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Right to Work Laws
'Right to Work' States Trail
Neighbors in Pay
(news
clipping ca. 1958)
One of the most graphic reasons why labor opposed
"right-to-wreck" laws is pointed out by the latest
official Labor department figures, showing the average hourly
factory wages in 1957, in "right-to-work states and their
neighbors"
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Wages
in 'Right to Work
States with No Union Shop |
Wages
in Neighbor States
Permitting Free Unionism |
|
Virginia
$1.61 |
West
Virginia $2.10 |
| Tennessee
$1.65 |
Kentucky
$1.98 |
| Mississippi
$1.40 |
Louisiana
$1.94 |
| Arkansas
$1.46 |
Missouri
$1.98 |
| Texas
$2.04 |
New
Mexico $2.19 |
| Iowa
$2.05 |
Illinois
$2.19 |
| Nebraska
$1.87 |
Kansas
$2.08 |
| South
Dakota $1.79 |
Minnesota
$2.08 |
| North
Dakota $1.82 |
Montana
$2.21 |
| Utah
$2.25 |
Wyoming
$2.40 |
| Nevada
$2.53 |
Idaho
$2.10 |
| Arizona
$2.25 |
California
$2.33 |
Of these 12 pairs of states, only one
"right-to-work" state-Nevada-has higher average wages
than its neighboring free states.
Why should that be? Unionists know the answer well: Where
unions are free and strong, wages rise. Where unions are hampered
and weak, wages lag.
Six states with "right-to-work" laws have been
omitted from these comparisons. Five of them—Alabama, Florida,
Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina—have no free unionism
neighbor states. In all of these states, average wages are low,
ranging from $1.44 to $1.77 last June.
The sixth omitted state, Indiana, passed its wreck law only
last year. There hasn't yet been time to measure that law's effect
on Indiana's wages. * *
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Ballad of Hollis Brown (Nina
Simone)
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Ballad Of Hollis
Brown
Lyrics by Bob Dylan
Hollis Brown
He lived on the outside of town
Hollis Brown
He lived on the outside of town
With his wife and five children
And his cabin brokin' down.
You looked for work and money
And you walked a rugged mile
You looked for work and money
And you walked a rugged mile
Your children are so hungry
That they don't know how to smile.
Your baby's eyes look crazy
They're a-tuggin' at your sleeve
Your baby's eyes look crazy
They're a-tuggin' at your sleeve
You walk the floor and wonder why
With every breath you breathe.
The rats have got your flour
Bad blood it got your mare
The rats have got your flour
Bad blood it got your mare
If there's anyone that knows
Is there anyone that cares ?
You prayed to the Lord above
Oh please send you a friend
You prayed to the Lord above
Oh please send you a friend
Your empty pocket tell you
That you ain't a-got no friend.
Your babies are crying louder now
It's pounding on your brain
Your babies are crying louder now
It's pounding on your brain
Your wife's screams are stabbin' you
Like the dirty drivin' rain.
Your grass is turning black
There's no water in your well
Your grass is turning black
There's no water in your well
Your spent your last lone dollar
On seven shotgun shels.
Way out in the wilderness
A cold coyote calls
Way out in the wilderness
A cold coyote calls
Your eyes fix on the shortgun
That's hangin' on the wall.
Your brain is a-bleedin'
And your legs can't seem to stand
Your brain is a-bleedin'
And your legs can't seem to stand
Your eyes fix on the shortgun
That you're holdin' in your hand.
There's seven breezes a-blowin'
All around the cabin door
There's seven breezes a-blowin'
All around the cabin door
Seven shots ring out
Like the ocean's pounding roar.
There's seven people dead
On a south Dakota farm
There's seven people dead
On a south Dakota farm
Somewhere in the distance
There's seven new people born.
album: "The Times
They Are A-Changin'" (1964) |
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The
Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll (Bob Dylan)
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The
Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
Lyrics by Bob Dylan
William Zanzinger killed
poor Hattie Carroll
With a cane that he twirled around his diamond
ring finger
At a Baltimore hotel society gath'rin'
And the cops were called in and his weapon took
from him
As they rode him in custody down to the station
And booked William Zanzinger for first-degree
murder
But you who philosophize disgrace and criticize
all fears
Take the rag away from your face
Now ain't the time for your tears.
William Zanzinger who at twenty-four years
Owns a tobacco farm of six hundred acres
With rich wealthy parents who provide and
protect him
And high office relations in the politics of
Maryland
Reacted to his deed with a shrug of his
shoulders
And swear words and sneering and his tongue it
was snarling
In a matter of minutes on bail was out walking
But you who philosophize disgrace and criticize
all fears
Take the rag away from your face
Now ain't the time for your tears.
