As the Trump era begins, local unions will practice solidarity and resistance

Reprinted with permission from the Minneapolis Labor Review, January 27, 2017

By Chelsie Glaubitz Gabiou, President, Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation

Never before have the institutions of the labor movement faced as formidable a threat as Donald Trump in the White House with Republican-controlled majorities in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate. Union members are bracing for widespread attacks on our rights to collectively bargain and on the very structures that allow us to leverage pressure on employers.

If this wasn”'t bad enough, this past election also showed just how easily divided we can be in our own ranks.

While some despair as we look to the horizon, it surely is not all bad news.  Unions were not always legal. Workers in generations before us created and fought for the right to collectively bargain, just like we will continue to fight regardless of the barriers corporate CEOs and destructive politicians put in our way.

Locally, our unions have rejected a “go it alone approach.” Unions across all sectors boldly have chosen to put forth a vision of solidarity and resistance. Local union leaders have been clear, as union members and as workers, that our shared economic experiences and the very work that we do transcends all of the rhetoric, oppression and lies that have divided this country so deeply””including in our own membership.… Read the rest “As the Trump era begins, local unions will practice solidarity and resistance”

In Iraq and Afghanistan Burn Pit infernos cause illness and death

More than 230 U.S. burn pits, as large as 10 acres, across Iraq and Afghanistan; ignited with jet fuel, burning human body parts, plastics, metal, Styrofoam, electrical equipment and other waste, burned 100 to 200 tons of waste per day at all hours often near U.S. military encampments impregnating thousands of local residents and foreign military personnel with toxic fumes leading to major illnesses and eventually death.

Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar is a co-author of Helping Veterans Exposed to Burn Pits Act legislation pending in Congress.

Thousands have already been infected and some have died including Minnesota National Guard veteran Amie Muller, 36, in February, nine months after diagnosis of Stage III pancreatic cancer most likely caused by burn pit toxins during her 2005 and 2007 deployment at Balad, Iraq.

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