Joe Biden Knows Just What He Is Doing—I’d Not Bet Much On Paul Ryan Getting The Better Of Him

Above is a picture of Vice President Joe Biden campaigning in Ohio over the past weekend.

(A great resource to learn about the men who have served as Vice President can be found on the U.S. Senate Vice Presidential website.)

While this picture has attracted some national comment, it does not surprise me at all.

There is a popular conception that Vice President is a bumbler of a kind or prone to gaffes that hurt President Obama.

It is so that Mr. Biden sometimes says things that make news in a way that President Obama might regret. At least that may be the case if Mr. Biden’s comment about gay marriage earlier this year was a gaffe at all.

However, it also the case that Mr. Biden is a man who was elected to the U.S. Senate at age of 29 in 1972, and who was selected among all possible contenders to be on the ticket by Barack Obama in 2008.

Mr. Biden overcame the loss of his first wife and his daughter in a 1972 car accident.

I saw Vice President Biden speak at the Hamilton County, Ohio AFL-CIO Labor Day picnic in 2011. Beyond the fact he gave a rousing hard-hitting speech, Mr. Biden also worked the crowd with skill.

He connected with folks and spoke to people as equals. I watched Mr. Biden talk to folks for maybe 20 minutes because he had people skills that were off the charts.

Here is a link to a New York Times story that says supporters of Republican Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan are looking forward to Mr. Ryan getting the better of Mr. Biden when they debate on October 11.

(The Green Vice Presidential nominee is Cheri Honkala.)

Regardless of how you may feel about Mr. Biden or Mr. Ryan, I’d not bet much on the idea that Mr. Ryan will make Mr. Biden look silly or outclass him in some way.

Below are two pictures I took in Cincinnati last year of Mr. Biden talking to people at the Labor Day picnic.

Labor Day History And Facts—Labor Day In 2011 Is September 5

Labor Day for 2011 is Monday, September 5.

All work merits respect. We should treat all working people with respect. How we treat our fellow working people is a mirror of the extent to which we respect ourselves.

A good way to treat working people with respect on Labor Day is to tip at a time-and-a-half rate if you eat out or ride in a taxi or do anything else that normally merits a tip on this upcoming Labor Day. People workng on Labor day merit the same time-and-a-half rate of pay that you would expect for working a holiday.

( The picture above of people working at sea was taken by Danny Cornelissen for the portpictures.nl website.)

Here is a history of Labor Day from the U.S. Department of Labor.

From that history–

“Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country. More than 100 years after the first Labor Day observance, there is still some doubt as to who first proposed the holiday for workers. Some records show that Peter J. McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a cofounder of the American Federation of Labor, was first in suggesting a day to honor those “who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold.” But Peter McGuire’s place in Labor Day history has not gone unchallenged. Many believe that Matthew Maguire, a machinist, not Peter McGuire, founded the holiday. Recent research seems to support the contention that Matthew Maguire, later the secretary of Local 344 of the International Association of Machinists in Paterson, N.J., proposed the holiday in 1882 while serving as secretary of the Central Labor Union in New York. What is clear is that the Central Labor Union adopted a Labor Day proposal and appointed a committee to plan a demonstration and picnic.”

Here is the web home of the AFL-CIO.

Here is an American labor movement history timeline from the AFL-CIO.

Here is a series of article from the liberal magazine The American Prospect about where American workers stand today, and what can be done to improve how working people are treated in our nation.

Here is a history of women in the American labor union from New York State United Teachers. 

Here is a history of black Americans and the labor movement.  

The history of labor in the United States is your history. Work is the time and effort of your life. We need the wages and benefits we earn at work to be able to live decent lives.

There is also an International Labor Day.  International Labor Day, or May Day, marks the Haymarket Riot in Chicago in 1886. Please click here to learn more about the Haymarket Riots and the Haymarket Trial.

Respect for working people involves understanding that the goods you buy must be sold for a fair price if the people who make and sell those goods are to receive a decent wage and good benefits. Selling goods at a fair price also helps your own employer stay in business.

Respect for working people does not stop at the American border. Cheap goods we purchase in America are often produced by underpaid and poorly treated workers in other nations.

Labor Day is, for many at least, a time to get a break from work.

It is also a time to reflect upon what it means to be a working person at a time when the rights of workers—to the extent they exist at all—are under ceaseless strain.

( Photo above by Holger Hubbs.)

Labor Day History & Links

Labor Day for 2010 is Monday, September 6.

All work merits respect. We should treat other working people with respect. How we treat other working people is a mirror of the extent to which we respect ourselves.

( The picture above was taken by Danny Cornelissen for the portpictures.nl website.)

Here is a history of Labor Day from the U.S. Department of Labor.

