9/30/03

E Messenger

The Electronic Newsletter of the Florida AFL-CIO

New Members according to the AFL-CIO Work in Progress
This week's WIP: 1,470
Year to date: 114,783

2003 Convention a Huge Success – President Sweeney Calls on all Florida Unions to Mobilize against the FTAA.  

Last week the Florida AFL-CIO held the 2003 Biennial Convention and it was a huge success.  We had over 150 delegates in attendance.  The 3 days were full of workshops, committee meetings and political planning sessions culminating in a special visit and address by AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.  The main reason for the President’s visit was to encourage all of Florida ’s unions to mobilize for the upcoming mobilizations against the Fair Trade Area of the Americas Ministerial meeting coming to Miami in November.  He also spoke about the need to begin working on the 2004 Presidential Election immediately so that the “most anti-worker President in history” could be sent back to Texas .  

A complete record of the Convention’s including copies of the all the resolutions passed and photos will be available on our web site in the next week.  We will also be posting information about the FTAA Ministerial and our efforts to mobilize tens of thousands of workers to march in protest.  Keep a lookout for important announcements regarding the FTAA in the E Messenger. 

STATE NEWS  

Education…it is all about the money, or lack of it.  

GOP lawmaker blasts faltering commitment to education
(09/29/2003 © Miami Herald)
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - A leading Republican legislator Monday blasted what he said was Florida's "faltering commitment" to education and pledged to travel the state to drum up support to protect Bright Futures scholarships and the prepaid tuition program. State Sen. Ken Pruitt, the top budget-writer in the state Senate, criticized other state leaders, saying they were not putting enough  

On the road to
(09/30/2003 © Tallahassee Democrat)
The powerful chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee got behind the wheel of a bright yellow school bus Monday to lead what he hopes will become a convoy of Floridians supporting his efforts to keep college affordable. "I'm driving it," state Sen. Ken Pruitt, R-Port St. Lucie, said with a laugh. Pruitt will steer the "Brighter Futures" school bus to all 11 state universities, 28 co  

Community college leaders tell Gov. Bush they need more money
(09/30/2003 © Daytona Beach News-Journal)
LEESBURG -- The presidents of Florida's community colleges told Gov. Jeb Bush on Monday that they need more money for their schools. 'The community college system needs about $100 million to be able to meet the growing demand,' said Charles Mojack, president of Lake-Sumter Community College . A...  

Universities match funds lost in limbo
(09/29/2003 © Miami Herald)
Even though the Florida Legislature provided millions of dollars in matching funds this year for large donations to Florida's 11 public universities, the state's popular major gifts program remains more than $100 million in arrears. By all accounts, the backlog will continue to grow. The legislature gave universities $41.6 million for matching gifts this year, but still owed almost $105 mi  

The voucher rip-off  

Governor s role
( 09/30/2003  © Orlando Sentinel)
Our position: It's up to Gov. Jeb Bush to fix flaws in school-voucher program. A criminal investigation is cementing the reputation of the state's largest private-school voucher program as an unregulated nightmare. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is probing allegations that a funding group misused $400,000 intended to help pay for low-income children's tuition. Not surp  

Allocation, sourcing of state money for program draws fire
(09/30/2003 © Daytona Beach News-Journal)
DAYTONA BEACH -- Florida Education Commissioner Jim Horne is looking for a different way to pay the $1.1 million bill for about 230 children to attend a new virtual school program amid lawmakers' charges they were enrolled illegally. Horne agreed Friday to seek an 'alternate source' to cover the ...  

Will there ever be a “clean” campaign and election?

Loophole lets Florida legislators take secret campaign contributions
(09/29/2003 © Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel)
TALLAHASSEE · Florida legislators struggle to find enough money to pay for the state's needs while secretly filling up their own campaign coffers by taking advantage of a loophole in a decades-old law, several newspapers reported Sunday. Florida law lets state legislators legally collect as much ...

Touchscreen machines challenged
( 09/29/2003  © Daily Commercial)
Touchscreen voting machines were supposed to put an end to Florida 's ballot-counting woes and its national election embarrassment. The state-of-the-art voting technology seemed the solution, and state and county officials spent millions upon millions of dollars to bring digital clarity to the el...  

