Tidbits - Jan. 27, 2022 - Reader Comments: Abortion; Bronx Apartment Fire; Homelessness; Pandemic; Cryptocurrency; Alabama Amazon Union Election Do-Over; Tonga Tsunami; Lorraine Hansberry; Sidney Poitier, Paul Robeson; JFK Assassination; more...
Re: I Was in an Underground Abortion Network Before Roe v. Wade (Charles; Norm Littlejohn)
Re: Why Putin Has Such a Hard Time Accepting Ukrainian Sovereignty (Helen Finkelstein; Mark Roth)
Don't Tread on Me - GOP version -- cartoon by Bill Bramhall
Re: The Bronx Apartment Fire Was a Product of New York’s Out-of-Control Housing Market (Susan Collier Lamont; Dorothee Benz)
Re: At the Bottom of the Empire: Homelessness, Housing Injustice, and Jesse Jackson’s Call to “Eradicate Poverty” (Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression)
Re: The Pandemic as an Employment Shell Game (Vila)
Re: How Pandemic Inequality Has Killed 21,000 a Day (Sonia Cobbins)
Kaepernick vs Rodgers. Contrast and Compare -- cartoon by Lalo Alcaraz
Re: Once Again Austerity Proponents Tell it like it Isn’t (JL Pedersen)
Re: Cryptocurrency Is a Giant Ponzi Scheme (George Lessard; Kenneth P Bailey; Stefan Adler; Willie Williamson)
Re: Alabama Amazon Workers Are About to Rerun Their Union Election (Rosenberg Fund for Children; Michael Thompson)
Re: Unions Have the Potential and the Responsibility to Advance a “Just Transition” (Tim Sheard)
Re: Striking Massachusetts Nurses Outwait Corporate Giant Tenet (Beth Emma Goldman)
Re: Revealed: The Flint Water Poisoning Charges That Never Came to Light (William Bryce)
Re: “It’s a Bloodbath”: U.S. Companies are Pillaging Latin America's Tech Talent (Lorraine Suzuki)
Mitch, please -- cartoon by Mike Luckovich
Re: Tonga Eruption Was So Intense, it Caused the Atmosphere to Ring like a Bell (Ben Manuel; Stephen Michael Sands)
Re: The Smearing of Emma Watson (John Dietzel; Gina Klein)
History -- meme
Re: Rest in Power Mike Parker, 1940-2022 (David Berger)
Re: The Radical Vision of Silme Domingo and Gene Viernes (Capn' Steve Krug)
Re: The Many Visions of Lorraine Hansberry (Michael Kaufman)
Re: Sidney Poitier – Hollywood’s First Black Leading Man Reflected the Civil Rights Movement on Screen (Carolfrances Likins)
Re: Treating Addiction as a Crime Doesn’t Work. What Oregon Is Doing Just Might. (Thomas Spellman)
Re: Elza Soares, One of Brazil’s Greatest Ever Singers, Dies at 91 (Michael Dover)
Re: Damning Imperialism: Marx's Writing on China (John Aldis)
Re: Why Was John F. Kennedy Assassinated? (Ellen Yaroshefsky; Rabbi Arthur Waskow; Stan Nadel; Sadie Jones; Andy Heap; Marilyn Albert; James Berger; Lisa M Carney; Marguerite Horberg; Jan Bauman)
Re: Small Kindnesses (Gail Joseph)
Re: The Legacy of Campbell Soup’s Tomato Breeding Program (Mary Bang)
Re: How to Save Your Liberal Arts College from Greedy Suits 101 (Jay Mazur)
Resources:
How the New Deal Helped America Join the Fight against Fascism and Win World War II (The Living New Deal)
Announcements:
Virtual Film Showing-The Power to Heal: Medicare and the Civil Rights Revolution - February 7 (New York Labor History Association)
Organizing the Black Medical Community: Past, Present, and Future - February 16 (New York Labor History Association)
Re: I Was in an Underground Abortion Network Before Roe v. Wade
I don't always agree with every position that Portside supports, but in this case, 100% on the same page.
The fanatical fringe of the far right is becoming an emergent norm, and this determination to shut down access to abortion is just such an example.
Of course, obviously, people who can afford to do so will quietly find abortion services in other states, while economically disadvantaged people will be stuck with no choice except to go to a backroom abortion provider . . . often with horrendous results. This is a disaster in the making, the effect of which will be most acute among financially struggling women of color.
Charles
Sebastopol, CA
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From Democracy Now!
Norm Littlejohn
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: Why Putin Has Such a Hard Time Accepting Ukrainian Sovereignty
I believe Putin is not the only one who has a hard time accepting other
countries' sovereignty.
