Veterans to Trump: We’re Not for Sale, Not Political Props

Donald John Trump was a featured speaker at the 2015 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). (Michael Vadon photograph.)

By Doug Cunningham

Workers Independent News is heard Monday through Friday at 8:45 and 11:45 a.m. and 5:45 p.m.

Workers Independent News is heard Monday through Friday at 8:45 and 11:45 a.m. and 5:45 p.m.

New York veterans with the #VetsVsHate movement and VoteVets went to Trump Tower in New York City Tuesday to protest Donald Trump’s claims of fundraising for veterans groups.

The vets says Trump has been evasive and dishonest about the money he says he’s raising for veterans. These New York vets say Trump is just using veterans as political props.

“We were back at Trump Tower to tell Trump that veterans are not for sale and we will not be his political props for hate,” said activist veteran Perry O’Brien. “Donald Trump has said he doesn’t support the GI Bill, that he’s for privatizing the VA. I mean it’s a very long list of positions that he’s indicated support for or openness for that run counter to the way most veterans and folks in the military community feel.”

O’Brien says he’s also seen first-hand the disrespect Donald Trump has for dissent—a right veterans have fought and died for.

“Having protested from inside at least one Trump rally and certainly seen footage and having lots of my veteran colleagues who have done the same, I think those rallies offer a pretty frightening picture of what a Donald Trump administration would look like in terms of accommodating dissent—creating a free and open democratic space for people to express their opinions.”

Clearly that’s not a priority for Mr. Trump. And that’s one of the core principles that many of us joined with the understanding that we were going to be protecting and upholding.”

Walmart Workers Hold Roundtable as Company Gathers for Shareholders Meeting

Walmart workers and former employees Wednesday are hosting a roundtable discussion in advance of Walmart’s shareholders meeting.

They’re sharing their experiences working for the giant retailer—including being unable to afford rent, getting fired for unfair reasons and getting injured on the job. Many of them worked for years for Walmart and still were making less than $11 an hour.

The workers’ roundtable is being held as the company holds its annual shareholders meeting where Walmart is expected to tout what it says is its investment in workers.

SEIU, CWA Back NY Climate Bill: Global Warming is A Working People’s Issue

SEIU 32BJ, 1199 and the CWA are joining a labor-environmental coalition urging New York state lawmakers to pass the New York State Climate and Community Protection Act.

The coalition will be rallying in Albany Wednesday in support of the climate bill, which it describes as the strongest climate protection bill in the U.S.

Declaring that global warming is a working people’s issue, the coalition says this legislation “guarantees 100 percent clean, renewable energy, good jobs and justice for communities hardest hit” by climate change. The coalition says the climate bill would “create legally-enforceable emissions standards, invest in green infrastructure and good green jobs and set New York on the path towards 100 percent renewable energy by 2050.”