YES! Blog

Health Care That's Just Too Good

2009-07-01T15:00:00.000-07:00

What opponents are saying about the “public option” now

Taking the health care reform debate on the road, President Obama spoke today at a town hall meeting in Annandale, Virginia. Asked about a single payer system—as he so often is—he answered—as he so often does—that our system of employer-funded health care is just too entrenched to be replaced. You know—just like how dangerously irresponsible banks are too big to fail, or coal-burning power plants are too widespread to be closed, or the US had already committed too many resources to Vietnam to consider pulling out, or how DVDs would never catch on because we’d all invested in VCRs.

What does it mean when the immensity of a problem becomes the main justification for it to be perpetuated? We’ve taken the lesson not to change horses in the middle of a river to heart—even if, say, the river turns out to be an ocean and we could ride a dolphin, instead.

But with so many in power declaring single payer dead due to political inexpediency, attention has shifted to its little sister, the “public option.” (“Public option” refers to a public and universally available plan that would compete on an insurance exchange with private plans. Obama, like many economists and analysts, seems to recognize that it’s an absolutely crucial part of real reform, saying today that it’s the only chance for the “competition and choice” that would drive down costs and “keep insurers honest”).

Now, though, opponents are trying to use similar not-quite-logic to cripple the public option. Only this time, instead of telling us that the problem is too big to be fixed, they’re saying that the solution is too good to work. Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), the only Republican on the Senate Finance Committee not to categorically oppose a public plan, is considered a key swing vote. On Monday, she told the AP that she would support a public option if it only came into existence after private insurers fail to get costs down to a pre-set “trigger” level by a certain date. Her concern, she said, is that "if you establish a public option at the forefront that goes head-to-head and competes with the private health insurance market ... the public option will have significant price advantages.” After all, she continued, "I don't think we can entirely depend on the private insurance market to deliver. They haven't delivered thus far, and that's why we're in the predicament we're in today." So we should keep our terrible system while giving them one more chance to get it together?

In June, Senator Charles Grassley, also a Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said in an interview: “So then what's wrong with what you call a public option? What's wrong with it is the Lewin Group that studies health care deeply, they have estimated crowding-out of about 119 million people. Well, you crowd out 119 million people out of private health insurance, then everybody else's rates are going to go up. And eventually you won't have your own health care system -- health insurance system that you want to keep, as the president promised. That's what we find wrong with it.” Orrin Hatch has echoed his numbers. The problem with Grassley’s statement, though, is that what he calls “crowding out” really means that those 119 million people would choose a strong public plan over their private insurance. Why? Because it would be cheaper.

If you were only following this issue according to what the public option’s opponents were saying, this is where you would start getting confused. Hadn't they been saying that a public plan would mean rationing, bureaucracy, and socialized medicine? Why, then, would so many people want to join it? The answer is that it was becoming clear to many that a bad plan offered as an option posed no real threat, because people would simply choose not to join it. The scare tactics weren’t working.

So the conversation began to change. As the New York Times noted, the new warning was that a public plan would be too good: “[C]ritics argue that with low administrative costs and no need to produce profits, a public plan will start with an unfair pricing advantage. They say that if a public plan is allowed to pay doctors and hospitals at levels comparable to Medicare's, which are substantially below commercial insurance rates, it could set premiums so low it would quickly consume the market.”

“Yeah, don’t throw us into that briarpatch,” responded Steve Benen at The Washington Monthly.

From the perspective of the insurance and health care industries (or of a lawmaker who benefitted from their lobbying dollars) that sounds scary, indeed. But to those actually concerned about whether the system makes sense, whether it’s affordable, or whether it gets better medical care to patients, it doesn’t seem like a problem so much as what we’ve been hoping for all along.

Why Businesses and Economists Are Backing the Health Care "Public Option"

2009-06-25T09:02:00.000-07:00

Arguing that delaying or diluting a public plan is what's really bad for business, economists and small business leaders are stepping up their support for an option they say could save the economy.

In the fight to frame the debate over health care reform, opponents of a universally available public plan rely again and again on what they seem to consider their trump card: the economy. Last week, a Congressional Budget Office analysis determined that initial plans proposed by leading Democratic Senators would be more expensive than anticipated (though former Labor Secretary Robert Reich listed some of the crucial factors left out of the analysis), and the news was interpreted far and wide: Any form of public health care is bad for business, bad for the economy, and impossible during a recession.

This may sound like a new version of the all too familiar notion that, in a dispute between the short-term health of our economy and the long-term health of our nation, the former ought to win. Sure, it’s nonsensical—but it’s also effective (remember “Drill, baby, drill”?).

This time, though, economists are trying to tell us that the dispute has more to do with framing than with substance—that there may be no need to take sides. A robust public plan, they say, wouldn’t come at the expense of the economy. It would come to its rescue. In a recently-released petition, more than 300 economists, business leaders, and health care experts declared that “we can’t afford NOT to reform our health care system.” Meanwhile, an in-depth study of the effect of a pay-or-play system (in which large firms are required to either provide health coverage for their employees or pay into a public fund all workers could access) on employment found that such a system would likely lead to significant job growth.

So what makes them conclude that universal, public health care is good for the health of businesses and workers, too? There are a lot of factors:

For all the harm that housing bubbles and layoffs have done to the balance sheets of American families, it’s often missing or insufficient health insurance that sends them over the edge. One study found that bankruptcy filers had an average out-of-pocket medical debt of $12,000; another noted that every 30 seconds, an American files for bankruptcy in the aftermath of a serious health issue. Universal coverage would not only help prevent these bankruptcies, it would, in the words of the economists’ petition, “give lower and middle-income Americans greater financial security—and the ability to pay their mortgages, start small businesses, save for college, pursue new job opportunities, and make other choices that will benefit our economy.” In other words, helping families stay solvent is as least a good a definition for “economic stimulus” as roads and bridges.

One of the hidden costs of our health care problem is that it constrains those who would like to change jobs or start new businesses. A new report by MIT’s Jonathan Gruber found that at least 1.6 million small business workers suffer “job lock,” meaning they can’t leave their job for fear of losing benefits.

Health care costs keep small businesses from offering the jobs, and the wages, that they otherwise could. A 2006 study showed that pay levels decline 2.3 percent with every 10 percent increase in health premiums; the Small Business Majority found that, over the next 10 years, health care reform would save $29.2 billion in small businesses’ profits, $309 billion in their workers’ wages, and 128,000 small business jobs that would otherwise be lost. A study published last year in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which found that wages suffer when health costs grow, stressed that “workers and households pay for health insurance through lower wages and higher prices.”

