Labor Updates (11/1/07)

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)DISCRIMINATION CHARGED AT JUSTICE: Charges of discrimination persist at the Justice Department's voting rights section. "Employees feel that [voting rights section chief John Tanner] has decimated the voting rights program, and they're glad that he is being called to task by Congress," AFSCME's Council 26 Executive Director Carl Goldman told TalkingPointsMemo's Paul Kiel earlier this week. AFSCME represents non-attorney staff in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. Tanner was scheduled to testify before Congress yesterday, where Goldman said "We're hopeful that lawmakers will ask him about the problems the employees face: about the many employees who felt they had to leave due to his poor leadership, the atmosphere of fear that he has created, and the severe damage he's done to the cause of voting rights." DC ACTIVISTS BACK N.C. TOBACCO WORKERS: Nearly 400 tobacco farm workers and community and religious leaders from more than a dozen faith groups marched on Sunday at the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. corporate headquarters in Winston-Salem, NC with the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC). The rally - which included a busload of DC-area activists -- backed the nearly 25,000 tobacco farm workers in North Carolina who are organizing to win justice on the job. Click here to read the full report by Katrina Blomdahl.