The Labor Education Service and the Carlson School of Management : The Neoliberal Agenda

I received this e-mail from someone called "twisted nelly" in response to my blog (see link below)

http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/crisis-of-disinvestment-organizing-to.html

-----Original Message-----
From: twistednelly@aim.com [mailto:twistednelly@aim.com]
Sent: Monday, May 12, 2008 12:10 PM
To: amaki000@centurytel.net
Subject: You really don't get it do you?

The Crisis of Disinvestment conference is about public infrastructure not the bailout of a private entity. Maybe if the UAW was more powerful than they were they could save themselves. Maybe if they had followed the work 30 years ago, we would still have a strong home based manufacturing industry. Maybe if they had organized the foreign companies there would not have been the incentive to bring them here. Maybe, Maybe, Maybe. Maybe it is easier to sit up in northern Minnesota and watch from afar spewing out rhetoric than it is to work in the real world.

Note: This is my response to "twisted nelly" (above) who responded the blog on the “Conference on Dis-investment” being sponsored and initiated by the Labor Education Service of the University of Minnesota Carlton School

First, who are you? I assume by what you write, the name “twisted nelly” is an appropriate description of you… but, come on, is this really your name?

Second, it is you who “does not get it.”

In fact, the tax-payers of Minnesota have a tremendous investment in the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant… more so than in many infrastructure projects.

The UAW-Ford-MnScu Training Center certainly qualifies as “infrastructure.” I am glad you take such a cavalier attitude of having to continue paying some thirty-million dollars plus interest for a brand new training center which will be relegated to a pile of debris.

Furthermore, the hydro dam powering the Ford Plant since the day it opened providing free electricity for Ford’s manufacturing operation is “public infrastructure” by any definition of the word no matter what dictionary you use.

I resent receiving an e-mail like this which is unsigned. You certainly are not only a “twisted nelly,” you are also very ignorant.

I work in the very real world… a world presently dominated by a capitalist system which is rotten to the core just like its “infrastructure.”

I will tell you what is really “twisted;” spending trillions of dollars bombing bridges in Iraq as the I-35W Bridge collapses and a bunch of worthless politicians don’t even want to compensate the victims even though it is quite apparent everyone in government knew it was a tragedy waiting to happen and then proceeded to cover up the problem. The same politicians, by the way, who have refused to pass S.F. 607 which would save the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant… and two-thousand UNION jobs along with the hydro dam.

If you would have read what I sent out, I am suggesting the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant become a “public entity” and taken out of the hands of private capital so we can save it… all else has failed according to the Governor and both Mayors of the Twin Cities and the State Legislators.

Is there something that makes a Plant so special that it cannot become a “public entity” just like a bridge or school or library or the Green Bay Packers or the Bank of North Dakota or operated on the basis of a cooperative like any of the many cooperatives in the Twin Cities? Tax-payers already own the UAW-Ford-MnScu Training Center connected to the Plant… why didn’t this “private entity,” the Ford Motor Company, pay for its own Training Center rather than come crying to tax-payers to fund it?

Tax-payers have been footing the bill to construct and maintain the hydro dam to power this “private entity” for free for over eighty years. You take a look at the hydro dam and how it is situated as part of the locks and tell me this hydro dam is not public infrastructure.

Tax-payers have even paid a substantial share of the wages of Ford employees at this Plant, and tax-payers have paid higher taxes because the politicians let the Ford Motor Company pay less than their fair share of taxes.

None of what I have “spewed out” is “rhetoric,” it is all facts… if you don’t believe me go ask the Governor or Mayor Coleman or R.T. or any state legislator. While you are at it, ask them to see the complete figures for what tax-payers have sunk into this “private entity,” the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant.

It is the Ford Motor Company and the Wall Street coupon clippers and the Summit Hill Club of real estate speculators along with the St. Paul Chamber of Commerce spewing out dirty lies in order to try to hoodwink everyone into having the tax-payers now pay for the demolition of this very usable Plant and then they will expect tax-payers to pay for the “infrastructure” required for the new “green” yuppie community of high rent segregated housing and cute little boutiques they want to create on the ruins of the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant.

Mayor Coleman wants to create this quaint little “green” yuppie community on the Ford Site and he can’t even afford to take care of the parks in the City as it is; not to mention fill the potholes in the roads.

