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20-Jun-2002
Standing up for Janitors in St. Louis
On April 26, during the CWA Civil Rights and Equity conference, JwJ held a demonstration to support a Justice for Janitors Campaign. The rally grew to nearly 300 people as the CWA conference joined local JwJ activists and SEIU in supporting the workers. The rally was fun and spirited with songs and chants and fabulous JwJ noisemakers. The workers, who are in a contract fight, are struggling for higher wages and benefits. Some of the workers have been with the same company for almost 30 years and earn only $6.65 an hour. Starting pay for janitors is only $5.50, forcing many to work several jobs to make ends meet. SEIU has had several major victories recently in the St. Louis area, including getting St. Louis University to contract in their janitorial staff, with educational benefits as well as higher wages. Janitors at the action have pledged to keep up the heat on the streets as they struggle to get their contract. CWA EVP Larry Cohen spoke at the event. "We don't just want jobs," Cohen said. "Slaves had job We want Jobs with Justice.
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20-Jun-2002
1. NY RALLY BOOSTS CAMPAIGN FOR SCHOOL FUNDING -- On June 4, approximately 40,000 parents, students, and teachers rallied at New York City Hall against Mayor Bloomberg's proposed cuts in schools' budgets. The event was sponsored by ACORN, the Alliance for Quality Education, the United Federation of Teachers, and Hip Hop Nation. Many hip-hop and rap stars participated in the rally, including Jay-Z, P. Diddy, Alicia Keys, Erykah Badu, LL Cool J, Foxy Brown, Noreaga, Loon, Flipmode Squad, and Wu-Tang Clan. New York ACORN Executive Director Bertha Lewis co-chaired the event. On June 6, the Mayor and the Speaker of the Assembly began hammering out a deal that would restore the cuts in education spending. This process is ongoing, and the Mayor and the City Council have given themselves a July 1 deadline.
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20-Jun-2002
Updated February of 2002
Listed below are 150 California Three-Strike stories from our database. We believe it only scratches the surface demonstrating the injustice of this law. For instance, we do not receive letters from prisoners who are illiterate, cannot read English, many who are mentally disabled, those who have not heard about us, those who have heard about us but choose not to write us, and those who have committed suicide or died in prison.
All of the "media stories" are ranked based on estimated economic damages of the strikes on a prisoner's record by our computer. Presented below--in ascending order--are the top 150 stories we have gathered thus far.
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20-Jun-2002
KIWA's new industry wide effort is to improve the working conditions of immigrant workers and build worker power in the Koreatown Grocery supermarket industry and the community. The objective of this campaign is to educate and assist Koreatown Grocery supermarket workers on the subject of unionization.
Grocery supermarkets serve a Korean specific customer base in Koreatown and suburbs where there are pockets of Korean residents. In Koreatown there are 6 supermarkets that carry Korean food dishes such as kimchee, rice and kalbee aka Korean ribs. Including the suburbs, there are a total of 13 large scale Korean supermarkets and owned and operated by 5 to 6 Korean Americans and their families. These chain supermarkets serve over 500,000 Korean Americans residing in the greater Los Angeles area.
This campaign aims to alter the economic and power structure between workers and employers in L.A. by creating new institutions where workers will be ensured fair representation along with fair wages and working conditions.
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19-Jun-2002
Let it not be said that people in the United States did nothing when their government declared a war without limit and instituted stark new measures of repression.
The signers of this statement call on the people of the U.S. to resist the policies and overall political direction that have emerged since September 11, 2001, and which pose grave dangers to the people of the world.
We believe that peoples and nations have the right to determine their own destiny, free from military coercion by great powers. We believe that all persons detained or prosecuted by the United States government should have the same rights of due process. We believe that questioning, criticism, and dissent must be valued and protected. We understand that such rights and values are always contested and must be fought for.
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19-Jun-2002
The love of country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border? –Pablo Casals
For years during the Vietnam war, the critics of American foreign policy in Southeast Asia were labeled as un-American: pro-Communist and anti-patriotic. One of the leading critics of US policy at that time was Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas. Rejecting the "my country, right or wrong" mentality, he said:
Criticism is more than a right; it is an act of patriotism–a higher form of patriotism, I believe, than the familiar ritual of national adulation. All of us have the responsibility to act upon the higher patriotism, which is to love our country less for what it is than for what we would like it to be.
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19-Jun-2002
We now have an anti-administration together with an anti-cabinet. Please review the fruits and the personnel of this ill suited cabal which has been structured in opposition to the common good of the people of the United States. Perhaps we can call it the ENRON Board of Directors. By their fruits you will know them! Yes, some of these horrors began with previous administrations. We agree with the National Catholic Reporter in its editorial of 12/28/01
“The withdrawal from the ABM treaty and the decision to go forward with building a missile defense shield is the biggest U.S. foreign policy blunder since the Vietnam War.”
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19-Jun-2002
BERKELEY & LOS ANGELES--California Peace Action (CAPA), the state's largest disarmament organization, today activated its grassroots membership network to pressure members of Congress to oppose the increasingly unilateral foreign policy of the Bush Administration.
CAPA sees this week's treaty signing as more of an exercise in public relations than meaningful arms control, cynically designed to overshadow the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty -- the landmark treaty that the Bush Administration will unilaterally abandon next month. With activation of CAPA's statewide network, thousands of members will be alerted to contact their Congressional representatives and register their opposition to President Bush's systematic dismantling of existing arms control agreements.
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18-Jun-2002
Why did Bush stay on vacation for three more weeks last August after hearing of the possible hijacks of U.S. planes by Osama bin Laden? Why was the Phoenix memo, which noticed the requests for flying lessons by Middle Eastern men (who weren't interested in knowing how to take off or land) not connected with the hijacking threats received by Bush? Why did Bush not stop reading to children in Florida (“The obscure goat story of 9-11” http://ecclesia.org/lawgiver/911.asp) after he received news of one Twin Tower’s demise? How did three more airplanes get hijacked and crash into two more major U.S. monuments, after Bush was told of the first crash into the World Trade Center? In short, what was this administration doing, or not doing, to prevent the siege of America known as S-11, from which the same administration has picked-up such enormous political capital, and warded off the kinds of criticism it was getting just before?
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18-Jun-2002
Over 1500 signatures to date
Click Here to Read and Sign the Petition Demanding Investigation and Impeachment of the Illegitimately Elected Bush and Cheney for Dereliction of Duties in Woefully Failing to Protect the American Public from the September 11th Terrorist Attacks
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