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NEWS BULLETIN & ALMANIACAL ARCHIVES
Also see NevadaLabor.com's Statewide U-News RoundupClick here to get on our news & bulletins mailing list...
But before you do so, please read this note. —AB
Call 775-882-TALK (882-8255)
Reruns statewide. Check local listings.
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New season starts soon.[[EDITOR'S NOTE: Unless otherwise noted, historical items appear courtesy of longtime Nevada reporter Dennis Myers' Poor Denny's Almanac [PDA]. Items highlighted in blue are of interest to labor in particular and seekers of justice in general. Copyright © 2009 Dennis Myers.]]
Pretty Elle's trip to hell
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 12-27-2009 Daily Sparks TribuneIn the RED:
First of a long series of wage complaints filed against City of Sparks Marina/Scheels project
Labor commissioner gives city 30 days to investigate
12-21-2009
The empire strikes back
12-21-2009 and 12-22-2009Déjà vu all over again and again and again
Barack Obama: A bit too much of Clarence Thomas?
Al Qaeda uses U.S. Predator drone video surveillance:
Been there, done that story — in 1991
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 12-20-2009 Daily Sparks TribuneUPDATE Saturday, 19 Dec. 2009 12:25:09 p.m. PST 20:25:09 ZULU/GMT/SUT/CUT — On this date in 1776, The American Crisis by Thomas Paine was published (see below); in 1884, J.E. Gignoux of the state university in Elko was a candidate for director of the branch U.S. Mint in Carson City and had the support of Senator William Westerfield of Lyon County; in 1918, Winnemucca's Silver State published an editorial and a front page essay denouncing the "reign of terror created in the name of medical science‚" to deal with the world wide influenza epidemic, such as the shutdown of schools, churches, theatres and businesses as health measures; in 1957, The Music Man debuted on Broadway in the Majestic Theatre (moving to the Broadway Theatre after the first three years), playing for 1,375 performances and winning Tony awards for best musical, actor in a musical, featured actor in a musical, featured actress in a musical, conductor and musical director, and stage technician; in 1968, Kristina Keneally was born Kristina Kerscher in Las Vegas (on December 3, 2009, she became premier of New South Wales); in 1987, U.S. Senator Paul Simon and singer Paul Simon hosted Saturday Night Live; in 1998, President Clinton was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives.
From The American Crisis by Thomas Paine: These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER, and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to God.
Whether the independence of the continent was declared too soon, or delayed too long, I will not now enter into as an argument; my own simple opinion is, that had it been eight months earlier, it would have been much better. We did not make a proper use of last winter, neither could we, while we were in a dependent state. However, the fault, if it were one, was all our own; we have none to blame but ourselves. But no great deal is lost yet. All that Howe has been doing for this month past, is rather a ravage than a conquest, which the spirit of the Jerseys, a year ago, would have quickly repulsed, and which time and a little resolution will soon recover.
UPDATE Wednesday, 16 Dec 2009 01:47 p.m. PST 21:47 ZULU/GMT/SUT/CUT —Utility workers union donates truckloads of food to humanitarian Evelyn Mount
Reno, Nevada — Retired and current members of IBEW Local Union 1245 will deliver several pickup-loads of food to the Evelyn Mount Community Outreach Food Drive at 2530 Cannan Street in Reno on Thursday, Dec. 17 at 3:00 p.m.
The food was collected by the union members over the past two weeks in an effort to help those most in need during the holiday season.
IBEW Local 1245 is the union for employees at NV Energy. For generations they have been the men and women responsible for keeping the lights on in northern Nevada, 24-7, in every sort of weather.
WHO: Retired and current members of IBEW Local 1245
WHAT: Food delivery, culminating a weeks-long union food drive at NV Energy
WHEN: Thursday, December 17, 3:00 p.m.
WHERE: Evelyn Mount Community Outreach Food Drive
2530 Cannan Street in Reno
IBEW Local 1245 represents nearly 20,000 energy workers in Nevada and California. The union has represented workers at NV Energy and its predecessor Sierra Pacific Power for 62 years.For more information, contact Mike Grimm, 775-720-8021.
UPDATE Wednesday, 16 Dec 2009 00:01:15 PST 08:01:15 ZULU/GMT/SUT/CUT — On this date in 1653, Oliver Cromwell abolished the republican commonwealth and installed himself as dictator of England, Scotland, and Ireland; in 1770, Beethoven was born in Bonn; in 1773, Bostonians dressed as Native Americans threw tea into Boston bay to protest taxes on tea being too low and to demand that they be raised; in 1884, Governor Grover Cleveland of New York returned a gold ribbed cask of rum with a gold valve to Binghampton Democratic politician O.J. Coughlin with a statement that he did not accept any gifts; in 1899, a petition by workers at the De Lamar, Nevada, mine requesting a four-hour cut in working hours with the same rate of pay was accepted by the company; in 1924, Pullman officials launched a campaign to crack down on gambling on trains; in 1932, the Nevada County Commissioners Association called on Congress to hasten repeal of alcohol prohibition; in 1944, the U.S. Office of Price Administration said Las Vegas was facing a butter shortage because of "the peculiar geographic and industrial situation" of Las Vegas and complications related to wartime rationing; in 1954, Governor Charles Russell released the report of the Peabody School Survey, commissioned by the state to comprehensively analyze Nevada's school problems; in 1960, President-elect John Kennedy announced he would nominate his brother Robert to be attorney general of the United States; in 1973, O.J. Simpson ended his season with 2,003 yards rushing, higher than any single season total in football history; in 1998 on the eve of his impeachment vote in the House of Representatives, President Clinton said he was ordering bombing strikes against Iraq because, he claimed, Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction — "nuclear arms, poison gas, or biological weapons" — whereupon U.N. arms inspectors fled the country because of the Clinton attacks (George W. Bush later lied about it as part of his campaign for war: "This is a regime that agreed to international inspections, then kicked out the inspectors."); in 2005 after sitting on the story for a year and a half — and withholding it before the 2004 election — The New York Times disclosed the warrantless U.S. National Security Agency surveillance program that included phone calls, e-mails, internet activity and text messaging.BREAKING NEWS
UPDATE TUESDAY, The Ides of December 2009, 9:51 p.m. PST/ 05:51 Dec. 16 ZULU/GMT/SUT/CUT —
UNDOING DUBYA'S DAMAGE
Solidarity Walk and Rally in support of TSA security officersLAS VEGAS, Nev. (U-News) — Over 35,000 Transportation Security Administration security officers throughout the country protect our safety and national security but have been intentionally deprived of the right to collectively bargain. They thus endure substandard working conditions, hostile management practices and discrimination.
This pox was imposed upon many federal workers (many of whom had full union rights before the deck was reshuffled) because the Bush-Cheney administration chose to use problems rather than solve them. The criminal enterprise which masqueraded as our government for eight years used the terrorist mass murders of 9-11-2001 to de-unionize large parts of the federal government.The reorganized apparat makes it illegal for employees of the huge (but mostly not at all new, like the Coast Guard, but only re-named and re-shuffled) TSA to organize unions.
Stand and march with them to end it on Thursday, Dec. 17, 2009, at 12:30 p.m. at Zero Level of McCarran International Airport In Las Vegas. You will be standing shoulder to shoulder with the Nevada State AFL-CIO, the American Federation of Government Employees and all of Nevada labor's +/- 200,000 members, retirees and family members.
Lunch and learn after the walk at Nikki Lees.
For more information, call (702) 589-5813.
Tell them you heard it from Barbano on the Barbwire.
Be well. Raise hell.
BREAKING NEWS
Workers handbill Sparks Chamber luncheon at Reno Airport Hyatt
U-News 12-15-2009Running red in a frozen economy
Sparks and Reno face huge fines for labor law violations
Ralph Lauren boycott widens
Barbwire by Barbano/ Expanded from Daily Sparks Tribune / 12-13-2009
Click here to view the Dec. 6 show on your computer
Health care in prime time, ready or not
Barbwire by Barbano/ Expanded from Daily Sparks Tribune /12-6-200
If Reform Fails: Health Care, Jobs and Unions LIVE TV Dec. 6
Available to every TV set in N/E California and N/W Nevada
Click here to see the show live on your computer
NOTE: The above webstreaming link will not be hot until 5:30 p.m. PST / 01:30 ZULU/GMT, a half-hour before showtime on Dec. 6.
The above link is now disabled.Turn on, tune in and tell a friend
If Reform Fails: Health Care, Jobs and Unions LIVE TV Dec. 6
Barbwire by Barbano/ Expanded from Daily Sparks Tribune / 11-29-2009
Give 'em health Harry, part deux
Barbwire by Barbano/ Daily Sparks Tribune / 11-22-2009UPDATE THURSDAY, 19 Nov. 2009 1:41 a.m. PST/ 09:41 ZULU/GMT/SUT/CUT — N-Greed Energy workers picket the company for the first time in union history going back to 1947. A January strike looms increasingly imminent as hyper-profitable NV Energy decides that too much ain't enough.
WHERE: Ohm Operations Center on the corner of Ohm Place and Mill Street east of Rock Blvd in Reno.Brothers & Sisters:
As many of you know,International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 1245 is locked in a bitter negotiating battle with NVEnergy.The company proposed terrible changes in medical, retirement medical, pensions, seniority protections and working hours.
Then they moved to cancel the current contract. Then they announced layoffs.
Next, they moved to change medical benefits for current retirees — changes that could result in some retirees having their entire paychecks eaten up by medical premiums in 3 to 5 years time. Attached are some news accounts of a meeting that NV Energy held recently in Sparks to detail how they planned to hurt the retirees.
This from a company that is profitable, paying a dividend and has a fully funded retirement medical trust fund.
The first picket IBEW 1245 has held against NVEnergy since the first union contract of 1947 starts at 3:00 p.m. at Mill and Ohm in southeast Reno.
The union represents utility workers throughout Nevada and northern California. They motivated over 600 people to attend a standing-room-only rally on Nov. 7 rally at the Washoe County senior center in Reno.
Here are union leader memos:
Fired up and Ready to go! IBEW Local 1245 is preparing for an "Informational" Picket and Candlelight Rally Thursday 11/19/09 3-6:30pm at the 1 Ohm facility of NVEnergy in Reno, Nev. We march to protect our benefits and retirees from NVEnergy's Broken Promises. We are expecting approximately 300 retirees, active employees and local leaders to talk and walk the line. Please support IBEW1245. 400 signs are ready to go.
Dress warmly. You may also want to wear reflective clothing even though the areas are well lit.Mickie.
________
NVEnergy doesn’t really think we have it in us to come out in large numbers, late in the afternoon on a winter night to send the message, but NVEnergy has a lot to learn about its employees AND retirees.
COME FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHTS. SEE YOU AT THE INFORMATIONAL PICKET.
