Jesse Jackson, UAW President Bob King organize Detroit March for Jobs

 By David Green

Over 10, 000 Detroiters marched down Washington Boulevard from the UAW-Ford National Programs Center to Grand Circus Park on Saturday, August 28^th to demand jobs, peace, and justice. The march was organized by United Auto Workers (UAW) President Bob King and Operation PUSH founder and director Reverend Jesse Jackson. It commemorated the 47^th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s March on Washington.
The dais at Grand Circus Park was teeming with dignitaries—politicians, clergy of every denomination, and union leaders. Among the elected officials present were Representatives John Conyers, Jr., John Dingell, Maxine Waters, and Marcy Kaptur and Senator Debbie Stabenow. Michigan Democratic Party gubernatorial nominee Virg Bernero briefly addressed the audience and committed himself to placing the interests of Main Street over those of Wall Street. Among the union leaders who spoke were UAW President Bob King, newly-elected President of the Service Employees International Union Mary Kay Henry, Farm Laborers Organizing Committee President Baldemar Velasquez, and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Council 25 President Al Garrett.

Immigration control policy

Border Security+Immigration Policing = Humanitarian Crisis

President Obama's signing into law the "Southwest Border Security Bill" last week signaled the beginning of the latest phase of U.S. militarization of immigration control and border communities. The new bill provides an additional $600 million to deploy 1,500 new Border Patrol agents and law enforcement officials along the border, as well as two aerial surveillance drones. President Obama is also sending 1200 National Guard troops to patrol the border.

View the Democracy Now! interview with Arnoldo Garcia, director of NNIRR's Immigrant Justice & Rights Program, on the Southwest Border Security bill and the devastating impacts of border militarization 

As President Obama signed the bill, Janet Napolitano, head of the Department of Homeland Security, announced the extension of "Secure Communities," the federal immigration-police collaboration program, into the the entire U.S. Southwest.

Meet Eliseo Medina

by Harold Myerson. The American Prospect.

In the wake of the resignation last week of Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger, Mary Kay Henry, the new president of the Service Employees International Union, sent a memo last Friday to members of SEIU's International Executive Board announcing that she intends to nominate Executive Vice President Eliseo Medina to Burger's former post, the second highest in the union, at SEIU's board meeting in Los Angeles next month. It is a certainty that the board will ratify Henry's choice.

An SEIU executive vice president since 1996, Medina is the labor movement's foremost champion of immigrant rights. In 1999, he spearheaded the successful campaign to get the AFL-CIO to reverse its longtime opposition to immigrant workers. Over the past 15 years, he has also conceived and coordinated SEIU's efforts to naturalize, register, and turn out the votes of new immigrants in California -- a campaign that helped turn America's largest state solidly Democratic -- and has recently been involved in similar campaigns in Southwestern states. He played a leading role in the unionization and contract victories of immigrant janitors in California, and in SEIU's groundbreaking unionization of janitors in Houston. Medina also was a key negotiator on behalf of labor in the immigration-reform deliberations with the Bush administration, a leader in Hispanic voter mobilization efforts for Barack Obama in 2008, and one of the foremost advocates for comprehensive immigration reform -- and against the Obama administration's stepped-up deportations of immigrants -- during the past two years.

As a union that represents the largely immigrant janitors in the downtowns in many of the nation's largest cities, SEIU has played an outsize role in the immigration battles of the past 15 years. Medina has functioned externally as the union's leading public spokesperson on the issue and internally as its chief strategist and advocate for stepped-up involvement. At the board meeting this June where Henry was elected president following the resignation of longtime President Andy Stern, the union, at Medina's behest, committed itself to fund and wage the kind of registration and get-out-the-vote campaign in Arizona that Medina had headed up in California. The campaign that Medina has put together in Arizona mobilizes SEIU and eight other groups, employing 40 full-time canvassers, to turn out roughly 120,000 Hispanic infrequent voters this November.

