Climate Crisis -- Urgent Action Needed Now!

-----Original Message-----

From: Alan Maki [mailto:amaki000@centurytel.net]

Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2008 11:26 AM

To: 'climateconf@greenleft.org.au'; 'wcs-a@yahoogroups.com'

Cc: 'rep.brita.sailer@house.mn'; 'mmiron@bemidjipioneer.com'; 'bswenson@bemidjipioneer.com'; 'editor@orionsociety.org'; 'editor@outdoornews.com'; 'Laurel'; 'William McAuliffe'; 'William Oldfather'; 'David Shove'; 'rgettel@uaw.net'; 'Robert Killeen'; 'gdubovich@usw.org'; 'Carolyn Laine'; 'rep.dave.olin@house.mn'; 'info@minnesotaruralpartners.org'

Subject:

Re: Please add my name and organization identification to your statement



Alan L. Maki

Director of Organizing,
Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party (Democratic Party); Member, State Central Committee


I call to your attention my blog on this issue:

http://capitalistglobalization.blogspot.com/

I would also call to your attention efforts to save northern Minnesota’s Big Bog--- our largest freshwater aquifer:

http://pineislandstateforest.blogspot.com/

http://freeman-forum.blogspot.com/

http://mnbigbog.blogspot.com/

It would be most helpful if you would be able to circulate links to these blogs and encourage people from across the world to help us in these struggles.

I am Bcc’ing this to a number of people and list serves encouraging them to add their names.

As you can see, I have notified several public officials, union leaders, and the media of my decision to add my name to the signatories of this statement.

Yours in the struggle for peace, social & economic justice, saving our planet and its ecosystems from global warming;

Alan L. Maki




Climate Crisis -- Urgent Action Needed Now!

Statement Initiated by Participants in the
Climate Change - Social Change conference,
Sydney, Australia, April 11-13, 2008

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/ccsc220408.html

The following statement was started by the participants
in the Climate Change - Social Change conference.
Anyone who agrees with it is welcome to add their
signature, and an updated list of signatories will be
issued on a regular basis (contact:
<climateconf@greenleft.org.au>.).

It is being distributed to environmental, trade union,
Indigenous, migrant, religious and community
organisations to help build the movement against global
warming

1. The latest climate science shows that the global
warming crisis is already here

The evidence about global warming is more alarming than
ever. It is likely that critical "tipping points" once
believed to lie in the future have already been passed
(see Climate Change and Trace Gases, by James Hansen et
al, 2007, available at www.carbonequity.info):

* Arctic ice loss reached 20% by extent over the
past two years as against 7% a decade over the
period between 1979 and 2005; the volume of Arctic
summer ice is estimated to have fallen by 80% over
the last 40 years; glacier movement in Greenland is
speeding up, producing massive "ice quakes"; in
Antarctica the 2002 collapse of the Larsen B ice
shelf and the recent splitting of the Wilkins ice
shelf raises the spectre of the collapse of the
West Antarctic ice sheet (and sea levels rising 5
metres).

* The feedback sources of global warming are
accelerating, with declining reflection of solar
radiation, falling carbon absorption capacity of
soils, forests and oceans and increased forest
fires and methane release from Siberian tundra
permafrost. By 2006 global annual human CO2
emissions were 9.9 gigatonnes of carbon, with only
4 gigatonnes being absorbed by the Earth's "carbon
sinks". Some scientists project this figure to fall
to 2.7 gigatonnes of carbon a year by 2030.

* As a result, according to James Hansen, director
of the NASA Goddard Institute of Space Science,
"the Earth is gaining more heat than it is losing:
currently 0.5 to 1 watts per square metre. This
planetary imbalance is sufficient to melt ice
corresponding to a 1 metre of sea level rise per
decade, if the extra energy were used entirely for
that purpose -- and the energy imbalance could
double if emissions keep growing."

2. A 2º maximum average increase in world temperature
probably won't stop destructive climate change

A 2º increase in average global atmospheric temperature
above pre-industrial levels has been widely accepted
(for example, by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change) as the maximum allowable if uncontrollable
global warming is to be avoided. The chance of a 2º
increase has been rated at between 38% (IPCC) and 78%
(Hadley Centre) if greenhouse gas concentrations reach
450 parts per million of CO2 equivalent (CO2e). But
these have already reached 459ppm CO2e, producing a
0.8º increase and "locking in" another 0.6º. Clearly,
an upper limit of 450ppm is too high, risking further
destructive climate feedbacks.

3. We need a greenhouse gas reduction target that fits
the global warming crisis

Existing broadly accepted targets for greenhouse gas
reduction (GGR) are therefore far too little far too
late. In particular, the commonly accepted GGR target
of 60% by 2050 compared to 2000 (advanced by the Stern
Review, European Union and the Australian Labor Party)
would allow greenhouse gas concentrations to grow to
550ppm CO2e, making a 3º average temperature increase a
50:50 chance and risking even more extreme increases --
with catastrophic consequences for billions of human
beings and entire ecosystems. This frightening reality
dictates an approach of stopping greenhouse gas
concentration increases as soon as possible, with the
goal of reducing them to a long term safe and
sustainable level (around 300-325ppm CO2, roughly
corresponding to a 0.5º increase from pre-industrial
levels).

4. Despite the urgency of the crisis, solutions are
possible

Despite the enormity of the global warming threat the
carbon-reducing technologies, industrial processes and
forms of economic and social organisation that can
reverse it already exist or can be created. Many
needed policies (e.g., rapid energy demand reduction
and application of sustainable energy technologies) are
already being introduced, albeit on an extremely
inadequate and under-resourced scale. The central
challenge is to speed up the replacement of carbon-
intensive infrastructure and forms of economic and
social organisation, setting in place the measures
supporting climate sustainability at a pace that meets
the timetable for the greenhouse gas emission cuts the
Earth needs.

5. Vested interests stand in the way of climate
sustainability and have to be confronted

Reaching this goal involves more than a debate about
climate science and government climate policy. It is
also, even primarily, a struggle against those forces
with a vested interest in keeping the transition to
sustainability within a framework that doesn't risk the
profitability of carbon-intensive investments. Also,
while the global rate of investment in renewable and
sustainable technologies is increasing rapidly from a
low base, it still falls far short of that needed to
produce the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions
required by climate science.

6. Existing climate change policy is falling behind the
challenge

Likewise, the presently preferred lead policies against
global warming -- carbon trading schemes and "feed-in"
tariffs -- have not speeded up the uptake of
sustainable technologies to the pace needed. Even the
most advanced Mandated Renewable Energy Targets
envisaged by mainstream environmental organisations
would see 60-70% of energy still being produced by
carbon-intensive technologies (coal and oil) in 2020.
In those states and regions where such policies done
most to increase energy efficiency and stimulate
private investment in sustainable technologies
(Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Spain, California)
energy use and greenhouse gas emissions are at best
falling very slowly. At the international level the
Kyoto Protocol failed and the Bali round threatens to
repeat that failure on a larger scale.

7. The real road to climate sustainability has five
basic elements

There can be no real shift to climate sustainability
without five core elements -- properly resourced public
agencies to drive the sustainability effort, an
international framework where the First World pays the
vast bulk of the price of reversing global warming, an
end to rampant consumerism, vastly strengthened
campaigns for climate sustainability, and building a
powerful political alliance for climate sustainability
with social justice. These imperatives are explained
in the next five sections.

8. We need properly funded public agencies to oversee
the sustainability transition

Climate sustainability will never be achieved if
basically entrusted to the profit motive and the
market. At the core of any successful transition will
be a public agency or agencies entrusted with
guaranteeing that adequate targets are met. Without
going into detail -- which will vary widely by country
and region and require ongoing elaboration to meet
local conditions -- the main tasks of any public agency
overseeing the transition to climate sustainability
will be to:

1. Drive the implantation of energy saving and
efficiency programs, including mandatory and
enforceable minimum standards for domestic and
commercial buildings;

2. Oversee programs to convert existing building
stock to zero-carbon status;

3. Implement a plan to introduce renewable energy
technologies at all levels, simultaneously phasing
out fossil fuel fired power generation;

4. Foster research, development and the application
of sustainable technologies and processes, with a
view to achieving their mass application as rapidly
as possible;

5. Oversee the upgrading and spread of rail networks
to provide the capacity to shift long-distance
freight movement from road and air to rail;

6. Oversee the conversion of the car industry to
non-polluting forms of propulsion;

7. Foster the growth of a new model of agriculture
and forestry which includes the advances of methods
like permaculture and aims to retain and increase
the carbon-absorption capacity of the land
biosphere;

8. Oversee the closure of polluting industries and
the full retraining on full pay and conditions of
the workers affected; and

9. Promote social instead of private ways of
meetings basic human needs in housing, domestic
work, child and aged care, transport etc.

9. We need international solidarity in the fight
against global warming

The advanced industrial nations, whose own growth
continues to depend on access on favourable terms to
Third World resources, have been responsible for 76% of
emissions since the beginning of industrialisation.
Powers like the United States, Europe, Japan and
Australia cannot now demand that those economies that
are presently at earlier points on the path of
industrialisation (or still locked in underdevelopment)
pay the price for decarbonising the structures of
production for which they are overwhelmingly
responsible. Accepting the cost burden of overseeing
the transition to climate sustainability in developing
countries involves the creation of a global
sustainability fund overwhelmingly funded by the
advanced industrial powers. Resources presently wasted
on military spending could, if switched into such a
fund, finance a rapid global switch to renewable energy
sources.

