No AFL-CIO endorsement is a win for Foulkes

Influential AFL-CIO opts not to endorse in RI Democratic gubernatorial race

By Nancy Lavin, Rhode Island Current

The focus of the governor’s race temporarily shifted one block west of the State House Wednesday to a nondescript office building where leaders of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO met but opted not to endorse in the Democratic gubernatorial primary. 

The labor federation boasts more than 80,000 members, with endorsements determined by a two-thirds vote of its 15-person executive committee. But the panel that met behind closed doors didn’t even get as far as taking a vote on the two candidates seeking their backing, Gov. Dan McKee and challenger Helena Buonanno Foulkes. 

“The consensus was, we could not get to a consensus,” Patrick Crowley, organization president, said in an interview Wednesday night. “We’re taking the position to stay neutral in the governor’s race. Individual affiliates can make their own endorsements if they wish.”

The decision marks another setback for McKee, whose reelection campaign is in need of a boost after trailing Foulkes by double digits in recent polls. Neither candidate received an endorsement from the Rhode Island Democratic Party at its state convention in June.

“He’s had so many losses,” said Joe Fleming, a political analyst for WPRI 12. “He really needs to find a way to start building momentum now that we’re heading into the primary.”

McKee’s campaign did not immediately respond to calls for comment Wednesday.

Early voting begins on Aug. 20. The primary is Wednesday, Sept. 9.

The AFL-CIO and the Rhode Island Democratic Party both endorsed McKee in 2022. Foulkes lost to McKee by three percentage points in a four-way Democratic gubernatorial primary.

Tides appear to have turned in Foulkes’ favor, with the former CVS executive prevailing with commanding, 20-percentage-point leads in polls released by WPRI-TV and the University of New Hampshire in May and June, respectively. 

Foulkes maintains a significant cash advantage and has picked up endorsements from a majority of municipal Democratic committees, including McKee’s hometown of Cumberland. On Tuesday, she unveiled endorsements from 26 state and local Democratic lawmakers in conjunction with a ceremonial opening of her campaign headquarters on Broad Street in Providence.

Why Is He Using the Communist Trump Card?

He's run out of other cards.

Robert Reich for Inequality.org

The cover of “Is This Tomorrow,” an anti-communist comic
book published in 1947, suggests the chaos and ruin
that would follow a communist takeover of the United
States. The publications reflected a fevered politics that
prevailed after World War II and through the 1950s.
(Image via Wikimedia Commons)

Trump has run out of cards to play in the midterm elections, which is why he’s now talking about the “communist menace.”

He can’t talk about the economy, because prices continue to rise faster than wages, which means most Americans are getting poorer. He can’t talk about foreign policy, because his war in Iran has been a debacle, his tariffs are an utter failure, and he obviously hasn’t settled the war in Ukraine on “Day 1.” He can’t talk about immigration, because his raids and mass deportations have become so unpopular.

So, facing the midterm elections, what’s left?

He’s resorting to the oldest of right-wing tropes — accusing Democrats (especially a rising generation of new, young, vigorous Democratic politicians) of being commies.

He kicked off America’s 250th anniversary celebrations on Friday with a speech at Mount Rushmore extolling American culture and warning of a resurgence of the “communist menace.” With the granite faces of four of his predecessors behind him, Trump took aim at what he called “radicals” and “extremists.”

“There is now a resurgence of the communist menace in our land, including from newcomers to our country who embrace ideas totally opposed to our way of life and our great success. You can be a communist, or you can be a patriot. You cannot be both.”

Oh, please.

For years, Trump has been trying to scare Americans about progressive Dems who advocate Medicare for All, universal childcare, free public higher education, and higher taxes on the super-wealthy to pay for them (all of which the rising young Democrats are advocating).

But he hasn’t gotten anywhere because these initiatives are supported by most Americans.

So now he’s throwing the commie label at the wall and seeing if it sticks.

Communism was the scare word used by right-wingers after World Wars I and II to crack the whip on the left. It provoked witch hunts and ruined careers.

It made former Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy a one-man bomb squad in the early 1950s, when he rid
iculed the “pitiful squealing” of “those egg-sucking phony liberals” who “would hold sacrosanct those Communists and queers,” and forced American citizens to “name names.”

McCarthyism was a by-product of the Republican Party’s postwar effort to eradicate the New Deal. The GOP had portrayed the midterm election of 1946 as a “battle between Republicanism and communism,” and the Republican National Committee chairman claimed that the federal bureaucracy was filled with “pink puppets.”

Southern segregationist Democrats joined in the red-baiting. Mississippi senator Theodore Bilbo, a Klansman who filibustered to block anti-lynching legislation, described multiracial labor unions’ advocacy for civil rights as the work of “northern communists.” 

President Lawson, Rep. Cotter bill to establish limits on grocery self-checkouts signed

Thank you, Megan!