THANKS
T. Bird, Vice-President
Northern Nevada Retiree Club
IBEW Local 1245_________
ADDING INSULT TO INJURY DEPT. NVE is making it harder and harder for people to pay their exorbitant bills. In addition to closing all their Nevada offices, NVE is now reducing the number of supermarkets which offer bill-pay service. Several outlets of the northern Nevada Raley's supermarket chain stopped accepting NVE payments on Nov. 10. Only two northwest Reno locations remain: Seventh and Keystone and Mayberry @ Hunter Lake. And N-GreedEnergy doesn't even kiss us afterwards. — EditorSick and tired of being sick and tired
Barbwire / Daily Sparks Tribune / 11-15-2009
UPDATE WEDNESDAY, 11 Nov. 2009 4:06 p.m. PST/ 00:06 ZULU/GMT/SUT/CUT Nov. 12 —
NEWS YOU CAN USE FROM NEVADALABOR.COM (Updated at 3:27 p.m. PST / 11:27 GMT/ZULU)
POWER BILLS and POWER PLAYS. The wonderful folks at NV Energy are hosting a "customer service" event from 2:00 to 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 12, at the Neil Road Recreation Center, 3925 Neil Road in Reno. They are reaching out to folks who need help with their power bills. This could well include some of their own employees and retirees. The company is pushing International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1245 into open revolt over forced hikes in health care premiums which could wipe out pensions in a few years. A Nov. 7 rally at the Washoe County Senior Center drew a standing-room-only crowd of more than 500. This is the closest NV Energy/Sierra Pacific Power/Nevada Power has been to a statewide strike in decades. Stay tuned.
CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE DEPT. Last Wednesday, Nov. 4, a road construction truck snagged a power line and knocked out electricity to about 3,000 NV Energy customers south of Reno, including Galena High School. (Adding insult to injury, the kids didn't even get the day off.) The vehicle was operated by someone working for non-union Fisher Sand & Gravel of North Dakota on the US 395 American Stonehenge project.
FRIDAY THE 13th FREEBIE ALERT. This Friday the 13th from 3:00 to 7:00 p.m., Musicians Union Local 368/AFL-CIO is hosting a party in celebration of its centennial. The union was chartered on November 13, 1909. Dave Gupton’s Octet will perform from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. Cake cutting and a toast to the next 100 years happens about 5:15. The location is very harmonically correct, the second floor of Maytan Music Center at 777 South Center St. in Reno. The public is invited. For more info, call Local 368 Secretary-Treasurer Paul January at (775) 329-7995.
DREAMERS SLEEPS WITH THE FISHES. In another public relations coup for downtown redevelopment, Dreamers Coffee House sleeps the big sleep as of 8:00 p.m. this Sunday, Nov. 15. Located in the shell of the old Corner Bar at the historic Riverside Hotel in downtown Reno, the eatery has played host to popular open-microphone nights for several years. The Minnesota-based landlord raised the rent (What Depression?), so Dreamers owner Jonathan Bascom is hoping to soon relocate into cheaper digs in the downtown proximity.
UNIVERSITY OF IRON. SPARKS-BASED IRONWORKERS LOCAL 118 HAS OPENED ITS NEW $3.5 MILLION TRAINING CENTER ACROSS FROM RENO STEAD AIRPORT. For more, see UniversityofIron.org.
CLARIFICATION AND CONFUSION
NevadaLabor.com verified the time of Gilchrist's appearance before uploading the info herein. We spoke with Nicholas Blevins at ASUN who was the provider of information to Billy Howard, all noted at left. The Nov. 12 Reno Gazette-Journal (rgj.com) reported the following, also quoting Mr. Blevins:
When: 7 p.m. Nov. 19; doors open 6 p.m.
Where: University of Nevada, Reno Joe Crowley Student Union, fourth floor ballroom
Who: Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project to prevent illegal immigration across U.S. borders, and Miguel Acosta, a member of the executive board of Somos Un Pueblo Unido (We Are One United Community) a statewide immigrants' rights organization in New Mexico
Cost: Free to UNR students and faculty. Pick up tickets at the ASUN Student Activities Center. Admission for the public is $10 per person, on sale Nov. 19 at 6 p.m. at the student union's third-floor theater box office.
Prohibitions: No signs are allowed in the student union. Bags are subject to being searched.
Details: E-mail contempissues@asun.unr.edu or call 775-784-6589.
The following is apparently the alternative event noted by Mr. Howard, also from the Nov. 12 RGJ:UNR diversity/ immigration panel
When: 6 to 8 p.m. Nov. 19
Where: University of Nevada, Reno's William J. Raggio Building, Room 2030
Who: UNR faculty, students, community members
Cost: FreeWe suggest you call ahead. Trust but verify.
The IWW is not the originator of the alternative event. It is being sponsored by the UNR Latino Research Center and the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, according to the RGJ. Mr. Howard may be working with them or simply forwarding information. I have left him a phone message to call me. Finally, the RGJ states the Michael Moore spoke at UNR in 2008. Actually, it was 2006. — AB
UNIVERSITY OF PATRIOTIC PERVERSION. The Industrial Workers of the World, aka the Wobblies, warn that the University of Nevada-Reno will play host to Jim Gilchrist, founder of the racist Minutemen organization on Nov. 19. The IWW is supporting a protest and alternative event. For continuing updates, go to the breaking news page at NevadaLabor.com.
UNR types have justified Gilchrist's appearance by noting that the U played host to a heavily attended speech by Oscar-winning director Michael Moore in 2006 (featured in Moore's 2008 film Slacker Nation, for which The Barbwire spared every expense in arranging free broadcasts last year on Sierra Nevada Community Access Television).
"Michael Moore did not defend murderers, start a paramilitary organization or round up people in the desert like animals," stated protestor Billy Howard in an e-mail .
A candlelight vigil will be held that evening from 5:30 to 6:00 p.m. on the steps of the Joe Crowley Student Union. Protestors will then march through campus to the Raggio building where they will hold a "festival of compassion for disenfranchised groups" from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
It will be "a celebration of ethnic diversity including a rational discussion of immigration reform presented by grassroots members of the community as a counter to certain other programs the university is sponsoring with taxpayer dollars that night," Howard states on his Facebook page. The Gilchrist speech begins at 9:00 p.m. on Nov. 19. (Or does it? See right.)
Preparation for Gilchrist will include a sign making party at 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 18, at the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, 821 Riverside Drive in Reno. For more info, call PLAN at (775) 348-7557.
WOBBLY FREEBIE ALERT. The eighth installment in the Reno Wobblies' Free Film Series, "¡ALAMBRISTA!", will be shown at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 24, at Mountain Mike's Pizza, 1601 Vassar St. in Reno. (In the Town & Country Center at Kietzke and Vassar, across from KRNV TV-4.) Call (775) 323-6060 for directions or to pre-order pizza for your group. IWW Contact: Rich Haber, (775) 746-5720.
¡ALAMBRISTA! focuses on immigrant workers in support of the United Coalition for Immigrant Rights in Las Vegas.
HATE GROUP UPDATE, PART DEUX. Read the Nov. 8 Barbwire review (The wrath of self-righteous racism) of the recent Reno anti-Klan lecture by former white supremacist Tom Martinez. He is the author of Brotherhood of Murder, about the ultraviolent organization that assassinated Denver talk radio host Alan Berg. They are still out there. Prepare to be afraid, very afraid.
SUPPORT COMMUNITY-ORIGINATED NON-CORPORATE RADIO AND TELEVISION. You will find complete information about the KJIV Project at ReSurge.TV, where you may contribute online or send a check or money order to ReSurge.TV, P.O. Box 10034, Reno NV 89510.Stay tuned for a major live program on the health care debate. If you're interested in the Top 10 mostly serious and often hilarious reasons why we need universal health care, go to my Nov. 1 Sparks Tribune column.
WISH I'D SAID THAT DEPT. "(Republicans') idea of health care reform would be to allow you to take your gun to the doctor's office." — Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Florida.
Be well. Raise hell.
Andrew Barbano
NevadaLabor.com
ReSurge.TV
CesarChavezNevada.com
(Mark your calendars for Nevada Cesar Chavez Day VIII, March/marzo 31, 2010, Circus Circus Reno)UPDATE WEDNESDAY, 11 Nov. 2009 12:28 a.m. PST/ 08:28 ZULU/GMT/SUT/CUT — ARMISTICE DAY
John Kennedy/Arlington National Cemetery/November 11, 1961: No man who witnessed the tragedies of the last war, no man who can imagine the unimaginable possibilities of the next war, can advocate war out of irritability or frustration or impatience.
On this date in 1865, civilian Mary Walker, surgeon and prisoner of war, received the Medal of Honor for her services to the Union, the only woman to receive the medal; in 1873, the Portland Oregonian reported "Physically the Apaches are probably one of the handsomest of the Indian race, especially the females.The Apaches are decided pedestrians, and being accustomed to running and climbing feats from earliest infancy, are capable of great endurance in this direction."; in 1918, the armistice in World War One took effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, and hundreds gathered in the streets of Reno to celebrate and burn Kaiser Wilhelm in effigy; in 1918, at the moment of the armistice, the 369th Infantry Regiment, an African American U.S. unit fighting in French uniforms and under French colors (President Woodrow Wilson frowned on black U.S. units) was in the Vosges Mountains enduring its 191st consecutive day under fire — the longest in U.S. history — and poised to cross the Rhine into Germany, which it subsequently did, the first unit to do so (500 of its members received the Croix de Guerre but other U.S. soldiers were instructed not to salute them at home); in 1918, Acting Governor Maurice Sullivan of Nevada declared a public holiday on the day the armistice in the world war took effect; in 1919, on the first anniversary of the world war armistice, a mob from the new American Legion invaded a Centralia, Washington, Industrial Workers of the World union hall to attack members and four Legion members were killed after which several union members and their lawyer were arrested and jailed, whereupon one of the prisoners was turned over to the Legion mob which tortured and castrated him before lynching him; in 1941, the Sky Ranch, a private airport on the Pyramid Lake highway about ten miles north of Sparks, began operation; in 1961, United Press reported that President Kennedy had ordered 200 air force instructors and some B-26 bombers ("only a 'small number'") to Vietnam while Kennedy pondered General Maxwell Taylor's proposals for greater commitments; in 1968, Pope Paul VI denounced liberal Catholics: "We are demanding of you total and generous faithfulness to the church, not certainly to an imaginary church which each would conceive and organize according to his own ideas, but to the Catholic Church as it is."; in 2006 at the United Nations, the United States used its Security Council veto to block a majority-supported resolution condemning Israel's Gaza strip military offensive, the second time in 2006 the U.S. vetoed on Israel's behalf.The wrath of self-righteous racism
Barbwire by Barbano/ Daily Sparks Tribune / 11-8-2009Happy Nevada Day Weekend
The Lady in the Red Dress —Award-winning Barbwire Nevada Day columnTopless 10 reasons for unconscious conduct
Barbwire by Barbano/ Daily Sparks Tribune / 11-1-2009Give 'em health, Harry
FREE Klan lecture Tuesday 10-27 if you mention Barbano sent you
Goodbye to Pamela Crowell
Substantially expanded from the 10-25-2009 Daily Sparks TribuneRory, Rory Hallelujah?