Big businesses suffer, too. Take a look at U.S. auto manufacturers, laboring under the high costs of medical care for workers while trying to compete with manufacturers from countries with universal health care. It’s one major reason production gets outsourced.

A streamlined system would slash administrative costs. Ask any doctor (or any medical receptionist): Today’s insurance payment systems are incredibly complex. A University of California, San Francisco study found that, by switching to a single payer system like Canada’s, the U.S. could save $161 billion every year on paperwork alone—as Holly Dressel pointed out in this YES! Magazine article about Canada’s system, “these billions of dollars are not abstract amounts deducted from government budgets; they come directly out of the pockets of people who are sick.”

In these days of picketing CEOs’ houses, let’s not forget the price of profit when health is a purely private industry. CEOs in the insurance industry make their millions, too, and pharmaceutical companies keep a full 17 percent of what we pay for medicine as profit (compared to a 3 percent profit margin for other businesses). Another 30 percent goes toward marketing and administration, leaving research and development only a 12% slice (see these and more thought-provoking numbers here). In a public system, that money could be redirected to, well, health care.

And finally, with costs spiraling out of control (health care spending is expected to be 20 percent of GDP by 2016—compared to 9.7 percent in Canada), things will only get worse without a robust public option to offer what Jacob Hacker called the three Bs: “We need a national public plan that is available on similar terms in all parts of the nation as a backup. This plan has to have the ability to improve the quality and efficiency of care to act as a benchmark for private insurance. And it has to be able to challenge provider consolidation that has driven up prices to serve as a cost-control backstop” (emphasis added).

A public plan gets the support of 76 percent of Americans and it’s good for the economy? The only argument left against the public option appears to be that it would be too popular – that Americans would vote with their feet and choose the public option when offered a choice.

Political cover for opposing the public option is getting harder and harder to find.

Correction: The original version of this piece said that the Small Business Majority supported the 'public option.' In fact, the SMB favors a reformed system "based on shared responsibility among individuals, business, government and the healthcare industry," which would include tax credits for small businesses and a sliding-scale pay-or-play system.

Photo: On May 30, thousands rallied in Seattle for health care reform. Photo by Neil Parekh/SEIU Healthcare 775NW

Doctors Just Want to Be Doctors

2009-06-17T17:14:00.000-07:00

When President Obama discussed health care reform with the physicians of the American Medical Association on Monday, he was speaking to a group considered one of the strongholds of opposition to reform, particularly any that includes the so-called “public option” (creating a government-sponsored insurance plan, modeled after Medicare and available to all Americans, that would expand options and reduce costs by competing with private plans on a national insurance “exchange”). The AMA has a history of opposing major changes to health care, dating back to the advent of Medicare in the 1960s, and had gone on record the week before opposing any public plan—saying, in comments sent to the Senate Finance Committee, that “the introduction of a new public plan threatens to restrict patient choice by driving out private insurers.”

It’s commonly assumed that the AMA’s stance reflects the beliefs of a majority of the nation’s physicians, many of whom do benefit from the runaway costs of health care. Wouldn’t doctors, concerned that reform would drive down costs, uniformly stand with insurance and pharmaceutical companies in defense of the status quo?

But this view is based on a belief that all doctors like the way the current system has, as President Obama put it, “taken the pursuit of medicine from a profession—a calling—into a business.”

The truth is, they don’t.

Despite its prominence and lobbying budget, it’s important to remember that AMA doesn’t speak for all doctors—fewer than a fifth of practicing physicians, in fact, and that number appears to be dropping. Meanwhile, membership is growing in physicians’ groups that have a different perspective. Sixteen thousand doctors are members of Physicians for a National Health Program, dedicated solely to research, education, and advocacy in support of a universal, comprehensive, single-payer system.

Or, take the National Physicians Alliance. Recognizing that “some physician organizations prioritize political agendas concerned with physician compensation and malpractice over medicine and health issues,” the NPA’s mission is to “restore physicians' primary emphasis on the core values of our profession: service, integrity, and advocacy.” When the AMA came out in opposition to the public option last week, NPA policy director Dr. Chris McCoy quit—publicly. In an open letter to the AMA, he said he could no longer be a member of an organization that encouraged physicians to “have a vision of themselves as money-generating profit centers rather than professionals serving the public good.”

On Monday, a coalition including the National Physicians Alliance, The American Academy of Family Physicians, the Doctors Council, and five others released a joint statement supporting the creation of a public option, saying it would increase affordability and promote better and more collaborative care. Together, the associations represent 215,000 doctors.

Doctors for America, another of the signatory coalitions, offers a forum for physicians to express their frustrations and hopes. The voices that emerge aren’t worried about making more money, but about being good doctors:

Dr. Hamid Rabiee, California: “I want health reform that takes the profit out of health, [and] changes the health industry to health care.”
Dr. Robyn Liu, Kansas: “I want health reform that is about health and puts patients first. I want incentives that are aligned with patient health and not with performing more tests and procedures.”
Dr. Robert Patterson, Indiana. “I want health reform that allows me more time to know the patient I am serving better.”
Dr. Elizabeth Powers, Oregon: “We must measure the efficacy of any new system by the health of our entire population. Inequities based on race, socioeconomic status, insurance status, etc. must be eliminated.”
Dr. Bonnie Gifford, West Virginia: “I want health reform that removes the business model from caring.”

The AMA isn’t a monolithic bloc, either, and many voices within are speaking out for change. Though the association hasn’t wavered in its opposition to expanding a government-run system like Medicare, its policymaking group today voted to support “health system reform alternatives.” Dr. Nancy Nielson, the group’s outgoing president, says that the AMA is not categorically opposed to a public plan and encouraged members not to allow themselves to be cast as “naysayers” to reform. She also reminded the group that it should focus more on patient care and less on defense of the insurance industry.

It’s clear, though, that many doctors don’t need that reminder. Fifty-nine percent of them support a national health insurance program, according to a March poll published in the Annals of American Medicine. It’s the system that makes the most sense to doctors—and patients—of all political backgrounds, as YES! has reported. All over the country, they’re pushing for universal, fair, and public health care that values patients over profits and health over industry.

They’re the ones President Obama was talking to when he said that the pursuit of money “is not why you became doctors. That is not why you put in all those hours in the Anatomy Suite or the O.R. That is not what brings you back to a patient's bedside to check in or makes you call a loved one to say it'll be fine. You did not enter this profession to be bean-counters and paper-pushers. You entered this profession to be healers - and that's what our health care system should let you be.”

Even at the AMA, that got a standing ovation.

Photo: Members of the National Physicians Alliance in front of the Capitol. Photo courtesy of the NPA.