From that history–

“Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country. More than 100 years after the first Labor Day observance, there is still some doubt as to who first proposed the holiday for workers. Some records show that Peter J. McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a cofounder of the American Federation of Labor, was first in suggesting a day to honor those “who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold.” But Peter McGuire’s place in Labor Day history has not gone unchallenged. Many believe that Matthew Maguire, a machinist, not Peter McGuire, founded the holiday. Recent research seems to support the contention that Matthew Maguire, later the secretary of Local 344 of the International Association of Machinists in Paterson, N.J., proposed the holiday in 1882 while serving as secretary of the Central Labor Union in New York. What is clear is that the Central Labor Union adopted a Labor Day proposal and appointed a committee to plan a demonstration and picnic.”

Here is the web home of the AFL-CIO.

Here is an American labor movement history timeline from the AFL-CIO.

Here are a number of women’s labor history links from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. It is a very good list.

Here are black labor history links from AFSCME.

The history of labor in the United States is your history. Work is the time and effort of your life. We need the wages and benefits we earn at work to be able to live decent lives.

There is also an International Labor Day.  International Labor Day, or May Day, marks the Haymarket Riot in Chicago in 1886. Please click here to learn more about the Haymarket Riots and the Haymarket Trial.

Respect for working people involves understanding that the goods you buy must be sold for a fair price if the people who make and sell those goods are to receive a fair wage and good benefits. Selling these goods at a fair price also helps your employer stay in business.

Respect for working people does not stop at the American border. Cheap goods we purchase in America are often produced by underpaid and poorly treated workers in other nations.

Labor Day is, for many at least, a time to get a break from work.

It is also a time to reflect upon what it means to be a working person in a nation and a world where the rights of workers—to the extent they exist at all—are under ceaseless strain.

( Photo above by Holger Hubbs.)

Millions Using Food Stamps—The Functions Of Social Welfare Programs

The New York Times reports that 36 million Americans are using food stamp programs. Here is a portion of the what the story on this subject says—-

“It has grown so rapidly in places so diverse that it is becoming nearly as ordinary as the groceries it buys. More than 36 million people use inconspicuous plastic cards for staples like milk, bread and cheese, swiping them at counters in blighted cities and in suburbs pocked with foreclosure signs….Virtually all have incomes near or below the federal poverty line, but their eclectic ranks testify to the range of people struggling with basic needs. They include single mothers and married couples, the newly jobless and the chronically poor, longtime recipients of welfare checks and workers whose reduced hours or slender wages leave pantries bare….While the numbers have soared during the recession, the path was cleared in better times when the Bush administration led a campaign to erase the program’s stigma, calling food stamps “nutritional aid” instead of welfare, and made it easier to apply. That bipartisan effort capped an extraordinary reversal from the 1990s, when some conservatives tried to abolish the program, Congress enacted large cuts and bureaucratic hurdles chased many needy people away.”

Here is the full story.

I made a point to use the part of the story that talks about the role former President George W. Bush and Republicans played in making the program more available. I was not aware of this and it was not what I expected to read.

I don’t have any illusions that President Bush and the Republicans who ran Congress for much of his time in office were very nice folks, but sometimes in life you get surprised.

Of course, you never know what people’s motives are.

A book I read some years ago about the history of public benefits for people in need was Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare by Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward.

Below is an assessment of this book by an Alice Chang. Ms. Chang is an activist and author in Oakland.

“I believe that Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward’s Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare, first released in 1971, is perhaps one of the most important books to read for anyone trying to understand the relationships between welfare policy, poverty and coerced labor. Piven and Cloward expose how welfare policy not only does not give poor people “relief” from poverty, but forces them to accept low-wage, exploitative, dead-end jobs. In fact, Piven and Cloward suggest, poverty policy and practice have historically been coupled with labor practice to accommodate local employers’ demands for cheap labor, particularly in service work and in agriculture. Poverty policy is designed and implemented to serve two basic functions. In times of economic downturn, welfare can be expanded to prevent or quell uprising by unemployed masses. Or, in times of relative economic and political stability, welfare can be contracted to expel people from the rolls, thus ensuring their availability to do low-wage work for local employers. Piven and Cloward describe this second function of welfare policy as ‘enforcing’ low-wage work, and the term is just as useful today in describing the use of so-called ‘welfare-to-work’ policies to coerce working poor people into ever more exploitative low- and no-wage jobs.”

The paragraph above is from the web home of the AFL-CIO. It is from a page on the website called–Books, Films, Plays, and Lessons that Change Lives.

36 million people in a lot of folks. And that is not all the people who would qualify for this program under full enrollment.

I hope President Obama soon takes a more active role in addressing the economic concerns of Americans.

It would be good to hear the President speak about how he thinks Americans will find work in a time when technology is helping employers shed jobs, working people have little money to spend to help fuel the economy, and other nations in the world are entering the global economic mainstream.

