End Wage Theft

Chants in Spanish and English filled the street outside the Bakery el Quiche in Providence Thursday afternoon as former employees and labor allies called on the owner of the bakery, Byron Juarez, to be held accountable.  His workers report that for many years he has paid them less than minimum wage and that they have been required to work 70-90 hours a week, 7 days a week, with no overtime pay.  They also report that they were not allowed to have a break during their long hours as mandated by Rhode Island law.  The crowd dmenaded that Mr. Juarez immediately pay his workers their full hours plus overtime and apologize to them for taking advantage of them.  They also want him to sign a Code of Conduct that commits him to comply with all labor laws from now on.

As people passed by and took flyers, many commented that wage theft is common for many workers (both documented and undocumented) and that they were so glad to see someone finally being held accountable.

The protests will continue today.  The state Department of Labor has also begun an investigation.

The event was organized by Fuerza Laboral.  They can be reached at 401-725-2700.

A Peace Float in a Militaristic Parade

Photo courtesy of Judy Byrnes
There were formations of military marching in crisp uniforms even in the heat, the military bands, the folks dressed in Revolutionary War era costumes with their guns, the two floats commemorating September 11th, and the military heroes float from Raytheon.  Then, tagging along near the end was the East Bay Citizens for Peace/AFSC peace float.  The globe that was to go in the middle of it had collapsed (apt symbolism), but the signs on the sides and the songs sung by those on the float got the message across (Peace is Patriotic and War is not the path to Peace).  We sang Down by the Riverside, This Land is Your Land (all the verses, including the one about the lines outside the relief office), Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream, and Give Peace A Chance.

As we rolled into view and gazes shifted our direction there would be a blank look for a moment as our message was taken in, then often a smile, sometimes a look of pleased disbelief followed by a loud "All right!" with a thumbs up or clapping.  I saw more than one child turn to ask an adult what it meant, which made me sad, but at least the question got asked.  Unfortunately more than one child turned his toy gun on us - and there was an abundance of toy guns (and not the pop guns of my childhood but fake automatic weapons!). Sometimes a whole section would erupt into cheers.  Veterans solemnly shook their heads and nodded approvingly.  Lots of folks sang along.  Some laughed at us, shaking their heads that would could be so naive, but I didn't hear a single loud boo, which surprised me.  Many openly welcomed the change of message. 

It was HOT.  The float was a lot of work (thank you, Kevin, for pulling it all together!). And it was just what the parade needed.

The Tide is Turning on "Secure Communities"

On Monday Governor Patrick of Massachusetts added his voice to the growing chorus of opposition to the
Department of Homeland Security/Immigration and Customs Enforcement program called "Secure Communities".  When he announced his intention last winter to enroll MA in the program, he was greeted with howls of protest.  An earlier blog posting recounts the press conference and demonstration outside his office.  That protest yielded a series of public hearings around the state.  After the first few, the Tea Party began pushing hard to get their base to the hearings, at times even providing a bus.  But immigrants and their allies also turned out in large numbers.  Local groups organized, even when communications from the Governor made it appear that he had already made up his mind and it was an exercise in futility.

Then the Governor of Illinois announce he was terminating participation.  Then came the Governor of New York.  And finally Governor Patrick announced that he, too, would not enroll the state in the program.  His statement reflects all the testimony that they received from the community about why this is such a bad program.  A HUGE congratulations to all the folks who worked so hard on this.

And today - there is a great editorial in the New York Times.

Now it is time to really work on Rhode Island - the only New England State fully enrolled (CT has several counties enrolled). 

the face of islamaphobia

In the years since 2001 there has been a constant cultivation of fear of "the other".  Sometimes it is directed at immigrants, sometimes at Muslims.  In both situations it seems past time to stop and think about who we, as a people, have become; what it is we allow to be done in our name.

Please read the bloghttp://afghanistan101.blogspot.com/2011/05/targeted-and-entrapped.html  for a look at the treatment of Muslims in our midst.  They are our neighbors.

When the going gets tough...

First published in the West Virginia Gazette

May 1, 2011

When the going gets tough

Opportunists take advantage of the fearful, suffering

By Rick Wilson

In 2007, writer Naomi Klein stirred up controversy with her book "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism." In it, she argued that economic elites and their political allies often take advantage of natural or social disasters to push through a radical agenda while ordinary people are still reeling from the events.