After May Day: We are the change we seek

2009-05-05T12:28:00.000-07:00

Update from the May 6th protest at the Regional Headquarters for Immigrant Custom Enforcement in Bloomington, MN.

This past May Day, we marched and rallied in over 125 cities throughout the U.S. to hold the Obama administration accountable to the promises of humane immigration reform. Here in Seattle, spirits were high and a sense of hope resounded throughout downtown. However, between swine flu precautions and increased raids in the last year, the number of protesters were fewer than in the legendary 2006 marches. The energy of participants, however, was not diminished, nor was their ability to continue mobilizing. The hope of the May Day marches resides not in the media coverage nor the government's lack of response but rather in how it connected people in the community in their efforts for further actions. As Obama himself said: "Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change we seek."

One group of immigrant and worker rights activists in the Twin Cities have taken Obama at his word. On May 6th over 25 people commited civil disobedience at the Regional Headquarters for Immigrant Custom Enforcement in Bloomington, MN. These citizens of conscience were part of a national movement to establish a moratorium on raids within the first 100 days of the new administration. Since this did not happen, they are "putting their bodies on the line to stand up against the dehumanization in the our current immigration system," said Katherine Sharpe of the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Coalition and a participant in the action. May 6th is the official end of the first 100 days, as well as a day when one of the weekly deportation flights take off. Sharpe continued, "Our goal is to raise the level of debate and dialogue about humane immigration reform. Our hope is to spur more actions throughout the country."

For more information about the action and to read the group's powerful Open Letter to Obama please visit http://shutdownice.wordpress.com.

We Are All Workers. Todos Somos Trabajadores

2009-04-29T13:43:00.000-07:00

This May Day we are asked to contemplate these words anew through the lens of hope-- a hope that calls us into action at a crucial moment in the history of human rights. The first 100 days of the Obama administration will soon be up, signifying an examination of promises made and a mobilization upon promises broken. Of all ethnic groups, Latinos represented the greatest shift for Obama with more than 2 out of 3 voting for him, in large part because of his stated support for immigration reform. The hope of May Day this year is that the administration not only recognizes this fact, but is also moved into action by the united platform presented by this constituency. Every day the labor movement gradually internalizes more profoundly how immigrant rights affect all workers’ rights. We have only raised the quality of life for working people in the U.S. by organizing across ethnic, racial, and gender lines.

On May 1^stin every major U.S. city, hundreds of thousands will take to the streets to demand immigration reform, a moratorium on raids and detentions, the Employee Free Choice Act, health care for all, and an end to all wars. In the past the corporate media has used the broadness of the May Day demands to present a fractured movement. It may be fair to say their depiction was not entirely inaccurate. So, what has changed about the labor movement in recent years to transcend these divides? What exactly is this united platform?

One change is that work-place raids are being preceded by union drives. Traditional labor groups are recognizing that these raids hinder their organizing capabilities. So too do the immigrant rights activists now see the unions as an integral part their work-place security. I was deeply moved, for instance, by the display of solidarity shown by union folks at the Republican National Convention protests. I was marching with an immigrant rights contingent at the time and the labor groups formed a human barricade around us in case of arrests or even a raid. The united platform is spun from our collective desire to live lives free of fear. This fundamental concept is the backbone of each of the May Day demands.

What is the fear? Is it foreign? Christine Neumann-Ortiz, founding Executive Director of Voces de la Frontera, an immigrant rights organization in Wisconsin, described this fear in a recent interview: “Fear that at any moment you can be picked up and be separated from your family; the sense that everything you have worked for is fragile. Having to live with the fear of traveling within the U.S. and being stopped by police and questioned about your status, fear of not having identification, which is so necessary in everyday life, the fear of crossing the border to be reunited with your family because of the danger if you try to come back. Fear of approaching the police if you are the victim of a crime. Fear of jail. Fear of hunger. The anguish of having to make the choice between seeing your family, in many cases your children and aging parents, or sending them money to help them survive.” Especially as we plunge deeper into troubling economic times, the fears of immigrant workers become less foreign to working families of all backgrounds. The crisis is showing our true colors, colors that aren’t that different from one another.

The current immigration system attempts to frame immigration issues as a political debate instead of a humanitarian crisis. The marches and rallies of May 1^st are an opportunity to say no to the dehumanization of workers and the monopolization of American identity; to create a solidarity movement with workers that addresses the internal politics of globalization that have negatively affected people’s ability to stay in their countries and earn a living; to define a pro-worker legalization process that benefits low-income working class families over business interests and provides a simple and affordable pathway to citizenship; to expose the abuses behind the private, for-profit detention centers. In essence, International Worker’s Day is an opportunity to take a bold stance against a government-sanctioned culture of fear.

Over 1.5 million people took to the streets on May Day 2006, culminating in the largest immigrant rights protest in US history to date. This year under the new administration, our actions are more important than ever; the combination of urgency and hope is unparalleled. The window of opportunity we are forcing open right now, however, lies not in what happens on May Day, but what happens after, in our communities and in our own hearts.

For More information or to find a march and rally near you please visit www.anewdayforimmigration.org

Reflections on Power Shift at 30,000 Feet

2009-03-06T08:30:00.000-08:00

“How do you get to a rest which is legitimate and deserved?” Wendell Berry asked the audience of Artists for the Climate last Sunday night. Good food for thought for a group of people about to participate in a mass direct action.

Berry, along with other climate justice activists such as Bill McKibben and Vandana Shiva recently called for mass civil disobedience against the coal industry. Chesapeake Climate Action Network's Artists for the Climate event was the convocation to the historic action taking place the following day. The question of rest seemed a poignant one to this multi-generational audience, half of whom were reflecting on their lifetimes spent in the movement and half of whom were exuberantly upholding the popular slogan of Power Shift '09,“This is just the beginning.” As the night unfolded with poetry, song, and prayer, activists were reminded of a humanity which only art can portray; a humanity worth fighting for, worth breaking the law for.

The next morning, DC woke up in a winter wonderland. Social networks were hard at work spreading the word that all Lobby Day and Capitol Climate Action events were still on. Powershifters converged in front of the Capitol to hear Nancy Pelosi speak, wearing green hard hats -- as much for warmth as for the symbolic demand of green jobs. With only a megaphone on stage, the speeches soon faded into the chatter of excited youth lobbyists just returned from meetings with their representatives. The previous day, Powershifters had gathered by state to discuss strategies and unite about issues particular to their region. The culmination on Monday morning was the largest lobby day on climate and energy in our nation’s history. Coming of age under the Bush administration jaded my perception of democracy in this country, but to be privy to these conversations rejuvenated in me a sense of hope.

