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World & Nation
Brown University is moving forward with plans
to probe the university’s historical ties to slavery and to consider
whether reparations should be made to the descendants of slaves.
Ruth J. Simmons, president of Brown, appointed
a 16-member panel to explore the issue last spring. Simmons, the first
African American to lead an Ivy League college, is herself descended from
slaves. The panel, called the University Steering Committee on Slavery
and Justice, is expected to continue investigating the slavery issue and
release a report in two years. The university has created a Web site to
provide ongoing information on the project at www.brown.edu/Research/slavery_Justice.
Most U.S. corporations
paid no federal taxes when the economy and company profits soared in the
economic boom of 1996-2000, according to General Accounting Office
(GAO) documents obtained by The Wall Street Journal. Sixty percent of
corporations didn't pay federal taxes during that four-year period, even
though the federal corporate tax rate is 35 percent. By 2003, GAO records
show corporate tax receipts had fallen to 7.4 percent of federal revenue,
the second-lowest level since the mid-Depression year 1934.
Along the same
lines, in 2003, top executives at U.S. firms saw a 16 percent raise in
cash pay, according to a study commissioned by Reuters News Service
of 345 of Standard and Poor’s 500 companies. Median cash pay—not
including stocks, stock options, and other rewards—for CEOs in 2003
was $2,029,500, up from 2002’s $1,750,000. The average pay increase
for workers in 2003: 3.8 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The AFL-CIO
Building and Construction Trades Department and union construction workers
have teamed up with Habitat for Humanity to build affordable housing
in low-income neighborhoods. The unions will share their skills with the
housing organization and use Habitat building sites as “living laboratories”
for apprentices. To find out more, visit www.aflcio.org
Faculty & Staff
The percentage of the nation’s wage
and salary workers that are union members has fallen once again,
according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In 2003, 12.9 percent of workers were union members, down from 13.3 percent
in 2002.
The union membership rate has steadily
fallen from a high of 20.1 percent in 1983—the first year data were
available. Other findings from the 2003 report include: Men are more likely
to be union members than women; Blacks were more likely to be union members
than were whites, Asians, Hispanics or Latinos.
Nearly 40 percent of government
workers were union members, compared with less than 10 percent of workers
in the private sector. The union membership rate for private sector workers
has fallen by half since 1983, while government worker rates have held
steady. Education, training, and library occupations had the highest unionization
rate among occupational groups.
Professional News
A lack of awareness about financial aid opportunities
for college among Hispanics is contributing to barriers in
achieving a higher education, according to a new report released by the
Tomas Rivera Policy Institute at the University of Southern California.
The sometimes-confusing forms required
to get student loans and grants intimidate potential students, and many
don’t get past the necessary paperwork. Three out of four Hispanic
young adults surveyed who weren’t in college said they would have
been more likely to go if they’d known more about financial aid.
Seventy American medical professors,
doctors, and other scholars were barred by U.S. authorities from
traveling to Cuba to attend an international conference on brain injury.
Scholars learned from the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office
of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) at the last minute that they would be
breaking the law if they attended the conference.
Female
and Male Respondent Mean Salary by Occupational Group, 2002
Source: 2002 NEA Survey of Higher
Education Support Professional Members
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