By UAW President Ray Curry

In 1882, a union man, Peter J. McGuire, founder of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and an early supporter of the creation of the American Federation of Labor, suggested setting aside a day for a “general holiday for the laboring classes.”

Almost 130 years later, Labor Day continues to celebrate those who did the work and the magnificent job they have done in building what I will always believe to be, the greatest nation on Earth. One hundred and thirty years later, America will again thank those who figured it out; those who pitched in; those who rolled up their sleeves and made this country work. But if this day is a statement about achievement, it is perhaps most importantly a testament to the U.S. worker’s ability to meet change, to adapt to its challenges, and to embrace that change and forge a better America.

Moving it forward

So, with the holiday upon us, this is what I would like to hold up in these complicated times: America is retooling. Climate change and a pandemic have rerouted directions and pathways. But America’s workers — union workers — are ready to meet these new directions and traverse those roads. America’s Labor Day thanks workers for the job they have done. At the same time, we must thank workers for the job they are about to do.

This is a time of tremendous evolution in our industries. We are on the cusp of a complete transition in mobility. A transition to clean energy and clean vehicles. At the UAW, we have been heavily involved in the national discussion on how we can successfully navigate this transition.

It can be done. We know that our workers are the best in the world and as we transition to electric and hybrid vehicles, we must protect our American workforce.

These vehicles and components must be built here by American workers and these jobs must be good paying union jobs. And we all know that it is the working men and women of this nation that are the engine that drives our economy. And any momentous change in our industry must not lose sight of that undeniable truth.

America’s strength

I can tell you that there are no greater consumers of what gets built here than by hard working Americans who put their work into building these products. Let me pause a bit to share some of the comments of President Joe Biden at a recent White House event on clean energy and the clean vehicles that will power us responsibly forward in the decades to come.

Biden, who has always been a friend to labor and to the UAW since his earliest days in government, put it this way.

“Whether or not the jobs to build these vehicles and batteries are good-paying union jobs — jobs with benefits, jobs that are going to sustain continued growth of the middle class. They have to be. They have to be made here in America.”

My brothers and sisters in the UAW are more than ready to build America’s future. This past May we saw the amazing rollout of the all-electric Ford F-150 Lightning — America’s best-selling vehicle built by America’s best workers at the iconic Rouge facility in Dearborn, Michigan.

This is how it must be.

To this end, I want to make mention of Senator Debbie Stabenow’s measure that works to tie key consumer rebates for EVs to union auto jobs made here. The Stabenow Made in America Provision included in the Clean for America Act, would continue a $7,500 consumer credit for EVs and add for the next five years, a $2,500 bonus for autos assembled in the United States and another $2,500 for meeting certain worker focused labor standards.

What’s more, after five years, a vehicle must be assembled in the U.S. for consumers to be eligible to receive a $10,000 base credit and an additional $2,500 bonus credit for vehicles that are union made or apply worker focused labor standards. We at the UAW are committed to passing these provisions into law.

So, I’d like to ask that as you celebrate this Labor Day, take a moment to remember all those generations of Americans that this day was created to recognize. All those workers who have delved into and carved out a country that remains a beacon of accomplishments and as importantly, all those ready for the next big job as we move America forward. As Joe Biden has said, “I believe that the middle class built America, but I know who built the middle class; unions. Unions built the middle class.”

Yes, they did.

And yes, the work goes on.

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia

While he and his wife remain hospitalized in a Chicago hospital after positive Covid tests, the Rev. Jesse Jackson told the Black Press that he remains vigilant in fighting for freedom, justice, and equality.

In an exclusive telephone conversation from his hospital bed on Sunday, August 22, the renowned civil rights leader expressed his ongoing support for vaccinations while explaining why his wife, Jacqueline, had not received the vaccine.

“I have had both my shots,” Rev. Jackson said in the telephone call from Northwestern Memorial Hospital. “My wife did not receive the vaccine because she has pre-existing conditions that were of concern.”

Jackson maintained the importance of vaccination, noting that there are more stringent variants of the coronavirus.

He said he and Jacqueline are receiving the “best of care.”

The telephone call came just one day after his organization, the Rainbow Push Coalition, revealed the positive tests and hospitalization.

The call included National Newspaper Publishers Association President and CEO Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., a longtime friend and comrade in the fight for civil rights.

Both disciples of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rev. Jackson, and Dr. Chavis expressed concern that some media members would exploit Jackson’s positive tests.

Jackson issued a reassurance of his strength.

“I’m doing fine,” Rev. Jackson insisted. “My wife is here, and she’s being cared for.”