Helen Finkelstein
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I'm really tired of everyone following the media playbook, even Portside. No, it is not all Russia's "fault", and no, the only choices are *not* the West is right or you're a Putin apologist.
Consider this: how would you feel if Russia made an alliance with Mexico, and put military supplies, including missiles, in Mexico and Cuba? Now, explain to me the difference between that, and NATO, which was founded primarily to face off with the USSR, with basis and promising support to Ukraine? Tell me why there's a difference.
Furthermore, not everyone in the West is on board with this meme of "Russia is planning to invade Ukraine!!!"
Why are Germany and France at odds with the Anglosphere over how to handle Russia?
For a much longer and fuller discussion, this is a professor from UChicago, in 2015, talking about the entire situation... and nothing's changed.
Why is Ukraine the West's Fault? Featuring John Mearsheimer
I challenge folks here to read and watch both of them, *then* argue why Russia is 100% in the wrong.
Mark Roth
Don't Tread on Me - GOP version -- cartoon by Bill Bramhall
Bill Bramhall
March 4, 2021
New York Daily News
Re: The Bronx Apartment Fire Was a Product of New York’s Out-of-Control Housing Market
I have friends here in California who never ask for repairs for fear of eviction.
Susan Collier Lamont
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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see my related story:
Blaming the Victims—Not the System—for Bronx Fire Deaths
Dorothee Benz
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
In late 1965, Martin Luther King, acting on the advice of Jackson and the Chicago Freedom Movement, a coalition of organizations fighting for fair housing, decided to spotlight the Union variety of white supremacy by temporarily staying in a slum tenement in one of Chicago’s most neglected and exploited neighborhoods. King and his family found, and introduced a formerly disinterested media, to housing units with asbestos, no running water, appliances that did not work, stairs that collapse, rats running through the hallways and sneaking into the furniture, and a rancid and infectious colony of insects.
“The slums are the handiwork of a vicious system of the white society,” King said, “Negroes live in them, but they do not make them, any more than a prisoner makes a prison.” The “vicious system” that King identified and sought to dismantle included all of its leading institutions – both the instruments of capital and the iterations of the State. During his forceful condemnation of the Vietnam War in an speech at Riverside Church in New York, King described the need to conquer the “triplets of evil” – “racism, militarism, and materialism.” All three were on stark and hideous display in the Chicago slums – the racism of making Blacks prisoners to subhuman conditions, the materialism of white society profiting from Black misery, and the militarism that would come in the domestic form of police brutality, and the international crime of drafting young men of all races, but disproportionately Black, into the military to fight an unjust war in Vietnam. From the bomb crater in Hanoi to the burning cross in Birmingham, and stretching to the slum of Chicago, the brutal devastation of, what King called, a “thing oriented society” was revealing itself.
Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: The Pandemic as an Employment Shell Game
Excellent article...
I would simply ad that we have entered a Second Great Depression.
Like the first one, this one is hidden behind a "pandemic". In the early 1920s a similar hysteria was created and blamed on another pandemic... And millions of face hid behind "safety" masks as the real danger was ignored by the State...
Vila
Re: How Pandemic Inequality Has Killed 21,000 a Day
"Oxfam found that the 10 richest men in the world saw their fortunes grow ... at a rate of over $1.2 billion per day, since the pandemic hit nearly two years ago."
10 men getting 1.2 billion EVERY DAY! Will they ever voluntarily limit themselves? The details are yet to be written, but I am with Bob Marley on this one. We just have to figure out what the pitchforks will be. Perhaps tax the rich.
Sonia Cobbins
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Kaepernick vs Rodgers. Contrast and Compare -- cartoon by Lalo Alcaraz
Lalo Alcaraz
November 10, 2021
Re: Once Again Austerity Proponents Tell it like it Isn’t
There are more than a few assumed discrepancies in this article. Well written, but when your bias the whole truth is not an option.
JL Pedersen
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: Cryptocurrency Is a Giant Ponzi Scheme
“… This, we are told, is revolutionary. But making unmediated online transactions securely in a trustless environment in this way is not without costs. Cryptocurrency blockchains generally don’t allow previously verified transactions to be deleted or altered. The data is immutable. Updates are added by chaining a new “block” of transaction data to the chain of existing blocks.
But to ensure the integrity of the blockchain, the network needs a way to trust that new blocks are accurate. Popular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin all employ a “proof of work” consensus method for verifying updates to the blockchain. Without getting overly technical, this mechanism allows blockchain users — known as “miners” in this context — to compete for the right to verify and add the next block by being the first to solve an incredibly complex math puzzle.…”
George Lessard
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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Does The word Ponzi come to mind? IT should.