Bill sponsors Senate President Valarie J. Lawson and Rep. Megan L. Cotter were joined by Governor Dan McKee for a ceremonial signing establishing limits on the use of self-checkout lanes at grocery stores in Rhode Island.

The legislation (2026-S 2342B, 2026-H 7290A) requires grocery stores with self-checkouts to have a minimum of one staffed checkout for every three self-checkouts operating, with at least one of the self-checkout stations meeting the accessibility standards of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

It also requires that grocery store employees be relieved of all other duties, including operating a manual checkout station, while monitoring self-checkout stations.

President Lawson and Representative Cotter said they introduced the bill out of concern for those who work as cashiers, and for customers who struggle with frustrating self-checkout experiences, particularly elderly customers.

AFL-CIO sets ambitious goal of organizing 2 million more workers and two labor experts discuss how this could be done

Big goals call for commitment, planning and organizing

By Don McIntosh

Liz Shuler and Fred Redmond were re-elected to lead the AFL-CIO.
| Photo courtesy AFL-CIO

The AFL-CIO held its 30th national convention June 7-10 in Minneapolis. Among the highlights, delegates re-elected incumbent leadership and passed a resolution pledging to bring 2 million more workers into unions by 2032.

The AFL-CIO is a federation of 65 unions that total 9.8 million members in all. 

In its latest annual disclosure to the Department of Labor, the AFL-CIO reported 14.8 million members, but that figure includes just under 5 million who signed up to be members of Working America, the AFL-CIO’s 22-year-old community and political organizing affiliate; those individuals aren’t represented by a collective bargaining agreement, aren’t required to pay dues, and don’t consider themselves union members.....

In the last four years, the AFL-CIO has grown by 2.4 million members thanks mostly to the re-affiliation of 2-million-member Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the addition of seven smaller unions, most notably of professional athletes. The union share of the U.S. workforce overall has stayed about the same, dropping from 10.1% in 2022 to 10.0% in 2025. It’s estimated there are about 14.7 million union members in the United States in total, and two-thirds of those are in unions affiliated with the AFL-CIO. The AFL-CIO doesn’t organize workers directly but tries to support organizing by affiliated unions. 

Besides the officer elections on Day 1, much of the convention consisted of speeches and panel discussions, but delegates also ratified without debate a series of resolutions that set official AFL-CIO policy. Those included:

• Resolution 2, pledging to initiate a mass training program to provide basic organizing skills, tactics and strategy to working people who want to organize; and to grow unions by at least 2 million workers by 2032
• Resolution 3, committing to dismantle systemic racial- and gender-based barriers to employment, prioritize the fight for pay equity especially for women of color, support access to gender-affirming health care, and center the voices of Black, Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, Latino, LGBTQIA+, indigenous, immigrant and women workers
• Resolution 4, demanding a pathway to citizenship for immigrant workers regardless of legal status; and calling on Congress to rescind funding for mass deportations
• Resolution 25, calling on state and federal regulators to address anti-competitive mega-mergers between major employers
• Resolution 26, opposing electronic shelf labels and so-called “surveillance pricing” by grocery retailers

How the US Labor Movement Can Revive Itself and Help Save Democracy

Stephen Lerner and Joseph A. Mccartin from These Times

The US labor movement, like the nation at large, stands at a crossroads. The next few years might well determine whether the United States fully descends into an era of electoral autocracy, where democracy has withered and authoritarianism becomes the political norm. This period is also likely to set the future trajectory of the union movement’s power and influence, as the state of democracy and organized labor have long been deeply intertwined.

For decades, the right-wing forces set on steadily eroding our democracy have worked in tandem with a pro-corporate movement that has increasingly marginalized organized labor, creating a ballooning crisis for the working class. Yet this politically hazardous moment also represents an opportunity to overcome deep-seated institutional inertia, drawing elements of a cautious labor movement out of their defensive crouch, and helping unions devise forms of struggle that might both revive the labor movement and renew American democracy.

Donald Trump’s second term has, in a way, broken a spell. For years, the pre-Trump status quo kept labor locked in a pattern of slow decline even as democracy was increasingly stifled and abridged by voter suppression, gerrymandering, filibusters, and the overweening power of organized money. But the decades-old dysfunctional status quo that gave rise to Trumpism is now crumbling under the weight of the most lawless, antidemocratic, rights-trampling administration this country has seen since the 19th century.

History suggests that fighting to defend and revive democracy in its moment of maximum peril can create a window of opportunity for labor. Past experience—in the United States and other nations—teaches us that, when unions fight to defend democracy and win, they position themselves for periods of explosive growth and increased worker power. It is imperative that the US labor movement grasp this lesson and seize the window of opportunity before it’s too late.

Moving Beyond Magical Thinking

It’s clear that the crisis facing US democracy is deepening. Over the past year, immigrants and the neighbors and coworkers who stood in solidarity with them endured murderous paramilitary occupations in Minneapolis, Chicago, and other cities across the country. The nation has been plunged into war in Iran without prior input from Congress. The president has even suggested the federal government should seize control of the upcoming midterm elections from the states.