Klein defined disaster capitalism as "orchestrated raids on the public sphere in the wake of catastrophic events, combined with the treatment of disasters as exciting market opportunities..." The agenda pushed through at such moments includes three "trademark demands": privatization, government deregulation, and deep cuts to social spending.

Sound familiar?

While Klein's ideas seemed a bit paranoid to some critics, she had some points. The late "free market" economist Milton Friedman pretty much laid out the program when he stated that "only a crisis - actual or perceived - produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: To develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable."

Friedman practiced what he preached. When Chilean general Augusto Pinochet, with covert support from the Nixon administration, overthrew the democratically elected president of that country in 1973, imposed a military dictatorship, and set about crushing labor unions and other political opponents, Friedman and other "Chicago Boys" took advantage of the crisis and offered their services in helping the dictatorship to privatize that country's social security system, cut social spending, and reduce regulations and taxes for businesses. Thousands of Chileans, including women and children, were murdered, tortured, raped and/or sexually abused in pursuit of this market utopia.

There are plenty of other examples of disaster capitalism. The Bush administration in the wake of the shock of 9/11 pushed through tax cuts and other business friendly policies that had nothing to do with protecting the country from terrorist attacks. A number of corporations, with the aid of friendly governments, found ways of cashing in on calamities as diverse as the invasion of Iraq, the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and Hurricane Katrina.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, elected with help of the billionaire Koch brothers, played that game recently when he used state budget troubles as an excuse to attack collective bargaining rights for public employees. The budget was just a smokescreen - even when public workers agreed to wage and benefit cuts, he insisted on going farther by attacking rights on the job - while cutting corporate taxes even lower.

We are now witnessing a little disaster capitalism now as extremists in Congress led by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan used deficit fears to push a radical agenda through the House that includes gutting Medicaid and CHIP; dismantling Medicare by replacing it with a voucher system to pay for private insurance; repealing health care reform; slashing domestic discretionary spending; and further extending tax cuts to corporations and the wealthiest.

Economist Dean Baker summed up the Ryan plan eloquently as "government by people who hate you."

Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities notes that Ryan's plan "would get about two-thirds of its more than $4 trillion in budget cuts over 10 years from programs that help people of limited means ..." The proposed cuts to Medicaid alone would harm states, individuals and health care providers and could cost nearly 2 million private sector jobs, according to Ethan Pollack of the Economic Policy Institute.

Besides that, it doesn't do much to cut the deficit because it's so loaded with tax cuts. Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project, stated that it "not only does nothing to raise revenues from those businesses and individuals who have enjoyed historically low tax burdens for more than the last decade, but it also proposes to actually lower taxes for corporations and the wealthiest among us."

The Ryan plan does nothing to address the actual causes of growing deficits: the Great Recession; Bush era tax cuts to the wealthy; military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan; the Pentagon budget; and the growing cost of health care, which will only increase when people lose guaranteed coverage and are thrown back to the tender mercies of the private insurance industry - or to no coverage at all. When you look at the details, it's more about redistributing wealth upward than bringing deficits downward.

West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller said it best: "The House Republican budget plan shows how out-of-touch they are. They want to give trillions in tax benefits to wealthy corporations that keep profits offshore, while slashing basic health care for children, seniors, and people with disabilities. This is not just foolish - it's cruel."

While the plan has little chance of passing the Senate in its current form, the danger is that its supporters will use the upcoming vote on raising the federal debt ceiling to push through something like it. If the U.S. fails to raise the ceiling, it would default for the first time on its obligations, which would send shockwaves throughout the global economy.

The plan's supporters may be willing to block the vote unless the Senate agrees to global spending caps, which could have the same effect.

If that happens, it would basically be closing time for the middle class.

We need political leaders who won't cave in to this agenda. There are responsible ways of dealing with the federal debt. This isn't one of them.

Racial Profiling Hearing Set for May 5

I hope a lot of people will turn out for the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing of the bill to curb racial profiling.  We are, in some ways, closer than ever to passage, and is some ways so far.  Prior to the House hearing there were hours and hours of negotiations between community members and the police about compromise language.  We went into the hearing with new wording we could all live with and all testified to that effect.  Several police speakers said that all the bill really is is a codifying of best practices. 