Did you ever consider how much tax-payers have subsidized “infrastructure” as far as the roads, bridges, highways and rail lines the Ford Motor Company has been using as part of their “private entity” manufacturing operation for the last eighty years? Consider the barge operation and the locks the Ford Motor Company has used, too. Consider the mining operation for manufacturing glass. Ford has used and abused the natural resources--- including the waters of the Mighty Mississippi together with an entire network of public “infrastructure” for over eighty years.

Or, did you ever consider that the Ford Motor Company helped to destroy public transportation system in this country, including in the Twin Cities? These street cars were “public infrastructure,” eh?

I find it amazing that the university community would see “disinvestment” in such a narrow way. I find it even more amazing that the university community has sat on its hands as the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant is relegated to a pile of rubble.

I do think it is just as relevant to talk about the future of the UAW-Ford-MnScu Training Center as it is to talk about the future of public education in New Orleans… in fact, I, unlike you, see a direct relationship between what happened in New Orleans and what is going on with the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant.

Hey, here is an idea… why not just do away with all “public infrastructure” and privatize everything from our roads to our schools and universities to our libraries and public parks and let the Wall Street coupon clippers manage it all by charging us “user fees”… then you wouldn’t have to have a conference on “disinvestment” at a tax-payer supported university.

By the way… the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant could play a major role in developing the kind of equipment needed to create the kind of “infrastructure” required for “greening” our world.

Wait until you don’t have two-thousand Ford workers paying taxes to fund your “infrastructure” projects… then you will see another aspect of how important this Plant is to life here in Minnesota.

As far as my living up here in northern Minnesota and commenting on what goes on down there in the Cities… have you ever asked your legislators where the contractors doing all this work on “our public infrastructure” are coming from and where they carry the profits off to? In your twisted way of thinking it is okay for these contractors to come into our state looking to profit off rebuilding a bridge that was allowed to collapse and wasn’t built right to start with, but I am supposed to keep my mouth shut… perhaps you should offer the same advice to the Ford Motor Company running things from Detroit and suggest the future of the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant should be left to the decision making of the Ford workers and the people residing in the local community.

Maybe you should also offer the same advice to 90% of the State Legislators.

Hey, why take kids from up here in northern Minnesota to fight your dirty wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?

As far as what I do for a living which you seem to be so concerned about--- I travel around talking to people about how unjust it is that thirty-thousand Minnesotans go to work in loud, noisy, smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages without any rights under state or federal labor laws as public “infrastructure” is maintained by tax-payers to get the suckers into these casinos.

Hey, why don’t you keep your mouth shut when I say we need to renegotiate the “Compacts” which created all these casinos to include protecting the rights of workers? Better yet, why don’t you open your mouth and speak out against these injustices?

Alan L. Maki

Then as a result of my letter to "twisted nelly," I received this e-mail:

-----Original Message-----
From: Connie Wanberg [mailto:wanbe001@umn.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2008 8:01 AM
To: Alan Maki
Subject: Re: You really don't get it do you?


Hi Alan, please take me off your email list. Thanks, Connie Wanberg








I responded:

-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Maki [mailto:amaki000@centurytel.net]
Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2008 9:31 AM
To: 'Connie Wanberg'
Cc: 'Robert Killeen'; 'rgettel@uaw.net'; 'gdubovich@usw.org'
Subject: RE: You really don't get it do you? A response to Professor

Dear Professor Connie Wanberg, Chair and Departmental Director of the Labor Education Service of the University Of Minnesota;

I am complying with your request to be taken off my list in voicing my concerns about your upcoming “Conference on Dis-investment.”

However, I find it very strange that I would receive notice of this Conference inviting my attendance and participation, and then when I voice my concerns that the university community in the Twin Cities has failed to become involved in the struggle to save the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant, two-thousand jobs AND a very important component of the Twin Cities and our State’s infrastructure, the hydro dam which tax-payers financed, built and provided for Henry Ford to power--- for free--- this very profitable manufacturing operation for so many years including profiting from this operation from war production during World War II even while he threw his political support behind the fascist Adolf Hitler and Italy’s Mussolini and Spain’s fascist Franco as my father, my aunts and uncles and most of humanity was engaged in the struggle to defeat these fascists, the Ford Motor Company raked in fabulous profits off the war including from the manufacture of armaments at the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant.

Even now, the Ford Motor Company sells its Rangers to the Blackwater Agency and the other “contractors” in Iraq who are trying to put down the Iraqi resistance to having their oil stolen from them.

