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Who gets hurt when you shop?

Interfaith Worker Justice points to a group of retailers who are either refusing to negotiate with workers or are proactively dragging worker organizers (on hunger strike) and worker advocates into court to in an attempt to block advocacy and worker organization.

Seems to me that we become less and less free when big corporations can so blithely attack the right of people to freely gather, or to espouse a cause. Something about that in some old document in Washington, but who remembers that anymore. First they came for the organizers, then…

In the first instance, the parent company of several chains, SuperValu, including a chain local to me, Save-A-Lot Stores, filed a suit against organizers and Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en Lucha (Center of Workers United in Struggle — CTUL), IWJ’s affiliate in the Minneapolis-St. Paul. The workers had sought the Center’s assistance because as they state:

Every night, we are surrounded by food as we clean the grocery stores in our community. Yet often we cannot afford to put enough food on the table for our own families.

With the help of CTUL, workers who clean Cub Foods stores have been trying for over a year to engage Cub Foods in a dialogue about fair wages and working conditions. Also with the help of CTUL, workers went on Hunger Strike for 12 days beginning at the end of May, in a further effort to seek a dialogue. That hunger strike action resulted in SuperValu suing CTUL and its organizers personally.

Please pray for the workers and organizers, sign this on-line petition to support them, and if you are able, make a donation to assist in fighting off this assault on the Center and its organizers.

I Stand with CTUL for Fair Wages and Working Conditions for Retail Cleaning Workers in the Twin Cities

I am concerned about the many reports of human rights violations taking place in retail cleaning. When retail cleaning workers earn sub-poverty wages and have increasingly stressful workloads, this has a negative impact on our entire community. Therefore, I stand firmly with the Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en la Lucha (CTUL) in calling on major retail chains (including Cub Foods, SuperValu, Target, and Lunds & Byerly’s) to partner with CTUL to create a code of conduct that guarantees fair wages and benefits for the workers who clean their stores.

Meanwhile at Walmart, work for change is building momentum because of the voices of workers and their advocates.

Walmart Associates throughout the country are standing up for change at Walmart – and IWJ is standing beside them as they work to make a difference in their stores and their company. Momentum is building – both for the Associate-led Organization United for Respect at Walmart (OUR Walmart) and for Making Change at Walmart, a campaign that stands in solidarity with Associates claiming the respect they deserve.

No single employer in America has a larger impact on employment standards than Walmart. That’s why stopping Walmart’s race to the bottom is essential. From my point-of-view, the race to the bottom is becoming pervasive in our culture. We all want faster, less expensive, and more convenient, and the thing that makes that happen is a push to lower wages, eliminate benefits, and work people until they drop. The savings have to come from somewhere, so we no longer manufacture in our country, and the workers who are left have to pay the price for a better bottom line. Sadly, we also do it to our neighbors. Should our neighbor be a Union member who enjoys a better standard of living we say: ‘Why should he/she have it, take it away,’ and in due course we all loose what little we have.

If you are concerned in seeing change happen at Walmart, and at fighting against the race to the bottom, be sure to like the Making Change at Walmart Facebook page.

Begin with prayer for workers, and ask for strength to speak out. Speak up for worker rights. Ask that contractor who comes to your door whether his/her workers are employees. You would think that when they tell a worker to nail shingles to your roof that worker would be an employee. Unfortunately, most times employers illegally claim that workers are “independent.” Really!!! The boss is telling them to do something, what shingles to nail, how to do it, where to do it, when to do it, but they are “independent.” Ask your local restauranteur whether the people chopping food in the back room are paid fairly. Ask the chain market manager whether his/her workers are paid properly and have benefits. Then vote with your feet and dollars supporting only those who do right by their workers and your community.

Workers can find more information on minimum employment standards, and can file complaints at the U.S. Department of Labor’s We Can Help/Podemos ayudar webpage.

When did we clothe you, feed you, dress your wounds, visit you? Whenever you did it to these, the least of my brothers (Matthew 25:40).

Christian Witness, , , , , ,

Standing with the Coptic Church

From Christian Newswire: The Second Annual Coptic Solidarity Conference. Offer your prayers tonight for the the Coptic community and the fulfillment of their conference’s objectives.

The second Annual Coptic Solidarity Conference will be held on Friday and Saturday July 8-9 under the main theme of “Will Religious and Ethnic Minorities Pay the Price of the ‘Arab Spring.’ The Christian Copts are the native ethnic religious community of Egypt, descendants from ancient Egyptians. They number around 15 millions, including a large Diaspora with more than half a million strong community of American Copts.

