Washington House and Senate Propose Raiding your LEOFF 2 Retirement.

Action Alert
Legislature sweeps LEOFF Plan 2 funds!

This action will undermine the authority of the LEOFF Plan 2 board and undercut the foundation of the voter approved Initiative 790 that Firefighters worked so painstakingly to pass. This attack is not unlike many we have observed all around this country.

The State Senate budget plan was released tonight, and (like the House budget) their proposed reduction in LEOFF Plan 2 contributions will create a $75 million shortfall in funding. Both the House and Senate have also chosen to eliminate their first payment to the Local Public Safety Enhancement Account for future benefit enhancements. The WSCFF legislative team has clearly and consistently delivered a strong message not to reduce LEOFF Plan 2 contributions with leadership and budget writers in both chambers – they did not heed our advice. Now is the time for each legislator to hear from every WSCFF member and our families that this is not an acceptable way to balance the state’s budget.

· This budget intentionally underfunds the LEOFF 2 pension system and is a raid on our pension plan.
· The underfunding in this 2 year budget will create higher than ever rates for employers, members and the state in only 4 years.
· This change violates the voter approved authority of the LEOFF 2 board. Our board of plan members, employers and legislators has the responsibility to establish reasonable and appropriate rates for our plan.

What can YOU do?

Every member must call and email their legislator! Follow this: Find your legislator link to find the email and phone number for your legislators. If you are a member of your local’s leadership, ensure that your Local delivers the following message to the legislators that represent your local:

· The first priority of the WSCFF since the beginning of this legislative session has been the full funding of LEOFF 2 pension system. (The plan still has $1.256 billion in unrealized losses from the great recession)
· Underfunding LEOFF Plan 2 is irresponsible and will cause rates to increase to unprecedented levels in just four years.
· The 15 million dollar cut in state funding this budget cycle translates to a 75 million dollar impact on the system this biennium.
· We insist that you work with the WSCFF legislative team to resolve this Firefighter and Public Safety Priority.

Finally, check your calendar...if you are not on duty this Thursday, April 14, 2011, we want at least 100 union firefighters to be at the WSCFF office by noon on Thursday. Our goal is to brief each member at the WSCFF office so that they are able to make personal contact with their legislator. Then, we need you to attend a 3:30 hearing on the pension raiding bills in the House Ways & Means Committee. Make yourself easily identifiable as a firefighter - we want to deliver the message that underfunding LEOFF Plan 2 is a foolish idea!

The Senate Ways and Means Committee will soon schedule a similar meeting and we will need to approach that hearing with the same force and strength.

Stay tuned for more updates and be prepared to act to protect your pension. This is the first of several potential requests for you to make personal and professional contact with your legislators.

Please RSVP with your name and local number and direct any questions to Bud Sizemore (bud@wscff.org). Provide your contact info if you need a response.

We are gearing up to host our SFD Bloomsday water station...

your help is needed to make this a successful year Sun May 1 7am

Broadway and Nettleton

I need someone willing to bring down a spare engine

Spokane Firefighters have sponsored the 4th water/aid station along the Bloomsday course for almost 20 years now, it is one of the few events we have to get out and support a great community event - somewhere between 40-50k participants run, jog, or walk the course. While many participants travel in from out of town the vast majority are Spokane area residents. Our sponsors Wake up call coffee and Mike's Old Fashioned donuts have returned with us this year, donating our morning treats. Spouses and kids are encouraged to come help out. T-shirts are provided and SFD members receive a 1/4 point. The event can last up to about 1pm by the time we are cleaned up and gone but there is not a specific time commitment, come on down and go when you gotta go. Please bring a snow shovel and leaf rake if you got one. Give me a call with questions.

Thanks,

Frater 9A

On the Anniversary of MLK's Assassination - the day after he made a speech to a public-sector union...

Remembering MLK and the rights of labor

By LEONARD PITTS JR.

lpitts@miamiherald.com

Once upon a long time ago, a tired man faced an audience of public workers. They were on a wildcat strike, demanding the right to collectively bargain and to have the city for which they worked automatically deduct union dues from their paychecks. The city’s conservative mayor had flatly refused these demands.

“You are doing many things here in this struggle,” the tired man assured them. “You are demanding that this city will respect the dignity of labor.” Too often, he said, folks looked down on people like them, people who did menial or unglamorous work. But he encouraged them not to bemoan their humble state. “All labor has dignity,” he said.

On Monday, it will be 43 years since that man was shot from ambush and killed in Memphis, Tenn. Martin Luther King’s last public actions were in defense of labor and union rights.

One wonders, then, what he would say of Wisconsin.

Or Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Florida or any of the other places where, like a contagion, the move to weaken or effectively outlaw unions has spread. One wonders what he would make of a conservative governing ethos that now defines public employees — teachers, police officers, firefighters — as the enemy.

Actually, we need not wonder what King would have said, because he already said it. In the speech quoted above, he warned that if America did not use its vast wealth to ensure its people “the basic necessities of life,” America was going to hell.

