From the Globe and Mail

Since 75 per cent of Canadian exports go to the U.S., Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton's musings about reopening the North American free-trade pact had caused some concern.

Mr. Brodie downplayed those concerns.

"Quite a few people heard it," said one source in the room.

"He said someone from (Hillary) Clinton's campaign is telling the embassy to take it with a grain of salt. . . That someone called us and told us not to worry."

Government officials did not deny the conversation took place.

Then this bright smilie piece of the puzzle

But others said the content of Mr. Brodie's remarks was passed on to CTV's Washington bureau and their White House correspondent set out the next day to pursue the story on Ms. Clinton's apparent hypocrisy on the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Although CTV correspondent Tom Clark mentioned Ms. Clinton in passing, the focus of his story was on assurances from the Obama camp.

He went to air on Feb. 27 with a report that the Democratic front-runner had given advance notice to Canadian diplomats that he was about to engage in some anti-NAFTA rhetoric, but not to take it too seriously.

So, Mrs. Clinton, when you gonna lie to hard working Americans again? Today? Perhaps tomorrow? Clearly, the Globe and Mail know exactly who you are Mrs. Clinton:

Clinton used the story to cast him [Obama] as a double-talking hypocrite — winking and nudging at Canadians while making contrary promises to American voters.

I know, you loved NAFTA once so you could say you don't love it now; problem is that you still love it and you don't give a damn about voters in my homestate...OHIO!

Somehow, this just isn't a surprise to me at all.

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Cause, you totally ROCK!!

And why you might ask?

Because they endorsed Obama. It apparently happened last week and I freaking missed it!!! I guess I've been a little preoccupied lately.

But not to belabor my point (pun intended), Longshoremen ROCK!

ILWU represents longshoremen in California, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii and Canada. I suppose I now need to look up the East coasters and see what they have to say. Of course, they aren't the union of Harry Bridges, only the west coasters are!! Harry, love you, love your union!!

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I've been reading Fire on the Mountain again and a comment linked to Calitics. I've read the site before but never really got hooked by it, I mean, I don't live in California. Higgins mentioned that Calitics had some amazing coverage of an issue that is dear to my heart, so I headed over and was more than amazed, I was hooked.

Ah, those greedy firefighters. How dare they ask for a middle-class income? What gives them the idea that they can extort such wages?

Firefighters say their earnings are high because the department is so short-staffed they're forced to work huge amounts of overtime.

Since 2001, 30 firefighters have retired or left the department, and only three have been hired, said Vallejo fire Capt. Jon Riley, vice president of Fire Fighters Union Local 1186. And after rumors of bankruptcy began circulating, 14 more retired, fearing that their benefits and salaries would be cut, he said.

"We're having to work an extraordinary amount of overtime," he said. "We make great salaries, but if you're not able to see your family, what good is it?"

Firefighters typically work 48-hour shifts with four days off between shifts. Many Vallejo firefighters are now forced to work 96-hour shifts with two days off, he said. Sleep deprivation, divorce and child-care complications are common, he said.

"I'd say morale has hit rock bottom," he said. "But we're still committed to providing the highest level of service to the citizens of Vallejo."

Oh. They mean to tell us that firefighting is hard, grueling work, and that they should get fairly compensated for protecting the community?

To most of us, the firefighters' stand is common sense. Fire protection is something you just don't skimp on - unless you're Orange County conservatives (more on them in a moment). And it's not as if the firefighters are unwilling to help:

Firefighter union President Kurt Hanke told the council that the union reached an agreement late last week with city negotiators for wage cuts that would have reduced Vallejo's deficit to zero. But he said Tanner on Monday vetoed the deal....Leaders of public safety unions say the salaries of police officers and firefighters are high because they must work large amounts of overtime because of staff shortages. The unions have offered to cut the employees' pay if more officers and firefighters are hired.

Instead Vallejo's leaders prefer to play hardball and blame public safety employees for the city's crisis. And unsurprisingly, nobody in Vallejo seems to be discussing a tax increase to stave off these crippling cuts - which will not only compromise public safety, but further damage the city's economy. Firing workers and cutting everyone else's pay is not exactly going to help Vallejo's restaurants and small businesses weather the storm.

So, having read all of this, I went to the IAFF site and was disappointed, there's no mention of this. This city is using first responders as bargaining chips. I wonder if the Farm Bill's IAFF amendment had been passed in December, if this city would still be able to be such asses.

Prior to beginning debate on the Farm bill, the Senate unanimously agreed that each political party would be allowed to offer up to 20 amendments to the bill on any topic they chose, as long as those amendments were approved by a super-majority of 60 Senators. The two leading sponsors of the IAFF’s bargaining bill — Senators Judd Gregg (R-NH) and Ted Kennedy (D-MA) — jointly agreed that the the collective bargaining bill would be offered as a Democratic amendment.

