Tidbits - Apr. 8, 2021 - Reader Comments: Policing, George Floyd murder; Amazon workers; Refugees, Displacement Crisis; Puerto Rico; Nazi Germany; China; Elizabeth Davis - Presente!; Labor resources; Constructing a New Social Compact; Zoom events;
Re: Calling Chauvin a “Bad Apple” Denies Systemic Nature of Racist Police Violence (Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression; Mike Arney; Aaron Libson)
Re: Alabama Amazon Organizing Drive is a Case Study in Why It's So Important to Pass the PRO Act (Eleanor Roosevelt)
Florida Man Matt Gaetz: GQP Party Animal -- cartoon by Lalo Alcaraz
Re: 'It's Not a Border Crisis,' Says Ocasio-Cortez. 'It's an Imperialism Crisis... a Climate Crisis... a Trade Crisis.' (Joe Maizlish)
Re: The U.S. War on Drugs is Driving the Displacement Crisis (David Wilson)
Re: The Self-Determination Act Could Finally End US Colonization of Puerto Rico (Myrna Fichtenbaum; Laura Owen)
Re: MLK Was a Radical Who Hated Not Only Racial Subordination But Class Exploitation (Sarah Minor-Schaeuble; Laura Polhamus)
Swing Voter -- cartoon by Rob Rogers
Re: The Subminimum Tipped Wage for Restaurant Workers Guarantees On-the-Job Harassment (Greg Farstrup)
Re: The Good White Christian Women of Nazi Germany (Emory Thompson)
Re: The Other Nuremberg Trials, Seventy-Five Years On (Gina Klein)
Georgia's Error -- cartoon by Mike Stanfill
Re: Global Left Midweek - More on China, Solidarity and Anti-Imperialism (Alan Gregory Wonderwheel; Ethan Young)
Washington Teachers’ Union President Elizabeth Davis Passes (Metro Washington Council AFL-CIO)
Resources:
Historians for Peace and Democracy Present Free Resources for History Educators (Margaret Power and Kevin Young - History News Network)
Cesar Chavez Day/International Transgender Day of Visibility — Poster of the Week (Center for the Study of Political Graphics)
New Labor Resource - Who Gets the Bird?
Welcome to Labor's Bookstore!
Announcements:
Fighting the Far Right in the US: News From the Frontline - April 10 (transform! Europe)
Keep The Promise Teach-ins - April 18, 21, 25 and May 6 (RAICES)
VIRTUAL CONVENING: Constructing a New Social Compact: A Public Forum on Empowering the Post-Pandemic Working Class - April 28 - May 1 (Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor)
Celebrate May Day! -- Watch documentaries that celebrate women who built labor movements (Julia Reichert)
Metro New York Labor Communications Council - 45th Annual Convention - May 11
Re: Calling Chauvin a “Bad Apple” Denies Systemic Nature of Racist Police Violence
This is not simply the story of one “rogue cop.” It is a window into the anti-Black violence perpetrated routinely by police in this country, as part of a brutal and racist system.
EXCERPT:
But many Minneapolis police officers receive “Killology training” through the police union, where they are taught to kill rather than de-escalate conflict situations. This training violates the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, which require officers to, “as far as possible,” use nonviolent techniques before resorting to force and firearms.
The MPD reported that its officers used violence against Black people at seven times the rate they used violence against white people, during the period from 2015 to 2020.
Prosecutors will likely try to isolate Chauvin as one of “a few bad apples.” That may be an effective prosecutorial strategy to convince jurors they should convict him. But this “rogue cop” characterization — also used after the 1991 Rodney King beating and the police killings of Michael Brown, Philando Castile, Alton Sterling and Breonna Taylor — obscures the systemic nature of police violence against Black and Brown people in the United States. Even the best training in the world cannot teach police, who are licensed to kill and deployed to enforce a racist system, not to be racist.
Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
=====
Marjorie Cohn is correct on so many levels. But let's pretend that the "bad apple" case results in the conviction of Derek Chauvin. Will Cohn see it as a tremendous victory? Can we win cases in court and also change the dialogue with arguments that Cohn presents? Can't "smaller" victories make the ideological ones easier to achieve?
Mike Arney
Bronx
=====
Was I the only one who noticed that Chauvin put his left hand in his pants pocket as he applied the knee !
Aaron Libson
Re: Alabama Amazon Organizing Drive is a Case Study in Why It's So Important to Pass the PRO Act
(posting on Portside Labor)
REPEAL TAFT HARTLEY
Eleanor Roosevelt
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Florida Man Matt Gaetz: GQP Party Animal -- cartoon by Lalo Alcaraz
Lalo Alcaraz
April 6, 2021
pocho.com
Good to see some education on the underlying causes; we need a lot more of that.
The U.S. political culture seems to have an aversion to looking upstream on so many problems; you name it: Housing crunch, health and longevity, environmental, violence..
Maybe people both know and don't want to know things that may discomfort them, or show blemishes on what they need to identify with (like the pure and righteous nation that can do not wrong), or perhaps move them to dare to change.
Here's a graphic putting starkly what Ocasio-Cortez said, from Rights Action (https://rightsaction.org) with permission:
If the United States invades us with troops and imposes a corrupt and murderous dictatorship, we shall migrate to their country, and no complaining. -- CInPH
Joe Maizlish,
Los Angeles
Re: The U.S. War on Drugs is Driving the Displacement Crisis
Thanks for sending out this article on the link between the US-sponsored "war on drugs" and migration from Central America. But it's important not to give the impression that this is the only US policy that drives Central Americans out of their homes.
Violence in those countries is fed by US laws making it easy to smuggle US-made firearms south of the border; governmental corruption in Central America is sustained by US support for cartel-linked rightwing politicians like Honduran president Hernandez; US-imposed neoliberal programs have disrupted local economies. And of course there's climate change, which has an especially heavy impact on Central America.
David Wilson
Re: The Self-Determination Act Could Finally End US Colonization of Puerto Rico
I support this effort for Puerto Ricans to determine their future.
Myrna Fichtenbaum
=====
This is so important. I want these incredible folks, and their beautiful island to be theirs!
Laura Owen
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: MLK Was a Radical Who Hated Not Only Racial Subordination But Class Exploitation
Some say “radical.” I say “visionary.”
Sarah Minor-Schaeuble
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
=====
He knew what was holding everyone back.
Laura Polhamus
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Swing Voter -- cartoon by Rob Rogers
Rob Rogers
April 7, 2021
robrogers.com
Re: The Subminimum Tipped Wage for Restaurant Workers Guarantees On-the-Job Harassment
(posting on Portside Labor)
"This is not complicated: tipped workers know their reliance on tips for survival sets them up for abuse, and in the wake of the #MeToo era, ending the subminimum wage is a no-brainer.
"Tipped workers need better, and they need it now."
$15 minimum wage
Greg Farstrup
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: The Good White Christian Women of Nazi Germany
“The truth is, good Christian women supported Nazism because it benefited them, and it seemed to reinforce the cultural values that gave meaning and purpose to their lives. They believed God was in control and had blessed their culture and their leader for special greatness—and that outsiders and foreign influence needed to be subjugated or eradicated in order for Germans to protect themselves.”
Emory Thompson
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: The Other Nuremberg Trials, Seventy-Five Years On
The impact of this aspect of the Holocaust is extremely disturbing. It must be viewed as a condemnation of business profits over ethics and life that continues today.
