Resumenes de artículos de Labor Notes de los EEUU, semana de 22 abril, en español e inglés. Summaries of Labor Notes stories from the U.S. for the week of April 22, in Spanish and English. Please pass them on to your Spanish-speaking friends.

Baltimoreans Press Casino for Real Local Benefits April 26, 2013 / Michael Fox

Caesars and UNITE HERE are nearing a deal to unionize Baltimore’s new casino. It's the first target for a city-wide coalition that aims to make big developers pay for good local jobs, affordable housing, fire stations, and rec centers.

In a broadcast exclusive, we air excerpts from a new documentary that examines the struggle Muhammad Ali faced in his conversion to Islam, his refusal to fight in Vietnam, and the years of exile that followed before his eventual return to the ring. Ali is considered the greatest boxer in the history of sports. When he refused to be drafted into the military and filed as a conscientious objector, he was sentenced to prison and stripped of his heavyweight title. He appealed his case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and did not go to prison, but he was forced to wait four years before regained his boxing license. "The Trials of Muhammad Ali" has its world premiere tonight in New York City at the Tribeca Film Festival. "This isn’t a boxing film, but it is a fight film," says our guest, Director Bill Siegel. "It’s a journey film that I hope says as much about us as it does about him." We also speak with Gordon Quinn, the film’s executive producer.

A group of Georgia high school students are making history by challenging the segregation of their high school prom. Thanks to their efforts and the support of groups like the NAACP, Wilcox County High will hold its first-ever integrated prom this Saturday, nearly 60 years after Brown v. Board of Education desegregated the nation’s school system. In the past, the proms have been organized by private groups, and parents behind the "white prom" have refused to let African-American students attend. Local officials say the segregated prom has continued because it is organized privately, out of the school district’s control. News of the case spread quickly over social media, fueling support and donations for an integrated prom from as far away as Australia and South Korea. We speak with two of the students who are helping to organize the integrated prom: Mareshia Rucker and Brandon Davis. We also speak to Mareshia’s mother, Toni Rucker, who encouraged her daughter’s efforts. In addition, we air an excerpt from a recent interview with Carlotta Walls LaNier, who was 14 years old when she became one of the "Little Rock Nine" who integrated Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas in 1957.

Questions are mounting over whether U.S. security officials failed to heed warnings that could have foiled the bombing of the Boston Marathon. After news emerged that the older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was on the intelligence radar in the United States. As a result, there have been growing calls for federal agencies to re-examine their priorities, particularly to focus on sting operations that critics say constitute entrapment. We speak with Trevor Aaronson, author of “The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI’s Manufactured War on Terrorism,” published in January. He is co-director of the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting and a contributing writer at Mother Jones. His most recent article is called, "How the FBI in Boston May Have Pursued the Wrong 'Terrorist.'" In the piece, he writes while the FBI "decided to stop tracking Tsarnaev — whose six-month trip to Russia at that time is now of prime interest to investigators — the FBI conducted a sting operation against an unrelated young Muslim man who had a fantastical plan for attacking the U.S. Capitol with a remote-controlled airplane."

• U.S. Officials Say Syrian Regime Likely Used Chemical Weapons
• Iraq: Scores Killed in Sectarian Clashes
• Obama Fails to Mention Iraq War in Speech Honoring Bush
• New York Times Condemns Guantánamo as Hunger Strike Continues
• Police Fire Tear Gas on Workers Protesting Bangladesh Building Collapse; Death Toll Nears 300
• Russia: 38 Dead in Fire at Psychiatric Institution
• Obama Attends Memorial for Blast Victims in West, Texas
• U.N. Official Condemned for Highlighting Role of U.S. Policy in Boston Attacks
• Renowned Newspaper "Egypt Independent" Releases Final Issue
• U.N. Security Council Votes to Send Troops to Mali
• Venezuela Arrests U.S. Filmmaker Accused of Fomenting Violence
• Activist Joan Baez Sr., Mother of Famous Folk Singer, Dies at 100

To avoid a repeat of 2009’s concessions, Communications Workers delegates agreed that all districts would stick together. So what happened?