Now the Labor Education Service organizes a conference on “Dis-investment” and you invite the participation of all working people to pay an unusually high fee to attend your conference which uses the problems workers at the other end of the Mighty Mississippi River are experiencing to intentionally take the focus away from the issues surrounding the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant, two-thousand jobs and two very important components of Minnesota’s infrastructure: the hydro dam and the UAW-Ford-MnScu Training Center. When, what you should be doing is explaining how the problems in New Orleans and what is taking place with the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant, the loss of two-thousand jobs, the hydro dam and the Training Center are all related problems.

As is very apparent from the e-mail I received below, there is tremendous ignorance concerning how what is going on in New Orleans and here in Minnesota is related… in fact, this e-mail clearly demonstrates the complete failure of educational institutions including the Labor Education Service when it comes to issues like this.

In fact, for many decades the Labor Education Service of the University of Minnesota has been intentionally mis-educating working people when it comes to providing the real history of the labor movement, the facts about this rotten capitalist system being the source of the problems working people are experiencing, and the need for a socialist solution as articulated by our State's late great socialist governors, Floyd Olson and Elmer Benson.

If in fact the Labor Education Service of the University of Minnesota was doing a legitimate job of education working people, rank-and-file activists, elected labor leaders and union staff, organized labor would have come out swinging in response to Ford’s intent to close, then demolish, the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant.

Obviously, the members of UAW Local 879 and their Local leadership did not even know how to effectively lobby for passage of S.F. 607. Why not? Because your Labor Education Service of the University of Minnesota which is part of the Carlson School of Management has not taught these strategies, tactics and techniques that workers need to fight back in this very mean, dirty and nasty period of “neoliberalism;” or, more appropriately, in the era of US imperialist domination of the world which has the military-financial-industrial complex of U.S. state monopoly capitalism trying to run the entire world in quest of squeezing greater profits from working people.

Professor Wanberg, your Labor Education Service is not teaching working people what they need to know to participate in the class struggle… in fact, your Labor Education Service still sees labor as “the middle class,” because talking about the “working class” implies that there is something inherently wrong with a social and economic system which has a working class creating all the wealth while the capitalist class is stealing all the wealth the working class creates through a very simple to explain system of exploitation of labor; a very simple concept that the Labor Education Service of the University of Minnesota intentionally chooses not to explain to working people.

Professor Wanberg, I always thought the objective of education was to teach the truth.

By failing to link the situation surrounding the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant, the lives of two-thousand workers and the future of infrastructure like the hydro dam and the UAW-Ford-MnScu Training Center to the problems in New Orleans and collapsing bridges and the attempts being made to privatize public education you are doing a great “dis-service” to the discussion needed on “dis-investment” and the “neoliberal agenda.”

Quite frankly, I think it is by intent that the Labor Education Service has refused to acknowledge the problems surrounding the declared closing of the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant because the Labor Education Service of the University of Minnesota is afraid to acknowledge what Floyd Olson, Elmer Benson, John Bernard and the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party and its coalition partner the Communist Party USA pointed out long ago: capitalism has failed.

The Labor Education Service fears acknowledging that it is only through public ownership that the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant, the hydro dam, the UAW-Ford-MnScu Training center AND the livelihoods of two-thousand workers will be saved.

Professor Wanberg, your pay-check comes from a public institution… why shouldn’t the workers at the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant draw their pay-checks from a publicly owned enterprise, too?

In closing, I will just note that thirty-thousand Minnesotans are going to their jobs in loud, noisy, smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages without any rights under state or federal labor laws because the staff and faculty of the Labor Education Service of the University of Minnesota refused to warn State Legislators that they were approving “Compacts” that specifically were drafted to place Minnesota workers into a Draconian situation at the hands of very mean, ruthless and violent managements. The Labor Program Service refused to educate the labor movement here in Minnesota that creating a network of “right-to-work-for-less without-any-rights” colonies strung out across this state would be used as a club over the heads of all workers and wielded as viciously as any policeman’s billy-club by the capitalist class.

As you know, many miners, forestry workers, and auto workers are now employed in the Indian Gaming Industry under these atrocious conditions… if you don’t believe me perhaps you would like me to take your staff and faculty on a tour of each of the casinos operating in Minnesota.

