On Saturday, the Frances Perkins Center sponsored a conference called “The New New Deal: Building an Economy That Works for All of Us.” While, in a week or two, we’ll be releasing a report detailing the discussions and suggestions that came out of the conference, here are a few pictures. The conference was supported by grants from the Maine Department of Labor, the Women’s & Gender Studies Program at the University of Southern Maine, and Maine Initiatives: A Fund for Change.
Panelists included, from left to right: Cliff Ginn, Opportunity Maine; Garrett Martin, MECEP; Tim Belcher, MSEA/SEIU; John Christie, Augusta Career Center; Sarah Standiford, Maine Women's Lobby; Laura Boyett, Maine State Bureau of Unemployment
Maine House Speaker Hannah Pingree chats with attendees before the start of the conference
Labor Commissioner Laura Fortman responds to a comment fom the audience
Not shown are panel moderator Ben Dudley from Engage Maine and keynote speaker Dr. Teresa Ghilarducci.
There’s an interesting article in Salon this morning called Free the Chimps! by David Stipp. The part that pertains to the issues that concern The Frances Perkins Center is this:
In a provocative 2003 study titled “Monkeys reject unequal pay,” [Emory University primatologist Frans] de Waal and a colleague showed that nonhuman primates have a sense of fair play, and that violating it makes them uncooperative. The researchers taught capuchin monkeys to exchange small pebbles for pieces of cucumber. Working with pairs of female monkeys, the scientists sometimes gave one of the animals a grape, which are much yummier to capuchins than cucumbers, in the pebble-trading game. When the other monkey saw she was getting a raw deal for her pebble — the usual cucumber — she went on strike, and sometimes even threw her cucumber piece on the floor.
De Waal subsequently showed that chimps similarly reject unequal pay, and in another follow-up study demonstrated that the greater the effort that monkeys must expend to get food rewards, the more negatively they react when the rewards are unequal. De Waal and other scientists have also shown that when primates must cooperate to get food, as they do when hunting in groups, greater sharing of the rewards increases cooperation, which boosts the chance of success and the gains for all the members of the group. Again, de Waal is careful not to push his data too hard — primates have a prototypical sense of fairness and enlightened self-interest, he has noted, not the full human thing.
Here’s the part that pertains to us humans:
Still, the rise of the obscenely overpaid executive has given us our own version of de Waal’s socially disruptive game, undermining the cohesiveness that has always been America’s great strength during crises. President Obama’s recent blunt words about the trend appeal strongly to our inner primates, and his effort to stem the socially toxic trend toward economic inequality initiated during the Reagan administration represents a vitally important part of his agenda…
So while it’s important that we forgo the simple-minded anthropomorphism that inspires keeping primates as pets, let’s not get unreal about it — they have more to say to us than many people would like to admit. And the next time you see a cartoon trying to demean someone by comparing him to a chimp, consider this: If more of our own alpha males were as attuned as their primate counterparts to “the basic solidarity that makes life bearable,” as de Waal puts it, we might pull together and get out of the current mess a lot faster than we otherwise would.
Maybe we should all send bananas to those alpha male bankers who still don’t seem to get it. Or would they prefer grapes?
The Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee has not yet voted to send Congresswoman Hilda Solis’s nomination as Obama’s labor secretary to the floor. The nomination was announced on December 19th, and since then, a number of other cabinet positions have been voted on. So what’s the hold up with Secretary-designate Solis?
A “hold” is when a senator on the committee anonymously “blackballs” a nominee, which effectively stops the nomination process in its tracks. Technically, a hold can’t be placed until after a nominee is voted out of committee, and Solis hasn’t even gotten that far.
But some are speculating that a hold has been threatened by Republicans who don’t like Solis’s strong endorsement of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA).
But here’s the problem for the Republicans on the HELP committee: President Obama is also a strong supporter of EFCA. And he’s not going to nominate a secretary of labor who isn’t.
The GOP needs to understand that Barack Obama voted for the Employee Free Choice Act (which the Chamber of Commerce calls “card check” instead of “Majority Sign-Up”) and his Labor Secretary-designate, Hilda Solis, co-sponsored EFCA in the House. The GOP needs to face facts: this new Administration favors EFCA. A delay in confirming the Labor Secretary doesn’t, and won’t, change that.
Here’s a video put out by SEIU that demonstrates the Administration’s support for EFCA:
And finally, Alternet has this post today: “A Historic Opportunity: Hilda Solis and the Financial Crisis” by Andrew Thomaides. Here’s an excerpt:
Like Frances Perkins, Hilda Solis is also a very passionate, serious, and courageous leader and also happens to be the most progressive appointee in the cabinet of the new administration. She has deep ties to organized labor, the immigrant community, and movements for environmental justice. With the right amount of grassroots support and pressure, Solis could make a serious contribution to the formulation of progressive legislation that would greatly impact and improve the daily lives of the majority of Americans long into the future. The financial crisis the Obama administration has inherited is the greatest of our time. It presents the same opportunities that were there in 1933 when Frances Perkins and FDR took over the White House and created the modern welfare state, bringing the US out of the Great Depression and into the 20th century socially and economically.
Let’s hope the HELP Committee and the full Senate move quickly to approve Solis’s nomination.
Hey, we’re up and blogging! This is the official blog of the newly formed nonprofit Frances Perkins Center. In the coming months, we’ll tell you all about Frances Perkins, who was an amazingly accomplished woman — FDR’s Secretary of Labor for 12 years, the first woman cabinet secretary, principal author of the New Deal, and dedicated advocate for social justice. And we’ll keep you informed about the progress of the Center — upcoming events, programs, and other news.
Located on the banks of the Damariscotta River in Newcastle, Maine, the Frances Perkins Center was the homestead of many generations of the Perkins family. The Brick House, as it is known, and surrounding countryside were a source of solace, renewal, and inspiration to Frances. It’s a fitting place to commemorate her legacy and to nurture the philosophy and policies embodied in that legacy. (You can see lots of photos here: http://FrancesPerkinsCenter.org.)
The Frances Perkins Center will serve two functions. First, as a center for the study of her accomplishments and the policies that she implemented: scholars and students from Maine, the U.S., and around the world will visit to immerse themselves in Frances Perkins’s papers (both primary sources and collected facsimiles).
Second, the Center will nurture progressive leadership to carry her legacy into the future. In 2009, we plan to co-sponsor conferences in Maine (tentatively scheduled for May 2nd at the Hutchinson Center in Belfast) and Washington, D.C.
In coming years, we will sponsor retreats, symposia, and conferences—both here at the Brick House and in other locations—bringing together elected officials, labor leaders, historians, policy makers, students of all ages, and others interested in honoring and building upon Frances Perkins’s commitment to working people around the world. And we will share the writings and lectures of these visitors through publications such as The Perkins Report.
“The people are what matter to government, and a government should aim to give all the people under its jurisdiction the best possible life.” –Frances Perkins, Secretary of Labor, 1933 – 1945
“The people are what matter to government, and
a government should aim to give all the people
under its jurisdiction the best possible life.”
--Frances Perkins, Secretary of Labor, 1933 - 1945