Then the bottom feel out.  The police chiefs association voted to oppose the bill, unanimously with two abstentions.  Not even close.  Not even those who had said publicly that they could live with it voting for it.

So not it is time for the legislature to act.  And they need to hear from you, because you can be sure that they will hear from their local police chiefs.  And going against them takes courage.  We need to ask the legislators to be courageous.

That is where you come in. 

If you have experienced racial profiling, we need you to say so.  Tell your story.  The legislators still don't quite believe how pervasive and how humiliating it is, in spite of the statistics.  They don't quite get how that anger and humiliation that result undermine the stated intent of the police to develop trust that is essential for good policing.  So please, tell them your experience.  If you can't be there, send it to sene@afsc.org and we will pass it on.

And if you are angered that people in our community are stopped for simply walking down the street or driving down the street, then your voice is needed as well.  We need people to say this is not the kind of community I want and I want the police to listen to us.

And we need to call on the legislators to insist that the police listen to the community.  We give the police an awful lot of latitude to decide how to go about the task of addressing crime and keeping our community safe.  There are trade offs we make for that safety.  And the police must listen when the community tells them that they have gone too far.  If they don't listen voluntarily, then the legislature must step in and pass a bill that at least some police professionals admit is only a statement of best practices.

Please join in this effort.  Thanks!

Call to the RI Legislature to pass bill curbing racial profiling

Testimony on H-5263, a bill to curtail racial profiling

Greetings and thank you for this opportunity to speak to you.  My name is Martha Yager.  I work for the American Friends Service Committee, South East New England office, a Quaker-based organization which works throughout Rhode Island and southern Massachusetts. 

Tonight we have heard from the various police units opposing this bill.  And we have heard powerful testimony from people in the community about why we need the bill.

I want to step back for a moment to think about the purpose of laws.  Laws are created to, at least in part, help us act as our better selves.  For instance we may have opposed individual violent revenge in response to crime, but when our loved one is murdered or harmed, it is only natural that the hurt and rage flames into an impulse to want to kill the person who killed our loved one.  The purpose of the law is to relieve the victim’s family of having to deal with that.  It says we as a community also believe that murder is wrong and we will create a judicial system that can hold people accountable for the harms they do and to protect society from any further harm.  It says that we understand your rage but you may not act on it and will act on your behalf.  In so doing it helps the victims family live the values they hold dear in a time of deep distress or, as a friend of mine whose dad was murdered right in front of him, to be their better selves.

Likewise we have decided together that racism and discrimination are not how we want to live as a society.  Yet we have a long history of racism in this country and it takes a long time to unlearn those attitudes and change our ways.  We also know that in spite of our best intentions, because we have grown up steeped in those ways, we sometimes will act in ways that discriminate or are hurtful.  We need laws and structures to hold us accountable to learning to behave differently, to help us become the community we want to be.

As I sat in the meeting with the police last week, listening to their justifications for why we don’t need this bill, and listening to the community explain the reality of racial profiling in our community, I realized that ultimately we all wanted the same thing.  We all want a safe community.  And we all know that there are people who cause harm who need to be stopped.  But the police, for a variety of reasons, choose a very narrow approach to creating safety that looks with suspicion and assumption of wrongdoing at everyone they encounter and that that lens is certainly shaped by the long history of racism even when they don’t want it to be.  And we have to acknowledge that there are some in the police community who are less committed to undoing racism and some who, for a variety of reasons, abuse their power and become accustomed to behaving in very intimidating ways.  The community experiences their efforts as being counterproductive and indeed creating less safety because of the experience of the rage that results from humiliation and the resultant lack of trust that is necessary for good policing.  The community is less safe when people are afraid to go to the police with concerns or fear they wont be taken seriously and the police themselves are less safe when people are enraged at how they have been treated. 

This bill, which curtails only some aspects of racial profiling, which has been significantly modified to meet the concerns of the police, and which some police find acceptable, is a tool to help us move toward having the safe community that we all say we want.  As one of the police pointed out the other day, it only holds them accountable to standards they already endorse, to their best practices.  The community needs the legislature to finally pass this legislation to help hold us all to some basic standards, to help move us to being a more just and safe community for all of us.