North America

On the second anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, and a day when the United Nations General Assembly convenes to address issues of poverty, public health and climate change, New Yorkers from every sector of the city are joining together to demand a Robin Hood Tax on Wall Street to solve America’s revenue crisis. They will march past the UN assembly meeting, stopping at JPMorgan Chase HQ, and to sites of extreme underfunding to call for a tax to fund the restoration and expansion of vital public services and to implement a real recovery for all the city’s neighborhoods. The Robin Hood Tax also seeks to fund international efforts for AIDS/HIV research and treatment and to address climate change.

After more than 12 years, the City of Montréal is bowing to the arguments of the City’s white-collar workers’ union and opting to settle the issue of pay equity for these workers once and for all.

Statement by AFSCME President Lee Saunders: Snyder and Orr are not above the law and cannot ignore the Michigan constitution.

Members of the global union federation Public Services International are saddened to learn of the death of 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, a specialist team of wildfire fighters, killed while fighting a fire in Yarnell, Arizona. It appears that a sudden wind change pushed the wildfire back onto their position.