The Copts have experienced persecutions throughout their history and lately have been subject to acts of aggression and discrimination in Egypt at the hands of extremists and Jihadists. Since the revolt in Egypt brought down the previous authoritarian regime of Husni Mubarak, the Coptic community is facing an uncertain future. The Military Council is slow in implementing true democratic reforms and, even worse, they face the prospect of a Muslim Brotherhood dominated Government in the near future.

Coptic Solidarity International is an INGO seeking the support of the Coptic community in Egypt and the protection of its fundamental human rights. It raises awareness within the international community about the Coptic historical and current issues via educational and informational activities.

…

Coptic leaders from North America, Europe and Egypt will speak on the conditions of the community in the Middle East and in the Diaspora.

The key objective of this two-day conference is to understand the implications of the current upheaval in the middle East and to offer present and future support to the Copts, and other minorities, as they go through this difficult period.

In February 2011, His Grace Bishop Serapion of the Coptic Orthodox Church discussed the vision and dream for a new Egypt

As post-Mubarak Egypt stands at a crossroads, Coptic Orthodox bishop His Grace Bishop Serapion is certain his hopes and vision for the new Egypt are shared not only by his homeland’s Christians, but lovers of freedom and human rights everywhere.

“While we have a deep concern about the direction of the country, we still have strong hope and great dreams,” HG Bishop Serapion said Sunday afternoon at the Los Angeles Convention Center in an address about Copts’ vision and hope for building the new Egypt. The event, presented by the Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Los Angeles, Southern California and Hawaii, over which HG Bishop Serapion is bishop, honored Coptic Christians in Egypt who have been killed in religiously motivated attacks by extremists since 2000. Up to 1,500 people were expected to attend the event.

The event aimed to raise awareness of the plight of Coptic Christians in Egypt, where they comprise 10 percent of that nation’s 79 million people. The Copts are the largest Christian population in the Middle East. Approximately 40,000 Copts live in Greater Los Angeles, where there are 30 Coptic Orthodox churches.

Following the Jan. 25 revolution in Egypt, Copts’ concerns have deepened for the country’s direction, as pockets of violence have erupted against them. On Feb. 20, Daoud Boutros, a Coptic priest from Shotb near the southern Egyptian city of Assiut, was stabbed to death in his apartment. Father Daoud was a mentor of HG Bishop Serapion. That same day, Egyptian military forces began destroying fences protecting ancient Coptic monasteries, leaving the monks and monasteries vulnerable to attacks. On Feb. 23, military forces opened fire on monks and young people, wounding many severely.

In the past 11 years Coptic Christians have suffered severe persecution and martyrdom at the hands of Islamic extremists, including the New Year’s Day suicide bombing of Saint Mark and Pope Peter Coptic Orthodox Church in Alexandria, which killed 24 Copts and injured approximately 100. Extremists gunned down six Coptic youths in Nag Hammadi in a Mass on Jan. 7, 2010. Extremists also killed 21 Copts in the village of Al Kosheh Jan. 21, 2000.

HG Bishop Serapion offered prayers for the martyrs and observed a moment of silence for those who died in recent weeks during political demonstrations in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. He echoed the Rev. Martin Luther King’s call to use non-violent means in advocating for a fair society for all Egyptians.

“What is the direction the society will move? Are we moving toward a state where every citizen has equal rights, irrespective of gender or religion, or a religious state where some people are considered as second-class citizens?” he asked. “We are at a crossroads in our society. We must focus on freedom, justice and equality, irrespective of the name of the person.”

Prompted by biblical and theological convictions, to achieve this dream of equality, Copts must wage non-violent struggle, HG Bishop Serapion said. The struggle entails rejecting injustice, exposing the evils of discrimination and standing up for Christians’ rights through the power of the truth, not the perpetuation of violence. Copts aim to cooperate with people of goodwill, regardless of religion, and will remain steadfast in their struggle “until our dream becomes reality,” he said.

“We must be ready to accept sacrifices,” he said. “Martyrs will fall and people will be wounded. This is the price of freedom and justice.”

Political, , , , ,

Imprisonment

From the National Iranian American Council (NIAC): Watch: Maziar Bahari Discusses Imprisonment

NIAC presents an exclusive interview (in Persian) with award-winning journalist, documentary filmmaker, and human rights activist Maziar Bahari. His newest book, Then They Came for Me: A Family’s Story of Love, Captivity, and Survival, chronicles the 118 days he spent in a six-by-twelve-feet prison cell in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison. Bahari spoke with NIAC President Trita Parsi and journalist Sahar Namizikhah before giving a book reading and discussion with NIAC members in McLean, Virginia.

Bahari explains his relationship with his interrogator, and shares how he kept his hope alive and his hatred for his torturer at bay. Bahari also shares his views on dictatorships and their ideology and talks of the importance of democracy. In talking about his days in prison, he explains how Iranian Americans can help support human rights in Iran.