In her memo to the board, Henry highlighted Medina's previous work with her in unionizing Southern California hospitals and his ability to wage fast-moving campaigns and to plan long-term campaigns as well.

Service Employees International  Vice President, Eliseo Medina, speaks to  a crowd of over 100 on the Capitol Steps in Sacramento  on August 17, 2010, as they complete phase I of the campaign,  For our Families: Todas A Votar.

The campaign organized by several unions including SEIU, the California Teachers Association, and others  traveled to by bus to some 9 cities in the state,  from San Diego to Sacramento to initiate a the voter registration  campaign in each of these areas.    

   In Sacramento Assembly Speaker Perez and some 8 members of the Latino caucus joined labor and religious groups to welcome the caravan to the state capitol. 

 In cooperation with unions and community groups, the campaign will be  providing offices and registration efforts  in each of the 9 cities in targeting thousands of new Latino voters.

"For Latinos, the election of 2010 is more than just  choose one candidate or another, it's about taking a role  active, more than ever, in decisions that affect  our families and create a better future for our

children and grandchildren, "said Eliseo Medina, vice president

of SEIU. "We have the potential to influence the elections and  Now this is where our voices must be heard.”

More deaths on the border

NNIRR Statement on "Southwest Border Security Bill"

Obama and Congress increase border militarization, ensuring more migrant deaths and rights abuses

(Oakland, CA) Earlier today President Obama signed a new bill authorizing an additional $600 million to increase border security, strengthening a deadly border militarization strategy. Tragically, this move will surely increase the number of migrants who perish at the U.S.-Mexico border and teh bill contributes nothing to ensuring the safety and rights of migrants and border communities.

The new bill promises to enhance controversial immigration-police collaboration and places more military technology, including surveillance drones, on the border. An additional 1,000 Border Patrol officers, 250 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and 250 Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents will be hired. These increments do not include Obama's recent announcement of the deployment of another 1200 National Guard troops to patrol the border in Arizona.

The Coalicion de Derechos Humanos (CDH), based in Tucson, AZ, reports that the remains of 214 migrantshave been recovered as of July 31, 2010, on the Arizona stretch of the border alone, more than was recorded last year. Two months remain in this fiscal year before the final tally of migrant deaths is complete.

As many as 8,000 migrant dead have been recovered on the U.S.-Mexico border since the U.S. government's current "prevention through deterrence" strategy was implemented in 1994. Human rights groups working to prevent migrant deaths and abuses on the border believe that for every migrant dead found at least ten others are missing in the desert.

Latino Voter Mobilization

Haiti: Job offer

2010 July Haiti Journal #10

Sweat Shops at 200g a day ($5US)

July 28, 2010 (delayed)

Job Offer In Haiti: Must be a highly motivated woman to assemble electronic components, able to read and write, and pass a logic/math test. You will arrive at 6:45am check in with fingerprint ID. You will work 8 hours and clock out for lunch. You will be handed a food coupon that is good on only the day of issue (value is 8g or four cents US). You may use the coupon toward your purchase of lunch at the company lunch counter. However the cheapest meal there is 23g, without any meat of course…that would be extra.

The cheapest form of public transportation will take you at least one hour to get to work, and two hours going home. That will cost you 5g to 7g depending on the price of gas (each way).

The net result is that you will be at work 9 hours (with no talking) and spend three hours in transportation. Since you are a woman, after being gone those 12 hours, you will shop each day (no electricity for refrigeration) and cook breakfast and dinner for your family over an open charcoal stove. You will do all the family laundry, kill, pluck and dress the chicken, haul water and purify it, while making sure your children are freshly scrubbed twice a day.

For this work you will bring home 1000g salary each week, less the 50g for the taptap (an overcrowded bed of an open truck), then deduct 75g for lunch. This means you will bring home 875g a week, or a little less than $90US a month.

Since you will also have to buy food, work clothes, laundry soap and charcoal as well as the $100US for your four room unfurnished house…you must also sell small candies on the street after dark and take in the neighbor’s wash.

