Op-ed

Is the collapse of the US automobile industry good news or bad news? In fact, it is both. The bad-news part is obvious: job-loss, impoverishment, urban decay. But if you think of all the damage this industry did when it was going at full throttle, you will understand that its collapse also presents – hopefully not too late – a huge opportunity for constructive change.

Hundreds of telecom workers voted unanimously at IBEW Local 2222's regular membership meeting on Wednesday, June 2 to support a grassroots campaign to make "tearing down the artificial wall separating the non-union Verizon wireless from the mostly union wireline side of the business" a top priority in negotiations for their next contract in 2011.

The resolution was advanced on the floor of the membership meeting by two leaders of the local's new "Futures Committee," which was established to develop new leadership at Local 2222 and within the larger labor movement.

When the Commonwealth of Massachusetts put forward a new Economic Development bill, Verizon and Comcast inserted a little known provision to deregulate "Voice Over Internet Protocol" technology, often called VOIP.

VOIP is the communication technology of the future. Soon nearly every telephone call will be made using an internet protocol instead of the traditional wireline network.

Last week, I spent half a day at the Moakley Courthouse in South Boston in support of Vijay Shah, the friend of a friend, who had pressed forward with a lawsuit against the Secret Service after he was racially profiled and illegally detained on the day prior to the start of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in 2004. Here is a link to an article which ran in the Boston Phoenix after Vijay and two other South Asian men’s illegal detainment that week: http://bit.ly/bt9zSV.