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SEIU’s Verrett: “Harris-Walz is the working people’s ticket—We’re energized like never before”
Service Employees International Union (SEIU) International President April Verrett issued the following statement today in response to Vice President Kamala Harris’s choice of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate:
“Vice President Kamala Harris has made a great decision in picking Governor Tim Walz for her running mate to defeat Donald Trump. From his time in the classroom to serving in the National Guard and Congress, Governor Walz has delivered tremendous wins for working people in Minnesota. Under his leadership, the state legislature passed the most pro-worker package of laws in decades, the Minnesota Miracle, making it easier for workers to form unions, strengthening worker protections, cracking down on union-busting practices, and creating the nation’s first nursing home workforce standards board.
Governor Walz has been a steadfast partner to Minnesota’s working families. He walked a day in the shoes of home care workers and made record investments in public education, including unemployment benefits for bus drivers, food service workers, paraeducators and others who do essential work supporting students. He paved the way for record contracts between his administration and health care workers, raising wages to as much as $22.50 an hour. Governor Walz has championed guaranteed family and medical leave for workers and middle-class tax breaks for Minnesotans. He supported janitors and nursing home workers l when they were on strike in March, and we were proud to see him join UAW workers on the picket line during last year’s strikes.
In contrast to the Trump-Vance ticket, who continue to spew hate and try to divide us, Governor Walz has actually championed not-yet-union workers, racial and immigrant justice and climate action. Working people will decide this election. Voters of all races and backgrounds are excited to march to the polls like never before to elect the leaders who work for us and promote them to the White House: Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz.”
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.
LATEST NEWS
To Protect Consumers, Biden Cracks Down on 'Corporate Tricks' Like Hard-To-Cancel Services
"The administration is cracking down on all the ways that companies—through paperwork, hold times and general aggravation—waste people's money, waste people's time," a White House official said.
Aug 12, 2024
The Biden administration on Monday launched a wide-ranging consumer protection campaign called "Time Is Money" aimed at cracking down on hard-to-cancel services, deliberately poor customer service, and other "corporate tricks" that involve overly complicated or burdensome processes, such as in the filling out of insurance claims.
The effort involves a number of agencies and initiatives, some already underway, like a proposed Federal Trade Commission (FTC) rule, first announced in March 2023 and currently under public review, that would require companies to make it as easy to cancel a subscription or service as it is to sign up. At least one regulation the administration included as part of "Time Is Money" is already final: a Department of Transportation rule on automatic refunds for airline tickets that are canceled or significantly changed.
Other changes are forthcoming, the White House says. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) will introduce a rule that would require companies under its jurisdiction to allow callers to escape customer service "doom loops" and speak to a human being by pressing a single button; the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is considering a similar initiative for cable and other communications companies, as well as a proposal like the FTC's proposed easy-to-cancel rule.
"The administration is cracking down on all the ways that companies—through paperwork, hold times, and general aggravation—waste people's money, waste people's time," said Neera Tanden, a domestic policy adviser to President Joe Biden, a Democrat, according toHuffPost.
"For example, you want to cancel your gym membership or subscription service to a newspaper," Tanden said. "It took one or two clicks to sign up, but now to end your subscription or cancel the membership, you have to go in person or wait on hold for 20 minutes."
"These seemingly small inconveniences don't really happen by accident," she added. "They have huge financial consequences."
BREAKING: Banks, credit card companies, and more will be required to let customers talk to a human by pressing a single button under a new Biden administration proposed rule.
The @CFPB rule is part of a campaign to crack down on customer service “doom loops.”
— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) August 12, 2024
Tanden, a former Hillary Clinton aid who has often been at odds with progressives, was careful to clarify that regulations were not aimed at "shaming corporations writ large."
The White House said the new campaign fits with its long-standing effort to improve customer experience with government services. In 2021, Biden signed an executive order calling for federal agencies to streamline and simplify the services they offer. The U.S. State Department has since launched a trial effort to renew passports online, and the Internal Revenue Service has launched a "Direct File" program that's free to use, following a successful pilot.