RI Dems convention split leaves no endorsements for governor, LG and AG

Bad news for McKee and Matos

By Nancy Lavin, Rhode Island Current

Neither Gov. Dan McKee nor challenger Helena Foulkes will get the top spot and asterisk signaling the party endorsement on the September primary ballot after the Rhode Island Democratic Party declined to endorse either at its state committee convention Saturday.

The outcome marks yet another setback for McKee, who will be the first sitting governor in at least recent history not to win the backing of his party, said Joe Fleming, a WPRI 12 political analyst.

“I don’t recall an incumbent governor ever not winning the endorsement, and I’ve been around a long time,” Fleming said in an interview Monday. “This is not a good sign for the governor.”

McKee received 81 votes to Foulkes’ 75, while 11 voting committee members opted not to endorse, according to vote totals shared by the Rhode Island Democratic Party. To secure party backing, candidates need to get 50% of all votes cast plus one — or 84 of the 167 committee members who cast ballots at the Teamsters Local 251 union hall in East Providence Saturday.

Nurses say Trump's CDC is "too weak" to handle the Ebola outbreak

Trump regime has gutted US ability to handle disease outbreaks

National Nurses United

Trump has other priorities

With a new Ebola outbreak announced in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on May 15 and declared an international public health emergency just two days later, on top of the recent Andes hantavirus cruise ship outbreak, National Nurses United (NNU) — the nation’s largest union of registered nurses — is sounding the alarm on the Trump administration’s bungled response to emerging infectious diseases. 

Nurses know stopping outbreaks takes strong public health care systems, global cooperation, and support for frontline health care workers. Trump’s attacks on all of these have left our country less prepared to respond in this critical moment.

NNU issued the following statement:

“Nurses understand the life-or-death importance of prevention, and when it comes to infectious diseases, that means having strong infrastructure in place to rapidly detect and respond to new outbreaks before they are out of control. 

"The Trump administration has purposely taken a sledgehammer to that infrastructure over the past year. Instead of funding a robust web of public health experts, they have stolen from our public health resources to fund tax breaks for billionaires, ICE terror, and warfare abroad, threatening the lives of working people everywhere. 

As a result, we are only just now learning about hundreds of Ebola cases in the DRC, indicating that the virus has already been spreading for weeks or months before it was detected.

Let us be clear: The CDC under Trump is flying blind, and that is by design. Nurses are appalled that over the past year, the Trump administration has destroyed the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and exited the World Health Organization (WHO), dismantling response infrastructure and delaying critical communications and information. 

2500 union workers at Rhode Island Hospital ratify new contract

Let's see more of this at Rhode Island's other hospitals

More than 2,500 members of Teamsters Local 251 at Rhode Island Hospital have voted to ratify a three-year agreement that protects their Teamsters health care and includes higher wages and stronger seniority protections. The bargaining unit consists of clinical support, non-clinical, and skilled maintenance staff in nearly every department.

“Local 251 has proudly represented workers at Rhode Island Hospital for more than 30 years,” said Matt Taibi, Secretary-Treasurer of Local 251 and Teamsters Eastern Region International Vice President. “This agreement shows that solidarity has the power to win strong successor contracts.”

The new agreement maintains strong Teamsters health care, layoff protections, and adds access to FSA benefits. Rhode Island Hospital Teamsters resisted many concessionary demands, instead making improvements on job transfers, seniority rights, unused paid time payouts, tuition assistance, shift differentials, and a new pay step for over two thirds of the bargaining unit.

Here’s ‘What’s Next’ According to ‘No Kings’ Organizers

Starts May 1

By Joe Maniscalco

This story is from our friends at Work-Bites

Organizers of the latest round of “No Kings” demonstrations held nationwide, in late March, concluded their post-game wrap-up, on March 31, to be promising, “tonight is the night when we move from talking about what’s next—to doing what’s next.”

“What’s next?” is a question “No Kings” organizers could hardly avoid this week after an estimated 8 million people across the country turned out on Saturday March 28, to once again oppose the Trump administration’s deepening march into post-Constitutional authoritarianism.

So, what does “doing what’s next” look like according to “No Kings” organizers?

In the most concrete terms, it looks like working class people nationwide taking the “No School. No Work. No Shopping.” pledge on May 1—International Workers’ Day, as well as continuing to march, rally, and organize.

Pressure mounts on Citizens Bank over its funding of ICE contractors

Brown union to pull $500K from Citizens Bank over ICE ties. 

By Christopher Shea, Rhode Island Current

Photo by Christopher Shea/Rhode Island Current

The union representing working graduate and undergraduate students at Brown University will withdraw nearly half a million dollars from Rhode Island’s largest bank, aiming to pressure it to cut ties with private prison companies that detain immigrants on behalf of the Trump administration.

A group of Boston-area churches plans to pull about $1 million if leaders at Citizens Bank do not meet with them within a week to discuss similar demands to no longer financially support U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations.