Gina Klein
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Georgia's Error -- cartoon by Mike Stanfill
Mike Stanfill
April 5, 2021
Raging Pencils
Re: Global Left Midweek - More on China, Solidarity and Anti-Imperialism
China is neither capitalist nor socialist within a dualistic ideology choice. China is a 3000 year old culture that merely removed the Imperial model and replaced it with the Party model. The fact that the Party calls itself "communist" is meaningless. Since being invaded by the Western Powers, China, under Mao's beginnings, has adapted to the new world order and is beating the Western Powers at its own economic game. In other words, the West moved from feudalism to individual capitalism, and China moved from feudalism to a socialist-capitalist hybrid that has elements of individual capitalism, state capitalism, and socialism.
Alan Gregory Wonderwheel
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
=====
Alan Gregory Wonderwheel - I think you're on to something, but whatever the Chinese government chooses to call itself is meaningful. If they want to be considered Communist, that shapes what the world considers Communism as a movement or a system.
Ethan Young
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Washington Teachers’ Union President Elizabeth Davis Passes
Metro Washington Council AFL-CIO
April 5, 2021
The metro area labor movement lost one of its most outspoken leaders Sunday night when Washington Teachers Union president Elizabeth Davis died in a car crash.
Davis had been “at the forefront of public education advocacy and reform, leading the WTU’s transformation into a social justice, solution-driven organization dedicated to advancing and promoting quality education for all children,” WTU said in a release Monday morning. Davis worked hard at “improving teaching and learning conditions, and aggressively amplifying the voice of teachers in the dialogue around issues of teaching and learning,” the union added. “We are confident that her legacy will continue to shape the WTU as well as education across the District.”
“Elizabeth Davis fought every single day, not just for her members, but for all the city’s students and parents,” said Metro Washington Council president Dyana Forester. “As a DC parent myself, and also as a lifelong city resident and labor activist, sister Davis was a constant inspiration to me and to so many others. The thoughts and prayers of the Metro Washington Council go out to her family, her union and to all whose lives were touched by Liz. Her loss is shared by the entire local labor community and we shall carry on her legacy of battling for justice even as we mourn her passing.” Davis was a longtime member of the Metro Council's Executive Board.
The first time Davis stood up to D.C. school administrators was in the 1960s, The Washington Post reported. “Davis, then a teenager, staged a walkout at Eastern High to protest the lack of African American history and culture in her school’s curriculum. Hundreds of students joined her. And it worked, she said. The curriculum changed.” “That was the beginning,” Davis told the Post in an interview in February. “It was exciting. It was exhilarating. We were organizing.” Memorial service details will be forthcoming.
NOTE: This story has been updated (8:48pm 4/5/21); photos updated, including: Davis at a rally at Freedom Plaza on April 25, 2019; photo by Chris Garlock/Union City; Davis with Dyana Forester; Davis with WPFW host Daniel del Pielago and The Dramatics; rallying to stop the privatization and union busting of United Medical Center; with WTU members and staff of Cesar Chavez schools, fighting for fairness for charter school educators.
Historians for Peace and Democracy Present Free Resources for History Educators
by Margaret Power and Kevin Young
March 28, 2021
History News Network
Historians for Peace and Democracy (H-PAD) is a national organization of progressive historians. As part of our mission to foster education on campuses and in communities, encourage activism, and facilitate networking with organizations that work for peace and justice, we are making a series of new resources available for use. They are totally free, so they fit your budget! These resources include a Virtual Speakers Bureau, short videos in the Liberating History series, and a syllabus on sanctions.
H-PAD launched its Virtual Speakers Bureau in March 2021. Forty outstanding professional historians, activists, and independent scholars have volunteered to speak to classes, campuses, community-based groups, and other organizations. No honorarium is required or expected, just a mutually-agreed-upon date, time, and topic. The presentations can be tailored to meet both parties’ interests, expertise, convenience, and needs. H-PAD has organized speakers bureaus in the past, but the current widespread use of video conferencing technology allows us to extend the invitation beyond our own locales to include organizations across the United States and around the world. If you would like to learn about the speakers and how to invite them, please click here.
