ref·u·geeMore than half the refugees UNHCR serves now live in urban areas
An A-Z of refugee achievers around the world.
| synonyms: | émigré, fugitive, exile, displaced person, asylum seeker;
“collecting blankets for the refugees”
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We’ll be taking a welcome day off next Monday, and we hope all of you can do the same. But celebrating Labor Day is about more than just a three-day weekend. It’s a chance to reflect on the importance of unions and remember that we need them now more than ever.
Unions have been at the center of some of America’s most important fights for fair labor standards. Unions helped end child labor: the very first American Federation of Labor (AFL) national convention passed a resolution calling on states to “ban children under 14 from all gainful employment.” Labor unions negotiated for and won employer-provided health insurance coverage, one of the first great expansions of health care to all Americans. And unions didn’t just give us this Labor Day long weekend – they fought for labor standards that gave us ALL weekends.
Unions are central in providing good jobs and middle-class security to America workers. As unions go, so goes the middle class. The chart below spells that out pretty clearly: as union membership has declined, the middle-class share of income has also dropped:
Nowadays, union membership is under attack from many who are either ignoring history and economic data, or only have the wealthiest Americans’ interests in mind. Anti-union policy groups and lawmakers in states across the country are attacking an already weakened labor movement by advancing so-called “right-to-work” laws, which inhibit workers from collectively bargaining for better wages, benefits and protections, under the guise of ‘choice.’ These laws allow some workers to get the advantages of a union contract—such as higher wages, benefits, and protection against arbitrary discipline—without paying any fee associated with negotiating on these matters. This doesn’t result in more freedom, it results in lower incomes.
Wisconsin became the latest state to adopt a “right-to-work” law and take its working families in the wrong direction. Estimates by Marquette University economist Abdur Chowdhury suggest that Wisconsin workers and families will lose between $3.89 and $4.82 billion in direct income annually due to effects of the law. Recently, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon (D) vetoed a bill passed by the Missouri legislature to enact a similar policy there.
The numbers are clear. The typical worker in a “right-to-work” state makes about $1,560 less per year than she would in a state without such a law. According to new research, women in union jobs earn $212 per week, or 30.9%, more than women in non-union jobs; men in union jobs earn $173 more per week than their non-union counterparts. Union women also face a smaller gender wage gap: They earn 88.7 cents for every dollar a man makes, compared to 78 cents across all workers.
BOTTOM LINE: If you care about a strong middle class in America, you should care about unions. The organizers that have been at the heart of many important labor reforms in the past have a vital role to play for America’s economy now and in the future, too. It’s on us to take every opportunity we can to remind people that unions work. So have a great long weekend, and make sure you remind your friends and loved ones: Enjoying your labor day weekend? Thank a union.
” O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath ~
America will be! “
From: Let America Be America Again
by Langston Hughes
![[banner]](https://i0.wp.com/americanhistory.si.edu/brown/images/history/banners/main.jpg)
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education marked a turning point in the history of race relations in the United States. On May 17, 1954, the Court stripped away constitutional sanctions for segregation by race, and made equal opportunity in education the law of the land.
Brown v. Board of Education reached the Supreme Court through the fearless efforts of lawyers, community activists, parents, and students. Their struggle to fulfill the American dream set in motion sweeping changes in American society, and redefined the nation’s ideals.
The end of the Civil War had promised racial equality, but by 1900 new laws and old customs created a segregated society that condemned Americans of color to second-class citizenship.
As African Americans and other minority groups began the struggle for civil rights, they strengthened their own schools and fought against segregated education.
Beginning in the 1930s, African American lawyers from Howard University law school and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People campaigned to dismantle constitutionally-sanctioned segregation.
In the early 1950s, African Americans from five different communities across the country bravely turned to the courts to demand better educational opportunities for their children.
In 1954, under the leadership of Chief Justice Earl Warren, the Supreme Court produced a unanimous decision to overturn Plessy vs. Ferguson and changed the course of American history.
Today, thanks in part to the victorious struggle in the Brown case, most Americans believe that a racially integrated, ethnically diverse society and educational system is a worthy goal, though they may disagree deeply about how to achieve it.
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Yes, this man was given a seat in Congress … the man and his Republican crew in Congress seem more dangerous to our very democracy now …
U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton, you may remember, was a co-sponsor of the “Life at Conception Act,” a so-called personhood measure which would give full constitutional rights to each “preborn human person” at the “moment of fertilization. In addition to being a frontal assault on Roe v. Wade, the bill (likely unconstitutional) could ban certain forms of birth control such as IUDs or the morning-after pill. (It could also potentially force women into dangerous pregnancies and to deliver babies that can’t survive outside the womb, or force families in situations like this to keep a braindead woman on life support). Click the graphic for the complete article 
I know no candidate is perfect but if they are running to represent you as a Public Servant there are certain mandatory things they should all live up to … like the oath they take, which is seemingly being tossed aside by Republicans
I am sure there must be more information about where Tom Cotton stands on the issues …. do your research
I have to say that having spent a few minutes looking for actual comments from Mr.Cotton about the issues facing our 21st Century lives is not readily available. I went to plenty of sites, but one that claims they are a factcheck site seemed somewhat biased against mark pryor though they did divulge that Rep tom cotton did have an association or worked with the insurance industry at one time stating, “Cotton’s insurance experience is limited to consulting work for a federal agency.” This seems significant to me, but I am no expert. The article does not think his consulting work is important, but seems to use the potato paatato meme quite often in their fact checking when his constituents deserve to know what part he played as an insurance consultant. I have a problem with the bottom line! That Rep.Tom Cotton seems to back stripping seniors of Medicare, assuming women have no common sense, backing any budget coming from Rep.Paul Ryan – Those are just a few of many issues that seems buried in a lot of the surface articles concerning Mr. Cotton. So, it would be in the best interest of the People in Arkansas to ask questions of Tom Cotton … Where do you stand in this 21st Century life? Climate Change, Reproductive Rights, Immigration, ACA and tell your constituents why the GOP has no viable replacement bills plans to replace anything they may want to repeal ? I think the lack of plans offered up proves just how unqualified the 113th Republican members of Congress are
So, there is more information …. of course and for the complete article ~ search for the2013 headline in huffingtonpost.com
Information from CBS seems to infer that Rep. Steve King is going after President Obama’s Aunt .
Congressman Steve King, an Iowa Republican, today requested that President Obama’s aunt, Zeituni Onyango, testify before the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security and International Law in order to address “the public perception that favoritism played a role in the grant of asylum to Ms. Onyango.
We should all let Rep. Steve King know that Eric Holder stated that we are a nation that avoids talking about race and was in no way was Holders statement shaped or formed the way King stated in his interview
Be a Seed for Change 
Posted: 08/09/2013 1:48 pm EDT | Updated: 08/13/2013
among other things …below
Cotton, a freshman congressman who is running for Senate in 2014, warned feminists in a 1997 article for the Harvard Crimson that no-fault divorce will backfire on them by enabling their husbands to leave them for trophy wives.
“Feminists say no fault divorce was a large hurdle on the path to female liberation,” Cotton wrote. “They apparently don’t consult the deepest hopes or greatest fears of young women.”