Podcast: Interview with Sarah Shroud

An exclusive interview with Sarah Shourd, discussing her experience imprisoned in Iran and the status of her fiance Shane Bauer and friend Josh Fattal, who are still detained in Iran. The three were detained in Iran on July 31, 2009, while hiking in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan near the Ahmed Awa waterfall, a local attraction. Bauer and Fattal have been held for 686 days without trial. Shourd was released on September 14, 2010, on humanitarian grounds after spending 410 days in solitary confinement. Visit Free The Hikers to support their cause.

Art, , , ,

Art for Independence Day

The Declaration of Independence, John Trumbull, 1794

The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. –Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing taxes on us without our consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

PNCC, , , , ,

Congratulations Holy Family Parish

On the opening of your Parish home and your Catholic presence in North Java, New York. The former St. Nicholas Parish church, established in 1891, was closed by the R.C. Diocese of Buffalo in 2008. The Roman Catholic Diocese sold the church, along with its land and buildings, including a school and convent, to the people of Holy Family Parish.

In the PNCC, the faithful of the Church hold title to, and fully own their land, buildings, and parish possessions, democratically managing and controlling them.

From the Arcade Herald: North Java church reopens

Former St. Nicholas Parish in North Java, NY, now Holy Family ParishThe Holy Family Parish National Catholic Church in North Java held a service Saturday, June 11, to officially re-open the doors of the church. Empty for two years, the original church was closed as part of the [Roman] Catholic Diocese’s Journey in Faith and Grace downsizing effort, and was recently purchased by the Holy Polish [National] Catholic Church. Parishioners and clergy gathered at the entrance of the building to begin a service in which the church building was blessed and dedicated.

Bishop Thaddeus Peplowski came from Buffalo to conduct the Dedication Mass. A number of parishioners from Peplowski’s church also attended to worship and celebrate, along with about 40 people that had attended the church in North Java on the two previous Sundays. Before the building was purchased, North Java parishioners were meeting at the fire hall for their Mass.

The church will hold Sunday Mass at 10:00 a.m. each week. As it grows and becomes more organized, the parish committee hopes to expand the number of services. The building itself still requires some repair work, and the committee is making plans to move forward with that to make it more suitable for worship.

After the mass on Saturday, the people met outside behind the church building for a picnic reception.

Christian Witness, Perspective, ,

On Pentecost – Doing “and”

From Jim Wallis at Sojourners: Pentecost: The Coming of the Wild Goose

This Sunday is Pentecost. For 50 days, a group of 120 followers of Jesus waited. Their teacher, for whom they had left all they had, was now gone. Judas, one of their own, betrayed their master and then killed himself. The comforter they had been promised had not yet come. They picked Mathias as a replacement for Judas. And then they waited.

I have to speculate sometimes at the conversations that occurred during those 50 days from Easter until Pentecost. There were, I am sure, some nervous exchanges. Jesus had appeared to them: he had offered Thomas an opportunity to place his hands into his wounds; he had eaten fish with his disciples by the shore. But where was this promised comforter who would be with them always?

Pentecost is a part of the Christian calendar today, but for the disciples, it was the Feast of Shavuot, or the “Feast of Oaths.” It was a festival remembering the covenants God made with Noah after the flood, Abraham and the Israelites about a new homeland, and Moses on Mt. Sinai. It was a time to remember God’s faithfulness.

When I read Acts 2 and imagine the room filled with the small band of believers, a sound “like the rush of a violent wind” and tongues “as of fire” resting above each of their heads, my faith is encouraged. I am reminded that there are greater things at work in this world than what is at first visible. There is power and strength in the Spirit that God sent to the church. While there had only been 120 gathered in that room, 3,000 were added to their number that day.

While much of my work revolves around challenging unjust systems and structures, I do not doubt that the world we see around us of broken people and institutions is only a small portion of what is real. The Spirit of God extends wider and deeper and is at work in my life, the lives of others, and in the communities and institutions of this world. While I work for societal transformation, I try to stay rooted in the transforming work that the Spirit is constantly doing in me.

Too often, it feels like we need to make a choice between the work of this world, and the work of the Spirit, or between a personal focus, or a social focus of the gospel. “Either/or” marks how some churches present the Christian faith. Often, however, this is a false dichotomy. Early in the days of the Sojourners community I remember that one of our favorite words was “and.” We would talk about personal salvation and social justice, prayer and peacemaking, faith and action, belief and obedience, salvation and discipleship, worship and politics, spiritual transformation and social transformation. These were things that complemented one another and deepened each other instead of being in opposition.