Kenneth P Bailey
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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Rarely read such nonsense.
For one thing, the author does not distinguish between Bitcoin and Shitcoins. The latter are in fact Ponzi schemes. But how he can overlook the fact that the US dollar is the worst Ponzi scheme of all is a mystery to me, especially since you can feel it in your own wallet for more than a year now with the ever faster inflation.
The only way out against the fraudulent policies of figures like Biden and others is to move into Bitcoin. It is the only sensible way out of the demonetization caused by fiat currencies.
I recommend everyone to read the books of authors like for example Saifedean Ammous (Bitcoin Standard and Fiat Standard).
see: Max Keiser - This Bitcoin Price Is A Given In 2022 As Fiat Collapse
Stefan Adler
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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Giant is the operative word. Money grubbing at an unprecedented level.
Willie Williamson
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: Alabama Amazon Workers Are About to Rerun Their Union Election
(posting on Portside Labor)
Workers at the Amazon BHM1 Fulfillment Center will be casting their union votes starting Feb 4th, a rerun election after Amazon was found guilty of illegal union-busting activities last year. We're in awe of the union organizers/activists holding Amazon accountable and making this election possible. Shame on Amazon for interfering last time around; let's hope for an unobstructed election this time.
h/t: Portside
Rosenberg Fund for Children
Posting on Facebook
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Let me explain one thing about Unionism, MPO is this, your local union is as strong as the local membership, Regional, National Union membership is totally bullshit!!! The true power is in the local membership!!!!! It is all about how the local handles grievances, firings, and wrongful infractions!! Read your contract, demand clarification of anything you don't understand, pay your dues and attend Union Meetings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Michael Thompson
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: Unions Have the Potential and the Responsibility to Advance a “Just Transition”
smart conversation, thanks. Though I wonder if we can have a green world and capitalism??
Tim Sheard
Re: Striking Massachusetts Nurses Outwait Corporate Giant Tenet
Tenet Corp. is equally as bad as the HCA hospital system - Have worked in both - Go Mass. Nurses!
Beth Emma Goldman
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: Revealed: The Flint Water Poisoning Charges That Never Came to Light
I appreciate the new research and the importance of the Bonds but WHO OWNS THE F**KING BONDS and WHAT ARE THEIR POLITICAL CONNECTIONS. IT IS HIGHLY UNLIKELY THAT BIG BANKS OR NATIONALLY KNOWN CAPITALISTS OWNED THESE BONDS. What about the political connections of the pipeline company, and the pipe maker. I also heard that there were other commercial interests who wanted water along the route of the pipeline like potential frackers.
Congrats to these authors this is excellent and important work. I sent Brother Leduff an email on this with another good Detroit scoop. WHO OWNED THE BONDS AND ARE THEY CONNECTED POLITICALLY TO THE GOP?
William Bryce
Re: “It’s a Bloodbath”: U.S. Companies are Pillaging Latin America's Tech Talent
U.S. is pillaging worldwide healthcare workers too.
Lorraine Suzuki
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Mitch, please -- cartoon by Mike Luckovich
Mike Luckovich
January 27, 2022
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Re: Tonga Eruption Was So Intense, it Caused the Atmosphere to Ring like a Bell
The estimated the blast was around 10 megatons of TNT equivalent, about 500 times as powerful as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, during World Word II. the wave looked like a ripple produced by dropping a stone in a pond.
Ben Manuel
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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Amazing article!!!!
Stephen Michael Sands
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: The Smearing of Emma Watson
I detest Israel's abuse of its Palestinian residents and citizens. That does not make me antisemitic. Nor Ms. Watson.
John Dietzel
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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Perhaps Emma Watson, and others so focused on the situation in Israel, could use equal resources to address inequality and abuse based on racial, religious, and economic persecution in the United States, China, and many other nations. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. There are few nations with clean hands on these issues. Many Jews support the State of Israel because the Holocaust happened and Israel is viewed as a safe haven. Many in the world simply do not want Jews to have a safe haven.
Gina Klein
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: Rest in Power Mike Parker, 1940-2022
I first read about Mike in 1960 in an article in the Socialist Party newspaper, New America.
Through the years, our paths would cross and we occasionally bopped each other stuff on FB.
Of all the comrades I have known, Mike was one of the kindest, toughest guys around.
SHIT! mike parker's gone.