Just down the street from the Capitol gathering, affinity groups gathered in the Spirit of Justice Park preparing for a march around the coal-fired Capitol power plant. The intent was to blockade all the plant’s entrances using non-violent direct action. The demonstration was peaceful but not passive, sending a clear message to the public: our tolerance for coal is over and our planet does not have time to wait for legislation to be passed. We must take action now for clean energy and a green economy that includes all people.

As I fly back across the country to Seattle, I am reflecting on the appropriate complexity of my long journey. As Wendell Barry stated, “I’ve been flying all over the country for 40 years, to tell people, in effect, that they ought to stay home.” As I try to sift through the words, organizations, concepts, innovations, and tactics I’ve learned at Power Shift, I realize it is the people I’ve met that ultimately shaped the value of this experience -- inspiring activists like Energy Action Coalition's Jessy Tolkan, Marcie Smith of the Kentucky Clean Energy Corps, Ursula James, working for climate action in the heart of Texas oil land, and Elandria Williams of the legendary Highlander Research and Education Center.

We come together to renew ourselves, to be reminded that we are not alone in what is often a thankless fight. A fight, I might add, we don’t have that much time to win. The enormous value of this collective solidarity travels back with us to our communities.

While the youth climate movement fills me with pride in my own generation it is also a bittersweet reminder that this movement is not about me. As we marched down the sludgy streets, climate justice chants wearing out our vocal chords, a six year old boy came out onto his porch to cheer us on.“This is for you! This is for you!” echoed the marchers for miles on end.

Powershifting in Appalachia

2009-03-05T15:21:00.000-08:00

Four years ago the environmental movement was declared by some as sterile, calcified, dead. The issues were no longer sexy. The ruling administration was rolling back what advances had been made, and there was nary a protestor in sight. But last weekend’s Powershift ’09 conference proved the post-mortem premature. Environmentalism is back, reanimated by sweeping Democratic victories and the looming danger of climate change. The revived movement is full of vigor, and the energy is focused on one challenge in particular: King Coal.

Coal was the target of the mass action that blockaded the Capitol Hill power plant on March 2^nd. It was specifically mentioned by movement visionary Van Jones in his speech, and it was the subject of multiple panels and workshops. Although many attendees had conflicting views on movement ideology and tactics, no one even played devil’s advocate for “clean coal”. During one panel, a speaker asked the packed room, “Who here believes in clean coal?” Not a hand went up.

The panel “The Story of Coal: Past, Present and Future”, drew a huge crowd Saturday morning. Late comers had to be turned away by harried events staffers, and the overflow sat on the floor around the podium, entranced by the moving speakers who spoke of the devastation coal has brought to their Appalachian communities. While coal mining has had an impact on other areas of the United States, few have been dominated so completely and so brutally by the coal industry as Appalachia, and with so little tangible benefit for the surrounding communities. A soundbite advanced by business interests has tried to equate coal with jobs and prosperity, but Kathryn Kraisse, who lives on the Kentucky-West VA border in Harlan County, upended the myth. “In Harlan County, 30% of the people live in poverty. They say coal enriches the land, but we are living proof that it doesn’t.”

To make matters worse, the local populations have little say in the maneuverings of the coal companies. Michael Tomasky, a West Virginia native, described the immense power of the companies in a recent New York Review of Books article, “[West Virginia] is a company state. Local judges who dare challenge the industry are voted out of office, and bureaucrats who attempt to uphold the law are reassigned. Democrats or Republicans, it doesn’t matter — they all bow down to one industry.” The same is true of communities all over Appalachia, which makes it virtually impossible to get any regulatory laws passed.

The region is ripe for action, but in the past environmental movements have been pitted against Appalachian workers who depend on the coal industry for work, to the detriment of both. In recent years, with more of the jobs becoming mechanized, and the United Mine Workers losing much of their power, the parasitic intent of the coal companies has become obvious. (According to Kraisse most of the non-union workers are only paid $10 an hour.)

Today, the will to change is there amongst the working people of Appalachia. “We have had everything that gave us dignity taken away from us,” Kraisse told me after the event. “The coal companies are laying people off, alienating them. People are wanting to be empowered again.” Van Jones made special note of this in his speech, declaring that the environmental movement needed to work with and for the coal miners and their families, rather than at cross purposes with them.

The workers are already aware of coal’s negative impact. “People in Appalachia aren’t stupid, they know the effects coal has on their health, their kids, their community,” said Kyla Jagger, an activist who went to Ohio to help embattled community organizers after graduating from Oberlin College. “They have to weigh their choices very carefully. Most of them conclude that some kind of income is better than no kind of income.” The trick for the environmental movement will be providing a worthwhile incentive for workers and local communities to join the fight against coal. In short they will need jobs, and preferably unionized jobs, to break the grip coal companies have on the region’s economy.

There are already several groups devoted to providing alternative economic solutions for Appalachia, and the environmental movement will need to ensure that they work with these groups, rather than over them, in the coming struggle. The fatal flaw of past incarnations of the environmental movement has been a perceived condescension, and even disregard, for the interests of local workers and their families (which has led to some bruising conflicts with the labor movement). But labor rights and environmental rights are intrinsically linked, and both have been brutalized over the last quarter century of Reaganomics, neoliberalism, and the predatory capitalism of the Bush Administration. Both movements have the same enemies and similar interests, thus providing a relatively solid foundation for an alliance. Indeed, there were signs of a burgeoning friendship between the movements at Power Shift. In addition to Van Jones’ shout out to coal workers, the AFL-CIO was represented on several panels and a number of workshops dealt with labor issues and the Employee Free Choice Act.

Such an alliance could bring King Coal to its knees, with the help of sympathetic legislators, of course. Such a victory would go a long way towards fighting global warming, and it would show the world that environmentalism is back and here to stay.

Jake Blumgart is a guest blogger for YES! and an editorial intern for The American Prospect and Campus Progress Magazine.

Remember the Freedom Fighters: A Word of Caution for the Green Jobs Movement

2009-03-01T09:06:00.000-08:00

Money is on everyone's mind. The recession hangs over every Power Shift '09 session, either as the elephant in the room or the discussion's focal point. Elandria Williams' message inspired deep reflection on this omnipresent theme. During a panel discussion on climate change and the economy, Williams, of the Highlander Research and Education Center, implored a packed room of mostly white young activists to remember the freedom fighters of the Civil Rights Movement.

"These were poor, unemployed folks who were in the streets, and getting their faces beaten in, not because they were getting paid, but because it was the right thing to do," Williams stated.