Barbwire by Barbano/ Daily Sparks Tribune / 10-18-2009
UPDATE THURSDAY, 1 Oct. 2009 4:31 p.m. PDT/ 23:31 ZULU/GMT/SUT/CUT — Newmont kills another miner
Nevada gold mine blamed for 57-year-old worker's death
LAS VEGAS (AP 10-1-2009)— A federal investigation blames a Nevada gold mine in the death of a 57-year-old driller who was struck by a flatbed truck.
Steven L. Halverson was fatally injured in June at the open-pit Genesis Mine in Carlin.
In a report issued late Tuesday, the Mine Safety and Health Administration said Newmont USA Ltd. failed to designate safety lanes for trucks working inside the pit.Managers adopted new procedures to correct that violation.
The MSHA also said the truck's backup alarm couldn't be heard above the drilling noise.
The company swapped backup alarms.
Another worker tried to warn Halverson the truck was backing up, but the warning came too late. Investigators said the truck was traveling at less than 3 mph.More on opportunistic minerealistic negligent homicide at the NevadaLabor.com Mining War Room
UPDATE TUESDAY, 29 Sept. 2009 3:59 p.m. PDT/ 22:59 ZULU/GMT/SUT/CUT — Nurses fired at hospital in desperate need of nurses.
On Monday, Sept. 28, Terri Russell of Reno's KOLO TV-8, reported that 15 experienced nurses, five of them members of Service Employees Union Local 1107, have been fired by Renown/Washoe Med for not attending or being late to a mandatory meeting on computers. There was no appeal from the set-in-cement appointment. The 15 are very experienced and thus among the highest paid. Curious, eh wot? All this from a place constantly trying to hire good nurses as this corporate vampire touts itself as such a wonderful place to work. (See below.)
Union reps are not talking much because they don't want to jeopardize the appeals of their members. As for the 10, I gotta hunch they wish they had a union right now.Renown is the latter-day descendant of the county hospital stolen from the taxpayers in 1985. The complete history, including the damning Washoe County Grand Jury Report, is available exclusively at NevadaLabor.com.
Any of the firees or other Renown/Washoe Med employees who have stories to tell are welcome to contact the editor.
Be well. Raise hell.
In Solidarity,
From Renown/Washoe Med's own website — proceed at your own risk if you believe the hype
It Pays to be a Renown Nurse
At Renown Health, our mission is to make a genuine difference every day. That applies to the quality care we provide to our patients as well as the quality care we give our nurses. [1]
Being a Renown nurse means:
* Wages that average $60,000 a year for a full-time acute care nurse
* A fully Employer-paid health and life insurance option
* The highest 401(k) employer match in the state among major hospitals
* Tuition reimbursement
* Flexible schedule options [2], including three day work weeks
* The only clinical ladder for nurses in the state, providing increased pay for nurses who expand and enhance their clinical skills
* The prestige of working for one of the Top 100 healthcare networks in the country
And it means that your quality of life—both on the job and off — is extraordinary. [2]
Renown Partners with TMCC (Editor's note: Truckee Meadows Community College) Nursing Program
Renown partners with TMCC nursing program. As the only locally-owned, private, not-for-profit health network in the county [3], Renown Health is a strong supporter of regional nursing programs - including the program at Truckee Meadows Community College. Please click here to learn more about the partnership that Renown has with TMCC.
Apply Online
We pride ourselves in being one of the most rewarding and exuberant outlets of professional challenge, personal growth, and meaningful human connection you'll find anywhere, and we invite you to join us.Fundamentals:
* People: A great place for great people to do great work [4]
* Service: Anticipate customer needs and exceed expectations in a compassionate manner
* Quality: Provide excellence by doing the job right the first time
* Stewardship: Maximize the use of available, finite resources [4] to meet the current and future needs of the communityBARBWIRE NOTES:
1. Tell that to the 15 you just pink-slipped.
2. See number one, above.
3. These crooks promised to lower health care costs and take the cost of indigent care off the backs of the taxpayers when they stole the hospital in 1985. They broke both promises and today plow their substantial profits into executive salaries and expanding a huge octopus of an empire, now one of the biggest businesses in northern Nevada.
4. See number 2, ibid.UPDATE SUNDAY, 27 Sept. 2009 3:31 a.m. PDT/ 10:31 ZULU/GMT/SUT/CUT —
Shining light into dark places
Charter cable and Reno City Council collude on keeping the public in the dark
Community radio/TV need your support now more than ever
Gary Wolff archive uploaded
Barbwire / Daily Sparks Tribune / 9-27-2009 / Updated 9-29-2009Labor leader Roger Maillard dies
On this date in 1826, Margaret Lindsay and James Webster were married in Kirriemuir parish of county Forfar (now Angus) in Scotland (fifty years later they celebrated what the Nevada State Journal said was the first known Truckee Meadows golden wedding anniversary "among whites, anyway" with a party at Steamboat Springs); in 1881, a stockholders meeting of the Nevada and Oregon Railroad Company was held in Reno (the death toll was one, Squire Scoville; a second man shot, Daniel Balch, recovered); in 1904, William Jennings Bryan, campaigning for the Democratic ticket, began the day in Reno, traveled to Virginia City and Carson City on the Virginia and Truckee, then returned and spoke in Sparks; in 1937 in Pocatello, Idaho, Clayton Treat was sentenced to ten days in jail for "riding the rods" under a train that happened to be President Roosevelt's train; in 1949 at the Hotel El Rancho Vegas, a meeting on development of the Pahrump Valley was held in connection with the proposed construction through the area of a coast-to-coast highway; in 1953, Nevada's second television station, KZTV (later KOLO) in Reno, went on the air; in 1954, Steve Allen's Tonight show debuted on the full NBC network after several months on WNBC (it would produce stars like Tom Poston, Don Knotts, Louis Nye, Eydie Gorme, Andy Williams, Gene Rayburn, Skitch Henderson, and Steve Lawrence and enduring routines like the Question Man [later revived by Johnny Carson as Karnac] and Stump the Band); in 1974, U.S. senate candidates Harry Reid and Paul Laxalt agreed to a debate on KSHO in Las Vegas; in 1992, 60 Minutes on CBS and, the next day, the Los Angeles Times reported that the U.S. Agency for International Development was using taxpayer money to convince U.S. corporations to take jobs to other nations, providing sweetheart loans and tax breaks to companies that would relocate to Central America; in 1994, Steve Allen appeared for the last time on the program he pioneered, Tonight, for the program's 40th anniversary broadcast.
UPDATE WEDNESDAY, 23 Sept. 2009 12:14 a.m. PDT/ 07:14 ZULU/GMT/SUT/CUT — On this date in 1886, the Nevada Press Association‚s second annual meeting adopted a resolution pledging members not to mention any lawyer's name in news stories unless the lawyer advertised; in 1931, Reno gangsters James McKay and William Graham were asking their business partner Jack Dempsey to let them stage and promote a Dempsey title fight; in 1937, a new Greyhound bus named the Carson City was dedicated in Nevada's capital with the Stewart Indian School band taking part in the ceremony; in 1949, a meeting was held between the Las Vegas city commission and a newly created water district board on settling the water future of the valley, including acquisition by the public of the municipal water company owned by the Las Vegas Land and Water Company and importing water from Lake Mead; in 1951, historian Guy Louis Rocha, coauthor of The Ignoble Conspiracy and recipient last week of the Nevada Press Association's First Amendment Award, was born in Long Beach; in 1956, U.S. Senator John Kennedy of Massachusetts, fresh from his dramatic convention battle with Senator Estes Kefauver over the vice-presidential nomination, spoke at a Democratic fund raising dinner at the Hotel Royal Nevada in Las Vegas; in 1970, First National Bank of Nevada announced that it had sold 10,931 acres of Lake Tahoe land in the George Whittell estate to Dreyfus Fund founder Jack Dreyfus for $13,500,000; in 1970, Ani Difranco, Grammy-winning singer/songwriter who started her own label (at age 18!), Righteous Babe Records, was born in Buffalo; in 2001, twelve days after September 11, Rev. David Berke participated in an interfaith prayer service at Yankee Stadium (he was later accused by a group of 18 Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod ministers of "dragging" the church down to the level of Muslims by worshiping with "pagans" and convicted of the charges in a church proceeding).
UPDATE SUNDAY, 20 Sept. 2009 2:01 a.m. PDT/ 09:01 ZULU/GMT/SUT/CUT — Barbwire wins second straight Nevada Press Association first-place award
Hey buddy, can you spare a dime?
Barbwire wins second straight Nevada Press Association first-place award
Barbwire / Daily Sparks Tribune / 9-20-2009
The Dean of Reno Bloggers could very well be Andrew Barbano, self-described "fighter of public demons," who started putting his "Barbwire" columns online in 1996 and now runs 10 sites.
The 2009 first-place Nevada Press Association award winners
Tony the Tiger & the flaky NFL
Barbwire / 11-30-2008
Deregulation is never having to say you're sorry
Barbwire / 8-3-2008
Nevada: A good place to visit, but do you want to live here?
Barbwire / 6-15-2008
The price of a piece/6-17-2007
Boxing Pandora/9-23-2007
The Lady in the Red Dress
10-28-2007Trib columnists go at each other
Daily Sparks Tribune 1-4-2009Reno goes Cabellyup again
Money for nothing and the kicks for free
Barbwire / Daily Sparks Tribune / 9-13-2009
UPDATE FRIDAY, 11 Sept. 2009 2:31 a.m. PDT/ 09:31 ZULU/GMT/SUT/CUT —
9/11 ALMANAC
By Dennis MyersOn this date in 1882, Republicans swept Maine, which held its general election earlier than the rest of the nation; in 1906 at a mass protest meeting in Johannesburg, Indian attorney Mohandas Gandhi publicly embraced for the first time the method of satyagraha (truth force), the assertive nonviolent resistance that he later used in India, Ghaffar Khan used in what is now Pakistan, and Martin Luther King, Jr., used in the United States; in 1917, German patriot Albin Kobes, awaiting execution for joining a mutiny on the German dreadnought battleship S.M.S. Prinzregent Luitpold, wrote a last letter to his family: "I don't like dying so young, but I die with a curse on the German-militarist state."; in 1936, the first Boulder Dam generator was put in operation with President Franklin Roosevelt throwing a ceremonial switch in Washington; in 1953, two Utah fliers took off from Salt Lake City's airport in an effort to stay aloft for 50 days, which if successful would break the record of 47 days; in 1956, Republicans and Democrats closely watched the election in Maine, where the general election for state offices was held in September, as a bellwether (Democratic Governor Edmund Muskie was re-elected and Democrats picked up all three U.S. House seats); in 1956, Las Vegas Postmaster C.K. Ryerse said the city's post offices would soon replace the lobby counter fountain pens with ball points; in 1962, The Beatles re-did their September 4 recording of Love Me Do, scheduled to be their first single, this time without their new drummer Ringo because producer George Martin did not think his playing on the first version was good enough (drummer Andy White replaced Ringo, thus joining the elite group of musicians who have been Beatles); in 1995, Houston woke U.S. astronauts with the theme from Rin Tin Tin; in 2001, 2,749 citizens of the United States died in one day, including UNLV graduate Karen Wagner, who was working in the Pentagon; in 2002 during the Bush administration's run-up to war in Iraq, CBS reporter Mark Phillips made reference to "the belligerent noises being made in Washington and some other places", a rare instance of a journalist not jumping on the administration bandwagon, and anchor Dan Rather reprimanded Phillips on the air for doing it: "Now of course, what Washington sees it as a kind of quiet determination to do what President Bush feels the United States must do, is the word belligerence, is that one that the Iraqi government has been attaching to Washington and President Bush's policy as a way of getting their propaganda across the Arab world?"; in 2004, doves representing peace were released in a ceremony in downtown Reno.
