Category Archives: Solidarity

Inside Higher Ed: Political Scientists Stick With New Orleans, Face Boycott

The American Political Science Association moved its 2006 annual meeting from the original site of San Francisco, where hotels were then in the midst of protracted disagreements with unions, to Philadelphia.

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Socialist Teachers Alliance: MASSACRE OF TEACHERS IN MEXICO, 11 DEAD

Here are several reports on developments in Oaxaca, Mexico. The eyewitness report below here is both terrible and inspiring. Please respond to the request for letters denouncing the attack of teachers.

Dave Stratman
newdemocracyworld.org
20 Moraine Street
Boston, MA 02130
617-524-4073
********************

The state of Oaxaca MX and the MX federal government have launched an attack on striking teachers in Oaxaca and other popular organizations killing an as-yet unknown number. Teachers reclaimed the center of Oaxaca city, but new and larger attacks are expected (and may by now have happened). Please at least send a protest email (addresses below) and if you can, look for demonstrations (or create one) at Mexican consulates.

There is a sketchy report in the New York Times (Link unsatisfactory).

Two longer pieces below from Rich Gibson and Rouge Forum:
Massacre of Teachers in Mexico, 11 Dead
Urgent Protest Thursday, June 15, 5 p.m.
Outside the Mexican Consulate General,
27 East 39th Street (between Madison and Park Aves.)

Dear all,
Most of you will have heard by now of the violent repression of striking teachers in Oaxaca camped in the central plaza of Oaxaca City. The 70,000 schoolteachers in Oaxaca have been on strike since May 22nd, demanding a pay raise, differential pay for teachers working in high-cost regions, resources for school infrastructure, free school breakfasts, school supplies, and scholarships for students. For much of this time thousands have been camped in the centre of the city to press their demands.

This morning, state police attacked the encampments with riot police and helicopters. They also raided the union headquarters, a hotel that houses teachers and the Unionís radio station. Despite the force used against them, teachers were able to regain control of the main plaza and the blocks around it.

With all the chaos, the reports we have received of casualties are not firm and are sometimes conflicting, but it appears that at least 5 people, including one teachersí child, have been killed, dozens wounded and dozens more detained. There is fear that there will be more violence as police backed by federal re-inforcements attempt to take the plaza again.

If further violence is to be prevented, the Oaxacan teachers will need the support of the international community to pressure Mexican authorities to reign in their security forces and return to the bargaining table. We are requesting of the organizations of the IDEA Network to at least send letters of protest to the Mexican President and the governor of Oaxaca, with copies ot the Mexican section of the Trinational Coalition to Defend Public Education (see addresses below). However, it will have a much stronger impact if your organization can send a delegation to the Mexican consulate or embassy in your city to deliver the letters directly (and better still if some of you remain outside the consulates and embassies wiht signs denouncing the violence)..

I am attaching with this message information that we have received from the Mexican section of the Trinational Coalition about the conflict in Oaxaca, as well has an eyewitness report we received a few hours ago from the coordinator of the Oaxacan teachersí unionís research institute. I am also enclosing copies of the letters the IDEA network has sent to Mexicoís president and the governor of Oaxaca. Please feel free to modify the letters and use them for your own organization.

Thank You,
Steve Stewart,
Technical Secretary,
IDEA Network

Contact information below:
Lic. Vicente Fox Quesada
Presidente Constitucional de MÈxico
Fax 55 5277 2376,
vicente.fox.quesada@presidencia.gob.mx.

Dr. JosÈ Luis Soberanes
Presidente de la ComisiÛn Nacional de Derechos Humanos
Fax: 55 5681 7199

Dr. Ricardo Sep˙lveda
Coordinador de la Unidad para la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos de la SecretarÌa de GobernaciÛn
Fax: 55 5128 0234

Lic. Ulises Ruiz Ortiz
Gobernador Constitucional del Estado de Oaxaca
Fax. 01 (951) 51 65 966,51-60677/ fax: 51-63737/ cel: 0449515470377
E-mail: gobernador@oaxaca.gob.mx.
with copies to urama@prodigy.net.mx, antonio_icn@hotmail.com radioplanton@hotmail.com, and the Mexican newspaper La Jornada

