Linda Burns, a worker from Birmingham, Alabama, spoke at a Poor People’s Campaign press conference, co-sponsored by Repairers of the Breach and the Kairos Center on February 5th, 2024. She spoke about how she lives one emergency away from poverty and wants Alabama (and other states) to do the right thing and support poor and low-wage people by providing living wages, quality healthcare, and strong social welfare systems for the poor.
Working conditions, staffing, safety, hours, wages, and benefits are apocalyptic and have long been so.
Philadelphia Strike Ends: Race & Inequality at Center of Municipal Workers’ Fight for a Fair Wage
The largest municipal workers’ strike in decades in the city of Philadelphia has ended after 9,000 members of AFSCME District Council 33, who are primarily sanitation workers, walked off the job a week ago. Growing piles of trash on the streets of Philadelphia brought the strike into clear view for city residents.
Labor historian Francis Ryan says the workers won “the hearts of a lot of Philadelphians” with a popular social media campaign. “What I saw on the picket lines last week was a spark of social justice unionism,” says Ryan. The average sanitation worker salary in Philadelphia is currently $46,000 a year, which the union has argued is not a living wage for workers required to live within the city limits.
The Dow Jones (DJIA) is set to open the Thursday trading session slightly lower following a mixed unemployment report.
Initial claims for unemployment totaled 227,000 for the week ended July 5, below the expectation for 235,000 claims and falling from 232,000 during the previous week. The previous week’s initial unemployment claims were revised downwards by 1,000 claims from 233,000. Initial unemployment claims have now fallen for four consecutive weeks.
Worms in the food. Toilets that don't flush, flooding floors with fecal waste. Days without a shower or prescription medicine. Mosquitoes and insects everywhere. Lights on all night. Air conditioners that suddenly shut off in the tropical heat. Detainees forced to use recorded phone lines to speak with their lawyers and loved ones.
Only days after President Donald Trump toured a new immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades that officials have dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” these are some of the conditions described by people held inside.......
.....Trump and his allies have praised this detention center's harshness and remoteness as befitting the “worst of the worst" and as a national model for the deterrence needed to persuade immigrants to “self-deport” from the United States.
But among those locked inside the chain-link enclosures are people with no criminal records, and at least one teenage boy, attorneys told the AP.
Concerns about medical care, lack of medicines
Immigration attorney Katie Blankenship described a concerning lack of medical care at the facility, relaying an account from a 35-year-old Cuban client who told his wife that detainees go days without a shower. The toilets are in the same space as the bunkbeds and can't handle their needs, she said.....
....The customer fired a shot to try to stop the attack, and then held the suspect at gunpoint until officers arrived. No one was struck by the bullet, according to police.
“He had her sitting down there in the parking lot next to a vehicle and he had the gun pointed at her,” said Edward Ballestero, another employee who was working when the stabbing happened. “That’s when police and all them rolled up.”
Officers arrived, and the employee was taken into custody.
Harris was taken to a local hospital, where she died from her injuries.
Her children describe her as selfless and a hard worker who aimed to provide for her six children as a single mother.....
Three brothers in the Gaza Strip woke up early to run to a local clinic to get “sweets,” their word for the emergency food supplements distributed by aid groups. By the time their father woke up, two of the brothers had been fatally wounded by an Israeli strike and the third had lost an eye.
The strike outside the clinic on Thursday in the central city of Deir al-Balah killed 14 people, including 9 children, according to a local hospital, which had initially reported 10 children killed but later said one had died in a separate incident.....
......Hatem Al-Nouri's four-year-old son, Amir, was killed immediately. His eight-year-old son, Omar, was still breathing when he reached the hospital but died shortly thereafter. He said that at first he didn't recognize his third son, two-year-old Siraj, because his eye had been torn out.
“What did these children do to deserve this?” the father said as he broke into tears. “They were dreaming of having a loaf of bread.”
A ‘sharp and unprecedented’ rise in malnutrition
Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in recent weeks while trying to get food, according to local health officials. Experts say hunger is widespread among Gaza’s 2 million Palestinians and that Israel’s blockade and military offensive have put them at risk of famine.
The international aid group Doctors Without Borders said it has recorded a “sharp and unprecedented rise" in acute malnutrition at two clinics it operates in Gaza, with more than 700 pregnant and breastfeeding women, and nearly 500 children, receiving outpatient therapeutic food.
