this looks good (if true)

LOS ANGELES, July 29 (Reuters) - Hilton Hotels Corp. (HLT.N: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Saturday it has reached an accord with the union representing North American hotel workers that includes an easing of the company's stance on how hotels are unionized.

Hilton said it had agreed on a new labor contract covering 4,000 workers at its two major New York City hotels that matches a contract ratified last month by workers at 133 of the city's other hotels.

The Beverly Hills, California-based company announced a five-year "partnership for future growth" with the Unite Here union, which has lined up hotel contract expirations in several cities this year as it seeks to improve wages and conditions and boost its membership.

The partnership plan includes working together "on growth where it makes strategic and economic sense, including card check agreements where appropriate," Hilton said in a statement.

Unite Here has been drumming up support for the so-called card-check neutrality process, in which the union polls workers individually and a hotel is unionized if a simple majority supports it. Employers generally prefer a system that uses secret ballots.

Hilton said that about 20 percent of its U.S. employees are union members.

"We will still negotiate city by city. Card check will be a negotiating item in those cities where it is appropriate," said Hilton spokesman Marc Grossman.

Edit: Here's Steven Greenhouse's article from Today's Times. The asbestos and retaliatory "underpayment" language stuff is intriguing. I'm wondering how the "productivity" language figures into the Heavenly Beds (or whatever the various chains are calling them) issue.

this is bad.

A Placer Superior Court jury has awarded the Sutter Health hospital chain
$17.2 million in compensatory damages in a defamation suit against a labor union
that accused the hospital of using soiled linens in its maternity wards.
The
jury's decision, if upheld, is one of the highest ever awarded against a labor
union in the United States, and could cripple the finances of UNITE Here, a
national union of about 450,000 workers in hotels, industrial laundries and
apparel manufacturing.

It's like a new cultural front.

From the Onion:

U.S. Trendsetters Go On Strike

Nation's 'Hip' Seek Recognition, Royalties

NEW YORK—More than 11,000 trendsetters, tastemakers, movers, and shakers gathered in Brooklyn's Williamsburg neighborhood Monday to declare a strike against the broad segment of the American population that they say routinely copies their fashions, musical tastes, and sensibilities. Should the strike persist, experts said, it could bring the pop-cultural life of the nation to a standstill.

"We want recognition for what you're wearing, saying, or doing," said Jaycee Kingsley, a 22-year-old animator and silkscreen artist from San Francisco who, nearly four years ago, started the oversized-dark-sunglasses trend, popularized by celebrities Mary-Kate Olsen and Nicole Richie. "Without us, America would be wearing Nehru jackets and saying 'right on' all the time. If we don't get our due, we will have little choice but to stop sparking new fads."

Until the public accepts their demands, the strikers vow to wear only gray or blue utilitarian sweatpants or flannel, and refuse to listen to any synthesized music, wear makeup, shop at thrift stores, bake cupcakes, "make the scene," or discuss any potential trends or up-and-coming drugs.

The strikers are calling for public acknowledgment of their contributions as well as a retroactive 10-cent royalty on every trendy item sold since October 1995. This fee, to be paid by consumers for each trend they adopt, would be applied to cultural phenomena as diverse as Japanese toy miniatures and so-called "Strokes" haircuts, the latter actually pioneered by Dayton, OH sandwich-shop employee and Whip-It junkie Jarvis McClung in 1997.

News of the strike quickly spread through word of mouth, blogs, and Facebook.com, and "sympathy strikes" are already being organized by fashion-forward hipsters in France and Japan.

If a collective-bargaining agreement cannot be reached, trendsetters will likely be replaced with scabs. Indeed, some second-rate trends have already begun sprouting up, as aspiring tastemakers—often the same people maligned by the ultrahip as "poseurs"—cross picket lines and attempt to fill the void left by the strike. Many of their ideas, such as adopting chinchillas as pets, are largely recycled, and, while their original innovations, such as wearing top hats and paper shoes, walking with crutches, and referring to friends as "Frankenstein," may seem forced, they could potentially be the only trends available for some time.

