“A TROUBLEMAKER’S HANDBOOK 2: HOW TO FIGHT BACK WHERE YOU WORK—AND WIN!”

372 pages, $24

A completely new update to the first edition published in 1991, this unique book is a workplace strategies manual full of organizing and leadership lessons. A collaboration of 72 authors and hundreds of activists, A Troublemaker’s Handbook 2 contains 25 chapters and 372 pages. No matter how seasoned an activist you are, this book will show you new ways to fight back where you work – and win!

Troublemaker’s 2 is a strategy guide from the viewpoint of unionists on the front lines. The book includes chapters on organizing new members, fighting discrimination, fighting lean production and outsourcing, running contract campaigns, developing new leaders, building community alliances, using the web, bringing immigrants into the movement, running for office, and running your local right. The stories run from how to put a pompous boss in his place to a years-long campaign against a multinational corporation. The workplaces represented include factory and white collar, public and private, U.S. and Canadian.

About the authors: A Troublemaker’s Handbook 2 was edited by Jane Slaughter, a Detroit writer and activist who has worked with Labor Notes since 1979. Seventy-two author/activists contributed to the book.

About Labor Notes: “A Troublemaker’s Handbook 2" is a publication of Labor Notes, a monthly magazine for union activists now in its twenty-seventh year. In addition to publishing the magazine and books, Labor Notes brings working people together through its conferences and schools.

$24 plus $4 shipping. Order from 7435 Michigan Ave., Detroit, MI 48210. Call 313 842 6262. Fax 313 842 0227. Or buy online at www.labornotes.org.

BANQUET HUGE SUCCESS!

    The 14th Annual Jobs and Justice Banquet was a huge success! On November 19, 2004, 180 of the finest people in Northwest Indiana joined together at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Social Hall in Hammond to honor our community heroes and support the Calumet Project.
    We had people from across the region attend, with an especially strong turn-out by labor. US Congressman Pete Visclosky had the names of this year’s award recipients entered into the Congressional Record of the 108th Congress.
    The highlight of the evening was the award ceremony. They went to labor and community leaders: Rosa Vega of the Service Employee International Union 73 Divison 208, Valeta Brannon of the Coalition for a Clean Environment, and John Bakota of the Coalition for a Clean Environment each was presented the Calumet Community Hero Award. Daniel Lowery of the Northwest Indiana Quality of Life Council was given the Unity Award, and Leonard Tomaszewski of SOAR (Steelworker Organization of Active Retirees) got the Lifetime Achievement Award.

Valeta Brannon accepts the Community Hero Award

John Bakota accepts the Community Hero Award

Leonard Tomaszewski accepts the Lifetime Achievement Award

Rosa Vega accepts the Community Hero Award

Daniel Lowery accepts the Unity Award

Privatizing Social Security-Inventing a Crisis

Privatizing Social Security—replacing the current system in whole, or in part with personal investment accounts—has become a hot political topic and a top priority of President Bush’s domestic agenda. It is a project whose scope and scale are hard to overestimate. The politics of privatization depends on convincing the public—and Congress—that the current system is in imminent danger of collapse and that we must destroy Social Security in order to save it. Upon closer scrutiny, this argument doesn’t hold up.