10. We need a struggle against consumerism

The struggle for sustainability is also a struggle
against the consumerist, individualist life-style of
"developed" industrial society and a search for a
human-centred and community based social existence.
Solidarity with the struggles of Indigenous peoples
whose environments have been stolen and most ravaged by
"development" and the study of their values will teach
a lot about what sustainability and care for ecosystems
really mean. In particular, attention to these values
will be an important element in countering the mass
lifestyles promoted by the vested interests of the
corporations -- with their ever higher levels of
consumption, builtin obsolescence and throw away
culture.

11. We need the broadest possible alliance for social
justice and climate sustainability

The bedrock of the transition to climate sustainability
lies in developing the alliance between the
environmental and climate change movement and working
people, young people, the unemployed and welfare
recipients, and their union and community
organisations. Such an alliance can only develop on
the basis that the costs of the transition to climate
sustainability are funded from reduced wasteful
spending in government budgets (for example, on
military hardware and subsidies to polluting
industries) or through taxes borne by those who bear
greatest responsibility for the climate crisis and
those who can most afford to pay. Whatever the
mechanisms used to reduce the use of carbon-intensive
products and processes and to harvest the income to
help fund the replacement of carbon-intensive
infrastructure, the burden must fall primarily on the
corporate world and the rich. The history of
ecotaxation has already seen too many failed attempts
at making ordinary consumers pay, leading to working-
class and popular alienation from the environment
movement, and providing dangerous openings for right-
wing anti-environmental demagogues. If those opposed
to radical action for climate sustainability succeed in
turning the mass of working people against the global
warming struggle there simply will not be a
sustainability transition -- the majority (especially
the poorest and most oppressed) will see the fight
against global warming as an attack on their living
standards, social gains and rights, reproducing on a
massive and debilitating scale the split between forest
preservation movements and timber workers in places
like Tasmania, the US and Canada. The struggle for
climate sustainability will also be weakened if it
separates itself from other struggles for social
justice and equality. By supporting all those
campaigning for their rights the climate sustainability
struggle will strengthen its own cause.

12. We must build all campaigns for climate
sustainability

The emergence of movements that give powerful and
sustained organisation to the profound community
concern about global warming will be the key driver of
the climate transition. The Climate Change - Social
Change conference commits to helping build the movement
for climate sustainability in Australia and elsewhere.

The signatories to this statement come from a wide
range of backgrounds -- climate activism, scientific
climate research, Green, socialist, Indigenous,
feminist and many more. We do not agree on all the
issues in play in the great, complex debate about how
to confront and defeat global warming, but we do agree
on the basic approach outlined in this statement. We
understand that ongoing involvement in the struggle for
climate sustainability will give us the best chance of
further developing policy against global warming and
resolving present differences. We are also committed
to further developing the discussion that has taken
place at this conference, and will form an email
network to this end. We urge everyone committed to the
vital cause of reversing global warming -- even if they
do not agree with the analysis and proposals presented
here -- to join it and use it to develop our collective
understanding and effort to confront humanity's most
vital challenge.

Signatories (at April 19, 2008)

The signatories have signed in a personal capacity.
Titles are for identification purposes only

John Bellamy Foster, Professor of Sociology, University
of Oregon. Editor, Monthly Review

Patrick Bond, Director, Centre for Civil Society,
University of KwaZulu-Natal School of Development
Studies

Ian Angus, Coordinator, Climate and Capitalism web site

Pat Eatock, Secretary, National Aboriginal Alliance,
Aboriginal Rights Coalition

Sam Watson, Deputy Director, Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander Studies Unit, University of Queensland

Cam Walker, Campaigns coordinator, Friends of the Earth
Australia

Jim Green, National nuclear campaigner, Friends of the
Earth Australia

Genevieve Kelly, Senior Lecturer, School of Social
Sciences, University of Western Sydney

Stuart Rosewarne, Co-editor, Capitalism, Nature,
Socialism and Australian Journal of Political Economy

Hans Baer, Lecturer, School of Anthropology, Geography,
and Environmental Studies, University of Melbourne

Adrian Whitehead, Beyond Zero Emissions, Zero Emissions
Network

Dick Nichols, National Coordinator, Socialist Alliance,
Australia

John Rice, Co-ordinator, Adelaide Eco-socialist Network

Kamala Emanuel, National Environment Coordinator,
Socialist Alliance, Australia

Renfrey Clarke, Climate change analyst, Green Left
Weekly

Ben Courtice, Climate change group, Australian
Manufacturing Workers Union, Victoria

Simon Cunich, Climate change activist, Resistance,
Newcastle

Melanie Barnes, Students Against the Pulp Mill,
Tasmania

Dave Holmes, Manager, Resistance Books, writer on
environmental issues

Emma Murphy, Co-editor, Green Left Weekly

Stuart Munckton, Co-editor, Green Left Weekly

Richard Stiles

Kellie Gee

Peter Lach-Newinsky

Del Weston

Leigh Hughes

Alan L. Maki
58891 County Road 13
Warroad, Minnesota 56763
Phone: 218-386-2432
Cell phone: 651-587-5541
E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net

Check out my blog:

Thoughts From Podunk

http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/

More on the 2008 Freeman Forum

-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Maki [mailto:amaki000@centurytel.net]
Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2008 9:17 AM
To: 'Larry Ely'; 'Denise Pfeifer'; 'peter.makowski@mail.house.gov'; 'amthayer'; 'Jody Beaulieu'; 'carl.pope@sierraclub.org'
Cc: 'rep.brita.sailer@house.mn'; 'mmiron@bemidjipioneer.com'; 'bswenson@bemidjipioneer.com'; 'editor@orionsociety.org'; 'editor@outdoornews.com'; 'Laurel'; 'William McAuliffe'; 'William Oldfather'; 'David Shove'; 'rgettel@uaw.net'; 'Robert Killeen'; 'gdubovich@usw.org'

Subject: RE: Freeman Forum Lecture Follow Up

Mr. Ely,

Thank you for responding. It is good to know that our message of hope is getting out far and wide.

You have provided some excellent ideas; unfortunately, many of these ideas will not fly in Minnesota at this time--- at least those requiring “political will” because there has been a return to the very corrupt politics where corporate control and banking interests are the dominating forces.

I found your advice about local power and local manufacturing to be sage and powerful advice.

I regret to inform you that one of the most hi-tech and scientifically advanced and as green friendly as a manufacturing operation gets--- completely powered for free with clean green hydro employing two-thousand workers--- is about to be demolished: the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant, which has a brand new thirty-million dollar state-of-the-art research and training center attached is about to be turned into a pile of rubble; only to be replaced with up-scale housing and cute little boutiques creating a racially segregated yuppie community of sorts. For over eighty years, tax-payers have subsidized the Plant and hydro dam which only recently had its turbines replaced compliments of state and federal tax-payers--- the politicians refuse to tell us the total bill for tax-payer subsidization taking place under the guise of creating and saving jobs for Minnesota workers; and, now, these corrupt politicians, working with bankers, entrepreneurial investors and Ford’s real-estate holding division are going to have tax-payers foot the bill for demolishing this plant and destroying this tremendous wealth which is embodied in this plant as these same politicians are allowing the Ford Motor Company to sell the hydro dam to a foreign corporation. Tax-payers have subsidized the entire operation and the profits of the Ford Motor Company for years; in the end, tax-payers own nothing while tax-payers and the workers have been excluded from participating in the decision-making process while all of this is what passes for democracy.

I regret to inform you, but the organization with which David Morris, who I agree has done excellent work, has become part of a blue-ribbon “coalition” rubber-stamping and backing the destruction of this tremendous wealth which could be used in line with many of your proposals.

None other than Carl Pope and Leo Gerard have “fallen into line” in supporting demolishing this plant after first having made a commitment to fight to save the plant and hydro dam as a manufacturing unit along the lines called for in legislation proposed by UAW Local 879 whose members are employed in the Plant… people across Minnesota passed resolutions in Democratic precinct causes in support of saving this Plant and hydro dam… a handful of progressive elected officials attempted to pass legislation known as SF 607 aimed at keeping the plant and hydro dam intact as an industrial unit… state senator Jim Metzen, a banker and Democrat, did this legislation in as Chair of the DFL dominated Committee on Business, Industry and Jobs while Iron Ranger Tom Rukavina was able to get the bill through his House Committee with bi-partisan support. Unfortunately, as you probably are aware, Ron Gettelfinger who now leads the UAW has thinking which does not allow for progressive solutions to these kinds of problems… he has his head stuck so far up the butts of the corporations he is supposed to be fighting he does not have the ability to think clearly anymore.