Her advice shed light on the opportunity many see in the current financial crisis, but she also cautioned against compromising our values for the sake of expediency. Williams warned of the non-profit industrial complex, in which progressive radicals are forced to see their agendas through a capitalist framework.

Williams stressed local living economies and community-based economics as a framework for insuring our solidarity, not false charity, with marginalized communities. We have to remember that greenwashing is not just about disingenuous products but also about disingenuous people.

That said, I just came from Power Shift's 12,000 person hugathon, so I'm not too worried about us forgetting where our hearts are.

Climate Action in the Heart of Oil Country

2009-02-28T09:58:00.000-08:00

I spent the morning with Ursula James, a Southwestern University sophomore who was still beaming from a recent campus victory. Ursula and her fellow activists in the group Students for Environmental Activism and Knowledge recently won a campaign to get their school to sign the President's Climate Commitment, pledging to reduce the school's emissions to zero. (No small achievement in what she described as the "heart of oil land.") The pledge was signed alongside Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai, whom the students had brought to the campus in Georgetown, Texas that week to talk about the Green Belt Movement.

Ursula, already a passionate youth climate activist, learned about the President's Climate Commitment at a Sierra Student Coalition training. The two-year campaign transitioned with Ursula from high school to college, featuring awareness-raising events like the dorm energy-reduction challenge. Residential students competed to reduce their energy use and cut their emissions by 15%. "I think a frat house actually won," Ursula chuckled, "--they didn't shower for weeks." Her university also participated in Power Vote, getting over 50% of the student body to vote for elected officials who support clean energy initiatives.

What struck me the most about Ursula's campaign was her persistence. Again and again, Power Shift '09 panelists and speakers have emphasized the need to directly engage with those in power, especially on the local level. Ursula not only fought for several meetings with her school's president, but also with the Mayor of her city, culminating in a co-authored article about the importance of becoming a "Cool City" (investing in clean energy and efficiency projects to reduce pollution).

Ursula has a long list of accomplishments for such a young person, but her focus is on the future. She is confident that the climate movement's recent victories are just the beginning and she has no intention of resting now.

Reconciliation As Revolution

2009-02-27T16:30:00.000-08:00

The Washington Convention Center is overflowing with an estimated 12,000 young people, energized and ready to be a part of Power Shift ‘09. Within minutes of registration I met two amazing youth activists with the Sierra Student Coalition. They have been organizing on opposite sides of the country, and like many student organizers, are utilizing Power Shift ’09 as a place to celebrate their cross-country connections. Katherine McEachman brought 90 students with her from Cornell University and Juan Martinez flew all the way from Los Angeles to meet up with his fellow Sierra Student Coalition activists. The cross-section of these two youth climate activists embodies the spirit of this unique event. Between Katherine’s work with PowerVote, organizing Cornell students to vote for climate change champions in the new administration, and Juan’s work in his LA community, collecting over 1,000 signatures for Green For All's green economy initiatives--they represent the new generation of climate change activists who not only see, but celebrate, their differences.

I had the opportunity to meet Marcie Smith, a senior at Translyvania University in Kentucky and one of Power Shift’s featured speakers. She arrived last night with 160 of her TU peers. She has been working with Kentucky’s treasury secretary to found the Kentucky Clean Energy Corps, based out of Lexington, KT. The pilot program kicks off in March and will make 100 low-income homes more energy efficient. The program, which began last Thursday, has an initial investment of $1 million, but expects return estimates of up to $118 million in energy savings, creating 3,000 new jobs.

Marcie commented that the innovative program is being recognized in Washington, DC but that the true victory is in its local impact. Lexington is one of the most impoverished areas in the country, with skyrocketing unemployment and a staggering carbon footprint. She sees the program addressing both issues, the failing economy and the unsustainable carbon emissions. Although the weatherization volunteer corps are mostly students, Marcie’s organization, TERRA, upholds a particular philosophy about the importance of community building as the central focus of climate justice. For that reason, they initiated the “Trash Cantina”, a community art project focused on painting trash cans for recycling bins.

Marcie elaborated,“Climate change is a symptom of much older and much deeper inequities and we cannot effectively deal with climate change without striking at the root. We have to recognize that the climate movement is about restoring communities, that our fates are inextricably related to one another.” She continued, “People are inclined toward the concept of seeing our neighbors as ourselves, but climate issues indicate a break in that concept.”

It's expected that the Power Shift '09 Lobby Day, March 2nd, will be the largest lobby day on climate and energy in US history. Marcie has an insider’s understanding of the true impact of such grassroots lobbying efforts because of her time as an intern for Congressman Ben Chandler. “History books may not record the house bill number that we are agitating for, but history will remember the collective intention of this group. 12,000 young people are certainly a force to be reckoned with. And I think what is amazing about this movement is that these 12,00 young people are voices for reconciliation.”

Historically, the environmental movement has been relatively insular. The reconciliation Marcie sees such promise in can be seen where climate justice groups intersect with other social movements, such as labor unions and women’s rights groups.

The future of the green movement lies in emphasizing a holistic concept of justice. The students gathered here are sharing their visions for such an expanded climate justice movement, connecting their local initiatives with a collective moral intention that demands the attention of their peers, their elected representatives, and the world.

Power Shift '09: The Youth Climate Movement takes DC by Storm

2009-02-24T17:05:00.001-08:00

In primal societies, adolescents go through rites of passage, when confronting their own mortality is a gateway to maturity. In analogous ways, climate change calls us to recognize our own mortality as a species. With the gift of uncertainty, we can grow up and accept the rights and responsibility of planetary adulthood. Then we know fully that we belong, inextricably, to the web of life, and we can serve it, and let its strength flow through us. Joanna Macy

With these words, I begin my journey to Power Shift ’09 and the exploration of the youth movement in creating sustainable social change. On February 27th an estimated 10,000 youth will converge on the nation’s capital with demands that the president and Congress pass bold federal climate and energy legislation in 2009 that dramatically reduces carbon emissions, creates millions of green jobs, and transitions the nation towards 100% clean energy. The four-day event will feature inspiring seminars, panels, and workshops on climate, energy, and the economy. Along with legislative briefings and activist trainings, the youth will participate in a massive day of action in which they will flood the halls of Congress to lobby their representatives. Included amongst Power Shift ‘09’s featured speakers are Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Representatives Donna Edwards and Ed Markey, Van Jones, and Dr. James Hansen. There will even be special musical performances by The Roots and Santigold. In other words, Power Shift ’09 is a big deal.

