Congressman Meeks on the Defensive
On July 27, the US House of Representatives narrowly passed CAFTA by a vote of 217 to 215, thanks to 15 Democrats who went to the other side and voted with the Bush regime for multinational corporate interests. My representative, Gregory Meeks was one of the “CAFTA 15”.
Like any good citizen, I called his office before the vote to express my opposition to the bill. Now that the bill has passed, I have a new card to play. I have recently been hired to write a new bi-weekly column for the Times Ledger newspaper group in Queens (Queens’ largest community newspaper, with over 50,000 paid subscribers). My first article should appear either this Thursday or next and will focus on the fallout from Meeks’ vote.
On Sunday, I attended a press conference organized by the Working Families party, and attended by representatives of labor unions in the AFL-CIO and Change to Win. After the press conference, when I was done asking a few follow-up questions to Brian McLaughlin, I was approached by Rep. Meeks’ Communications Director, who was apparently hanging out in the back of the press conference to make sure that reporters came away with Rep. Meeks’ position. I’ve received his earlier statements, but I accepted her new materials and incorporated part of Meeks’ justification in my column (the particularly lame complaint “Despite the fact that CAFTA is by no means a perfect agreement, voting it down was not a valid option because it would not subsequently be replaced by a perfect agreement”). She wanted to get me more material, but my deadline was essentially later that night.
This morning, Jonathan Tasini posted a shockingly indecorous e-mail from Rep. Meeks’ senior policy advisor on his blog (quoted below):
You’re so politically stupid, it is not funny! You send out a press release, and get 1 or 2 media outlets to cover it, and then put it on your blogs as if it some big deal believing your own hype! Please. We welcome your racists campaign. Keep it up. Instead of the 96% of the vote we got last cycle, you racists will help us get 100% for sure! By the way, I hope you saw the numerous newspapers articles and editorials praising Rep. Meeks for his courageous vote and standing up for his district and NYC. Congressman Meeks will continue to fight for the 51% of unemployed black males in NYC and working families regardless of the lies put forth by your racist campaign. I bet you couldn’t find our district if you were standing in it. By the way, since your last email cited Crain’s NY, I hope you saw their editorial today regarding Cafta, along with the many others. So keep up your racist campaign. But just a warning to you, when we respond back, you better be prepared. Because we will fight back your racist campaign of misinformation. And it will be just as ugly and nasty as you and your fellow Nadar klansmen. Put that in your elitist pipe and choke on it!
After reading that letter, I decided to reach out to Rep. Meeks very friendly Communications Director. At a quarter to 11, I sent the following message:
Hi Candace,
I appreciate the materials that you gave me on Sunday. I incorporated some of Rep. Meeks’ position in my column, but I haven’t received any follow-up material from you. My deadline was yesterday, but I may be able to open it up again.
Specifically, I may want to address this e-mail quoted below that has apparently been circulated by Mr. Mike McKay. I find the vitriol and language shockingly indecorous for a Congressional aide. Was Mr. McKay speaking for Rep. Meeks when he sent this e-mail?
Four hours later, I received a personal phone call from Rep. Gregory Meeks. Unfortunately, I was at work when he called.
I must say that I’m rather surprised that my little old column (not yet published) and blarg have elicited a prompt, personal response from a United States Congressman. I suppose it’s safe to say that Rep. Meeks is feeling the heat from his support of CAFTA. I look forward to speaking with the distinguished gentleman as soon as possible.
We Should Be Working on the Rail Road, All the Live Long Day
One of the more frustrating tendencies of narrow-minded NIMBYism is the knee-jerk opposition to railroad expansion in Queens and Long Island. Residents in Maspeth are already howling because Congressman Jerrold Nadler has secured 100 million federal dollars for the design of a rail-freight tunnel under the harbor, from Bayonne to Bay Ridge, a project that he has long-championed to rebuild the port of New York and bring back the region’s capacity for shipping and manufacturing.