Then, since you will still don’t have enough money for utilities, you send your oldest son out to climb the telephone pole and cut into the high voltage wire.

Arizona students to be deported

Please spread this to supporters. Saludos Companer@s, The last five months have been intense. Along with working collaboratively with you on the resistance against racism we have created and continue to develop on the ground grassroots organizing with families in the barrio and we continue to develop protection networks for undocumented families. There is more work to do and we welcome that challenge because we know we stand side by side with you. For now TYLO is sharpening our focus, stepping back for reflection after the last months and evaluating for our future work. This week we are doing internal work to prepare for the future and supporting one of our youth members through our protection network. As you all know on of our community members Nancy family members is in ICE detention. He was handed over to Border Patrol and then ICE after a minor traffic stop by Pima County Sheriffs. He is currently in a CCA/ICE prison in Florence. The family is in grief but standing strong. Many of you know Nancy and her family is protected under our protection network. TYLO is supporting Nancy's family with immediate economic help as well as mobilizing for bail. The bail hearing with the ICE judge is Wednesday, August 12 in the morning. We need to raise $5,000 in bail. We have raised $2,000 dollars already and we are working on raising the rest. We need your help! Can you donate? Mobilize others to donate? Organize a fundraising dinner? Or hold another creative fundraising event please do. Everything will help. We have to raise the remaining 3,000 dollars by Tuesday, August 10. We really need your help! Mailing Info: Checks can be written to: Barrio Sustainability Project – TYLO They can be mailed to: Centro Tierra Y Libertad, 3649 S. 7th Ave. Tucson, AZ 85713 Deposit Info: Chase Bank Account Name: Barrio Sustainability Project - TYLO Bank Account Number: 2940170679

Phoenix Rising- Resistance

I've written a lot about Arizona since the national controversy over SB 1070 took hold, and in particular during recent weeks as the struggle over the bill's implications and ultimate fate began to reach a fever pitch. This focus is not accidental by any means; I've lived in Arizona for fifteen years, and I care deeply about the causes of social justice reflected in the debate over immigration. What I've seen here during this time, and especially over the past few days, indicates to me that we are on the cusp of something truly extraordinary. As the creeping fascism of immigrant-bashing becomes starkly evident, people are starting to move from protest to solidarity, and from fear to determination.

Obviously the immigration issue is one that arouses people's passions, sometimes leading to intense vitriol being displayed on both sides, but in particular by those who recite paradoxical slogans like "What part of illegal don't you understand?" Folks in this camp take great pains to assert that "it's not about race," and that people like myself are advocating an "open borders" philosophy that will lead the nation to ruin. Proponents of Arizona's "attrition through enforcement" approach to the issue (as epitomized by SB 1070) often argue that illegal immigrants are taking American jobs, draining social services, and causing violent crime to rise. They assert, in short, that we need to build a wall and build it high, with "us" firmly on this side of it and all of "them" shipped back to the other side where they belong.

Lo siento, amigos. Your arguments are nonsensical, and are missing the larger point. People will come here no matter how high you build that wall, because we've dumped our toxic corporations and immiserating economic policies on the other side, from which most of us would flee as well. People will come here because they have family members here (legally) and want to be united with them. People will come because these are, in many cases, their ancestral homelands and part of their cultural heritage. People will come for the same reasons that our ancestors came, legally or otherwise.

Community groups blast Arizona SB 1070

U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton's ruling yesterday temporarily halting select provisions ofArizona's SB1070 is a good start towards defeating the controversial legislation. Unfortunately, the ruling leaves intact the status quo of anti-immigrant racial profiling and immigration-police collaboration, setting the groundwork for heightened harassment and arrests of immigrants.

U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton's ruling yesterday temporarily halting select provisions ofArizona's SB1070 is a good start towards defeating the controversial legislation. Unfortunately, the ruling leaves intact the status quo of anti-immigrant racial profiling and immigration-police collaboration, setting the groundwork for heightened harassment and arrests of immigrants.

