Good one guys!

For Immediate Release: April 1, 2011
Contact: T.J. Helmstetter, 718-222-3796 x 237

WFP Inks Deal with Wal-Mart

The Working Families Party and Wal-Mart today announced an unexpected agreement that will establish the Wall Street behemoth as the WFP’s first-ever Corporate Sponsor.

“This is a win-win,” said analyst Richard Morarless, an analyst at First Boston who follows retail stocks. “This lets the WFP make some friends in the corporate world, where they are not exactly beloved. And Wal-Mart gets to burnish its credentials as pro-working class at a time when it is getting hammered everywhere as an anti-worker, anti-women outfit.”

The details of the agreement have not been released, but sources suggest that the WFP will change its name to the “Wal-Mart Families Party” in return for Wal-Mart’s agreement to (1) abide by all wage and hour and anti-discrimination laws for male and female employees alike; (2) to establish paid family leave and sick time for its million-plus employees, and (3) to inform all employees that the law of the land is to encourage collective bargaining between workers and their employers. “Everyday Low Prices” will be modified in Texas and Florida to now read: “Everyday Low Prices, and No Retaliation.”

“No deal is perfect,” says WFP Executive Director Dan Cantor. “But we get to keep the same initials, and if this is what it takes to convince them to stop stealing from their workers and to stop destroying so many small businesses, then it’s worth it.”

A high level Wal-Mart executive, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the company’s decision to align itself with the progressive-minded political party actually made sense. “The Working Families brand doesn’t look like a great fit with Wal-Mart at first glance,” said the executive. “But their credibility with everyday New Yorkers will help us as we try to open stores in New York City against the misinformed opposition of labor unions and the City Council. We are counting on them to change their long-held views and abandon any prior commitments to fair play and equality.”

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We obviously won’t ask big industry donors to fund our effort to get corporate money out of politics, or to help us fight fracking. But that means we need you. Thousands of New Yorkers giving just $5 or $10 per month is the real, grassroots way to build a better New York. Click here to join the fight.

I recently signed up to do this–again. I was a dues paying member in 2005 through 2006 but something happened where my auto debit was discontinued. I’m not even in New York anymore! But the party is extremely important in New York and I wish to see it branch out to other states as it has begun to do.

The fundraising appeal was coupled with a recent victory of theirs:

Here’s the good news: Governor Paterson has placed a moratorium on risky horizontal hydraulic fracture natural gas drilling in New York until July of next year.¹

Unfortunately, the governor’s action against “fracking” wasn’t all we’d hoped for. The drilling industry, after spending more than $1 million in this fight, convinced Paterson to veto the stronger moratorium passed by the State Senate and Assembly.

But because so many New Yorkers spoke out - including more than 3,000 Working Families supporters who called his office – Paterson knew he had to take some action. He put in place a narrower moratorium that will still ban the riskiest forms of “fracking” through July - the first time any state in the nation has done so.

Without massive grassroots pressure, it’s almost certain that there would be NO moratorium at all. Even when powerful industry interests were fighting with everything they had, your actions made a real difference.

Thank you for moving this moratorium campaign forward at every step of the way – through the New York State Senate, then the Assembly, and finally to the governor’s desk.

But we can’t ignore the other lesson of this fight. Not only do we have to keep fighting for a broader, more long-term fracking moratorium once Andrew Cuomo becomes governor, but if we really want to keep our water safe – not to mention create good jobs in our communities, expand health care reform, and keep our homes affordable - we have to get corporate money out of politics.

In the coming days, we’ll be launching a new campaign to cut the power that corporate contributions have over our politicians and government here in New York. We’ll also prepare for the next stage in the fight to prevent fracking and protect our water.

Well done Mr. Damon. Well done. Happy Birthday as well.

This is really cool. Seeger is looking good up there in his 90′s!

Earlier today I blogged about New York’s Workers’ Compensation Board and its link to the dysfunctional legislature that is Albany. Now I get an email from the Working Families Party about the MTA fare hikes which said the following.

I’m sure you’ve heard that the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) voted last week to raise fares by at least 25% on New York City subways, buses, Metro North and the Long Island Railroad.

They took this step because our state legislators in Albany failed to pass an alternative that would solve the MTA’s budget crisis without these painful fare increases.

So due to inaction in Albany, New Yorker’s are going to feel the pain? The WFP have started an online action (shout out to DIA!) to get people to contact their legislators to get them to propose a better solution than the one the MTA is about to impose. What’s also cool is a parallel action where they’ve created a clever poster that they want people to download and post all over the place. They then want you to take pictures and email them to clenchner@votewfp.org. Lastly, there’s the Facebook component where they’ve created a graphic that they are asking people to post on their wall or make it their profile picture. Now I may not be living in New York anymore (I’m in DC metro) but I still care about what goes on there! This fare hike is going to hurt millions!

I think it’s great that they filmed their bus trip from last weekend and put it up on the web.

Another NY Times article was brought to my attention today about the anger being directed at AIG executives who got bonuses.