I find it ironic the infrastructure in our state--- the roads and bridges of our state, when they are not collapsing, buckling and filling with potholes--- can carry workers to poverty wage jobs employed under the most disgraceful Draconian conditions in casinos, but will not be carrying workers to good paying union jobs at the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant largely because you and your Labor Program Service arrogantly try to saddle working people with the outmoded way of thinking that ownership of the manufacturing industry is some how the exclusive right of the corrupt, completely incompetent and parasitic class of Wall Street coupon clippers, real estate vultures and the St. Paul Chamber of Commerce representing them all through their control of both the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party and the Republican Party.

Please don’t think I am just picking on the Labor Education Service… I attended several functions at McAllister College including the national conference of the Labor Educators and a play by Howard Zinn brilliantly performed by the actor about the life of Karl Marx in which he presented, in general terms, every issue under the sun confronting working people but refused to address the issue of the closing of the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant. This may not be a “conspiracy” among academia to ignore the plight of two-thousand workers at the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant, but academia certainly seems to understand the “limits” imposed by that “class in control.”

By the way, I am still wondering who this cowardly “twisted nelly” is… you wouldn’t happen to know, would you?

Alan L. Maki
Director of Organizing,
Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

I would be remiss not to point out that the Labor Education Service of the University of Minnesota is part of its Carlson School of Management.

This is a very important point because the purpose of the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management is to teach neoliberalism.

Needless to say, the Carlson School of Management's Labor Education Service has as its primary purpose to indoctrinate labor officials and union activists with capitalist ideas not in the working class' interest.

In effect, the role of the Labor Education Service is to "lead the cattle to slaughter," so-to-speak. To make workers putty in the hands of the bosses; to convince workers that it is best if they let their bosses do all the major thinking for them.

Working people need to create their own "think-tanks" and "action centers" based on their own class' interest--- the working class. Working people need to have a full voice in all decision-making, from deciding when, and if, a plant will close to what is produced and how production is carried on. Working class communities need a full voice in the decision-making process, too... this is what democracy is supposed to be all about.

What the heck is "neoliberalism" anyways? The topic of a future blog.

A twisted pretzel to "twisted nelly" and Professor Wanberg for their illuminating responses.

Three important working class concepts:

Education

Organization

United Working Class Action

Three important books to go with these concepts:

"Super Profits and Crisis" by Victor Perlo... Education

"Working Class USA; the power and the movement" by Gus Hall...Organization

"Always Bring A Crowd; the story of Frank Lumpkin, steelworker" by Beatrice Lumpkin... United Working Class Action






A legacy of progressive struggle... yesterday and today---

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day... well, Mother's Day may not be such a happy occasion for 300,000 working class mothers in the United States---

This Mother’s Day finds many working class mothers--- well over 300,000--- working in loud, noisy, smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages and without any rights under state or federal labor laws in over four-hundred casinos spread out across the United States--- part of the Indian Gaming Industry, which is a front for mobsters and organized crime.

I would remind you that right now before the Michigan Legislature--- having been shamefully approved by Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm and the Michigan House--- with a Democratic majority; and presently awaiting action by the Michigan Senate, is the “Gun Lake Casino Compact.”

For the first time, a “Compact” is now under such close scrutiny politicians are embarrassed to give their final consent to a “Compact.”

I would urge you to write to President Ron Gettelfinger of the United Auto Workers union asking that the UAW flex its considerable political muscle in the State of Michigan and insist the Michigan Senate turn down this “Gun Lake Casino Compact” until the full rights of working people under all state and federal labor laws are written into this “Compact.”

President Ron Gettelfinger can be contacted by e-mail at: rgettel@uaw.net

The UAW’s lead lobbyist in Michigan is Nadine Nosal. Nadine can be contacted at: nnosal@uaw.net

The Gun Lake Casino will be managed by the notorious Station Casinos and the Fertitta family so well known as the “sleaze of sleaze.”

Would you want your Mother working in a smoke-filled casino without any rights for a scum-bag like Frank Fertitta and his “family?”

I would note that of all the legislators in Michigan, one lone Republican woman, has had the moral and political courage to challenge this disgraceful and shameful “Gun Lake Casino Compact” which will send another 1,800 workers into one more smoke-filled casino without any rights… no rights at all, none, zilch. This in spite of everything we know about the very harmful effects of second-hand smoke…

Here in Minnesota, State Legislators passed “Freedom to Breath” legislation banning smoking in all places of employment… except the state’s casinos which employ over thirty-thousand Minnesotans. Minnesota legislators claim they had no jurisdiction to enforce this ban at the Indian Casinos. Well, here is an opportunity for anyone who believes in working people having the right to be employed in a healthy working environment fully protected by the rights extended to all other workers to take a stand. I would expect the Democrats in Minnesota who used for their excuse, after they previously approved almost twenty such Draconian “Compacts,” that they will now call upon their colleagues in Michigan to finally set an example which will lead to the re-negotiation of all “Compacts” in the United States setting forth smoke-free working environments and casino workers having the same rights as all other workers under state and federal labor laws.