The Baptist preacher in him reared up then, and his voice sang thunder. For all the nation’s achievements, he roared, for all its mighty airplanes, submarines and bridges, ‘‘It seems that I can hear the God of the universe saying, ‘Even though you have done all that, I was hungry and you fed me not. I was naked and you clothed me not. The children of my sons and daughters were in need of economic security and you didn’t provide it for them.’ ”

It will come as a surprise to some that the civil rights leader was also a labor leader, but he was. He had this in common with Asa Philip Randolph, who suffered long years of privation to establish the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. And with Walter Reuther, brutally beaten when he organized sitdown strikes that helped solidify the United Automobile Workers. And with Crystal Lee Sutton, inspiration for the movie Norma Rae, who lost her job for trying to unionize a textile plant in Roanoke Rapids, N.C.

These people and many others fought to win the rights now being taken away.

Granted, those rights have sometimes been abused — used to shelter the incompetent or reward the greedy.

But to whatever degree our workplaces are not filled with children working adult hours, to whatever degree an employer is required to provide a clean and safe workplace, break time, sick time or fair wages, that also reflects organized labor’s legacy.

It is instructive that this campaign to roll back that legacy is contemporaneous with a New York Times report on how General Electric earned $14.2 billion in profit last year, yet paid no U.S. taxes. Indeed, the Times says, GE netted a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.

What’s it tell you that some of us are on the offensive against working people, but breathe scarcely a peep when a giant corporation somehow slips through government-provided loopholes, paying no taxes? If need is a character flaw, what, then, is greed?

In some sense, we have traveled 43 years forward to get back where we were in 1968. King would doubtless find that sobering. One is reminded of the axiom about those who will not learn from history. One is reminded of the quote about the price of freedom.

And one is reminded of a song Billy Preston sang in the summer of 1973. “Will it go round in circles?” he asked.

Apparently, it already has.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/04/02/2147591/remembering-mlk-and-the-rights.html#ixzz1IbxopTO2

From Mike Bacon - Firefighters, Cops Warn Republicans Anti-Union Stance Has Consequences

Firefighters, Cops Warn Republicans Anti-Union Stance Has Consequences
Huffington Post
4/1/11


WASHINGTON -- Leaders from two unions known to support the Republican Party warned of serious repercussions for GOP candidates in the 2012 elections, saying the onslaught of anti-labor bills in state capitals has shifted their political allegiances.

“Our political principles are pretty straightforward. We’ll support those that support us,” Harold Schaitberger, general president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, told HuffPost. “We tend to stick with those who stick with us.”



“There is a distinct possibility that the pro-labor candidate in the next election will be looked at much more favorably than their overall record,” Chuck Canterbury, national president of the Fraternal Order of Police, told HuffPost. “The vast majority of our membership will put other issues aside.”



The inclusion of police and fire unions in an Ohio bill that stripped collective bargaining rights from public employees may have been the last straw for the two conservative-leaning groups. But even in Wisconsin, where Gov. Scott Walker’s actions exempted them, cops and fire fighters marched shoulder to shoulder with teachers and other public workers.

Now, the public safety unions are signaling what could be a tectonic shift in the political landscape, one that could result in a level of labor solidarity missing for recent elections.



“I don’t want to say we are unhappy with Republicans but we are very unhappy with the far-right wing of the party that seems to have taken the Republican Party hostage,” said Canterbury, whose union endorsed George W. Bush and John McCain in the last three presidential elections. “We are extremely unhappy with the snowball that rolled in in Ohio and we are traditionally a very conservative organization. We’ve been bipartisan.....But with the actions that have taken place, there’s going to be tremendous reprisals taken out at the polls” by police and their families.”They feel like their public officials turned their back on them.”



The FOP political action committee gave less than $30,000 in 2010, most of it evenly distributed between Republicans and Democrats. But Canterbury expects his union will spend significantly more money in 2012 elections and recall and referendum votes in Wisconsin, Ohio and other states where labor is being asked to shoulder the brunt of budget deficits.



“Nobody will get money from us who don’t openly support us,” the police union chief said.



Schaitberger, whose firefighters union wields significantly more clout, said his union would also be spending more in support of Democratic candidates. During the 2010 elections, the union gave $2.7 million in political contributions, with about 82% of its money going to Democrats and the rest to GOP candidates.



“In 2012, it going to change,” he said. “Our members are furious.... We will be putting our money where our mouth is.”

Schaitberger said GOP governors and legislators across the country were attacking union rights, even though the media has largely focused on events in Wisconsin and Ohio. “This is clearly a GOP right-wing coordinated attack on workers,” he said. “Their goal is to kill our union and cripple us in the political arena.”



He is perhaps most concerned about New Hampshire, not coincidentally host of the first presidential primary. Republicans there have a veto-proof majority in the legislature and are pushing a bill that may be “the most draconian of any of the anti-worker, anti-collective bargaining attacks,” he said.