The "Time Is Money" campaign is also in keeping with the administration's consumer protection agenda. Both the FTC—led by Chair Lina Khan, a favorite of progressives—and the U.S. Department of Justice have stepped up antitrust enforcement. And in October the FTC announced a crackdown on junk and hidden fees.
All of these initiatives have come from the executive branch, making them vulnerable to reversal if Republicans take control of the White House or U.S. Congress next year. Democrats may be hoping the presumed popularity of efforts such as "Time Is Money" help prevent that from happening.
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Shot Putter Paralyzed by Israeli Sniper Is Palestine's Lone Paralympian
"I want to raise my country flag here in Paris and to show the people we are still here," said Fadi Deeb. "We're still alive—we have hopes, we have dreams, we have goals."
Aug 12, 2024
Following an Olympic Games that activists said was tainted by the participation Israeli athletes including a flag-bearer who signed bombs bound for Gaza, a shot putter who was disabled by an Israeli sniper and who lost at least 17 relatives to Israel's onslaught is set to be the sole Palestinian competitor at the upcoming Paralympics in Paris.
"I want to raise my country flag here in Paris and to show the people we are still here," 39-year-old Fadi Deeb said during a Monday interview with Democracy Now! ahead of the August 28 Paralympic Opening Ceremony. "We're still alive—we have hopes, we have dreams, we have goals."
"There is no safe place in Gaza... everyone is like a target for the killing machine."
Deeb, who is from Gaza City, was shot in the spine by an Israeli sniper in 2001 during the Second Intifada, or general Palestinian uprising.
"It's a very hard situation to... balance between my sport as an international player and one who is going to compete in the Paralympic Games, and... my family, all of my sisters, my brothers still in Gaza Strip," he explained.
"There is no safe place in Gaza... everyone is like a target for the killing machine," Deeb continued. "So, what is happening now... it's a genocide. It's not a war... I lost my brother on December 7, 2023 and two of my nephews... And for whole of my family members, I lost like more than, like, 17 persons. So, the situation is very hard."
The Palestinian death toll from Israel's 311-day bombardment, invasion, and siege of Gaza surged toward 40,000 on Monday, according to local and international officials, with at least an additional 103,000 people wounded or missing. Most of those killed have been women and children.
Almost all of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced, while Israel's total blockade of the coastal enclave has forced the starvation of at least hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Dozens of Gazans—almost all of them children—have died from malnutrition, dehydration, and lack of medical care.
Asked by Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman about the "amputation crisis" in Gaza—the charity Save the Children says an average of 10 children a day have lost one or more limbs during the war—Deeb said that it's "a very hard situation, because, as I told before, there's no difference... if you are children or women... everyone is a target."
According to the Palestine Olympic Committee and Palestine Football Association (PFA), at least 400 Palestinian athletes, including nearly 70 children, have been killed by Israeli forces since October as of July 26. Among the dead are Hany Al-Masry, a former player and general manager of the Palestinian Olympic soccer team.
Still, eight Palestinians managed to compete in the Paris Olympics, although they did not win any medals.
The International Olympic Committee has been accused of double standards for banning Russian athletes over their country's invasion of Ukraine but allowing Israeli athletes—including Israel Defense Forces veterans and an Olympic flag-bearer who recently signed bombs to be dropped on Gaza—to compete.
Last week, PFA president Jibril Rajub
called Israel's alleged deliberate targeting of Palestinian athletes a blatant violation of the Olympic Charter.
Despite all this, Deeb said he is hopeful.
"To be a player and to compete in this competition for the Paris 2024... gives me, like, too much responsibility to talk about my country, to show the people about Palestine," he said. "It's not just war. It's not just blood. There is life. There is hopes. There is goals. There is dreams."
