With 122 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives, the High Speed Rail Investment Act of 2001 (HR 2329) was introduced on June 27 by a strong bipartisan coalition, led by Reps. Amory Houghton (R-NY) and James Oberstar (D-MN).

"The solution to America’s transportation gridlock — on the roads and in the sky — is not to build more highways and more runways. The solution to America’s transportation gridlock is to integrate our highways and airports with intercity high-speed rail," stated Mark Dysart, President and CEO of the High Speed Ground Transportation Association. "Only with adequate funding for high-speed rail, which this Bond Bill provides, can we truly address our congested roads and sky."

If passed, the Act will authorize Amtrak to issue $12 billion in bonds over a ten-year period. Amtrak may issue the bonds for its own use or may issue the bonds on behalf of another qualified intercity high-speed rail carrier. Each issuance, limited to $1.2 billion annually, must be accompanied by a state match of at least 20 percent. The proceeds of the bond issuance must be invested in high-speed rail infrastructure, rolling stock and other capital investments on high-speed rail corridors throughout the nation.

2001 Labor in the Pulpits

The sixth annual Labor in the Pulpits program, a joint effort between the AFL-CIO and the National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice, will take place this year August 31 through September 3 over the Labor Day weekend. This program links local congregations with union members who come as people of faith to speak at worship services about conditions of working people, the union movement and the struggle of workers to win a voice at work.

During Labor Day weekend worship services, union members and leaders speak directly to members of congregations about their experiences as union members and people of faith. It’s an opportunity to unite people of all denominations in a common commitment to social and economic justice and to instill deeper understanding of faith in action.

Labor in the Pulpits began in Chicago in 1996. By 2000, unions speakers addressed congregations in 36 states and more than 130 cities. Last year union speakers addressed an estimated 120,000 worshipers at over 800 services in 650 congregations.

"Throughout 2000, we stood shoulder to shoulder with the religious community on workers’ rights issues around the globe such as child labor, World Trade Organization, debt relief for impoverished countries and core labor standards," said AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney. "Again and again the religious community assisted workers seeking to have a voice at work. The religion-labor alliance continues to grow and Labor in the Pulpits is an important expression of our joint concern for economic justice in America’s workplaces."

For further information, please contact AFL-CIO, Labor in the Pulpits, phone: 202-637-5280, fax: 202-637-5012, e-mail: lip@aflcio.org or National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice, phone: 773-728-8400, fax: 773-728-8409, e-mail: info@nicwj.org.

DC Labor Film Fest: September 6-8, 2001

The Labor Party’s cultural and educational arm — the Debs-Jones-Douglass Institute — in partnership with the AFL-CIO Metropolitan Washington Council and the American Film Institute is sponsoring an exciting and original event in Washington, DC on September 6, 7 and 8, 2001 — the DC Labor Film Fest.

Tony Mazzocchi, Labor Party National Organizer and Joslyn Williams, President of the Washington Council are serving as co-chairs of the festival.

Showcasing films featuring workers and workers’ issues, the festival will bring together directors, labor leaders, workers and activists to celebrate labor’s struggles for economic and social justice.

All films will be screened at the American Film Institute’s Theater in the prestigious Kennedy Center. Six of the following films will be selected to be viewed: At the River I Stand, Bread and Roses, Cradle Will Rock, Human Resources, La Ciudad, Live Nude Girls United!, Matewan, Roger and Me, Silkwood.

The DJD Institute plans to make this film festival an annual event in Washington, DC and they also plan to take it on the road by establishing a project to assist local labor movements across the country in setting up their own annual labor film festivals.

Work Culture in a Changing World

Beverly Conley’s images of London’s Smithfield Market and Massachusetts’ Cranberry Bogs will be on exhibit at the George Meany Memorial Archives in Silver Spring, Maryland from July 16 through November 4, 2001.

"In five hundred years, not much has changed in the order of things at Smithfield. The self-employed pitchers, pullers-back and bummarees (porters) still rule supreme." ... "A common thread of strong family tradition links the Massachusetts cranberry workers with the meat workers at Smithfield Market. When the industry began, labor was supplied by family members and the community." (Excerpted from Labor’s Heritage, vol. 8, no. 3.)

Beverly Conley is a documentary photographer based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. During her 20-year career she has worked on long-term, self-assigned projects that have focused on individuals and contemporary society. She often invests months and even years with and among her subjects because she feels that this allows for an intimacy not possible any other way. Currently she is devoting her time to depicting life in the Cherokee Nation and to documenting steel towns in Ohio and West Virginia. Her photo essays have appeared in numerous publications and previous solo exhibitions include Harvard University’s Fogg Museum of Art. In addition, her photographs have been included in numerous group shows and juried exhibitions and are represented in many permanent collections including the Cleveland Museum of Art, the New York Public Library and the Museum of London in England.