David Berger
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: The Radical Vision of Silme Domingo and Gene Viernes
Thanks for this article, we need to remember, honor and learn from their story. Michael Withey's book Summary Execution, is a worthwhile read on this too https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/event/michael-withey-summary-execution#:
Capn' Steve Krug
Re: The Many Visions of Lorraine Hansberry
Overlooked in this otherwise excellent article is Hansberry's membership in the Harlem Writers Workshop led by Phillip Bonosky during the 1950s. Bonosky , who died in 2013 at age 96 was a lifelong Communist and prolific writer, best known for his coming-of-age novel Burning Valley, first published in 1953. Hansberry was one of many notable writers who honed their skills in the workshop, including Maya Angelou. In the 1970s and 80s Bonosky worked for the Daily World as cultural editor and Moscow correspondent.
Michael Kaufman
The first Black leading man in Hollywood was Paul Robeson, not Sydney Poitier as you state - in an article right next to your piece on Robeson and the petition. Yes Poitier was the Black actor that held leading roles throughout the fifties – but Robeson, the Great Forerunner” – was that in the forties! I love Poitier and wouldn’t diminish him in any way, but his and Belafonte’s mentor was the first.
Carolfrances Likins
Re: Treating Addiction as a Crime Doesn’t Work. What Oregon Is Doing Just Might.
Yes just a addiction is not a crime neither is the murder of another human by a 12 year old whose traumatized brain has not been healed even though he/she has demonstrated many times before the murder that he/she needed therapy of the injury to their traumatized brain
To understand the violent behavior of today
It (Violent behavior) is all about the DEVELOPING BRAIN (traumatized brain) of the individual whose finger is on the trigger. Unpack that simple statement and you quickly arrive at when kids act out, are belligerent, they are asking for help, therapy, not more abuse
Peace
Thomas Spellman
Re: Elza Soares, One of Brazil’s Greatest Ever Singers, Dies at 91
Thank you for this sad news. I've added this (cum comment with the Portside link) here :
And added it to my social justice song list just below my recent student additions.
Michael Dover
Re: Damning Imperialism: Marx's Writing on China
People who do not want to show China any sort of respect will probably not bother reading this article. The same applies to those who believe that Communism itself is an evil concept. However, this article does an excellent job in showing us how "The West" with its "Capitalism" treated China for so many years.
John Aldis
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: Why Was John F. Kennedy Assassinated?
They think Kennedy was on a progressive path? Cuba? Vietnam?
I’ve never heard these things.
Ellen Yaroshefsky
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Would someone tell Messrs. Smith and Lafferty and their editors at Portside that in 1963 there was no “former” Soviet Union?
Shalom,
Rabbi Arthur Waskow
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These attempts to turn the cold war hard liner JFK into a martyr for peace are about as credible as the notion that Biden stole the election from Trump. No, I take that back, they are even less credible.
Stan Nadel
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A documentary called Truth is the Only Client is worth a watch.
Sadie Jones
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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Delusional. JFK caused the Cuban Missile Crisis w deployment of Jupiter nuclear missiles to Turkey. He shoehorned Green Berets from their European focus to undercover civilian aid 1961 Strategic Hamlet program in Vietnam. The cult of JFK is rife w fantasy
Andy Heap
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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The new Stone film is quite convincing, especially around the "single bullet theory" concocted by Arlen Spector.
Marilyn Albert
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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I'm agnostic on the forensics, number of shooters, angle of wounds, and all that. Just seems that for something that elaborate, somebody at some time would have spilled the beans... and yes, I'm aware also of the pattern of premature deaths among potential witnesses, yes; but still. Secrets of this magnitude don't stay secret. AND, I just don't buy the related thesis that JFK was an anti-Cold War quasi peacenik. That really is contrary to anything I've read about him. He was sincerely anti-communist. He didn't want WWIII, but he was very much a Cold Warrior.
James Berger
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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Stone's documentary is total crapola. Read Chomsky's book about Kennedy and the romantic myth surrounding his assassination.
Lisa M Carney
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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[Republished by Haymarket Books and available here ]
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The two hour Lamar Waldron / Thom Hartmann radio recording on you tube is much better - but one of their hooks, that Almeida in Cuba was an agent seems hard to corroborate- the rest seems like the true story - and sadly the same bunch have their prints all over major coups everywhere incl Jan 6
Marguerite Horberg
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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When Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested, the first words out of his mouth was "I am the patsy." There should be no doubt at all that his murder was a government conspiracy. To this day I believe that murder of Robert Kennedy was designed to keep him from investigating his brother's murder, something he said he would do if he was elected.