But perhaps what makes this event truly special, beyond the glitz and glam of its speakers and intended actions, are the individual stories of its attendants and organizers. These youth activists are creating “The Movement” described by Bill McKibben as a necessity for saving our planet: “We need a political swell larger than the civil rights movement—as passionate and as willing to sacrifice.” I enter this movement as a listener, already humbled by what I’ve read of the youth attending this event. From Marisol Bacerra, who helped map and inventory the toxins found within 150-miles of her Mexican-American community in Little Village, Chicago to Kandi Mosset, who after surviving cancer at the age of 20 dedicated her life to getting tribal youth educated and involved in promoting clean energy solutions. I am floored by the dedication and accomplishments of youth activists in the climate change movement.

Why the youth? Why now? As I begin to interview these dynamic and powerful young people I will pay close attention to what characterizes the climate change movement as a youth movement at this particular moment in history. The growing awareness of the intersection of global justice issues and environmental destruction gives a voice to communities previously left out of the climate change discourse. As Van Jones points out in an interview with Sarah van Gelder, “I know that many of the best people have not been heard from yet. People of faith, African Americans, Latinos—a lot of people who you might assume don’t care about the environment and don’t know anything about climate change. They do know what’s going on. But they haven’t had the chance to work together in a way that they feel comfortable and respected and where their other concerns –like their concerns about thrown-away kids—are part of the conversation.” Herein lies the true hope of the youth movement on climate change; young activists are making the structural connections that bind issues together. We can no longer talk about pollution and ignore the needs of the most affected demographics, namely low-income communities and communities of color. We can’t shop local and call it a day. Inclusiveness is finally taking center stage in climate change debates and it is the youth who are putting it there.

Power Shift ’09 is a prime example of this shift in climate change discourse towards inclusiveness. I had the chance to chat with Jessy Tolkan, Executive Director of Power Shift and organizer of Energy Action Coalition, about the unique characteristics of the youth climate movement. She spoke these words over the cheers and shouts of her co-organizers who were celebrating each new registered participant. “…We are not just any 10,000 youth. We are 10,000 young people reflective of our generation’s diversity. This is really a multi-issue movement unified around climate. The cross section of individuals attending shows that diversity. They are coming for green jobs, they are coming for healthy communities, they are coming for engineering and science involved in greening our society, they are coming to see US foreign policy change, they are coming for racial justice. They are coming because the climate change fight interweaves so many other fights. Where we are united is in the solutions, solutions wrapped up in the energy crisis.”

Jessy emphasized that what makes this moment so critical is that the elected officials might actually listen. The youth vote was the swing that put the new administration into power and the youth climate movement wants elected officials to remember that fact. “Twenty four million young people showing up to the polls was only the beginning,” she stated. “Our demographic decided this last election, but that was only one way we are showing up to get our agendas through.”

When asked about where the movement stands in comparison to the Power Shift ‘07 conference, Jessy joked that Power Shift '07 was “the coming out party for the youth climate movement.” Since then the swell of media attention, legislative triumphs, organizing efforts, and energy has “shifted,” if you will, into a full-on movement. “The urgency for climate change issues could not be more apparent, and our economic situation exacerbates that urgency…we have reached a critical moment in history and our goal is to leave with a game plan that grows this movement exponentially.”

As I move through my own understanding of “planetary adulthood,” I look forward to hearing more words of wisdom from these young leaders; their stories are the oxygen of a new era in American consciousness.

Registration for Power Shift 09 closes tonight at midnight. Come be a part of history.

NCMR :: There is No Media Justice Without Women: Models for Feminist Media Action

2007-02-14T15:17:00.000-08:00

A National Conference for Media Reform panel on Saturday, January 3rd.

Women, women, women; we were chatting, laughing, and exchanging stories and business cards in a conference room at the 2007 National Conference for Media Reform. We all gathered to listen to the panel titled “There Is No Media Justice Without Women: Models for Feminist Action.” I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I should have known that a panel run by and about women would turn into an inclusionary discussion on how we are all making change in our communities to increase women’s voices in the media.

Almost every seat in the room was taken, as the panel’s organizer and moderator, Jen Pozner, said she wanted to focus on what women are doing to reform the media and how they are doing it, rather than why. She said that by attending this conference it shows that we already understand how important media are to pertinent justice issues.

The panel members included:

Jessica Clark of In These Times (www.inthesetimes.com)

DeAnna Cuellar of the Texas Media Empowerment Project (www.Texasmep.org)

Jennifer Pozner of Women in the Media & News (www.wimnonline.org)

Theba Third World Majority (www.thirdworldmajority.org/)

Karen Toering of Reclaim the Media (www.rtm.org)

Jessica Clark is the editor in chief of In These Times. Traditionally a male dominated publication. In the past few years, In These Times has seen a major switch in leadership. The publication now has an equal number of male and female contributors on the masthead. Women are now in positions of power and for the first time in years the magazine is winning acclaim, most notably and recently the 2006 award for Best Political Coverage from UTNE magazine.

I was inspired as Jessica talked about what an amazing time it is for women to enter and make change in the media because of the new technology available for networking and social change. Historically, she said, the editorial pages have been male dominated, and women were segregated to fashion and beauty magazines. She talked about her efforts to change that. Her model was to bring women to the fold by covering feminist movements, encouraging more feminist articles and covering women and politics.

Karen Toering is a co-director for Reclaim the Media, a Seattle based nonprofit organization dear to my heart. I am a Seattleite and a proud RTM volunteer. RTM advocates for a free diverse press, community access to communication tools and technology, and media policy that serves the public. Their offices coffee shops, their hallways the streets, and their members the people.

Karen said that RTM supports community media because we cannot entrust our history or history, our cultures and our democracy to the consolidated media empires alone. This point hit home for many of the audience members and panelists, as some championed it later during the panel.

Karen said she doesn’t think of the organization as a feminist organization. “It’s not about how we empower women to take leadership with in the organization because women are the leaders of the organization,” she said. “We deeply believe in these values and it just comes out. We are the organization we wish to see, so we don’t have to question it.”

Reclaim the Media’s example for something to do to get the word out about women in the media was to give out Mother’s Day cards with a message to your mother about media justice. The cards were a success; people gave them to their mothers, mothers chatted and brought up questions.

Jennifer Pozner carried an excited energy with her. She was organizer and panelist. WIMN works with mainstream and corporate media to get women’s voices in to the news. WIMN makes it easier for publications to find women experts and sources. The site also creates space for social and political debate, media analysis and blogging.