The Gaza situation has definitely crossed the line into plain old-fashioned genocide. Finally the rhetoric accurately describes what is going on there.
"We must remember that we cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation." --Liz Cheney, Republican, 7/21/22
A workplace mishap over the weekend left a 19-year-old man dead after he fell into a meat grinder at a food processing facility in California.
The Vernon Police Department told Fox News Digital that the young victim, whose identity has not been disclosed, was part of the sanitation team at Tina’s Burritos, located in the 2600 block of Vernon Avenue.
Officials said that the Los Angeles County Fire Department was dispatched to assist with what was described as a "fatal industrial accident" in regard to a male subject that was found in the meat grinder, which was called an industrial-grade kettle.
Authorities said the fatal accident happened around 9:30 p.m. and is being treated as an "industrial mishap," as the victim was cleaning an industrial food processor when the machine unexpectedly activated.
Other workers inside the factory told KABC they could hear his cries for help and attempted to shut down the machine, but were unsuccessful. By the time officers arrived at the factory, the man had already passed away......
Four people died and more than a dozen others were injured after a stolen car crashed into a transport bus on a highway in San Antonio, Texas, police said.
Around 2:30 p.m. local time on July 17, a stolen white Camaro with four individuals inside crashed into a bus on South Interstate 35 in the Leon Creek area, San Antonio Police Chief Bill McManus said.
Initially, two people were pronounced dead and 18 others were injured, McManus said. Two more people died later Thursday night at a local hospital after receiving medical care, Camelia Juarez, San Antonio Police's public information officer, told USA TODAY.
Juarez said the car struck a trailer that was attached to the bus, causing the bus to lose control and go into the pathway of the 18-wheeler in the following lane, before striking a guardrail. The 18-wheeler struck the bus, causing the bus to roll on its side. Multiple people were ejected from the bus.....
That's the city in the part of LA where all the old railroads meet, near downtown and the Latino gang controlled territory. It's the place where Upton Sinclair's America went to die. The Vernon city seal is still a gear with the motto "Exclusively Industrial." There are something like 20 houses in the whole city. Most are rented to city employees. After being threatened with disincorporation by the state, they allowed one apartment building, which doubled the population from 100 to 200.
You can cruise the mean streets of Vernon with Google Street View. It's more than a little creepy. There are a couple of bars, a working-class diner or two, otherwise it's all business. Most of the buildings are just nondescript square boxes, but every so often you come upon something that looks like it's about to blow up. Also I believe the former Exide battery factory is still a Superfund site with "danger" signs all around it.
There are never any people visible. Ever.
"We must remember that we cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation." --Liz Cheney, Republican, 7/21/22
That's the city in the part of LA where all the old railroads meet, near downtown and the Latino gang controlled territory. It's the place where Upton Sinclair's America went to die. The Vernon city seal is still a gear with the motto "Exclusively Industrial." There are something like 20 houses in the whole city. Most are rented to city employees. After being threatened with disincorporation by the state, they allowed one apartment building, which doubled the population from 100 to 200.
You can cruise the mean streets of Vernon with Google Street View. It's more than a little creepy. There are a couple of bars, a working-class diner or two, otherwise it's all business. Most of the buildings are just nondescript square boxes, but every so often you come upon something that looks like it's about to blow up. Also I believe the former Exide battery factory is still a Superfund site with "danger" signs all around it.
Same idea, except that in the Midwest you got these company towns, or cities that had started as company towns. Someone actually lived in them.
Vernon was started by a family which founded a city based on the idea that the fewer people who actually lived there, the better. They wanted a city devoted completely to large industrial facilities. They couldn't do that under California law unless someone actually lived there, hence the 10 small houses next to City Hall. The family didn't live in those. They had some mansion in some fancy LA rich people's enclave. The city employees who had to be around 24/7 lived in them. The whole scam would be selling land to big companies, and not having to actually provide the kind of services like rat control, etc. that people living in big buildings would want.
Part of the current problem in Vernon is that it had railroad tracks to all these facilities, but when shipping moved largely to trucks, those ran on the 2-lane streets. Nowadays I am told that early morning in Vernon can be absolute chaos. Truck drivers all bitch about having to go there. Then there's the Exide plant, which is one of the nation's great environmental catastrophes. It poisoned several adjoining communities. You can't believe how much it's costing taxpayers to clean that mess up. They had a giant sealed off tent over it for years, now it's empty lots with "danger" signs all over the fences.