The George Meany Memorial Archives is located on the 47-acre campus of the George Meany Center for Labor Studies - National Labor College in Silver Spring. The AFL-CIO established the GMMA in 1981 to honor the memory of its first president and to preserve its historical records for institutional and public research. The Archives also features exhibits that draw attention to the heritage of workers and to resources for the further exploration of that heritage.

Race-Mongering, Union-Bashing

More than 7,000 peaceful protesters, including the BMWE’s Timothy McCall, rallied in Columbia, South Carolina on June 9 to support five Longshoremen who face trumped-up felony rioting charges stemming from a January 2000 demonstration. But the state’s attorney general has escalated his vitriolic war of words against working families. In a news release attacking the "Charleston 5," Attorney General Charles Condon called the group’s supporters "sympathizers" and "comrades" and ridiculed those who are fighting for justice for the Charleston 5. His action is "the lowest form of race-mongering and union-bashing," AFL-CIO President Sweeney and NAACP Chairman Julian Bond said in a joint statement June 5.

Harvard Activists Victorious

After a three-week sit-in, student activists at Harvard reached an agreement with university officials May 8 on a plan to move their living wage campaign for campus workers forward. The agreement creates a committee — with worker participation — to study options for boosting the wages of janitors, groundskeepers and other low-income workers at the prestigious university. The panel must submit its recommendations by December. The agreement also calls for retroactive wage increases, a moratorium on subcontracting and outsourcing and better access to health care for Harvard workers.

"Harvard has made real and substantive commitments," said AFL-CIO President Sweeney. "The students’ victory is a monumental one." The win is energizing the growing campus social justice movement and taking it one step further. "While many students have focused their outrage at overseas sweatshops," said Sweeney, "Harvard students demanded fair treatment for workers in their communities."

It also builds on the successful living wage movement, which has won ordinances in more than 55 cities in the past five years. The Harvard protest inspired a similar sit-in at the University of Connecticut, which ended May 10 when the administration promised to boost janitors’ pay to $8.47 an hour.

Raise the Minimum Wage

The National Campaign for Jobs and Income Support, a coalition of unions and religious and community groups, launched a drive June 13 to gain an increase in the minimum wage. Twenty national religious leaders joined AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Trumka in calling for support of Sen. Edward Kennedy’s (D-MA) and Rep. David Bonior’s (D-MI) bill to raise the current minimum wage of $5.15 an hour by $1.50 an hour over 18 months. President Bush supports an increase only if states are allowed to opt out of the federal minimum wage.

Relief on Way for Millionaires

On May 26, Congress approved President George W. Bush’s trillion-dollar millionaire tax cut. Bush’s original tax cut — which was estimated to cost as much as $2.4 trillion — was trimmed by $250 billion, but the formula that would give the nation’s wealthiest the largest chunk of the tax cut remains unchanged. In the tax fight, the House and Senate agreed on a $1.35 trillion tax cut package.

Citizens for Tax Justice, a tax watchdog group, calculates that the top one percent of taxpayers, those earning $373,000 or more a year, would reap more than 38 percent of the tax cut’s benefits while taxpayers in the bottom 20 percent would receive just one percent of the bill’s tax breaks.

The House passed May 9 and the Senate May 10 a budget resolution that would pay for the tax cut by decreasing spending for nondefense programs by $5.5 billion in fiscal year 2002 and by $61.5 billion over the next 10 years. The size of the cuts will make it more difficult — if not impossible — to strengthen Social Security and Medicare, add a prescription drug benefit for Medicare and make needed investments in education and health care.

A Stacked Deck

On May 2 President Bush announced the creation of a 16-person White House Social Security Commission stacked with privatization advocates. "This is a remarkably pro-privatization group," said Michael Tanner, director of the conservative think tank Cato Institute’s Social Security Privatization Project. Bush long has touted the creation of private accounts by diverting Social Security payroll taxes into the stock market.

The "principles" President Bush gave the Commission — all of whom are on record as supporting privatization — are tantamount to a mandate to privatize the system, says Roger Hickey, co-director of the Institute for America’s Future. The Institute and the AFL-CIO are members of a broad coalition of unions, consumers, seniors and community groups that joined in a June 11 press conference to raise public awareness of the privatization threat.

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka led workers and seniors June 18 at a New York City rally to tell Wall Street and the Bush administration that our retirement security is not for sale. The rally was in front of the World Trade Center, where Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill met with Wall Street executives who are planning a $20 million fund to buy TV ads to lay the groundwork for Social Security privatization. Wall Street stands to gain $240 billion from privatization in the first 12 years alone.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney warned that an "individual account plan funded with just 2 percentage points of the payroll contribution tax would take more than $1 trillion away from the Social Security trust funds in just the first decade." For more information, visit www.aflcio.org/social security.