In two weeks, my family and I will be headed down to Shakori Hills, North Carolina for the Wild Goose Festival. In the Celtic Church, the symbol for the Holy Spirit is a wild goose — wild, free, and untamed. The festival will be a weekend of justice, spirituality, music, and the arts. It is an “and” kind of space, more than an “either/or.” It will, no doubt, be a busy weekend. But I am looking forward to it, not just for the activities, but for the reminder that it is by chasing after the wild goose, the Holy Spirit’s movement, that we see ourselves, and our world, transformed.

Take a minute to watch this video below. It’s not too late join us.

Wild Goose Festival – June 23 – 26, 2011 – Shakori Hills Farm, NC from Wild Goose on Vimeo.

Events, Poetry, Poland - Polish - Polonia, , , ,

Remembering D-Day

From Dr. John Guzlowski remembering the anniversary of the Allied invasion of Europe: D-Day Remembrance

Today, June 6, is the anniversary of the invasion of Europe, and by chance I was in a high school about to begin a presentation about my parents and their experiences in the Nazi concentration camps when an announcement came on asking the students in the school to remember the anniversary of D-Day.

As the speaker talked about what D-Day was, I thought about all that day meant to me, my parents’ long years as Polish forced laborers in Nazi Germany, the refugee camps after the war, the family killed and left behind, our coming to the US as DPs.

When the announcement ended, I began my presentation with a poem about my father’s liberation from the camps. Here’s the poem:

In the Spring the War Ended

For a long time the war was not in the camps.
My father worked in the fields and listened
to the wind moving the grain, or a guard
shouting a command far off, or a man dying…

Christian Witness, Events, Political, Work, , , , ,

Worker Justice events

Supporting the Del Posto Workers’ Campaign for Justice & Respect!

A Fair Food Potluck will take place in front of Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich’s Del Posto Restaurant in support of the more than restaurant 40 workers at who are fighting to improve their workplace. They demand that managers be trained to stop discrimanation, racism, sexual harassment, and verbal and physical abuse on the job! The workers are also demanding an end to wage theft and the misappropriation of their tips by the company.

The Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York (ROC-NY) is a non-profit organization that seeks improved working conditions for restaurant workers citywide. ROC-NY assists restaurant workers seeking legal redress against employers who violate their employment rights. ROC-NY seeks to provide customers and the public with information about the litigation in this restaurant through these handbills, not to interfere with current workers or with deliveries.

Last Chance to Register for IWJ’s June 19-21 National Conference!

Share strategies for building labor-religion partnerships, fighting wage theft and strengthening worker centers by attending IWJ’s National Conference in Chicago June 19-21! Click here to register!

Special plenary and workshop sessions have been added on the Public Sector Worker Fights in response to the vicious attacks on public sector workers. Come learn, strategize, and collaborate as we take a stand against these unprecedented attacks. As people of faith, we are called to step forth and condemn these outrageous attacks on teachers, police officers, fire fighters, public health workers, and other public employees who provide vital services to our communities. An attack on public sector workers is an attack on all workers.

A pre-conference Interfaith Theological Symposium for Worker Justice will also take place. The interfaith symposium is a gathering of theologians, students, religious activists and labor leaders to connect with and be supported by the theological groundings offered within different faith traditions. The interactive symposium will highlight presentations from Muslim, Jewish and Christian experts in the field of economic justice.

If you can’t make the whole conference, join in on Monday June 20 for IWJ’s 15th Anniversary Celebration, which will include tasty appetizers, fine wines, inspiring union songs and gospel music, and 400 religious and labor activists. Reconnect with former staff, leaders, summer interns, and seminarians. Meet the new leaders of the worker center movement. Buy your tickets today or donate $100 so that one of IWJ’s senior citizen volunteers can enjoy the party!

United Brotherhood of Carpenters website on Employer Payroll Fraud: It’s time to play by the rules:

Learn about Worker Misclassification, Workers Comp Fraud, Untaxed Cash Pay, Money Laundering, and Racketeering and how these employer payroll frauds steal from taxpayers, the government, and insurers. It violates workers’ rights and costs jobs for law-abiding companies and their employees. Learn more about these multi-billion-dollar crimes and growing state and federal efforts to fight back.

Florida’s video: Cheat to Compete:

From Florida’s Bureau of Workers’ Compensation Fraud (BWCF), Division of Insurance Fraud. The video shows fraud schemes seen in the construction industry. Think what you are building is safe and above board? Always ask if your contractor’s workers are employees or independent contractors. If they are “independent contractors” choose someone else. When push comes to shove, the company you contract with will take no responsibility for the work of its alleged “independent contractors” who may also be uninsured.

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