Theba was sitting in for Thenmozhi Soundararajan from Third World Majority, a media training and production resource center run by a collective of young women of color and their allies. The group works to promote the leadership of young women. One way they do this is by give women the ability to tell their story through film. Theba showed us a video featuring the stories of some high school age women. To a toe-tapping rhythm the young women talked about their school, art, truth, sex, lies, each telling their story about race and discrimination. It was heartbreaking, real and beautiful

DeAnna is a Chicana woman from the Texas Media Empowerment Project. First she said she wanted to honor the women who have passed down their stories to her because they allowed her to be there and for helping her become who she is. She urged the audience to stop and listen to the women who hold knowledge and history.

The TMEP model is a work in progress, led by women. She looked to the future, in which we are already being objectified. “It’s already being male dominated and we haven’t even gotten there yet.” She urged the crowed room to let women tell the truth in your community, share that space with them.

All the panelists insisted on not taking up too much time so as to allow audience members to share what they were doing in their own communities. We got to hear from a variety of women from leaders connecting with their Native American roots to lesbians petitioning for more homosexual views at the next conference. Professor Caroline Byerly, from Howard University, has been teaching activism and feminism. Rosa Clemente of WBI Radio in New York City, hiphopliveshere.com, spoke about how young women of color are marginalized in the media and in the media reform movement. One surprise for me was a guest appearance by Sarah Olson, a reporter for Truthout who received a subpoena in December to testify in the court-material of 1st Lt. Ehren Watada, the first commissioned officer to refuse deployment to Iraq. Olson is planning not to testify against Lt. Watada. This her statement explaining why she will not testify:

“It seems clear that the U.S. Army is attempting to redefine the parameters of acceptable speech and to classify dissent as a punishable offense. Subpoenaing journalists in this case unequivocally sends the message that dissent is neither tolerated nor permitted. Utilize your constitutionally guaranteed speech rights and go to prison. What rational soldier would agree to speak with me or any other member of the media if jail was a likely result?

When the press cannot or does not reflect the vibrant and varied perspectives within our society, it is reduced to a simple transcriber of government press releases. The record of existing dissent is erased, and a dumbed-down, homogenized version of “The American Experience” is all that’s left in its place.”

The women at the panel all agreed to bring up women’s issues at panel where they felt it was missing. Most women sounded like they were going to request more female plenary speakers, more women panelist, and more panels about women’s issues.

NCMR :: Women’s Media Networking Breakfast

2007-02-14T15:16:00.001-08:00

The combination of feminist camaraderie, southern hospitality and general excitement to see what women would bring to the National Conference for Media Reform electrified the air at the Women’s Media Networking Breakfast.

Feminists of all ages, genders and races gathered in downtown Memphis bright and early to kick off a weekend dedicated to hope for a better, more just media, and therefore society. I knew the breakfast would be spectacular when I saw this group of enthusiastic and diverse people ebbing and flowing from room to room, rubbing elbows, gathering feminist media sources and devouring delicious breakfast treats; I was personally excited to see someone brought the soy milk.

The Women’s Foundation for a Greater Memphis, a non-profit organization that encourages philanthropy, leadership among women and children, played host to the networking breakfast, which the Women in the Media & News founder and executive director, Jennifer Pozner, organized. Pozner said her goal in coordinating the breakfast was to plant the seed to make the conference as useful, progressive, feminist and positive as possible.

After the eating and schmoozing, the women, men and children congregated around the marble descending and ascending sections of the stairway of the building, and along the platforms above and below as Pozner spoke with great passion in the entry way of the building at 8 South Third Street.

She said that if there was not representation for women and people of color at each plenary and panel, we should be the ones to make sure the conversations include those issues. We are all experts, she said, speak up. “You be those people to bring (feminist) issues up,” Pozner said. “Ask those questions, bring up that debate and address it.”

Pozner talked about her experience at the last conference, at which she felt like the conversation about women’s issues was missing. She implored everyone there to stand up and talk about the correlation between media reform and women’s issues, to make sure that all the conference attendees, not just the ones in this room, realize that there is no media justice without women. Indeed, Pozner did her part by fighting for a year and a half to encourage those organizing the conference to let her form a panel with that title.

She invited us all to “There Is No Media Justice Without Women: Models for Feminist Media Action.” The panel, she said, would address what women are doing to reform the media and how they are doing it.

I felt compelled by all those things, including her final advice–to sustain the energy we all felt at that moment.

NCMR :: The truth has become a casualty of the campaign to support the war

2007-02-14T15:13:00.000-08:00

Notes from the National Conference for Media Reform Panel: The Press at War & the War on the Press

As a concerned group of media reform activists, those attending the National Conference for Media Reform were keenly aware of the problem with the U.S. coverage of the war: it’s been largely replaced with impressive audio/visual hype, discussions about facts have been replaced with discussions of ideology, and reliable sources have been whittled down to politicians and military personnel involved in the war.

Embedded reporters struggle with remaining objective because those they report on safeguard their lives, while unembedded reporters continually risk their lives to do so. Those who attended the NCMR panel, The Press at War & the War on the Press came to have their questions answered about what the impact of this “coverage” has been, and especially to have Helen Thomas be one of those answering.

The panel included:

Helen Thomas (Hearst Newspapers)

Eric Boehlert (Media Matters for America)

Sonali Kolhatkar (Afghan Women’s Mission and KPFK)

Geneva Overholser (University of Missouri)

Paul Rieckhoff (Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America)

The first casualty of the coverage has been the forgotten war–Afghanistan. Paul Rieckhoff, who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, said the troops refer to it as “Forgotistan.” When Rieckhoff returned to the States he said he assumed people would be having discussions about the war, but people were mostly focused on Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction. The war has personally affected Rieckhoff, and while he was wondering why it wasn’t affecting those back home, he realized it was because of the lack of coverage. Those back home weren’t seeing the depth of human sacrifice–they’d never see a dead soldier, they’d never hear soldiers’ voices. Now, he said he’s asking the important questions because those in uniform didn’t get the chance to.

For the most credible information he recommended reading soldier’s blogs. “This is the only war where I can go out on patrol and go back to base and write a blog on it,” Rieckhoff said. Unfortunately the Department of Defense is shutting these blogs down. Embedded reporters cannot provide credible coverage, said Rieckhoff, “you couldn’t enter my platoon and remain objective because I’m covering your ass.”

Helen Thomas, who has worked for 57 years as a correspondent and has covered seven presidents, was the draw for many attendees. “I haven’t been to Iraq,” Thomas said, “but I live with it every day.” She said 90 correspondents and interpreters have already been killed, more than WWII. “I went from ‘who the hell are you, why do you think you get to ask those questions,’ in the Kennedy era,” Thomas said. “Now it’s ‘where is the press, what has happened to you, where is the active, take no prisoners reporting?”