"We must remember that we cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation." --Liz Cheney, Republican, 7/21/22
Israeli troops opened fire Saturday toward crowds of Palestinians seeking food from distribution hubs run by a U.S.- and Israeli-backed group in southern Gaza, killing at least 32 people, according to witnesses and hospital officials.....
....Mahmoud Mokeimar said that he was walking with masses of people, mostly young men, toward the hub. Troops fired warning shots, and then opened fire.
“The occupation opened fire at us indiscriminately,” he said. He said that he saw at least three motionless bodies on the ground and many wounded people fleeing.
Akram Aker, another witness, said that troops fired machine guns mounted on tanks and drones between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m.
“They encircled us and started firing directly at us,” Aker said. He said he saw many casualties on the ground.
Sanaa al-Jaberi said that there was shooting after the site opened as people seeking aid broke into a run.
“Is this food or death? Why? They don’t talk with us, they only shoot us,” she said, and showed off her empty bag.
Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis said that it received 25 bodies. Seven other people, including one woman, were killed in the Shakoush area, hundreds of meters or yards north of another GHF hub in Rafah, the hospital said.
Dr. Mohamed Saker, the head of Nasser's nursing department, said that it received 70 wounded people. He told The Associated Press that most people were shot in the head and chest......
The fruits of American labor are a parasitic upper class of maybe 5000 people, who control both major parties. Due largely to a SCOTUS packed by this same class, it is now unlawful to use taxation of excessive income to actually make life better for the majority. Due largely to media owned by this class, it is the core narrative that serfdom is freedom.
And 80% of us call this free enterprise and would volunteer to kill or die for it.
"We must remember that we cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation." --Liz Cheney, Republican, 7/21/22
Arkansas Lawyer on Medicaid Work Requirements: “Widespread Disaster & Chaos”
Millions of Americans are at risk of losing their health coverage because of President Trump's new domestic policy law, which mandates work requirements for Medicaid patients nationwide. Kevin De Liban, founder of the nonprofit TechTonic Justice, speaks to Hari Sreenivasan about the fight to overturn Medicaid work requirements.
If a wealthy professional athlete needs to come out of retirement to afford to see a doctor, how is our health care system impacting millions of working-class Americans? We need Medicare for All.
"One Meal Every Three Days": Journalist & Aid Worker Back from Gaza on Stark Reality on the Ground
The BBC, Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse have all called on Israel to allow journalists in and out of Gaza as starvation there becomes imminent. In a statement, the news outlets said, "We are desperately concerned for our journalists in Gaza, who are increasingly unable to feed themselves and their families.
" We speak with Afeef Nessouli, a journalist who just returned from Gaza, where he volunteered as an aid worker.
"It has been an incredibly awful experience to see people sort of become sicker and sicker from hunger," says Nessouli, who describes visiting community kitchens in Gaza that have run out of food.
"Many of us would just have one meal a day," he says of his seven weeks in Gaza. Now, his colleagues who remain in Gaza "are having one meal every three days."
Rev. Regina Clark Testimony at Moral Monday In Memphis
“To our legislators, I have urgent questions: how can you make securing healthcare harder? How can you eliminate student loan protections for those who are trying to better themselves? How can you strip away dignity one meal at a time?”
“This law doesn’t just attack our stomachs, it attacks our souls. It doesn’t just cut benefits, it cuts our ability to serve. When you strip away someone’s food security you strip away their strength to lift others. When you make healthcare inaccessible, you make it impossible for people like me to stay healthy enough to serve our communities. SNAP and Medicaid are not just about dependency; they’re about dignity.”
US economy grows at 3% in Q2, rebounding from first pullback in 3 years
US economic growth rebounded in the second quarter after contracting for the first time in three years to start 2025.
Gross domestic product grew at an annualized pace of 3% in the second quarter, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis's advance estimate. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had expected a 2.6% increase.
The GOP never cares about The Economy only protecting their rich buddies
Playbook PM: A wobbly jobs report shakes Trump’s economy
JOBS DAY: The latest jobs data today painted a picture of a much softer labor market all summer than was previously known, raising fresh fears about the health of the U.S. economy and — in combination with President Donald Trump’s new tariffs — sending markets lower.