Though he’s battling Parkinson’s disease and now diagnosed with Covid, Rev. Jackson’s voice appeared strong.

He said his battle for freedom, justice, and equality would continue.

“He’s a fighter, a warrior,” Dr. Chavis added.

Those who work closely with the Rev. and Mrs. Jackson, were tested after Jacqueline Jackson visited her doctors for a routine checkup.

As per medical protocol, Mrs. Jackson received a Covid test, triggering doctors to test Rev. Jackson and others.

The icon said he wasn’t sure when he or his wife might be discharged.

Since news of the couple’s illness and hospitalization, social media has seen a flood of well wishers express love and prayers to Rev. and Mrs. Jackson.

Praying for Rev. Jesse Jackson and Jacqueline Jackson.

— Be A King (@BerniceKing) August 21, 2021

Texas Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro, Reverend Al Sharpton, and King’s daughter, Bernice King, were among those who sent prayers for the couple.

Let us all pray for Rev. and Mrs Jesse Jackson. They need our sincere and intense prayers. Prayer changes things!!!

— Reverend Al Sharpton (@TheRevAl) August 22, 2021

“They need our sincere and intense prayers,” Rev. Sharpton insisted.

Castro added, “Sending strength and prayers to Rev. Jackson and his wife, Jacqueline.”

King also said she was “praying” for the family.

Rev. Jackson, 79, and Jacqueline, 77, have been married for nearly 60 years. The couple has six children.

In November 2017, doctors diagnosed Rev. Jackson with Parkinson’s disease, a central nervous system degenerative disorder.

Actor Michael J. Fox and the late Muhammad Ali count among the more famous sufferers of the disease, primarily affecting motor skills.

“I am doing ok,” Rev. Jackson said.

Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia

Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, and Rhode Island are the top 5 – in that order – safest states in America during Covid-19.

Maryland, the District of Columbia, New Hampshire, New York, and New Jersey rounded out the top 10, a new survey revealed.

The survey showed that the District of Columbia had the fewest Covid-related deaths in the nation during the one week from August 11 to August 17.

The personal finance website, WalletHub, compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across five key metrics: rates of COVID-19 transmission, positive testing, hospitalizations, deaths, and the share of the eligible population getting vaccinated.

The authors of the study wrote that staying safe is one of Americans’ top concerns.

They said, “…safety is also essential for getting the economy back on track, as the lower COVID-19 transmission and deaths are in a state, the fewer restrictions there will be, and the more confidence people will have to shop in person.”

Further, while states have fully reopened, the study authors wrote that getting back to normal means a fully vaccinated population.

As of Thursday, August 19, approximately 51 percent of the American population is vaccinated.

The authors spell out that some states are safer than others.

The District of Columbia enjoyed the least overall deaths from Covid, followed by Vermont, California, Connecticut, and Wisconsin.

Vermont, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey had the highest vaccine rate.

Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Vermont, and Maine enjoyed the lowest positive test rate.

Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, and North Dakota had the lowest hospitalizations.

Vermont, California, Connecticut, and Wisconsin followed Washington, D.C., with the lowest death rates.

Southern dates like Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Kentucky, Texas, and Alabama had the most unvaccinated residents, hospitalizations, and deaths.

“Following the guidance provided by public health officials at this point are the best measures to ensure safety, wear a mask, wash your hands, and maintain distance,” stated WalletHub expert James W. Keck, an associate professor of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness at the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University.

“Get the vaccine when it is available. Facilities should be frequently sanitized and well ventilated if occupied,” Professor Keck stated.

“Limit exposure when you can, put up shields in appropriate areas if you must deal with the public. Recovery is not going to be quick even if we get a large part of the population immunized.”

Further, the media “should provide clear information about benefits, risks, knowns, and unknowns,” asserted Andreas Handel, a WalletHub expert and associate professor and associate department head and graduate coordinator in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the College of Public Health – University of Georgia.

Click here to view the full report.

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Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia

The U.S. Census Bureau release of data from its once-a-decade canvassing, which politicians, political watchers, and news reports indicated, promises to result in the most contentious redistricting cycle ever.

Short of some hail-Mary, Democrats are sure to lose their slim House majority, and Republicans conceivably could stake claim to congressional leadership for years to come.

Though interested parties won’t know the full effect of the Census data on redistricting until sometime in September, the U.S. Supreme Court’s previous gutting of the Voting Rights Act certainly provides a blueprint for how racist gerrymandering will occur.