Perhaps Minnesota State Representative Alice Hausman would like to lead the effort… she knows first hand what suffering cancer causes; and she is a big booster of the American Cancer Society and the Heart and Lung Foundation putting up all these bill-boards warning of the dangers of second-hand smoke.

Again, I ask: Would you want your Mother working under these shameful conditions under the management of Frank Fertitta and Station Casinos? If not, please contact UAW President Ron Gettelfinger and Nadine Nosal and tell the UAW to use its influence, and flex its political muscle, for a change.

Alan L. Maki
Director of Organizing,
Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

58891 County Road 13
Warroad, Minnesota 56763
Phone: 218-386-2432
Cell phone: 651-587-5541
E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net

Check out my blog:

Thoughts From Podunk

http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/

Crisis of Disinvestment: Organizing to Rebuild Our Communities

Crisis of Disinvestment: Organizing to Rebuild Our Communities

What: Crisis of Disinvestment: Organizing to Rebuild Our Communities

Where: St. Paul, Minnesota

When: May 30 & 31, 2008

More info see Conference Web Site: http://reinvestnow.org/

Note: Click on any picture to see labels and greater detail.

St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant... its future hangs in the balance---



Will the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant be turned into a pile of rubble?



This is an interesting conference taking place in the Twin Cities at the University of Minnesota.

The cost of the conference is a little pricey if the organizers are sincere about really doing anything... obviously, those who are now working in smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages without any rights under state or federal labor laws... many of the members of the sponsoring unions have come to work in the casino industry after their mines, mills and plants closed will find the price of the conference an obstacle.

No doubt the intent of the conference organizers will be to "rally the troops" to support DFL candidates on Election Day.

In spite of the limitations imposed on such a conference by those organizing it who have never welcomed rank-and-file participation... there is the possibility of turning this conference into something that could become a strong voice in defense of saving the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant. Of course it would help if one of the Johnny-come-lately sponsors, UAW Local 879, were to bring the issue of the need to save the Plant and the jobs of its two-thousand members forward before this conference in a vigorous way.

Chances are, that if this conference is anything like most such conferences these unions and the Labor Education Service sponsor, most of the unions' rank-and-file members will never even know the conference is taking place. We can all help to change this by getting the word out.

Workers at the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant tell me they haven't even been told about the conference. There are no leaflets or posters up around the Plant, nor in the UAW-Ford-MnScu Training Center.

The following unions have endorsed this conference, "Crisis of Disinvestment: Organizing to Rebuild Our Communities:"

Sponsors

MN Association of Professional Employees

IBT Joint Council 32

AFSCME MN

Steelworkers District 11

UAW Local 879

Saint Paul Federation of Teachers Local 28


Planning Committee

Labor Education Service

Minnesota AFL-CIO

SEIU Local 113

IOE Local 49

AFTRA

MN School Employees Association

MN Nurses Association

HERE Local 21

Minneapolis Building Trades

Saint Paul Building Trades

Saint Paul Trades and Labor

Southeast Area Labor Council

IBEW Local 110

Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees

Education Minnesota

Carpenters

Growth and Justice

UFCW Local 789

Perhaps what is most interesting is the pending closing of the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant is not even mentioned.

Why not?

How can such a conference take place in St. Paul, Minnesota at the state's most prestigious university, the University of Minnesota; initiated under the auspices of the University of Minnesota's outreach program to labor, the Labor Education Service--- and there is not a mention of the pending closing of the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant... not even brought forward by United Auto Workers Local 879.

Here is what the conference organizers have placed on their web site:

This one-and-a-half day conference at the University of Minnesota St. Paul campus will bring together union members, staff and officers with allies and friends to expose decades of deliberate disinvestment in our state and our country and to begin building toward reinvestment and renewal. We'll take an in-depth look at how we've gotten where we are - rising unemployment and health care costs, struggling schools and communities, broken levees and falling bridges - and expose the economic models, cultural values and messages that brought us here.


