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Diane Minor 202.730.7332 | diane.minor@seiu.org
The public library is an American institution - but right now, it's under threat of being
transformed from a public service to a for-profit venture. SEIU is partnering with community residents, local organizations and librarians to save public libraries from widespread privatization efforts.
To help coordinate their efforts, SEIU has launched the PrivatizationBeast.org campaign to support local community efforts to preserve quality public library services. The first focus will be to support efforts to keep the public library services public at the Santa Clarita library system in Southern California.
Currently, Library Systems and Services (LSSI) is the only private company that offers turnkey private library management in the United States and is often the only company in line to take over a local library system. LSSI has taken over libraries in Oregon, Florida, Tennessee, Texas, Kansas and California and has reduced services and staff while relying on more volunteers to make a profit. As the sole bidder, there is no market and no competition - so there is no "free market" mechanism to improve performance or reduce costs.
The three Santa Clarita libraries are scheduled to be taken over by LSSI beginning July 1, 2011. The decision to privatize the libraries has already cost the city $3 million in unanticipated losses in revenue and additional expenses. On February 14th, a third lawsuit was filed to prevent the LSSI contract from taking effect this year by local residents.
"As a public librarian, I believe that library services should be available to everyone and this can best be done through a strong public library system," said Cindy Singer, SEIU 721
member and Los Angeles County Librarian. "The residents of Santa Clarita did not have a choice or a voice in their Council's decision to privatize their libraries and how their tax dollars are spent. I will be supporting them as they continue to hold their elected officials accountable for their decision."
On February 8th, the Stockton City Council and San Joaquin Board of Supervisors voted to keep their public libraries from being privatized. Thousands of residents expressed concern about the potential threat and released this statement after the decision to not sign a contract with LSSI was announced.
"Libraries are at the foundation of our democracy. We are proud of our local leaders for saying no to privatizing our public libraries," said Vince Perrin, president of the Friends of
the Stockton Library, and Sylvia Kothe, chair of the Concerned Citizens Coalition, in a joint statement. "We hope that other organizations will stand up and fight against the privatization of public libraries in their communities."
Learn more and take action by visiting https://privatizationbeast.org.
With 2 million members in Canada, the United States and Puerto Rico, SEIU is the fastest-growing union in the Americas. Focused on uniting workers in healthcare, public services and property services, SEIU members are winning better wages, healthcare and more secure jobs for our communities, while uniting their strength with their counterparts around the world to help ensure that workers--not just corporations and CEOs--benefit from today's global economy.
"We urgently need a massive expansion of humanitarian access so we can halt the famine that has taken hold in North Darfur and stop it sweeping across Sudan," said the head of the World Food Program.
Following 15 months of civil war in Sudan that's displaced more than 10 million people and blocked the delivery of food to desperately hungry Sudanese, the United Nations Famine Review Committee said Thursday that famine now exists in a camp housing hundreds of thousands of forcibly displaced people in North Darfur.
The Famine Review Committee (FRC) published a report "confirming U.N. agencies' worst fears" about the arrival of a long-forewarned famine in the Zamzam camp. It's the committee's first famine determination in more than seven years, and only its third since its current monitoring system was created 20 years ago.
FRC warned that "other parts of Sudan risk famine if concerted action is not taken," citing a June analysis by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC)—which oversees the committee—"showing a dramatic decline in food and nutrition security" and 755,000 people "facing catastrophic conditions" in 10 Sudanese states.
Unlike the reigonalized Darfur conflict of a generation ago, the current hunger crisis is affecting almost all of Sudan, including the capital Khartoum. Fighting between rival factions of Sudan's military government broke out in April 2023 and spread rapidly throughout the northeastern African nation of 46 million people. The Sudanese Armed Forces—the official state military—is fighting the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and is refusing to issue permits for U.N. food aid trucks to pass through RSF-controlled territory.
"We urgently need a massive expansion of humanitarian access so we can halt the famine that has taken hold in North Darfur and stop it sweeping across Sudan," U.N. World Food Program Executive Director Cindy McCain said Thursday. "The warring parties must lift all restrictions and open new supply routes across borders, and across conflict lines, so relief agencies can get to cut-off communities with desperately needed food and other humanitarian aid."
"I also call on the international community to act now to secure a cease-fire in this brutal conflict and end Sudan's slide into famine," McCain added. "It is the only way we will reverse a humanitarian catastrophe that is destabilizing this entire region of Africa."