After more than two dozen amendments were debated and voted on, Democrats moved to bring up our amendment. To the surprise of leaders of both parties, anti-labor senators, led by Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Mike Enzi (R-WY), refused to honor the unanimous consent agreement which would allow the Senate to consider the amendment. Additionally, they vowed to engage in parliamentary guerilla tactics to tie the Senate in knots.

Complicating the process, five key Senate supporters of the collective bargaining proposal are spending most of their time in Iowa and New Hampshire as they run for president. DeMint and Enzi knew that the IAFF would have a hard time meeting the 60-vote threshold without Senators Biden, Clinton, Dodd, McCain and Obama. While the presidential candidates had agreed to return to Washington last night, canceling their scheduled events for a significant portion of today to vote on the amendment this morning, there was no way the Senate leadership on both sides of the aisles could put the presidential campaigns on hold to remain in Washington indefinitely.

Of the list of Senators who "supported" collective bargaining rights for firefighters, only McCain is from a right-to-not-work state. Fascinating. He'd go against the will of his constituents in Arizona and support the collective bargaining rights of firefighters? Good thing his freidns DeMint and Enzi stepped in and made sure he didn't have to prove this. How very convenient.

Mr. McCain, if you support collective bargaining rights for firefighters, you should support them for all workers and you should also ensure that first responders aren't painted with a bright red target symbol by city councils.

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Today is a sad day. Not only is the NAFTA queen being called the comeback kid, but DC City Council voted on Tuesday to say Fuck You to waitresses and Health Care workers in the city.

Yep, that's right, please remember to thank

Harry Thomas Jr. (Ward 5)
Mary Cheh (Ward 3)
Kwame Brown (At-Large, I guess I should expect this from a former Wal-Mart executive)
Yvette Alexander (Ward 7, WTF Yvette?)
Vincent Gray (Council Chair)
Jack Evans (Ward 2)
David Catania (At-Large-Independent former Republican)

For Voting their Fuck You to DC workers.

From DC's Metro Washington Labor Council:

With an estimated 200,000 workers in DC who do not currently get paid sick time, with high concentrations in low-wage food service, retail, and construction -- including part-time workers and workers in seasonal positions - sick leave advocates say many DC workers may now never meet the one-year full-time minimum to access paid sick and safe time.

I do taxes as a volunteer in DC. I sit across from the table and look at the financial picture of worker after worker after worker. What is the most disgusting part of yesterday's vote is that they could have included servers and still did the ridiculous 12 months full time requirement and still taken them out of the mix, but Health Care workers? That's one aimed directly at single moms. It's aimed at the visiting nurses who aren't represented by a union, the certified nursing assistants, homehealth aides, mental health aides, etc... These are the lowest paid health workers out there. And I do their taxes. They make less than $30k a year working full time when they do work full time. Most do not. Most work multiple jobs and all of them are part time.

So, thank you Carol Schwartz for pushing this measure (I can't believe I'm thanking a Republican), but to the unanimous support the final bill recieved, shame on DC Council. Shame on each and every one of you for voting the Fuck You to DC workers.

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Well, really this is more about TeamsterPower. I've had the pleasure of meeting him and talking to him about union issues. He totally rocks. I try to keep up on anything he posts on all the diary based sites, but things do fall through the cracks. For instance, I missed his recent post on Dailykos which detailed why every union worker should vote for Obama.

He opens with

Two words: Replacement workers.

And it just gets even better after that...

Permanent replacements have been around since 1938 when the Supreme Court said in NLRB v. Mackay Radio & Telegraph Co. that a company does not have to reinstate "economic strikers" if it hired strikebreakers to continue the business. Now, for you business majors out there, that may sound well and good. Why should I rehire a worker who went on strike for a raise if I can find someone to do the job for less money? Why? Because it's fair. It's the right thing to do. Because many times, these workers have sacrificed to make your business a success and when it succeeds they should be rewarded, not treated like draft animals or machines.

Consider the workers at Diamond Walnut in Stockton, Calif. In 1985 Diamond was facing bankruptcy and turned to its workers for help. The workers, Teamsters from Local Union 601, agreed to take pay cuts of up to 40% to help the company weather the tough times.

By 1991 Diamond had reached the Fortune 500 and bragged of record profits. But instead of giving those profits back to its employees, the company demanded more concessions.

On Sept. 4, 1991, the workers went on strike -- a fight that would last 14 years only because Diamond was prepared. As soon as the strike was called the company began hiring replacement workers.