“If you do happen to know a bank that is not involved in these sorts of shady business dealings, we’d love some recommendations,” Michael Ziegler, president of AFT-RIFT Local 6516, told 300 demonstrators gathered outside Citizens’ Providence headquarters Thursday morning.

The announcements came before and after the bank’s annual shareholder meeting. As bank officials and stockowners headed inside to the meeting, protesters urged them to push the company to cut financial ties with CoreCivic and the GEO Group — two of ICE’s biggest contractors.

“We’re all here today for the same reason: to protest the reign of terror and abuse being caused by ICE in Rhode Island and across the country,” Julie Craven, one of the organizers for the De-ICE Citizens Bank Coalition, told protestors and press gathered outside the bank. “Citizens Bank has been the financial engine that made it all possible.” 

Peter Lucht, a spokesperson for Citizen’s Bank, declined to comment on Thursday’s protest and account-holder demands. 

PRIMARY CARE WOES --- Will We Solve Rhode Island's Problem?

Bureaucracy versus medicine

By Dr. Steven Fera for Save Our Health Care 

To the rescue?

Primary care in this country is at a critical juncture. The causes are multiple, but government reforms, demands of private payers and corporate employers, the burden of pre-authorization, and the introduction of electronic medical record (EMR) systems are all important contributing factors.

In the 1990s, managed-care plans emerged which greatly increased insurance company profits at the expense of the physician. Hospital executives and entrepreneurs have capitalized by organizing physicians into groups called Accountable Care Organizations, collecting a substantial percentage of collected income. Nowadays, physicians are required to use electronic medical records, which has transformed daily workflow. 

In many cases, patient visits are dominated by time spent engaged in data entry, which requires searching for the correct medical diagnostic code (currently there are over 69,000) and billing code, along with including sufficient medical “information” to qualify for payment. The companies that developed them are reaping significant profits from hospitals and physician practices. Whether this enhances quality or simply undermines the doctor-patient relationship depends on who you ask.

Over the past decade or so, the costs of practice have outpaced increases in reimbursement. Moreover, administrative demands have steered a majority of physicians into employment models, where they have often found that “protocols” and “productivity” were more important metrics than “quality,” leading to both physician and patient dissatisfaction. A rewarding and successful doctor-patient interaction requires time, a luxury many practitioners can no longer afford within the constraints of shorter patient visits. 

Unions play key role in keeping direct care workers in the workforce

Unions help prevention worker turnover

By University of California, Los Angeles

Edited by Gaby Clark, reviewed by Robert Egan

Unionization and working for a public employer are associated with significantly lower turnover among direct care workers (DCW), a group that provides daily care for older adults and those who are disabled and unable to care for themselves, UCLA-led research suggests. 

The findings on the role of DCW unionization, published in the peer-reviewed JAMA Network Open, apply to both for-profit and nonprofit organizations, suggesting that unionization can play a significant role in keeping DCWs in the workforce—and save the health care system $1.5 billion a year in turnover costs. It can also lead to improvements in care quality due to increased job satisfaction and lower stress.

Why direct care worker turnover matters

"Direct care workers provide essential daily care for millions of older adults and people with disabilities, but very high levels of worker turnover make it increasingly difficult for people to receive the consistent care they need," said study lead Dr. Geoffrey Gusoff, assistant professor of family medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. "Reducing turnover and retaining workers in the direct care workforce is essential for meeting the need for high-quality direct care services."

Son of long-time Charlestown Assistant Solicitor Bob Craven declares candidacy to replace his father

Robert Craven Jr. is running for House District 32

Steve Ahlquist

When Robert Craven Jr. announced he was running for the State Representative seat his father was vacating, I reached out to request an interview. We met at Cafe Nero in Downtown Providence, a place so busy neither of us had coffee. The interview has been edited for clarity:

Steve Ahlquist: I don’t want to start on a negative note, but in this state, we oftentimes have what I think of as “inherited” seats. That is, the child of a politician taking over an elected position from their parent. Your father is the current State Representative from District 32, so what do you bring to this position that makes it earned rather than inherited?

Robert Craven: Two things. One, I’m running not because I have his name; I’m running despite having his name. I’m running in North Kingstown because it’s where I grew up and where I know the state and the country best. I’m running because I have the specific experience to deliver meaningful results for North Kingstown. My father represented well. He had his own experience to rely on. I have some of the same skills, but a different skill set and perspective on much of it, which will let me either expand on or add to what he accomplished.

Steve Ahlquist: You do have an impressive resume. Do you want to talk about that?

Robert Craven: I’m glad to. For the past three years, I’ve been the policy director for Rhode Island’s Treasurer. In that capacity, I’ve helped champion legislation that expanded wealth opportunities for low-income Rhode Islanders, helped towns like North Kingstown protect themselves from the threats of climate change, helped survivors of sexual assault access the funds and support systems they need, and pushed Rhode Island forward in financial well-being. Before that, I ran the Treasurer’s campaign, as you know...