Yemeni activist and journalist Farea al-Muslimi delivered a moving plea before a Senate hearing this week for an end to U.S. drone strikes inside his country. Speaking at the first-ever public congressional hearing on Obama’s secret drone and targeted killing program, al-Muslimi offered a rare first-hand account of the suffering that drone warfare wreaks on ordinary people’s lives. His family’s village of Wessab was hit by a U.S. drone strike last week, leaving five people dead. Educated in the United States as a teenager, al-Muslimi says the drone attacks are turning Yemenis against the country that embraced him.

This week’s Bangladeshi factory disaster comes five months after a massive fire killed at least 112 garment workers at Bangladesh’s Tazreen factory, which made clothing sold by Wal-Mart, among other companies. Earlier this month, Wal-Mart refused to compensate victims and their families, even though it was apparently the factory’s largest buyer. We’re joined by Sumi Abedin, a worker who survived the Tazreen fire by jumping from the factory’s third story, breaking both her arm and foot in the process. She is currently touring the United States to call on retailers like Wal-Mart, The Gap and Disney to take the lead on improving working conditions in Bangladesh. We also speak with Kalpona Akter of the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity and Charlie Kernaghan of the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights.

The death toll in Bangladesh has topped 200 after an eight-story garment factory building collapsed with thousands of workers inside. More than 1,000 people were injured, and an unknown number of workers are still trapped in the wreckage. Cracks had been found in the building, but workers say the factory owners forced them to go to work anyway. Protests broke out in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka today as angry workers blocked key highways, marched on several factories, and rallied outside the headquarters of Bangladesh’s main manufacturers group. The disaster comes exactly five months after a massive fire killed at least 112 garment workers at Bangladesh’s Tazreen factory, which made clothing sold by Wal-Mart, among other companies. We’re joined by two guests: Kalpona Akter, executive director of the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity, and Charlie Kernaghan, director of the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights.

• Toll from Bangladesh Factory Collapse Hits 200; Workers Stage Protests
• Late Boston Marathon Suspect Was on Terrorism Watch List
• Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Was Unarmed at End of Manhunt
• Hundreds of Low-Wage Workers Strike in Chicago
• Chicago Students Protest Closings, Standardized Tests
• Hagel Rejects Israeli Claims on Syrian Chemical Weapons
• U.N. Torture Investigator Says Bahrain Blocking Entry
• EPA Challenges State Dept. Assessment of Keystone XL's Environmental Impact
• Lawmakers Skip Hearing on Long-Term Unemployment
• Federal Judge Orders Pentagon to Disclose Trainees at Controversial Military School
• 2 Children Among 5 Killed in Illinois Shooting
• Steubenville High School Coach Given 2-Year Extension
• Prison Guards Indicted for Aiding Baltimore Gang
• Explosion Wounds 3 on Alabama River Barges
• Pro-Assad Group Claims Responsibility for Hacking AP Twitter Account
• Rhode Island Poised to Legalize Same-Sex Marriage

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by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

When Barack Obama leaves the White House in January 2017, what will black America, his earliest and most consistent supporters, have to show for making his political career possible. We'll have the T-shirts and buttons and posters, the souvenirs. That will be the good news. The bad news is what else we'll have.... and not.

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Workers, Get on the Air! April 24, 2013 / Jeff Rousset

Non-commercial FM frequencies will be available for the first time in urban areas this year. Building community radio stations could give the labor movement a powerful megaphone.