150 Years of 9/11
A historical tour de force by Dennis Myers
Now with a new photo illustrationLabor Day 2009: Rise of the Vampire Corpobots
Barbwire / Expanded from the 9-6-2009 Daily Sparks TribuneAngry Americans and Freudian fraud
Barbwire / Expanded from the 8-23-2009 Daily Sparks Tribune
UPDATE FRIDAY, 21 Aug. 2009 12:58 a.m. PDT/ 07:58 ZULU/GMT/SUT/CUT — Thanks to everyone for all the kind words in response to Of Scabs and Solidarity. I will upload some of them shortly. And thanks to KRNV TV-4 News for being the only television news department continuing coverage of this story. Stay tuned. Be well. Raise hell. AndrewUPDATE THURSDAY, 20 Aug. 2009 3:38 a.m. PDT/ 10:38 ZULU/GMT/SUT/CUT —
Warning to building trades: Granite replaces Teamsters with rats
UPDATE TUESDAY, 18 Aug. 2009 4:59 p.m. PDT/ 23:59 ZULU/GMT/SUT/CUT —
UPDATE TUESDAY, 18 Aug. 2009 10:45 a.m. PDT/ 17:45 ZULU/GMT/SUT/CUT — HOT AUGUST STRIKE WORD FROM THE STREETS: A report, unconfirmed by Teamsters officials, came in from union brothers who reported for duty to support the Teamsters this morning. They say that the pickets at the Glendale/19th Street Sparks ready-mix plant have been pulled and that a meeting is taking place. Stay tuned. [MORE STRIKE NEWS]
UPDATE SUNDAY, 16 Aug. 2009 10:51 p.m. PDT/ 05:51 17 Aug. ZULU/GMT/SUT/CUT — Teamsters picketing expands. Granite gives bogus statement to media.
UPDATE SUNDAY, 16 Aug. 2009 4:59 p.m. PDT/ 23:59 ZULU/GMT/SUT/CUT —
HOT AUGUST STRIKE
Teamsters Union strikes Granite Construction in the west
Contract expired at midnight Saturday, 15 Aug.Naming names and calling bluffs
Barbwire / Expanded from the 8-16-2009 Daily Sparks Tribune
The Dean's List
The Dean of Reno Bloggers could very well be Andrew Barbano, self-described "fighter of public demons," who started putting his "Barbwire" columns online in 1996 and now runs 10 sites.
The 2009 first-place Nevada Press Association award winners
Tony the Tiger & the flaky NFL
Barbwire / 11-30-2008
Deregulation is never having to say you're sorry
Barbwire / 8-3-2008
Nevada: A good place to visit, but do you want to live here?
Barbwire / 6-15-2008
The price of a piece/6-17-2007
Boxing Pandora/9-23-2007
The Lady in the Red Dress
10-28-2007Live Streaming Barbwire.TV
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Past 12 months
Use the search tool you will find at page right at the above link. It will return the 19 newest. A button for older shows is being installed. You may also search by date — M-F for the past year save holidays.Click here for on-demand re-runs
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UPDATE FRIDAY, 14 Aug. 2009 1:27 p.m. PDT/ 20:27 ZULU/GMT/SUT/CUT —
Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley addresses union members in Reno
Daily Sparks Tribune / Friday / 8-14-2009
The frontrunner for next year's Nevada Democratic gubernatorial nomination addressed the Nevada State AFL-CIO convention on Thursday morning and the Nevada Alliance of Retired Americans at a noon luncheon, both at the Grand Sierra Hotel in Reno.UPDATE TUESDAY, 11 Aug. 2009 12:03 a.m. PDT/ 07:03 ZULU/GMT/SUT/CUT —
Nevada State AFL-CIO and Nevada Alliance of Retired Americans hold side-by-side conventions in Reno this week
The Grand Sierra Resort, which just finalized a contract with Culinary Local 226, hosts both events.
Registration begins Tuesday afternoon for the AFL-CIO state convention and Wednesday morning for the retiree organization. The most high profile speaker at the NARA convention will be Madame Speaker herself, Nevada Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas. She will address a noon luncheon on Thursday.
A who's whom of Nevada elected officials and labor leaders are expected to address one or both conclaves.
For more information on the NARA event, call Roger Harris at (702) 808-0949. He will conduct a press conference at the hotel at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday. The media are invited to cover Buckley's address.Both events will convene on Wednesday morning and adjourn Thursday afternoon, Aug.13.
UPDATE FRIDAY, 14 Aug. 2009 12:14 a.m. PDT/ 07:14 ZULU/GMT/SUT/CUT — On this date in 1869, the White Pine Water Company's three mile pipeline to bring a water supply to Hamilton from Illipah Springs began operation; in 1918, twelve soldiers, the latest group drafted to meet Clark County's draft quota, were sent to Reno for training; in 1935 in justice court, John McGuire of Las Vegas was ordered to repay $15 to Esther Underhill after he sold three of her small buildings to E.O. Cook, who moved them to another location; in 1941, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S President Franklin Roosevelt signed the "Atlantic charter," foreswearing the use of aggression, territorial aggrandisement, territorial sovereignty and other practices that their two nations would freely engage in after the war; in 1945, World War Two ended; in 1945 in Richland, Washington, where much of the Manhattan Project work had been done, the Villager front page headline was "PEACE" with "OUR BOMB CLINCHED IT" in smaller letters underneath; in 1947, Reno's second annual Jamb-o-Reno began, with parade, stage shows featuring movie and radio stars, street dancing, horse racing and fireworks; in 1950, an Edward R. Murrow broadcast from Korea warning that the war would be longer that the public had been told and was being handled disastrously by the U.S. was censored by CBS management and never aired; in 1954, the Nevada Board of Regents issued a statement announcing it would hold a meeting in southern Nevada soon, in response to requests from that area, but also denying that it had purchased a site for a "Nevada Southern" campus; in 1991, attorney Tom Wright was appointed to the Nevada Parole Board by Nevada Governor Robert Miller, who would later use him as a scapegoat for state parole policies when (Sparks ) police officer Larry Johnson was murdered by a parolee in 1995; in 2000, Rage Against the Machine gave a free concert across the street from the Democratic National Convention as the climax of a "Human Needs, Not Corporate Greed" march to protest the Clinton administration's corporate-friendly policies (the police tried to prevent the concert anywhere within sight of the convention but the courts intervened, so the police mounted heavy security including motorcycles and helicopters to try to drown it out and midway through declared it an "unlawful assembly").
Tuesday, 11 Aug. 2009 12:03 a.m. PDT/ 07:03 ZULU/GMT/SUT/CUT — On this date in 1602, the play Thomas Lord Cromwell was registered with London's Stationers' Company and a subsequent quarto publication of it identifies the author only by initials "W.S."; in 1900, four or five year old Edna Purviance, later silent movie star and Charles Chaplin's leading lady in thirty films, sang a duet with Helen Smith at the Ladies' Aid Society in Lovelock; in 1911 in Honolulu Harbor, Native Hawaiian Duke Paoa Kahinu Mokoe Hulikohola Kahanamoku astonished the swimming world by swimming the 100 yard freestyle in 55.4 seconds, beating the existing world record by 4.6 seconds (he went on to compete in several Olympics, winning three gold medals, and became known as the father of modern surfing); in 1944, a Reno newspaper reported that actress Frances Farmer was staying with her aunt Mrs. Alex Castaing for a month at Nevada Hot Springs in Lyon County (her biographer wrote that she was actually there for six months, though she made attempts to escape); in 1947, President Truman vetoed a measure sponsored by U.S. Representative Charles
Russell of Nevada that would have provided price supports for strategic minerals; in 1954, after a century of French colonization and repeated insurgencies, peace came to Vietnam with the 8:00 a.m. cessation of hostilities between the Vietnamese and the defeated French (war would soon return with the entry of the U.S. in France's place); in 1956, Don't Be Cruel by Elvis was released; in 1962, Breaking Up Is Hard To Do by Neil Sedaka hit number one on the Billboard chart (it's the only song to break into the top ten twice by the same artist singing at two different tempos); in 1978 under the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978, it became "the policy of the United States to protect and preserve for American Indians their inherent right of freedom to believe, express, and exercise the traditional religions of the American Indian, Eskimo, Aleut, and Native Hawaiians, including but not limited to access to sites, use and possession of sacred objects, and the freedom to worship through ceremonials and traditional rites."
Get out of Dodge
Barbwire / Expanded from the 8-9-2009 Daily Sparks TribuneUPDATE MONDAY, 3 Aug. 2009 4:25 p.m. PDT/ 23:25 ZULU/GMT/SUT/CUT — Message from the Mahatma
Keith Olbermann to Expose Congressional Opponents of Universal Health Care Tonight!
From: "Michael Moore" <maillist@michaelmoore.com>
Michael Moore and Crackers, the corporate crime-fighting chicken make a house call on Mike's Emmy-winning 1994-96 NBC+FOX show, TV Nation.
To: barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us
Subject: Keith Olbermann to Expose Congressional Opponents of Universal Health Care Tonight!
Date: Mon, 03 Aug 2009 18:33:13
Monday, August 3rd, 2009We've just received an advance transcript of tonight's Special Comment by Keith Olbermann on his MSNBC show. It is nothing short of brilliant — and if all of America were to hear what he is going to reveal tonight, we are certain the vast majority of Americans would be on the phone to their elected representative immediately, calling for an end to the private, for-profit, rip-off health insurance companies who have wrecked our country.
Here's a brief section of Keith's editorial tonight:
"Congressman Mike Ross of Arkansas. Leader of the Blue Dogs in the House. You're the guy demanding a guarantee that Reform won't add to the deficit. I'm guessing you forgot to demand that about, say, Iraq. You're a Democrat, you say, Congressman?
"You saw what Sandy Barham said? Sandy Barham is 62 years old, she's got a bad heart, and she's hoping her valves will hold together for three more years until Medicaid kicks in, because she can't afford insurance. Not just for herself, mind you. For her employees. She needs the public option. So do those six people who work at that restaurant of hers, Congressman Ross.