I have a deep appreciation for all the suggestions you have provided. I come from a family of “red” Finns who were very active in the co-operative movements of the Iron Range. My grandfather served on the board of the historic Gilbert, MN Co-op for many years until his death; this co-op store was one of the “flag-ship” co-ops established by the “red” Finns. My grandparents were part of the far-sighted group of “red” Finns from across the Iron Range which built Mesaba Co-op Park near Hibbing and fought the mining companies in bitter battles to establish the United Steel Workers union on the Iron Range which has seen a massive decline in employment on the Iron Range over the last 30 years… not coincidentally United States Congressman James Oberstar has been part of it all as he has found himself a niche in politics by pretending anger at the mining companies as some fifty-thousand jobs in the iron ore mines were lost, all the while receiving campaign contributions from the mining companies for not really intervening in their continued robbery of the communities of the Iron Range as they exploit workers to the hilt… Oberstar now comes full circle and has helped create thirty part-time, seasonal jobs destroying our primary freshwater aquifer up here in northern Minnesota. It is no coincidence that we now find Congressman James Oberstar conducting another one of his dog and pony shows as Northwest Airlines is taken over by Delta which will jeopardize over ten thousand jobs here in Minnesota… what will happen is that Congressman Oberstar will demonstrate his oratorical skills to lull working people and the unions into inactivity making them think he is a fighter for them when he and the airline companies have already agreed that he will rant and rave as the deal goes through. As these thousands of workers will join the ranks of the growing unemployed and impoverished working class here in Minnesota your ideas will be needed more than ever.

Against all of this, we can only “hope” that the influx of the many youths who have come out for a presidential candidate supported by James Oberstar who bases his campaign on “hope” will not wait until after Election Day to act on these issues.

Of course, we are not waiting based upon “hope” for any of these problems to be resolved… we know that in fighting these powerful financial interests it takes a strong, vibrant, active movement to fight-back if we expect to win.

We are saddened that people like Carl Pope and Leo Gerard have given in to this corporate power so easily without even putting up a fight… in the spirit of your suggestions we are struggling the best we can with what little resources available to us against these well-heeled politicians and the corporations and bankers backing them.

The Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party which has part of its roots in the historic cooperative and socialist movement known as the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party led by the “reds” provides us with a solid foundation we can build upon as we take on corporate power; unfortunately, the other half of the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party comes out of the very racist and historically corrupt and viciously anti-communist, maliciously anti-union Minnesota Democratic Party--- the forces of which have come to dominate the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party of today.

Let me assure you that in addition to discussing many of the fine ideas you have enclosed here, we are also discussing the need to break free of the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party so that the working class will once again have a voice to call its own… I think your ideas will flourish if we can elect a Governor and some legislators who will bring to the political arena the ideas of Minnesota’s two most popular ever governors--- socialists Floyd B. Olson and Elmer Benson; it was under their administrations--- and with governmental assistance--- that the cooperative and union movements grew and flourished.

Again, thanks for your suggestions… I am passing them on to a wider circle of friends who I know will appreciate these ideas.

Alan L. Maki
58891 County Road 13
Warroad, Minnesota 56763
Phone: 218-386-2432
Cell phone: 651-587-5541
E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net

Check out my blog:

Thoughts From Podunk

http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/




-----Original Message-----
From: Larry Ely [mailto:tetrahedrons@crocker.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2008 7:10 AM
To: Alan Maki; 'Denise Pfeifer'; peter.makowski@mail.house.gov; 'amthayer'; 'Jody Beaulieu'; carl.pope@sierraclub.org
Cc: rep.brita.sailer@house.mn; mmiron@bemidjipioneer.com; bswenson@bemidjipioneer.com; editor@orionsociety.org; editor@outdoornews.com; 'Laurel'; 'William McAuliffe'; 'William Oldfather'; 'David Shove'
Subject: RE: Freeman Forum Lecture Follow Up

FYI, a couple of nifty flyers loaded with life giving ideas for moving out of our artificial world built on non-sustainability - on oil. These are in Landscape mode on 8.5 by 11 paper, so tell your printer that. Note that we cite the important work of David Morris of Minnesota.


At 10:35 PM 4/22/08, Alan Maki wrote:

Ms. Pfeifer,

Thank you for inviting me to the Freeman Forum; it was a great learning experience in so many ways.

I am looking forward to next year’s Freeman Forum… what will the topic be?

Also, you might want to pass on the link to my blog about my experiences at the 2008 Freeman Forum:

http://freeman-forum.blogspot.com/

You might also be interested in circulating this blog:

http://pineislandstateforest.blogspot.com/


I am wondering how I can obtain the recording of the question period following Congressman Jim Oberstar’s lecture.

Also, I asked for a receipt for the twenty dollars I paid for the luncheon as I get reimbursed provided I have a receipt; I was told the receipt would be e-mailed to me; it was not. Would you please provide me with the receipt?

On a final note, do you think on behalf of the Freeman Forum, you could ask United States Congressman James Oberstar to make a written and public apology to me for calling me a “liar?” I am sure you understand the seriousness of this kind of slanderous remark. As you are aware, James Oberstar did in fact “orchestrate a racist, backroom deal” regarding peat mining in the Pine Island State Forest located at the center of the Big Bog, our most important freshwater aquifer now that Congressman Oberstar has allowed the mining companies to pollute Lake Superior. As you are aware, truth is the only defense against a lawsuit for libel and slander; I hope I will not have to proceed with a lawsuit to defend my good name from the untruthful, vicious and vile statements Congressman Oberstar made about me. Congressman Oberstar was well aware that his remarks were being brought to a much wider audience, and Congressman Oberstar was fully aware that he lied in denying any knowledge of the peat mining permit in the Big Bog. Further, Congressman Oberstar was fully aware the Red Lake Nation is in complete and full opposition to this peat mining. I think we need an explanation from Congressman Oberstar why he lied about his involvement in this dirty deal. Needless to say, an apology to me is in order.

I stand by my remarks that Congressman Oberstar’s lecture on “Water” was the “most self-serving and hypocritical speech I have ever heard from a politician.” As you are aware, I am entitled to my opinion; as Congressman Oberstar is entitled to his opinion. His response that he was “offended” by my characterization of his speech is very legitimate. On the other hand, calling me a “liar” as Congressman Oberstar did is an outright slander prohibited under state and federal statutes… you may consult with Mr. Freeman who is an attorney of sorts from what I hear.

Again, you may read the statement which was posted for many years on the Minnesota Environmental Partnership’s web site concerning Congressman Oberstar’s involvement in obtaining the permit for a Canadian multi-national corporation to mine peat in the Big Bog. I have posted this statement in its entirety on this blog: http://freeman-forum.blogspot.com/

Perhaps you and the facilitators of the Freeman Forum might want request an explanation of Congressman Oberstar about his role in all of this… I assume the Freeman Forum had a sincere desire to want to provide information enabling people to act to protect our freshwater aquifers as required; anything else would be seen as hypocrisy by the public.

One other concern I have. I noticed the extremely high level of involvement on the part of numerous public officials including the Secretary of State and a former State Governor as well as Mr. Gene Merriam and current members of the MN DNR along with numerous organizations and foundations very prominent in the public eye; on the other hand I noted that the audience and ALL panelists were white. I assume the facilitators of the Freeman Forum attempted to involve people of color? What went wrong? Is there some underlying institutionalized racism involved? I note this event took place at the Humphrey Center, which is part of the University of Minnesota. I am sure you must have noted that people of color were not represented at all as panelists or as audience. I find this very strange and something which should not be tolerated by those concerned with civil and human rights. Was there a fear that to include people of color might have resulted in accusations of racism regarding how the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party resolves issues involving “water?” Might not you have invited the head of the Red Lake Nation’s Department of Natural Resources to have been a panelist if you were truly interested in hearing from all concerned? I am suggesting that the American Civil Liberties Union’s Task Force On Race Relations look into this. Perhaps the Minnesota Department of Human Rights should be requested to look into this, also.

I think it is important to note, and you must be aware, that none other than the United Nations has pointed out that the destruction of ecosystems and the pollution and contamination of fresh water aquifers is often found to be related to racism and genocide. I would assume that organizations like the Sierra Club would be very concerned to find out that people of color were excluded from the Freeman Forum’s 2008 “Water, Water Everywhere?” In a situation like this perception really is everything.

I thank you in advance for your attention to these matters.

Alan L. Maki
58891 County Road 13
Warroad, Minnesota 56763
Phone: 218-386-2432
Cell phone: 651-587-5541
E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net

Check out my blog:

Thoughts From Podunk

http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/




-----Original Message-----
From: Denise Pfeifer [mailto:info@minnesotaruralpartners.org]
Sent: Tuesday, April 22, 2008 7:59 PM
To: amaki000@centurytel.net
Subject: Freeman Forum Lecture Follow Up


Freeman Forum Attendees,

Thank you for attending the 2008 Freeman Forum.

As a follow up to the event I wanted to share with you Deb Swackhamer's summary along with a link to an audio of the Freeman Forum lectures from April 8th, 2008.

Attached is Deb Swackhamer's summary paper of the Water lecture program is a spectacular piece of work that underscores the stature of the lecture program series in a way that we've never been able to do before. It also illustrates the value of the work that all of us involved in putting together these programs can see in a tangible form. Freeman Forum Synthesis Swackhamer 041708.pdf

The audio from all the Freeman Forum lectures on April 8, 2008, is now available on the Humphrey Institute podcast. You can find this at http://blog.lib.umn.edu/hhhevent/news/. Please feel free to share with your colleagues.

Thanks for your attendance. We look forward to seeing you next year!

Best, Denise

Denise Pfeifer
Minnesota Rural Partners
dpfeifer@minnesotaruralpartners.org
507.828.5559

Millions of Jobs of a Different Collar

Note: Some questions and comments of mine follow this article from the New York Times.




