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from Peace Buttons
Nov 16, 2006 (New York State Labor-Religion Coalition) — NEW PALTZ ADOPTS SWEATFREE POLICY —
On November 1, 2006 the Village Board of New Paltz, New York (pop. 6,000+) adopted a new sweatfree purchasing policy for apparel and textiles as allowed by New York state law. The Village of New Paltz has some of the oldest houses in North America and was founded in 1678. Its Village Board is led by two Green Party activists, Mayor Jason West and Deputy Mayor Rebecca Rotzler- a National Green Party Co-Chair who also led the effort to pass the sweatfree ordinance.
New Paltz’s new policy establishes a sweatfree advisory committee staffed by the Village Treasurer to implement the policy. This Advisory Committee is also charged to recommend possible membership in the new national sweatfree consortium. Apparel and textile contract information will be made public and the outside parties will be allowed to comment on companies. Contractors and subcontractors who violate the policy, such as being untruthful about actual labor standards, can be fined $5,000. New Paltz joins Suffolk County, Long Island as the second New York jurisdiction to successfully enact a sweatfree ordinance. New York City enacted a sweatfree law in 2001 that was opposed successfully to the New York Supreme Court by Presidential Candidate and former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.
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I stole this from the Project for An Old American Century Site:
According to an article in today’s Salt Lake Tribune, more and more children in the U.S. are uninsured. The Deseret News, in its article today on the same issue, has a chart on the statistics.
More than half of America’s 9 million uninsured children live in two-parent families, a new analysis of 2005 U.S. census data show. And in most of these two-parent families, both parents work. In Utah, a whopping 91 percent of an estimated 88,458 uninsured kids have at least one working parent.
Low-income families – those with incomes at twice the federal poverty level, or up to $33,200 for a family of three – are still most at risk. In Utah, 65 percent of uninsured kids fall in this category, the report shows. But “increasingly, this is a problem for the middle-class,” said Judi Hilman, executive director of the Utah Health Policy Project.
The Governor of Utah is proposing a mandate that all children in Utah have health insurance.
Under the plan, parents would be required to enroll their kids in Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) if they qualify. This would take a big bite out of Utah’s uninsured, at least 52,000 youth.
But mandated coverage won’t work for everyone until private insurers offer affordable plans for middle-income families, says Hilman. “How can you mandate something that’s not affordable?”
My point exactly. Having been in uninsured situations before (with small children) I can attest first hand at how discriminatory and sometimes unattainable our current system is with regards to health care. Families either go without insurance or go in debt if health care is needed.
What’s wrong with this picture? Health care is a basic need. As are food, water, and education. When these needs are not provided or made unattainable a dominoe effect occurs. Lack of health care and food affect young people’s ability to concentrate in school. And we know what happens then (see my article below on No Child Left Behind and Utah’s schools). The “greatest country on earth” is failing to provide these basic human needs to a siginicantly large portion of our population.
The House of Representatives has approved three measures to “control” the illegal immigrnat issue.
One of those measures includes building a 700 mile border fence.
All three of Utah’s representatives voted in approval of the Illegal Immigrant Deterrence and Public Safety Act and the Effective Immigration Enforcement and Community Protection Act.
Some of the bills’ provisions are: allowing local and state authorities to enforce immigration law; creating criminal penalties for building tunnels across the border; and making it easier to deport alien gang members.
Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, voted for the measures. Cannon has been targeted by activists against illegal immigration, and faced a primary election challenge, because of his role as President Bush’s point man on comprehensive immigration reform.
“These three bills can make an immediate impact in securing our borders and strengthening our nation. They are a step in the right direction, but more still needs to be done,” Cannon said in a statement. “Congress needs to actually fix our broken immigration system, by solving the entire problem.”
The measures all still need Senate approval.