"And why should you give a crap? Because Sandy Barham's restaurant is the Broadway Railroad Café, and it is at 123 West First Street North in Prescott, Arkansas. Prescott, Arkansas, Congressman Ross. Your home town. You are Sandy Barham's congressman. Hers, Sir. Not Blue Cross's and Blue Shield's, even if they do insure 75 percent of the state and they own you."And here's what Keith has to say about Senator Thune:
"Senator John Thune of South Dakota? You gave the Republican rebuttal to the President's weekly address day before yesterday. You said the Democrats' plan was for '... government run health care that would disrupt our current system, and force millions of Americans who currently enjoy their employer-based coverage into a new health care plan run by government bureaucrats.'
"That's a bald-faced lie, Senator. And you're a bald-faced liar, whose bald face is covered byÝ your own health care plan run by government bureaucrats."
Don't miss his show, live at 8pm ET. Rebroadcast at 10pm and 1am.
Mike
People who live in crystal balls
Barbwire / Daily Sparks Tribune / 8-2-2009Malapropisms, anachronisms and an adios
Law enforcement and labor leader Gary Wolff dies
Barbwire / Daily Sparks Tribune / 7-26-2009UPDATE: Monday 13 July 2009 12:23 a.m. PDT / 07:23 GMT/SUT/CUT/ZULU — On this date in 1912, the U.S. Senate, finding "that corrupt methods and practices were employed in his election, and that the election, therefore, was invalid", unseated Senator William Lorimer of Illinois; in 1918, twenty weeks after independence, in an effort to stave off annexation to Prussia or Saxony, the Lithuanian State Council declared a constitutional monarchy with Duke William von Urach of Wittenberg declared King Mindaugas II (the declaration was later revoked in favor of a proclamation of constitutional government); in 1933, John "Jake the Barber" Factor (later part owner of the Stardust and Desert Inn in Las Vegas), brother of cosmetic king Max Factor, was released after a $50,000 ransom was paid to the Barker/Karpis gang; in 1933, it became known that amid a wave of kidnappings around the nation, the Secret Service began protecting the First Grandchildren; in 1952 before the Las Vegas Westside Elks Club, Los Angeles attorney Hugh MacBeth (who was about to serve as a California delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago), "instigator," as the Las Vegas Review-Journal described him, of the planned Inter-racial village in Clark County, gave the first of three speeches during the week before service groups in Las Vegas; in 1955 in Camden, New Jersey, RCA announced that in an AM radio station it installed near ground zero of an atomic test in Nevada, "not a single tube or component was damaged" and the station could have gone on the air right after the test; in 1970, Nevada Assembly speaker Howard McKissick, a Washoe County Republican, called Nevada's $24 million surplus too high and proposed that the state "either knock off the sales tax or start paying state employees and state teachers living wages"; in 2002, the London Guardian reported that a century after Belgium seized the Congo as a colony, the state-funded Belgian Royal Museum for Central Africa had opened an investigation into charges of genocide: "Shocking claims — often well documented — that 10 million Congolese were either murdered or worked to death by [King] Leopold's private army, that women were systematically raped, that locals' hands were cut off and that the local populace endured kidnapping, looting and village burnings, have never been the subject of serious debate in Belgium, let alone an apology."; in 2005 at a news conference, George Bush promised to discuss the CIA leak case involving Scooter Libby after the investigation was complete (he later refused to comment on it after the investigation was complete, after the conviction was complete, after the sentencing was complete, and after the pardon was complete).
Night music and daily dissonance
From classical gas in Reno to political tap dancing in Sparks
Barbwire / Daily Sparks Tribune / 7-12-2009UPDATE: Friday 10 July 2009 12:54 a.m. PDT / 07:54 GMT/SUT/CUT/ZULU — On this date in 1867, Finley Peter Dunne, creator of "Mr. Dooley" and author of the classic definition of the role of a journalist (to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable) was born in Chicago; in 1877 as the Sutro tunnel neared completion, the New York Engineering and Mining Journal praised Adolph Sutro and denounced the mining corporation executives who opposed him; in 1918, Nevada Governor Emmet Boyle issued a notice to all claimants of the reward in the case of the murder of Churchill County Sheriff Mark Wildes that they should file their claims by July 15; in 1918, the Churchill County Standard reported: "arrangements are being made to suitably observe the anniversary of the Fall of the Bastille in France, which occurred on July 14, 1789. This event marks the downfall of despotism in our sister republic. A number of enthusiastic Fallon citizens have take the subject in hand and will endeavor to see that the Natal day of France, the best friend this country ever had among the nations of the earth, the country that gave us LaFayette and Rochambeau, shall be fittingly observed as we our own Fourth of July all over France this year."; in 1943, Soviet military forces were told to stand or die in clashes with German storm troops in the Belgorod Oblast region; in 1951, Dashiell Hammett was jailed for contempt of Congress after refusing to tell who furnished bond for four fugitive communist leaders, and U.S. Senator Patrick McCarran of Nevada said the senate internal security committee had subpoenaed Frederick Field and his bank records to be questioned about his supposed involvement with the four communists; in 1957, Arlo Guthrie was born; in 1970, U.S. draft director Curtis Tarr, speaking in Reno, reacted to a U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning federal efforts to prevent conscientious objector status by proposing that COs be drafted for work on non-military projects; in 1985, responding to a flurry of bad publicity about New Coke, the Coca Cola Company said it would restore the original recipe, though since the recipe is a secret it's not confirmable that it did so (the leader of the anti-New Coke campaign, when given a taste test by a newspaper, was unable to distinguish between the old and new Coca Cola); in 2003, former Motley Crue frontman Vince Neil allegedly attacked prostitute Andrea "TrixXxie Blue" Terry, choking her and slamming her against a wall of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch brothel in Lyon County, Nevada (Neil later pleaded no contest and was sentenced to 30 days in jail suspended, anger management, a fine and court costs).
UPDATE: Thursday 9 July 2009 3:31 p.m. PDT / 22:31 GMT/SUT/CUT/ZULU — Another black eye for Renown/Washoe Medical Center. The hospital stolen from the public is now an increasingly dangerous place to get sick.
UPDATE: Thursday 9 July 2009 12:42 a.m. PDT / 07:42 GMT/SUT/CUT/ZULU — On this date in 1879, Secretary of the Senate John Burch said that if U.S. Senator William Sharon of California (elected from Nevada) tried to claim his salary then he (Burch) would submit the case to the controller of the U.S. Treasury (Sharon had shown up for work for only two months of his first four years in office); in 1896 in a speech during the Democratic National Convention platform debate on monetary policy, former Nebraska congressmember William Jennings Bryan electrified the delegates with a powerful speech supporting coinage at a ratio of silver to gold of 16 to increase the amount of money in circulation and aid cash-poor, debt-burdened farmers (see below); in 1898 in Dayton, Nevada, a local man named Frank Richardson was hung in effigy when a rumor circulated that he had volunteered for service in the Spanish American war but failed to follow through (actually, he had failed the physical); in 1904, William Jennings Bryan, facing the antagonism of his party after twice being nominated for president and losing both times, arrived at the Democratic National Convention where he created a sensation and re-won the allegiance of cheering delegates by making what many called the greatest speech of his life, which began in absolute silence and ended in pandemonium: "Eight years ago a Democratic convention placed in my hands the standard of the party and gave me the commission as its candidate. Four years ago the commission was renewed. I come tonight to this Democratic convention to return the commission and to say that you may dispute whether I have fought a good fight, you may dispute whether I have finished my course, but you cannot deny that I have kept the faith." (August Belmont: "My God! I can now understand the power of the man."); in 1925, the Reno Ku Klux Klan chapter held a meeting to elect officers; in 1943 in what army officials said might have been a record for rapid advancement, actor Melvyn Douglas was promoted from private to captain six months after he entered the service; in 1947, the Las Vegas school board called for bids on the construction of ten more classrooms for two North Las Vegas schools and partitioning of the high school study hall into six classrooms; in 1955, Reno Mayor Len Harris urged Renoites to serve as ground observers who watched for enemy aircraft (even though there was no war); in 1959, Zeppo Marx testified before a federal grand jury that a national betting syndicate was operating in Terre Haute and that he had lost perhaps $10,000 placing bets in Las Vegas; in 1968, Charles Fox of Sparks died in Binh Duong province, Vietnam (panel 52W, row 5 of the Vietnam wall); in 1984, Carolyn Anne Olsen was born at St. Mary's Hospital in Reno; in 2002, a U.S. Senate vote gave final congressional approval for a dump for high level nuclear wastes at Yucca Mountain in Nevada; in 2004, a Senate Intelligence Committee report found that the Central Intelligence Agency had supplied unfounded claims of the threat presented by Iraq.
William Jennings Bryan/Democratic National Convention/July 9, 1896: But we stand here representing people who are the equals before the law of the largest cities in the state of Massachusetts. When you come before us and tell us that we shall disturb your business interests, we reply that you have disturbed our business interests by your action. We say to you that you have made too limited in its application the definition of a businessman. The man who is employed for wages is as much a businessman as his employer. The attorney in a country town is as much a businessman as the corporation counsel in a great metropolis. The merchant at the crossroads store is as much a businessman as the merchant of New York. The farmer who goes forth in the morning and toils all day, begins in the spring and toils all summer, and by the application of brain and muscle to the natural resources of this country creates wealth, is as much a businessman as the man who goes upon the Board of Trade and bets upon the price of grain. The miners who go 1,000 feet into the earth or climb 2,000 feet upon the cliffs and bring forth from their hiding places the precious metals to be poured in the channels of trade are as much businessmen as the few financial magnates who in a backroom corner the money of the world.
We come to speak for this broader class of businessmen. Ah. my friends, we say not one word against those who live upon the Atlantic Coast; but those hardy pioneers who braved all the dangers of the wilderness, who have made the desert to blossom as the rose — those pioneers away out there, rearing their children near to nature's heart, where they can mingle their voices with the voices of the birds, out there where they have erected schoolhouses for the education of their children and churches where they praise their Creator, and the cemeteries where sleep the ashes of their dead —are as deserving of the consideration of this party as any people in this country.
It is for these that we speak. We do not come as aggressors. Our war is not a war of conquest. We are fighting in the defense of our homes, our families, and posterity. We have petitioned, and our petitions have been scorned. We have entreated, and our entreaties have been disregarded. We have begged, and they have mocked when our calamity came.
We beg no longer; we entreat no more; we petition no more. We defy them!
The gentleman from Wisconsin has said he fears a Robespierre. My friend, in this land of the free you need fear no tyrant who will spring up from among the people. What we need is an Andrew Jackson to stand as Jackson stood, against the encroachments of aggregated wealth....
There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that if you just legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, that their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous their prosperity will find its way up and through every class that rests upon it.
You come to us and tell us that the great cities are in favor of the gold standard. I tell you that the great cities rest upon these broad and fertile prairies. Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic. But destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country....
If they dare to come out in the open field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we shall fight them to the uttermost, having behind us the producing masses of the nation and the world. Having behind us the commercial interests and the laboring interests and all the toiling masses, we shall answer their demands for a gold standard by saying to them, you shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.