Thomas said she feels that the American press core has lost its way, it has not kept a spotlight on public officials, and gave up our one weapon–skepticism. Congress rolled over as the press did, Thomas said, and now we have a destroyed country and thousands dead. She said the government has created an information mill, and reporters simply record it as stenographers. This unquestioned information is then fed to the people. Thomas said the media’s lack of coverage has allowed the government to get away with were wire tapping, the right to open mail, and the Patriot Act, which spies on e-mail.

“Tell me where is the liberal press, so called? I say bring them on,” Thomas said. “We’ve been intimated for so long, and I don’t really see the liberals popping up.” Thomas said a free press is indispensable in a free country; you can’t have a free country without a free press.

Eric Boehlert, who also wrote Lapdogs, How that Press Rolled Over for the President, said the government understood that the war was not possible without the press because without the press, the government couldn’t get the public to go along with a war against a country that has done nothing to them.

Although this war had the potential to be the first uncensored war (due to available technology), the government’s campaign to drum up support for the war eradicated any hope for full, unrestricted coverage, he said. The worst part was that the press went along with it, Boehlert said, even our own editors are refusing to print photos that war photographers are taking, refusing to show the kidnapped or dead because it would be ‘propaganda.’

Boehlert called the press’ coverage of the war the worst press failing in the history of this country. The press is just as much to blame, he said, because not only did Bush made sure no one could ask skeptical questions by having a press sheet of who to call on, but also the press didn’t ask any questions when given the chance. For example, during Bush’s press conference about Iraq, he brought up Al-Qaeda 13 times, and no one asked any questions about what the connection was.

Boehlert said the press has to be held accountable because they had a hand in our going to war. The Washington Post wrote more than 1 million words on the war gave less than 30 words to Kennedy’s anti-war speech. “The War could not have happened without the people from the Washington Post,”

After the panelists spoke, they turned to the audience for questions. A young man walked up to the microphone in front of the stage and directed his questions to Helen Thomas. He asked her who she thinks could possibly replace her, is there anyone she could think of who will be the next “Helen Thomas?”

Thomas replied, “Everyone in this room.”

It was a perfect end note. It was the last panel I attended, and it made me feel that although those in the mainstream media have failed the people, it doesn’t mean that we will. As a member of the next generation of great reporters, it gave me great hope to continue on.

The National Conference for Media Reform

2007-02-14T15:10:00.000-08:00

One week ago I was up to my ears in grassroots media reform panels, speakers, booths, pamphlets and flyers. Besides the onslaught of mind-opening information the attendees received daily, the sights, sounds, smells and rich history of Memphis helped to solidify the feeling of the people’s movement.

Whether it was placed strategically or spontaneously the weekend before Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the city in which he lost his life, the Conference’s timing and location helped to form a bridge between the energy and enthusiasm of the 1960s civil rights movement to today’s human rights movement. With 3,000+ attendees and 2,000+ watching via YouTube and the like, this weekend’s National Conference for Media Reform was a smorgasbord for the senses; my brain was swimming in the seemingly collective thought that change IS possible.

We were journalists, radio hosts, publishers, bloggers and people just plain angry that a handful of corporations have been allowed to be in command of almost all of the media that most people read, see, hear, and consequently think.

We were as different as the causes that brought us to Memphis. As Seattle-based nonprofit organization Reclaim the Media says, media reform should be your second issue. From political reformers to anarchists and environmentalist to feminists, we have all realized the importance of media reform. As members of the public, not only are we tired of having an unaccountable media, but we’re also tired of the mainstream media obscuring or even censoring our voices and point of views. No matter what their passion, they knew that until something is done to allow people to express their thoughts freely, their issue will not receive attention. And they felt that with out public knowledge of the situation, change will not be possible.

The feeling at the Conference was one of solidarity. Everyone was there for each other, fighting for the same goal: stop big media, return the media to the people. Throughout the conference I connected with people who were frustrated with the way the world is working–oppression, discrimination, unnecessary violence, domination–but everyone I met had two things in common, they had hope and they had a plan to make something happen. I was so impressed and inspired. We were all there because we believe we can be the change we wish to see, and that a different way is possible.

May Day

2006-05-05T16:13:00.000-07:00

In May 1886, U.S. workers went on a general strike in their struggle for an eight-hour workday. The authorities broke up the strike and hanged strike leaders, yet the movement inspired workers all over the world. Three years later, May Day was established as an international holiday, a day where workers all over the world can organize, reflect on past struggles and voice their demands together.

Yet, I was surprised to find out that May 1 is not a federal holiday here (it was moved to what is now called Labor Day in September, a holiday celebrating BBQ and baseball, or so it seems). However, I did have the opportunity to celebrated May Day the way I always do: in the street raising my voice with others for what we believe in. I marched almost every year of my life: for the 37-hour week and then for the 35-hour week, against the nuclear weapons race and for peace, for employment for all and, this year, for immigrant rights.

The experience was very moving, feeling the energy of 30.000 people as excited as myself. And Seattle is a much better place to march than flat Berlin, because from the hill tops on 20th and again on 15th we could see this huge crowd filling Jackson Street all the way down to the water front. The fact that we marched for immigrant rights on May Day is not unique to the US, where it was triggered by the new immigration legislation. People all over the world seem to recognize that stable employment and workers rights are so closely linked to human rights and social justice, both at home and abroad.

Around the world, these were some of the slogans that brought people together to celebrate the day of the workers this year:
Spain: “For peace, stable employment in equality”
Germany: “Your dignity is our measure”
Switzerland: "Raise wages- wage equality now”
Chile: “For more democracy and more social justice”

Even the issues at the workplace itself are somewhat different, as the way work and production are organized is changing. In response Europe’s May Day is renewing itself. There are less and less “traditional” workers, those that have fixed contracts and the bargaining clout of a union membership. The marches I attended in Berlin had become smaller in the ’90s; the unions were losing members, and fewer young people came out.

Today more and more people make a living through temporary contracts, flex-time and part-time jobs, along with the ever-growing group of unemployed and undocumented immigrants. That makes it really hard to voice and defend our rights. Yet despite the difficult situation, temps, part-timers, students and eternal interns, immigrants and unemployed are increasingly organizing. This Monday they filled the streets of Europe’s major cities voicing demands and needs that reflect the new working and living conditions.

Some of the issues the EuroMayDay Network stands for are:
- EU legislation that extends protection and benefits to temporary workers
- Freedom of movement for migrants
- Generalized access to affordable housing
- European minimum wage
- A basic European income, provided by the state to all citizens to cover everybody’s basic needs
- Free access to culture and information, culture as a human right not a product

What is important enough to you these days that could bring you out into the streets now or next May Day?