Mr. Haas walked on, his pink shirt a burst of color on a slate-gray afternoon. The words came haltingly. "You have to understand,” he said, “there are kids involved, there have been death threats. …" His voice trailed off. It looked as if he was fighting back tears.

"I didn’t have anything to do with those credit problems,” said Mr. Haas, 47. “I told Mr. Liddy” — Edward M. Liddy, the chief executive of A.I.G., the insurance giant — “I would rescind my retention contract.”

He ended the conversation with a request: “Leave my neighbors alone.”

Alright, so there is a limit to the expression of contempt and anger for AIG that one can show . Threats of violence aren’t really what I’d be condoning. Yet the world has to understand that the anger is justified.

Jean Wieson, who has lived down the block for 24 years, had stopped her car in front of Mr. Haas’s house before he arrived home. She was angry about the millions of dollars in bonuses paid to its executives, the credit-default swaps that brought American International Group to its knees, the $170 billion the federal government has spent to prop it up. "It makes me absolutely sick," she said. "It’s despicable. It’s disgusting what these people have done. They should be forced to give every cent back."

There are some that still don’t get it though.

One A.I.G. executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he feared the consequences of identifying himself, said many workers felt demonized and betrayed. “It is as bad if not worse than McCarthyism,” he said. Everyone has sacrificed the employees of A.I.G.’s financial products division, he said, “for their own political agenda.”

The public’s anger, he said, “is coming from bad facts as a result of someone else’s agenda — or just bad facts period.” Instead, he said, the so-called bonuses were in fact just payments that had been promised long ago to workers, including technical and administrative assistants.

I don’t think people are being misled at all. These executives played a major role in the disaster that is now AIG. This is reinforced by one of the executives doing the right thing.

The largest single bonus check, for $6.4 million, went to Douglas L. Poling, an executive vice president for energy and infrastructure investments. Mark Herr, an A.I.G. spokesman, said Mr. Poling had told him he was returning the bonus “because he thought it was the correct thing to do.”

And as for the CT Working Families Party they’re doing something interesting.

And there may be more protests. The Connecticut Working Families party, which has support from organized labor, is planning a bus tour of A.I.G. executives’ homes on Saturday, with a stop at the company’s Wilton office.

“We’re going to be peaceful and lawful in everything we do,” said Jon Green, the director of Connecticut Working Families. “I know there’s a lot of anger and a lot of rage about what’s happened. We’re not looking to foment that unnecessarily, but what we want to do is give folks in Bridgeport and Hartford and other parts of Connecticut who are struggling and losing their homes and their jobs and their health insurance an opportunity to see what kinds of lifestyle billions of dollars in credit-default swaps can buy.”

I got this email from The Working Families Party talking about their action to get people to tell Mayor Bloomberg and the NYC City Council that any consideration for the repeal of term limits should be put up to a vote. 

This is the ad they are planning to run in the New York City cable television media market during tonight’s Presidential debate. 

Even though I don’t live in New York City I’d have to agree that you should put this up to a vote and let the people decide. It’s a given that Bloomberg is a popular Mayor and maybe he would get the vote to go his way, but you can’t do this without involving NYC’s voters.

I got an email from the Working Families Party and I think Dan Cantor makes a lot of sense when he says that it can’t just be a bailout for the big people on Wall Street. I’m also hearing that the Democrats are talking the same things as well; which if they stick to their guns will be good.

The conditions Cantor calls for are:

i. Bankruptcy shelter for homeowners
ii. Restructured mortgages for people in danger of losing their homes.
iii. CRA requirements on investment banks and insurance companies
iv. Outlaw – period! – predatory lending and cap usurious payday lending rates.
v. Expand Unemployment Insurance and Home Heating Oil for people who are about to lose their jobs.

Dan Cantor also feels that there should be a salary cap on CEO’s. The crazy thing I saw on CNN is that Bush wants a bailout with no attachments!! This is the same party that wants to serve in the White House again? If you’re in New York I’d suggest voicing your opinion to the NY congressional delegation. It does not matter what party your congress person is in either. Let them know we need regulation not deregulation!

I just got an email from the Working Families Party on their fight to stop the MTA from raising fares. They’re teaming up with NYPIRG’s straphangers campaign and started a site called Halt the Hike. While i’m not in New York City or NY for that matter anymore (I’m a NY’er lost on the DC metro) I think this is a good campaign. It’s a campaign that directly effects working people who take public transportation. There is a huge number of people who can’t afford cars and take public transportation.

Squeezed between rising costs and declining public aid, the MTA is calling for another round of fare hikes to close the gap.

With riders already paying more than their fair share, and the cost of living in New York skyrocketing, we need more city and state aid for public transportation – otherwise, transit riders will be left to pick up the tab.

Gov. Paterson and Mayor Bloomberg oppose the fare hikes, but they need to hear from you: with adequate funding for mass transit, we can Halt the Hike!

I also think that the audit of the MTA that the NY Comptroller is talking about doing, is a great idea to find ways to cut costs and not raise the fares. Lastly, I have to say that it’s kind of cool to see WordPress powering this website!

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