NEWSINCOME INEQUALITY

We typically don’t think about the people who make our iPhones, computers and iPods.  They come to us in perfectly white boxes from the Apple store, ready to be played with.  Rarely do we consider the hands that made them, the human cost associated with them.  But thanks to some incredible investigative reporting by Mike Daisey and the New York Times and fast action by an Apple customer, the barrier between the makers and buyers of Apple products has been lifted.

As soon as NPR’s “This American Life” and the New York Times issued investigate reports of the working conditions at Apple’s factories in China, self-professed Apple-lover Mark Shields knew he had to take action.  So he started a petition on Change.org calling on Apple, Inc. to release a worker protection strategy for new product releases and publish the results of the Fair Labor Association’s monitoring of its suppliers.  Mark expected that his petition would resonate with his fellow Apple-lovers but he was completely blown away by the incredible level of support it drew.

I was homeless last winter and my gold Starbucks card kept me warm, safe and dry. It also helped me utilize social media to, in very small ways, help the lives other homeless people. I am @From_Nothing on Twitter, and I now have several thousand followers. Being able to access the Internet and tweet with my smart phone, which was paid for by a wonderful friend, while enjoying a warm cup of coffee at Starbucks, was crucial for my survival and eventually helped me end my homelessness.

I imagine that the homeless are a very daunting and sad situation for Starbucks employees and patrons to have to deal with, but in many ways having a safe place to stay helped change my life and the lives of others. I am hoping my story might help you and and others find positive ways to help the homeless.

This post was guest authored by UW student Scott Davis. Davis is the director of Our American Generation and a lead organizer in the campaign for UW to cut its contract with Sodexo.

After 7 months of polite letter-deliveries, postponed meetings with the UW administration, and general disinterest in their message to “Kick Out Sodexo," the UW chapter of the United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) turned to their campus community for help.

As Director of the youth-run think tank, Our American Generation, I was approached by the UW USAS crew with a request to jump on board the Kick Out Sodexo coaltion. As a completely non-ideological group, we never endorse, but the mission to Kick Out Sodexo was clear and simple: our University’s dollars should not go to a documented human rights abuser, especially for something as simple and necessary as food service.

After a year of delays, false starts, and toe-tapping from the city's labor community, the Fair Wages for New Yorkers Act finally got its much-anticipated initial City Council hearing last week. Wondering what went down? We've got you covered.

For one thing, living wage supporters were out in full force. Hundreds of people, including faith and community leaders and City Councilmembers, turned up at a rally organized by Living Wage NYC. "We are not here just to survive. We want to live," said Brooklyn Councilmember Charles Barron, addressing the cheering crowd. "New York City is too expensive to be paying us some cheap wages."

According to NY1, the hearing itself was "packed" and featured some "testy exchanges" between Councilmembers on either side of the issue. Perhaps the best soundbite of the hearing came from Councilmember Jumaane Williams, who noted, "the [Bloomberg] administration is so full of it, you might want to consider a high-fiber diet." Snap.

The administration was clearly hoping that the biased study for which it paid $1 million to known anti-living wage researchers would dull interest in the living wage bill. But that didn't work at all. If anything, the rigged report -- which purported that the bill would lead to mass job loss -- just added fuel to the fire for pro-living wage advocates. A counter-report published by the National Employment Law Project and other groups on Thursday further stole the administration's thunder; it found that "errors in methodology and analysis" in the city-funded report "render the study fundamentally flawed." (No surprise there, but it's good to have it in writing!)

As for a decision from the City Council, that will be harder to come by, it seems. Despite popular support for the Fair Wages for New Yorkers Act, only 30 Councilmembers have come out in support of the bill -- not enough to override an assured veto from Mayor Bloomberg. Council Speaker Christine Quinn, the "wild card" in this debate and the target of our petition, remains undecided. "When I've made a decision, I'll have made a decision," she said on Wednesday, unhelpfully.

Sign our petition urging Quinn to take a stand for hard-working New Yorkers.

Photo credit: Living Wage NYC

With a hearing on New York City's proposed living wage legislation coming up in a matter of weeks, it's time to seriously ratchet up our efforts to convince the New York City Council that living wage laws are a good thing. And what better way to do that than to look at cities that have implemented similar laws, to positive effect.

First, a re-cap of what this legislation is all about. The Fair Wages for New Yorkers Act will require businesses that rent space in large developments receiving city subsidies to pay their workers at least $10 per hour, which is considered the living wage for single New York City residents with no dependents. That's not much money, considering that New York City is the most expensive city in the country, but it is at least higher than the $7.25 minimum wage. The argument against the bill, being tossed around by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and others, is that the legislation will put a damper on development and job growth in the city.

As a Haitian farmer, Jacqueline Morette knows about challenges. Although about half of Haiti’s workforce (including 75 percent of low-income Haitians), relies on agriculture to survive, just one farmer in ten has access to irrigation. Most farm on small plots of land, and few have the luxury of using machines or fertilizers.

“Most Haitians are food insecure,” said Morette during a US speaking tour last October. “A lot of our kids are malnourished.”

As Morette explained, it’s also hard for Haitian farmers to earn an income by selling their crops. Roads are bad, and food can spoil on the way to the market. Fluctuating food prices - caused in part by a flood of low-cost imported products like rice - mean that growers might not get a fair price.

Two weeks ago Gigi and Mahmoud, two young Egyptian street activists and Change.org members, called on people all over the world to join their campaign for democracy in Egypt. You answered their call, along with tens of thousands of others from more than 120 countries.

Now we have incredible news: Gigi, Mahmoud and the “Peoples Revolution” have won! Minutes ago Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stepped down, handing power over to a military-led transitional government which will run the country until elections take place in a few months. In just 18 days, a coalition of Muslims and Christians, young, old, rich and poor came together to bring down a dictatorship of 30 years.

Earlier today Gigi and Mahmoud, two young Egyptian street activists and Change.org members, called on all of us to re-up the international pressure and join their campaign for democracy in Egypt.

Many of you answered their call, along with tens of thousands of others from more than 120 countries.

As the day progressed, we started to hear rumors that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was going to resign within hours.

“The people are celebrating everywhere,” Mahmoud told us over the phone. “They’re chanting, they’re jumping up and down, we’re just ecstatic!”

We're were in rural, rebel flag country over the weekend, where razor ribbon, re-po joints and roadkill adorn these flat Georgia highways.

After waking up in a parking lot to the bang of garbage trucks doing their job, Pat LaMarche and I finished our posts (hers can be found at Huffington Post). We left our "camping" spot in Georgia Southern University's parking lot and headed to Tallahassee, rolling diagonally across the Peach State.

Speaking with folks at our GA Southern event the previous night confirmed what we've seen so far on this 2,000 mile, 8-state journey: rampant poverty and hidden homelessness take the "shine" off bucolic rural life. A school social worker, obviously stressed by her day-to-day challenges, begged for information about how to start a shelter for the desperate families in her community.

Egypt, the Arab world's most populous nation, has been under a state of emergency for 43 years and run by a dictator for 30.

The government censors the media, bans all demonstrations, forbids the formation of any political parties or organizations and detain citizens indefinitely without charge. Corruption is rife, the judiciary is weak and police brutality is so common it is barely reported anymore.

Six days ago, Egyptians said 'enough', and millions took to the streets all over the country. We've been compiling photos of women in the Egyptian protests from across the net. Click here to view the slideshow.