Steve Ahlquist: Which is when I got to know you a little bit.

Robert Craven: Exactly. And before I got into the politics and policy side of things, I practiced law for a few years at a litigation firm in Downtown Providence, where I practiced banking law, complex commercial disputes, and class action lawsuits.

Steve Ahlquist: That put you in the position to be in the Treasurer’s office

Robert Craven: Yeah. It was a good foundation for understanding the issues the office usually deals with. And I dealt with a lot of land use and Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC) law when I was practicing law, which gave me the CRMC’s perspective on things and where some of these communities and their zoning boards are in terms of being able to construct (or not construct) what they’re comfortable with, and what’s environmentally sound.

Steve Ahlquist: Land use and the CRMC are two hot topics at the State House right now. We’re dealing with land use issues and possibly reorganizing the CRMC or folding it into the Department of Environmental Management (DEM).

Robert Craven: I think CRMC needs a revisit. That organization has served the state well enough since its creation, but the policies surrounding it are changing. The needs of the state have shifted, and there’s going to be a lot more urgency in what they do as we head towards an era where we might see a dramatic change in what’s happening on our shoreline.

Steve Ahlquist: I think we’re already seeing dramatic changes. We’re looking at parts of Newport going underwater...

Robert Craven: ... and Warren, North Kingstown, Westerly...

Steve Ahlquist: Yeah. Whole sections of the state - land, houses, businesses, whatever - are going to be flooded if we can’t figure out something.

Growing up in a political household, what was that like? Mine is a firefighter family, so we were somewhat political, union politics...

Robert Craven: My mom was a union president in Narragansett. I grew up hearing about the Department of Education and how it was not funding teachers. When I was in middle school, I remember hearing about pension reform from my mom, who was one of the people affected by it. Growing up in that kind of household with a father always interested in policy and politics shows you that the system is accessible, right? I went to George Washington University down in DC, but I came back to intern in health and housing policy for Governor Lincoln Chafee.

That experience, along with what I had growing up, showed me how accessible the system can be. And then, if you learn how the system works, you can really accomplish something through it. There’s this impression that politicians are inaccessible or that they’re in it for malicious intent, but that’s not the case. You have a lot of good people out there who are trying to accomplish something - trying to do the right thing. That’s kind of the lesson that I learned growing up around it.

Wow! Trump’s Justice Department Dropped 23,000 Criminal Cases in Shift to Immigration

To pander to Trump's obsession with immigrants, thousands of real criminals go free

by Ken B. Morales and David Armstrong for ProPublica

• ICE Detention Statistics: As of early 2026, about 73.6% of people in ICE detention had no criminal convictions.
• Conviction Types: Among those detained, only about 5% have convictions for violent crimes, while the majority of those with convictions have nonviolent, minor offenses like traffic violations.

In the first days after Pam Bondi was appointed attorney general last year, the Department of Justice began shutting down pending criminal cases at a record pace.

The cases included an investigation into a Virginia nursing home with a recent record of patient abuse; probes of fraud involving several New Jersey labor unions, including one opened after a top official of a national union was accused of embezzlement; and an investigation into a cryptocurrency company suspected of cheating investors.

In total, the DOJ quietly closed more than 23,000 criminal cases in the first six months of President Donald Trump’s administration, abandoning hundreds of investigations into terrorism, white-collar crime, drugs and other offenses as it shifted resources to pursue immigration cases, according to an analysis by ProPublica.

The bulk of these cases, which were closed without prosecution and known as declinations, had been referred to the DOJ by law enforcement agencies under prior administrations that believed a federal crime may have been committed. The DOJ routinely declines to prosecute cases for any number of reasons, including insufficient evidence or because a case is not a priority for enforcement.

But the number of declinations under Bondi marks a striking departure not only from the Biden administration but also the first Trump term, according to the ProPublica analysis, which examined two decades of DOJ data, including the first six months of Trump’s second term. ProPublica determined the increase is not the result of inheriting a larger caseload or more referrals from law enforcement.

In February 2025 alone, which included the first weeks of Bondi’s tenure, nearly 11,000 cases were declined, the most in a month since at least 2004. The previous high was just over 6,500 cases in September 2019, during Trump’s first administration.

Some of the cases shut down were the result of yearslong investigations by federal agencies such as the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration. For complex cases, the DOJ can take years before deciding whether to bring charges.

The shift comes as the DOJ has undergone an extraordinary overhaul under the Trump administration, with entire units shuttered, directives to abandon pursuit of certain crimes and thousands of lawyers quitting or, in some cases, being forced out of the agency.

In doing so, the DOJ is retreating from its mission to impartially uphold the rule of law, keep the country safe and protect civil rights, according to interviews with a dozen prosecutors and an open letter from nearly 300 DOJ employees who have left the department under Trump. The Trump DOJ, the employees wrote, is “taking a sledgehammer” to long-standing work to “protect communities and the rule of law.”