As the Senate holds its first-ever public hearing on drones and targeted killings, we turn the second part of our interview with Jeremy Scahill, author of the new book, "Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield." Scahill charts the expanding covert wars operated by the CIA and JSOC, the Joint Special Operations Command, in countries from Somalia to Pakistan. "I called it 'Dirty Wars' because, particularly in this administration, in the Obama administration, I think a lot of people are being led to believe that there is such a thing as a clean war," Scahill says. He goes on to discuss secret operations in Africa, the targeting of U.S. citizens in Yemen and the key role WikiLeaks played in researching the book. He also reveals imprisoned whistleblower Bradley Manning once tipped him off to a story about the private security company Blackwater. Scahill is the national security correspondent for The Nation magazine and longtime Democracy Now! correspondent. For the past several years, Scahill has been working on the "Dirty Wars" film and book project, which was published on Tuesday. The film, directed by Rick Rowley, will be released in theaters in June. Click here to watch Part 1 of this interview.

Six days after the U.S. bombed his village, Yemeni activist Farea al-Muslimi testified on Capitol Hill about the terror of the U.S. drone wars. Al-Muslimi spoke during the Senate’s first-ever public hearing on the Obama administration’s targeted killing program. His family’s village was hit by a U.S. drone strike last week. The White House refused to send an official to defend the program’s legality. "When they think of America, they think of the terror they feel from the drones that hover over their heads, ready to fire missiles at any time," al-Muslimi says of his fellow Yemenis. "What the violent militants had previously failed to achieve, one drone strike accomplished in an instant." Others to testify at the hearing included law scholars and members of the U.S. military.

• Boston Marathon Suspect Cites Iraq, Afghanistan Wars as Motive
• Slain Suspect Bought Fireworks 2 Months Before Attack; Wife Vows Cooperation with Probe
• Reddit Apologizes for Wrongly Naming Suspects
• Ricin Suspect Released, Decries "Nightmare" Arrest
• At Least 70 Killed in Bangladesh Factory Collapse
• At Least 42 Killed at Sunni Protest Camp in Iraq
• Guatemala's Top Court Annuls Ríos Montt Trial
• France Becomes 14th Country to Legalize Gay Marriage
• Israel Accuses Syria of Using Chemical Weapons
• Sen. Baucus to Retire in 2014
• Inequality Widened During Post-Recession Period
• Low-Wage Workers Strike in Chicago
• Illinois Teen Indicted in FBI Terror Sting
• Ohio Teacher Fired After Mother's Obit Includes Lesbian Partner
• Cooper Union to Begin Charging Tuition
• San Francisco Supervisors Vote for Fossil Fuel Divestment
• U.S. Approves $10 Billion Nuclear Weapons Upgrade
• Common Cause CEO, Ex-Congressmember Bob Edgar Dies at 69

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by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

“Americans are like spoiled children, whining over their suffering, while showing no empathy for anyone else’s.” Worse, they give the OK to kill other people’s children all across the non-white world. They are easily frightened, throwing away their civil liberties at the drop of a hat, yet generous in insane ways, sending $20 million to Boston without “knowing who needed it or for what purpose.”

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A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

The Chechens are coming – and they're white! Like other pale-skinned immigrant groups, they appear to be flourishing. Only in America could lightly armed youngsters “represent a threat so awesomely dreadful as to spread fear up and down the great megalopolis stretching from Boston to Washington.”

http://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/20130424_gf_BostonBombing.mp3

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A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

Washington smelled blood when the successors to Hugo Chavez won by only a small margin in Venezuelan elections. The U.S. refused to recognize the results, gearing up for regime change. However, “Latin America quickly united to blunt the Yankee offensive in its tracks.” Washington must be taught, repeatedly, that it does not have a backyard to its south.

http://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/20130424_gf_Venezuela.mp3

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A Black Agenda Radio commentary by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

The US has boots on the ground and manned & unmanned aircraft in the skies of Mali, to answer supposed threats to US national security poised by Al Qeda. If you believe that, you believe Saddam actually had nuclear weapons. The US and France are in Mali to prevent its civil society from controlling its land and water, & to preserve predatory Western leases on hundreds of square miles in Mali that prop up the recent reconquest of Libya.

http://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/20130424_bd_mali.mp3

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