The legislation would turn public employees who fail to reach a contract agreement into “at will workers” who could be fired at any time and would not have the right to negotiate wages, working hours and working conditions.

Schaitberger said that legislation is the kind of overreach that has galvanized his members and will have “significant blowback” at the polls.



“There has been a very significant shift when you look at the Republican attacks we see in the states,” the fire union boss said. “They are going to be in our cross hairs and our members will politically respond accordingly.”

Olympia Labor Rally

Brothers and Sisters of the WSCFF, your participation in a major Labor Rally at the Capitol is imperative in relaying an important message - “PUT PEOPLE FIRST!”

Washington’s working families have not only been blamed but punished for damage done by Wall Street banks and corporations. Thousands of public and private-sector workers from all trades will join together in solidarity to state loud and clear - “Our rights to fair working conditions and collective bargaining will not be taken away!”

There is strength in numbers! Don’t miss this opportunity to make an impact!

Get ready for April 2-8! The Washington State Labor Council is organizing a week of solidarity actions.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS for these events.

visit www.wscff.org for information on this important event.

More on Triangle FIre...

Brothers and Sisters,


Please have members go to www.iaff7thdistrict.org and read the story about the “Triangle Shirt Fire Happens Again”………………lets get this thing going!



Ricky J. Walsh

IAFF 7th DVP

2011 MDA Stairclimb

Have been wanting pictures, and was promised a story about this, but nothing - only this tidbit from Facebook:

"The 2011 SFD/L29 stair climb team competed in the annual Columbia Tower Stair climb in Seattle. We raised almost 25k for the Luekemia/Lymphoma society, which was 2nd amongst all the teams who participated! The event although a competetion amongst firefighters is primarily intended for fundraising for the cancer society."

Kinda lame. Come on! Where are the stories?!?! Where are the pictures!?!? Inquiring minds want to know what 2011's event was like before 2012!

Rally to Remember: 100 Year Anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire

Rally Friday, March 25 · 5:00pm - 8:00pm
Corner of Ruby, Division and North River Drive

March 25th, 1911, 146 garment workers lost their lives in one of the worst workplace disasters in American history. Join us for a rally to remember this dark day in the history of the American labor movement, and support our continued efforts to advance the cause of the working class in America.

Questions? Contact bethany72@comcast.net


Contact: Bethany Heath
509.270.2453
bethany72@comcast.net

We are rallying on Friday to mark the 100th Anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. We will meet Friday the 25th of March at the corner of Ruby, North Division and North River Drive and memorialize each victim in chalk in solidarity, as is being done in New York.

It is our hope to also educate the public about the success of Shirtworker's Union, in which a single child worker from the Diamond Shirt Co. Called the 1909 general strike which gave us the 8 hr days we enjoy today. This success, in the face of the tragedy that followed shoes that the success of the movement in 1911 is affected by the future of our struggle in 2011. The labor movement finds success not in a gesture, but a solidarity of cause. The present and future quest for fairness in the American Workplace.


What the Triangle Shirtwaist fire means for workers now by Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis Secretary of Labor

A century ago this week, in Lower Manhattan, a young social worker named Frances Perkins was having tea at the Greenwich Village townhouse of her friend, the socialite Margaret Morgan Norrie. They were interrupted by clanging fire truck bells. Then they heard the anguished screams: “Don’t jump!”

They raced out of the townhouse and ran toward the commotion: a fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, just off Washington Square. Flames and black smoke shot from the top floors, and as they watched in shock, young girls and women, some alone, some clutching hands, inched up to the windows’ ledges — and jumped to their deaths.

Perkins would describe the scene in lectures later: “They couldn’t hold on any longer. There was no place to go. The fire was between them and any means of exit. It’s that awful choice people talk of — what kind of choice to make?” She added: “I shall never forget the frozen horror that came across as we stood with our hands on our throats watching that horrible sight, knowing that there was no help.”

The sewing factory employed more than 500 people, who worked long hours for low wages, in wretched and unsanitary conditions. They turned out “shirtwaists” — blouses with puffed sleeves and tight bodices popularized by the “Gibson Girl.” The factory owners had locked the fire-escape doors. The seamstresses were trapped when fire raced through the sweatshop just before closing on March 25, 1911.

In less than 20 minutes, 146 people, mostly Italian and Jewish immigrant women and girls, were dead. The last six victims were officially identified just a few weeks ago. Triangle outraged the public and offered a grisly example of how powerless workers were without collective bargaining

, because unionized garment workers received better pay and had safer conditions. And it galvanized Frances Perkins.
Twenty-two years later, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed her secretary of labor, the first woman to serve as a Cabinet secretary. During her 12-year tenure, she directed the formulation and implementation of the Social Security Act, one of the most important pieces of social legislation in our history. Among other extraordinary accomplishments, she helped create unemployment insurance, the minimum wage, and the legislation that guarantees the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively. She also established the department’s Labor Standards Bureau, a precursor to what is now the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Perkins clearly had the Triangle victims in mind as she weaved the nation’s social safety net.

