The U.S. Department of Labor has added three products to the list of good produced by forced labor, child labor or both. The list now includes 133 products from 71 countries, ranging from bamboo in Burma to zinc in Bolivia. Added to the list yesterday are bricks in Afghanistan and cassiterite and coltan in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Donna Gratehouse, who blogs at Democratic Diva and elsewhere on all things Arizona, sends us this.

Republican Arizona state Rep. Michelle Ugenti, who represents an affluent district in Scottsdale and Fountain Hills, drew quite a bit of attention and criticism on Monday when she flippantly remarked, ”welcome to life” to Arizona college students protesting a bill she sponsored that would require them to contribute a minimum $2,000 per year to their annual tuition at state universities. Students would have to make the contribution regardless of financial need, scholarship eligibility or military veteran status. Students on athletic scholarships would be exempted (make of that what you will). Conservative legislators defended the move by claiming that state college students (the non-athlete ones, anyway) need to have “more skin in the game.”

Rep. Ugenti’s bio on the Arizona Legislature website says:

As a native Arizonan, I have a lot of pride in our beautiful state. I have lived here my entire life, and I graduated from Arizona State University in 2003 with a degree in Business Administration. While I was a student at ASU I played on the rugby team.

I don’t know if Ugenti was on a scholarship for playing rugby, but I do know that when she attended ASU, the tuition there was the second lowest in the nation for in-state students. Tuition at Arizona’s state
universities started rising sharply the year after she graduated. Rates have more than doubled from 2003 to now and are expected to continue to climb as the Legislature guts funding to higher education. Ugenti seems to have enjoyed a lucrative career during the commercial real estate bubble after her own low-cost college education in Arizona. More from her bio:

After college I worked as a successful commercial real estate agent for Marcus & Millichap and then Russ Lyon Sotheby’s International Realty. Through my work, I was able to hone my skills in complex financial contracts and I worked with numerous principles on their real estate portfolios. I was proud to be known as a tough and non-compromising negotiator while still being highly committed to the needs of my clients.

It’s “principals,” not “principles,” but I won’t hold that against Ugenti’s fine professors at ASU. I only wish she might show a fraction of commitment to understanding the struggles of young people striving to attain an education and livelihood today that she did to the needs of her wealthy real estate clients.

Welcome to life, Rep. Michelle Ugenti. Many of your constituents in Arizona haven’t had it as good as you’ve had it.

United Steelworkers (USW) Local 207L members ratified by a 2-to-1 margin a new five-year contract with Cooper Tire and Rubber Company  The vote ends a three-month lockout at the company’s Findlay, Ohio tire plant.

USW Local 207L President Rodney Nelson says:

We are proud to have remained united and delivered a fair contract, despite Cooper’s best attempts to divide us.

The workers were locked out by Cooper on Nov. 28, despite the union’s good-faith offer to continue working under the terms of the previous agreement while negotiations toward a new one proceeded, says USW District 1 Director Dave McCall.

Cooper needs to acknowledge that its loyal, productive and efficient USW workforce is the company’s most valuable asset in Findlay and treat them with the respect and dignity they have earned. For many years, Cooper was a good example of how workers and management could work together toward common goals and the greater good of the community.

Click here to read more from the USW.

Several Cooper Tire workers and Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers, and Grain Millers (BCTGM) locked out by American Crystal Sugar just ended a 1,000 mile Journey for Justice. The group traveled from American Crystal offices near Fargo, N.D., to Cooper Tire’s headquarters in Findlay.

The journey highlighted the corporate greed that marks their lockouts, and the growing drive by corporate CEOs to drive down wages and benefits to pad their own pockets. Says Teresa Brown, a 12-year Cooper employee:

We set out to spread the message that we must stand together to make a difference, and we sent that message loud and clear. Our fight and the fight for justice for thousands of other workers continues every day.

Adds Becki Jacobson, a 30-year American Crystal worker from Moorhead, Minn.:

The support we’ve received over the last five days has strengthened my resolve to keep up our fight for a fair contract.

Read more at the Journey for Justice blog here.

Teaser: 

More than a dozen students at the University of Virginia are the 11th day of a hunger strike organized by the Living Wage at UVA campaign. The students are demanding a living wage, safer working conditions and better job security for university and university contracted workers, some of whom make just $7.25 an hour.

One of the hunger strikers is Cavalier football player Joseph Williams who, in an essay on why he is taking part in the hunger strike, writes:

On a personal level, this cause is one that hits very close to home. As one of four children supported by a single mother, I have experienced many periods of economic hardship in my life. Growing up, I moved over 30 times—including various stays in homeless shelters, the homes of family friends, and church basements. As a result of these experiences, I know firsthand what the economic struggle is like for many of these underpaid workers.

He says he and the other hunger strikers have, “chosen to take up this cause and give a voice to the many University employees who often cannot speak up for fear of retaliation from the administration.”

But as Dave Zirin writes on The Nation, Williams is taking an unusual stance for a major college athlete.

Rare are the times when an NCAA football player at a Division 1 Bowl Championship Series eligible school stands up for issues related to social justice. The reasons for this silence are manifold. From their legal and organizational powerlessness as “student-athletes,” to the annual renewal needed for their scholarships, to just the sheer amount of time players are asked to invest in their teams along with their isolation from the broader campus, silence is often the easiest option.

Click here to read Williams’s essay and here for Zirin’s interview with him.

 

More than a dozen students at the University of Virginia are the 11th day of a hunger strike organized by the Living Wage at UVA campaign. The students are demanding a living wage, safer working conditions and better job security for university and university contracted workers, some of whom make just $7.25 an hour.

One of the hunger strikers is Cavalier football player Joseph Williams who, in an essay on why he is taking part in the hunger strike, writes:

On a personal level, this cause is one that hits very close to home. As one of four children supported by a single mother, I have experienced many periods of economic hardship in my life. Growing up, I moved over 30 times—including various stays in homeless shelters, the homes of family friends, and church basements. As a result of these experiences, I know firsthand what the economic struggle is like for many of these underpaid workers.

He says he and the other hunger strikers have, “chosen to take up this cause and give a voice to the many University employees who often cannot speak up for fear of retaliation from the administration.”

But as Dave Zirin writes on The Nation, Williams is taking an unusual stance for a major college athlete.

Rare are the times when an NCAA football player at a Division 1 Bowl Championship Series eligible school stands up for issues related to social justice. The reasons for this silence are manifold. From their legal and organizational powerlessness as “student-athletes,” to the annual renewal needed for their scholarships, to just the sheer amount of time players are asked to invest in their teams along with their isolation from the broader campus, silence is often the easiest option.

Click here to read Williams’s essay and here for Zirin’s interview with him.