In Khartoum, hundreds of thousands of people are struggling to find food. People venturing outside of their homes in search of food run the risk of being shot or shelled. Fighting around Sinja, the capital of Sennar state, has fueled mass displacement and cut off crucial aid routes.
"Worse yet, the war in Sudan has by now displaced an astounding 10 million people from their homes, more than 4 million of them children—a figure that looks like but isn't a misprint," Priti Gulati Cox and Stan Cox wrote for TomDispatch this week. "Many have had to move multiple times and 2 million Sudanese have taken refuge in neighboring countries. Worse yet, with so many people forced off their land and away from their workplaces, the capacity of farmers to till the soil and other kinds of workers to hold down a paycheck and to buy food for their families has been severely disrupted."
Even Jazirah state—which is located between the Blue and White Nile rivers and is known as Sudan's breadbasket—is now suffering from emergency levels of food insecurity.
Some areas of Darfur haven't received any food aid in over a year as fighting has rendered it practically impossible for humanitarian workers to operate. According to a February report by Doctors Without Borders, one child is dying of starvation every two hours, and nearly 40% of infants and toddlers are malnourished.
"This famine is fully man-made," United Nations Children's Fund Executive Director Catherine Russell said Thursday. "We again call on all the parties to provide the humanitarian system with unimpeded and safe access to children and families in need. We must be able to use all routes, across lines of conflict and borders."
"Sudan's children cannot wait," she added. "They need protection, basic services, and most of all, a cease-fire and peace."
"Today's ruling is a setback, but a temporary one," said one campaigner. "The nation's communications regulator must be able to oversee the nation’s communications infrastructure."
Net neutrality advocates on Thursday sharply condemned a U.S. appellate court decision blocking implementation of the Biden administration's broadband policy while a legal challenge launched by the telecommunications industry moves forward.
Federal Communications Commission Chair Jessica Rosenworcel joined with Commissioners Anna Gomez and Geoffrey Starks in April to reclassify broadband as a public service under Title II of the Communications Act—undoing damage done during the Trump administration.
Internet service providers (ISPs) are fighting to stop the FCC's order. After temporarily delaying the rules last month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit just granted a stay. Oral arguments aren't expected until October or November.
"The 6th Circuit's stay will leave Americans without critical net neutrality protections and leave the Federal Communications Commission without its rightful authority over broadband," warned U.S. Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) in a joint statement Thursday.
"We need net neutrality to protect the free and open internet and ensure that internet gatekeepers cannot control what we see, who we talk with, and how we communicate online."
"That is unacceptable," added the senators, who have led the fight for reviving net neutrality rules in Congress. "We need net neutrality to protect the free and open internet and ensure that internet gatekeepers cannot control what we see, who we talk with, and how we communicate online."
Advocacy groups were similarly critical. John Bergmayer, legal director at Public Knowledge, said that "it is unfortunate that the court granted the ISPs' request for a stay of the FCC's net neutrality rules. These rules would bar broadband providers from throttling connection speeds, blocking websites, and discriminating in favor of preferred internet traffic."
"Millions of Americans have expressed support for these rules by submitting comments with the FCC urging the agency to enact these protections," he noted. "Consumers need net neutrality rules as well as the other consumer benefits provided by the FCC's recognition that broadband is a 'telecommunications' service, including online privacy, public safety and national security, and affordable, competitive broadband service."
"Despite this court's action, we remain confident that the FCC's rules—and classification of broadband as a telecommunication service under Title II of the Communications Act—will ultimately be upheld, just as they were before—or that Congress will step in to reinstate these popular and necessary protections," Bergmayer added.
Free Press vice president of policy and general counsel Matt Wood also characterized the stay as unfortunate but stressed that "we believe that the litigation to follow will dispel these unfounded phone-and cable-company arguments about Title II's supposed harms and about the commission's authority to classify broadband providers properly under the statute."
"Industry lobbyists and other net neutrality opponents have argued, loudly but cynically, that the Trump-era repeal somehow spurred broadband deployment and speed increases, claiming that the rules' presence impairs those upgrades. This is nonsense, as Free Press has shown time and time again by examining the companies' own financial statements and investor briefings," he highlighted. "Today's order unfortunately accepts the false premise that the FCC's rules prevent broadband providers from rolling out new products. ISPs make such claims only in court; they never make them to their investors."
