Solidarity Education Center

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By: Jerry Tucker -Solidarity Education Center Director

“Helping workers to know better what they already know” and the conversion of this “new knowledge” and political consciousness into collective action are fundamental to building solidarity and working class power. Despite capital’s relentless assault and the demoralized state of the working class today, our formal labor movement continues to de-emphasize if not ignore the value of comprehensive educational opportunities for members, leader-activists, and workers as a class.

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Rank and File Activism: A Viable Alternative By: John Hovis and Chris Townsend - reprinted from Lab Over time, fads come and go, yet for organized labor certain basic principles hold true. In the “big picture” search for answers to the problems faced by labor today, outspoken contemporary labor leaders and well-meaning academics either inadvertently overlook, or chose to dismiss, the obvious reality: namely, there is likely to be no meaningful revival of the labor movement until rank-and-file members have a fundamental role in running their unions. Those who ignore - or choose to ignore - this truth, instead promoting union mergers, creating gigantic mega-locals, forging “partnership” agreements with employers, or continuing to pursue failed political strategies - will not find the path to revival. They are looking in the wrong direction.	“Health Care for America Now” Which Side Are ‘They’ On? By: Jenny Brown …the plan espoused by the HCAN coalition seems to be very close to what Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton advocated all through the primary-regulate private insurance companies more, provide a mind-boggling patchwork of income-based subsidies (creating another layer of paperwork, tests and qualifications), and provide a public insurance alternative as a last resort. Worse, it continues to waste the money that could cover everyone… "The private insurance industry, as it functions today, clearly must be replaced with a system that works" says Don McCann, Senior Health Policy Fellow with PNHP. "So what is the solution proposed by the HCAN coalition? Let`s replace the private insurance industry with the private insurance industry."	"PATERNALISTIC LIBERIALISM" IN 21ST CENTURY POLITICS By: By Muata Greene As I watched the blow by blow, word by word coverage of the primary season in America and of the Democratic primaries, I thought that this is the period in the United States of America when the ideology of "Paternalistic Liberalism” has reached its ultimate. You ask, what is Paternal Liberalism? Paternal is a late middle-English word meaning father, belonging to a father. Liberalism---a middle-English word denoting a freeman, social reformer, easy going, unselfish.
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Florida Farmworkers Chop Up Burger King By: Elly Leary - photo by Scott Robertson The Burger King surrender is the third for the farmworkers' organization, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) in a protracted campaign to force the fast food industry to be accountable for the production of their staples. The agreement between the CIW and Burger King, the nation's second largest hamburger chain, was signed on Capitol Hill on May 23, 2008.	Obama-Clinton Health Debate Ignores Real Issue By: RoseAnn DeMoro reprinted from Providence Journal The debate between Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on health care probably looks like a small nuance in two proposals that are remarkably similar. But the issue at the center of their dispute reflects a lot about our present health-care system and how to achieve genuine reform. What’s generating the heat is a concept called “individual mandate” - using the power of government to force uninsured individuals to buy health insurance. Senator Clinton claims that the only way to achieve “universal” coverage is to require everyone to have insurance. Senator Obama says people don’t have insurance not because they don’t want it, but because they can’t afford it. Both are skipping the main problem.	Communications Workers of the World! Unite? By: Sid Shniad There is an apocryphal story that Mahatma Gandhi was once asked what he thought about Western Civilization. He is said to have answered that it would be a good idea. That is pretty much my view of the labour movement today: despite decades of being on the receiving end of ferocious attacks from corporations and governments, organized labour is not functioning like a movement at all. In the twenty years since the onset of neo-liberal globalization, hundreds of thousands of unionized communications jobs have been lost, wages and working conditions in the industry have deteriorated, and union density has declined as telecommunications companies established and purchased major non-union subsidiaries.
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Helping workers to know better what they already know and the conversion of this new knowledge and political consciousness into collective action are fundamental to building solidarity and working class power.

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