The Sidney Hillman Foundation invites you to an exclusive preview screening and discussion of PBS’s new documentary, Slavery By Another Name, on Thursday, Feb 2 at 6:00pm at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism (219 W. 40th St, New York, NY).

Based on the award-winning book by Wall Street Journal reporter Douglas A. Blackmon, the film challenges the cherished assumption that slavery in the United States ended with the Emancipation Proclamation. Join Blackmon and the film’s Hillman-award winning producer/director Sam Pollard for a panel discussion moderated by Gerry Hudson, executive vice president of SEIU.

Click here to view the full-sized event flier.

Space is limited, please RSVP by January 30. Phone: 646-448-6413; email: alex@hillmanfoundation.org.

For those of you who can’t join us in person, I’ll be blogging about the screening here at Clear it With Sidney.

As Indianapolis prepares to host the Superbowl, the state’s Republican legislators and governor are pushing to make Indiana the twenty-third “right to work” state in the nation. On Tuesday, right-to-work legislation advanced to the full state house, despite efforts of Democratic legislators to slow passage of the bill.

Six NFL players from Indiana have spoken out against the bill:

INDIANAPOLIS — Quarterbacks Jay Cutler of the Chicago Bears and Rex Grossman of the Washington Redskins are among six NFL players urging Indiana lawmakers to oppose right-to-work legislation.

Cutler, from Santa Claus, Ind., and Grossman, from Bloomington, joined New Orleans’ Courtney Roby, Pittsburgh’s Trai Essex, St. Louis’ Mark Clayton and San Diego’s Kris Dielman in sending letters to Indiana House members Monday. Days earlier, the NFL Players Association came out against the measure that would ban private contracts that require workers to pay union fees for representation.

Cutler called it a “political ploy” against workers. [AP]

Last year, Democratic lawmakers thwarted the GOP’s attempt to pass right-to-work legislation by fleeing the state. This time around, Republicans have clipped the opposition’s wings by passing anti-bolting legislation that could impose fines of $1000 per day after 3 days of unexcused absence.

[Photo credit: Indywriter, Creative Commons.]

New York Times sports reporter John Branch wins the January Sidney Award for his outstanding three-part series on the life and death of Rangers enforcer Derek Boogaard, who died last spring of a drug overdose at age 28 after a two-year struggle with congitive decline, depression, and addiction. At autopsy, his brain was found to be riddled with the signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease similar to Alzheimer’s, caused by repeated blows to the head.

Branch’s series has ignited a fierce debate over the role of enforcers, professional fighters, in the National Hockey League. Officially, fighting is against the rules, but since the only consequence is a 5-minute penalty for combattants, fighting isn’t effectively banned at all. Like many enforcers, Boogaard could barely skate or pass, so taking him off the ice for 5 minutes wasn’t much of a deterrent.

In fact, fighting provides a “back door” into the NHL for big kids who are willing to take a lot of punishment, but who lack the skills to play pro hockey. As Branch reveals, these players can pay a terrible price for their shot at “The Show,” as the NHL is known.

Read my Backstory interview with Branch here.

[Matthew D. Britt, Creative Commons.]

Indiana is poised to become the next front on the Republican war on organized labor, reports Steven Greenhouse of the New York Times:

INDIANAPOLIS — Nearly a year after legislatures in Wisconsin and several other Republican-dominated states curbed the power of public sector unions, lawmakers are now turning their sights toward private sector unions, setting up what is sure to be another political storm.

The thunderclouds are gathering first here in Indiana. The leaders of the Republican-controlled Legislature say that when the legislative session opens on Wednesday, their No. 1 priority will be to push through a business-friendly piece of legislation known as a right-to-work law.

If Indiana enacts such a law — and its sponsors say they have the votes — it will give new momentum to those who have previously pushed such legislation in Maine, Michigan, Missouri and other states. New Hampshire’s Republican-controlled Legislature was the last to pass a right-to-work bill in 2011, but it narrowly failed to muster the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto by the Democratic governor; an Indiana law would re-energize that effort.

Right-to-work laws prohibit union contracts at private sector workplaces from requiring employees to pay any dues or other fees to the union. In states without such laws, workers at unionized workplaces generally have to pay such dues or fees.

Unions have vowed to fight the plan to turn Indiana into what they call the “Mississippi of the Midwest,” that is, a sparsely unionized, low wage economy.

Crushing unions would also help ensure permanent Republican dominance in state politics. Unions are not only advocates for their members, they are major political players who usually align themselves with Democrats.

[Image credit: Cuksis, Creative Commons.]