I hated Diamond, but I really loved how the workers on strike for 14 years were able to work with the scabs and bring both groups into the same union. More from TeamsterPower on Diamond Walnuts and supporting Obama.

But today, Barack Obama is the only presidential candidate left who supports a ban on permanent replacement workers. (Edwards also supported such a ban.)

If you value your union, if you value the right to collective bargaining, if you value the labor movement, then you will vote for Barack Obama. The Employee Free Choice Act is important. Renegotiating NAFTA and stopping other trade agreements that sell out working Americans is important. But if workers continue to be denied the right to strike, they lose the ability to fight for economic justice. Unions must organize more and more workers to exceed losses. And what value is solidarity if you're all unemployed?

The members of Local 601 are heroes. They took a stand on principal and through ingenuity and perseverance actually succeeded in a situation where most strikers fail.

After more than a year of crossing the picket line, the replacements realized they were Diamond's pawns. See, even "permanent" replacement workers can be fired at will without a union contract to protect them. They voted with the strikers for union representation with the Teamsters. The workers turned the tables on Diamond.

Having followed the Diamond strike (yep, I really am that girl, surprise surprise!!), I knew everything that he wrote about, but I couldn't put it so eloquently.

So, way to go TeamsterPower!

And, here's hoping today's voting reminds every union household out there who has always supported worker's rights (read UNITE-HERE's endorsement for more on that) through actions and not dissing workers by sitting on the board of Wal-Mart.

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I kept forgetting to add Shame on Elaine to my blog roll, but I did it today. Not only that, I thought I'd pull in just a sample

Though one of America Samoa’s largest employers only pays workers an average of $3.60 an hour, Elaine Chao’s Department thinks that’s adequate – and even goes as far as arguing that increasing the minimum wage “would have damaging effects on the economies of American Samoa and the Northern Marianas

You know, the Northern Marianas, the place that Abramoff championed

For those who may not recall, the Northern Marianas recieved special treatment from the Bush administration because of lobbying and bribery efforts by Abramoff that directly benefitted Bob Ney, Tom Delay, John Doolittle, Richard Pombo and other feloneous Republicans. Perks included free travel, money, meals and, very likely, tropical sexcapades. The Islands businesses, who have a documented history of engaging in slave labor, forced prostitution and employer-mandated abortions, are allowed to use the "Made in the USA" label, despite not being in the US and not adhering to US labor standards for age, overtime pay, safe working conditions or minimum wages.

So, Mitch's wife seriously continues to support big business over simple human decency. With Hillary running on her husband's record, does that mean that Mitch is also running on his wife's? I think so. I think her support of slave wages in the US territory of the Northern Marianas should be one of those chains hung around Mitch's neck.

Hey, Elaine and Mitch, I can't wait to fix all the problems the two of you have created. I guess that's what we all have to do, clean up the mess Republicans have made of everything. Including extending all labor laws to all US territories or start allowing them to obtain statehood or sovereinty. We aren't an empire, you did know that Mitch and Elaine, right?

Need more on slave labor issues in the Norther Marianas, I highly recommend reading No Bodies Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the New Global Economy by John Bowe

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I was reading a recent e-news e-mail and noticed they had a hint on where to buy union made mugs that I wanted to pass on to readers.

First up is K&R. From their site:

K&R Industries is one of the country's largest suppliers of USA Made and Union Made goods. This gives us tremendous purchasing power and ensures that our orders receive priority handling from all our manufacturers.

We take great pride in our commitment to America’s Union Labor, and support union businesses wherever possible. K&R Industries is a union shop and our employees understand the quality and craftsmanship that comes through union labor.

Sure would have been nice if Yearlykos (nka Netroots Nation) had encouraged that items in totes (as well as the totes) be union made. I ripped out the Made in (not USA) label as soon as I could. I would have preferred not to receive one than to receive one that wasn't union made at a Freaking Progressive Bloggers Conference!!

Now, in case the art work is a little tame, you've got to head over to Imagepointe, they're freaking amazing. None of these are my local (or formal local). If they were, I'd buy. In fact the printing is images are really freaking amazing. Take a look and see. And to be clear, Imagepointe is:

UNION MADE UNION PRINTED UNION EMBROIDERED

And yep, that's from their site!

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Or for that matter, are injured. But did you know that few low wage workers are ever paid any leave time in order to recover from an injury or to get over the flu?

Well, now, there's something you can do about it. You can RALLY ONLINE in support of paid time off.

It's time that we all get the time necessary to get better. No one should ever have to choose between putting food on the table and taking a day off to get over the flu. It's just not right. It's not right, at all!

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