The toplines: American employers added 73,000 jobs in July, per the latest data, lower than economists had expected. Growth was largely concentrated in the health care sector, and the overall unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2 percent. Wages were up 3.9 percent annually, outpacing inflation. But the big shock came in revisions to the May and June jobs numbers, which defied fears at the time but have now come in at a combined 258,000 jobs fewer than previously reported, per Reuters.
The Donald's job numbers have turned out to be BS, high by a quarter of a million. This caused the biggest stock market decline since last April. He has a solution, though. He's fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
As someone on CNBC said, perhaps the replacement will be better at putting their thumb on the scale.
"We must remember that we cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation." --Liz Cheney, Republican, 7/21/22
All major Las Vegas Strip casinos are now unionized in historic labor victory
LAS VEGAS -- When Susana Pacheco accepted a housekeeping job at a casino on the Las Vegas Strip 16 years ago, she believed it was a step toward stability for her and her 2-year-old daughter.
But the single mom found herself exhausted, falling behind on bills and without access to stable health insurance, caught in a cycle of low pay and little support. For years, she said, there was no safety net in sight — until now.
Washington — The Department of Veterans Affairs is terminating collective bargaining agreements with several key government unions representing its employees.
In an announcement Wednesday, the VA said the move is in response to an executive order President Donald Trump signed in March that nixed collective bargaining rights for many federal workers in the name of national security.
Minnesota Teamsters Ratify Powerful New Contract at Sysco
(MINNEAPOLIS) – Following a credible strike threat, more than 230 drivers and warehouse workers at Sysco have ratified a strong new four-year collective bargaining agreement. The contract, secured by Teamsters Local 120, includes a 30 percent wage increase, expanded vacation time, increased pension contributions, and Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a paid holiday. The agreement also includes strong strike protections and new language to guard against job loss from automation.
“We made it clear to Sysco we were ready to walk if they didn’t come to the table with a fair contract,” said Andy Ketcher, a Sysco driver and Local 120 steward. “Because we stood together, we won a deal that rewards our hard work and gives us the respect we deserve.”
EPA on Friday canceled contracts with a host of unions, including the America Federation of Government Employees, the largest labor organization representing staffers from the agency, according to a letter viewed by POLITICO’s E&E News.
In the memo to staffers, the agency said it was canceling the contracts to align with an executive order that President Donald Trump signed in March barring collective bargaining at more than two dozen agencies and subagencies based on national security concerns, as well as a recent court ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
ap215 wrote: ↑Fri Aug 08, 2025 8:26 am
Minnesota Teamsters Ratify Powerful New Contract at Sysco
(MINNEAPOLIS) – Following a credible strike threat, more than 230 drivers and warehouse workers at Sysco have ratified a strong new four-year collective bargaining agreement. The contract, secured by Teamsters Local 120, includes a 30 percent wage increase, expanded vacation time, increased pension contributions, and Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a paid holiday. The agreement also includes strong strike protections and new language to guard against job loss from automation.
“We made it clear to Sysco we were ready to walk if they didn’t come to the table with a fair contract,” said Andy Ketcher, a Sysco driver and Local 120 steward. “Because we stood together, we won a deal that rewards our hard work and gives us the respect we deserve.”
Consumer prices rise 2.7% annually in July, less than expected amid tariff worries
A widely followed measure of inflation accelerated slightly less than expected in July on an annual basis as President Donald Trump’s tariffs showed mostly modest impacts and investors grew more confidence about interest rate cuts ahead.
The consumer price index increased a seasonally adjusted 0.2% for the month and 2.7% on a 12-month basis, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday. That compared with the respective Dow Jones estimates for 0.2% and 2.8%.
US UoM consumer sentiment falls to 58.6 as inflation expectations reignite
US consumer confidence weakened in August, with University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index falling from 61.7 to 58.6, missing expectations of 62.1 and marking the first decline in four months. The drop was driven by a sharp fall in Current Economic Conditions Index to 60.9 from 68.0. Expectations Index edged down only slightly to 57.2 from 57.7.
While consumers are no longer bracing for the worst-case economic scenario feared in April at the height of tariff tensions, optimism remains fragile. Many still expect inflation and unemployment to worsen over the coming year, dampening any boost from earlier resilience in household sentiment.