Business


Millions of Jobs of a Different Collar





NEW LABOR Jim Albert, a technician for General Electric, climbing to the top of a wind turbine in Sweetwater, Tex., where the turbines stand as tall as 20-story buildings.


By STEVEN GREENHOUSE


Published: March 26, 2008


EVERYONE knows what blue-collar and white-collar jobs are, but now a job of another hue — green — has entered the lexicon.







RAISING THE ROOF James Wells of Sustainable South Bronx, a nonprofit group that plants vegetation in the area, working on a Bronx rooftop garden.


Presidential candidates talk about the promise of “green collar” jobs — an economy with millions of workers installing solar panels, weatherizing homes, brewing biofuels, building hybrid cars and erecting giant wind turbines. Labor unions view these new jobs as replacements for positions lost to overseas manufacturing and outsourcing. Urban groups view training in green jobs as a route out of poverty. And environmentalists say they are crucial to combating climate change.


No doubt that the number of green-collar jobs is growing, as homeowners, business and industry shift toward conservation and renewable energy. And the numbers are expected to increase greatly in the next few decades, because state governments have mandated that even more energy come from alternative sources.


But some skeptics argue that the phrase “green jobs” is little more than a trendy term for politicians and others to bandy about. Some say they are not sure that these jobs will have the staying power to help solve the problems of the nation’s job market, and others note that green jobs often pay less than the old manufacturing jobs they are replacing.


Indeed, such is the novelty of the green-job concept that no one is certain how many such jobs there are, and even advocates don’t always agree on what makes a job green.


“A green-collar job is in essence a blue-collar job that has been upgraded to address the environmental challenges of our country,” said Lucy Blake, chief executive of the Apollo Alliance, a coalition of environmental groups, labor unions and politicians seeking to transform the economy into one based on renewable energy.


Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, said: “A green job has to do something useful for people, and it has to be helpful to, or at least not damaging to, the environment.”


It can be difficult to parse the difference between green- and blue-collar jobs. Dave Foster, executive director of the Blue Green Alliance, a partnership between the United Steelworkers and the Sierra Club, pointed to workers who mine iron ore in Minnesota and ship it to steel mills in Indiana. “Ten years ago, that steel was used for making low-efficiency automobiles, so those jobs were part of the dirty economy,” he said. “But now that steel is being used to build wind turbines. So now you can call them green jobs.”


But to Andrew W. Hannah, chief executive of Plextronics, a start-up in Pittsburgh, green-collar jobs often have little relation to their blue-collar counterparts. His company produces high-tech polymer inks that are used to make electronic circuitry for solar panels. Of the company’s 51 employees, 20 have Ph.D.’s in fields like physics, chemistry and material science.


It is hard to gauge the number of green-collar jobs nationwide. Welders at a wind-turbine factory are viewed as having green jobs, but what about the factory’s accountant or its janitors? Workers with Sustainable South Bronx, a nonprofit group that plants vegetation to keep the area cooler and reduce air-conditioning demands, would seem to fit the bill. But so would the employees of Tesla Motors, south of San Francisco, who are producing an all-electric Roadster that sells for $98,000.


In the most-often-cited estimate, a report commissioned by the American Solar Energy Society said that the nation had 8.5 million jobs in renewable energy or energy efficient industries. And Jerome Ringo, president of the Apollo Alliance, predicted that the nation could generate three million to five million more green jobs over the next 10 years.


Green jobs are especially good “because they cannot be easily outsourced, say, to Asia,” said Van Jones, president of Green for All, an organization based in Oakland, Calif., whose goal is promoting renewable energy and lifting workers out of poverty. “If we are going to weatherize buildings, they have to be weatherized here,” he said. “If you put up solar panels, you can’t ship a building to Asia and have them put the solar panels on and ship it back. These jobs have to be done in the United States.”


Many advocates of green employment say the jobs should be good for the workers as well as the environment. Two weeks ago in Pittsburgh, more than 800 people attended a national green-jobs conference, where much of the talk was about ensuring that green jobs provided living wages. Many speakers anticipated that the jobs would do so, because they often required special skills, like the technical ability to maintain a giant wind turbine (and the physical ability to climb a 20-story ladder to work on it).


“These jobs will be better for the workers’ future, for their job security,” said Ms. Blake of the Apollo Alliance. “These green technologies are making products that the world wants, like energy-efficient buildings and light fixtures.”


Not everyone, however, is enamored with green jobs. Take the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Washington group that opposes state mandates requiring that a certain percentage of power come from renewable sources. Myron Ebell, the institute’s director of energy and global warming policy, argues that creating green jobs often does not create jobs on a net basis.


“If you create jobs in wind power or ethanol,” he said, “that will take away jobs in other industries,” like building and operating conventional gas turbine power plants.


Mr. Ebell suggested that green jobs might not prove to be so great. “There will undoubtedly be a lot of jobs created in industries that are considered green or fashionable,” he said. “Some will last a long time, and some will go like the dot-coms.”


Twenty-eight states have mandates generally requiring that 10 to 25 percent of their energy be obtained through renewable sources in a decade or two. In response, many companies have rushed to build wind- and solar-power systems, and some are researching how to transform prairie grass into biofuel.


Joy Clark-Holmes, director of public sector markets for Johnson Controls, which manages heating and cooling systems in buildings nationwide, sees strong job growth in the green economy. Her company’s building efficiency business, she said, expects to hire 60,000 workers worldwide over the next decade.


“We see the market for greening our customers as growing,” Ms. Clark-Holmes said. She talked of demand for technicians who install and maintain heating and cooling systems, managers who oversee those functions and engineers who develop and design such systems.


With scientists voicing increased concern about climate change, some highly talented people have left other fields to help build the green economy. For instance, Lois Quam, who helped create and run a $30 billion division of UnitedHealth Group, a health insurer, has joined the renewable energy cause, becoming managing director for alternative investments at Piper Jaffray, an investment bank based in Minneapolis. She is setting up investment funds that focus on renewable energy and clean energy.


“The development of a green economy creates a broad new set of opportunities,” Ms. Quam said. “When I first started looking at this area, many people commented on how this will be as big as the Internet. But this is so much bigger than the Internet. The only comparable example we can find is the Industrial Revolution. It will affect every business and every industry.”


Mr. Jones, the head of Green for All, joined the green economy after graduating from Yale Law School. He became executive director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland, using that position to start a program that trains low-income workers in how to weatherize homes and install solar panels.


Mr. Jones calls such jobs green pathways out of poverty. “The green economy needs Ph.D.’s and Ph.-do’s,” he said. “We need people who are highly educated at the theoretical level, and we need people who are highly educated at the level of skilled labor.”


He sees green jobs as providing a career ladder. Some workers might start at $10 an hour inspecting homes for energy-efficient light bulbs. Then they might become $18-an-hour workers installing solar panels and eventually $25-an-hour solar-team managers. Eventually they might become $40-an-hour electricians or carpenters who do energy-minded renovations.


“Right now we don’t have the infrastructure to train a sufficient number of green-collar workers,” Mr. Jones said.


As the green economy grows, states are vying for green investments — and green jobs. Pennsylvania has been especially successful, attracting German and Taiwanese companies that are building solar equipment factories, as well as attracting Gamesa, a Spanish wind turbine company. Gamesa has two factories in the state, employing 1,300 workers. Facing pressure from the United Steelworkers, which views the greening of the economy as a way to increase union membership, Gamesa agreed not to fight an organizing drive, and now many workers are unionized.


Pennsylvania’s efforts have been helped by the presence of many skilled manufacturing workers in the state and its commitment to having 18.5 percent of its power come from renewable sources by 2020.


“We have gone after this sector first and foremost because the green of the sector is important, because it is the green that goes into the pocketbooks and wallets of workers,” said Kathleen McGinty, the state’s environmental secretary. “They are good-paying jobs, jobs that often require advanced skills.”


Jim Bauer, 55, is delighted to work for Gamesa. There he leads a team that assembles parts for wind turbines, earning slightly less than he did at United States Steel, which laid him off from his crane operator’s job after 25 years. Now he earns $17 an hour in his job, while many assembly workers earn $13.50 an hour.


“It feels good working for a company that is bringing jobs into the country instead of taking jobs out of the country,” Mr. Bauer said.


He admits to feeling noble doing a green job. “We have to get away from fossil fuels and oil so we can tell the Saudis to take a hike,” he said.

Comment: Presidential candidates are touting development of this new "green industry." Going so far as to say they will push for billions of tax-dollars to subsidize this industry.

Question: Who will own and control this new industry which cannot be created without the most massive tax-payer subsidy in U.S. history?

Answer: Wall Street coupon clippers.

Comment: What tax-payers finance, tax-payers should own and control and reap the profits from.

Comment: Investors, Wall Street coupon clippers and bankers claim that as the present "economic bubble" collapses, this new "economic bubble" will pull the capitalist economy out of a recession and possibly prevent a full-blown depression.

Question: How can this possibly be a solution when the capitalist economic system requires there be constant buyers and sellers of the products created by labor and this new "green industry" will only be creating an even larger government debt as an even smaller circle of capitalists reap enormous profits while as this article points out, wages in this new "green industry" are lower than in the industries that have moved production off shore?

Fact: $18.00 and hour is by all standards a poverty wage given the rapidly rising cost of living the working class is experiencing.