The lack of easy cross-harbor transportation caused many shipyards to close and greatly increased the use of trucks on our streets (and, with them, greatly increased pollution and asthma). The lack of high-speed, high volume shipping hastened the departure of many of Brooklyn’s and Queens’ factories and breweries. Televisions, spark plus, staplers, beer and so much more used to be made in New York and shipped out to the rest of the country, providing hundreds of thousands of good jobs, the sheer volume and quality of which have not been replaced by service and tourism jobs. Nadler and other port advocates believe that New York’s size and geographic location still make it an efficient and cost-effective to manufacture goods and ship them around the world, and that the factories and good jobs would return if the rail and port infrastructure were in place.
Situated at an intersection of the Long Island Rail Road and one of the island’s main freight railroads, Maspeth would be a crucial juncture in a regional rail freight network. “Congressman Nadler Wants 16,000 More Trucks a Day to Exit Here,” screams a billboard on the LIE. While the number is in dispute, the tunnel would put more trucks in Maspeth, although the cumulative amount of truck traffic on city streets would plummet. But, Maspeth is a Republican stronghold, so Mayor Bloomberg has come out unequivocally against the project, even though his Republican predecessor, Rudy Giuliani, committed millions of dollars to feasibility studies for it.
Bloomberg’s opposition will prevent an environmental impact study from commencing, which can only prevent the construction of the tunnel. The two heads of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the lame-duck governors of the states, may prevent the plans from ever being drawn up, although, to their credit, it is because they prioritize other rail projects (commuter service across the Hudson River, and a rail connection from JFK to Wall Street).
Now is the time to build more rail infrastructure. Oil is a finite resource that is being consumed at greater rates by the US and by China. We are quickly heading towards a day of reckoning when gas prices become too high to support the American way of life of two cars in every garage and a sixty minute commute to the office park. New York is in far better shape to weather the crisis than most other, car-based communities. But we can’t rest on our laurels. We must expand the rail infrastructure now, before the crisis and before the costs become too huge.
This is why I’m so disappointed by the neighborhood in which I grew up, Floral Park, for its vocal opposition of adding a new track to the Long Island Rail Road from Bellerose to Hempstead, for the temporary disruption that the construction would cause. But the permmanent benefit of the third track would not only be the increased capacity to speed commutes from Floral Park to midtown, but the new transportation opportunities it would provide to the 120,000 commuters who drive from Manhattan and Brooklyn to Long Island for work everyday.
The Long Island Rail Road was initially designed as a commuter line, to speed Long Island residents to their jobs in Manhattan, but our lives and economy have become more complicated than that. The future of jobs on Long Island, the health of our environment and the future viability of our communities depends on a Long Island Rail Road that can service commuters from the east and the west, as well as within Long Island from north to south, so that we can survive without our cars if the day comes when we can no longer afford them.
Wal-Mart No Way! Volunteers Needed! C’mon, Aspiring Extras!
Staten Island is not enough, Wal-Mart now has its eyes set on Coney Island. There’s a new community group fighting to keep Wal-Mart out of Brooklyn, Wal-Mart No Way. They’re raising money to put anti-Wal-Mart ads on teevee during the mayoral race. In fact, they’re having a fundraiser, um, tomorrow (details below). If you can attend, please do. If you can afford a donation, please be generous.
But there’s a far more fun way you can get involved in Wal-Mart No Way. They will be shooting their ad this coming Saturday afternoon, from about 4:00 pm until aboout 8:00 pm. If you can spare the time and want to wear a blue smock and scream and yell a lot, e-mail me for details.
Fundraiser to Stop Wal-Mart
Tuesday, August 2nd from 6 – 8:30pm
59 W. 12th Street #11C, between 5th and 6th Avenues
Wal-Mart wants to get into New York City – badly. They’re running television and print ads right now about how great it would be to have Wal-Marts in all five boroughs. So we’re answering with our own 30-second TV ad.
Although everyone involved in our group is volunteering their time and talent, we need your help to pay for everything from the lighting equipment to the air time on NY1.