Judge Temporarily Blocks Provisions of SB1070

The ruling let stand a section on day laborers in which police will be allowed to charge persons with "harboring and transporting" immigrants who have no valid immigration documents.

Eliseo Medina on Arizona's anti immigrant movement

Eliseo Medina at Netroots Nation: Unite to Defeat anti-immigrant, anti-Hispanic movements from Talking Union on Vimeo.
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Eliseo Medina, international vice president of the Service Employees International Union, spoke at a panel on “civil rights in the modern era” at the just concluded Netroots Nation convention in Las Vegas.  Medina reviewed the impact of Arizona’s SB 1070.

Medina is an honorary chair of Democratic Socialists of America and was the 2004 recipient of Chicago DSA’s Debs-Thomas-Harrington Award.  He was described by the Los Angeles Times as “one of the most successful labor organizers in the country” and was named one of the “Top 50 Most Powerful Latino Leaders” in Poder Magazine. He is currently leading the Service Employees International Union‘s efforts to achieve comprehensive immigration reform that “rebuilds the nation’s economy, secures equal labor- and civil-rights protections for workers to improve their wages and work conditions and provides legal channels and a path to citizenship.”  He  played a leading role in the effort to unite the unions of the Change to Win federation and AFL-CIO around a comprehensive framework for reform.

Judge blocks part of Arizona law- cites U.S. constitution

By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD

PHOENIX — A federal judge, ruling on a clash between the federal government and a state over immigration policy, has blocked the most controversial parts of Arizona’s immigration enforcement law from going into effect.

In a ruling on a law that has rocked politics coast to coast and thrown a spotlight on the border state’s fierce debate over immigration, United States District Court Judge Susan Bolton in Phoenix said some aspects of the law can go into effect as scheduled on Thursday.

The parts of the law that the judge blocked included the sections that called for officers to check a person’s immigration status while enforcing other laws and that required immigrants to carry their papers at all times. Judge Bolton put those sections on hold until the issues are resolved by the courts.

The judge’s decision, which came as demonstrators opposed and supporting the law gathered here and after three hearings in the past two weeks in which she peppered lawyers on both sides with skeptical questions, seemed unlikely to quell the debate.

Leisa's Journal #4. Haiti today

Dear Friends,

A little before 9 a.m. this morning, boy’s voices chanted a loud lilting response to Wallnes’ insistent drum calling us to Sunday service. Out on the roof of St. Joseph’s make-shift home for street boys there was standing-room only on the already sun baked deck overlooking the pit. (The pit is all that marks the spot where St. Joseph’s stood before the earthquake). The interfaith service was a mix of faith traditions with a vibrant Haitian cadence. Most prayers were sung (which my son Luke really liked). Most hearts seemed touched. Then one clear, young sweet voice swept through the air like breeze itself…fresh and inviting. After a solitary chorus, a softened duomo drum joined in. Gradually we all joined in. And despite the baking heat, we somehow felt refreshed for being allowed to be a part of it.

It was hard to imagine then the down pour that soaked our freshly stomped laundry this afternoon. We had just slopped our clean our laundry between two tubs of precious well water when the storm hit…at least we didn’t have to waste water rinsing…we simply let the rain rinse our clothes on the line. Hopefully, next morning will bring a fresh sunny breeze.

Tonight, Jim, the amputee rehab therapist on our team spiked a 103 fever and our clinic’s doctor was stranded across a rain-swollen river which isn’t expected to resend until early morning...his phone and our Haiti phone both gave out. Lucky for Jim, we were able to treat his high blood pressure, fever and other symptoms by calling our U.S. doctor consultant and by tapping in a bit to the donated drugs we are going to deliver to The Lamp Cite Soleil Clinic.

Tomorrow, I will interview three more children at the clinic.

The last time I did interviews, one little boy minded me of a Haitian Huckleberry Finn. He was squirming around in the high-back chair belted snugly into one-size-too-big, perfectly clean and pressed clothes that looked like they were actually causing him physical pain. When I told him he was almost done, he finally began to relax. One of the last questions we asked was, “If you won the lottery, what would you buy?”