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Streaming at Barbwire.TVThe Dean of Reno Bloggers could very well be Andrew Barbano, self-described "fighter of public demons," who started putting his "Barbwire" columns online in 1996 and now runs 10 sites.
The price of a piece/6-17-2007
Boxing Pandora/9-23-2007
The Lady in the Red Dress
10-28-2007
Wed., 8 July 2009 — Newmont Mining fined $500,000 for fatal safety flaws
Federal regulators have fined Newmont Mining Corp. more than $500,000 for safety violations they said contributed to the death of a worker at an underground gold mine in Nevada. The Mine Safety and Health Administration also announced Tuesday that four supervisors for the Denver-based mining company have agreed to pay a combined $60,000 in individual penalties for their role in the accident at the Midas Mine north of Elko in June 2007. An administrative law judge for the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission approved the penalties for the violations, including failure to provide adequate controls to guard against cave-ins and failure to provide adequate barricades and signs to warn miners about the hidden hazards of sinkholes. Newmont spokesman Matt Murray said company officials were in a meeting Tuesday afternoon and unable to immediately comment.EDITOR'S NOTE: This negligence was so blatant that company executives have been slapped with a mild penalty, something that almost never happens.
But what the hell, this largely tax-exempt industry can just treat fines, murder and mayhem as part of the cost of doing business. Do a websearch and see what these foreign-owned bloated behemoths are doing in other countries like Indonesia.
Newmont started operating the Midas mine after an outfit called SMD (Small Mine Development) killed some workers and declared bankruptcy. SMD's former managers may well be managing the Midas mine today and may have been running it when Dan Shaw was murdered. He left a wife and child.
Under Nevada's workers compensation law (the purpose of which is to make sure that negligent employers can't be sued), the 30 year-old Shaw's family received the maximum benefit — $2,000.
Two thousand lousy freakin' dollars.
The last union miner killed in Nevada was John Skinner nine years ago.
SMD managed a lot of mining ops for Newmont under subcontract. They also worked for Barrick at the Turquoise Ridge mine near Golconda, where they also killed a worker.
In April, 2008, Barrick killed Kenneth Barbosa the same way at its Getchell Mine near Golconda because "management failed to provide competent ground where miners worked or traveled."
This brings to a boil my oft-stated and only reactionary conservative position. When a corporation commits negligent homicide, knowingly perpetuating unsafe conditions which result in a worker death, the company gets the death penalty.
The family of the deceased gets a handsome settlement when the company is liquidated. The remainder goes into the public treasury to take care of injured workers. The stockholders get nothing. Not even King Ronald the Vague nor Newt the Zootsuit have ever been that conservative.Now there's an effective worker safety program.
Hang 'em high!
Be well. Raise hell.Wed., 8 July 2009 00:29:42 PDT 07:29:42 GMT/CUT/SUT/ZULU — On this date in 1663, the crown granted Rhode Island and Providence Plantations a charter, unifying the two regions and recognizing the area's religious freedom heritage (the Rhode Island Legislature last month approved a 2010 state referendum to decide whether to drop "Providence Plantations" from the state's official name because of its alleged slavery association, though in fact the term in 1663 meant "settlement"); in 1861, James Nye of New York, newly appointed by President Lincoln to be the governor of the Territory of Nevada, arrived in Carson City; in 1909, American Motors president, Michigan governor, Republican presidential candidate, and U.S. cabinet member George Romney was born at the Mormon colony of Colonia Dublán, Chihuahua, Mexico; in 1919, the Nevada governor's office received a telegram from the U.S. war trade industries board that said the English government was asking the U.S. treasury for a hundred million ounces of silver; in 1933, the Las Vegas Review-Journal editorialized that both the gangsters who were ruling urban centers like Chicago and the anti-fascist groups that were opposing Italian Premier Mussolini's contingent at the world's fair in Chicago were "composed largely of foreigners, most of whom hail from southern Europe"; in 1941 in his journal, German General Franz Halder wrote of Hitler's grisly plans for the eastern front: "Fuhrer is firmly determined to level Moscow and Leningrad to the ground, and to dispose fully of their population, which otherwise we shall have to feed during the winter."; in 1959, Major Dale Ruis and Sergeant Chester Ovnand, generally regarded as the first casualties of the U.S. war in Vietnam, were killed at Bien Hoa; in 1966, the album Yesterday and Today by The Beatles (a U.S. collection of leftovers that had been trimmed by Capitol from the original English versions of Rubber Soul and other albums) went gold; in 2007, four years after its gullible reporting and unquestioning news coverage helped the Bush administration launch the war on Iraq, The New York Times called for an end to the war: "It is time for the United States to leave Iraq, without any more delay than the Pentagon needs to organize an orderly exit."
BREAKING NEWS
Washoe County School District investigating embezzlement allegations at Sparks bus yard
Front Page / Daily Sparks Tribune / 7-2-2009Stone walls at Sparks City Hall
Barbwire / Daily Sparks Tribune/ 6-28-2009Bob Sworden of Fallon named to Teamsters Local 533 board of trustees
Lahontan Valley News / 6-27-2009Teamsters Local 533 announces new officers
Reno Gazette-Journal 6-26-2009Lawsuit hits sewer project
Daily Sparks Tribune 6-23-2009
Sparks city attorney stonewalls union public records demand
Download or view in Acrobat Reader .pdf
Laborers' business manager Skip Daly addresses the Sparks city council today.
View it live on Charter digital cable channels 15 and 215 or on demand at SNCAT.org
6-22-2009
Laborers Union files court action against City of Sparks over improper bidding of major Spanish Springs construction project
U -News 6-19-2009 / Updated 6-22-2009SPARKS BLINKS!
UPDATE 4:43 p.m. PDT (23:43 ZULU GMT) 6-22-2009 —Councilmember Ron Schmidt said he would put withdrawal of all bids up for a vote at the 6 July 2009 council meeting, implicitly admitting that the union is right and that the purchasing manager had no authority. City attorney Adams changed his original statements. Where the city last week said the bids had been withdrawn, today Adams said "the contract has been cancelled." Whose? What that means in anyone's guess. (Watch KRNV TV-4 this evening and the Sparks Tribune and Reno Gannett-Journal tomorrow.) Stay tuned.
Holy men, studpuppies and quackups
Barbwire/ Expanded from the 6-21-2009 Daily Sparks Tribune30 year-old union pipefitter wins World Series of Poker event
Las Vegas Review-Journal 6-16-2009Sine Die Hard
JUNE 1, 2009 — TO MY FELLOW "C" STUDENTS IN LATIN: "Sine die" is Latin for "without another day." (The literal translation is "without a day," but "without another day" is the sense of it.) The Latin root "sine" gave us the word "sincere," a contraction of "sine cere," literally meaning "without wax." Roman inspectors drilled core samples of new pillars to make sure that they were stone throughout rather than hollow and filled with wax. Somewhere in there lies a proper metaphor for Nevada's follytix today. By law, the Nevada legislature must sincerely adjourn sine die today, June 1.
The cure for what ails us
BARBWIRE: Depopulating Nevada
A truly radical and rational vision of the future
Expanded from the 5-31-2009 Daily Sparks TribuneBREAKING NEWS
Danny Thompson on the Barbwire Thursday
FRIDAY, 5-29-2009 CARSON CITY — The Third House has been postponed until this evening at 6:00 p.m., we sincerely hope.
5-28-2009
LEGISLATIVE PRE-POST-MORTEM AND A LOOK AHEAD AT ELECTION 2010: Danny Thompson on the Barbwire today
Live Streaming Barbwire.TV
Monday thru Friday
Reno-Sparks-Washoe Charter cable channels 16 and 216
High-definition channel 80-295
2:00-4:00 p.m. PDT
21:00-23:00 ZULU/GMT/CUT/SUTLIVE 4:00-5:00 p.m. PDT (23:00 ZULU) Tuesdays and Thursdays on Carson City Charter cable 10 & 26
Streaming at Barbwire.TVThe Dean of Reno Bloggers could very well be Andrew Barbano, self-described "fighter of public demons," who started putting his "Barbwire" columns online in 1996 and now runs 10 sites.
The price of a piece/6-17-2007
Boxing Pandora/9-23-2007
The Lady in the Red Dress
10-28-2007
Carson City — Nevada State AFL-CIO Executive Secretary-Treasurer Danny Thompson will be Andrew Barbano's guest on the Barbwire today at 4:00 p.m. PDT (23:00-24:00 GMT/ZULU. See below for web and rebroadcast times.)
Thompson served five terms in the Nevada State Assembly in the 1980's, representing constituents from the Henderson area in southern Nevada. He succeeded that late, great Blackie Evans as head of Nevada's umbrella labor organization.
A HOT TIME IN THE OLD TOWN TONIGHT — In the grand Nevada journalistic tradition of scurrilous innuendo, baldfaced lies and personal attacks dating back to Mark Twain's days on the Comstock, the infamous legislative Third House may or may not happen this evening. The Carson City press corps' biennial satirical review of the legislative petting zoo was supposed to happen tonight, but the usual last-minute log jam may burn down the House. The Nevada State Assembly is due to go back into session at 4:00 legislative time. TRANSLATION: harharhardeeharhar. (If you get the impression that things are rather fluid, it's not because you've been drinking the necessary late-session intoxicating fluids.)
Lawmakers may also need the assembly chamber later in the evening (just who do they think they are?), so right now, whether or not H3 will be held tonight is a crapshoot.
"It's a question mark," said one staffer.
Which pretty much tells the story of Nevada government today.
TUNE IN, TURN ON AND TELL A FRIEND. Barring force majeure, acts of God or an attack of seething apathy, the Barbwire Show airs live each Tuesday and Thursday 4:00-5:00 p.m. PDT (23:00-24:00 GMT/ZULU) during the 2009 legislative session (and subsequent special sessions, heaven forbid). Television and web viewers may call the Barbwire with questions (775) 882-8255 (882-TALK), while the program is in progress.
The Barbwire originates live on Access Carson Charter digital cable channels 210 and 226. (The blackguards at Charter Communications just switched the dial positions and have failed to keep their promise to forward analog channels 10 and 26 to the new 3-digit sites as they have in Sparks-Reno-Washoe. Perhaps Charter has been too busy working on their days-long Internet outages which have affected a large number of Nevada ratepayers.)
Web viewers can access real-time webstreaming at Barbwire.TV. On-demand web viewing is usually available later on the same day as the original cablecast, also linked at Barbwire.TV.
The programs rerun as part of Andrew Barbano's regular daily time slot, 2:00-4:00 p.m. (21:00-23:00 GMT/ZULU) Monday thru Friday on Reno-Sparks-Washoe SNCAT Charter cable digital channels 16 and 216 and high-definition channel 80-295. They also rebroadcast on other cable systems statewide, including Ely, Elko and Douglas County.
Be well. Raise hell.