    Created in 1935 by Franklin Roosevelt, Social Security is America’s biggest, most popular and successful government program, providing pensions to the elderly and disabled and their dependents. Thanks to Social Security, poverty among the elderly has been virtually eliminated. Most Americans rely on the program for much of their retirement income. Social Security is not just a retirement plan. It is a family protection plan, too, with benefits that cover all generations.
    There is nothing strange or mysterious about how Social Security works. It is simply supported by a dedicated tax on payroll earnings, just as highway maintenance is supported by a dedicated tax on gasoline. Right now, revenues from the payroll tax exceed the amount paid out in benefits. This is deliberate, the result of a payroll tax increase recommended by Alan Greenspan two decades ago. At the time, his justification for raising a tax that falls mainly on lower, and middle-income families, even though Ronald Reagan had just cut the taxes that fall mainly on the very well-off, was that government needed the extra revenue to build up a trust fund. This fund could then be drawn on to pay benefits once the baby boomers began to retire.
    As we now know, the tax increase wasn’t quite big enough. As in most of the world, the combination of longer life expectancy and lower birth-rates in the United States will put increased financial pressure on this pay-as-you-go social insurance system. Over the coming decades, Social Security’s payments will rise much faster than its revenues. Projections in a recent report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (which are probably more realistic than the very cautious projections of the Social Security Administration) predict that the trust fund will run out in 2052. The system won’t become bankrupt at that point. Even after the fund is gone, Social Security revenues will cover 81 percent of the promised benefits. Still, Social Security is on an unsustainable trajectory. It faces a long-run financial problem.
    But it’s a problem of modest size. The report cited above finds that extending the life of the trust fund into the 22nd century, with no change of benefits, would require additional revenues equal to only 0.54 percent of G.D.R.—less than 3 percent of federal spending, less than we are currently spending in Iraq. It is also only about one-quarter of the revenue lost each year because of recent tax cuts, roughly equal to the fraction of those cuts that goes to people with incomes over $500,000 a year.
    Given these numbers, it is not difficult to construct fiscal packages that would secure the retirement program, with no major changes for generations to come.
 

    But, as economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman pointed out in early December, “...since the politics of privatization depends on convincing the public that there is a Social Security crisis, the privatizers have done their best to invent one.”

   If people are rightly skeptical about claims that Social Security faces an imminent crisis, there is even more reason to question the supposed solution.
    One of the main talking points in the drive to privatize Social Security is that retirees have nothing to fear. The president promises that under a private retirement scheme, anyone age 55 or older would continue to receive full Social Security benefits. What is never mentioned is that privatization would require some $2 trillion in new borrowing over the next 10 years and an additional $4.5 trillion in the decade thereafter. That’s on top of the trillions that need to be found to cover the costs of Medicare and Medicaid, and if the president gets his way, to make this decade’s tax cuts permanent.
    It is foolhardy to assume that the government could continue to meet all of its obligations, including the payment of Social Security benefits, under such a mountain of debt. Proponents of privatization are like financial advisors who tell you that at the rate you’re going, you won’t be able to afford retirement, but that you shouldn’t do anything simple like trying to save more. Instead, you should take out a huge loan, put the money in a mutual fund run by their friends (with management fees to be determined later), and place your faith in capital gains.
    Once you cut through all the catch phrases about an “ownership society,” that is how the proposed privatization plan works. Payroll taxes would be diverted into private accounts, forcing the government to borrow to replace the lost revenue. The government would make up for this borrowing by reducing future benefits; yet workers would supposedly end up better off, in spite of reduced benefits, through the returns on their accounts.
    “We are concerned,” wrote the U.S. Catholic Bishops in their 2003 statement, Faithful Citizenship, “about the income security of low and average-wage workers and their families when they retire, become disabled or die. In many cases, women are particularly disadvantaged. Any proposal to change Social Security must provide a decent and reliable income for these workers and their dependents.” Social Security’s benefits are essential to keeping tens of millions of older Americans out of poverty. The aim of the program is not to increase people’s private investment income. Wall Street money managers and anti-worker politicians are selling individual accounts as a free lunch, but these accounts come at a high price—increased retirement age, large cuts in guaranteed benefits, reduced inflation protection and huge new federal deficits.
    Social Security is a government program that works. It is a demonstration that a modest amount of taxing and spending can make people’s lives better and more secure. With modest changes now, we can keep it working, thereby ensuring its protections are there for today’s workers, our children and our grandchildren.
Rev. Thomas M. Gannon, S.J.
Director, Heartland Center