“Spoons. I would buy spoons for my mother’s kitchen.”

Sort of puts things into perspective when a child’s greatest wish is for his mother to have spoons in her kitchen.

We are finding so many needs…

Please remember it is not too late to make a pledge by replying to this email, or better yet…you can donate online at our blog:

http://coalitionfordemocracyinhaiti.blogspot.com/

Peace, always and all ways…leisa

Mexico labor solidarity

Mexico was the focus of the Saturday July 10 luncheon session at the LabourStart Global Solidarity Conference. The two speakers were uniquely qualified to address the growing repression of union under the government of Felipe Calderón.

Mexican Unions Fight Repression with International Solidarity from Talking Union on Vimeo.

Benedicto Martinez Orozco is a Co-president of the Frente Auténtico del Trabajois Translating is Robin Alexander, International Affairs Director of the UE. (We will post Alexander’s remarks later in the week.)

The Authentic Workers’ Front or Frente Auténtico del Trabajo (FAT) is an independent federation of labor unions, worker owned cooperatives, and farmworker and community organizations. A women’s network operates within all of the FAT’s sectors and as part of the leadership.

For more on the FAT, read this from the UE.

For the latest on labor in Mexico, Talking Union recommends Dan Labotz’s Mexican Labor News & Analysis

Farmworkers seek overtime protection in Sacramento

Farmworkers seek overtime protection

Several dozen farm laborers marched to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office today to deliver a bill requiring overtime pay equity for farmworkers.

Sen. Dean Florez, a Democrat from Shafter and the author of Senate Bill 1121, led the crowd down the steps from his third floor office inside the Capitol.

Florez was also joined by United Farm Workers president Arturo Rodriguez and Monsignor James Murphy from Sacramento's Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament. The crowd knelt and prayed outside the governor's first-floor office, then delivered the official copy of the bill to Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear.

Florez's bill would lift a 1941 exemption in state labor code that excludes farmworkers from getting overtime pay after an eight-hour day or a 40-hour week. The more than a half-million farmworkers in California now get overtime pay only after 10 hours of work in one day or a 60-hour week.

Schwarzenegger has 12 days from today to sign or veto the bill. Agricultural interests are pressuring him to veto it, arguing that employers will cut workers' hours to avoid overtime during long harvest days.

"We're talking about (the governor) taking what might be called a 'profile in courage' choice," Florez said at a news conference in his office before going down the stairs.

Read more: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/#ixzz0uGuz6EVw

Day of Action. July 29

NNIRR calls on members, partners, allies and friends tojoin in a national day of actions against SB1070, the Arizona anti-immigrant racial profiling law this July 29. SB1070 can be stopped by demanding and organizing for justice and human rights for all!

NNIRR is urging the Obama Administration to use all resources at its disposal to stop SB1070 -- and to end ALL immigration-police collaboration.

SB1070 is set to go into effect on July 29, giving Arizona police the power to stop and arrest anyone they suspect of being undocumented. The Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit against SB1070 to declare it unconstitutional; the DOJ is arguing that the state law usurps federal powers to regulate immigration.

Arizona community groups and their partners are leading dynamic efforts to oppose SB1070 and are organizing diverse actions andcampaigns like "Move the Game" to expose and build pressure to stop the hateful law.

Milbank- Arizona governor has lost her head

By Dana Milbank

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Jan Brewer has lost her head.

The Arizona governor, seemingly determined to repel every last tourist dollar from her pariah state, has sounded a new alarm about border violence. "Our law enforcement agencies have found bodies in the desert either buried or just lying out there that have been beheaded," she announced on local television.

Ay, caramba! Those dark-skinned foreigners are now severing the heads of fair-haired Americans? Maybe they're also scalping them or shrinking them or putting them on a spike.

But those in fear of losing parts north of the neckline can relax. There's not a follicle of evidence to support Brewer's claim.

