Gov. Doyle puts signature on the bill; calls for labor history to be state standard

--Union Librarian, A Project of the Progressive Librarians Guild.

The nation's largest teachers union sharply attacked President Obama's most significant school improvement initiative on Friday evening, saying that it puts too much emphasis on a "narrow agenda" centered on charter schools and echoes the Bush administration's "top-down approach" to reform.
The National Education Association's criticism of Obama's $4.35 billion "Race to the Top" initiative charged that "Race to the Top" contradicted administration pledges to give states more flexibility in how they improve schools.

In a strongly worded letter, the union intimated that Education Secretary Arne Duncan was reneging on his promise to promote education reform by being "tighter" on goals, but giving states and districts more flexibility to achieve reforms.

The union said Race to the Top contradicts administration pledges to give states more flexibility in how they improve schools. "We find this top-down approach disturbing; we have been down that road before with the failures of No Child Left Behind," the union wrote in its comments, "and we cannot support yet another layer of federal mandates that have little or no research base of success and that usurp state and local government's responsibilities for public education."

Save the UCLA and Berkeley Labor Centers and the Miguel Contreras Labor Program !

http://www.labor.ucla.edu/images/Laborers-Artwork.jpg

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wirtz Labor Library is the recipient of the 2009 John Sessions Memorial Award, an honor presented by the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) and named for John Sessions, former American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) co-chair of the AFL-CIO/ALA Joint Committee on Library Service to Labor Groups.

This annual award recognizes a library or library system that has made a significant effort to work with the labor community and has consequently brought recognition of the history and contribution of the labor movement to the development of the United States. Wirtz Labor Library was selected for its efforts in supporting the history and contribution of the labor movement in the United States. In addition to maintaining unique and historically significant collections, including rare international material, the library particularly impressed the committee with its recent efforts to make its collection more accessible to a broader audience through digitization and to increase visibility of the library through the Wirtz Labor Library Lecture Series.

A statement issued by the library expressed gratitude and appreciation for the distinction: “The U.S. Department of Labor’s library, established in 1917, is one of the oldest Cabinet-level libraries.  As we plan for the library’s centennial, our recent efforts have been to strengthen and revitalize the library and its services – and to provide and promote the library’s resources to a wider universe of customers.  As we build upon our rich history, it is our great pleasure to accept the 2009 John Sessions Memorial Award.”

Richard V. French, director of the library’s Center for Program Planning and Review, will receive the winner’s plaque on behalf of the library at the RUSA Awards Ceremony and Reception, scheduled for 3:30-5:30 p.m., Monday, July 13, as a part of ALA’s Annual Conference events. The exact location of this event will be announced on the RUSA website and at the RUSA Blog in late spring.

AGITATE! EDUCATE! ORGANIZE! American Labor Posters

Lincoln Cushing; Timothy W. Drescher

An ILR Press Book

$24.95t paper
2009, 216 pages, 8 1/8 x 10 1/2, 268 color photographs
ISBN: 978-0-8014-7427-9.
In Agitate! Educate! Organize!, Lincoln Cushing and Timothy W. Drescher share their vast knowledge about the rich graphic tradition of labor posters. Lavish full-color reproductions of more than 250 of the best posters that have emerged from the American labor movement ensure that readers will want to return again and again to this visually fascinating treasury of little-known images from the American past. Some of the posters were issued by government programs and campaigns; some were devised by unions as recruiting tools or strike announcements; others were generated by grassroots organizations focused on a particular issue or group of workers-all reveal much about the diverse experiences of working people in the United States.

Here is a feature story on the activist union librarian, Jean Dickson,  who has been grievance officer, vice president and president of the Buffalo Center Chapter of United University Professions, the union representing UB faculty and professional staff.

See more at Union Librarian.

“The Manila Call to Action is a broader platform, with practical and doable solutions”, said Linda Wirth, Director of the ILO Subregional Office for South-East Asia and the Pacific in Manila. “We see a lot of deskilling of migrant women and they represent a high proportion in the brain drain, especially in health and education sectors. More women are trafficked for sexual exploitation than men. Women are mostly in the invisible sector such as domestic work which can be highly exploitative and abusive. ..."

Today, the “feminization” of migration has resulted in women making up nearly half of the global migrant population. The number of women migrants increased from 35.3 million in 1960 to 94.5 million in 2005. The majority of women migrants are migrating to work or study abroad. But they also continue to represent a significant proportion in migration for family formation and reunification, and as asylum seekers. Yet, gender-responsive solutions in protecting their rights are still not in place across countries. While they often face many challenges they also avail of new opportunities opened up to them by migration – new and better jobs and evolution of gender roles.