Fact: The majority of those training workers for this new "green industry" are "adjuncts" and "part-time" instructors in our colleges and universities.

Fact: These "adjuncts" and "part-time" instructors are themselves being paid sub-poverty salaries which don't come close to meeting the requirements of a real living income.

Comment/Question: Under these circumstances if those teaching these "green collar workers" are not being paid real living wages how can we expect that those getting jobs in these new "green industries" will be paid real living wages?

Concluding comment: How much are those like Lois Quam being paid to orchestrate these deals?

In fact: Lois Quam is getting paid more than she made in the corrupt health care industry.


As for those "union leaders" like David Foster pushing this scheme, he undermined the efforts of the workers whose union dues paid his wages to improve their own working conditions and standard of living... just ask any worker employed in the taconite industry on the Iron Range. Foster never lifted a finger to save jobs nor improve health and safety conditions in the mines and plants. Are union "leaders" like David Foster or his replacement who likes to kick up his feet at his desk playing computer games all day going to look after the workers in these new "green industries?"

David Foster has never even considered or contemplated the plight of the "adjuncts" and "part-time" instructors at the colleges and universities in Minnesota, Wisconsin or Michigan getting paid sub-poverty salaries.

We are about to be taken for one more big ride... the economic bubble will expand for awhile as the bankers, investors and Wall Street coupon clippers rake in their profits... working people will be pushed to work longer hours at less pay as inflation soars and the robbery at the pumps continues as people shiver through the next winter unable to afford to heat homes as the foreclosures and evictions continue and the price of everything from bread to milk to eggs and even a box of corn flakes sky-rockets in price as working people go without health care.

The only thing "green" about what we are told is a new industry is the color of money.

The capitalists will profit and the working class will suffer... it is nice that Jim Bauer is satisfied getting paid less and receiving less benefits knowing that he is freeing us all from Saudis control... however, Jim Bauer might be better off looking for a way that the working class can free itself from these capitalist vultures and parasites like Lois Quam.


I would also point out that Carl Pope of the Sierra Club and Leo Girard of the United Steel Workers Union stood outside the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant and proclaimed the Plant and the two-thousand jobs worthy of saving because the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant was part of this new "green industry" being created. The Democratic Party along with the UAW leadership sold out Ford workers and neither Carl Pope has been heard from since in Minnesota other than when the local Sierra Club sends out fund-raising letters with his name and picture emblazoned all over it. As for Leo Girard, he is still fighting the communists up in Sudbury, Ontario doing the dirty work for the corporations of smothering rank and file activity--- just like his chums in the UAW, Ron Gettelfinger and Bob King. Does anyone really believe these class collaborationist labor "leaders" are going to lead the fight for a better world for working class folks? Think again.

International Women’s Day, March 8

Today, March 8, is International Women’s Day



Not a single word is mentioned about Madame Labor Secretary Frances Perkins---



Frances Perkins was the first woman ever appointed as a Secretary, and she was appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to the powerful post of Secretary of Labor. Frances Perkins was a most heroic woman, taking on the entire class of big-business and their advocates, the powerful United States Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers and the most racist, reactionary forces in this country who branded her a “communist” because of her close association with the leaders of organized labor like the militant rank and file leader and president of the Long shore Union, Harry Bridges; and Minnesota’s Farmer-Labor politicians, Governors Floyd B. Olson and Elmer Benson. When John Bernard, the Communist from the Iron Range was elected to Congress on the Farmer-Labor ticket, Frances Perkins was first in line to embrace and welcome him to Washington.



Most important, Frances Perkins was the primary author of what we call the “New Deal.”



When the ultra-right lined up to bash Perkins with every smear imaginable, from being Harry Bridges secret lover to promoting interracial sex because she was seen dancing with a black man in the segregated South, to being a “Red” and a Communist--- Perkins never retreated an inch. She answered every racist, reactionary, anti-labor and anti-communist accusation forthrightly and brilliantly. She made it clear she was for full and complete equality when it came to matters of sex and race. To the charge of being a Communist and an advocate of the ideas in the Communist Manifesto because she supported unemployment insurance and old age pensions, Perkins responded, “I am supporting it (the Communist Manifesto) because I would rather see it a reality than on page 30.”



Perkins supported the struggles of the workers in long shore, steel, auto, and mines to organize. She marched on their picket lines and stood up to the company thugs. She supported the “Flint Sit-Down Strike” and the tobacco workers in the South.



Perkins was a victim of J. Edgar Hoover’s dirty witch-hunts… but this didn’t stop Frances Perkins from calling for the release from prison of Communist Party leader Earl Browder, one of the most powerful working class leaders in the United States.



It was women like Frances Perkins and the heroic Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, IWW organizer and Communist Party leader, whose names have just about been removed and erased from the history books, and those who speak of the role of women in the struggles for labor rights, social and economic justice and for peace, along with full racial and sexual equality shamefully continue to ignore the roles of these two very prominent and very important women during International Women’s Day.



I have, quite literally, received hundreds of communications from all over the United States about International Women’s Day--- a few, a very few mentioned Elizabeth Gurley Flynn; however, not one single one of these communications so much as mentioned the name of Frances Perkins, the very first Secretary in a Presidential Administration--- the powerful post of Secretary of Labor; arguably, the most important post during the New Deal period. This denial and cover-up of history is shameful, not only because Frances Perkins does not get the recognition she deserves, but, because it allows history to continue to be distorted as to the nature and the role of the historic all-peoples coalition and the united front strategy which developed and won the New Deal reforms.



It is also unfortunate because Frances Perkins fought to have socialized health care as part of the New Deal. And without understanding how and why this health care was dropped from the New Deal package of reforms it dooms present attempts to bring about real health care reform. That organizations like the Minnesota Universal Health Care Coalition and Healthcare Now! would not be raising the role of Frances Perkins and why it is that we did not get socialized health care along with the Wagner Act, Unemployment Insurance and Social Security needs to be thoroughly discussed and analyzed or there will be no advances towards real health care reform… certainly the phony election eve scheme concocted by MN DFL’er Senator John Marty which would place the burden of health care costs fully on the backs of working people with outrageously high premiums is not what Frances Perkins, Floyd Olson, Elmer Benson and John Bernard worked together on to promote as part of the New Deal.



Not a word about casino workers--- Here it is, International Women’s Day, and along with failing to note the role of Frances Perkins--- or even her existence, not one single mention about casino workers employed in the Indian Gaming Industry!



Again, as shameful as omitting Frances Perkins from International Women’s Day, even more shameful is the fact the unions and liberal and progressive organizations would fail to mention that more than two-million American workers are now employed in the more than four-hundred loud, noisy, smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages without any rights under federal or state labor laws under the most Draconian management schemes aimed at keeping workers under the thumbs of these mobster managements, and without any voice at work. Workers employed under these conditions have no voice in their communities, either, because if these employers decide they do not like someone advocating for a minimum wage that is a real, living--- non-poverty--- wage, they are fired. Working people employed under such conditions cannot participate fully in the political life of their communities, states, or the Nation. Workers without any rights in their places of employment have no rights in their communities; this is something so basic to democracy I should not even have to state it, except for the fact that not a single politician in the United States “gets it.” A very sad commentary on the state of democracy, that those who are making the laws of the land do not even have such a basic understanding of such a fundamental concept of democracy--- this is what we get, this kind of callousness towards democracy, when we tolerate and allow the well-heeled to run the government.



The majority of these casino workers are women, mostly women of child-bearing age. Many are women of color including Native American, African-American, Hispanic and Asian. Many of these women are undocumented workers, something that none of the AFL-CIO or Change to Win unions has even brought to light.



The “Compacts” that have created the 400 or so “right-to-work-for-less colonies” in the United States were created by the Democrats. These Democrats now claim the rights of workers to have been “an oversight” in the creation of these “Compacts” which have given life to these 400 “right-to-work-without-union colonies.”



However, these same Democrats don’t overlook these casino managements when it comes election time--- they know right where to go for the big bucks. Every single MN DFL United States Senate candidate has made the trek to see Floyd “Buck” Jourdain. Even the great humanist Jack Nelson-Pallmer joined Al Franken and Mike Ciresi in pandering for campaign funds from “Buck” Jourdain… they know where the big green bucks are kept in the brown paper shopping bags that Abramson left behind.



But, in fact, knowing the dire circumstances they have placed working people in through the creation of these “Compacts,” the Democrats go right on, shamefully, approving these “Compacts” creating casino after casino.



In Michigan, the labor-backed Democratic Governor, Jennifer Granholm who would have preferred to have been a glamorous movie star, but settled for politics, went right ahead and provided her signature of approval to the Gun Lake Casino “Compact,” knowing full well she was depriving some two-thousand workers of their most basic and fundamental human rights… most of these workers would probably rather have a job in the movies, and for sure would be a better Governor.



Yet, Governor Granholm works in a smoke-free office as she sends another two-thousand workers, mostly women of child-bearing age, off to work in another smoke-filled casino.



Here we are, “celebrating” International Women’s Day, and not even one single organization or political party, not one single politician in the entire United States, has the courage to so much as question these “Compacts” created explicitly, and with full knowledge, that the workers employed in these smoke-filled casinos have no rights. In fact, the situation is so shameful that both the American Cancer Society and the Heart and Lung Foundation have ordered their staff to keep a hands-off approach to the casinos operating under the terms of these “Compacts.” In fact, the casino managements are providing funding for the huge bill-boards dotting our high-ways warning us of the dangers of second-hand smoke.



