The world is rushing headlong towards self-destruction: war, environmental collapse, radically increasing poverty, self-serving vs people-serving leaders. We must look beyond the mirage of propaganda to save ourselves and the planet. We will find the facts in the mainstream media. All the more reason to tune into Green Voices. Following are a few examples:
1) Earth Day, April 22: Green around the nation and the world joined with like-minded groups to demand sanity and defend a livable planet. (See our report on Boston’s Earth Day.) While our President and national leadership demand more fracking, more fossil fuel sales, and more pollution to "punish Russia" they increase the toxicity of climate change. Our present leaders would take us down a dead end, literally.
2) May Day is historically referred to as "International Workers' Day" One may get only a glimpse of this from the mainstream media, but the labor movement is rumbling and rolling. Across the country union organizing and strikes are revitalizing a moribund labor movement. Examples:
- St. Vincent's Hospital: ( Worcester, MA) After 301 days, Tenet HealthCare and the striking Massachusetts Nurses Association agreed to a contract allowing for improved wages and staffing patterns. (The Green-Rainbow Party joined other citizens in active standouts supporting the nurses.) Shortly thereafter, the executives of the hospital supported an attempt by a small group of non-union nurses to decertify the MNA at ST Vincent’s. That would have nullified the recently approved contract. However, on February 25, 2022, the unified St. Vincent nurses prevailed by a vote of 302 to 133. Solidarity among the permanent nursing staff and replacement workers demonstrates the ability to take on corporate power through union power.
- John Deere ( Illinois): strike won significant wage increases.
- c. Kellogg (Michigan, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Tennessee) Strikers won, after a call for social media to promote a national boycott of Kellogg products.
- Kaiser-Permanente Health (California) With a strike by 32,000 employees imminent, a new 4-year contract was agreed to.
- Nabisco/Frito-Lay ( Oregon, Kansas) After an 18-day strike, the Bakery union won an end to “suicide shifts” and 7-day work weeks.
- Columbia University ( New York City) The Student Workers of Columbia, after two strikes in 2021 and 2022, won wage increases and benefit improvements.
- Amazon JFK8 Warehouse (New York-Staten Island) In March 2022, a group of warehouse workers on Staten Island won the right to form the Amazon Labor Union against the might of the largest employer in the world. Now they will proceed to the bargaining table.
- Starbucks Workers United has won negotiating rights in 15 Starbucks locations across the nation and counting.
A revitalized union movement is crucial to our ability to rebuild an America that works for the people, not just the millionaire/billionaire class.
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