New Leadership at the East Chicago
Waterway Management District Board

    The election of George Pabey as Mayor of East Chicago has resulted in some changes in the local governance of the CDF project. New members of the Waterway Management Board have been inducted. These are members who take the project seriously and do not hesitate to raise questions concerning potential health risks. The Army Corps of Engineers will now have to report to a board that is outwardly more concerned and committed to making the CDF a safe project, if possible. One of the boards first moves was to start an environmental committee.
    Another major development has been the completion of the Review and Analysis of Risk for the Proposed Confined Disposal Facility conducted by Short Elliott Hendrickson, Inc.(SEH). Last year, it was pointed out that the Waterway Management Board had failed to show “due diligence” in following proper procedure by having an independent review of the project before proceeding with it. The Board agreed to put out a request bid and the city agreed to pay for the study. SEH got the contract. The report makes a number of recommendations.
    Their first recommendation is to update the Inhalation Risk Assessment with more current and complete toxicity information. The report states that the site and the level of its current contamination does not appear to be fully understood. It also points out that inhalation is the only path of exposure evaluated. Dermal or ingestion exposures were not considered. Also, some of the data used to understand the impact of the CDF, compared to what is already in the air, was not referenced properly. They also state that the guidelines used by the Army Corps in analyzing data from the air monitors around the site and at EC Central were not as rigorous as recommended by the EPA.
    It was also recommended that a literature review should be conducted and that health effects information for chemicals lacking toxicity values be presented. Sampling data for sediment from the proposed dredging showed 23 compounds present, but the Inhalation Risk Assessment only gave maximum, minimum, and average concentrations for 19. No explanation for the other 4 was given. The soil information at the CDF site was also incomplete. Maximum, minimum, and average concentrations were given for only 7 compounds. The free-phase oil on the surface of the site could not be estimated and was omitted from the study although SEH says that could be significant.
    Their final recommendation was to conduct an updated dispersion model following USEPA guidelines and methods to predict future CDF emissions. The actual emissions from the ECI site cannot be accurately predicted because of lack of data. There are other inconsistencies, including the use of 38 mg/kg as the average concentration of PCB’s in the TSCA (Toxic Substance Control Act) cell, since only concentrations of 50 mg/kg are TSCA material. The methods and assumptions associated with the background reports and the conservative calculation of CDF emissions are associated with much uncertainty. Accurate conclusions cannot be reached from this comparison.
    We await a presentation by SEH to the board at one of their monthly meetings. This presentation has been delayed numerous times. The Calumet Project urges all parties involved to schedule this presentation, so that everyone can have a better understanding of the potential risks connected to this project.
    The Supplemental Risk Assessment promised by the EPA as an additional analysis has not been completed. At the time of this writing, it is unclear whether or not the analysis is even being done. This is nothing more than a slap in the face to all East Chicago residents. The EPA promised years ago to do a supplemental risk analysis and they have yet to come through on their promise. The Calumet Project plans to press the EPA offices to move forward on their promise.

View the SEH report at www.calproject.org

 

YOUTH LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE

    The Youth Leadership Conference was held in November 2004. Forty high school and college aged youth attended the conference and participated in workshops on racism, environmental justice, the CDF, the War in Iraq, and Election 2004, to name a few. The participants represented a wide section of Northwest Indiana, including Gary, Merrillville, Hobart, and Schererville. A number of local organizations and volunteers assisted with the conference, including the Purdue Calumet Social Justice Club, the Gary chapter of the NAACP, Service Employees International Union Local 73, the Gary Newspaper Guild,and the Coalition for a Clean Environment. Students were happy with the workshops, keynote speakers, and closing session, and were inspired to organize in their community. A permanent Youth Leadership Council is being planned out of this event.
    The Purdue Calumet Social Justice Club was a new partner that played a large role in the Youth Leadership Conference. They contributed financially, secured the rooms for the conference, and volunteered their time during the event.
    Also, many thanks to the volunteers who served on the planning committee. Their diligence guaranteed the conference would be a great success.

A Challenge to the Membership

    A challenge is issue to the Calumet Project’s individual members. Each individual member is ask to enroll at least one new member this year by our annual awards banquet. This membership drive will make the Calumet Project a much stronger organization.
    Individual dues are $15.00 per year. Eighty-three cents of every dollar collected goes directly to making our programs a success. We keep our costs low to maintain the high quality of our programs, our organizing, and our outreach efforts.
    If you are not already an individual member, but would like to join the Calumet Project, please mail a check or money for $15.00 made payable to the Calumet Project, 7128 Arizona Avenue, Hammond, IN 46323, for a one year membership.

 

UPCOMING EVENT!

CLOWT Conference
May 14, 2005, 9:00 A.M.-1:30 P.M.
Raintree Hall, Indiana University Northwest