The new Sanctions Syllabus was developed by Renate Bridenthal, Molly Nolan, and Prasannan Parthasarathi, three members of the H-PAD Empire Working Group. It dissects “economic sanctions – their forms, legality, and effectiveness, their history across the twentieth century and their current deployment, as well as blowback from and resistance to them.” The syllabus offers definitions, examples, and links to a wealth of articles, books, and films. It examines the use and impact of sanctions against Cuba, Venezuela, Iraq, Iran, Russia, China, apartheid South Africa, and Israel, with a particular discussion of the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. To access the syllabus, click here.
We’ve recently expanded into video and audio production, too. Our Liberating History series features lightning video lectures of 3-4 minutes. In “Black Panthers Against Patriarchy,” Robyn Spencer discusses why so many Black women saw the Black Panther Party as a place of feminist empowerment. In another new episode, Prasannan Parthasarathi puts “India’s Far Right in Historical Perspective,” explaining its origins in the country’s caste system and the ideology of Hindu nationalism. And be sure to check out our earlier Liberating History episodes as well: Irene Gendzier on the roots of Trump’s Middle East policy, Donna Murch on crack and mass incarceration, and Ellen Schrecker on McCarthyism past and present.
We encourage you to use, and share, these resources. At H-PAD we believe in using history to empower people to confront systems of hierarchy and oppression. If you’d like to collaborate in making that happen, please join us!
[Margaret Power is Historians for Peace and Democracy (H-PAD) co-chair and teaches history at Illinois Institute of Technology. Kevin Young is on the H-PAD executive committee and teaches history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. HPAD is a member organization dedicated to defending civil liberties, opposing misinformation, and challenging militarism.]
Photo Concern, Inc.
Offset, 1988
Arlington, VA
6011
In 2009, March 31st became International Transgender Day of Visibility. In 2014, March 31st became Cesar Chavez Day. By using one poster to acknowledge the two too-often separate movements, we want to show that it is not only possible, but quite necessary, for every movement for social justice to support and embrace all movements for social justice.
Cesar Chavez was known to be very homophobic*, yet in CSPG’s Poster of the Week he is shown at the front of the 1987 March on Washington for Gay and Lesbian Rights (The Acronym LGBTQ wasn’t used until the 1990s). Chavez learned, grew, and changed.
International Transgender Day of Visibility is not to be confused with—and was created as a response to—Transgender Day of Remembrance (November 20th) which memorializes those who have been murdered as a result of transphobia. In contrast, ITDV acknowledges and celebrates living members of the transgender community.
Movements change and grow. Individuals change and grow. And the role of art is to educate and encourage change, as well as help provide direction.
Resource:
*Matthew Garcia, From the Jaws of Victory: The Triumph and Tragedy of Cesar Chavez and the Farm Worker Movement
Center for the Study of Political Graphics
3916 Sepulveda Blvd, Suite 103
Culver City, CA 90230
New Labor Resource - Who Gets the Bird?
Who Gets the Bird? is a newsletter about the US union movement, with a weekly roundup of all the new organizing, strike activity, contract negotiations, internal politics, and legislative and political action going on in the labor movement. The project aims to give a clear view of what American unions are doing, why they're doing it, and why it matters. You can subscribe for free (or donation) at whogetsthebird.substack.com
At Labor's Bookstore, you can find new and used copies of labor-related books for unions, stewards and members, that you may not be able to find elsewhere. Everything from practical titles to the hard-to-find, out-of-print. Our inventory is ever-changing and rapidly expanding, so check back often! And don't forget to sign up for our email list to be the first to know about new inventory!
Labor’s Bookstore has its roots in the former Union Communication Services (UCS), founded by David Prosten. Here at Labor’s Bookstore we are proud to publish many of the titles formerly carried by UCS: The Union Steward’s Complete Guide, Steward’s Pocket Reference & Diary, Contract Costing for Union Negotiators, and Parliamentary Procedure and Effective Union Meetings. Additionally, we carry several publications produced by Hardball Press and offer a wide variety of previously-read books at very affordable prices.