Now I have the same job she once held, with the responsibility of repairing and strengthening that net. And although our passion for workers’ rights came from different paths (she was the daughter of privilege; I am the daughter of immigrant union members), I understand the impact that moment had on her work.

I had my own moment involving a sweatshop. Although it was not as horrifying as that afternoon was for Perkins, it fueled my beliefs. In 1995, 75 Thai immigrants were freed from a so-called factory in the city of El Monte, Calif., part of the district I represented in the state Senate. They had been forced to eat, sleep and work in a place they called home.

Their employer confiscated their passports and kept them like slaves. Threatened with violence to themselves or their families, the workers hunched over sewing machines in dimly lit garages bound by barbed wire, sewing brand-name clothing for less than $2 an hour. Most of them were women.

I met them shortly after they were freed and heard their stories. And at that moment, the unthinkable became real for me. I had assumed that sweatshops were a thing of the past. But they had just spread — from Perkins’s New York City to my Los Angeles, from the Italian and Eastern European immigrants victimized in her day to the Asian and Latino immigrants victimized in mine.

Combating garment sweatshops is, sadly, still on the labor secretary’s agenda. In the past fiscal year, the department’s Wage and Hour division conducted 374 investigations and collected $2.1 million for 2,215 workers, primarily in the major U.S. garment centers of Southern California and New York. In these cases, vulnerable immigrant workers have been deprived of minimum-wage pay, overtime pay and safe working conditions — all the haunting echoes of Triangle.

We have had many improvements in the past century. Today, we have more tools to pursue violators who deny workers their pay, including issuing subpoenas and preventing companies from shipping goods produced in violation of the law.

In 1911, more than 100 workers were estimated to have died on the job each day. In 2010, 4,340 workers were killed on the job — and more than 3.3 million were seriously injured. Last April 5, in a fiery explosion at the Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia, 29 miners died in one day.

I was at the mine the next day, while rescue efforts still were underway.

In times of crisis, one often becomes two people. In one sense, I was simply Hilda, the person I’ve always been, there just to be by the family members’ sides as they kept vigil. In another sense, I was Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis, trying to convey to them the depth of their government’s commitment. In either case, no words can adequately express your emotion and sympathy. A grief that great can be endured only if it is shared — and then acted upon in good time.

Both Triangle and Upper Big Branch became calls to action. New York quickly implemented groundbreaking workplace safety laws and regulations, including fire exits. But nearly one year after Upper Big Branch, the Mine Safety and Health Administration, part of the Labor Department, still needs additional tools that only Congress can provide. And OSHA needs better tools, such as stricter penalties against employers who put their workers’ lives at risk, and stronger protections for whistle-blowers.

In both cases, if these workers had a voice — a union — and the ability to speak up about conditions, these events probably could have been prevented, because unions play an important role in making workplaces safer. In both cases, they had tried to organize and faced virulent opposition.

Today, workers and their allies are being met with that same kind of opposition. In states nationwide, working people are protesting the actions to strip them of collective bargaining. The Triangle fire and the Upper Big Branch explosion a century later make clear to me that workers want and need that voice — about wages and benefits, yes, but about more, too. Collective bargaining still means a seat at the table to discuss issues such as working conditions, workplace safety and workplace innovation, empowering individuals to do the best job they can. And it means dignity and a chance for Americans to earn a better life, whether they work in sewing factories or mines, build tall buildings or care for our neighbors, teach our children, or run into burning buildings when others run out of them.

I’ll be thinking about all of this as I make my way to New York on Friday for the 100th anniversary of the Triangle factory tragedy. The building is still there; it now houses offices for New York University. Thousands are expected to mark the occasion with a march, speeches, the reading of the victims’ names and the laying of flowers in their honor at the site by schoolchildren. It will be a powerful reminder of what we’ve lived through, and what we still have to do.

History is an extraordinary thing. You can choose to learn from it, or you can choose to repeat it.

For me, the choice is clear, as it was for Frances Perkins. We must always be a nation that catches workers before they fall.

talktosolis@dol.gov

SKI FREE ON MARCH 26th

Military, Firefighter & Police
Appreciation Day

Where: Lookout Pass Ski Area

When: Saturday, March 26, 2011
Lifts operate from 8:30 to 4pm PST

What: Ski FREE with current picture ID and
affiliation. Spouse and dependents included.

How: Go to ticket windows

Location: Easy access right off I-90 at the
Idaho/Montana state line, Exit 0
12 miles east of Wallace, Idaho


Thank You

Luke Hoene / Account Executive

lhoene@mdimarketing.com
509.624.9659 x106 office
509.290.0672 cell
1618 West Dean Ave. / Spokane WA 99201
www.mdimarketing.com

Local 29 in the St Paddy Day Parade!