With an estimated one in four Americans relying on guidance from trendsetting gurus, sales are down at malls and Salvation Army stores across the country....
...

"Most Americans may not know how to generate a trend, but they know a good one when they see one, and will support us in these negotiations," said adult-size bunny-hat inventor Gabe Deckland, who said qualified trendsetters have the upper hand. "Scabs will just shank it anyway."

Yet DailyCandy.com contributor Cass Myerson said the strike may inadvertently generate a new trend, pointing to reports that some followers have already begun their own hip work stoppages.

"The romance of the worker's struggle, the charisma of heroes like Cesar Chavez—I love it!" Myerson said. "I think we're going to be seeing a lot of drab shirts, coarse wool coats, and fierce Maoist pigtails on the runway this fall. In everything—from the way we talk and the way we dress, to the way we don't work—striking is going to be huge this year."

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Dear Pat Benatar,

What's up with the monkey?

The Denver/Argentina bureau of the vast left-wing conspiracy behind this blog have reminded me that I am 88 (89?), not 25 as previously reported. Weapon of Class Instruction deeply regrest this grievous error.

By The Time You're 25

The title of this post is a reference, first, to a rather wonderful Sleater-Kinney B-Side from the "Get Up" single, and second, to the fact that as of four days ago, I number among the ranks of the "25 and over" set. My feelings about this are mixed. On the one hand, it's been a fun couple of days. The trip to the zoo was loads of fun. I could have stayed there and watched the otters play around for hours. I got to hang out quite a bit with friends and family, and the cohort took me out to dinner last night, which was equally awesome.

But I often feel like the last few years have slipped through my fingers - kind of a "how the fuck did I get to be 25/when did that happen" moment, i guess. 23, after all, was a near total wash, and I don't really feel like i got out of 24 what I wanted to. And now I'm halfway through my twenties with no money, and what I suspect is not much of a better idea of how to be an adult in any positive sense of the term than I had when I was 21 or 22. And that's a little scary, because as much as i could concievably spend the rest of my life playing World of Warcraft or rewatching Buffy DVDs, that strikes me (no pun intended) as a pretty defeatist scenario, and I would like to - no. fuck that, I need to figure out how to actually participate in struggles for social justice in meaningful ways. And I would also like to figure out how to build/find a community here in the city that I feel comfortable in but that challenges me to be a better organizer/researcher/academic/whatever and a better person. The idea of struggling through all this shit into my 30s is kind of scary, and 30 doesn't feel anywhere near as distant as it did a year ago. Grad school, i guess, will do that to you.

I think i'm being overly melodramatic. But hey, at least you got something mildly substantive, right? I haven't been a good blogger lately either, i guess.

While I'm dumping the contents of Youtube on the blog...

"I hold the micropohone like a grudge. B.'ll hold the record so the needle don't budge. I hold a conversation cause when I invent, I nominated my DJ for president."

The things people put on Youtube.

Found this today. Guess it's from the sikorsky strike.

Journey- Separate Ways

I love Youtube

In addition to the Jews for Jesus, who are wandering the streets of Manhattan (and Brooklyn) clad in IDF-style attire and snazzy fascist evangelical messenger bags, another group of people are also clearly seeking to convert us heathen judeos to the side of the Jeebus. This would be the flotilla of teenaged baptist missionaries from Union City, Tennessee currently patrolling Park Slope's 5th Avenue between (like) 13th street and 9th street. They've been around since monday, handing out literature all Jehovah's witness-style and setting up tables with stacks of very abridged bibles. Those psalms are just too risque, i guess. I should note that I've been to Union City, Tennessee, in the dead of the night, when Julie and I stopped at the Wal-Mart there to get gas and food on our long drive across the country in a breakdown-prone 37-year old vehicle.

I think part of the reason that these people piss me off can be best expressed in the form of a song. Or two. The first is, of course, Joe Hill (aka Joel Hagglund)'s "The Preacher and the Slave." (Which, were I actually speaking to you rather than writing a blog entry, and were Thomas present while i was speaking to you, I am sure he would be happy to oblidge you with a couple of verses, because that's the kind of guy he is.)