Andrew Barbano
CesarChavezNevada.com
NevadaLabor.com
Barbwire.TV
(775) 786-1455
Fax (775) 747-0979
On-air (775) 882-8255 (882-TALK)
___
JUST AROUND THE CORNER: Don't forget the Reno-Sparks NAACP Annual Freedom Fund Awards Dinner on Saturday, June 13, in Reno. Call Barbano for tickets and sponsorship info. Details at RenoSparksNAACP.org
High-definition channel 80-295
2:00-4:00 p.m. PDT M-F, 21:00-23:00 ZULU/GMT
NEW! LIVE 4:00-5:00 p.m. PDT (23:00 ZULU) Tuesdays and Thursdays on Carson City Charter digital cable channels 10/210 & 26/226 — Call 775-882-TALK (882-8255)
Streaming at Barbwire.TVRally against Gov. Jim the Dim's vetoes on Friday
Action alert from the Nevada State AFL-CIO
HIGH NOON — Last chance to say NO! to Jim Gibbons
Rallies in Carson City and Las Vegas at 12 noon on Friday, May 29
CARSON CITY, May 27, 2009 — On Thursday, May 28, Gov. Jim Gibbons (R), is expected to veto the budget approved by legislators – which saves funding for education, and health care for children and seniors.
Gibbons has already vetoed several bills to put Nevadans back to work. He is on track to set a record for the number of vetoes issued by a governor.
This is our last chance to say NO to Gibbons’ vetoes and NO to his drastic budget cuts!
We can do better for our families, our children and our seniors!
His budget could shut down our community colleges, UNLV or UNR!
His budget would cap health insurance for low-income kids!
His budget would cut funding for programs to keep seniors out of nursing homes!
His budget would cut funding for salaries for teachers, state employees and university faculty by 6 percent!
Say NO to Jim Gibbons! Call on legislators to override his vetoes!
JOIN US FOR A PRESS CONFERENCE: Friday, May 29, at noon in Las Vegas and Carson City.
WHO: Workers, teachers, nurses, parents, seniors and other concerned Nevadans!WHAT: A call for legislators to override Gov. Gibbons’ budget veto. (Click here for legislator contact info.)
WHEN: Noon, Friday, May 29
WHERE:
Las Vegas: Outside of the Grant Sawyer State Building, 555 E. Washington
Carson City: On the steps of the state Legislative Building, 401 S. Carson
BRING YOUR SIGNS!Say NO to Gibbons and his vetoes!
Melting down just in time for summer
Barbwire/ Expanded from the 5-24-2009 Daily Sparks Tribune
MAY 21, 2009
ONCE MORE UNTO THE BREACH!
TODAY ON THE BARBWIRE: Former State Senator Joe Neal, D-North Las Vegas. A longtime proponent of making the gambling industry pay its fair share, Neal was a key player in the tax package passed in the 2003 session. He was also an advocate of health care reform during his 32 years in the senate (1972-2004). A member of the senate hall of fame, he is second in tenure only to Senate Minority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno. Neal served as president pro-tem, minority leader and acting governor during his time in office.
His website, JoeNeal.org, still earns substantial daily traffic, especially when the legislature is in session. He visited his former colleagues in Carson City earlier this week.
TUNE IN, TURN ON AND TELL A FRIEND. The Barbwire Show airs live each Tuesday and Thursday 4:00-5:00 p.m. PDT (23:00-24:00 GMT/ZULU) during the 2009 legislative session (and subsequent special sessions, heaven forbid). Television and web viewers may call the Barbwire with questions (775) 882-8255 [882-TALK], while the program is in progress.
The show is broadcast on Access Carson Charter digital cable channels 210 and 226. (The blackguards at Charter Communications just switched the channel positions and the former analog positions at 10 and 26 were not forwarded to the new sites as of Tuesday. By Christmas, perhaps?)Web viewers may access real-time webstreaming at Barbwire.TV. On-demand web viewing is available later on the same day as the original cablecast, also linked at Barbwire.TV.
The programs will rerun as part of Andrew Barbano's regular daily time slot, 2:00-4:00 p.m. PDT (21:00-23:00 GMT/ZULU) Monday thru Friday on Reno-Sparks-Washoe SNCAT Charter cable digital channels 16 and 216 and high-definition channel 80-295. They will also rebroadcast on other cable systems statewide, including Ely, Elko and Douglas County.
Gov. Jim the Dim's business commissioner
5-20-2009Dear Brothers and Sisters:
Hereinbelow, you will find an announcement about a public seminar with the Nevada Labor Commissioner.
Alas, the good folks at the Washoe County Law Library seem blissfully unaware that Nevada's labor commissioner pretty much morphed into the office of business commissioner a couple of decades ago.
Might be good for laughs.
Be well. Raise hell.
In Solidarity,
Andrew Barbano
NevadaLabor.com
CesarChavezNevada.com
Barbwire.TV
ps: Gov. Jim the Dim has signed Assemblyman Ruben Kihuen's AB 301, the Nevada César Chávez Day bill.It was nip and tuck for awhile.
Rumor has it that Gibbons had concerns that there was no fiscal note on the legislation. The extremely unconfirmed report said that the guv ordered his staff to calculate the cost of printing the bill and the ink used in his signature.
He was reportedly worried that without these costs included, did lawmakers really know what they were voting on?
"The governor was concerned that lawmakers were as dumb as Washoe County voters who couldn't recognize a tax when it bit them on the ass," said an unnamed aide, glancing up from busily editing his resumé.
(The purpose of the latter is to see if a guy who is a joke can take a joke. Don't hold your breath.)
__________________________
FREE MONTHLY LEGAL SEMINAR: "Nevada's Labor Laws — An Evening with the Labor Commissioner" AT WASHOE COUNTY LAW LIBRARY
Reno, Nevada, May 19, 2009. The Washoe County Law Library will host the free public legal seminar "Nevada's Labor Laws — An Evening with the Labor Commissioner" on Thursday, May 28, 2009. Michael Tanchek, Labor Commissioner, will present the seminar. The seminar will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Law Library, located at 75 Court Street. Space is limited. Please reserve your spot by contacting the Washoe County Law Library at (775) 328-3250. The presentation is part of an ongoing series of free monthly community service seminars for the publicGovernor Signs César Chávez Day Bill
5-19-2009Firefighters, firestarters and camels' noses
Barbwire Daily Sparks Tribune / 5-17-2009Clinging to the Ledge Today
Latest tidbits from the biennial petting zoo which we fondly know as the Nevada State Legislature
STATE EMPLOYEES AND DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.: AB 395 is before the Senate Committee on Government Operations and Elections today. It's the key labor bill of the 2009 session.
Part of my testimony yesterday noted that "I am guided by the words of NAACP national president Benjamin Jealous. In his recent endorsement of the Employee Free Choice Act now before Congress, he stated "When Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated, he was helping sanitation workers win the freedom to form a union and bargain collectively with their employer....the struggle for civil rights and the struggle for workers' rights have always been linked together in this country."
I was informed before the hearing that those Memphis sanitation were in 1968 and remain today members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the same union seeking passage of AB 395.UPDATE: Because Sen. Bernice Mathews, D-Reno, refused to support the bill in the Operations Committee, it was sent without her vote to the Senate Committee on Government Affairs. We live to fight another day. Stay tuned and contact your lawmakers.
TODAY ON THE BARBWIRE. Rudy Viola and George Nelson of United Auto Workers Local 2162/AFL-CIO. They will talk both ballot boxing and bludgeon-boxing.
TAKING IT TO THE STREETS — Left to right, Sam Lumpe of Sheetmetal Workers Local 26/AFL-CIO and George Nelson of UAW Local 2162/AFL-CIO, form up marchers from other unions in front of city hall in downtown Reno on May 15. The old Reno post office stands directly behind them across the Truckee River. The historic Riverside Hotel may be seen at far right. The downtown skateboarding tarmac on which the union demonstrators assembled was the site of the venerable Mapes Hotel which the city dynamited out of spite several years ago. BALLOT BOXING: UAW 2162 is organizing a demonstration at 1:30 p.m. on Friday, May, 15, in front of Reno City Hall. They will protest the outsourcing of American jobs using taxpayer money.
"GM is planning to import cars from Mexico, Korea, Japan and China," the union says.
Those attending will hear speeches on other labor issues, including single-payer health care and the Employee Free Choice Act.
The demonstrators will march from city hall to the veterans memorial at Powning Park.
UAW LOCAL 2162 ANNOUNCEMENT
SAVE AMERICAN WORKERS & RETIREES!
Over 3 million jobs — from dealers to mechanics, from parts suppliers to assembly workers — are at stake in the current restructuring of the American auto industry. No community will be untouched.
Protect Middle Class Jobs, Working Families & Pensions!
Auto workers and retirees have suffered deep cuts. The parts supplier network is at risk and thousands of dealerships are on the block. Yet the Chrysler bankruptcy could result in even more hardship and the General Motors restructuring plan calls for 21,000 more layoffs! Where will it end?
Our Taxpayer Money Should Not Fund Outsourcing of Jobs!
Despite record job loss and $ billions in taxpayer loans, GM plans to close an additional 16 manufacturing facilities including four assembly plants. How will GM make up for the resulting loss in production? GM is planning to import the cars from Mexico, Korea, Japan and China! ENOUGH!!!
Automaker Restructuring Should Not Come at the Expense of American Workers & Retirees!
Join us at a Rally to Save American Workers & Retirees
Friday, May 15, 2009, 1:30 pm to 2:30 pm
§ Meet on 1st Street at the Ice Skating Rink Downtown Reno.
§ We will walk a short distance to Powning Veterans Memorial Park
Contact Phone: Rudy Viola, President, UAW Local 2162. Cell (775) 843-3206
BOXING BOXING. George "Battling" Nelson is putting together several promotions in conjunction with the centennial of the Jack Johnson-Jim Jeffries heavyweight championship "Fight of the Century" which was held in Reno in 1910. So today, we will expand from the political slugfest to those of the past and future. Yes, the future.
The Barbwire airs live each Tuesday and Thursday 4:00-5:00 p.m. PDT (23:00-24:00 GMT/ZULU) during the 2009 legislative session. Television and web viewers may call the Barbwire with questions (775) 882-8255 (882-TALK), while the program is in progress.
The show is broadcast on Access Carson Charter digital cable channels 10/210 and 26/226. (The blackguards at Charter Communications just switched the channel positions.) Web viewers can access real-time webstreaming at Barbwire.TV. On-demand web viewing is available later on the same day as the original cablecast, also linked at Barbwire.TV.
The programs will rerun as part of Andrew Barbano's regular daily time slot, 2:00-4:00 p.m. (21:00-23:00 GMT/ZULU) Monday thru Friday on Reno-Sparks-Washoe SNCAT Charter cable digital channels 16 and 216 and high-definition channel 80-295. They will also rebroadcast on other cable systems statewide.
SI SE PUEDE. Assemblymember Ruben Kihuen's, D-Las Vegas, César Chávez Day bill passed the senate 21-0 on May 12 and is on its way to the governor for signature. Well done, all!
Be well. Raise hell.