Fire Press Release Two Fer

ISSUING OFFICER: Dave Haworth/Battalion Chief
DATE OF INCIDENT: 3/8/2011
INCIDENT TYPE: Structure Fire
INCIDENT ADDRESS: 4827 N Addison
CITY: Spokane
STATE: Wa
ZIP: 99207

NARRATIVE: On Tuesday, March 8th, at 0100 AM, the Spokane Fire Department responded 3 engines, 1 ladder, 1 pumper-ladder, 1 heavy rescue, and 2 battalion chiefs to a reported structure fire at 4827 N Addison. The Northside Battalion Chief arrived first and reported smoke coming from the front door of a single story, wood constructed residence. Engine 15 was the first arriving fire company and advanced a preconnected hose off of their truck to the front door. Other arriving companies were assigned to search the residence to ensure all occupants were out, remove the smoke, and connect a supply hose to a hydrant. The fire was found in the kitchen and was extinguished before it had a chance to spread to the rest of the house. All occupants had been asleep, but they were alerted by a smoke detector and escaped. Again this fire underscores the critical importance of having a working smoke detector in your home.

PROBABLE CAUSE: The fire was likely caused by cooking oil being left on the stove.
DAMAGE EXTENT: The kitchen sustained heavy fire damage with smoke damage to the rest of the first floor. The tenents were unable to return to their home and are spending the night with neighbors.
DOLLAR LOSS: 5000
FIREFIGHTER RESPONSE: 22
MUTUAL AID: None Given

For more information on this release, please call (509)625-7002 and/or check out the SFD Blog at www.spokanefire.blogspot.com

END OF RELEASE

ISSUING OFFICER: Craig Cornelius / Battalion Chief
DATE OF INCIDENT: 3/7/2011
INCIDENT TYPE: Structure Fire
INCIDENT ADDRESS: 812 E. Jackson
CITY: Spokane
STATE: WA
ZIP: 99207

NARRATIVE: This morning, March 7th, 2011 at 04:10 am the Spokane Fire Department dispatched 6 apparatus to a reported fire in a home located at 812 E. Jackson.

Ladder 2 under the direction of Lt. Don Waller, arrived at the fire scene within 4 minutes. Lt. Waller reported that he had a residential home with light smoke showing from the basement. He verified that all occupants were out of the home and started assigning incoming fire crews.

Hose lines were brought into the basement and onto the first floor. An additional search of the home was made. Crews making the search found a small dog in a crate and brought it out to the family. The small dog was unharmed.

Crews in the basement located a fire in a crawl space and extinguished it. The crawl space was difficult to access due to clearances and heavy smoke. Firefighters were on the scene for over an hour verifying that the fire was out and had not spread to other areas.

The fire was confined to the crawl space area in the basement. The upper portion of the home sustained heavy smoke damage. There were no injuries at this fire and the cause is still under investigation. Early indications are that the cause is electrically related.

PROBABLE CAUSE: Fire cause is still under investigation at this time, possible electrial.
DAMAGE EXTENT: Fire confined to basement.
DOLLAR LOSS: 18000
FIREFIGHTER RESPONSE: 22
MUTUAL AID: None Given

For more information on this release, please call (509)625-7002 and/or check out the SFD Blog at www.spokanefire.blogspot.com

END OF RELEASE

Submitted to the S-R's Letters to the Editor.

West Plains Fire Service

In the article on March 9, “Fire administrators say consolidation is complicated by Labor...” “Economically it makes sense, but politically it may not.” The fire fighters are not complicating the issue; in fact Labor groups have developed multiple plans and solutions for consolidation. It makes economic sense for all agencies and especially the affected citizens. It appears some Politicians and administrators have a fear of doing what is right for the community. Are the citizen’s best interests being considered? Does each agency by itself have enough staff to provide a safe work environment to protect the citizens? Are the citizens getting what they are paying for? Duplication of services and multiple responses by various agencies is not the best way to provide service, it makes sense to merge and consolidate services. Those in control say “they are in favor of regionalization” but their actions say differently. Mergers and consolidation of services has the potential to save the taxpayer money and provide a better level of service. Labor is not the problem. It is the administrators and politicians that stand to lose their position or role. Regionalization works and it is in the best interest of the citizens.

Mark Vietzke
President Spokane Firefighters IAFF Local 29
Tim Lively
President SIA Firefighters IAFF Local 1789

America Is NOT Broke

OK. This article is by Michael Moore. And I get it that some of you don't like him. He gets on my nerves sometimes, too. But, he hits the nail on the head with this article. This is the stuff the TV news won't tell you. In fact, this is the stuff they don't want America to know. Instead, they want America to think that you and your collective bargaining, your pension and your standing together, as a union, are the reason we are in the mess we are in. It is simply not true and Mr. Moore points that out. I don't agree with all that he says here, and I know his hyperbole will turn a lot of you off, but his voice is sticking up for all of us who are in unions and I thought you might like to hear what he says:

Michael Moore | Saturday 05 March 2011

America is not broke.