Having seen “the fence” in El Paso and visited Tuscon where I heard personal accounts about immigrants crossed the desert in an effort to seek out a better life, I would urge our elected officials to stop doing what they continually do in an effort to “fix” problems – that is providing “band-aid solutions” that end up costing taxpayers a lot of money and don’t really solve problems.
I mean after all, we are dealing with human beings here. Human beings who need help and come to America, the land of opportunity, to seek a better life. That’s the story for most of those folks who illegally or otherwise cross the border into our land.
We are being fenced in while others are being fenced out. That is not a solution and it doesn’t make me feel more “secure”.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged government, human needs, human rights, immigrant issues, immigration laws, politics, Utah
As I see the increasing incidences of flag displays and fireworks sales as Independence Day approaches, I cannot help but wonder of people acutally really know what the significance of July 4 is.
Ruben Navarrette has had a piece published in today’s Salt Lake Tribune from SignOn San Diego, entitled Being an American by a technicality.
Navarrette is a hispanic american. He lists the reasons why he is an American.
Here is his list – go to the article (linked above) to read his explanations:
Navarrette’s ending intrigued me the most:
an immigration restrictionist – recently took issue with something I’d written and informed me that the fact I was an American citizen was just a “technicality.”
If that’s the case, it’s a technicality for which I’m immensely grateful.
My comment: We are all, by default, then, American citizens by technicality because America was founded by immigrants to a land already inhabited.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged government, human needs, human rights, immigrant issues, immigration laws, politics, Utah
Dean Myerson of the Green Institute has announced that a report is available of a presentation that David Cobb and Ben Manski gave:
The Green Institute sponsored a seminar with David Cobb and Ben Manski on June 24 entitled “People’s Rights before Corporate Rights” which described how corporations, which are artificial creations of
the state, are not entitled to the inalienable rights reserved to the people in the U.S. constitution. Corporations should not be “good corporate citizens” because corporations should not be citizens at all.
Read a report of the event at Seminar.
The Deseret News has published an article today on the Caravan to Cuba: Cuban aid caravan will defy blockade. I received a call last week from a D-News reporter gathering information for the article. I spoke to the Caravan folks yesterday who are appearing tonight in Salt Lake. They are headed here from Boise.
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A “friendshipment” caravan headed for Cuba will stop in Salt Lake City today, as part of a Pastors for Peace challenge to the U.S. blockade on aid.
The caravan, which will take medicine, textbooks and other supplies to Cuba, is traveling to more than 120 American and Canadian cities before crossing the U.S. border into Mexico on July 2 in an effort to challenge U.S. restrictions on travel and aid to Cuba.
At its Utah stop, People for Peace and Justice of Utah will host a free public event at Free Speech Zone, 2144 S. Highland Drive at 7 p.m. Keynote speaker will be Gloria La Riva, coordinator of the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five. La Riva has organized medical aid shipments to Cuba and Iraq.
Continue reading
Today’s Salt Lake Tribune has published an article on a local Ogden family whose father was deported and is not permitted to return for 20 years.
Humberto “Bert” Fernandez-Vargas came to the U.S. in 1969, ultimately started a trucking business, married and raised a son, and paid his taxes. He was deported in 2004 due to a the retroactive (April 1, 1997) Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, a provision which “drastically reduced the possibility for undocumented immigrants to stop their deportation if they had re-entered the country illegally after having been previously deported.”
Fernandez-Vargas applied to become a permanent legal resident and got authorization to work while the application was pending. Then came his arrest at the immigration interview.
Fernandez-Vargas can apply for a waiver from the U.S. government, but that could take years.
No regard has been considered of Fernandez-Vargas’ longstanding residence in the U.S., his community and family commitments, and the responsibilities he displayed as a business-owner and tax-payer.
This is another example of dividing and conquering on the part of the U.S. which continues to build walls and barriers along the cultural and community divides.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged government, human needs, human rights, immigrant issues, immigration laws, politics, Utah
Deanna Dee-Dee Taylor 