EQUAL TIME is where Vermonters talk about issues ignored by the corporate media—mothers opposing toxic pollution, workers fighting for decent jobs, nurses working for health care reform, students speaking out about their education, farmers struggling against corporate agribusiness, and more.
Dan La Botz explains that the recent hundreds of "Justice for Trayvon" marches and demonstrations and the March on Washington reflect a deep desire to end racism - economic, social, and political once and for all. Economic inequality stands at the center of the country's racial problems.
Paul Le Blanc, coauthor with Michael Yates of A Freedom Budget for All Americans: Recapturing the Promise of the Civil Rights Movement in the Struggle for Economic Justice Today rescues the real history of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and the Freedom Budget from obscurity. Paul explains that the black trade unionists, socialists, and Dr.
Lois Weiner, author of The Future of Our Schools: Teachers Unions and Social Justice, explains why teachers who care passionately about teaching and social justice need to unite their energy for teaching with efforts to self-govern and transform their unions. Drawing on research, her experience as a public school teacher, and as a union activist, she explains how to create the teachers unions public education desperately needs.
Mary Gerisch, Vermont Workers Center chair, assesses this Legislative Session's "Human Rights Record" and reflects on the May 1st March & Day of Action that united over 1500 people from across Vermont. Even before the Senate's shameful actions denying early childhood educators' right to organize, the Workers Center found a mixed record, that rights were often ignored and even violated, especially in budget and revenue decisions.
Alan Benjamin, Executive Committee, San Francisco Labor Council, discusses the challenges working people and our unions face, and the need for an independent labor movement capable of mobilizing to prevent cuts in safety net programs, and for Worker and Immigrant Rights. A National Labor Fightback Conference, May 10-12th will strategize steps to promote the struggle for an independent, powerful labor movement.