Long-haired preachers come out every night,
Try to tell you what's wrong and what's right;
But when asked how 'bout something to eat
They will answer with voices so sweet:

CHORUS:
You will eat, bye and bye,
In that glorious land above the sky;
Work and pray, live on hay,
You'll get pie in the sky when you die.

The starvation army they play,
They sing and they clap and they pray
'Till they get all your coin on the drum
Then they'll tell you when you're on the bum:

Holy Rollers and jumpers come out,
They holler, they jump and they shout.
Give your money to Jesus they say,
He will cure all diseases today.
If you fight hard for children and wife --
Try to get something good in this life --
You're a sinner and bad man, they tell,
When you die you will sure go to hell.

Workingmen of all countries, unite,
Side by side we for freedom will fight;
When the world and its wealth we have gained
To the grafters we'll sing this refrain:

FINAL CHORUS:
You will eat, bye and bye,
When you've learned how to cook and to fry.
Chop some wood, 'twill do you good,
And you'll eat in the sweet bye and bye.

The second song i think is pertinent here is The Coup's "Heven Tonite," off 2001's Party Music. A brief excerpt follows.

got faith in the people and they power to fight
We gon make the struggle blossom
Like a flower to light
I know that we could take power tonight
Make 'em cower from might
And get emergency clearance from the tower for flight
I ain't sittin in your pews less you helpin' me resist and refuse
Show me a list of your views
If you really love me
Help me tear this muthafucka up
Consider this my tithe for the offer cup

In other words, the conservatism, self-pathologization, and the fractured and individuated subject colonized by the universal discourse of salvific sacrifice and submission doesn't quite cut it for me. I don't really have a problem with religion per se. I've been to enough prayer meetings and seders and seen folks like Scott M. and Lillian D. in action enough to know that clergy and congregations can intervene in and lead struggles for social justice. There are folks who get left out of these movements and discourses sometimes (and I'd count myself among them,) but there are possibilities for solidarities I will not and cannot discount. The fact remains though, that if the heterosexist, reactionary, fundamentalist Jeebus to which both the Jews for Jerry Falwell and the folks from Tennessee are trying to convert New Yorkers clearly has no desire or plan to tear this motherfucker up and thus clearly cannot really love me. "Where were you when we were on strike for six months?" I wanted to shout at the Jews for Jesus today. And I'm sure any answer i would have recieved would have attempted to cloak a profoundly reactionary discourse of self-pathologization in a new-age fundamentalist preoccupation with individuated salvation - which just isn't going to cut it for me. (It being a theology and practice founded upon and in dialogue with movements for justice and liberation. Bear with me here, I'm no theologian. "I don't even believe in Jeebus")

So, Jews for Jesus, no thank you.

The revolution in this tune and verse
Is a bid for my love to touch the universe
Strugglin' over wages and funds
Let the movement get contagious and run
Through the end when it's gauges and guns
And if we win in the ages to come
We'll have a chapter where the history pages are from
They won't never know our name or face
But feel our soul in free food they taste
Feel our passion when they heat they house
When they got power on the streets
And the police don't beat 'em about
Let's make health care centers on every block
Let's give everybody homes and a garden plot
Let's give all the schools books
Ten kids a class
And give 'em truth for their pencils and pads

brief moment of connectivity at home. thought i should (ab)use it to note that I'm now, as of about 36 hours ago, 25 years old and that's totally crazy. Phone conversations with friends about biological clocks and dinner with parents and Lev and then visited grandparents today before an undproductive five hours cloistered in the panopticon. The film version of The Witches was pretty great in that freakish and frightening Roald Dahl kind of way. In the book, he never gets changed back, right? My fourth grade teacher (you know, 15 years ago,) used to joke with me that she was a witch and would always complain about her shoes and scratch her scalp. Prospect Park's all right if you like watching small dogs get charged by angry geese. No, wait, what am I saying - that's totally hilarious.