UNIFEM, ILO, UNICEF, Migrant Forum Asia, Women and Gender Institute

Call upon the participating states at the Second Global Forum on Migration and Development in Manila chaired by the Government of the Philippines, 27-30 October 2008 to:
• Incorporate the attached Manila Call to Action 2008 as a substantive input on gender, migration and development to the Forum’s deliberations and outcomes;
• Ensure a gender and rights based perspective in migration and development policies, legislation and programs of countries of origin and destination;
• Recommend that the gender dimensions of migration and multi stakeholder participation be an organic and integral part of all future GFMD deliberations.
 

Oct. 4, 2008. Human trafficking experts hope a $230,000 federal grant  awarded to Catholic Charities of Lee County [FL] will ferret out more victims due to the organization's work in immigrant communities.  More on SW Florida.

The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, was adopted by General Assembly resolution 55/25. It entered into force on 25 December 2003. It is the first global legally binding instrument with an agreed definition on trafficking in persons. The intention behind this definition is to facilitate convergence in national approaches with regard to the establishment of domestic criminal offences that would support efficient international cooperation in investigating and prosecuting trafficking in persons cases. An additional objective of the Protocol is to protect and assist the victims of trafficking in persons with full respect for their human rights.  

HHS. Rescue and Restore.

DOS: Major Forms of Trafficking in Persons

Erica Jong, writing at Huffington Post about GOP VP candidate, Governor Sarah Palin:

"White trash America certainly has allure for voters. Some people think rednecks are more American than Harvard educated intellectuals of mixed race."

Jong's remarks indicate a violent classism among liberal intellectuals that leaves no room for the working class poor. Jong indicates that "Harvard education" is the top of the U.S. education experience and then demonstrates her sense of classist hierarchy that ranks people according to socioeconomic status and  class markers such as hunting or gun ownership. In another essay Jong

"At a great university, faculty are at the heart of crucial decisions about the future. An administrator who acts as if he or she believes in benevolent despotism only increases the cynicism and erodes the morale of the faculty. In a time of severe budget cuts, the University of South Florida cannot afford either."--Sherman Dorn, chapter president.

[The chapter includes Librarians]
United Faculty of Florida -- USF Chapter.Biweekly Newsletter EXTRA
July 15, 2008.

GRIEVANCES FILED OVER ACADEMIC-AFFAIRS REORGANIZATION

The United Faculty of Florida is representing several faculty members who filed individual grievances July 11 [2008] in response to the reorganization of Academic Affairs. The grievants are from the colleges of Arts and Sciences and Business Administration.

On June 12, the provost announced that he was moving entire units between colleges and creating a new college out of FMHI and several departments from Arts and Sciences. The grievances assert that the reorganization occurred without either notice to the grievants or an opportunity for the grievants to provide input. The grievances assert that a unilateral reorganization of colleges in this manner violates Section 5.4 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement (on-line at http://w3.usf.edu/~uff/ratification/CBA0407.pdf), which reads:

"On the part of the Administration, Academic Responsibility implies a commitment actively to foster within the University a climate favorable to responsible exercise of freedom, by adherence to principles of shared governance, which require that in the development of academic policies and processes, the professional judgments of employees are of primary importance."
A resolution approved at a chapter meeting this spring opposed unilateral reorganizations that went beyond what was necessary for budget cuts, and the chapter notified both the administration and the Board of Trustees that reorganizations required more discussion and consultation and that the process of reorganization should be separated from the timeline for budget cuts. A letter to the provost this spring from the majority of chairs in Arts and Sciences expressed parallel concerns and made a similar request for more measured deliberations about reorganization.

Instead of responding to the concerns of CAS chairs and the chapter, the provost announced reorganization as a fait accompli June 12, without giving the entire faculty in affected colleges an opportunity to provide input on either the specifics or the general shape of the reorganization.

"Only a minority of faculty in the affected colleges thinks that both the process and the results of reorganization were appropriate," chapter president Sherman Dorn said.

"At least a substantial plurality of faculty thinks that either the process or the results are inappropriate."

"At a great university, faculty are at the heart of crucial decisions about the future. An administrator who acts as if he or she believes in benevolent despotism only increases the cynicism and erodes the morale of the faculty. In a time of severe budget cuts, the University of South Florida cannot afford either."--Sherman Dorn, chapter president.