The Arizona Guardian Web site checked with medical examiners in Arizona's border counties, and the coroners said they had never seen an immigration-related beheading. I called and e-mailed Brewer's press office requesting documentation of decapitation; no reply.

Brewer's mindlessness about headlessness is just one of the immigration falsehoods being spread by Arizona politicians. Border violence on the rise? Phoenix becoming the world's No. 2 kidnapping capital? Illegal immigrants responsible for most police killings? The majority of those crossing the border are drug mules? All wrong.

This matters, because it means the entire premise of the Arizona immigration law is a fallacy. Arizona officials say they've had to step in because federal officials aren't doing enough to stem increasing border violence. The scary claims of violence, in turn, explain why the American public supports the Arizona crackdown.

Who is a citizen?

The U.S. Constitution.

Amendment 14 - Citizenship Rights. Ratified 7/9/1868.1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Nativo Lopez arrested - again

If my father's case would have taken it's previous course his next court hearing would have been July 12, 2010 at 8:30am in Department 36 of the Los Angeles Superior court in front of Commissioner Kristi Lousteau, but earlier this week he was notified via fax by the imposed public pretender that the Los Angeles, District Attorney, Steve Cooley wanted to move forward with a Grand Jury indictment, which was granted the next day. He was ordered to surrender on the indictment today and heard before Judge Patricia M. Schnegg this morning. The direct orders from his court appointed and imposed public pretender were bring a bondsman, attorney and be present or an arrest warrant will be issued.

It's no mystery to me now why I woke up this morning with extreme pain in my heart and tears rolling down my face I had no recollection of what I had dreamt all I knew was that I felt horrible. Being that I have always been extremely close to my father and a direct witness to his many years of dedication and self-sacrifice to our society for the betterment of and for workers, immigrants, and students and for this I believe he is being targeted and bullied into the court system. One of the millions maybe even billions of victims of the courts tactics of bullying and intimidation by the forced attempts of submission to their jurisdiction and order.

This isn't the first time my family has gone through this and ironically the California Secretary of State has been involved in both matters. I had never so clearly witnessed how corrupt and volatile of a supposed justice system we face in this country, but this experience has opened my eyes to the way so many of our brown and black brothers and sisters are passed through the courts as if they were cattle for profit and indeed they are. The system is to the point of ruin and manifests itself as a big charade of Judge, District Attorney, Public Defender, and Bailiff (and in my father's case at some instances more then three or four Bailiffs), all working together to pass the cattle through with explicit and consistent violations of 14th amendment procedural due process rights.

Another Immigration policy is possible

ANOTHER IMMIGRATION POLICY IS POSSIBLE!
By David Bacon
Truthout Report
http://www.truth-out.org/another-immigration-policy-is-possible60995 

        Thousands of leftwing activists just spent a week at the US Social Forum in Detroit, gathered again under the banner "Another World is Possible!"  Among them hundreds added a new subtext:  "Another Immigration Policy is Possible!"

        This theme was especially popular among grassroots organizations in immigrant communities.  Today non-traditional worker centers are spreading across the US, including ones for day laborers, domestic workers, farm workers and other low-wage immigrants.  Most are Spanish-speaking migrants from Mexico and Central America, but many also come from the Philippines, India, Pakistan, China and the Caribbean.
    If anyone should be in favor of immigration reform, these groups should be.  Yet instead of embracing the proposals made in Washington by Representative Luis Gutierrez and Senator Charles Schumer, they reject them. 
        The Social Forum was over by the time President Barack Obama made a speech about immigration policy a week later, but the forum's message could as easily have been given to him as well.  There are no significant differences between Obama's ideas and those of Gutierrez and Schumer.
       These grassroots groups don't like the proposals for new guest worker programs.  They have been fighting raids, firings and increased immigration enforcement for years, and are angry that the Washington proposals all make enforcement heavier.  They want the border demilitarized.  And they believe any rational immigration reform must change US trade policies that displace people in other countries.