From: David
Dear Friends,

Iím writing about the situation in Oaxaca. As I write, the capital city is under siege. At approximately 5AM this morning the state police attacked the teachers occupation of the city center. Though reports are sketchy, it seems that three teachers have been killed, as well as a young girl. The teachers have taken three or four police hostage. A raging battle is underway to control the zocalo, the center of life in Oaxaca, and the heart of the teacherís encampment. In the dawn raid the teachers were forced out, but the local paper, Noticias de Oaxaca, has reported that at 9:30AM local time the teachers, armed with rocks and sticks, re-took the main square. Police are firing tear gas from helicopters right now. Thousands (tens of thousands) of people are involved in running battles in the streets. And there is the fear that upwards of 3500 federal riot police ó deployed to Oaxaca in the last two weeks by Vicente Fox ó are about to enter the city.

Iíve just gotten off the phone with friends in the center. They described the scene on the streets this morning at about 7:30AM. Hundreds of people crying from the mix of tear gas, smoke bombs and some other pepper spray. The men forming groups to launch the assault to retake the zocalo. Mothers telling their boys to take care of themselves as they fell into line. From the rooftops of the single story houses you can watch the helicopters flying overhead shelling tear gas canisters into the crowds. There is a heavy fear, but also, I was told, you could hear the sound of people marching and singing.

As a brief background, you might want to read:News

The teachers occupation of the city, known in Spanish as a ëplantoní began 23 days ago. More than 80,000 teachers from every municipality in the state had converged on the capital to press a list of demands for more resources for education. They have had two mass marches, the most recent bringing more than 120,000 people out, the largest demonstration in the cityís history. The planton has become an annual event since more than a decade, and I will never forget last yearís planton which happened while I was still living there. For about ten days the teachers occupied the entire center of town, sleeping on the streets under tarpaulins stretched overhead. They were extremely well organized and the city center was never more alive. The teachers and their families would cook large meals on open fires, play guitar and sing, rest on folded cardboard in the shade. They set up their radio station ìRadio Plantonî and played music on loud speakers. There were first aid tents, propaganda tents, mass meetings on every corner.

This year, many have remarked that the planton, and the teachersí mobilization generally, has been different. The question is: If the teachers brought 80,000 to the city, who are the other 40,000? Iím not close enough to give a good answer, but what I understand is that the teachers have offered an opening which hundreds of small community groups and social justice centers from around the state have chosen to follow. The past two years under the new PRI governor Ulises Ruis has intensified the level of state repression. Scores of activists in small villages have been killed, hundreds arrested and still in jail as political prisoners. The spike in repression was so great that Amnesty International sent a delegation to Oaxaca in May of 2005 to investigate. It appears that when the teachers marched on the capital three weeks ago they were joined by tens of thousands of others from the villages in what is becoming a broad movement to depose the governor. Ruis has refused to meet with the teachers, and has managed to pull in his partyís promisary notes to about half of the stateís municipal mayors who signed a decree condemning the teachers action. But there is a palpable sense that the social movements are converging and that something new is underway.

During the past three weeks, the movement has shown a great level of strength and creativity ó occupying the cityís airport, smashing the newly-installed parking meters throughout the city center, occupying the toll booths on the main road from Oaxaca to Mexico City ó not to stop the cars, only to stop the collecting of tolls, and the very fact that they have occupied the zocalo has great significance as the new governor, after spending upwards of $100 million to ëbeautifyí the zocalo, decreed that it was now off-limits for any demonstrations.

Three nights ago, Ruis met with business leaders at a late night gathering and promised to use the ëmano duraí or hard hand. There were reports that the first 1500 federal riot police were camped in the nearby town of Tlacolula. This morning the governor appears to have proven himself a man of his word. Some reports have said that the tear gas in the city center is so thick you canít see the hand in front of you.

I have not seen any reports in the US media, BBC etc. There is some information on indymediaís Mexico site, some more on the online version of Noticias de Oaxaca ó both in Spanish. (www.noticias-oax.com.mx/) I know that the police have shut down the teachersí radio station ëRadio Plantoní but as of 12:00 noon Oaxaca time the studentsí radio station ëRadio Universitarioí was still broadcasting and ìyou can hear the broadcast from every window and door in town.î The students themselves have occupied the university, but the latest reports suggest that the police are heading there now.