The change in priorities was outlined in a series of memos sent to attorneys early last year. Trump’s DOJ has said it is “turning a new page on white-collar and corporate enforcement” and emphasizing the pursuit of drug cartels, illegal immigrants and institutions that promote “divisive DEI policies.” Trump, in an address last March at the department, said the changes were necessary after a “surrender to violent criminals” during the past administration and would result in a restoration of “fair, equal and impartial justice under the constitutional rule of law.”

The department prosecuted 32,000 new immigration cases in the first six months of the administration, which was nearly triple the number under the Biden administration and a 15% increase from the first Trump term. It has pursued fewer prosecutions of nearly every other type of crime — from drug offenses to corruption — than new administrations in their first six months dating back to 2009.

Reflections on Cesar Chavez Day 2026

How to change culture (for Dolores and all the others)

Cheryl Brown

The other day I listened to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ 1996 recording of “Knoxville Girl,” a traditional ballad about a girl from my hometown who got pummeled to death with a stick by her lover and dumped into the Tennessee River. The lyrics are typical of many a handed-down English folk song in that it features the violent murder of a sweet, young, not-so-innocent thing. 

Scots-Irish and English immigrants (settlers who may have been indentured servants, religious and economic refugees, colonizers, possibly all of the above) brought the seeds of this song to the US and then unto Appalachia. Besides Nick Cave, the Louvin Brothers, Lemon Drops, BR549, Outlaws, and many others have covered “Knoxville Girl.” 

I suspect some don’t even think twice about singing from the point of view of the murderer who is sitting in jail feeling sorry for himself. Perhaps this song was once meant to scare young people off from fooling around before wedlock, but it often come across, at least to me, as more sympathetic to a man grieving for the loss of his freedom rather than the loss of a young woman’s life. Perspective means everything. Anyway the words are at the bottom of this post so see for yourself.

Although I grew up hearing a lot of folk music, I only really learned about the lineage of murder ballads my first year back in the States, when I spent my second semester at Friends World College doing an apprenticeship and self-guided study on urban Appalachians, migration, and culture. My advisor was an ethnomusicologist who supported my investigations of country music on juke boxes in downtown Cincinnati dive bars. Grandma Bonnie Blanton Vance kinda territory. I learned as much from the other patrons’ stories as I did from the lyrics we sang along to over shots and beers. 

For part of my apprenticeship at the Urban Appalachian Council, I put to good use skills I had honed organizing punk shows helping out with the musical and storytelling stages of the annual Appalachian Festival. Because I was once again behind the scenes and not in the audience, I got to meet the likes of the Dillards, Dry Branch Fire Squad, Rich Kirby, Sparky and Rhonda Rucker, and Sheila Kay Adams, whose version of “Knoxville Girl” is one of the best I’ve heard, sung in the true ol’ timey way. 

I got to work with some of the godfathers and godmothers of the Cincinnati hillbilly music scene, one of whom invited me to his house after the festival to confess he had fallen in love with me, a 22- year-old less than half his age. I went because a group of us had been meeting there to plan the thing. After that, I withdrew and was never involved with that group of people again.

A few years later, I went to grad school in Washington DC and wasted hours that should have been dedicated to writing about the impact of structural adjustment policies imposed by the International Monetary Fund on poor people in poor countries, instead browsing the library stacks which held rare books full of old songs collected by jobless artists dispatched by the Works Progress Administration to the Third World hollers of Southern Appalachia. 

I formed a band and found my voice while working out harmonies and writing lyrics that were basically revenge fantasies in which the fair maiden gets revenge on the man who led her down the proverbial path in the woods to a muddy, soon bloody riverbank. 

My songs weren’t nearly as good as Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard’s recordings of feminist folk songs from the 1960s and 70s, but can be seen as stemming from that tradition, with the addition of the electric guitars and distortion pedals of 1980s punk and 1990s shoegaze. Changing culture takes decades of work over many generations. 

I’ve often thought that by getting me out of Knoxville when I was a jaded and angry 15-year-old punk, my parents steered me off a bad trajectory. I was able to get a much better education and came to understand the world in ways that I simply could not had I stayed in my hometown. I gained perspectives that East Tennessee preachers and some of my schoolteachers tried to shield me from, because such knowledge liberates one from the narrow cultural, political, and religious grips in which they wanted to keep me and the other Knoxville girls.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Cheryl and I have been friends for 30 years, meeting early on in her organizing career and staying in touch through the years. What Cheryl doesn't mention is her deep family ties to Rhode Island and that she has moved back to Rhode Island after a long organizing stint in California.  - Will Collette

‘One Person Cannot Tear Our Movement Down,’ Farmworkers Say of César Chávez Revelations

The danger of revering heroes

Jessica Corbett for Common Dreams

“Our collective power is what defines us and is our movement, and one person cannot tear our movement down,” Alianza Nacional De Campesinas said in the wake of The New York Times reporting Wednesday on multiple sexual abuse allegations against late Mexican-American labor leader César Chávez.

