­por David Bacon

UE organizer Maria Pantoja talks with Versatronex strikers at a meeting in the street on the first day of the strike, to elect the strike committee. ­ (PHOTO BY DAVID BACON)

On January 29, 1993 workers at the Versatronex plant in Sunnyvale, California, filed out of its doors for the last time.

Seventeen years have passed since, but there are still electronics workers in Silicon Valley who remember the company’s name. It was the first valley plant struck by production employees, and the first where a strike won recognition of their union.

The struggle of these workers, almost all immigrants from Mexico, Central America and the Philippines, demolished some of the most cherished myths about the Silicon Valley workforce. It showed workers there are like workers everywhere. Under the right circumstances, even in the citadel of high tech’s open shop, people are willing to organize for a better life.

“We said at the beginning that if the company was going to close, let them close,” said Sandra Gomez, a leader of the Versatronex strike.

“But as long as the plant was open, we were going to fight for our rights.”

For a history of organizing in Silicon Valley, including the Versatronex strike, see the article, Up Against the Open Shop — The Hidden History of Silicon Valley’s High TechWorkers, By David Bacon.

­http://www.truth-out.org/up-against-opensh o p – h i d d e n – s t o r y -silicon-valleys-highte c h – w o r k e r s 6 8 1 6 7

by Jonathan Benson

Natural News

Do you use your computer, watch television, or mess around on your cell phone within the hour before you go to bed at night?

If so, you might be altering your sleep cycle and preventing quality rest, according to a new study conducted as part of a National Sleep Foundation poll. Researchers say that staring at light-emitting screens during the hour before going to sleep inhibits the proper release of melatonin, a hormone that regulates the body’s natural sleep cycles.

Roughly 95 percent of poll respondents indicated that they typically play video games, watch television, use the computer, or access their smart phones within the hour before they go to sleep. And 43 percent of ­respondents between the ages of 13 and 64 said they rarely ever get a good night’s sleep during an average work week.

“This study reveals that light-emitting screens are in heavy use within the pivotal hour before sleep,” said Charles Czeisler from Harvard Medical School, in a Breitbart piece. “Invasion of such alerting technologies into the bedroom may contribute to the high proportion of respondents who report that they routinely get less sleep than they need.”

While respondents in older generations tended more towards passively watching television before bed, younger respondents indicated participation in more active and brain-engaging activities like playing video games and using smart phones, which experts say may be even worse for sleep and overall health.

“Over the last 50 years, we’ve seen how television viewing has grown to be a near constant before bed, and now we are seeing new information technologies such as laptops, cell phones, video games and music devices rapidly gaining the same status,” said Lauren Hale of Stony Brook University Medical Center. “The higher use of these potentially more sleep-disruptive technologies among younger generations may have serious consequences for physical health, cognitive development, and other measures of well-being.”

Keeping mobile phones and other radiation-emitting devices away from your bed at night will also help improve sleep quality by limiting exposure to the “electro-smog” they emit that can disrupt restful sleep.

Long-term exposure to even low levels of electromagnetic frequencies (EMFs) may cause serious health problems, so it is always a smart idea to limit their use and keep them away from your body whenever possible (http://www.naturalnews.com/022926_E…). Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/031652_electronic_devices_sleep.html#ixzz1GYyjZszw

­by the El Reportero’s news services

Eric Holder

The Procuraduría General de la República (PGR) concluded on March 10 that the Mexican government did not know about the US arms-smuggling operation ‘Fast & Furious’.

The PGR’s finding was contradicted by the US embassy in Mexico City which released a statement in which the US Justice Secretary, Eric Holder, is quoted as telling the Senate Appropriations commerce, justice and science subcommittee that the Mexican government did know about ‘Operation Fast & Furious’.

This was an operation under which the US Bureau of Alcohol Firearms, Tobacco & Explosives (ATF) allowed assault rifles and other weapons to be smuggled to gangsters in Mexico. The idea was to track the weapons and so roll-up complete smuggling networks. According to at least one ATF official, however, the ATF lost track of most of the weapons.

Ecuador moves onto electoral footing as court approves referendum

Ecuadoreans will go to the polls on May 7 to vote on a popular referendum tabled by President Rafael Correa. The referendum, which contains 10 questions, was adjudged to be acceptable by the constitutional court.

