---

U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman of California told Congress that "Many of us were told in private conversations that if we voted against this [bailout] bill on Monday the sky would fall, the market would drop two or three thousand points the first day and a couple of thousand on the second day, and a few members were even told that there would be martial law in America if we voted no."

Reproductive Issues

---

Portside Moderator forwards this news—that the U.S. government is cutting its funding for the supply of contraceptives to family planning clinics run by Marie Stopes International in Africa, alleging that it condones forced abortions in China.

One of George Bush’s first acts after becoming president was to stop all U.S. funds to foreign organizations that helped women in any way to get an abortion, including providing advice. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) lost $34 million that Congress had appropriated for it in 2002.

Labor

---

Jennine Aversa writes (forwarded by Portside Moderator) that jobs are vanishing at the fastest pace in more than five years. Employers dropped the ax even harder in September, chopping payrolls by 159,000, more than double the cuts made one month before. It was the ninth straight month of job losses. A staggering 760,000 jobs have disappeared so far this year.

The Starbucks Workers Union-Twin Cities-IWW (www.starbucksunion.org) announced this September that Starbucks has agreed to settle with the National Labor Relations Board on charges of anti-union malfeasance ranging from interrogation of union activists, threats against workers, illegal firings, to surveillance of union activity. The settlement comes in the wake of the reinstatement of IWW barista Erik Forman to the Mall of America location on August 31. Forman, a union organizer, was illegally fired on July 10 for allegedly "discussing a written warning with a peer."

This is the third NLRB settlement Starbucks has entered into in its four-year battle with the IWW since the launch of their campaign at Starbucks on May 17, 2004.

While portraying itself as a "socially-responsible" employer, Starbucks pays baristas a poverty wage of $7.60/hr. In addition, all retail hourly workers at Starbucks in the United States are part-time employees with no guaranteed number of work hours per week.

According to Starbucks figures released to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 40.9 percent of its employees (including managers) are covered by the company health care package, a lower percentage than the oft-criticized Wal-Mart, which insures 47 percent of its workforce.

Activism

---

Humanists for Peace reports that the efforts of 36 organizations and hundreds of Florida citizens has paid off as the controversial bill House Con. Res. 362 has been shelved by the House Democratic leadership. News of the bill’s temporary defeat came one month after hundreds protesters took to the streets of Melbourne in Florida’s First Mass March to Stop War with Iran, along with other protesters in cities across the country.

One of the key endorsing organizations, Brevard Patriots for Peace, has recently turned its attention to the economic crisis. On October 1, they organized a successful protest against the Wall Street bailout bill at the Peace Corner in Melbourne. The event’s theme was "Money for Human Needs, Not War and Corporate Greed."

---

News from the AP wire reports that in Reno, Nevada, a tent city has been set up by people who lost their jobs to the ailing economy and newcomers who moved to Reno looking for work and discovered no one was hiring. Within weeks, more than 150 people were living in tents big and small, barely a foot apart in dirt slated to be a parking lot for a campus of shelters Reno is building for its homeless population.

From Seattle to Athens, Georgia, homeless advocacy groups and city agencies are reporting the most visible rise in homeless encampments in a generation. Nearly 61 percent of local and state homeless coalitions say they’ve experienced a rise in homelessness since the foreclosure crisis began in 2007, according to a report by the National Coalition for the Homeless. The group says the problem has worsened since the report’s release in April, with foreclosures mounting, gas and food prices rising, and the job market tightening.

The relatively tony city of Santa Barbara has given over a parking lot to people who sleep in cars and vans. The city of Fresno, California is trying to manage several proliferating tent cities, including an encampment where people have made shelters out of scrap wood.

In Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington, homeless advocacy groups have paired with nonprofits to manage tent cities as outdoor shelters. Other places where tent cities have either appeared or expanded include Chattanooga, Tennessee, San Diego, California, and Columbus, Ohio.

---