Hattie Carroll was a maid in the kitchen
She was fifty-one years old and gave birth to
ten children
Who carried the dishes and took out the garbage
And never sat once at the head of the table
And didn't even talk to the people at the table
Who just cleaned up all the food from the table
And emptied the ashtrays on a whole other level
Got killed by a blow, lay slain by a cane
That sailed through the air and came down
through the room
Doomed and determined to destroy all the gentle
And she never done nothing to William Zanzinger
And you who philosophize disgrace and criticize
all fears
Take the rag away from your face
Now ain't the time for your tears.
In the courtroom of honor, the judge pounded his
gavel
To show that all's equal and that the courts are
on the level
And that the strings in the books ain't pulled
and persuaded
And that even the nobles get properly handled
Once that the cops have chased after and caught
'em
And that ladder of law has no top and no bottom
Stared at the person who killed for no reason
Who just happened to be feelin' that way without
warnin'
And he spoke through his cloak, most deep and
distinguished
And handed out strongly, for penalty and
repentance
William Zanzinger with a six-month sentence
Oh, but you who philosophize disgrace and
criticize all fears
Bury the rag deep in your face
For now's the time for your tears.
album:
"The Times They Are A-Changin'" (1964) |
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Pilgrimage to an Ancestral Land:
Ghana /
Miriam in Ghana /
AmandlaPublishers
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Will the World Cup benefit South Africa?
When FIFA awarded South
Africa hosting honors for the 2010 World Cup, many skeptics
believed the nation could not pull it off. Others maintained
that the event would negatively impact a country in which abject
poverty is still widespread. But the event has kicked off with
everything from stadiums to transport infrastructure ready.
Inside Story asks what the costs of hosting the World Cup have
been to South Africa and what South Africans stand to gain from
the event.
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Salvage the Bones
A Novel by Jesmyn Ward
On one level, Salvage the Bones is a simple story about a poor black family that’s about to be trashed by one of the most deadly hurricanes in U.S. history. What makes the novel so powerful, though, is the way Ward winds private passions with that menace gathering force out in the Gulf of Mexico. Without a hint of pretension, in the simple lives of these poor people living among chickens and abandoned cars, she evokes the tenacious love and desperation of classical tragedy. The force that pushes back against Katrina’s inexorable winds is the voice of Ward’s narrator, a 14-year-old girl named Esch, the only daughter among four siblings. Precocious, passionate and sensitive, she speaks almost entirely in phrases soaked in her family’s raw land. Everything here is gritty, loamy and alive, as though the very soil were animated. Her brother’s “blood smells like wet hot earth after summer rain. . . . His scalp looks like fresh turned dirt.” Her father’s hands “are like gravel,” while her own hand “slides through his grip like a wet fish,” and a handsome boy’s “muscles jabbered like chickens.” Admittedly, Ward can push so hard on this simile-obsessed style that her paragraphs risk sounding like a compost heap, but this isn’t usually just metaphor for metaphor’s sake. She conveys something fundamental about Esch’s fluid state of mind: her figurative sense of the world in which all things correspond and connect. She and her brothers live in a ramshackle house steeped in grief since their mother died giving birth to her last child. . . . What remains, what’s salvaged, is something indomitable in these tough siblings, the strength of their love, the permanence of their devotion.— WashingtonPost
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Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in
America
By Melissa V.
Harris-Perry
According to the
author, this society has historically exerted
considerable pressure on black females to fit into one
of a handful of stereotypes, primarily, the Mammy, the
Matriarch or the Jezebel. The selfless
Mammy’s behavior is marked by a slavish devotion to
white folks’ domestic concerns, often at the expense of
those of her own family’s needs. By contrast, the
relatively-hedonistic Jezebel is a sexually-insatiable
temptress. And the Matriarch is generally thought of as
an emasculating figure who denigrates black men, ala the
characters Sapphire and Aunt Esther on the television
shows Amos and Andy and Sanford and Son, respectively.
Professor Perry
points out how the propagation of these harmful myths
have served the mainstream culture well. For instance,
the Mammy suggests that it is almost second nature for
black females to feel a maternal instinct towards
Caucasian babies.
As for the source
of the Jezebel, black women had no control over their
own bodies during slavery given that they were being
auctioned off and bred to maximize profits. Nonetheless,
it was in the interest of plantation owners to propagate
the lie that sisters were sluts inclined to mate
indiscriminately.
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
* * * * *
If you like this page consider making a donation
* * * * *
Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
1950
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
____ 2005
Enjoy!
* * * * *
The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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ChickenBones Store
(Books, DVDs, Music, and more)
update
4 March 2012
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