There is something drastically wrong with this picture. If organizations like the Women’s Caucus of the Democratic Party and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom or those organizations and Parties which lay claim to the goals and objectives of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn cannot recognize, admit, and correct this “oversight” there is something drastically wrong.



Here in Minnesota these casino managements are providing the lion’s share of the funding for the campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton… the manager of the huge casino/hotel/restaurant/entertainment empire--- Melanie Benjamin--- was the very first to climb aboard Hillary Clinton’s campaign band-wagon… not coincidentally, Frank Fertitta the key player in the Station Casino/resort/entertainment/hotel/theme park empire has given over one-hundred thousand dollars to the Clinton campaign; Michigan’s Governor, the labor-backed governor, entered into the Gun Lake Casino “Compact” knowing that Frank Fertitta, the front man for the Kansas City Mob--- famous for its casino skimming operations, bodies filled with bullet holes in car trunks and buried in the Nevada Desert and responsible for undermining Gary Hart’s Presidential campaign; this is the one and the same Frank Fertitta whose Station Casinos will manage the new Gun Lake Casino--- and, to top it off, the majority of the people of this west Michigan community don’t even want this casino knowing the sleaze and the filth that will come into town with it. And, for good reason… the Station Casinos were just tossed out of Missouri for trying to bribe one of the state’s highest elected public officials… how the Fertitta’s convinced Michigan’s labor-backed governor, Jennifer Granholm to bat her pretty eye-lashes before television cameras as she signed away the rights of two-thousand workers is worthy of investigation.



Abraham Lincoln noted:

“Corporations have been enthroned and corruption in high places will follow...”

I don’t think Abraham Lincoln ever imagined that a labor-backed governor in the State of Michigan where birth was given to his political rise to power based on an anti-slavery, pro-labor agenda would ever be signing away the rights of working people to put them at the mercy of a filthy, rotten sleaze-ball like Frank Fertitta and his Station Casino management team.



Here we are, International Women’s Day and there isn’t an organization or political party that doesn’t have something to say about this important day that is primarily the result of the struggles of working class women for full equality and not one single organization or political party has the moral or political courage to take on an industry which is abusing women workers more than has ever taken place in this country other than slavery.



Not a word from the United Auto Workers union, not a word from the United Steel Workers; ironically, not a word from the Service Employees International Union whose members are fighting for their livelihoods, but find the “casino cops” being recruited to scab on them and the leaders of the SEIU who have refused to take a stand in support of casino workers and in opposition to these “Compacts” come begging to me that they want our help in talking to the “casino cops,” saying, "Maybe in the future we can work together with you on your organizing efforts;" ya, sure, you betcha… just like the United Steel Workers and the UAW who can’t do anything but approve the steel and auto industries’ attacks on the standards of living of the members they are already supposed to be representing; but, they have sat on their hands and watched as jobs are shipped overseas. Now they want to come in and piggy-back on the work of our rank and file organizing efforts and push us out of the picture so they can replace the dues money and the pension funds they allowed the mobsters to squirrel away.



The UAW and the USW have refused to so much as utter a peep of protest against Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm signing away the rights of two-thousand casino workers, afraid, as usual, of offending their Democratic Party partners.



Not a word about plant closings--- on this International Women’s Day. The St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant is going down along with two-thousand union jobs. Where will women in the Twin Cities find employment with this kind of pay and benefits… certainly not working in the area’s casinos. Yet, not one of these organizations or political parties which I have received information about International Women’s Day from, including the Party claiming to be the heir to the legacy of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn whose activities figured very prominently here in Minnesota has brought forward a solution to saving the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant because “they are engaged in campaigning for Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton!


Not a word about single-payer universal socialized health care--- not coincidental since these organizations and political parties refuse to acknowledge the important and historic role of Madame Secretary Frances Perkins.



Not a word about the minimum wage--- being a real living wage based upon the calculations of the United States Department of Labor for what a real living--- non-poverty--- annual income is calculated to be. Oh, yes, a few male politicians like Edward Kennedy or James Metzen pull a figure out of a hat without any regard to the fact that the main victims of the minimum wage being a poverty wage are women and their children. Why is it so hard for politicians to establish the minimum wage to be what the United States Department of Labor calculates a real living income to be--- pass legislation to this effect and be done with the issue once and for all. Tie the minimum wage directly to the calculations of the United States Department of Labor then there is no need for state or federal legislators to ever again have to address this issue.



Not a word about ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan--- women and their children suffer the worst consequences of war… Hillary Clinton has the unmitigated gall to say, if elected, she will end the war in Iraq and WIN THE WAR IN AFGAHANISTAN… continued bloodshed, death and destruction. Who will suffer? Women and their children.



Not a word about poverty--- How can poverty be eliminated when employers are allowed to pay workers poverty wages? The present attitude on the part of the vast majority of the leaders of organized labor towards the issue of the minimum wage, and welfare, only assures that millions of Americans will continue living in poverty--- who suffers the most? Women and their children. Tie welfare payments to the same calculations of the United States Department of Labor while fixing the minimum wage problem. If we intend to eliminate poverty, welfare should be based on a real living annual income as calculated by the United States Department of Labor.


Why do we pay the statisticians and researchers of the United States Department of Labor employed at real nice salaries. working in smoke-free offices, to calculate where poverty ends and a real living annual income begins, if we are not going to utilize their calculations? This makes no sense at all to pay anyone big salaries just to write down numbers and statistics in fancy reports if these figures are not going to be used by the government to end poverty.



Not a word about defending our freshwater aquifers, the land our food is grown on, or the air we need to breath--- Hamburgers made from old, sick, diseased, crippled and dying cattle is fed to school children because inspectors with the United States Department of Agriculture don’t get to work on time--- millions of pounds of such hamburger fed to school children, and, if it makes the news at all, it is good for one headline and the issue disappears as if everything is just fine and dandy; parents were not even notified in a timely manner.


The government knowingly allowed this hamburger to be consumed by school children and the general public for at least three weeks without informing the public… but, we all know it was longer because such activity at this slaughter house did not just wait for the hidden cameras to come in… what kind of fools does this totally and completely corrupt government take us all for?


Walleye commercially taken from one of the most mercury and dioxin polluted lakes in Minnesota--- Red Lake--- is allowed be harvested for human consumption without any governmental control or restrictions even though the Minnesota Department of Health and the Department of Natural Resources have put out warnings that such fish should not be eaten by women of child-bearing age or pregnant and nursing mothers… is this walleye being sold labeled as such? No, no one even cares. Who will suffer? Women and their children.



Again, Abraham Lincoln: “Corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow.”



But, why would any governmental agency care about mercury and dioxins being in the walleye from Red Lake… the same public officials have granted a Canadian corporation the right to mine peat and drain the mercury contaminated water into already mercury impaired waters, the Black and Tamarac Rivers… the Tamarac going into Red Lake, the Black into Lake of the Woods.



Who suffers the worst consequences of all of this? Women and their children.



Not a word about defending our ecosystems--- The Big Bog is permitted to be mined for peat and United States Steel is allowed to purge its “Clearwater Reservoir” (isn’t this a nice name for a huge body of water more contaminated than the Love Canal ever was?) into the streams, rivers and lakes of Northern Minnesota… who will suffer the most? Women and their children.


Interesting, but I wonder if Elizabeth Gurley Flynn would have remained silent as the communities workers live in whom she helped to organize, would have remained silent as these same workers and their families are poisoned by the same United States Steel that had their hired thugs run her off the Iron Range on more than one occasion?



Not a word about defending democracy--- on International Women’s Day even though it is democracy which enables working people to most effectively fight for their rights and create a new society more in line with what people and our living environment and ecosystems need for survival because we simply cannot survive much longer under capitalism, and we cannot survive without creating some form of a cooperative socialist society where human beings learn to live in harmony with Mother Nature.


If we look at the problem we realize corporations in the drive to obtain maximum corporate profits have no respect for mothers and their children, and even less respect for Mother Nature.



I thought International Women’s Day is a day of struggle. A day to raise the specific issues and problems facing women. A day to discuss what needs to be done to improve the lives of women.


When we improve the lives of women, we improve the lives of the entire human race.



Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps International Women’s Day is only a day to reflect on past struggles in a way those in power do not find offensive. Perhaps International Women’s Day is a day to continue to bury the work of those like Frances Perkins and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.



Perhaps International Women’s Day is a day to showcase the women who have been elected to high office, and those who might be elected, as we don’t mention the hundreds of thousands of women working in smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages without any rights because it would be an embarrassment to women like Jennifer Granholm and Hillary Clinton who take the money from the Frank Fertittas of this world for looking the other way?



Really, is this what International Women’s Day has come to in America? A day of celebration that women can serve the corporations as well as men in mistreating women workers?



I can’t help but wonder what Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Frances Perkins might have had to say about the problems of casino workers, or small children being forced to eat this hamburger or mercury contaminated walleye; but, then again, this is probably why there are those who have worked so hard to keep so many of us from learning about these two courageous women who struggled around the same issues and shared similar visions for the kind of country we could have… if we organize, and fight like hell.



