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100 Days Fighting the Low-Waging of America
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Sample Message to Dr Pepper Snapple
It’s best to write your own personal message, but here’s a sample to give you some ideas:

Dear Dr Pepper Snapple,

With record-breaking profits, your company has no justification to cut the pay and benefits of the more than 300 Mott’s workers in Williamson, N.Y. In saying you want to bring their wages down to “local industry standards,” you are trying to take advantage of the recession and high unemployment rates to lift your profits even higher.

Your workers deserve better. And so do workers at other profitable companies that might try to follow your shameful example.

Mott’s is a 142-year-old company with a product that’s as American as you can get—a company we all thought we knew and could trust. I hope you realize you are jeopardizing a well-known, well-established and respected brand. That’s a lot to throw away.

I urge you to back off your attack on the Mott’s workers’ wages and benefits and do the right thing.

For 100 days, more than 300 Mott’s workers in Williamson, N.Y., have been on strike, fighting the low-waging of America. The Dr Pepper Snapple Group, the corporate conglomerate that owns Mott’s (of apple juice and apple sauce fame) has been trying to cut their pay and benefits—even though the company reported a net income of $555 million in 2009.

Tell Dr Pepper Snapple to back off its corporate greed and treat the Mott’s workers fairly.

Dr Pepper Snapple is taking advantage of the recession and high unemployment rates in the area to beat down the workers, members of RWDSU/UFCW Local 220. A spokesman told The New York Times recently the company’s just trying to take wages down to meet “local industry standards”—in other words, to make recession-era wages the norm.

Dr Pepper Snapple is demanding wage cuts that would amount to $3,000 a year per worker, ending pensions for new hires, cutting the company’s 401(k) retirement contributions and increasing employee health care costs.

This is a 142-year-old company with a product that’s as American as you can get—a company you thought you knew and could trust. It’s a company that symbolizes everything we’re fighting for—and everything we’re fighting against: the low-waging of America.

This strike isn’t just about Williamson, N.Y. As The Times put it, “if the Mott’s workers lose this showdown, it could prompt other profitable companies to push for major labor concessions.”

If America’s economy is going to recover, we need paychecks that can fuel consumption. And if profitable companies are allowed to use the recession to drive America’s middle class out of existence, it’s unconscionable.

Don’t be silent about the low-waging of America. Support the Mott’s workers who have been walking the picket line for 100 days. Act now.

Tell Dr Pepper Snapple to back off its corporate greed and treat the Mott’s workers fairly.

Thank you for taking action for the Mott’s workers and all working families. Please forward this e-mail to at least five friends and urge them to take action, too.

In solidarity,

AFL-CIO Working Families e-Activist Network

P.S. The RWDSU Mott’s Hardship Fund has been established to help aid Mott’s workers affected by the strike. Donations to this fund will be used to help offset hardships being faced by Local 220 members as a result of their strike against the corporate greed of Mott’s/Dr. Pepper Snapple. Please consider making a contribution to the strike fund by clicking here.
~ my 2cents ..., ~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

mash-up Monday &some News


While the airwaves were able to force us into seeing what beck was doing at the National Mall and seemingly held back the coverage when Rev. Sharpton or Ben Jealous or Rev. Jackson were at the podium and though we did see President Obama speak eloquently by the way; the coverage on beck was more than it deserved.   It was sad and eye opening to know that channel 24 would cover the entire beck rally then I realized it might have been CSPAN and quite honestly made me think it might be time to reassess my support for CSPAN having watched people from the Heritage foundation spew nasty rhetoric about what President Obama and his administration has done over the last 20months. I was quite offended by what I felt was a whole lot of miss-information coming from a group of people knowing no one was there to rebut this stuff they were selling and in a book too. It was disturbing.

A Cnn article offered up a video of what you missed -the glenn beck rally … I am quite sure our family missed absolutely nothing as we spent the day watching the Sharpton, Jealous plus gatherings on when available  and remembering Katrina while getting informed about the progress and definite misses by the Bush admin …sadden that so much more needs to be done for neighborhoods of families in certain parks of the Gulf Coast mostly folks of colour and wonder if the rumors of deliberate avoidance is true?

Sarah Palin and her code talk made me laugh -The whole thing was a joke.
The beckthorn was not anything my family related to… and one day of so-called sane behavior does not make up for a history of racist vitriol … the only thing that i did want to mention is Alveda is not MLK jr. and her association as a niece does not give any…any substance to the beckathon rally …she used the day to rile against a woman’s right to choose and homosexuality -she clearly does not represent her Uncle or the intent of the “I have a dream” speech. I would go as far to say she doesn’t understand what the speech was about.

