It’s time for another Labor
South roundup, plus a heads-up on things to come.
The Brexit vote and
neoliberalism
The British vote this week to exit the European Union is
causing huge disruption in U.S. and international markets while being treated
to a lot of handwringing by a head-scratching mainstream press. Yet Enrico
Tortolano of openDemocracyUK says the
following:
“Voting to leave the EU is a no-brainer for the Left. The
European Union is remote, racist, imperialist, anti-worker and anti-democratic:
It is run by, of, and for the super-rich and their corporations. A future
outside austerity and other economic blunders rests on winning the struggle to
exit the EU.”
Furthermore, “Neoliberal policies and practices dominate the
European Commission, European Parliament, European Central Bank, European Court
of Justice and a compliant media legitimises (sic) the whole conquest.”
Check out the following link: http://portside.org/2016-06-21/eu-and-other-neoliberal-nightmares
Of course, anti-immigrant forces have also been on the
Brexit side of the issue in this complex development. What we’ve seen in
Britain is some of the same populism that has helped drive the Trump and
Sanders presidential campaigns in the United States—a deep disdain for the
longstanding collusion of Big Banks, Big Corporations and Big Government, yet
on the Trump side one that is confused by an equal disdain for the migrant workers
victimized by that same collusion.
Still, it is hard to argue with Tortolano’s description of
the EU and its worship of the “neoliberal Holy Trinity of public spending cuts,
privatisation (sic) and the removal of trade union rights.” Witness European leaders’
hard-fisted policies toward Greece and other economically struggling countries
in Europe.
Tortolano believes
migrants actually suffer more under the EU because it supports the policies
that force workers to leave their home countries in an often tragic search for
better work and a better life.
In California with
veteran actor Nehemiah Persoff
(To the right, Nehemiah Persoff in 1960)
Yours truly recently returned from a week-long trip to
California, where I, among other things, interviewed veteran character actor
Nehemiah Persoff, approaching his 97th birthday, at his Cambria,
Calif., home. I’m doing a profile of Persoff for Noir City magazine.
Jerusalem-born Persoff, a painter for the past quarter century, was once one of Hollywood’s most familiar faces in
film and on television, beginning with his brief appearance in On the Waterfront (1954) to major roles
in Humphrey Bogart’s last movie, The
Harder They Fall (1956), Alfred Hitchcock’s The Wrong Man (1956), and—my favorite--as Nazi Carl Lanser in the
segment “Judgment Night” on television’s Twilight
Zone (1959). Each of these films addressed important social justice issues
without being didactic. Persoff also was memorable as Little Bonaparte in Some Like It Hot (1959) and Barbara Steisand's father in Yentl (1983)
Persoff began his
career with theater and acting groups in New York City, including the famed Actors
Studio, and recalled during my interview his early work performing for striking
union members and for workers on the picket line.
Be on the lookout for Noir
City’s next issue at the end of the summer!
UAW fighting Nissan
hypocrisy in Mississippi
Students and activists will join with the United Auto
Workers this weekend in bringing attention to the hypocrisy of the Nissan
corporation’s sponsorship of a commemoration of the 50th anniversary
of civil rights activist James Meredith’s 1966 “March Against Fear”.
Many among the predominantly black workforce at the
company’s Nissan, Miss., plant have complained of its virulent anti-unionism,
its use of temporary workers at lower wages and benefits, arbitrary decisions
regarding work hours and medical treatment, and the overly restricted use of its
air-conditioning units during Mississippi’s hot summer months.
Popular Resistance, a University of Mississippi student organization
led by rising sophomore Jaz Brisack, is among the groups planning to bring
light to Nissan’s hypocrisy this weekend.
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