Election 2004  

McCollum formally launches second campaign for U.S. Senate
(09/29/2003 © Miami Herald)
ORLANDO, Fla. - Former U.S. Rep. Bill McCollum launched his second campaign for the U.S. Senate on Monday, joining a field of four other Republicans and five Democrats who want to succeed U.S. Sen. Bob Graham. McCollum, who lost to Democrat Bill Nelson in the 2000 Senate election, promised about 100 supporters at Orlando Executive Airport that he would back President Bush's policies, especiall  

Voters could be faced with a mind-numbing array of amendments
( 09/29/2003  © Sarasota Herald-Tribune)
Apparently, it is not only your humble columnist who thinks that the Florida constitutional amendment process has gone off the deep end. A poll commissioned by the Florida Chamber of Commerce found that 50 percent of Floridians think that changes need to be made to rein in the amendments that have embarrassed the state and are in the process of breaking the bank. Even Ben Wilcox, executive d  

Foley misses the point
(09/30/2003 © Palm Beach Post)
U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, R-West Palm Beach, said last week that he can speak more freely after ending his Senate campaign because he no longer has to worry so much about 'nuances.' In fact, the problem with his campaign for Democrat Bob Graham's seat was not his nuances but his stridency. The man w...  

Remember Service Worst?  

People First s time to put up or shut up
( 09/29/2003  © Tallahassee Democrat)
All right, no more talk. No more desultory muttering about Convergys and privatization. No more piped-in sunshine about how People First - Gov. Jeb Bush's new personnel system - will be the greatest thing to happen to state employees since ... well, since the last idea Bush said would be the greatest thing to happen to state employees. After all the legislative committee hearings, contract

DCF  

Council cries foul on access to DCF records
(09/29/2003 © Ocala Star Banner)
TALLAHASSEE - A watchdog group created by the Legislature to help disabled and vulnerable Floridians claims the state Department of Children & Families is retaliating for its report on drugged foster children. The Statewide Advocacy Council issued an analysis of DCF records this month indicating..  

Don’t drink the water  

DEP declares aquifer is toxic
(09/29/2003 © Ocala Star Banner)
Toxic levels of hazardous chemicals have been detected in groundwater beneath a former landfill used by the University of Florida for the disposal of chemical and solid waste, a state report has found. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection has detected elevated levels of numerous pol...

NATIONAL NEWS  

Health Care – Prescription Drugs  

States try to help seniors buy drugs while waiting on Medicare benefit
(09/29/2003 © Daytona Beach News-Journal)
TALLAHASSEE -- Margaret Hodgen and many of her neighbors in the Sun City retirement community near Tampa are watching the federal government closely as it wrestles with how to provide a prescription drug benefit for older Americans. Hodgen is nearly 70 and worries about the cost of her drugs -- s...  

Big Increase Seen in People Lacking Health Insurance
The number of people without health insurance shot up last
year by 2.4 million as health costs soared and many workers lost coverage.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/30/politics/30INSU.html?th  

FTAA - World Trade  

MOBILIZING TO STOP FTAA--Working families launched a series of nationwide events that will culminate in a massive rally and march in Miami during the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) ministerial meetings in November. If approved, FTAA would create the largest free-trade zone in the world, but corporate and government planners have not included the concerns of workers or environmentalists in the agreement. Industrial Union Council unions are rallying and holding town hall meetings in the nation's heartland to raise awareness of the crisis in manufacturing caused by flawed trade policies--some 2.5 million manufacturing jobs have been lost in two years. The Steelworkers and the Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment are sponsoring the March to Miami , a 20-city, seven-week bus tour beginning Sept. 27 in Seattle , that focuses on the impact of cheap imports on the hard-hit steel industry. On Sept. 24, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney called on union leaders to mobilize their members to participate in the November rally and march in Miami . Workers also are demonstrating their opposition to FTAA by signing unofficial ballots opposing the trade deal. For more information and to download a ballot, visit http://www.aflcio.org/stopftaa . For more information on the March to Miami , click on http://www.marchtomiami.org .  