“The Census … is bogus,” activist Barbara Malmet wrote on Twitter.

“And it has the power to give Republicans a lock majority in the House based on redistributing. I can’t believe there isn’t a move to re-do the Census after all the corruption around [former President] Donald Trump and [former Commerce Secretary] Wilbur Ross.”

Independent Annie Knox implored the Biden administration to address the Census, given that much of the count was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We do not want the tyranny of the GOP minority,” Knox asserted.

The Census, which occurs every ten years, determines America’s population, congressional representation, and where officials distribute federal aid.

It also triggers ambitious redistricting.

In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court dismantled protections against discriminatory maps that later allowed for partisan gerrymandering.

Experts said the high court’s decision coupled with the latest Census would likely create unfair and uneven boundaries and acutely reduce the political power of people of color.

“The redistricting fight arrives amid one of the most protracted assaults on voting access since the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965, an effort that has made the right to vote among the most divisive issues in American politics” political journalist Nick Corasaniti wrote for the New York Times.

“And redistricting will take place this fall without critical guardrails that the Voting Rights Act had erected: a process known as preclearance that ensured oversight of states with a history of discrimination,” Corasaniti continued.

Jonathan Cervas, a postdoctoral fellow at Carnegie Mellon University who studies gerrymandering, told the New York Times that he’s up late at night often, unable to sleep, pondering how bad or how aggressive some states might be in undoing the protections granted from Section 5 that no longer exist.

“And I can imagine that a particularly aggressive legislature, where it benefits them, may not draw minority districts,” Cervas insisted.

In this year’s redistricting cycle, Republicans will again control much of the process.

According to NBC News, GOP legislators will draw 187 House districts compared to Democratic legislators, who control the drawing of 75 districts.

The report cited an analysis by Kyle Kondik of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.

States with split control draw the 173 other boundaries, independent commissions, or no maps at all because they are single-district states,” the report noted.

“That is in part because voters in some states have handed control of their redistricting processes to commissions, arguing that voters or appointed commissioners can draw better district lines than politicians who have vested interests in drawing maps that help them keep power.”

Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia

A United Nations panel on the climate released a scathing report on Monday, August 9, about a manufactured atmospheric crisis that has jeopardized the world’s future.

“It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean, and land,” stated the authors of the report the “AR6 Synthesis Report: Climate Change.”

“Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere, and biosphere have occurred,” concluded the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN’s body for assessing the science related to climate change.

Two hundred and thirty-four authors from 66 countries analyzed more than 14,000 scientific reports about climate change for the report, which officials will present during climate talks later this year.

The report came as the Biden-Harris administration announced three pre-disaster funding opportunities to help states and communities prepare for significant disasters they said are costing lives and livelihoods and devastating local communities and businesses.

Administration officials said the programs would allow communities to apply for nearly $5 billion to increase their preparedness in advance of climate-related extreme weather events and other disasters and improve their ability to recover after these events.

They include $1 billion in funding for the administration’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program for Fiscal Year 2021.

This program provides grants to states, local communities, tribes, and territories to proactively reduce their vulnerability to natural hazard events before they occur and make themselves and the nation more resilient.

The money also includes $3.46 billion in funding for the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP).

The 59 states, tribes, and territories that received a major disaster declaration in response to the COVID-19 pandemic will be eligible to receive 4 percent of the disaster costs.

That figure relates to mandates to invest in mitigation projects that will help better prepare and protect communities from natural disasters and the impacts of climate change.

Finally, $160 million in funding is earmarked for the Flood Mitigation Assistance (FMA) grant program for the Fiscal Year 2021 to reduce or eliminate the risks of repetitive flood damage to homes and buildings insured by the National Flood Insurance Program.

Still, the United Nation’s report counts as a stunning rebuke of ignorance toward global warming.

The report from the United Nations researchers noted that warming temperatures continue to drive more extreme events in every part of the world, which is in danger of experiencing more heatwaves, longer warm seasons, and shorter cold seasons.

If temperatures increase an average of 2 degrees, the researchers found that will threaten human health and agricultural systems.

The study concluded that the average global temperatures had increased as much as 1.3 degrees Celsius, and “some recent hot extremes over the past decade would have been extremely unlikely to occur without human influence on the climate system.”

Regardless of any preventative measures, the researchers found that global surface temperatures will continue to increase until 2050.

Without a drastic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, the world will exceed 1.5 degrees of warming in 20 years.

Immediate, rapid, and large-scale reductions must occur, the panel wrote.

“Human-induced climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe,” the report’s authors stated.