Iím writing this in the hope that you can help spread the word, and alert others in the network of media to turn their attention to the struggle ongoing.
In solidarity,
Dave

Violent represion in Oaxaca
posteado por vlax en jun 14, 2006 [21:35]

To the peoples of the world
To the people of Mexico
To the civil society
To the social political, and humans rights organizations,

Oaxaca de Ju·rez, Oaxaca, June 14 of 2006

Today, June 14, 2006, on of the most abhorrent manifestations of the exercise of power on behalf of the government has been perpetrated in Mexico. At 4:40 a.m., an act of repression against the social movement in Oaxaca began. At dawn today, state government police forces brutally and violently evacuated teachers who were occupying streets and the central square of downtown Oaxaca. We are speaking of more than fifty thousand teachers.

They also beat other people and destroyed the radio equipment of Radio PlantÛn, 92,1 F.M., a wireless station that is been continuously transmitting the situation of the teachers movement. This community radio, which has been operating for a year, has played an important role in the transmission of clear and transparent information as it occurs in Oaxaca and our country.

This act is yet another piece of evidence of the repression that governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz has orchestrated against those who disagree with policies that violate human rights and those who stand up to denounce social injustice and the state of siege lived in today.

There are disappeared teachers, people hurt and intoxicated with tear gases, apprehensions, and domiciliary persecutions. Also mentioned are the death of two children and at least three teachers. After five hours of skirmish, the teachers began to re-occupy the central square while ìthe forces of the orderî regroup in other places of the city to reinitiate the aggression.

The city¥s inhabitants are very disturbed and have begun to organize in support of the teachers. Similarly, social organizations are pronouncing themselves against the repression.

On the other hand, governmental and commercial media, both radio and television, try to cause the social irritation against the teachers. Due to the destruction of Radio PlantÛn, groups of students and teachers took over Radio Universidad, the station of the Independent University Benito Ju·rez of Oaxaca, and are transmitting minute by minute what is happening in the streets of the city. In addition, the University has announced its total support to the teachers, declaring that this conflict has taken on a widespread social character and invites the society in general to join the movement.

The main demands of the teachers are: adjustment of wages according to the cost of the life in Oaxaca; strengthening of support programs to the schools, mainly regarding infrastructure; allowance of equipment and diverse educational materials to students who live in the municipalities of greater marginalization; finally, an end to repression against education workers; clarification on cases of the disappeared; and the liberation of the political prisoners.

Currently, social discontent and mobilization increase. In the face of this barbaric repression, more protests have sparked:10 Municipal Presidencies have been taken over, among which are Juchit·n, Zimatl·n, Huautla de JimÈnez, Teotitl·n de Flores MagÛn, MatÌas Romero, Huajuapan of Leon, Port Angel and Puerto Escondido. Farmers are marching in from Tuxtepec. Inhabitants of San Salvador Atenco make their way towards the State Capital. The future seems uncertain, but hope grows.

For this reason, the teacher¥s movement, social organizations, and a great number of inhabitants of the city hold the governor of Oaxaca, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz responsible of the chaos and the violence currently affecting the most indigenous state of the country.

Finally, while a mega-march is being planned for next Friday, the government has sent orders of apprehension to the leadership. We hope to count on your support, and request the most ample circulation of this information.

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St. Ambrose University has backed out of a deal to make some of its dormitory rooms available to Alcoa to house replacement workers during a possible strike, The Quad-City Times reported. Some alumni and others of the Davenport, Iowa, institution said that helping the company deal with a strike would be inconsistent with the social justice ideals of the Roman Catholic institution.

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IOL: Trade unions call for mass action

Several trade unions have come out in support of a call by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) for a national strike on Thursday to draw attention to job losses.

The South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu), the National Union of Metal Workers of South African (Numsa) and the South African Clothing and Textile Workers Union (Sactwu) on Monday called on their members to join the one-day strike.

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The Oakland Tribune: Nuñez cancels Cal speech over protest

A union protest threw a wrench Wednesday into the Commencement Convocation at University of California, Berkeley: The keynote speaker, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez, declined to give his address because he refused to cross a union picket line.