Andrew Barbano
CesarChavezNevada.com
NevadaLabor.com
Barbwire.TV
(775) 786-1455
Fax (775) 747-0979
On-air (775) 882-8255 (882-TALK)
___
FYI: The title of AB 395 states that the bill would provide for "workplace relations discussions and agreements for certain state employees."
___
41 YEARS AND COUNTING: Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., "Where Do We Go From Here?" commemoration will be held this Saturday, May 16, 1:00-7:30 p.m. at the First United Methodist Church in downtown Reno. Details at renofirstmethodist.org or call Rev. John Auer at (775) 322-4564.
JUST AROUND THE CORNER: Don't forget the Reno-Sparks NAACP Annual Freedom Fund Awards Dinner June 13 in Reno. Info: RenoSparksNAACP.org
May 13, 2009
VIA E-mail and hand-distributed hard copies to the committee
Sen. Joyce Woodhouse, Chair
Nevada State Senate Committee on Legislative Operations and Elections
RE: Please support AB 395
Dear Sen. Woodhouse:
I understand that your committee will hear Assembly Bill 395 this afternoon and time will be short. Please place me on record as in favor of the bill.
I am guided by the words of NAACP national president Benjamin Jealous. In his recent endorsement of the Employee Free Choice Act now before Congress, he stated "When Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated, he was helping sanitation workers win the freedom to form a union and bargain collectively with their employer....the struggle for civil rights and the struggle for workers' rights have always been linked together in this country."
Nevada state employees have made very deep sacrifices in recent years and are being asked to give even more of their labor for less money in the future. AB 395 will be a small reward, allowing them to better work together with management on issues such as working conditions. It will also save substantial money by avoiding expensive court battles on the many smaller matters which cannot readily be settled via the current process or lack of one.
Your consideration is appreciated.
Please feel free to call or write with any questions.
Sincerely,
Andrew Barbano
CesarChavezNevada.com
NevadaLabor.com
Barbwire.TV
TODAY: Workers Memorial Day on the Barbwire
4-28-2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT
ANDREW BARBANO (775) 786-1455
Barbwire.TV / NevadaLabor.com
"We just come to work here -- we don't come to die" --> Labor folk singer-songwriters Anne Feeney and Harry Stamper
WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?
Workplace fatalities kill more than 5,600 annually
CARSON CITY, NV (Tuesday, 28 April 2009) -- Today is Workers Memorial Day. The Barbwire show joins unions and labor activists all over North America in calling attention to unsafe conditions in the workplace.
Host Andrew Barbano's guests will be Las Vegas Sun reporter Patrick Coolican and Valerie Rosalin, RN, director of the Nevada Governors Office of Consumer Health Assistance.
Coolican was part of the team which won the most coveted award among the Pulitzer Prizes earlier this month. The southern Nevada newspaper's continuing investigative series and followup editorials concerning construction worker deaths on the Las Vegas Strip were honored with the Pulitzer for public service, the most prestigious among journalism's most prestigious awards.
Rosalin's office was formed after the State of Nevada privatized the injured workers (better known as workers' compensation or "workers' comp") insurance program. The small office was targeted for elimination earlier this year, but the Nevada legislature has thus far approved its continued funding. Do injured workers need help navigating the labyrinth of private insurance companies? The tiny operation is inundated with work but was recently forced to close its Reno office due to budget cuts.
The Barbwire will air live on Tuesday and take phone calls from television and web viewers from 4:00-5:00 p.m. PDT (23:00-24:00 GMT/ZULU). The in-studio phone number at AccessCarson is (775) 883-1976, extension 154.
The program is broadcast on Carson Charter cable channels 10 and 26, available in six of 10 capital city households. Web viewers can access real-time webstreaming at Barbwire.TV. On-demand web viewing will be available later on the same day as original cablecast, also linked at Barbwire.TV.
The programs will re-run as part of Andrew Barbano's regular daily time slot, 2:00-4:00 p.m. (21:00-23:00 GMT/ZULU) Monday thru Friday on Reno-Sparks-Washoe Charter cable SNCAT digital channels 16 and 216 and high-definition channel 80-295.
They will also re-run on other cable systems statewide. Additional TV and radio stations which would like to carry the broadcasts live or delayed may call or e-mail Barbano.
Tune in, turn on and tell a friend.
Si se puede.
Be well. Raise hell.
___Read more about it: The case for the death penalty for corporations guilty of negligent homicide. Go to "Windows of Stained Glass and Futures Passed". (Barbwire / Daily Sparks Tribune / 4-26-2009)
For the show: Barbwire.TV
For the cause: NevadaLabor.comCWA 9413/AFL-CIO
Windows of stained glass and futures passed
Nevada César Chávez Day bill gets senate hearing Wednesday, 1:30 p.m.
Barbwire / Daily Sparks Tribune / 4-26-2009Las Vegas Sun wins Pulitzer Prize for ongoing series about construction worker deaths on the Las Vegas strip
Las Vegas Sun / 4-21-2009 / MORE
Fearless forecasts, computers and counterspins
Employee Free Choice Act in danger
New Barbwire TV shows this week on Carson-Douglas cable/
Streaming live and on demand
First up: Local push for new Obama health insurance plan
Barbwire / Daily Sparks Tribune/ 4-12-2009 / Updated 4-14-2009 and 11-19-2015UPDATE: Tuesday, 7 April 2009, 11:42 p.m PDT, 06:42 Wednesday 4-8-2009 ZULU/GMT/CUT/SUT —
Labor v. mgmt unscrambling eggs for breakfast
Karmic fowl, fox paws and other freakin' f-words
Peter "Snidely Whiplash" Ernaut and Jason Guinasso's other puppetmasters push the panic button
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the Tuesday 5-17-2016 Sparks TribuneDeconstruction, carpetbaggers and hall-of-famers
District attorney's court filings in the Guinasso candidacy case available with the above column
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the Tuesday 4-12-2016 Sparks Tribune[UPDATE 4-8-2016/U-News Exclusive] —> On Thursday, 14 April 2016 at 1:45 p.m. PDT in Washoe District Court Dept. 7, 75 Court St. in Reno, Judge Patrick Flanagan will consider disqualification of Republican Jason Guinasso's candidacy in Assembly Dist. 26 (southwest Reno/Incline Village). Stay Tuned.
UPDATE 11-19-2015: Triple-turncoat union traitor Jason Guinasso, who organized the union-busting event documented hereinbelow, has declared his candidacy in the June 2016 Republican primary for the southwest Reno/Incline Village Assembly District 26 seat held for three terms by the 2015 legislature's worst union buster, Randy Kirner. Mr. Kirner only retained his seat over fellow Republican Lisa Krasner by 11 votes in 2014 and apparently had no stomach for a rematch. Mr. Guinasso has the support of both Mr. Kirner and his soul brother, Assemblyman Pat Hickey, R-Reno, also retiring. Mr. Guinasso is actively soliciting union support for his candidacy. Go figger. Buyer beware.
Report on Guinasso's 2009 union busting event / Barbwire by Barbano / Daily Sparks Tribune 4-12-2009
|
UPDATE: Tuesday, 7 April 2009, 11:42 p.m PDT, 06:42 Wednesday 4-8-2009 ZULU/GMT/CUT/SUT — Dear
Biased Liberal Media Types and Evil Union Bosses (you know who you are): From: Jason Guinasso <guinassolaw@me.com>
Jason UPDATE: Report on the event / Barbwire by Barbano / Daily Sparks Tribune 4-12-2009 Karmic
fowl, fox paws and other freakin' f-words
Peter "Snidely Whiplash" Ernaut and Jason Guinasso's other puppetmasters push the panic button Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the Tuesday 5-17-2016 Sparks Tribune Deconstruction,
carpetbaggers and hall-of-famers [UPDATE
4-8-2016/U-News Exclusive] —> On Thursday, 14 April 2016
at 1:45 p.m. PDT in Washoe District Court Dept. 7, 75 Court St. in Reno,
Judge Patrick Flanagan will consider disqualification of Republican Jason
Guinasso's candidacy in Assembly Dist. 26 (southwest
Reno/Incline Village). Stay Tuned. |
 |
|
Reno-Sparks-Washoe
Charter cable 16 & 216
High-definition channel 80-295 2:00-4:00 p.m. PDT M-F, 21:00-23:00 ZULU/GMT NEW! LIVE 4:00-5:00 p.m. PDT (23:00 ZULU) Tuesdays and Thursdays on Carson City Charter cable 10 & 26 Streaming at Barbwire.TV |
|
What
may well be the first marriage of talk radio, talk TV and webcast webchat
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[[EDITOR'S NOTE: Unless otherwise noted, historical items appear courtesy of longtime Nevada reporter Dennis Myers' Poor Denny's Almanac [PDA]. Items highlighted in blue are of interest to labor in particular and seekers of justice in general. Copyright © 2009 Dennis Myers.]]
UPDATE: Tuesday, 7 April 2009, 00:07:09 a.m PDT, 07:07:09 ZULU/GMT/CUT/SUT – On this date in 1869, a fire started in the Yellow Jacket mine in Virginia City, Nevada, spreading to the Kentuck and Crown Point, trapping all those below the 800 foot level and killing – mostly through asphyxiation – 38? miners and galvanizing worker anger over corporate indifference to mine safety (the miners union responded by providing $50,000 for the Sutro tunnel project to provide drainage, ventilation and escape); in 1884, Nevada Lieutenant Governor Charles Laughton issued a public notice to inform veterans of the Mexican War that a recent U.S. Court of Claims decision ordered the U.S. government to give soldiers and sailors an additional three months pay (the lieutenant governor was then adjutant general of the Nevada national guard); in 1907, the Nevada Northern Railroad was forced to lower its freight and passenger rates as a result of legislation sponsored by Lincoln County Assemblymember Levi Syphus; in 1915, Billie Holliday was born in Baltimore; in 1919 in Paris, the founding meeting was held of the American Legion, quickly becoming known for strikebreaking, anti-immigrant activity, support for fascism, and competition with the revived Ku Klux Klan for members; in 1943 at a meeting chaired by Reno Mayor August Frohlich, the problem of hotels and restaurants being unwilling to serve African-Americans was discussed with the possibility of moving CCC buildings to the city for black housing suggested, and local USO director Father Thomas Collins reported that a new site for an African-American USO had been located at 221 Lake Street and would open April 9 (a previous site had been rented and the rental agreement then cancelled by the landlord after complaints from nearby property owners); in 1965, after he requested 44 new positions and the Nevada Legislature gave him none, highway patrol chief Robert Stenovich resigned to become director of the Nevada Safety Council; in 2004 after an investigation by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, eighteen people were arrested on charges that they ran a high class call girl ring; in 2004 in Salt Lake City, a delegation of Illinois officials delivered a formal apology to Mormon Church officials for the 1846 expulsion of church members from Illinois and the 1844 assassination of church founder Joseph Smith in Nauvoo, Illinois.
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Charter cable 10 & 26 The Dean of Reno Bloggers could very well be Andrew Barbano, self-described "fighter of public demons," who started putting his "Barbwire" columns online in 1996 and now runs 10 sites.
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