https://archive.ph/2ZF93

Customers have generally been friendly to union backers, gladly taking leaflets to learn why Starbucks workers need a union. That was the case at an action organized by a Case Western Reserve University student at a store near campus in Cleveland.

In an email sent to supporters, SBWU stated: “Right now, delegates from nearly 500 union stores are bargaining with the company to upgrade our pay, benefits, scheduling and much more. Just this week workers at the SR 535 and Vistana Centre in Orlando became the 494th store to join the union. And it’s not too early for allies to help us celebrate store 500!”

The union expects to win more elections before the end of September — enough to bring the total number of union Starbucks stores to more than 500!

Civil disobedience targeted the bans on sound amplification equipment and on using sidewalk chalk.

One of the higher-ranking university police officers attempted to confiscate the sound equipment but was blocked by three of the protest marshals. He quickly retreated and was given orders to observe only. The contingent marched to two high traffic locations on campus, where messages supporting Palestine and condemning the university administration were chalked onto sidewalks, concrete planters and brick walls.

This demonstration is part of a series of actions protesting the new university policies and the SUNY system’s ties to [neocolonialism].

Demonstration organizers said the Indian Island depot is the largest shipper of war munitions on the West Coast, with big Navy ships like the U.S. Nimitz regularly shipping an endless flow of weapons for U.S. wars.

This wasn’t the first anti-war protest at Indian Island, and there will surely be more.

Amid the constant stream of supportive honks by drivers passing by, strike captain Dan Peterson said: “In Portland, we are 1,244 strong, and I’m proud of each one of us. We do the hard stuff, working with the hard metal machines. We expect Boeing to negotiate a fair contract. What they’ve offered us so far is a slap in the face. We will be here until they do.”

Peterson added: “They expect us to work a lot of overtime we don’t always want to do. We want them to stop mandatory overtime.” He said workers are fighting for better wages, benefits and safety from a company that has been making critical errors, critical mistakes and blaming the workers for it.

Scott, a striker, said: “Boeing is not negotiating. We’ve only gotten a 4% increase in the last decade. We’re getting the same benefits and wages we’ve gotten for the last 16 years.”

One activist out with the strikers works inside the Boeing plant with other members of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA). They are not on strike but are walking the picket lines in support of the machinists.

Sally, Scott’s spouse, said the families will be standing beside the strikers the whole way.

“We have the working class on our side,” said another striker. “We’ve had a ton of support from the community, other unions and union officials.”

IAM International President Brian Bryant spoke to the strikers at a large rally on Sept. 19 outside of Boeing’s facility in Portland. He told the audience: “They need to come to the table with an offer that truly reflects what our members need, what their workers need, and that’s something that makes up for the 10 years of wage stagnation, the 10 years of a loss of a pension, 10 years of the continuous increase in health insurance costs.” (kgw.com, Sept. 19)

At the rally, Oregon AFL-CIO President Graham Trainor told the strikers, “Now, it’s time for Boeing [executives] to stop listening to the 50th floor and start listening to the factory floor, and settle a fair contract!” National AFL-CIO President Liz Schuler has also expressed support.

Scott said the strike has increased the solidarity the workers at Boeing already had. It has strengthened the whole community. It helps other workers in our class and the community at large.

After Khalaf appealed the discriminatory expulsion and related discipline, a hearing was held in August. There, Jewish students and community members challenged the university narrative equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism. Nevertheless, the CWRU administration upheld its original decision. The one victory was that all of Khalaf’s tuition and housing payments were refunded.

In addition to being barred from taking classes during the fall semester, Khalaf was notified on Sept. 9 that he had two days to remove his belongings from campus housing. He is persona non grata, meaning he cannot be present on school property. If he enrolls for the Spring 2025 semester, he will be on probation for one year.

The punishment also includes an insulting requirement that Khalaf submit an “introspective essay” on “how you can use civility, civil discourse and advocacy efforts to enact dialogic outcomes and productive, progressive change.”

If it was possible to simply convince school administrations to divest from […] apartheid, none of the encampments on scores of campuses would have even been necessary!

As they have done since last semester’s encampment, students and supporters chanted loudly: “Disclose! Divest! We will not stop, we will not rest!”

Manfred Nowak, the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on Torture, said he was shocked after reading a report on Rotenberg by Mental Disability Rights International in 2010. (tinyurl.com/5da96ffr) The 67-page report was titled: “Torture not Treatment: Electric Shock and Long-Term Restraint in the United States on Children and Adults with Disabilities at the Judge Rotenberg Center; Urgent Appeal to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture.”

As the U.N. report shows, Rotenberg has used shock treatments known as GED or graduated electronic decelerator treatment for decades, and this is linked to the deaths of six children. One child, Andre McCollins, was shocked and tortured over 30 times, because he refused to take off his coat. His mother, Cheryl McCollins, has become a dedicated activist and organizer, working on the Oct. 5 protest.

There have been past protests at the JRC in Boston and in New York State where the Board of Education has been an enthusiastic conspirator complicit in shipping New York children with disabilities to be shocked, tortured and murdered. Most of the residents are actually from New York. A state law, named “Andre’s Law” after Andre McCollins, which would ban sending New Yorkers with disabilities to Rotenberg has been proposed in Albany at the New York legislature.