I'll get around to posting something substantive some day. I swear.

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Shortly after mooning the crowd, this gorilla ran up to the glass and banged on it with her fists and then ran away. Guerrilla gorillas.

Happy Birthday to Tai Shan

Tai Shan, the baby panda, is 23 years, 364 days younger than me. That means today is his first birthday. The National Zoo threw him a party, complete with a birthday giant fruitsicle. Awesome.

Jeebus don't want me for a sunbeam

apologies for the recent lack of posts. I have a long entry about the last year I don't know if is should put on the blog or not, and I've been busy with stuff. But i thought i should drop in and point to this campaign USAS is carryiong out in solidarity with students and unionists in El Salvador battling murderous state repression. Please read the alert and support the workers.

patriot games

What i was listening to while walking to Manhattan today:

The Coup, Party Music. ("So when i say burn one, i mean the star-spangled.)
The Coup, Pick a Bigger Weapon. ("See they tryna break us off so they don't have to break bread/Cause Uncle Same ain't the baker, he's the butcher/We all on "Punk'd" with no Ashton Kutcher/Where ballin (no broke) cutthroats kaput ya/Ain't never took dope but them dopes done took ya/Stop flyin Ol' Glory man, cut it down/If your job ain't payin right, shut it down")
The Coup, "Piss on Your Grave." ("George Washington down in hell can you see me? I'm standing on your grave and I'm finsta take a pee pee.)
Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra, "Big Man"
The Clash, "I'm So Bored with The USA." ("Yankee dollars talk to the dictators of the world. In fact they're giving orders and he can't afford to miss a word.")
Ibid., "Washington Bullets," ("As every cell in Chile will tell/The cries of the tortured men/Remember Allende, and the days before,/Before the army came/Please remember Victor Jara,/In the Santiago Stadium,/Es verdad - those Washington Bullets again")

You get the idea.

I guess this blog is ahead of the times. I still want to know how they got my address.

Great, now that it's an oasis is a sea of shoe stores and yuppie bars. Tripling the construction cost is pretty fucked up of the city.

Now this is interesting:

Federal agencies are investigating how Yale
University manages and accounts for millions of dollars in federal research
grants, the university said in a statement yesterday.
Three federal agencies
issued subpoenas to Yale late last week, the university said, seeking documents
on the allocation of research expenses, the way faculty members report their
work on research grants and other issues relating to the oversight of
grants.
The agencies requested information on 47 grants and contracts worth
about $45 million that were awarded to the university in the last decade, said
Tom Conroy, a Yale spokesman.
The university has received about $2 billion
in federal research grants in that time, Mr. Conroy said.
Spokesmen for the
three federal agencies — the Department
of Health and Human Services, the National
Science Foundation and the Department of Defense — either declined to
comment on the subpoenas yesterday or did not respond to messages seeking
comment. Such investigations could lead to accounting changes, administrative
sanctions or criminal charges.
In a report released in February on a $508,000
grant for research involving genes in stem cells, the Office of the Inspector
General of the Department of Health and Human Services said that Yale did not
comply with its own procedures or with federal rules, and that it had used money
from one grant for a different research project.

interlude: me turning 25

July 10th is my birthday. I'm celebrating in two ways - one, the generic bar gathering (at which i will of course not be drinking, but it will be fun anyway.) This is July 8th (this saturday) at The Library (Ave A right above Houston.) So if you're reading this and you aren't one of my anonymous antagonists and/or you have never threatened my person over union activity and/or I don't make you hate the left, you should come. (It's been an odd year, hasn't it...)

The panopticon (aka Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, for those just tuning in) isn't open to the public. Just as one enters the library through its revolving doors, one sees metal and glass turnstiles, hi-tech MTA chick intended to keep out the riffraff and keep knowledge private. As a result, every time i enter the library, I always accidentally reach for my Metrocard instead of my student ID, and thus, in doing so, feel rather ridiculous.

Happy Birthday to my cousin Kai, who turns 4 today.