On March 25th 1911 (sorry, should have posted this yesterday!), 146 people died in the very building I work in. The result of their deaths was the rapid growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union and the real beginning of the fight against sweatshops. It also was the beginning of fire regulations in American cities.

The story of the fire and the missed opportunities to prevent it are chilling. But what is more chilling is the fact that America has forgotten why we need unions. Even some unions have forgotten what unions are all about, but I want everyone who doubts the need for unions to remember the events of March 25, 1911.

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I work in what is now known as the Brown Building at NYU near Washington Square. But in 1911 it was the Asch building. The top three floors of the Asch building comprised the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. For the record, a shirtwaist is essentially a woman's blouse. I work a couple of floors below where the factory was. Today I look out my lab's window and I see the annual commemoration of those who died in 1911.

At the Albany Project, NYBri reports on how Gov. Spitzer had a particularly steamrollin' day yesterday, taking on SEIU 1199 and the Greater New York Hospital Association over Medicaid, and Mayor Bloomberg over education.

We've seen Spitzer's "crybabies" ad, directed at those who are opposing him on Medicaid. Yesterday, the steamroller kept the pressure on with a PowerPoint presentation to civic and business leaders in the city:

Suddenly a new slide popped up on the giant screen behind Mr. Spitzer on the stage of the Hilton New York ballroom. It said, in huge letters, “Guardians of the Status Quo,” and it bore the logos of the two groups, the Greater New York Hospital Association and the union, 1199 S.E.I.U. United Healthcare Workers East, which have joined forces to become one of the most powerful lobbies in Albany.

“Now, my good friends at 1199 and Greater New York, I want to put your logos up here just so everybody will know who you are,” Mr. Spitzer began, before launching into a point-by-point rebuttal, with 16 more slides, of their claims about his proposed cuts.

The health care officials seemed stunned afterward. Kenneth E. Raske, the president of the hospital association, said, “I have never in my professional life seen anything like that.”

Meanwhile, 1199 and Greater New York have fired back with an ad of their own - featuring nurses who ask why the governor is "attacking" them (h/t Capitol Confidential):

Setting aside the merits of the debate, the governor may be getting into dangerous territory here.

(More after the flip...)  read more »

In 2006 Americans gave a clear message: stop the war in Iraq and focus on America's security and economy.

The Democrats heard the message as within the first 100 hours of the new Congress, House Democrats passed a minimum wage increase, the first raise the poorest working Americans have gotten in nearly 10 years. Republicans have maximized CEO profits, now Democrats give working Americans a boost. Eighty House Republicans also heard America's message and joined Democrats, indicating that bipartisanship can work. I want to point out that this the minimum wage has not even kept up with inflation, meaning America's poorest have lost ground in the last 10 years. This change is long overdue.

Also within the frist 100 hours, House Democrats voted to implement the bipartisan recommendations of the 9/11 committee, something Bush and the previous Republican dominated Congress failed to do. This is also long overdue.

If Senate follows suit, we will already have gotten our money's worth from the Democratic Congress.

Meanwhile, Bush seems to have completely missed the message sent by voters. His big idea is to immerse us further in the Iraq quagmire he created by sending 21,500 more troops of our already over-extended military to Iraq. So Bush failed to implement the bipartisan 9/11 commission's recommendations to make America more secure, but he wants to continue to fight a war against people who had nothing to do with attacks on America on 9/11.  read more »

It's STILL the Economy, Stupid!

That was the T-shirt I wore last night to a meeting of my local Democratic club, the Independent Neighborhood Democrats (IND). It proved to be a very appropriate shirt.

Last night, IND had a guest speaker, Hank Sheinkopf, political consultant, formerly a member of President Clinton’s re-election media team, and panelist on a NY-1 roundtable discussion. Sheinkopf is the ultimate Democratic insider and he came to discuss the 2006 election victory with us.

But first the warmup acts. There were two stand up routines and a farcical play. Well, not really. There were two good speechs by unexpected guests, Steve Harrison and David Yassky, and some club business.

Steve Harrison, whose followers were present last night in impressive numbers, showing that if he wants to run again, he may have an organization in place ready to go, spoke about finally winning NY-13. He pointed out that the district, contrary to popular "wisdom," is majority Democratic and that the fact that he did better with only $100,000 than Barbaro did two years ago with $300,000 shows that we are making progress. He did not say whether he would run in 2 years, but it sure seemed like he was trying to plant that seed. Good for him. Let's start now and I bet 2 years from now will be the year for us in NY-13.  read more »

Recently I wrote about an organization called Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) which has rated Republicans markedly lower than Democrats on issues of concern to soldiers and veterans. IAVA was founded in June 2004 and claims to be the nation's first and largest group dedicated to the Troops and Veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the civilian supporters of those Troops and Veterans. The gist is that Republicans pretty much suck on defense while Democrats are mostly rated well by IAVA. Many of us have known this ever since Republicans in Congress criticized Clinton for going after bin Laden and since Republicans called Clinton "obsessed with al-Qaeda." That alone was enough for me to see that Republicans could not deal with threats to America while Clinton actually prevented the Millenium Attacks. Republicans claim that was pure luck (yeah...right), but it still is markedly better than anything Bush has been able to muster. Even some top ranking Generals, previously life-long Republicans, agree that Republicans are failing on Defense, not to mention the 21 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who are so pissed they are running for Congress as Democrats and are vocally opposed to Bush's policies.  read more »