Labor’s Bookstore aims to provide union leaders and other activists with resources that will better enable them to serve their members and communities. We are a small business and would welcome your comments as we look to serve you!
ALL "PREVIOUSLY READ" BOOKS ARE IN LIKE-NEW CONDITION AS SEEN IN ACTUAL COVER IMAGES, UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED IN THE DESCRIPTION. ALL SALES FINAL
Labor's Bookstore
P.O. Box 67927
Rochester, NY 14617
info@laborsbookstore.com
Call or Text: 585-672-7046
Fighting the Far Right in the US: News From the Frontline - April 10 (transform! Europe)
Defeating Trump was only the beginning. The struggle against the Far-right remains an urgent necessity. Despite the recent elections, American political landscape is not free of "Trumpism".
The character retains the support of tens of millions of fervent and dedicated supporters, but also of many neo-liberal and conservative organizations, as well as several media outlets, such as Fox News or Breitbart News. Moreover, the ingredients that made Trump's success in 2016 possible are still there: hostility to immigrants, racial animosity, the despise of the educated elite towards the working classes, and the now widespread feeling that globalization has served the interests of multinationals and the upper classes to the detriment of the majority.
"Trumpism" is a complicated political ideology. It is a blend of mainstream and far right forces and politics, of elitism and populism, insider and outsider, creating a hybrid that challenges democracies in fundamental ways. As progressive forces, we have to revisit our conceptualizations and our classifications to understand it and defeat it.
From the stories of the movements which resisted Trump, as told by those on the front lines, this webinar will draw the lines of this "new" type of Far-right and how it shakes the US political order.
Their struggles and analysis will also be an opportunity to take some broader conclusions that can feed European strategies against Far-right.
Saturday, 10th April 2021
18:00 - 19:30pm (CET)
via Zoom
Languages: English and French
Opening
Gala Kabbaj, facilitator of working group on Strategies Against the Radical, Far and Populist Right of transform! europe
Introduction and Moderation:
Marga Ferré, co-President of transform! europe
Speakers
Kristian Hernandez
Member of Demoratic Socialists of America's National, Political Committee
Matthew N. Lyons
Author of Insurgent Supremacists: The U.S. Far Right's Challenge to State and Empire
Kazembe Balagun
Project manager at Rosa Luxemburg Foundation and BLM activist
transform! europe
Square de Meeûs 25
1000 Brussels
Belgium
Coordination office, Vienna
Gusshausstrasse 14/3
1040 Vienna
Austria
Phone: +43 (0)1 504 66 86
Fax: +43 (0)1 2533 033 2683
Email: office@transform-network.net
Keep The Promise Teach-ins - April 18, 21, 25 and May 6 - (RAICES)
Last month RAICES launched the Keep the Promise campaign. The Keep the Promise campaign seeks to keep our Democratic leaders accountable for their decades-long promise to the immigrant community and demands that they use every tool at their disposal to protect and uplift immigrant communities.
But before we take action we believe it’s critical to share background and context on how we got here and why Keep the Promise is needed at this moment. RAICES will be hosting teach-ins to discuss why it’s up to us to keep the fight to demand that democratic elected officials keep their promise and use every tool, congressional and executive to to give our immigrant community the right to live without fear and abolish the filibuster.
Over the next few weeks we’ll be hosting a series of Teach-ins to dissect this moment and share our strategy to win. Whether you are new to the movement or have been a part of it for years we hope you can join us for an upcoming Keep The Promise Teach-in.
Register for a Keep the Promise Teach-in below
Note: You only have to register for one date. All teach-ins will review the same information.
April 18, 2021 at 6:00pmCT →
April 21, 2021 at 8:00pmCT →
April 25, 2021 at 5:00pmCT →
May 6, 2021 at 8:00pmCT →
If you are unable to attend any of the webinars but would still like to stay in the loop with the campaign please sign our Pledge of Accountability.
