***WORKERS INDEPENDENT NEWS SERVICE*** Headline Transcript for 07/28/10 Newscast ***Get WIN News On Your Cell Phone! Just dial 425-527-7001. *** Affiliates/subscribers may feel free to use this copy in its entirety and make any changes necessary. Please credit stories to Workers Independent News Service. *Text is designed to be copied and pasted. --- By Doug Cunningham The National Conference of Sate Legislatures is warning that without extended Medicaid help from the federal government state budgets will fall deeper into crisis. Republicans in Congress have blocked this money for health care for the poor. AFSCME President Gerald McEntee says the consequences of Republicans continuing to block this financial aid will lead to massive new job losses in the states. --- By Doug Cunningham A dispute between unions that lasted for eighteen months and cost the labor movement lots of money is over. SEIU, UNITE-HERE and Workers United have negotiated an end to the dispute. UNITE-HERE President John Wilhelm says heÕs please to have a binding agreement with SEIU ending the dispute. SEIU President Mary Kay Henry says the leaders agree that they cannot be spending time fighting one another over workers already represented by unions when far too many people without unions want and need a voice on the job. UNITE-HERE was a merger between the hotel and garment workers union. The union split in 2009 with the UNITE faction becoming Workers United. SEIU intervened on the side of Workers United and ignited a struggle between UNITE-HERE and Workers United over members and resources. SEIU says the agreement resolves all issues related to jurisdiction and asset distribution and establishes a process for determining the rightful bargaining representative for remaining disputed units. If federal regulators approve New YorkÕs Amalgamated Bank, which was owned by UNITE before UNITE-HEREÕs merger, will be transferred to the now SEIU-affiliated Workers United. UNITE-HERE gets exclusive jurisdiction in the hotel and gaming industries along with other assets including Manhattan real estate. UNITE-HERE says the agreement frees assets that had been tied up in court by the dispute. --- Three hundred workers have been set free on the Amazon after being taken hostage by Brazilian Indians. Jesse Russell reports:; The last of one hundred fifty workers who had been taken hostage by native Brazilian Indians over the weekend were released on Monday. The workers were taken hostage by 300 Indians representing 11 tribes after a sacred archaeological site had been dynamited by the workers to make way for a dam. Early Monday the workers were exchanged for five engineers from the company constructing the dam, but those engineers were released in the afternoon. The Indians are demanding compensation for the destruction to the site. The government of Brazil is holding talks with the company and the National Foundation for Indigenous Affairs in an attempt to resolve the issue so construction of the dam can move forward. --- A strike by workers at a MottÕs plant in Wayne County, New York has entered week number 10. The 300 workers at the plant walked off the job May 23 to protest a new contract that includes substantial pay and benefit cuts. The workers have been calling for a boycott of the company and have also been traveling around the country to inform customers of their situation. To try to break the strike the company has hired replacement workers at $9 an hour.