Jan Bauman
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
(posting on Portside Culture)
Thank you for choosing this to send, reminding us of who we can be if only we try.
Kindness finds a place, and is never old...
Gail Joseph
Re: The Legacy of Campbell Soup’s Tomato Breeding Program
(posting on Portside Culture)
Nothing like a Jersey beefsteak!
Mary Bang
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: How to Save Your Liberal Arts College from Greedy Suits 101
(posting on Portside Culture)
The last paragraph tells it all. Liberal arts colleges are for the rich, the well off willing to go into debt, and a smattering of the talented tenth.
Jay Mazur
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Preparing for War: How the New Deal Helped America Join the Fight Against Fascism and Win World War II
A bicoastal dialogue featuring Kevin Baker (East) and Bob Leighninger (West) on Zoom
Wednesday, February 16, 2022, 8:00 ET/5:00 PT
It is often said that the New Deal didn’t end the Depression—the war did. But Baker and Leighninger contend that the opposite is the case. The many programs devised by the Roosevelt Administration to combat the Great Depression also provided the personnel, infrastructure, and experience that allowed the country to respond to the expansionist aims of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan swiftly and effectively, turning the tide in favor of the Allies and ultimately winning the war.
The sheer speed of the U.S. response is all the more telling when you consider that as late as 1938, the United States had the 17th largest army in the world, right behind Rumania.
To probe the connections between the New Deal, war preparedness, and the Depression, Kevin Baker will interview Bob Leighninger, who is writing a book on the topic. Together, they will explore these relationships, dive into the specifics, and query the transformation of America into a modern superpower.
Kevin Baker is a novelist, historian, and journalist. He has recently completed a book on the history of New York City baseball and is currently working on a cultural and political history of the United States between the wars, for which he received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2017. He has written for many major periodicals and is a contributing editor at Harper's Magazine.
Bob Leighninger is a former professor of sociology at SUNY-Oswego and the past editor—for nearly 40 years—of the Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare. He is the author of two books: Building Louisiana: The Legacy of the Public Works Administration and Long-Range Public Investment: The Forgotten Legacy of the New Deal. And he’s working on a third, focused on the theme of this evening’s discussion.
The Living New Deal – New York City Chapter
2578 Broadway #188
New York, NY 10025
livingnewdealnyc@gmail.com
livingnewdeal.org/living-new-deal-nyc
Monday, FEBRUARY 7th 6 p.m.-7: 15
The Power to Heal: Medicare and the Civil Rights Revolution
New York Labor History Association Black History Month Event
A screening of the film will be followed by a discussion with the filmmaker Barbara Berney, a distinguished scholar in public health, environmental justice, and the U.S. health care system. Dr. Berney is an Emeritus Associate Professor at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate School of Public Health and Health Management.
Co-hosted by New York Labor History Association & the PSC Retiree Chapter and co-sponsored by NYU Tamiment-Wagner Collection and LaborArts
Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives/ NYU Special Collections
Elmer Holmes Bobst Library
70 Washington Square South, 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10012
Organizing the Black Medical Community: Past, Present, and Future
Featuring Donald E. Moore, Doris Browne, Julius Johnson, and Lystra Sawney
Wednesday, February 16 (6:00-7:15 PM ET)
In Celebration of Black History Month
The New York Labor History Association is hosting a panel discussion to explore organizing in the Black medical community. Most white people, including progressives, are not aware of the extent and depth of these efforts. The panel: Organizing the Black Medical Community, Past, Present and Future, will explore the origins, challenges, and future visions of prominent leaders, especially the concept of collaboration.
Dr. Donald Moore, President of Provident Clinical Society, the Brooklyn Affiliate of the NMA, and a Board Member of Physicians for a National Health Program-Metro (PNHP) will be the moderator. The panelists are Dr. Doris Browne, 118th President of the National Medical Association (NMA), Dr. Julius Johnson, president and founder of Greater NYC Black Nurses Association, and Lystra Sawney, VP of a new organizing department of SEIU local 1199 focused on home health care workers.
Dr. Browne has said, “We must know our history if we are to move forward and not be destined to repeat some of the atrocities of the past.” Dr. Johnson agrees, “I think we should address past issues and how we plan on addressing them through collaborative approaches in the future.” There is currently bi-partisan support in the NY State Legislature for a Fair Pay for Home Care Act.
Co-hosted by New York Labor History Association & the PSC Retiree Chapter and co-sponsored by NYU Tamiment-Wagner Collection and LaborArts.
Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives/ NYU Special Collections
Elmer Holmes Bobst Library
70 Washington Square South, 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10012