For this event, we are asking for $50 – $100 per person, based on what you can honestly afford. You can donate here now: www.wal-martnoway.org. If you can come to the fundraiser, please RSVP to pete.sikora@gmail.com Thank you for your support – together we can, and will, stop them.
-Pete Sikora
Executive Director
www.wal-martnoway.org
Campaign of Neighborhood Impacts, Inc.PS: If you want to donate by check, and cannot come to the fundraiser, you can mail it to: Neighborhood Impacts, Inc. 152 Fifth Ave Apt 1B Brooklyn NY 11217. Thank you again.
“…We Got Ideas, To Us That’s Real…”
I’m back in New York after ten days in Amherst, for the summer residency of the ULA Labor Studies program at UMass. The program is fantastic. The campus is beautiful. The curriculum is vital. The faculty is brilliant. The student body is awesome.
The community of students is really the reason to enroll in this program. It’s a great mix of union staffers, elected officers and rank-and-filers (many of whom are having their tuition paid for by their employers!). THis is exactly what I wanted: the opportunity to step away from my work twice a year and see the forest from the trees; to make the connections between public sector and private, the building trades and the service sector, globalization and our CLCs and global federations.
Just one example of why I’m glad I met all these people these last two weeks: the Machinists in the program were great guys (and gals). We’re talking about seasoned activists who organized dozens of shops and negotiated their first contracts. No nonsense, take-no-prisoners, been-there-done-that kinda guys who understandably must bristle at Andy Stern and arrogant little whiteboy technocrats in suits (like me!) who come along and say that everything must change. What a waste that we’ve argued ourselves into these corners instead of working together to figure out the way forward.
My take on The Split? At least it’s finally fucking happening. No more agonizing over what-ifs. No more waiting for the other shoe to drop. No more hiring freezes. Just do it and move on, already.
SEIU is out, but that’s no surprise. Teamsters are out, but that’s not a huge surprise given their history of moving in and out of the federation. UFCW is poised to quit, and that’s a shock. That’s America’s neighborhood union, and generally pretty cautious and conservative. Unite Here is keeping mum, and my gut tells me they’re staying put.
The federation is fundamentally weakened. The previously announced staff and department cuts are definite now, and likely to be deepened. With two of their major affiliates out of the AFL-CIO, the building trades might walk out the door, too.
Meanwhile, many of the affiliated national unions within SEIU and the Teamsters (like NAGE) are mulling their own splits, to go back into the federation. Additionally, the Central Labor Councils and state feds are surely gearing up for civil wars as locals of the renegade international unions either secede and take their per capita dues with them, or else fight to stay inside the local bodies only to watch loyal locals of the loyal IUs secede in order to avoid associating with such disloyal elements.
In his infinite wisdom, John Sweeney pushed through a resolution increasing the per capita dues to Central Labor Councils while demanding that non-AFL-CIO unions be refused membership into the CLCs, so that loyal unions are taxed at a higher rate in order to keep the CLCs financially viable while the house of labor demolishes itself (I’m sure that my old boss is crossing his fingers for a Unite-Here disaffiliation so he can avoid paying per-cap to the NYC CLC).
What is so wrong with allowing unity where we can achieve it? Wasn’t the big problem (according to the NUP one year ago) the lack of central authority and vision at the federation level? So why split and defund the fed and allow every union to go in its own direction?
And didn’t the CWA (and others) agree with the NUP that the lack of collaboration at the local level hurt Labor? So why force this split on our Central Labor Councils and force the duplication of efforts of two separate labor councils in each region?
Are Change to Win even bothering with creating a new federation? Are they simply letting he renegade international unions pocket the per-cap dues that would have gone to the AFL-CIO, the CLCs and the state feds and just letting every union do its own thing — the central criticism that sparked this whole debate in the first place.
We have enough enemies. Wal-Mart, Wholefoods, JetBlue, Cintas, Marriott, FedEx. Can we focus on those bastards instead of organizing against each other? What’s so painful about a principled agreement to go our own ways for awhile, but to unite where we can and avoid raiding or undercutting each other?