In 2020, the Food and Drug Administration banned GED devices, citing an “unreasonable and substantial risk of illness or injury” from them. The FDA said evidence pointed to both psychological and physical risks including burns, tissue damage, worsening underlying symptoms, depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. But the regulation was overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in 2021, saying FDA officials had overstepped their authority.

Since that time, Congress clarified that the FDA does have the right to ban the devices, which prompted the agency to file another proposal. The issue of GEDs will face more litigation in the coming period.

The rally was held in front of the National Constitution Center, where Donald Trump’s debate with Vice-President Kamala Harris took place Sept. 10. Speakers included several religious leaders and two City Council members, Nick O’Rourke and Kendra Brooks. O’Rourke criticized both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party for deporting many Haitians and called out U.S. [neo]imperialism as the cause for many of Haiti’s problems.

Speaking at the Sept. 18 rally, Katie Garth, a cofounder of No Arena Washington Square West, called the proposal a “land grab by billionaires.”

While the mayor and the 76ers’ owners boast that the project would “create jobs,” opponents point out that the construction workers required to build the arena could be employed to build it or another project anywhere else in the city. The jobs available once an arena opens would tend to be part-time, low wage jobs.

Hundreds of concession-stand workers currently employed by Aramark at Philadelphia’s three major sports facilities who are demanding higher wages and benefits, began striking on Sept. 23 when the company refused to meet their demands.

The Save Chinatown Coalition, composed of over 245 organizations, small businesses, community organizations and faith congregations and hundreds of individuals has been outspoken about their opposition. They have staged countless demonstrations, including one on Sept. 7, when 4,000 people filled the streets of Center City.

Cahill died while being held following a police sweep in the Kensington section of the city earlier this month targeting narcotics users and people with open warrants. Resnick, 61, was arrested at home on three outstanding warrants and was being held in the Curran-Fromhold jail. He was found deceased in his cell on Sept. 14. Both were being held in unsupervised intake units awaiting medical screening when they died.

Hujack yelled and her comrades repeated in call-and-response fashion: “Under your watch, my cousin Amanda Cahill died. For hours, women in their cells banged on their doors. They all called for help. Nobody came. How does that make you feel?”

As panel participants were escorted off the stage and quickly fled the room, the people’s mic repeated Hujack’s charged words: “Justice for Amanda Cahill. You took my cousin’s life. She suffered for six hours and 45 minutes. End the torture now. Justice for Amanda. Close the Philly jails now. Michael Resnick, you have blood on your hands.”

According to the Teamsters’ own statement, the non-endorsement was approved by the union’s General Executive Board after “in independent electronic and phone polling from July-September, a majority of voting members twice selected Trump for a possible Teamsters endorsement over Harris.” (teamster.org)

This poll should have been a wake-up call to the Teamsters leadership! Such a high level of support for this [neo]fascist candidate indicates that a mass anti-racist educational campaign is urgently needed. The union statement should have announced that it was going all-out to win its rank and file away from the white-supremacist and xenophobic ideology that Trump epitomizes. Such a campaign would build working-class solidarity against the capitalist class, including its ultraright wing.

The union statement rightly criticized both Trump and Harris for not committing to support railroad workers’ right to strike and Biden’s record of blocking a railroad strike in 2022. But a Teamsters-wide anti-racist mobilization would strengthen class unity around defending the rights of railroad workers, who include IBT members.

Instead, Teamsters President Sean O’Brien is continuing down the slippery slope, beginning with his horrendous speech at the Republican National Convention in July, of treating racism and bigotry as non-issues.

At Syracuse University, 800 library, food service, facilities and maintenance employees exercised their might to secure a four-year contract. They are represented by Service Employees Union (SEIU) Local 200.

During contract negotiations that began in June, the workers balked when the school administration offered a measly 2.5 % raise. Some of them are holding down two jobs to make ends meet, and a 2.5% salary bump would not put a dent in cost-of-living increases. On Aug. 26, they held a rally on campus to protest the administration’s disregard for these essential workers who keep the campus functioning.

[…]

Apple Retail Union-Communication Workers of America members in Oklahoma City succeeded in making their store the second unionized Apple location to secure a contract with Apple. Workers at the first unionized Apple store in Maryland ratified a contract in July.

Apple is notorious for union-busting tactics. Getting a contract took two years! According to CWA Local 6016 President Antonio Flores: “Two years I feel is completely ridiculous. It shouldn’t take two years to negotiate a contract.” (oklahoman.com, Sept. 4)

Union workers held an informational picket on Sept. 3, holding signs comparing average workers’ salaries to the exorbitant compensation the bosses receive. After a strike authorization vote passed, that put pressure on the Apple executives to return to the bargaining table and settle on a contract the workers could accept.

[…]

The sanitation worker strike in Maryland’s Anne Arundel County outside Baltimore, which began Sept. 4, is in its fourth week. Teamsters Local 570 represents about 70 workers employed by Ecology Services, who are demanding higher wages and better safety conditions.

Union representatives report that the company’s trucks are “dangerously ill-equipped,” lacking air conditioning, proper seating and seat belts. Sanitation workers have raised concerns about nonfunctional cameras on trucks and an absence of personal protective equipment. One worker suffered a severe head injury in the summer after falling from a truck due to heat exhaustion and dehydration. (thebaltimorepost.com, Sept. 17)

Workers are picketing outside the Ecology Services yard and reaching out to community members to educate them about the unsafe conditions and inadequate wages.