This conference is designed for rank-and-file union members, as well as experienced union leaders and activists, and our friends in the community. Participants will learn how to tell the disinvestment story and ways to share what they've learned with their fellow union members, families and neighbors. Offering a range of workshops, speakers and activities, the conference will foster a sense of hope about our ability to organize and develop tools for rebuilding our state and communities.


"Crisis of Disinvestment: Organizing to Rebuild Our Communities" is sponsored by the Labor Education Service with support from the labor movement and allied organizations.


Check out the site: http://reinvestnow.org/

I would think this conference would be the perfect venue from which to bring forward a clear statement from organized labor in Minnesota to mobilize all out support for S.F. 607. The time has come to tell State Senator Jim Metzen to get on the ball and get S.F. 607 through his Senate Committee on Business, Industry and Jobs... note the word "jobs" is part of the Committee title.

Perhaps participants at this conference would like to discuss the following resolutions passed at MN DFL Precinct Caucuses:


Participants in the February 5, 2008 Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party Precinct Caucuses unanimously passed the following resolutions:


Resolution in Support of Senate File 607

Whereas Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party State Senator Richard Cohen has authored, together with his DFL Senate colleagues--- Senate File SF 607---legislation which would keep the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant and the hydro dam which powers the manufacturing operation for free, together as an industrial unit for at least two years after Ford ceases production until a plan can be devised for its continued operation;

Whereas DFL State Representative Tom Rukavina successfully steered companion legislation to SF 607 through a House Committee with bipartisan support;

Therefore, be it resolved, the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party supports the efforts of MN DFL State Senators James Metzen and David Tomassoni to have SF 607 reconsidered in the Senate Committee on Business, Industry and Jobs;

And, be it further resolved, the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party uses its majority status in both the Senate and the House to bring forward legislation as provided for in SF 607 aimed at saving two-thousand jobs by keeping the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant and the hydro dam together as a manufacturing unit until a solution is found to re-open the Plant.



Resolution 0n the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant/Hydro Dam and 2,000 Union Jobs

Whereas Ford Motor Company has stated its intent to close the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant, sell the hydro dam to a foreign corporation, and displace two-thousand workers in the near future without consultation from the workers, the community, or local and state governments;

Whereas this plant, its operations, and the hydro dam have received continued support from every level of government including tax-payer funding, tax-breaks and tax abatements under promises to maintain manufacturing operations and with assurances workers would have job security in St. Paul, Minnesota;

Therefore, be it resolved, the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party is for public ownership being used to save the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant, hydro dam, and two-thousand jobs.



Resolution on Bush’s Economic Stimulus Plan and Initiative

Whereas George Bush’s “economic stimulus plan and initiative” is based upon 150 billion dollars---tax-payer dollars--- being used to bail out a failing economy which includes subsidies to private industries;

Therefore be it resolved that the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party is for tax-payers owning the industries which tax-payer dollars subsidize in proportion to what they subsidize.

Another interesting resolution has come from the Communist Party in Michigan calling for jobs not war:

People in Michigan say, "We want jobs, not war!"

Friday, April 4, 2008
Resolution on Saving Manufacturing Jobs

Note: As I recently traveled through Wisconsin and Michigan many people wanted to know about our struggle to save the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant through public ownership.

This resolution aimed at Presidential candidates is excellent and should be circulated at campaign rallies and meetings everywhere. This resolution should be posted in every union hall all over the United States... please feel free to copy and post widely... you might want to copy and post this to your blog and ask friends to do the same.

For additional resolutions checkout:


http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/2008_02_15_archive.html


With the continued attacks on workers and the endless layoffs and closings of plants, people in Michigan have followed the example of Minnesotans trying to save the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant through public ownership and put together this resolution to use during this election season:


Thursday, April 3, 2008

Support Manufacturing Jobs!