“As a farmworker women’s organization, many of us have experienced or witnessed the sexual abuse and silence women endure in many aspects of our lives,” the group continued, adding that “we are deeply troubled and devastated” to learn about the reporting, and “we stand with Dolores Huerta, Ana Murguía, and Debra Rojas, who have bravely shared their painful stories.”

Huerta, cofounded with Chávez a group that went on to become the labor union United Farm Workers (UFW). In her comments to the Times and a separate statement, the 95-year-old described two separate encounters with Chávez that led to pregnancies: “The first time I was manipulated and pressured into having sex with him... The second time I was forced, against my will, and in an environment where I felt trapped.”

Murguía told the Times that Chávez molested her for four years, beginning when she was 13. Rojas said she was 12 when Chávez first groped her breasts in the same office where abused Murguía. When Rojas was 15, the newspaper reported, “he arranged to have her stay at a motel during a weekslong march through California, she said, and had sexual intercourse with her—rape, under state law, because she was not old enough to consent.”

The reporting has sparked a wave of responses from labor groups, elected officials, and others who have expressed support for survivors and stressed, as Guardian US columnist Moira Donegan wrote Friday, that “the rightness of the movement for the dignity of workers, for the rights and respect of Latinos, and for a future in which there is more freedom and possibility for poor people... cannot be tarnished by Chávez’s behavior.”

UFW Foundation said this week that “as a women-led organization that exists to empower communities, the allegations about abusive behavior by César Chávez go against everything that we stand for.”

Describing the alleged abuse as “shocking, indefensible and something we are taking seriously,” the UFW Foundation also announced that it “has cancelled all César Chávez Day activities this month.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: I spent a day with Cesar Chavez when he visited Providence in May 1972. I was a young organizer of 23 and was picked to be part of a contingent who essentially served as human shields. Cesar had gotten many death threats. I was mostly within an arm's length of him and liked and admired him at the time, but much less so now. - Will Collette

Investing Public Pensions in Fossil Fuel and AI Companies Is More Than Amoral – It’s Bad Business

Public pension money should be directed to where it will do the most good

Liz Perlman and Stephen Lerner for Common Dreams

We're not this guy

Our country faces an affordability crisis amidst fundamental attacks on democracy. Public employee pension plans can either be part of the solution or part of the problem.

Late last year, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander recommended the city’s pension boards drop BlackRock and other portfolio managers that don’t have decarbonization plans up to the city’s standards. Lander’s initiative was blocked, and the editorial board of The Washington Post accused him of playing politics. But Lander argued that his recommendation was in line with the government’s fiduciary duty to protect the long-term value of pension funds, the retirement systems most public sector workers rely on—and have been paying into their entire careers. He’s right. 

In this critical moment in history, companies that are actively hastening climate change, threatening housing security, eliminating jobs and industries, and destabilizing our democracy and economy do not deserve our investment. Yes, they are acting immorally but they are also very bad investments with little promise of future returns for public sector workers. It’s not “playing politics” to refuse to fund their efforts to dismantle our society. That’s why we’re calling on pension boards across the country to take a hard look at their portfolios and make the smart business decision: stop investing in companies like this today.

The stakes could not be higher: pension funds account for $6.1 trillion in state and local defined-benefit funds alone. Every month, nearly 15 million workers across the country contribute part of their paycheck to ensure they have enough income to retire securely. This is a big pot of money and the companies that boards choose to invest it with matter. 

For public sector workers, pensions are not only retirement funds, but deferred current compensation. Workers are forsaking their hard-earned money today for the potential of a dignified future. Meanwhile, corporations are using that money today to further their own goals—many of which are directly at odds with the goals, livelihoods, and futures of public employees.

EDITOR'S DISCLOSURE: Steve Lerner and I go back 40 years when he was a young textile worker organizer. Steve was a frequent house guest at our suburban DC home. On one of his visits, Cathy and I (well, mostly Cathy) introduced him to Marilyn Sniederman. I told Cathy I wouldn't recognize her skills as a yenta until the bris of their first son. When that happened, I admitted my mistake. Later on, when I went to work in the labor movement, I worked with both Marilyn and Steve in my first union job. I owe them both.  - Will Collette

Scandals Engulf Labor Secretary as She Guts Worker Protections

The wrong choice from the start

Jake Johnson

Lori Chavez-DeRemer’s tenure as head of the US Department of Labor was further embroiled in scandal on Thursday after bombshell New York Times reporting revealed that her husband has been banned from the agency’s headquarters over sexual assault allegations leveled by at least two staffers.

The reporting landed on the same day that a group of Senate Democrats launched an investigation into Chavez-DeRemer’s policy moves at the Labor Department, accusing her agency of showing “disregard for workers’ lives” by “rolling back protections that keep workers safe and hobbling the agency that is tasked with overseeing worker safety.”