“The Speaker does not cross picket lines,” Nuñez spokesman Richard Stapler said in an e-mail.
University spokeswoman Marie Felde said a couple dozen members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees staged a picket in front of the convocation, held in the Greek Theatre, to call for higher wages.

The union represents service workers, janitors and other low-paid employees at the campus. AFSCME officials have said UC wages lag those at other state universities.

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Progreso Weekly: Scholars and artists unite against Cuba policy

[Editorís Note: What follows is an initial statement of Cuban-American scholars, artists and intellectuals from throughout the U.S. who have come together under one umbrella which will be known as ENCASA to fight against current U.S. policy toward Cuba. To date, more than 45 individuals have already signed on from all corners of the country. They include a steering committee made up of MarÌa Isabel Alfonso and Lillian Manzor (University of Miami); Marta Caminero-Santangelo (University of Kansas); Max Castro (Independent Scholar); MarÌa Cristina GarcÌa (Cornell University); Liz Cerejido, Guillermo Grenier and Lisandro PÈrez (Florida International University); FÈlix Masud-Piloto (DePaul University); RubÈn G. Rumbaut (University of California, Irvine); and Silvia Wilhelm (Executive Director, Puentes Cubanos).]

ENCASA / U.S.-CUBA

Emergency Network of Cuban American Scholars and Artists for Change in U.S.-Cuba Policy

We are a group of Cuban American scholars and artists who have coalesced as a network of U.S. citizens opposed to current U.S. policy toward Cuba. We are committed to promoting reasoned debate in the public arena, to countering the stereotype of a monolithic Cuban-American community, to challenging the disproportionate influence of an unrepresentative sector out of touch with U.S. public opinion, and to help bring about an end to a failed policy that defies all sound principles for conducting foreign affairs.

By any measure, U.S. policy toward Cuba has been singularly unsuccessful for almost half a century. It has been a political and moral failure. The U.S.
embargo inflicts economic hardship on the Cuban people while denying opportunities to American farmers and business. Harsh travel restrictions infringe on the rights of American citizens and contribute to the trauma of separation of Cuban families. Laws intended to isolate Cuba internationally instead have alienated the U.S. from the rest of the world, especially its closest neighbors in this hemisphere, while earning the Cuban government sympathy and solidarity.

Time and again, from the Bay of Pigs to the Helms-Burton law, the policy of regime changeóin place since the Eisenhower administrationóhas backfired.
Increasingly, hard-line U.S. policies have done nothing but reinforce hard-line tendencies on the island. The Bush administration has taken this policy to an even more extreme level by adopting the 2004 Report to the
President: Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba (http://www.state.gov/p/wha/rt/cuba/). This singular track record of failure points to the need for a fundamentally different approach toward Cuba.

As U.S. citizens, we call for a new U.S. policy toward Cuba consistent with U.S. principles and ideals. Restrictions which bar U.S. citizens from traveling to Cuba, and which are not applied to any other nation in the world, curtail our fundamental freedoms. These restrictions pose an additional and inhumane hardship on Cuban families already suffering from often traumatic separations, as demonstrated by a recent Human Rights Watch report (ìFamilies Torn Apart: The High Cost of U.S. and Cuban Travel Restrictions,î http://hrw.org/reports/2005/cuba1005/).

New regulations on travel by Cuban-Americans to visit their families in Cuba restrict family visits to once every three years, providing no exception for medical and other emergencies. The restrictions also radically and absurdly redefine “family” in a way that excludes cousins, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews. Such redefinitions are not in line with widely-held understandings of “familyî, especially in the context of Cuban cultural practices, and undermine and disregard the emotional and psychological importance of family ties.

New limitations in the number and dollar value of shipments to family members of such basic necessities as medicines and medical supplies, as well as the elimination of packages containing clothing, toilet paper, soap, and other basic necessities, are cruel and counter to humanitarian principles.
We insist that family values must include the freedom to visit and to send vital necessities to our families.