"Today's ruling is a setback, but a temporary one. The nation's communications regulator must be able to oversee the nation’s communications infrastructure," Wood continued. "While we hit a procedural hurdle today, Free Press is determined to see the FCC's decision go into effect. The 6th Circuit will still need to evaluate the ISPs' and FCC's arguments in full when it reviews the case on the merits. We're confident that we will ultimately prevail in this case, even in the wake of this disappointing outcome and even in light of recent Supreme Court decisions aimed at weakening federal agencies' oversight."
Rosenworcel was also determined to defend the FCC's decision, declaring Thursday that "the American public wants an internet that is fast, open, and fair. Today's decision by the 6th Circuit is a setback but we will not give up the fight for net neutrality."
One campaigner said that "Democrats need to think bigger, aim higher, and hold corporations accountable instead of enabling obscene corporate tax dodging in exchange for breadcrumbs for working families."
Continuing months of progressive opposition to the bipartisan Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday voted against advancing the bill and highlighted how it would give tax breaks to major corporations.
The bill passed the House 357-70 in January, shortly after it was negotiated by Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo). It would revive a version of the expanded child tax credit (CTC) that, as Sanders (I-Vt.) noted in a statement Thursday, "reduced childhood poverty in America by over 40%."
"I cannot, in good conscience, however, vote for the tax package that is being voted upon today," Sanders, who caucuses with Democrats, explained. "At a time of massive wealth and income inequality, we should not be giving tens of billions of dollars in tax breaks to some of the largest and most profitable corporations in America."
"Incredibly, this legislation would hand out a $2 billion retroactive tax break each to Lockheed Martin and Raytheon—some of the most profitable defense contractors in the world," he pointed out. "Further, at a time when artificial intelligence and automation threatens to displace millions of American workers, this legislation could provide billions of dollars in tax breaks to companies like Amazon, Google, Verizon, and Facebook to replace workers with machines or robots."
As Sanders detailed:
Three years ago, as part of the American Rescue Plan, Congress passed an expanded child tax credit that put $300 a month per child directly into the bank accounts of tens of millions of families. This provision alone lifted nearly 4 million children out of poverty.
The tax bill on the floor today is only one-tenth the size of the child tax credit in the American Rescue Plan and would only last for three years. When all is said and done, this bill would provide at least $3 in corporate tax breaks for every $1 in tax cuts for working families with children. That is not a good deal.
Stephen Prince, vice-chair of the Patriotic Millionaires and founder of Card Market, was similarly critical on Thursday, saying that "this was a bad deal. But remarkably, it was killed by a handful of Republicans who believe they can win even more payouts for their ultra-rich donors next year. Democrats need to think bigger, aim higher, and hold corporations accountable instead of enabling obscene corporate tax dodging in exchange for breadcrumbs for working families."
"As the 2025 tax battle gets underway, we should be on guard for efforts to further enrich corporations and the ultrawealthy via the tax code," Prince warned. "Democrats must grapple with the reality that Republicans and their billionaire donors are not acting in good faith. They must not waste next year's opportunity—the expiration of the 2017 Trump tax scam—by entrenching a broken system. The goal should be a fundamental overhaul of our tax code so that it delivers for American workers."
"Anything less is a failure," he continued. "Republicans continue to sell the snake oil of 'trickle-down' economics to Americans. Let me be clear: At some point, they will have to acknowledge that the only way to fix our economy and our country is to raise taxes on the rich. Their favorite pet project of cutting taxes for rich people is ruining the country and leaving behind a mess for which our children and grandchildren will never forgive us."
The Senate's procedural vote that blocked the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act from moving forward mostly fell along party lines. A total of eight senators from both parties—including Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), former President Donald Trump's running mate for the November election—did not participate.
Three Republicans—Sens. Josh Hawley (Mo.), Markwayne Mullin (Okla.), and Rick Scott (Fla.)—joined all Democrats present as well as Independent Sens. Angus King (Maine) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) in supporting the legislation, though Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) switched his vote to "no" so he can bring the bill up for a vote again.
Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) voted against advancing the bill. The soon-retiring ex-Democrat previously partnered with Republicans to prevent the extension of the CTC expansion enacted during the Covid-19 pandemic. After the aid to families ended, the child poverty rate more than doubled in 2022, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
Since the bipartisan bill—which is backed by the White House—was announced in January, progressives in Congress have been urging Democrats to "stay at the table and demand a better deal for our children," in the words of Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), who was among nearly two dozen House Democrats who voted against the legislation.
Other House progressives who opposed the bill earlier this year included Democratic Reps. Jamaal Bowman (N.Y.), Cori Bush (Mo.), Greg Casar (Texas), Maxwell Frost (Fla.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), and Mark Pocan (Wis.).