Contrary to what those in power would like you to believe so that you'll give up your pension, cut your wages, and settle for the life your great-grandparents had, America is not broke. Not by a long shot. The country is awash in wealth and cash. It's just that it's not in your hands. It has been transferred, in the greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the uber-rich.

Today just 400 Americans have the same wealth as half of all Americans combined.

Let me say that again. 400 obscenely rich people, most of whom benefited in some way from the multi-trillion dollar taxpayer "bailout" of 2008, now have as much loot, stock and property as the assets of 155 million Americans combined. If you can't bring yourself to call that a financial coup d'état, then you are simply not being honest about what you know in your heart to be true.

And I can see why. For us to admit that we have let a small group of men abscond with and hoard the bulk of the wealth that runs our economy, would mean that we'd have to accept the humiliating acknowledgment that we have indeed surrendered our precious Democracy to the moneyed elite. Wall Street, the banks and the Fortune 500 now run this Republic -- and, until this past month, the rest of us have felt completely helpless, unable to find a way to do anything about it.

I have nothing more than a high school degree. But back when I was in school, every student had to take one semester of economics in order to graduate. And here's what I learned: Money doesn't grow on trees. It grows when we make things. It grows when we have good jobs with good wages that we use to buy the things we need and thus create more jobs. It grows when we provide an outstanding educational system that then grows a new generation of inventers, entrepreneurs, artists, scientists and thinkers who come up with the next great idea for the planet. And that new idea creates new jobs and that creates revenue for the state. But if those who have the most money don't pay their fair share of taxes, the state can't function. The schools can't produce the best and the brightest who will go on to create those jobs. If the wealthy get to keep most of their money, we have seen what they will do with it: recklessly gamble it on crazy Wall Street schemes and crash our economy. The crash they created cost us millions of jobs. That too caused a reduction in revenue. And the population ended up suffering because they reduced their taxes, reduced our jobs and took wealth out of the system, removing it from circulation.

The nation is not broke, my friends. Wisconsin is not broke. It's part of the Big Lie. It's one of the three biggest lies of the decade: America/Wisconsin is broke, Iraq has WMD, the Packers can't win the Super Bowl without Brett Favre.

The truth is, there's lots of money to go around. LOTS. It's just that those in charge have diverted that wealth into a deep well that sits on their well-guarded estates. They know they have committed crimes to make this happen and they know that someday you may want to see some of that money that used to be yours. So they have bought and paid for hundreds of politicians across the country to do their bidding for them. But just in case that doesn't work, they've got their gated communities, and the luxury jet is always fully fueled, the engines running, waiting for that day they hope never comes. To help prevent that day when the people demand their country back, the wealthy have done two very smart things:

1. They control the message. By owning most of the media they have expertly convinced many Americans of few means to buy their version of the American Dream and to vote for their politicians. Their version of the Dream says that you, too, might be rich some day – this is America, where anything can happen if you just apply yourself! They have conveniently provided you with believable examples to show you how a poor boy can become a rich man, how the child of a single mother in Hawaii can become president, how a guy with a high school education can become a successful filmmaker. They will play these stories for you over and over again all day long so that the last thing you will want to do is upset the apple cart -- because you -- yes, you, too! -- might be rich/president/an Oscar-winner some day! The message is clear: keep you head down, your nose to the grindstone, don't rock the boat and be sure to vote for the party that protects the rich man that you might be some day.

2. They have created a poison pill that they know you will never want to take. It is their version of mutually assured destruction. And when they threatened to release this weapon of mass economic annihilation in September of 2008, we blinked. As the economy and the stock market went into a tailspin, and the banks were caught conducting a worldwide Ponzi scheme, Wall Street issued this threat: Either hand over trillions of dollars from the American taxpayers or we will crash this economy straight into the ground. Fork it over or it's Goodbye savings accounts. Goodbye pensions. Goodbye United States Treasury. Goodbye jobs and homes and future. It was friggin' awesome and it scared the shit out of everyone. "Here! Take our money! We don't care. We'll even print more for you! Just take it! But, please, leave our lives alone, PLEASE!"

The executives in the board rooms and hedge funds could not contain their laughter, their glee, and within three months they were writing each other huge bonus checks and marveling at how perfectly they had played a nation full of suckers. Millions lost their jobs anyway, and millions lost their homes. But there was no revolt (see #1).

Until now. On Wisconsin! Never has a Michigander been more happy to share a big, great lake with you! You have aroused the sleeping giant know as the working people of the United States of America. Right now the earth is shaking and the ground is shifting under the feet of those who are in charge. Your message has inspired people in all 50 states and that message is: WE HAVE HAD IT! We reject anyone tells us America is broke and broken. It's just the opposite! We are rich with talent and ideas and hard work and, yes, love. Love and compassion toward those who have, through no fault of their own, ended up as the least among us. But they still crave what we all crave: Our country back! Our democracy back! Our good name back! The United States of America. NOT the Corporate States of America. The United States of America!