Labor Day History & Links—All Work Merits Respect

Labor Day for 2009 is Monday, September 7.

All work merits respect. We should treat other working people with respect. How we treat other working people is a mirror of the extent to which we respect ourselves.

( The picture above was taken by Danny Cornelissen for the portpictures.nl website.)

Here is a history of Labor Day from the U.S. Department of Labor. 

From that history–

“Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.”

Here is the web home of the AFL-CIO.

Here is an American labor movement history timeline from the AFL-CIO.  

Here are a number of women’s labor history links from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. It is a very good list.

Here are black labor history links from AFSCME.

The history of labor in the United States is your history. Work is the time and effort of their lives. We need the wages we earn at work to be able to live decent lives. 

There is also an International Labor Day.  International Labor Day, or May Day, marks the Haymarket Riot in Chicago in 1886. Please click here to learn more about the Haymarket Riots and the Haymarket Trial. 

Respect for working people involves understanding that the goods you buy must be sold for a fair price if the people who make and sell those goods are to receive a fair wage and good benefits. Selling these goods at a fair price also helps your employer stay in business.

Respect for working people does not stop at the American border. Cheap goods we purchase in America are often produced by underpaid and poorly treated workers in other nations.

Labor Day is, for many at least, a time to get a break from work.  It is also a time to reflect upon what it means to be a working person in a nation and a world where the rights of workers—to they extent they exist at all—are under ceaseless strain.   

( Photo above by Holger Hubbs.)

The Free Trade Agreement With Colombia & Free Trade Agreements In General

I watched a U.S. Trade mission to Colombia a few days ago on C-Span.  

You can watch it by clicking the link that says Vignette on U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement. The video will remain up on C-Span for another week or two.

The roughly half-hour I watched of the show involved U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab and nine members of the U.S. House of Representatives touring Medellin, Colombia and meeting with various officials. 

The photo above is of Medellin. 2.4 million people live in the city and 3.2 million people live in the area of the city. Here is a brief history of the city. 

My friends at the AFL-CIO oppose this agreement. They say that union workers are routinely killed in Colombia and that the deal will result in lost American jobs.  

This blog, Plan Colombia and Beyond, is opposed on human rights grounds.

I have little doubt that the right-wing government of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe is on the wrong side of many basic human rights questions.

Here are arguments for the pact from a government web page dedicated to trade agreements.

Currently, the deal is stuck in disagreement between the Democratic House and President Bush.

Of the nine House members on the trip, there were seven Republicans and two Democrats.

I was intrested in the presence of the two Democratic House members in the trade delegation.   

The two were Rep. Bob Etheridge of North Carolina and Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia.  

In his profile in the 2008 Almanac of American Politics , Rep. Etheridge is portrayed as slightly left-of-center on economic issues. He is also listed as a Democrat in the minority in his party in that he reliably supports free trade agreements. He was elected to Congress in 1996. 

Mr. Etheridge represents some agricultural areas and some of the Raleigh-Durham high-tech research areas. The Almanac says that some farmers and high-tech executives have supported trade agreements. Mr. Etheridge says North Carolina has lost some jobs from these agreements, but that  “we’ve been a net winner.”   

Many in North Carolina feel that many textile and furniture making jobs have been lost to foreign competition. 

Is Mr. Etheridge sincere, or is he simply responding to powerful forces in his district? Who can know? He may not even know himself. 

Hank Johnson represents a majority Black portion of the Atlanta suburbs. He is a freshman member of the House. He is also one of two Buddhist members of the House. ( More on the two Buddhist members in an upcoming post.)

Mr. Johnson opposes the deal.  Here is what it says on his House web page–

Hank opposes the deal due to President Bush’s refusal to sign into law trade adjustment assistance for Americans threatened by international trade, the FTA’s insufficient labor standards for Colombian workers, and the deal’s potential effects on poor Afro-Colombians who may be driven off of their land as multinational companies seek to exploit Colombian natural resources.

Here pictures of the trip on Mr. Johnson’s House web page.      

Mr. Johnson seems like a peaceful man from what I saw of him on C-Span.

I have mixed feelings on our international trade agreements.

On one hand, I have zero faith in the Bush administration to protect rights of workers and the environment in the countries we do business with.

Nor I do I believe the Bush people or Republicans in Congress have any real concern for American workers.

On the other hand, we are a big powerful country in an interconnected world. As such, we have both an obligation and a practical need to help others live decent lives and to be part of a world economy. 

Also, we can’t blame people in other countries for the fact that don’t educate out kids well and that we often seem to live far beyond our means.  

I wish I could trust the people in the United States who negotiate these deals to be both economically just and socially moral. Hopefully, some trust will be possible if a Democrat replaces President Bush next year.

Here is a BBC overview of the current political situation in Colombia.