In the coming months we will be asking you and other RAICES supporters to rise to the movement in front of us and take action to ensure Democratic leaders use the power voters gave them to enact change. We’ve always said that our work wouldn’t end with the removal of the previous anti-immigrant administration. We said we would need you to join us to push and demand more of the new administration and soon we will be needing your support. Now is the time. We hope we can count on your support.
We hope you can join us.
In solidarity,
Erika Andiola, Chief Advocacy Officer
RAICES
RAICES
1305 N. Flores
San Antonio, TX 78212
Join us for a public, virtual gathering this Spring on building a new social compact for social, racial, and economic justice. Titled, “Constructing a New Social Compact: A Public Forum on Empowering the Post-Pandemic Working Class,” this multi-day gathering will bring together activists, academics, faith leaders, policy experts, global labor activists, workers, philanthropists, labor organizations, elected leaders and others to analyze, evaluate, and propose next-gen solutions for the intersectional issues affecting working people’s lives in a post-pandemic world. Meet our dynamic organizing committee here.
For forty years, workers and their allies have fought to hold their ground or to win incremental changes that would do little to address structural economic, racial and gender injustices. The next few years will be determinative ones. We call on activists, scholars, non-profits, policy organizations, allies, philanthropic organizations, elected leaders and others to join the dialogue on a new social compact and building a more just and inclusive world.
Register for the convening featuring Sharan Burrow, General Secretary of the ITUC, Sara Nelson, president of AFA-CWA, Ai-jen Poo, director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Erica Smiley, Executive Director of Jobs with Justice, Catherine Coleman-Flowers, director of the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice, Chris Lu, former Deputy Secretary of Labor, Sarita Gupta, director of the Ford Foundation’s Future of Work(ers), and Fatima Goss Graves, president National Women’s Law Center, among others.
The coronavirus pandemic, alongside ongoing changes in capitalism, has upended the world’s economy and thrown into sharp relief the systemic racial, gender and class inequalities that were embedded in the New Deal-based social compact. What world do we want to create in the pandemic’s wake? This convening will envision and advance a new social compact that centers working people and their communities over calls for austerity. All are invited to participate in this important conversation.
Register here. Registration is free.
Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor
209 Maguire Hall
Georgetown University 37th and O Streets NW
Washington, DC 20057
Phone: (202) 687-2293
Email: kilwp@georgetown.edu
May Day is coming with workers in motion around the globe! With roots in the U.S. nearly 150 years ago, May Day ties the fights of workers in the past to our battles today. Observe May Day by dipping into some films about working women who built movements in the 1930s and 1970s and who have lessons for us now. Brought to you by Academy Award winning labor documentarian Julia Reichert.
Union Maids (1976, 48min)-- is the story of three women who lived through the 1930s, a landmark period for the American labor movement. The film is the first of its kind–an oral history, using a wealth of footage from the National Archives to chronicle the fight to form industrial unions as seen through the eyes of rank and file women.
9to5: The Story of a Movement (2020, 86min)-- When Dolly Parton sang “9 to 5,” she was singing the true story of a movement that started with a group of Boston secretaries in the early 1970s. Their goals were basic—better pay, more advancement opportunities and an end to sexual harassment—but their unconventional approach attracted the press and changed the American workplace.
To receive free screening links on May Day, send a request to:
Ben Evory (Office of Julia Reichert) evory.benjamin@gmail.com
Links good only on May 1-2, 2021
Metro New York Labor Communications Council - 45th Annual Convention - May 11
SAVE THE DATE! REGISTRATION NOW OPEN
Join us on Tuesday, May 11 at 10am for our Annual Convention.
Bill Fletcher, Jr. will be presented with the Communicator of the Year award: followed by a panel on Race and Labor; Metro contest winners will be announced; and there will be a Metro Board election.
The event is free. Registration is required. You can register today.
Metro NY Labor Communications Council
Affiliated with the International Labor Communications Association, AFL-CIO/CLC