TRADE WAR:
( 09/29/2003  © Panama City News Herald)
WASHINGTON From Capitol Hill to the factory floor, China increasingly is being blamed for America 's economic woes. A dozen senators signed on to a bill this month that could slap a 27.5-percent tariff on Chinese imports if it became law. Lawmakers and manufacturing lobbyists called this ...

Globalization issues taking center stage in debates
Boston Globe 9/28/03

The Immigrant Workers’ Freedom Ride 
There have been well over 30 articles posted on this story from around the nation and overseas.  Here is a sampling.  Check out the photo gallery from Seattle below.  

Immigrants Travel to Washington to Rally for Broadened Rights
The New York Times 9/27/03  

Family supports Freedom Riders to help other immigrants
Kansas City Star 9/29/03  

Border Patrol stops two buses carrying 'Freedom Riders' trying to call attention to undocumented immigrants
Seattle Post-Intelligencer 9/26/03  

Activists finish the first day of Freedom Ride
Miami Herald  

A quest for rights
Seattle Times  

Freedom Ride photo gallery
Seattle Times  

Immigrants, backers rally against obstacles
Orlando Sentinel 9/28/03  

Unions show immigrant support
Des Moines Register 9/27/03  

Immigrant workers seek dignity, respect for all
Indianapolis Star 9/30/03

Overtime fight – Once more with feeling!

TIME FOR OVERTIME--The time is now for working families to contact their members of the U.S. House of Representatives to urge them to derail President George W. Bush's proposal that could eliminate overtime pay protections for 8 million or more workers. Earlier this month, the Senate approved an amendment to the fiscal year 2004 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education appropriations bill (H.R. 2660) that blocked the Labor Department from gutting the overtime pay protections in the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. The House version of the appropriations bill did not include the prohibition. The House is expected to vote Oct. 1 on a motion to instruct House members who are part of the conference to meld the two bills into a final product to include the Senate's ban on the Bush overtime take-away. For more information and to tell your representatives to support the motion to instruct, visit http://www.aflcio.org .  

Fighting Over Overtime
Washington Post 9/30/03  

Updating overtime
Baltimore Sun 9/30/03

The California Coup

HEY GUYS, SOME INSIDE INFORMATION ON THE CALIFORNIA COUP.  THIS MESSAGE HAS BEEN CIRCULATED AMOUNGST THE TROOPS AND WAS FORWARDED TO US BY OUR OWN PERSON ON THE GROUND, PHYLLIS GARRETT. 

Friends,
Many of you have called and inquired about the CNN/USA TODAY/GALLUP poll and the status of the anti-recall effort. THE CNN POLL IS AN ABERRATION.  I have attached a memo from our pollsters, Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin & Associates, explaining the current polls. Additionally, Sunday's Matier and Ross column in the San Francisco Chronicle, has a detailed discussion of a half-dozen polls released in he past four or five days, all of which have the YES on the recall below 55%, which is consistent with our own polling (see below).

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-
bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003
/09/28/BA193375.DTL

TO: Californians Against the Costly Recall

FROM: Paul Maslin and Ben Tulchin
 Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin & Associates

DATE: September 29, 2003

RE: Poll Results
A lot has been made about the recent CNN/USA TODAY/GALLUP poll that was just released showing the recall and Arnold Schwarzenegger both winning by wide margins.  It is fair to say that this poll is an exception to what every other poll on the recall, both public and private and Democratic and Republican, has been finding recently.

Our own internal tracking polls show the margin of the recall in single digits, with the "Yes" vote barely at 50% (51%, to be precise) Furthermore, we have seen the no vote increase over the past week as
Democrats and union members have been coming home.  These  data hold true even for interviews conducted after last Wednesday's debate between the candidates and for the most likely voters, which the CNN poll claimed they used as their universe.

On the second part of the recall, our internal tracking polling shows Arnold with a single-digit lead over Cruz Bustamante.  This dynamic has been consistent over the past couple of weeks and is similar to what other reputable private polls have been finding.