The sexual assault allegations against the labor secretary’s husband, Shawn DeRemer, were made by two women “as part of an internal investigation by the department’s inspector general into alleged misconduct by Ms. Chavez-DeRemer and her senior staff,” the Times reported Thursday, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter and a police report.

Rhode Islanders REALLY don't like Dan McKee

Two major polls released Monday and Tuesday show high dissatisfaction with McKee among likely voters

Two articles by Nancy Lavin, Rhode Island Current

University of New Hampshire poll shows Foulkes leading McKee 34% to 18%

Almost twice as many likely voters would back Helena Buonanno Foulkes over Gov. Dan McKee if the Democratic gubernatorial primary were held today, according to a new poll published on February 24 by the University of New Hampshire. 

The survey of 703 residents, including 364 likely Democratic primary voters, marks a new low in voters’ long running dissatisfaction with McKee. Less than one in five likely Democratic voters (including registered Democrats and independents) had a favorable view of the incumbent governor, while more than three-quarters viewed him unfavorably. 

If asked to mark their primary ballots today — six months out from the September primary — 18% of likely Democratic voters would reelect McKee. Foulkes, a former CVS executive viewed as McKee’s main primary competitor, was the pick for 34% of likely primary voters. The margin of error overall was 3.7%, with a 5.1% margin of error for questions specific to likely Democratic voters. 

The poll was conducted online between Feb. 12 and 16.

More bad news for McKee’s reelection prospects in latest AFL-CIO poll

Rhode Island Republicans applaud McGee's renewal energy roll-back; others DO NOT

Environmental groups and labor respond to Governor McKee's push against renewable energy and energy efficiency

Steve Ahlquist

Environmental advocates, state legislators, and labor union leaders spoke out at a State House press conference to oppose Rhode Island Governor Daniel McKee’s budget proposals and executive order on clean energy. The event was sponsored by Acadia Center, Climate Action Rhode Island, and the Green Energy Consumers Alliance.

“Slowing the transition to clean local renewables is a shortsighted plan that doesn’t address the long-term energy affordability and undermines Rhode Island’s economic competitiveness and clean energy future,” said Emily Howe of Clean Water Action. “The investments we make today in energy efficiency make homes more comfortable, use less energy, and reduce energy demand, resulting in lower costs for all rate payers.”

Acadia Center’s Emily Koo put it bluntly: “Cutting clean energy doesn’t protect Rhode Island rate payers. It protects an outdated energy system and keeps us dependent on dirty, expensive fossil fuels. These so-called state mandates, like our renewable energy standard and the charges that support renewable energy and energy efficiency programs, help reduce the largest and fastest-growing component of your bill: supply and delivery costs. It’s a glaring omission to report clean energy costs while ignoring all cost savings, one of the primary reasons for undertaking the energy transition in the first place. Clean energy isn’t at odds with affordability. It’s essential to it.”

The Governor’s bad policy decisions around renewable energy and energy efficiency programs did please at least one group in Rhode Island: Senate Republicans.

“Senate Republicans warned these mandates were unaffordable, we debated the adverse effects on ratepayers on the Senate floor, we have submitted legislation to increase transparency on utility bills, and to fully repeal costly mandates,” said Senate Minority Leader Jessica de la Cruz. “It is good to know the Governor supports our advocacy and, at long last, realizes the detrimental effect of the policies he has historically championed. Now is the time to put partisanship aside and correct the failed policies that have given rise to some of the highest electricity rates in the country.”

“Rhode Island’s mandates on renewable energy rely heavily on taxpayer-funded subsidies. Those costs are borne by ratepayers across all socio-economic backgrounds and present significant financial challenges for businesses and the economy,” said Senate Minority Whip Gordon Rogers. “If the governor’s efforts to solve problems he helped create do not include a full repeal of mandates and a significant reduction in taxpayer subsidies, then he is gaslighting the people of Rhode Island – it’s just too bad that gaslighting can’t be used to heat and power our homes.”

Rhode Island nurses cancel vigil to honor Alex Pretti after threats of violence

"We believe the threats are credible and pose too great a risk to proceed”

By Christopher Shea, Rhode Island Current

A Pawtucket vigil planned Thursday night by Rhode Island nurses to honor the Minneapolis nurse shot and killed by federal agents last month was canceled three hours before it was supposed to start after organizers received threatening comments on social media.

A joint statement from the Rhode Island Nurses Association and SEIU 1199 New England issued at 3 p.m. claimed a Middletown resident allegedly posted threats raising the possibility of weapons being present at the vigil planned for 6 p.m.

“Our mission is to protect and advocate for nurses across the state, and with guidance from the Pawtucket and Middletown Police Departments, we believe the threats are credible and pose too great a risk to proceed,” the Rhode Island Nurses Association and SEIU 1199 New England said in a joint statement.

Chris Hunter, a spokesperson for the city of Pawtucket, confirmed the online threats. He said police in Middletown conducted a wellness check and found the man had weapons at his residence.