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Letters
Faso No Friend To Workers

The people of NY-19 hardly need any further indication that John Faso is no friend of working women and men, but that's exactly what we got on Tuesday as Faso voted in support of legislation (H.R. 3441) that would make it harder for workers who have been shortchanged by their employers to pursue unpaid wages or to address wage law violations and other unfair labor practices.

So many people in NY-19 work hard every day but still struggle just to make ends meet and provide for their families. It's unconscionable that John Faso voted for a measure that would make it easier for employers to rip these folks off, and this vote is just another indication that his priority is appeasing Paul Ryan, powerful corporations and big-money donors, rather than improving the lives of those who live and work here in the Hudson Valley and Catskills

Background: H.R. 3441, passed by the House on November 7, will greatly reduce the rights and protections of those who work full-time as subcontractors or temps — a practice that is increasingly common in construction and many other industries. The bill creates a nightmare scenario for workers who might win a judgement in court over back pay, for example, but be legally unable to collect those wages from the entities that hired them.

House Committee on Education and the Workforce Ranking Member Bobby Scott (VA-03) described the legislation this way: "The so-called 'Save Local Business Act' amends the National Labor Relations Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act by establishing a new, narrower definition of 'joint employer' and effectively eliminates accountability for the entities actually calling the shots. The net effect will be that workers who seek to hold their employers accountable for violating wage and hour laws, unfair labor practices, or refusing to negotiate will lose under this bill."

Gareth Rhodes
Kerhonkson


No One Wins With Name-Calling

Whatever our political persuasion, or however difficult the political dialogue, can we all agree that Donald Trump must stop the name-calling?

Name-calling is one of the classic indicators of bullying, and bullying is a societal crisis that challenges parents and educators on a daily basis. Unchecked bullying, especially during childhood and adolescence, can prompt suicides, lead to crime, fuel terrorism and feed drug addiction.

Our president should be a role model, not a bully. At the very least, his taunts demean the office of the presidency and, at most, they are dangerous ("Rocket Man") and racist ("Pocahontas").

It is imperative we denounce these abhorrent insults and tell our elected representatives to do the same. If Donald Trump is allowed to continue his rants unchecked, then persons of different beliefs continue to be disrespected, our children continue to be subjected to a leader who defies the character lessons we teach them and our president continues to debase who we are as a nation.

His words diminish us all.

Maureen Bowers
Hurley


Republican Tax Plan Would Hurt Us All

Republicans are working behind closed doors in a partisan way to create a tax plan that hurts working families in all 50 states.

It contains across-the-board tax cuts for the wealthy: 1) lowering the top individual tax rate, 2) repealing the estate tax, which helps only 5,200 of America's wealthiest families, and 3) lowering the rate on pass-through entities.

It socks it to middle-class Americans: Notably, a recent study from the nonpartisan Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center shows that the Trump-Republican tax plan would greatly benefit the top 1 percent of Americans while offering only modest tax relief to the rest of American households.

And it would lead to cuts to vital programs, like Medicare and Medicaid, in addition to the proposed cuts in the Republican budget. Based on what we know now, the Republican tax plan would blow at least a $1.5 trillion hole in the deficit. This would likely allow Republicans to follow the same "starve the beast" playbook where they first pass huge tax breaks claiming they'll pay for themselves and, then, use the resulting huge deficits to justify deep cuts to health care, nutrition and education programs vital to working families.

Janice Myers
New Paltz


The Shadow the Statues Cast

Why do Confederate statues have to come down, or be moved to museums? Imagine that your ancestors as a people were kidnapped from their home country and enslaved here by the landowning class for more than 250 years. And then, when they were ostensibly "granted freedom" as soon as your ancestors started to vote and gain a tiny amount of political power, a massive campaign of murderous violence and intimidation was perpetuated against them.

This campaign — benefitting the landowning class but enacted by people of various classes whose rage was tragically misdirected — was used to keep your people down. For fictional offenses, your ancestors were hung from trees or burned on crosses in public spectacles. Between 1877 and 1950, more than 4300 of your ancestors are lynched. Ginned up vagrancy laws ensure that your people are swept up into the penal system where they are once again exploited for their unpaid labor.

A system of segregation codes and laws is put into place to keep your ancestors separate from the rest of society, to ensure that they are regarded as Other, as not fully human. One by one, states openly disenfranchise your ancestors. Although many serve in WWII, when they return home, your veteran ancestors are, de facto, denied access to the housing provisions of the GI Bill. How do they build wealth when they cannot own property? Many members of your community are today experiencing the effects of a people being 400 years behind on the wealth curve, yet they are routinely vilified for these struggles.

You know this history, and yet every day when you go to school or work, you go by monuments in the public square celebrating the men who fought to keep your people enslaved. Were it up to these men, you would still be owned by them, raped by them, having your families torn asunder by them. Seeing these people on literal and figurative pedestals in your community, how would you feel?

(Sources: http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai2/timeline.pdf, http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai2/timeline.pdf, and https://lynchinginamerica.eji.org/report).

Michelle Sutton
Highland



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