Alan L. Maki

Director of Organizing,

Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council



58891 County Road 13

Warroad, Minnesota 56763

Phone: 218-386-2432

Cell phone: 651-587-5541

E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net



Check out my blog:



Thoughts From Podunk



http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com

St. Paul Twin Cities Ford Plant

Save the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant

Sisters and Brothers;

Unless we act together the Ford Plant will close soon and two thousand jobs will go down the drain and into the river with it.

It will take the initiative of community activists and rank and file activists from your plant working together to save the Ford Plant and two-thousand jobs. It will require activity on a variety of levels from a variety of partners working in coalition.

I would encourage you to ask the UAW leadership of your local (UAW Local 879) to push the MN DFL to reconsider the legislation Democratic Senator Metzen dropped the ball on after Representative Tom Rukavina successfully pushed it through his Committee in the House. It is important that this Plant and Dam remain intact as one unit.

As you know, the great “free market forces” of capitalism have not been able to keep this perfectly good plant in operation.

This leaves us but one option; the option of Public Ownership. Public Ownership has been used all over the world to save many plants and even entire industries. The New Flyer Bus Plant in Winnipeg, Manitoba is one such example.

To be quite frank, our primary concern has to be with saving these two-thousand jobs. The jobs of those presently employed and for generations to come.

No one is considering the tremendous struggle and sacrifice of Ford workers and your union in securing a good place to work as part of the investment. No one is talking about the huge investment taxpayers have made in this Plant and Hydro Dam… not to mention training employees. No one mentions that workers create all wealth and as such are entitled to participate as equals in the decision-making process. The Ford Motor Company never sat down and talked about the future of this plant with workers or tax-payers.

I ask you to take these resolutions to your party precinct caucus meetings in February. Ford workers are scattered all over, even in Wisconsin… we need to reach out for support in order to save this plant. Just clip one of these resolutions to the resolution form.

Resolution #1 (Short Version) 0n the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant/Hydro Dam and 2,000 Union Jobs

Whereas Ford Motor Company has stated its intent to close the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant, sell the hydro dam to a foreign corporation, and displace two-thousand workers in the near future without consultation from the workers, the community, or local and state governments;

Whereas this plant, its operations, and the hydro dam have received continued support from every level of government including tax-payer funding, tax-breaks and tax abatements under promises to maintain manufacturing operations and with assurances workers would have job security in St. Paul, Minnesota;

Therefore be it resolved public ownership should be used to save this plant, hydro dam, and two-thousand jobs.

Resolution #2 (Full version) 0n the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant/Hydro Dam and 2,000 Union Jobs

Whereas Ford Motor Company has stated its intent to close the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant, sell the hydro dam to a foreign corporation, and displace two-thousand workers in the near future without consultation with the workers, the community, or local and state governments;

Whereas this plant, its operations, and the hydro dam have received continued support from every level of government including tax-payer funding, tax-breaks and tax abatements under promises to maintain manufacturing operations and with assurances workers would have job security in St. Paul, Minnesota;

Whereas this Plant forms an important an integral component of Minnesota’s industrial base;

Whereas the closing of this Plant will cause very significant economic harm to the local community and the state including placing a strain on already overburdened social services which have already been drastically cut back;

Whereas all conciliatory efforts, as demanded, in favor of the management of Ford Motor Company have been granted by all levels of government under the promise Ford would maintain operations in St. Paul;

Whereas a similar threatened plant closing of the New Flyer Plant in Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada during the 1970’sresulted in all levels of government intervening on behalf of the members of the United Automobile Workers union resulting in the public takeover of the operation with continuing successful operation at present;

Whereas “the free market” has not resulted in a solution to save the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant, the hydro dam which powers the plant along with two-thousand union jobs; (over please)

Be it resolved that the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party instruct its State Legislative Caucus to bring forward the previous resolution in the form of legislation supported by the United Auto Workers Union and its members of Local 789 to save the plant and dam intact until a solution is found to continue operations and production;

Be it further resolved that the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party instructs all of its federal, state, and local Twin Cities elected officials to convene a special conference to explore public ownership as the remedy to saving the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant, the hydro dam, and two thousand union jobs;

Be it further resolved that the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party support public ownership and democratic control of the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant with production taking place in the best interests of the workers and the people of the State of Minnesota;

Be it further resolved that public ownership is the only viable means of saving the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant as all other means have been tried and exhausted;

Be it further resolved that funding is not an issue since any country which can squander billions of dollars on the occupation of Iraq can find the resources for saving this Plant, dam, and jobs;

Be it further resolved that the very significant burden of health care costs for employees be resolved through the State of Minnesota enacting legislation implementing single-payer, universal health care.

Alan L. Maki
Member, Minnesota DFL State Central Committee

and

Director of Organizing,
Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

If you have friends working in casinos please have them get in touch with me.

Twenty-thousand Minnesotans go to work in smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages without any rights under tribal, state or federal labor laws.

58891 County Road 13
Warroad, Minnesota 56763
Phone: 218-386-2432
Cell phone: 651-587-5541
E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net

Check out my blog; it’s where rank and file activists go for information:

Thoughts From Podunk:

http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/

Suggestions for how to use these resolutions:

• Take it to your precinct caucus meeting

• Get your union or community organization to support this resolution

• Write a letter to your state legislators supporting this resolution

• Copy and distribute this resolution widely

• Use this resolution as a petition, ask your friends to sign it

• Write a letter to the editor

• Blog this issue

• Post the resolution on web sites

• Discuss this resolution on Internet “list serves”


**************

This leaflet made as a contribution in kind by the:
Iron Range Rank and File Labor Network… concerned and involved members of USW Locals 1938, 2705, 6860, 2660

All labor and materials for this leaflet have been contributed in solidarity with workers of the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant… On the Iron Range we understand the future of our jobs hinge on the future of your jobs. We would like to take this opportunity to thank Alan Maki for taking up this struggle in his capacity as a member of the MN DFL State Central Committee. Without these kinds of community grassroots and rank and file outreach efforts we are all doomed as recent contract “negotiations” in our industries have demonstrated.

Please consider making a contribution to help us put this issue on the front burner where it belongs.

Out of sight… is out of mind.

Class Struggle

From: Alan Maki [mailto:amaki000@centurytel.net]

Sent: Wednesday, November 07, 2007 8:40 AM

Subject: RE: [Working-Class] Re: How the ruling class rules...

I challenge myself and all of us on this list to unleash of creative imaginations -- even at the risk of sounding completely utopian at first blush -- to break this most oppressive chain.



Tommy

What would you propose be done?



It seems to me we need to be creative in approaching those steps which are required for social change… education, organization, unity in action; without these three things being worked at simultaneously things will stay the same. This may sound old and tired but it has been the formula for change… there is no getting around this “don’t mourn, organize.”



It is easy to brand something like the present UAW contracts as “sell outs;” it is quite another thing to develop struggles that take labor in another direction.



I propose we all take a good hard look at the Ford contract and what it means to us all… and, make no mistake; this contract will impact all of us in one way or another from a number of perspectives. Health care is one. Using the threat of plant closures to blackmail workers, the communities and states where these plants are located is another. The alternative to these “sell outs” is to advocate something else AND initiate struggle.



The “creativity” you seek will come in the process of participating in the budding and developing struggles in opposition to these “sell outs.”



Has anyone taken the time to read the UAW’s statement on the Ford contract?



Here it is again: http://media.freep.com/pdf/ford_hourly.pdf see page 21



Please note the section on the joint UAW-Ford health care initiative. Obviously the UAW leadership plans on selling us out on the health care issue the same way they sold out Ford workers (and GM and Chrysler) in contract negotiations. If the UAW pushes for anything other than single-payer, universal health care Congressman John Conyers will drop his advocacy of HR 676 as quickly as he dropped plans to impeach Bush and Cheney and we will have to wait for Kucinich to get back from his interplanetary UFO experience for action on this.



The contract overview declares the creation of, under the heading on page 21 “National Institute of Health Care Reform” and states:

The UAW and Ford have agreed to an unprecedented commitment to im-

prove the affordability, accessibility and accountability of the U.S. health care

system, including the pursuit of a lasting solution to our national health care

cost crisis.



The parties have agreed to create the National Institute for Health Care

Reform that will serve as a premier research and educational health care reform

center dedicated to understanding, evaluating and developing thoughtful and

innovative reform to improve the medical delivery system in the United States

and expand access to high-quality, affordable and accountable health care

coverage for all Americans.



Ford has committed to five annual $1 million contributions to fund the

Institute.

This presents a very real danger to the single-payer universal health care movement intended to deliver labor into the Hillary Clinton fold.



I would encourage everyone to take a good hard look at how the UAW leadership worked with the Ford Motor Company to continue using the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant as part of this sell-out as part of an elaborate blackmail scheme (This is included in the UAW overview). Those who continue to say this plant closure issue is a “done deal” rather than viewing it in the context of the entire class collaborationist sell out and capitulation to the automotive industry are themselves failing to understand what is taking place and they are withdrawing from the class struggle.