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Ecuador Fails to Eliminate Gas Flaring Despite Court Order: Amnesty
"It's not just Ecuador it's affecting," said one woman leading the fight against gas flaring, "it's the atmosphere of the entire world."
Aug 12, 2024
More than three years after a court ruling that left a group of young women hopeful that their legal action had helped "restore nature" for future generations in Ecuador, a report by Amnesty International on Monday found that gas flaring that the Provincial Court of Justice of Sucumbíos had ordered to be eliminated has actually continued—threatening public health and a just energy transition.
In its report, titled The Amazon Is Burning! The Future Is Burning!, Amnesty found the Ecuadorian government and public and private oil companies have avoided "any concrete and ambitious steps to remove the flares," instead taking measures that will allow them to "maintain oil production at all costs."
Following a legal action brought by nine women and girls from Sucumbíos and Orellana, supported by the Union of People Affected by Texaco's Oil Operations (UDAPT), the court ruled in January 2021 that Ecuador had ignored the rights that the plantiffs had to live in a healthy environment, and ordered that gas flares be shut down with officials prioritizing the removal of flares near population centers.
The flares burn natural gas, a byproduct of oil extraction—long a top industry in Ecuador—and the air pollution it causes has been linked to health problems including cancer.
A 2017 study by Clínica Ambiental found higher incidences of cancer among people who lived near oil facilities and gas flares in the Ecuadorian Amazon. A lawyer representing the women and girls and UDAPT also said two years of research had found 251 cases of cancer in Sucumbíos and Orellana, with women accounting for 71% of them.
As Amnesty noted, gas flaring is also linked to the emission of super pollutants like methane, which is around 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in terms of its global heating potential.
Complying with the 2021 ruling in the case against the Ecuadorian Ministry of Energy and Non-Renewable Natural Resources and the Ministry of Environment and Water is a matter of "climate, environmental, and racial justice," said Ana Piquer, Americas director at Amnesty.
"The Ecuadorian state must put an end to the routine burning of gas in flares, a practice that is today endangering the Amazon, the world and the future of the children who will inherit the planet," said Piquer.
Amnesty verified that at least 52 gas flare sites are within three miles of population centers, continuing to put local communities at risk despite the provincial court's ruling.
In a video posted to social media by Amnesty, Evelyn Mora, one of the plaintiffs in the case, said the global community will ultimately be affected by Ecuador's refusal to comply with the 2021 ruling.
"It's not just Ecuador it's affecting," she said of the oil industries' continued use of gas flares, "it's the atmosphere of the entire world."
Amnesty emphasized that state-owned and private companies in countries including Ecuador, Brazil, Venezuela, and the United States use routine flaring during oil extraction as a cost-cutting measure in marginalized and low-income areas known as "sacrifice zones."
"By eliminating gas flares and committing to a transition to a fossil fuel-free economy, Ecuador can become a standard bearer for climate and environmental justice for the sake of the planet, now and in the future," said Piquer. "Oil 'wealth' has never reached the Ecuadorian Amazon; rather, the region is a large oil sacrifice zone where children, including the girls and young women in the gas flares case, are one of the most vulnerable population groups."
The group's report calls on the Ecuadorian government to take steps including:
- Designing and implementing a plan to eliminate the use of gas flares as soon as possible to comply with the 2021 ruling;
- Accelerating the removal of gas flares within three miles of population centers and requesting the necessary technical assistance to prevent methane leakage and other emissions;
- Phasing out fossil fuels and transition to renewable energy in a manner consistent with human rights by 2030, respecting the rights of oil industry workers; and
- Working with the Indigenous peoples of the Amazon to develop plans in accordance with their values and providing them with the necessary means to implement them.
Piquer credited "the courageous girls and young women plaintiffs in the gas flares case" with showing the global community "that children and young people around the world are urgently demanding climate, racial, and gender justice, as well as radical changes for human rights and nature."
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