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AFSCME and Michigan Working Families Respond to Detroit Bankruptcy Filing

Jackie Tortora AFL-CIO Now
Gov. Snyder’s plan to suspend democracy, drive one of America’s largest cities into bankruptcy and deprive workers of their hard-earned retirement security, moved dangerously closer to reality today when without a single negotiation with unions, workers or retirees, Snyder authorized Detroit’s financial manager to file for bankruptcy.

We're Taxing the Rich... and So Can You

Fred Glass Labor Notes
Despite the odds, competing measures, and conventional wisdom that says voters will not approve tax hikes, unions and community groups built a successful campaign to pass a tax hike for California's richest residents.

Trayvon Martin, Race and Anthropology

Leith Mullings Anthropology News
Those of us who research race, racism and inequality must continue to name racism without sugarcoating it; to analyze the ways in which racism is maintained and produced inside and outside of our discipline. Most important, we need to interrogate the new hidden forms of structural racism and deconstruct, in the best sense of the word, the ways in which racism expresses itself in the age of "post-racial color blindness."

A Shuffle of Aluminum, but to Banks, Pure Gold

David Kocieniewski New York Times
By controlling warehouses, pipelines and ports, banks gain valuable market intelligence, investment analysts say. That, in turn, can give them an edge when trading commodities. In the stock market, such an arrangement might be seen as a conflict of interest — or even insider trading. But in the commodities market, it is perfectly legal. In 2011, an internal Goldman memo suggested that speculation by investors accounted for about a third of the price of a barrel of oil.

Farmworkers Come to Capitol Hill Seeking Safeguards

Earth Justice
Most workers in the U.S. look to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for standards to protect them from exposure to hazardous chemicals. Protection for farmworkers from pesticides is left to the EPA's authority under the Worker Protection Standard of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act ("FIFRA"), a standard that is far more lenient than OSHA rules and is fundamentally inadequate.

North Carolina's Moral Mondays

Ari Berman The Nation
An inspiring grassroots movement is fighting back against the GOP’s outrageous budget cuts and attacks on democracy.

Proposed NC Budget Ends Teacher Tenure, Pays Tuition Vouchers

Lynn Bonner News & Observer
Legislators are set to vote on a historic $20.6 billion budget this week that would have the state take a giant step toward further privatization of education, end teacher tenure, and compensate victims of the government eugenics program.