TOPEKA, Kan. - The Kansas Senate will debate an unemployment insurance bill Thursday that will reduce benefits for many Kansans.

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A senate committee chaired by Wichita Senator Susan Wagle passed HB 2676 out of committee. They have tacked anti-worker provisions on to to a House measure designed to aid businesses with high unemployment tax cost. The Wagle bill would place a moratorium on the "waiting-week" benefits and eliminate spouse relocation benefits.

TOPEKA, Kan.- Last Friday, the Kansas Coalition for Workplace Safety held a rally in the old Supreme Court chambers at the Kansas State Capitol. The rally was well attended by many of us who want to see injured Kansas workers given a fair shake for a change.

Rep. Paul Davis, the House Minority Leader and Sen. Anthony Hensley, the Senate Minority Leader gave a run down of Kansas' failing public policy concerning the treatment of workers injured on the job by no fault of their own.

Workers who have been victimized by our workers compensation system showed up to have their stories heard as those of us who attended saw real life examples why we need to ramp up this fight. We are among the worst in the nation, folks, and it is time we get this backwards mess straightened out.

SALINA, Kan. - In a new book, Gendered Tradeoffs: Family, Social Policy, and Economic Inequality in Twenty-One Countries, Becky Pettit and Jennifer Hook contend workplace equality for women boils down to not only whether women are included in the work force but on how they are included.

Despite big changes over recent decades, workplace gender inequalities endure in the United States and other industrialized nations around the world. These inequalities are created by facets of national social policy that either ease or concentrate the demands of care giving within households and shape expectations in the workplace.

TOPEKA, Kan. - The caps for permanent and total disability payments in Kansas haven't been adjusted for inflation since 1987, remaining at only $125,000. As a state, we are among the worst in the nation when you look at workers' compensation policies. Reform on a large scale is needed, but there's one common-sense measure that we can take now to improve the system on our way to economic justice. That measure is Senate Bill 258.

SB 258 adjusts the permanent and total disability caps to account for inflation. Currently, that would put it at a level greater that $300,000. Workers disabled on the job by no fault of their own deserve more than that, but it is better than $125,000. In addition, this bill takes future adjustments for inflation out of the political process.

TOPEKA, Kan. - Senate Bill 169, adding "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" to Kansas' current non-discrimination statute, will come before the Kansas Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee on Thursday. SB 169 expands the Kansas Act Against Discrimination, making it unlawful to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

"Many lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered Kansans have been discriminated against in employment and housing," says Thomas Witt, chair of the Equality Coalition. "No one should be fired or denied the basic human need of shelter because of who they are or who they love."

MANHATTAN, Kan. - The Monthly Film Series sponsored by the Manhattan Alliance for Peace and Justice, the Manhattan/Riley County League of Women Voters and private donors, brings a powerful documentary, American Casino, to the community this month that looks into the causes of the 2008 economic crisis.

The viewing will take place at 6:30 pm on Tuesday 9 February at the Manhattan Public Library Auditorium. The public is invited to attend.

"American Casino is a powerful and shocking look at the subprime lending scandal. If you want to understand how the US financial system failed and how mortgage companies ripped off the poor, see this film," commented Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel prize-winning economist.

SALINA, Kan. - For days at a time during a four-year period, the two men slept under bridges and in makeshift camps set up by homeless individuals they befriended. They also spent a night in a shelter and visited other shelters for their research.

Jeffrey Michael Clair, Ph.D., and Jason Wasserman, Ph.D., set out to find the answer to one simple question: Why do many homeless individuals prefer living on the street to living in shelters?

So the two ventured into the streets of Birmingham, Alabama to interview homeless people, learning in the process that many programs and policies designed to help the homeless succeed only in alienating them.

Clair and Wasserman say armchair proclamations by experts and politicians about dealing with homelessness are routinely dismissed by those on the street with this response: "They don't know us."

SALINA, Kan. - Most characteristics of the "Type A" personality are linked to increased work stress. But, now there may be one important exception.

High scores for aggression, hard-driving, and eagerness-energy were all associated with high job stress. These three Type A characteristics were also linked to "effort-reward imbalance"--a key contributor to work stress.

COLBY, Kan. - Latinos now make up about 14 percent of the nation's workforce. Rural Midwestern and Great Plains states have experienced rapid increases in immigrant populations in recent years, as workers from Latin America have moved to small towns to work in the meatpacking and construction trades. This shift has heightened discussion in these states about the impacts of immigration on both local cultures, economies, service industries and crime.

Industries located in rural Kansas, such as meat-packing, create job opportunities that bring significant numbers of Latino workers and their families to our small- and medium-sized towns.

This influx of Latino migrants is often met with resistance from other Kansas residents, who fear increases in crime and poverty rates will accompany the population growth.

But a new study from North Carolina State University debunks some of those fears.

MANHATTAN, Kan. - Saturday night's vote in the House of Representatives was a real disappointment to me. As a member of the uninsured, I was hopeful that Obama and the Democrats would lead as they had on Social Security, the Voting Rights Act and Medicare and fulfill Obama's promise to "fundamentally transform the United States of America." But instead the party "of the people" has in the words of Rep. Massa (D-NY) enshrined "in law the monopolistic powers of the private health insurance industry."

This isn't what health care reform was supposed to do.

For 17 years I enjoy national health care in Italy. Broken bones were mended, allergies brought under control, kidney stones dissolved. All at no cost to me. Whenever I needed to see a doctor I could either go down to the local clinic or make an appointment with a specialist and my tab was covered.