Connecticut, Wisconsin, Texas, and Arizona.  Of these, Arizona may be the most significant, as the Greens have achieved ballot access in that state, and it is considered by many observers to be a swing state in this election. The Greens have also achieved ballot access in 22 states (although these are not exactly the same as the states where they reached matching fund thresholds), and are in the process of obtaining petition signatures to gain access in 18 others.

 The Green Party Convention will be held in Baltimore, Maryland from July 12-15 this year.  While the official platform will be adopted at that time, the current Green Party platform is a decided mix of Progressive economic and environmental policies, and the probably the strongest embrace of civil liberties of any party in recent memory.  The  Green Party Website enumerates "10 Key Values," including commitments to grassroots democracy, social justice and economic opportunity, ecological wisdom, non-violence, decentralization, community-based economics, gender equity, diversity, personal and global responsibility, and a focus on the future and sustainability.  Green Party members have been active in criticizing the bank bailouts and have been active in the Occupy movement.

Dr. Jill Stein, the presumed standard-bearer for the 2012 elections, issued the following statement in reaction to the Party’s meeting the matching fund goal:

"It's been an incredible week.

Just seven days ago when our campaign began an intensive push to qualify for federal matching funds, we were only half way to the threshold.  We had reached the required $5000 donation level in only 10 of the 20 states we needed.  Today, thanks to an outpouring of support from across the nation,  we have qualified in 22 states, two more than the FEC requires.

We are now in the process of submitting a qualifying package to the FEC that will include the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, DC, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennylvania, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin.

Just two days ago, it looked like Connecticut,  Arizona, and the District of Columbia might not make it. But you decided that failure was not an option.  And you made it happen. I'm extremely grateful to the army of volunteers who stepped up to the plate and made phone calls and sent emails asking their friends to donate to our campaign.  They did this because they believed in what we stand for. And because this campaign belongs to us all.

I'm especially grateful for the support we received from the peace community, from Medicare for All advocates, and the drug policy reform community. They made it clear that they needed a voice in the 2012 presidential race, and that we were the only ones who could provide it.

Our achievement is another sign that the spirit of democracy and justice is alive and well in America. It is rising up in the continuing fight for health care as a human right, in student strikes for affordable higher education and the forgiving of college debt, in eviction blockades, Occupy Movement, and the fight of workers for jobs and living wages and the right to form unions, and in growing mass civil disobedience to protect our imperiled climate future. Now, thanks to your support, democracy and justice now have a voice in this presidential election as well, and we are proud to be that voice.

The surge of support in the matching funds campaign arose despite the constant diet of Obama/Romney that the corporate media is feeding the American people.  People are hungry for alternatives - they want to hear about the solutions that are being kept off the table by the establishment parties - they want real debates, not stage-managed squabbles between two defenders of war and Wall Street. They want the truth.

We are the party of no more bailouts. We are the party of a Green New Deal to create 25 million jobs that jumpstart the Green economy and make wars for oil obsolete and saves the climate. We are the party of health care the right of every American through .  We are the party of taking action to save the climate of this planet.  We are the party that save the taxpayers from the burden of the bloated, unaffordable Pentagon budget and end the use of drone aircraft for assassinations. We are the party that will solve the student debt problem and fully fund the education of our children.  We are the party that stands for sane, scientific drug policies and rebuilding our communities that have been devastated by crime and foreclosures.

Every vote for the Green Party ticket is a vote for a new direction for America. It is a vote for a Green New Deal in which solving the problems of people will be a higher priority than propping up Wall Street banks and rewarding hedge fund operators.

I want to express my sincere gratitude to all those who donated during to our campaign, who got on the phone and called their friends, who sent out emails, who posted appeals online, or who helped in any way. You are what democracy looks like. I want to thank our hard working campaign staff for whom this campaign is more than a job. With your support, we are going to change politics in America.

We're especially proud to that one of the states in which we qualified is the District of Columbia - one of America's last colonies. The United States is the only purportedly democratic nation in the world that denies voting representation in the national legislature to the citizens of its capital city. The Green Party is committed to righting that wrong. We are deeply grateful for support that our campaign has received from the voters in the District - and we will stand up for you.

Our first major goal in this campaign was to win the Green Party nomination. We appear to have done that by winning 29 state primaries and securing well over half the delegates to the nominating convention. Our second goal was to qualify for federal matching funds. Today, we have done that. We now focus our resources on completing our ballot drive efforts across America, working to win the support of people outside of the Green Party to our common cause. Our goal is to be on the ballot for more than 90% of the voters in America. Clearly, many more challenges must be met. And with your help, we will meet them.

So today we celebrate a victory. And every voter who joins us in calling for a new direction in America is a victory. Let's keep standing up for people, peace and the planet.

Thank you.

~ Jill Stein, M.D."

The Stein campaign website, which is separate from the official Green Party website,  can be found here:  http://www.jillstein.org/

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