“Evidence of observed changes in extremes such as heatwaves, heavy precipitation, droughts, and tropical cyclones, and their attribution to human influence, has strengthened.”

Former Vice President Al Gore, long an environmental advocate, said climate action must occur immediately.

“We cannot rely on vague pledges with distant deadlines,” the Democrat asserted. “We need concrete plans to phase out fossil fuels in the near term. As the scientists at the IPCC make clear, there is no time left to waste.”

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia

According to the Children’s Defense Fund, children in foster care represent the most vulnerable youth in America.

Of the 423,997 in foster care in 2019 – 41 percent under the age of six – the average amount of time spent in the system stands at just under 20 months.

Authorities say children of color, mainly Black, American Indian and Alaska natives, are dramatically overrepresented in the child welfare system.

“Foster care is intended to be temporary, with the ultimate goal of returning children safely home to their families,” noted Dr. Starsky Wilson, Children’s Defense Fund [CDF] president and CEO.

Earlier this year, the CDF issued the State of America’s Children 2021 report.

Dr. Wilson and other experts have noted how the foster care system in America remains broken and stretched far beyond its capacity.

According to the Marshall Project and NPR research, about 10 percent of foster youth in the U.S. are entitled to Social Security benefits, either because their parents have died or because they have a physical or mental disability that would leave them in poverty without financial help.

“This money — typically more than $700 per month, though survivor benefits vary — is considered their property under federal law,” the researchers wrote.

However, they found that in at least 36 states and Washington, D.C., state foster care agencies “comb through their case files to find kids entitled to these benefits, then apply to Social Security to become each child’s financial representative, a process permitted by federal regulations.”

Once approved, the agencies take the money, almost always without notifying the children, their loved ones, or lawyers.

At least 10 state foster care agencies hire for-profit companies to obtain millions of dollars in Social Security benefits intended for the most vulnerable children in state care each year, the researchers found.

Further, policies and more innovative practices have gone unresolved in most regions, even as about 20,000 youths aged out of foster care without a permanent place to live.

Some agencies have failed children emotionally, physically, developmentally and psychologically.

Michele Bryant recently filed a lawsuit against the children’s home and the county of Sacramento, California, for “negligent and unlawful actions” that resulted in her daughter’s death.

Kendra Czekaj, 12, died after a truck struck and killed her last year while she pursued a friend who ran away from the children’s home.

“The foster care system that was supposed to keep her safe utterly failed her and instead put her in harm’s way,” Bryant said in a statement.

Dr. Tammy Lewis Wilborn of Wilborn Clinical Services LLC has served as a professional counselor for more than 20 years, with 90 percent of her career helping children and adolescents. She has also worked as a therapeutic foster care counselor.

“Part of the reason the system is broken is that the very people it is intended to help and serve are not being served,” Dr. Wilborn said. “Their emotional and psychological needs are not being addressed. Some young people have spent most of their lives in foster care and they are not receiving the social skills to be able to function.”

Dr. Wilborn continued:

“They are not receiving transitional adult skills needed to function optimally in society and, in terms of education, often because of multiple placements and insecure attachments, they are not learning at the rate of those who have home stability,” she said. “We are missing the fact that the youth are not being served.”

However, more states and agencies have recently increased their efforts to help youth.

This month, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser appointed Hillary Cairns as Acting Director of the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services.

Cairns, who earned a master’s in public policy and a law degree from Georgetown University, has pledged to continue vigilance in the city’s diversion program and the agency’s prevention and intervention initiatives to decrease juvenile justice and child welfare involvement.

In Pennsylvania, a program at Penn State University assists students formerly in foster care financially, academically, socially, emotionally and logistically.

Officials noted that the program aims to increase educational outcomes, college retention, graduation rates, grade point averages and both personal and societal contributions while decreasing public health costs and economic disparity in foster care students.

New York lawmakers passed a budget this year to include more money for a mentorship program for foster youth. The city has allocated $20 million in 2021 and at least $12 million for 2022 and beyond.

In Georgia, the nonprofit Fostering Media Connections reportedly has partnered with the Division of Family and Children Services and two other organizations to deliver reading material to 5,000 foster families in the Peach State.

“For children in foster care, we need to follow the science,” Dr. Wilborn insisted.

“Part of following the science is understanding what we know from counselors, psychologists and from adolescent child development physicians,” she said. “We need to provide trauma-informed clinical services. Black children, in particular, need this, and we must make sure that folks who serve as caregivers receive the support that they need and the training on how to utilize parenting skills that effectively support the healthy development of these young kids.”