Alan L. Maki

58891 County Road 13

Warroad, Minnesota 56763

Phone: 218-386-2432

Cell phone: 651-587-5541

E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net



Check out my blog:



Thoughts From Podunk



http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/

Ford Contract and the Ford St. Paul Twin Cities Assembly Plant

Betrayal by U.A.W. leadership; betrayal by the MN DFL

-----Original Message-----

From: Alan Maki [mailto:amaki000@centurytel.net]

Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2007 1:43 AM

To: 'Charles Underwood'

Cc: 'David Shove'

Subject: Interesting article; for being such a "done deal" the sad saga of the Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant continues on... as does the class struggle to save this plant and the dam

“The summary also says that Ford will not sell or close any plants beyond three facilities that already have been identified — Twin Cities Assembly in St. Paul, Minn., and Cleveland Casting and Batavia Transmission in Ohio.
But the union was able to win one-year extensions for Twin Cities and Cleveland casting.”

This raises an important question: Can a struggle for public ownership waged by workers, the local community, and state and local governments save the plant and create even more jobs?

What will it take? First, a citizen’s committee needs to be established to counter the efforts of the Ford Site Planning Committee. Ford rank and file workers need to be brought into the struggle along with community activists and concerned citizens. Letters to the editors, leaflets, door-to-door work, meeting around kitchen tables and in coffee shops; meetings with state and local politicians in their offices.

Since the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party refuses to take up this struggle other political allies should be sought. We need to find out the positions of Mike Cavlan and Cynthia McKinney on the Ford Plant issue. This should become a national and international issue. There shouldn’t be any organization or individuals we don’t reach out to.

We also need to get the issue of public ownership of the Ford Plant and dam as a primary issue in DFL precinct caucuses… all caucus participants should be made aware of the Senate Committee betrayal on this issue… we need a general purpose leaflet that can be taken into each precinct caucus with the same resolution to be voted on. Press releases citing this campaign need to be developed.

We don’t need to beg the DFL or any other Party to take up this issue… what we need to do is develop a well coordinated state-wide campaign on this issue… since we don’t have the resources to campaign statewide on this issue alone, we should combine and bundle this issue as part of a “progressive package” that takes in other issues ranging from ending the war in Iraq, preventing war with Iran, single-payer/universal health care, rights for casino workers, a real living wage tied to the figures of the U.S. Department of Labor, an end to home foreclosures, an end to the robbery at the pumps and global warming.

We need to end all procrastinating on this issue… since efforts to make saving the Ford Plant and dam a single issue as would be most effective… the only way we can mount a successful campaign is to bundle this issue with other issues and present Minnesotans with a clear example of what we expect progressive politicians to support. We should urge Minnesotans not to vote for any candidate who won’t sign on to the entire package… this is the only way for working people to flex their political muscle. We should make a list of what candidates not to vote for.

Distributing a couple hundred thousand leaflets of this nature in the weeks leading up to the 2008 Elections can have a big impact… too darn bad who suffers.

In pushing for this kind of bundled program inside and outside the Democratic Party we move progressive politics in a new direction. It is these issues… not the Party, not the individual politician; we should be seeking to frame these issues with real solutions. If those claiming to be progressive can’t support such a progressive agenda, it is time to say we aren’t going to support them.

Of course there is always the option of supporting alternatives to the two Party system by taking initiatives like Cindy Sheehan, Cynthia McKinney, and Mike Cavlan have done. A multi choice electoral system based upon real issues aimed at improving the life of working people is what needs to be considered… not who is the “lesser evil.” The “danger from the right” perspective has now become a pathetic excuse for failing to take the class struggle into the political arena.

We should start with calling for the defeat of each and every member of the Senate Committee who refused to vote for the legislation aimed at saving the Ford Plant and Dam beginning with the Chair of the Committee James P. Metzen who had sole responsibility in pushing this legislation through his Committee. It is simply shameful that the media did not provide coverage of how this DFL betrayal of all working people in Minnesota went down. Metzen needs to be punished at the polls. Get out your Legislative Manuals… check out Senate District 39… lets run a candidate/s committed to a “bundled” progressive platform in the DFL primary, the Republican Primary and have someone ready to run on the Green Party ticket and as an independent and even as a write-in candidate if need be. We have options, let’s show we progressives aren’t afraid to exercise those options.

The time has come for working people to be completely active in the decision making process… and this doesn’t mean just voting for those candidates selected by a few well-heeled political hacks committed only to the business interests of the Summit Hill Club, the DFL Business Caucus, and the St. Paul Chamber of Commerce.

Life has demonstrated that the closing and demolition of the St. Paul Ford Assembly Plant and selling off the hydro dam to a foreign corporation while politicians pathetically and with demagoguery call for “an end to foreign domination of energy resources” as they allow a hydro plant to be taken over by a foreign multi-national energy corporation which will then turn around and gouge the very tax-payers who have subsidized this hydro generating facility for over 80 years just like the robbery at the pumps is allowed to go unchecked by the Democratic Party.

Again, we need a “bundled” progressive agenda… either politicians support it or they don’t. Given the very tight and close races it becomes very easy to defeat candidates by campaigning against them… and, these politicians will have to consider whether or not they are going to spend big money only to be defeated by a few cheap leaflets.

“Minnesota nice” just doesn’t cut it… it sure hasn’t saved the Ford Plant and dam.


Related News


• Ford agrees to halt plant closures in union contract
AFP - 4 hours ago

• Ford Warns of New Steps if Sales Decline
New York Times - 4 hours ago

• Ford Workers to Vote on Tentative Pact
The Associated Press - 4 hours ago

UAW Leaders Recommend Ford Contract

By TOM KRISHER and DEE-ANN DURBIN – 7 hours ago

DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) — Local union presidents and bargaining chairs have unanimously voted to recommend approval of a tentative four-year contract between Ford Motor Co. and the United Auto Workers, a union local official said Monday.

Bruce Yates, bargaining chairman at Local 2000 at an assembly plant in Avon Lake, Ohio, said the deal was recommended by a voice vote.

A summary of the contract posted on the union's Web site shows that the Ford contract is similar to deals ratified by workers at General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC.

Ford will contribute $13.2 billion to a union-run trust that will pick up much of the company's $22 billion in retiree health care liabilities. The company also will pay $2.2 billion for retiree health care until the trust takes effect in January 2010.

A typical UAW worker at Ford will get $12,904 worth of economic gains over the life of the contract, including a $3,000 signing bonus and lump-sum payments of 3 percent in the second year, 4 percent in the third year and 3 percent in the fourth year, according to the summary.

GM workers won similar bonuses with total gains of $13,056, while Chrysler workers are to receive $10,235.

The summary also said that the UAW won commitments from the company to build five new flexible body shops at assembly plants, as well as a $200 million commitment to invest in new technology and equipment at stamping plants and substantial investments at Ford powertrain operations.

The summary also says that Ford will not sell or close any plants beyond three facilities that already have been identified — Twin Cities Assembly in St. Paul, Minn., and Cleveland Casting and Batavia Transmission in Ohio.

But the union was able to win one-year extensions for Twin Cities and Cleveland casting.

Another key provision of the contract gives the UAW a voice in future Ford product and manufacturing decisions. Bob King, UAW vice president and director of its Ford department, will serve on the company's Manufacturing Operating Committee "where critical decisions are made about current operations and future product," the summary says.

After explaining the deal to the local union officials, UAW President Ron Gettelfinger called the contract a "great agreement," and said no layoffs are expected at Ford.

"At this time we don't anticipate any additional cuts," he said.

About 54,000 UAW members at Ford will vote on the historic pact beginning Wednesday, with some workers skeptical of its job security guarantees in light of layoffs that Chrysler announced shortly after workers there ratified a new contract with the company. Voting is scheduled to be completed the following Monday.

Ford had announced plans to shut down 16 North American factories as part of a restructuring. The company has identified only 10 of the closures, and two of the remaining six to be shuttered were to be assembly plants. But no further closings will take place during the contract, which expires in 2011, the summary said.
Industry analysts have speculated that five U.S. Ford assembly plants were among those in danger of being part of the two closed by the company.

Added investment in the U.S. plants is contingent on the company and union agreeing on local deals to make or keep the plants competitive with Japanese rivals, two people with knowledge of the deal said. The people asked not to be identified because the contract has not been ratified by the union.

In exchange for the investments, Ford will be allowed to pay lower wages to thousands of new hires. New hires for entry level jobs will be paid a starting rate of $14.20 per hour. Such jobs can be up to 20 percent of Ford's UAW work force, according to the summary.

The two-tier wage scale is similar to provisions already agreed to in contracts with GM and Chrysler.

Ford has said the deal allows it to move its estimated $22 billion in retiree health care obligations to a union-run trust. The company did not say how much it will have to contribute to the trust. GM and Chrysler have similar agreements in their contracts.

Mark Fields, Ford's president of the Americas, would not comment on specifics of the deal, but at a meeting with reporters Monday to preview new vehicles, said it is fair to all parties.

He would not say if any layoffs would quickly follow ratification of the deal like those at Chrysler and GM, but said Ford would adjust its factory capacity to make sure it meets market demand.

Ford is financially the weakest of the Detroit Three automakers, having lost more than $12 billion last year. The company has mortgaged its assets — including its blue oval logo — to fund turnaround efforts and has been rapidly losing overall U.S. market share, from 26 percent in the early 1990s to about 15 percent this year. It is using less than 80 percent of its U.S. plant capacity.

Tom Krisher reported from Detroit.

Source: Associated Press



Alan L. Maki
58891 County Road 13
Warroad, Minnesota 56763
Phone: 218-386-2432
Cell phone: 651-587-5541
E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net

Check out my blog:

Thoughts From Podunk

http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/