Resolution on Saving Manufacturing Jobs


Whereas our manufacturing base is steadily being eroded and


Whereas this loss of jobs is harmful to our nation and the communities we live in and


Whereas those good paying jobs are frequently replaced with lower paying non-union ones that are driving down the standard of living for all working families and


Whereas the loss of our core manufacturing industry will mean the
loss of our technological edge and vital skills and reduced tax revenues for schools and public services and


Whereas every manufacturing job creates seven others and supports small business, directly and indirectly related to manufacturing and


Whereas the $170 billion we are annually spending on the war in Iraq takes away money that could be better used to rebuild our industrial base and retrain workers


Therefore in rebuilding our industrial base primary attention needs to be placed on locating these new facilities in communities with high unemployment and historic manufacturing centers, such as Detroit, Pontiac, Grand Rapids and Flint and


Therefore by rebuilding our industrial base and with it the construction of mass transit, environmentally friendly autos, affordable and energy efficient housing, and the modernization of our infrastructure, we will create jobs, provide cleaner air for all of us, lower individual family's energy bills, and allow greater energy independence for America


Therefore be it resolved that we call on the Presidential candidates to state their support for taking one-half of the money currently being spent in Iraq to be used instead to rebuild industry and provide jobs in the United States.


Taken From: Labor Up Front

There are two great books that contain a lot of good information about the capitalist crisis of "disinvestment." "Always Bring A Crowd; the story of Frank Lumpkin- steelworker" by Beatrice Lumpkin; and, "Working Class USA; The Power and the Movement" by Gus Hall.

Both of these books can be obtained from members of the Communist Party USA who are members of the sponsoring unions:

Dean Gunderson, Chair Of the St. Paul Club of the Communist Party USA is an active member and elected official of MN Association of Professional Employees

Mark Froemke, a District Organizer of the Communist Party USA from the AFL-CIO

Erwin Marquit who is a distinguished professor at the University of Minnesota and is active in the AFL-CIO retirees. Marquit is on the Economics Commission and International Affairs Commission of the Communist Party USA.



Lynn Hinkle a retired member of UAW Local 879 has pointed out that "labor creates all wealth." To let a bunch of real estate speculators demolish the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant would be a tremendous waste of this wealth... Hinkle repeatedly points out the need to go "green." Looking at the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant really brings home these points made by Lynn Hinkle... just consider the natural resources and the human labor required to obtain the natural resources and turn these resources into building materials from which additional labor was required to build the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant... only a fool would suggest we relegate this kind of tremendous wealth created by labor to become a pile of rubble when this perfectly good plant could be used by workers continuing to create even more wealth by creating socially useful products for society, be these some kind of "green" vehicles, wind generating equipment, equipment for mass transit, or equipment to bring drinking water and irrigation equipment to communities around the world suffering the consequences of drought.

Working people have had no say regarding the future of the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant... what good does it do to hold a conference on the "crisis of disinvestment" if one aspect of the conference is not geared toward empowering working people to force their way into the decision making process concerning the future of the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant?

Actually, the place where this conference should have been held is in the UAW-Ford-MnScu Training Center so all participants could get a good look at what is at stake---



Tax-payers will be left holding the bag for over thirty-million dollars of debt for building the UAW-Ford-MnScu Training Center once the Plant is turned to rubble.

Who will make the decision over the future of the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant... working people in a public forum; or the Wall Street coupon clippers behind the closed doors of the corporate board room?



Clean "green" manufacturing? It doesn't get much cleaner or "greener"



An industrial plant in the center of a huge residential community alongside a shopping district and a grocery store next door with huge city parks adjacent, complete with baseball fields for the youth.

All powered by clean "green" hydro...



With rail shipping facilities to bring supplies in and ship manufactured goods out...



With the price of gas and diesel fuel sky-rocketing, it only makes sense to maintain an existing plant with rail shipping facilities in good operating condition.

The U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Communist Manifesto

2008 marks the 60th Anniversary of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 160th Anniversary of the Communist Manifesto.



These documents have much in common.

The United Nations came up with the Declaration in response to world public opinion which demanded something in writing after fighting and losing so much--- before the defeat of fascism--- to Hitler, Mussolini, Franco and Tojo.

For many years working people struggled for the rights articulated in the Communist Manifesto, which are in fact in keeping with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Every May Day workers around the world demand their rights as articulated in the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Capitalism and its most barbaric stage--- imperialism--- gave rise to fascism... which, when looked at closely, was the response of the capitalist class to the struggles of working people for justice and basic human dignity.

Only through socialism will working people ever realize the goals and objectives as articulated in the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Conferences and forums should be held in every community, school and union hall discussing the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Communist Manifesto.

December 10, 2008 should see working people demanding full implementation of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Reading and studying the Communist Manifesto gives us an idea of what it will take to bring these words on a piece of paper to life.

Two important anniversaries inseparably linked.

Now that politicians are looking for votes, they have discovered there really is a working class in the United States.

The class struggle continues...

See the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights

See the Communist Manifesto