Correa can now partake in a surrogate electoral campaign for the next two months, at a cost of US$22m. The stakes are high. If he wins, he will be empowered, among other things, to undertake a sweeping judicial reform.

The traditional opposition, which he pejoratively describes as the partidocracy, will try and thwart him, but the main challenge will be provided by founding members of his Alianza País (AP), who have grown disillusioned with what they consider to be the increasingly authoritarian turn of his citizens’ revolution.

Piñera shows soft side to boost flagging popularity

What has gone wrong? One year after taking offi ce on March 11, Chile’s President Sebastián Piñera is struggling to arrest a declining approval rating. Contending with the fallout from a huge earthquake was a tough start for any head of state but since then he has enjoyed a boost from the “miner miracle” and benefi ted from the long mourning period of the leftwing Concertación which, after 20 years in power, is yet to provide coherent opposition.

Piñera seems to have concluded that his relentless focus on long-term targets has blinded his government to the signifi cance of sudden developments, such as the recent gas protests in Magallanes, and that he

must deliver in the shortterm.

After a major foreign tour to the Middle East, the Vatican and Spain, he plans to remedy this on his return to Chile, and show in the process that the Right has a social conscience.

­Violence morphs again

The killing of Jaime Zapata, the fi rst US government offi cial to be murdered while on duty in Mexico since 1985, has overshadowed what appears to be at least a stabilisation of the gang killing rate in Mexico in the fi rst couple of months of 2011.

This stabilisation, however, does not mean that the government can claim, finally, to be winning its self-declared war against the gangs.

by Raisa Camargo

As the economy continues to struggle, obesity rates are climbing for people of color.

A study published last summer shows nationwide obesity rates escalating in most southern states, and experts cite financial hardship as a contributing factor.

The ‘F’ as in Fat Report: How Obesity Threatens America’s Future 2010, released in June by the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, shows national obesity rates have increased in 28 states during the past year.

In Latino communities, lacking access to nutritional foods coupled with affordability is a determining factor of an unhealthy lifestyle. This trend is correlated with poverty.

The TFAH has published the report annually for seven years, but this is the first year the report includes statistics based on ethnicity.

The rate of adult obesity for African Americans is higher than 30 percent in 43 states and above that figure for Latinos in 19 states. Ten of the 11 states with the highest rates of diabetes are in the south, as are the 10 states with the highest hypertension rates. Southern states also have the lowest rates of physical activity.

“The rates of Hispanic obesity should be a call to action,” says Jason Llorenz, senior policy advisor at the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators. “There are folks that are so morbidly obese that they will not get on a scale.”

The Washington, D.C.- based National Council of La Raza reports 41 percent of Hispanics  lack basic health literacy, while a 2008 census reported one third of Latinos have no health insurance.

The TFAH reports income inequality as a primary factor related to obesity, noting that 35.3 percent of adults who earn less than $15,000 per year are obese. Of adults who earn $50,000 or more, 24.5 percent are obese. TFAH senior research associate Serena Vinter observes that those states that have higher education levels have lower obesity rates.

Tennessee , whichranks ninth nationally among states with the lowest average income, has the highest obesity rate among Latinos – 39 percent.

A lack of resources like money, recreational facilities or grocery stores contributes to sedentary lifestyles in low-income areas, says Juan Canedo, director of Progreso Community Center, a grassroots Hispanic organization in Nashville. Not everyone can afford to buy healthier food, he says, and crime in lowincome areas impacts residents’ level of activity.

Jennifer Ng’andu, the deputy director of NCLR’s Health Policy Project, said a lack of affordable fresh fruits and vegetables in communities where major food markets are absent – usually in impoverished areas – leads to increased ­consumption of unhealthy fast foods among Latinos.

“I don’t think people are addressing the root causes of obesity in the Latino community,” Ng’andu said. Steps are being taken to combat the obesity epidemic, including a nutritional policy that targets junk food, Tennessee’s Health Commissioner Susan Cooper said.

“We acknowledge it’s a problem,” she says. “But there’s not one policy that can change this overnight.” Hispanic Link.