So how do we get this? Well, we do it with a little bit of Egypt here, a little bit of Madison there. And let us pause for a moment and remember that it was a poor man with a fruit stand in Tunisia who gave his life so that the world might focus its attention on how a government run by billionaires for billionaires is an affront to freedom and morality and humanity.

Thank you, Wisconsin. You have made people realize this was our last best chance to grab the final thread of what was left of who we are as Americans. For three weeks you have stood in the cold, slept on the floor, skipped out of town to Illinois -- whatever it took, you have done it, and one thing is for certain: Madison is only the beginning. The smug rich have overplayed their hand. They couldn't have just been content with the money they raided from the treasury. They couldn't be satiated by simply removing millions of jobs and shipping them overseas to exploit the poor elsewhere. No, they had to have more – something more than all the riches in the world. They had to have our soul. They had to strip us of our dignity. They had to shut us up and shut us down so that we could not even sit at a table with them and bargain about simple things like classroom size or bulletproof vests for everyone on the police force or letting a pilot just get a few extra hours sleep so he or she can do their job -- their $19,000 a year job. That's how much some rookie pilots on commuter airlines make, maybe even the rookie pilots flying people here to Madison. But he's stopped trying to get better pay. All he asks is that he doesn't have to sleep in his car between shifts at O'Hare airport. That's how despicably low we have sunk. The wealthy couldn't be content with just paying this man $19,000 a year. They wanted to take away his sleep. They wanted to demean and dehumanize him. After all, he's just another slob.

And that, my friends, is Corporate America's fatal mistake. But trying to destroy us they have given birth to a movement -- a movement that is becoming a massive, nonviolent revolt across the country. We all knew there had to be a breaking point some day, and that point is upon us. Many people in the media don't understand this. They say they were caught off guard about Egypt, never saw it coming. Now they act surprised and flummoxed about why so many hundreds of thousands have come to Madison over the last three weeks during brutal winter weather. "Why are they all standing out there in the cold? I mean there was that election in November and that was supposed to be that!

"There's something happening here, and you don't know what it is, do you ...?"

America ain't broke! The only thing that's broke is the moral compass of the rulers. And we aim to fix that compass and steer the ship ourselves from now on. Never forget, as long as that Constitution of ours still stands, it's one person, one vote, and it's the thing the rich hate most about America -- because even though they seem to hold all the money and all the cards, they begrudgingly know this one unshakeable basic fact: There are more of us than there are of them!

Madison, do not retreat. We are with you. We will win together.

SustainableWorks!

Yesterday I met with Joel Williamson from The Spokane Alliance. The Spokane Alliance is a consortium of churches, labor unions and other community entities. Joel wanted me to get the information out to Local 29 members about SustainableWorks. If you're thinking about any repair or retrofitting to your home or rental units this summer or spring, you may want to give them a call.

In a nutshell, you can get a home energy audit from them for $95 (fully refundable if they don't recommend any improvements) and this includes installation of CFL light bulbs, shower heads and faucet aerators to start saving wasted energy $$$ immediately. This audit is a $650 value. If you decide to get some improvements made, they will act as the general contractor, and will put union workers to the task of doing the retrofitting you want done. The people doing the work are journey level workers who are receiving training and supervision while they make a living. SustainableWorks will even line up the financing and take care of all the paperwork for you. So what is the expected outcome of the project?

120 direct full-time jobs
25 apprentice positions and direct employment pathways
3,000 ton reduction of carbon emissions
$12 million in retrofit work.

To date, 200 journey level workers have received special energy systems training and 50 have been trained in energy auditing,

Throughout Washington, SustainableWorks has audited over 500 homes and completed over 200 retrofits. 85 of these retrofits have occurred in two neighborhoods in Spokane.

On the east side of the state, your home must be in the city of Spokane to qualify. Yes, if you own a rental, it can qualify too.

Also, they do furnace safety checks for people and have eliminated some CO calls that we probably would have been called out to.

SustainableWorks is increasing good-paying union jobs, increasing Spokane's tax base, decreasing energy consumption, helping with residential safety, bringing different unions together and building up our community of Spokane from the grassroots. How cool is that?

If you want more information, you can click on the link or give them a call at 532-1688.

WORKERS COMP UNDER ATTACK IN OLYMPIA!

URGENT Please call and/or e-mail Senator Brown NOW. As early as tomorrow she may accept a deal for Workers Comp that would include compromise and release and may also agree to take away any pension benefits for injured workers. Talking points and contact info is listed below.

Beth Thew

Spokane Regional Labor Council, AFL-CIO

509-939-0688


Phone:(360) 786-7604

Email: Brown.Lisa@leg.WA.gov


Our Worker Comp system continues to come under attack from the business community! We need you to call – TODAY – to tell your legislators not to cut worker comp benefits!