Furthermore, sources have informed us that other private polling conducted on the behalf of independent, Democratic, and Republican interests all confirm what our own polling shows.  Therefore, based on the litany of evidence, the CNN/USA TODAY/GALLUP is clearly an exception to what other polls that have interviewed thousands of voters statewide are finding.

A Confident Schwarzenegger Steps Up Attacks on Davis
Arnold Schwarzenegger made it clear that he considered the recall race in its final days to have boiled down to two choices: himself and Gov. Gray Davis.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/29/national/29RECA.html?th

With End Near, Recall Race Starts to Look Conventional
The crazy California recall election, the one that has
defied prediction and confounded veteran political
strategists for two months, enters its final week.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/30/national/30RECA.html?th

Notes and Quotes From Calif. Recall Race
(09/29/2003 © Sarasota Herald-Tribune)
By The Associated Press On Monday, eight days before the Oct. 7 gubernatorial recall election, Gov. Gray Davis continued his drumbeat of 15-second television ads attacking Arnold Schwarzenegger for "ducking tough questions" and refusing "to debate the governor he's trying to replace." Schwarzenegger, buoyed by a new poll showing him far ahead of his nearest rivals, refused Davis' offer to mee

Workers Comp Reform Becomes Recall Issue
(09/30/2003 © Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel)
LOS ANGELES -- A week before the state's recall election, the spiraling cost of workers' compensation has emerged as a hot-button issue in the debate over the economy and keeping businesses from leaving California. Gov. Gray Davis was prepared to sign sweeping changes in state workers' comp ...  

In California, union members hoping to defeat recall
Chicago Tribune 9/28/03  

US Election 2004 

Bush is halfway to fund-raising goal
(09/30/2003 © Sarasota Herald-Tribune)
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON -- After less than five months of fund raising, President Bush is roughly halfway to his goal of raising $150 million to $170 million for his re-election campaign. The Bush campaign expects to have raised around $48 million to $50 million when the current fund-raising quarter ends at midnight tonight, spokesman Scott Stanzel said. That would lift Bush's to

Bush '04 Readying for One Democrat, Not 10
President Bush's advisers are amassing a pile of cash for
an advertising campaign expected to begin around the time Democrats settle on their candidate.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/29/politics/29CAMP.html?th

George Bush’s America
POVERTY ON THE RISE--The Census Bureau reported Sept. 26 that more than 1 million Americans sank into poverty and average income fell in 2002. Last year, 12.1 percent of Americans lived in poverty, up from 11.7 percent in 2001. And median household income fell 1.1 percent between 2001 and 2002, the bureau said. The poverty figures should be a wake-up call for the Bush administration, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said. "It is unconscionable that while the ranks of the nation's poor are growing and American paychecks have shrunk for the third year in a row, the Bush administration has continued to pander to the wealthy through millionaire tax cuts while having no real plan for low- and middle-income Americans."
Why Bush Likes a Bad Economy James K. Galbraith

The Progressive 9/28/03
Boom Times on the Poverty Roll

The New York Times 9/30/03
Poverty rate climbs, median income drops

Boston Globe 9/27/03
U.S. Incomes Fell, Poverty Rose in 2002

The Washington Post 9/27/03
Uninsured in U.S. Show the Biggest Increase in a Decade

Los Angeles Times 9/30/03
43.6 million don't have health insurance

USA Today 9/30/03  

Whatever happened to the energy bill Cheney secretly crafted behind closed doors?  

The Energy Bill Gets Worse
The almost certain outcome is a tired compendium of tax
breaks and subsidies for energy producers leavened by a few gestures toward energy efficiency.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/29/opinion/29MON1.html?th  

Tough Going as Negotiators Hammer Out Energy Bill
Congressional Republicans are entering the difficult final stage of negotiations over an energy policy that goes far beyond electricity issues.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/30/politics/30ENER.html?th  

If you have suggestions on how we may improve this online publication or have information you would like to see posted please contact our communications director at (850) 224 – 6926 or at rtemplin@flaflcio.org.  

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