A California union is aggressively pursuing a recall of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.   The labor organization representing California’s prison guards, a group of people that under normal circumstances you wouldn’t want to mess with, even if you are Arnold Schwarzenegger, is hopping mad over the Governator ordering a pay cut to its members in the midst of California’s protracted budget dispute.

The union has pledged to move as quickly as possible to enact a recall vote of the movie star turned politician.   To do so, the 30,000 plus member California Correctional Peace Officers Association will need to collect 1 Million signatures on a petition for the measure.   With the Governor having ordered job cuts for 22,000 temporary state employees and pay cuts for another 200,000 state workers the signatures might not be all that hard to come by.

While Governor Schwarzenegger is unquestionably not the only one to blame for the budget deadlock in the Golden State, it is unconscionable to bring so many state employees livelihoods into the dispute.   Partisan rancor and competing political ideologies aside, being the son of two civil servants, I know firsthand that these are people who work hard for modest salaries and do not deserve to get caught in the crossfire of political haggling.   Measures should be enacted in California and elsewhere to ensure that budget disputes will not affect the pay of public employees.

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Mehedi Hasan, a field investigator for the Washington D.C.-based Worker Rights Consortium, went to Bangladesh to investigate some of the country’s 3,000 garment factories and to advocate for the rights of its more than 2 million workers, mostly women, who make the clothing we wear. Today, we must investigate the conditions under which Hasan is held, and we must protect his rights. Hasan, was arrested on Thursday 24th January by the Bangladesh security forces accused of instigating garment workers. He has not been allowed to see his family since. The military-backed interim government has been harassing and cracking down on workers and organizers. Unions are illegal, the security forces operate under emergency rules and most civil rights remain suspended. Less than 5% of the Bangladesh garment industry complies with international labour standards. If you see an “I love my Wal-Mart” shirt, it may have been made by children aged 10 to 13 making less than 10¢ an hour. Hasan is only the latest victim. So and demand the immediate release of Mehedi Hasan.

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January 26th is the Global Day of Action organized by the World Social Forum. You can find out how your city is celebrating the Global Day of Action here. But this sounds like a great thing to know about for everyone in the world, and a great thing to do for people in New York. This Saturday, the Brooklyn Museum will host a screening and discussion of the documentary Work and Respect made by the Third World Newsreel about the lives of domestic workers– Caribbean, Latina and African nannies, housekeepers, and caregivers who work in New York.

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The IWW, International Workers of the World, or Wobblies, are uniting against Starbucks’ union busting activity, which includes firing workers for attempting to organize. National Labor Relations Board, slightly to the right of the IWW, has charged Starbucks with breaking the law 30 times. And e-mails leaked to the Wall Street Journal reveal how Starbucks officials block union activity: “Below is a summary of the recent developments in New York City regarding our attempts to thwart a potential union situation.”

Protesting outside the Starbucks on Fifth Avenue and East 33rd Street, organizers also criticized Starbucks for refusing to pay their employees overpay for working on Martin Luther King Day. Meanwhile, inside the store, a Starbucks spokesman attempted to do some damage control (I think) by responding that while Starbucks does not honor the holiday for slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King, the company does observe and over time for other holidays. Wow! I feel so much better!

Tell Starbucks to refrain from “thwarting a potential union situation,” and intimidating its workers and their unionization efforts.

By Katie HalperAs if unions didn’t already totally overact to silly things like inhuman conditions, unlivable wages, and union-busting, now it’s getting its made in America panties all up in a bunch over the environment. Global Labor Strategies reports that December 4, trade unionists from around the world are attending negotiations in Bali to establish a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 1212, to limit greenhouse gas emissions. U.S. workers will be represented by delegates from unions including the Electrical Workers (IUE), Mine Workers, Service Employees, Boilermakers, Steelworkers, Communication Workers, Transport Workers (TWU), and UNITE HERE garment and textile workers.Labor, what is the deal? You’re supposed to be short-sited and hostile to protecting the environment, remember? You’re not supposed to make the connection between the environment and workers. Hard hat-wearing workers hate Patchouli- wearing environmentalists. And drum circle playing environmental activists are out of touch with country and western/ hard rock playing unionists. Their green hybrids and blue collar gas guzzlers are supposed to collide and crash, not ride side by side or, heaven forbid, carpool, towards a common destination.So what’s up with the labor-environment mixed-genre cooperation? Why are a bunch of workers sticking their noses into global warming? What’s going on with the mixed-genre Blue Green Alliance, a coalition between the the Sierra Club United Steel Workers, also sending representatives to Bali. And why is the International Trade Union Confederation saying

As trade unionists, we are confident that Bali will mark the beginning of a new and more ambitious process of social change, where our collective hearts and minds must aspire to save our planet, on the basis of solidarity and mutual respect. Such solidarity first of all means countering global warming and its effects on the most vulnerable. Trade unions consider the best way for developed countries to exercise solidarity with developing countries is by cutting their own emissions in order to limit further suffering and irreversible changes, and by creating the means for other countries to participate in reduction efforts.

So workers of the world unite. You have nothing to save but your planet.

John Edwards made another appearance with the striking WGA on Tuesday in New York’s Washington Square Park, joining writers and actors in their struggle against corporations and media conglomerates.

This is the second time Edwards spoke on behalf of the WGA (earlier this month he joined them in LA). Between the WGA and the Broadway stagehands strike it looks like labor is making it’s way back into the mainstream. Speaking of which, there is a great new documentary out about the radical folk-singer, labor supporter Pete Seeger called Pete Seeger : The Power of Song that focuses on his work uniting folks with his music and the troubles he faced because of involvement with the labor movement and the communist party.

To learn more about why the writers of the WGA are striking visit http://www.unitedhollywood.com and be sure to watch the trailer for Pete Seeger below.

By Katie HalperFrance isn’t the only country that knows how to get its strike on. Tuesday, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) of South Africa, announced that 240,000 miners are planning a nation-wide one day strike for December 4, which will be the country’s first industry-wide mining strike. Gold, platinum, and coal miners are protesting over little things like poor working conditions, rockfalls, poisonous gas explosions, flooding and earthquakes, which killed 200 miners last year and already killed 186 this year. A South African commission explained the relationship between mining safety (or lack thereof) and gold: each ton of gold produced in South Africa costs one life and 12 serious injuries.