We urge our legislators to reject attacks on our safety net which simply slash benefits rather than responsibly addressing our long-term disability problem by getting people back to work.

We have proven methods to help injured workers and reduce costs by providing quality medical care from the beginning of a claim (HB1869 and SB 5801).

We also support getting people back to work faster by providing a wage subsidy so small employers can bring injured workers back to light duty/transitional positions (HB 2002).

Do not put injured workers at risk. We urge you to oppose cutting people off long term disability at retirement age and to oppose turning our safety net into a lottery system weighted against injured workers by bringing any form of compromise and release to WA. (SB 5566)

WORKERS COMP UNDER ATTACK IN OLYMPIA!

URGENT Please call and/or e-mail Senator Brown NOW. As early as tomorrow she may accept a deal for Workers Comp that would include compromise and release and may also agree to take away any pension benefits for injured workers. Talking points and contact info is listed below.

Beth Thew

Spokane Regional Labor Council, AFL-CIO

509-939-0688


Phone:(360) 786-7604

Email: Brown.Lisa@leg.WA.gov


Our Worker Comp system continues to come under attack from the business community! We need you to call – TODAY – to tell your legislators not to cut worker comp benefits!

We urge our legislators to reject attacks on our safety net which simply slash benefits rather than responsibly addressing our long-term disability problem by getting people back to work.

We have proven methods to help injured workers and reduce costs by providing quality medical care from the beginning of a claim (HB1869 and SB 5801).

We also support getting people back to work faster by providing a wage subsidy so small employers can bring injured workers back to light duty/transitional positions (HB 2002).

Do not put injured workers at risk. We urge you to oppose cutting people off long term disability at retirement age and to oppose turning our safety net into a lottery system weighted against injured workers by bringing any form of compromise and release to WA. (SB 5566)

BOYCOTT WISCONSIN GOVERNOR'S BOSSES!

This is circulating in the great state of Wisconsin.

Let's vote with our money.

These are Koch Brothers products and proceeds are being used against the workers of Wisconsin. Very important to distribute. This is what non-vocal people love to do. Boycott !!!!!!!!

Please send this on to everyone you know. Let the Koch brothers know that we understand what they're trying to do to Wisconsin!

“Boycott Koch Industry products:

(Georgia-Pacific products)
Angel Soft toilet paper
Brawny paper towels
Dixie plates, bowls, napkins and cups
Mardi Gras napkins and towels
Quilted Northern toilet paper
Soft 'n Gentle toilet paper
Sparkle napkins
Vanity fair napkins
Zee napkins
Georgia-Pa cific paper products and envelopes INVISTA Products Lycra Sta

http://www.boycottkochbrothers.com/

Local 29 Turns 93 Today!

Labor Rally Last Friday

It was cold!

Two-hundred or so union members and their supporters showed up to wave signs at the triangle where Ruby, Division and North River Drive come together. I couldn't believe how many drivers honked horns and waved back. It was great!

It's easy to forget that Spokane has the labor movement entrenched in its founding and growth. No surprise that as union membership dwindled in Spokane, so did the general prosperity of the city. Mining, timber, the railroads, and of course, aluminum built a Spokane with a thriving middle class.


You can look it up for yourself. The overall prosperity of the individual in this country reached its peak coincidentally with the peak of union participation. Although, there weren't as many billionaires, failed banks, investment scams, unemployed, and medical bankruptcies either. Hmmmm.


The Wobbly Free Speech Movement put Spokane on the map for showing how much the authorities despised unions and how willing they were to persecute them. Look at some of the old newspapers from the time. The Spokesman-Review led the pack, calling for violence and worse against union members. The governor in Wisconsin is resurrecting this spirit, in a way that I don't think even the most fascist-leaning, turn-of-the-century Spokanite would have bought into.


Let's see Governor Walker, you give tax breaks to your benefactors to put the state budget into the hole. This deficit allows you to conveniently blame union employees and their meager pensions for the problem and go after their money, their rights and their political clout. Sad that so many who have been chewed up and spit out by these same forces continue to cheer on those who destroyed them and gleefully anticipate destruction for those who have fought on their behalf. Unbelievable that there are voters in Wisconsin who look to failing (education, health, employment, finances, standard of living) states in the south as their new model because it fits their Koch-brother-sponsored talk-radio, FOX News ideology.


Here in Spokane, the first gathering of firefighters to organize a union resulted in an instantaneous firing of those members, almost a hundred years ago. In fact, Local 29 - The Spokane Fire Fighters' Union celebrates its 93 year year birthday tomorrow. It was one of the original founding locals of the International Association of Firefighters, hence the low number of "29." They are now up to Local 4780.



There was a small article in the Spokesman-Review yesterday about the rally. Thank you SR!

Don't forget - Rally Today!

Corner of Ruby, Division and N. River Drive

We Are Wisconsin from Finn Ryan on Vimeo.