I want you to read this, not because I want you to vote for or support Barack Obama, but because
this article is the best insider's look at the nuts and bolts of how you inspire people, and (once inspired) how you move them to action. That is the essence of the potential of organizing. It is not enough, and it has never been enough, to merely lay out a plan for what you want to do. To be a successful leader, you have to rally supporters to your cause, and engage them to move the levers in the machinery of government. To that end, the Obama 'machine' does this in very innovative ways that supercede all past attempts to use technology to engage the electorate.
In other news,
hotel wokers in the San Francisco Bay Area got nice pay increases along with a decrease in their work loads.
North Carolina (my home state)
is considering legislation that would guarantee workers
some paid sick leave. Currently over 40% of all North Carolina workers have no sick leave of any kind.
North Carolina is last among states in numbers of unionized workers. These two facts are probably not coincidences.
New York state is
cracking down on construction contractors that misclassify construction workers as independent contractors, thus denying them access to workman's compensation, as well as union-scale wages.
Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Mass)
has excoriated the owner of the Crandall Canyon Mine (where 6 miners died last year in a cave-in) for 'callous disregard of the law'. Kennedy believes that instead of holding Bob Murray, the owner of the Crandall Canyon mine, to the law, the Mine Safety Health Administration (MSHA) allowed him to do as he please, violating mine safety and enviromental laws.