Other News …

“I can’t spend all of my time with my birth certificate plastered on my forehead,” President Obama told NBC’s Brian Williams last night when asked about the growth of the fringe “birther” movement. “There is a mechanism, a network of misinformation that in a new media era can get churned out there constantly,” Obama explained.

“I’m making decisions that are not necessarily good for the nightly news and not good for the next election, but for the next generations,” Obama told NBC last night.

Government anti-poverty programs now “serve a record one in six Americans and are continuing to expand.” Upwards of 50 million Americans on Medicaid and more than 40 million Americans are now receiving food stamps.

The “consensus among economists” is that the Recovery Act “worked in staving off a rerun of the 1930s,” but other emergency measures implemented by the Obama and Bush administrations played a larger role. The stimulus “was important for confidence,” said Harvard’s Kenneth Rogoff, former chief economist of the IMF, adding, “But fiscal stimulus was the least important of the three planks of the government’s strategy.”

**VPresident visits Iraq to mark formal end to Combat

**Primaries in WVA  -Democrat  Joe Manchin in WVA -Democrat Charlie Melancon in LA


CSPAN …

Weekly Addresses Weekly Addresses

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Extreme Weather: Face the facts


The facts are devastatingly clear.

Around the globe, we are on track to see the hottest year yet in 2010. From the flooding in Pakistan to droughts in Russia and landslides in China, the effects of this year’s extreme weather are catastrophic and undeniable.

The recent pattern of extreme weather events is consistent with what scientists have projected to result from climate change: temperature shifts, severe rainfall and snow in some parts of the world, and major droughts in others.

Check out Repower America’s fact sheet on extreme weather and share it with your friends.

Get the Facts: Extreme Weather and Climate Change

Despite the overwhelming facts, skeptics — like the now infamous Koch brothers1, Massey coal2 and Lord Monckton3 — will no doubt continue to spend big bucks to keep spreading misinformation about global warming.

But if we want to fight the skeptics, we’ll need a growing number of people to get informed. As the evidence mounts, leaders like Russian President Dmitry Medvedev are finally speaking out about climate change. President Medvedev spoke out at a United Nations Security Council meeting and said,

“What is happening now in our central regions is evidence of this global climate change, because we have never in our history faced such weather conditions in the past. This means that we need to change the way we work, change the methods that we used in the past.”4

In Pakistan, nearly 1,600 people have died this summer from the worst monsoon-related floods in living memory. And around the world, 2000-2009 was the warmest decade on record5, and 2010 is on track to be the warmest year the world has seen in 131 years.

Extreme weather events are putting lives in danger all around the world. Make sure you get the facts and spread the word.

Learn more about the link between extreme weather and climate change today.

Thanks for getting involved,

Dave Boundy
Campaign Manager
Repower America

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Fight the Right — Send a message to the tabloids!


Barney Frank for Congress 2010

For the second time in a week, the ultra-conservative Boston Herald ran a giant, front-page headline attempting to tie me to recent ethics investigations in Washington.  (Not surprisingly, the actual story, deep inside the paper and in much smaller type, asserted no impropriety.)

I take attacks from the far-right as a badge of honor.  The meaner the attacks and the larger the headlines, the more evidence that they know — and fear — that I am effective, and that I have earned the support you have given me.

But now the attacks are accelerating and it is time to fight back.

Three weeks ago, President Obama signed into law the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the most sweeping financial reform since the Great Depression.  I am proud to have played a leading role in passing that legislation despite the opposition of some of the most powerful financial institutions in the country, a legion of well-paid lobbyists, and almost every Republican in Congress.

The Right is determined that I pay a price.

As November approaches, I predict we will see even more malicious headlines.  Then, the next wave of attack will arrive — nasty television ads fueled by big money from right-wing organizations.  And now, because of the recent Supreme Court decision defining corporate spending on elections as free speech, the threat is far greater.

Let us not underestimate the power of lies.  Inherent implausibility is not self-refuting.  We must fight back — now.

I will need substantial resources to fight effectively and we cannot afford to wait until the fall.  So I am asking you to help me raise over $100,000 by Monday, August 23rd.  Your strongest support will make that possible.

The tabloids and other right-wing institutions are counting on us to cower in fear.  Let’s stand up to the GOP attack machine — fighting every false, malicious attack by raising our voices and pooling our resources.  Their assaults will only make us stronger.

Let’s send them a message today.

Thank you for your help,

Barney Frank

P.S.  You can multiply your efforts by forwarding this email to others who share our values and determination.  The larger our numbers, the more powerful we become. Contribute