The tightened restrictions on travel also curtail the freedom of American citizens to pursue programs of cultural and educational exchange in Cuba.
The value of scholarly study about Cuba, as well as the right of U.S.
citizens to pursue such study, is seriously undermined, and the ideal of the free exchange of ideas is profoundly diminished. Further, the possibilities of contacts and exchanges of a religious and humanitarian nature between U.S. citizens and Cubans are seriously restricted. These limitations on the basic freedoms of U.S. citizens are unacceptable.

The Cuban nation has a long and proud record of struggle for self determination and defense of its sovereignty. For more than 500 years, Cubans have rejected and defeated colonialism, military interventions and foreign influences. The policy embraced by the Bush administration and spelled out in the 2004 Commission Report ignores and misreads Cuban history. Moreover, the policy attempts to negate the Cuban peopleís right to self determination and sovereignty by implying that the U.S. should have a major role in determining Cubaís future. Cubaís present and future must be determined by the Cuban people, not by the United States.

Just as we condemn U.S. policy over the last 47 years and the restrictions and violations of basic freedoms and rights in Cuba over the same period, we lament the climate of intolerance that exists in our own community. The only beneficiaries of this culture of intransigence are certain enterprises, politicians, and media personalities who have built careers and fortunes manipulating the pain of our community. Those who practice persecution or who use their money and influence to silence those in the Cuban American community who dissent from a false monolithic consensus undermine democracy and human rights here and in the homeland.

While Cuban American academics and public intellectualsóartists, writers, academics, philosophers, scientists, legal scholars and othersóhave at times played significant roles in efforts to change U.S.-Cuba policy as individuals, to date there has been no concerted participation of this sector of our community in the struggle to end an unjust and irrational approach toward Cuba. In Cuban history, intellectuals repeatedly acted as moral agents and catalysts for change. In the United States today, intellectuals continually come together to speak out on important causes, providing a moral compass to their society.

Drawing from those noble traditions of civic participation in both Cuba and the United Statesóand with a great sense of urgencyówe have organized ourselves to voice our outrage at a policy that is inhumane, unjust, ill-conceived, hypocritical, and contrary to American ideals. For too long, this debate has been dominated by one sector of our community. We are determined that no longer will others in our community speak for us as they continue to insist on taking this country down a misguided path that has served neither the best interests of the United States nor those of the Cuban people.

Copyright 2006© Progreso Weekly, Inc.

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NYC Indymedia: Hundreds rally for union at NYU

At 12 noon today, hundreds of GSOC members, faculty and undergraduate supporters, members of other graduate employee unions, and visiting dignitaries from across the labor movement met in Judson Memorial Church to hold a rally in celebration of the fact that GSOC/UAW 2110 has officially recertified its majority support among NYU graduate employees.

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The American Anthropological Association has agreed to pay the San Francisco Hilton $200,000 to settle a contract dispute that arose after the scholars moved their annual meeting for 2006 out of the hotel — in solidarity with unions that are pushing for better pay and benefits for employees there. Association leaders had feared that it might cost much more to settle the dispute.

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MR Zine: Western Canada Labor Battles Show Need for Solidarity

Roger Annis’s article for MR Zine describes what might be signs of a working-class social movement in Western Canada. Annis describes recent strikes—including B. C. teachers, hospital workers, telecommunications workers and meatpackers—and outlines issues that must be confronted if broader labor solidarity is to be achieved.

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From Michael Zweig:

Dear Friends and Colleagues

I am pleased to report that the trailer/preview for the documentary video Meeting Face to Face: Iraqi labor Leaders Tour the U.S. – June 2005 is now complete and available. Please click: Meeting Face to Face to view the Web page for the documentary and see the trailer (7 minutes 17 seconds).

In June 2005 six senior Iraqi trade union leaders toured the United States hosted by U.S. Labor Against the War, visiting 25 cities and speaking to several thousand unionists, peace activists, and others. This documentary captures the energy and emotions of the tour while expressing the important substantive message Iraqi workers want to convey to all Americans: end the occupation of Iraq; oppose the privatization of Iraqi national resources; and support the right of all Iraqi workers to organize free and independent trade unions.

The documentary takes the story beyond the tour to the AFL-CIO national convention in July 2005 where delegates voted to support the rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, for the first time in history opposing an on-going U.S. war.

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