Monday, June 27, 2011

Eight Additional Activist Campaigns: Public Citizen to Credo....



What follows are eight updates on campaigns by various non-profit NGOs addressing various injustices, especially those by profit-maximizing corporations and their supporters.  
1) Public Citizen´s corporate anti-consumer rights´campaigns
2) Preventing anti-labor legislations by American Rights at Work 
3) Credo Telecom Action and Greenpeace´s anti-hydrofracking campaign
4) Jobs With Justice´s August conference
5) A Fall Solidarity Economics conference in Montreal 
6) Anti-Cuba legislation by the Latin American Working Group 
7) A Korea Free Trade Agreement campaign by the Long Island JWJ
8) Another Credo campaign about Telecom corp.´s funding of the right-wing.

1) Everyone has heard the story about Stella Liebeck, the 79-year-old woman who supposedly received millions of dollars after spilling hot McDonald’s coffee.

Corporate interests shaped her story into one about “sue-crazy consumers” and “greedy lawyers” teaming up to file a “frivolous lawsuit” against poor unsuspecting businesses like McDonald’s.

Corporate America’s version of this story was designed to manipulate the media and dismantle consumer rights.

Watch the trailer for “Hot Coffee,” the new documentary about corporate attacks on our civil justice system and learn what really happened.

For decades, Public Citizen has been fighting Big Business’ attempts to stop consumers from using our civil justice system to hold reckless corporations accountable.

In addition to the corporate misinformation campaign about the McDonald’s case, the documentary also details efforts to undermine the very structure of our legal system.

Attempts by lawmakers to prevent injured patients from holding big players in the medical industry accountable for wrongdoing are one example of such attacks.

Another example is the forced arbitration clauses that many corporations bury in the fine print of contracts for employment and consumer products. The clauses force wronged individuals into making their case before biased, unaccountable arbitrators that are dependent on corporations for repeat business.

Learn about what really happened in the McDonald’s case and other important issues facing consumers in the courts.

2) Wanted to make sure you saw this. Gov. Christie is expected to sign the bill this week, crushing the rights of 500,000 workers to collectively bargain over health care benefits.
And New Jersey's firefighters, police officers, and other public employees aren't alone. The New Hampshire legislature repealed their minimum wage law last week, and workers in Maine and Ohio are desperately fighting equally outrageous proposals from state lawmakers.
If there were ever a time to double-down our efforts in making this country a good place to work, it's right now.

3) We wanted to share with you this opportunity from our friends at Credo Action to communicate with Congress about the issue of Hydraulic Fracturing (or Fracking) for natural gas.
greenpeaceusa.org

4) Corporations want to use the failing economy as an excuse to reverse every worker protection put in place over the last century, but we are standing together and fighting back!
Come to the Jobs with Justice conference August 5-7 in Washington, DC to learn from and strategize with labor leaders, rank & file workers, students, religious leaders, community activists, workers excluded from labor law protection, and many, many more about how to build a powerful movement of working people to defeat the corporate agenda & build a better future for our communities, our country, and our world! Join us as we explore:
  • Establishing a new framework for collective bargaining rights in the 21st century
  • Building a new economy that supports full & fair employment
  • From the Middle East to the Midwest, building a culture of resistance - what’s next?
  • Defending, promoting, & expanding collective bargaining rights
  • Defeating attacks that divide workers by turning the tide on immigration criminalization & enforcement
  • Forging successful coalitions to defeat the corporate attack on working people
  • Kickoff to the Jobs with Justice 25th Anniversary Celebration
Visit www.jwj.org/conference to learn more about the conference program,

5) There is an international social and solidarity economy conference in Montreal this fall:
http://www.fiess2011.org/en/

6) Today the House Appropriations Committee voted in favor of an amendment, put forth by Representative Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida (R-FL 21st), to the FY 2012 Financial Services Appropriations bill. This amendment, which passed by voice vote, rescinds changes that President Obama made in 2009 to Cuban-American family travel and remittances regulations. If this amendment were to become law, Cuban Americans would only be permitted to visit their families in Cuba once every three years, with a limited definition of what constitutes family, and with no humanitarian exceptions. Cuban Americans would also be limited in what they could send in remittances to Cuba. We would be back to Bush Administration-era regulations on family travel. This is totally unacceptable.
Latin America Working Group
Email: lawg@lawg.org
7)  Stop the Korea Free Trade Agreement

1) If you are a member of an organization, congregation, or union, please sign onto a letter against the FTA Today!

2) Call your Congressional Representatives and ask her/him to Vote NO on the Korea FTA!

Join the national campaign and state-wide day of action to stop the Korea trade deal in its tracks. While the U.S. - Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA) is good for corporations and Wall Street, those on Main Street will once again be left behind. The Korea FTA will put 3.5 million U.S. jobs at risk during a time of record high unemployment. Powerful interests of greedy multinational corporations are already lobbying members of Congress. Now more than ever Congress must hear from YOU and all their constituents in opposition to this job-killing deal.  Take action and tell your Representative we can't afford to lose any more jobs-- Vote No on the Korea FTA!
Long Island Jobs with Justice

8) Does Your Phone Company Support the Tea Party?
Rep. Michele Bachmann, ringleader of the House Tea Party Caucus, is on a slash-and-burn campaign aimed at anything remotely progressive. Defund the EPA. Gut the funds for community health centers. Slash the Head Start budget for preschool kids. Prevent any government money from reaching Planned Parenthood or NPR. You get the picture. And Bachmann is backed by her Tea Party Caucus and the House GOP leadership.
So which phone companies helped fund the budget-slashers? AT&T and Verizon Wireless contributed $386,000 and $35,500 respectively to members of the House Tea Party Caucus in the 2010 election cycle, and both companies donated to Bachmann.
At CREDO, we fight the right wing—with a network of 2 million activists and with millions of dollars in donations to progressive nonprofits like the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, Earthjustice and Doctors Without Borders, to name a few. Join the fight. Join CREDO Mobile.
credomobile.com

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