Labor | VivirLatino

Archive for the ‘Labor’ Category

Today in NYC : PICKET FOR PUERTO RICO AND NEW YORK QUALITY PUBLIC EDUCATION

9:07 am By Maegan La Mala · Education|Labor|New York City · Comments Off

17 Oct 2011

From the VL Inbox – (If you would like to see your event listed here please email info@vivirlatino.com)

Monday, October 17 – 5:00 PM
NYC Department of Education (near City Hall)
52 Chambers Street (Between Centre & Broadway)
FMPR Support Committee – New York
……………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Dear Sisters and Brothers,
The FMPR Support Committee – New York is making a call for you to join us to make your voices heard in support of free pubic quality education in Puerto Rico and New York. Join us to protest against the privatization of public schools with charter schools on Monday, October 17, 2011, at 5pm, in a picket at Mayor Bloomberg’s New York City Department of Education.

In Puerto Rico, protests have been called by the Teachers’ Union of Puerto Rico (FMPR) to denounce the education summit convened there by U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, from October 17 -18, 2011. This “Education Summit” is the latest attempt to increase support for the devastating federal policies of No Child Left Behind (e.g. fraudulent punitive testing, teacher firings, school closings, privatized charters) and to counter the historic resistance to charter schools in this island-nation that has been a colony of the U.S. since 1898 (post Spanish-American War).

On October 17th we will denounce the undemocratic and dictatorial federal, state and city policies that relentlessly continue to destroy public schools here and in Puerto Rico through charter schools and the contracting-out to private companies.
Through teacher strikes, school stoppages, educational and militant organizing campaigns over the past decades, The Teachers’ Union of Puerto Rico (FMPR) has succeeded in blocking charters, school closings, teacher layoffs, and threats to member health, pensions and wage benefits.

Today, the anti-union, anti-worker administration of Governor Luis Fortuño has continued and escalated policies that are aimed at dismantling public schools and further undermining the right to a free public quality education. Virtually every day, the FMPR and its leadership with the active support of parents, students and community, shut down schools on the island in order to seek redress to these intolerable conditions. This year it will continue its standardized testing boycott and continue to organize against the fraudulent use of student test scores to evaluate teacher performance.

Because of it’s unrelenting campaigns to promote quality public education and to stop privatization, at the local and national level, the FMPR has been the target of intense government repression including police brutality, the illegal denial of union dues check-off, the revocation (for life) of their leaders’ teaching licenses and the denial of their legal union right to leaves of absence without pay. Despite these hardships, the FMPR remains steadfast in this struggle to defend the right to public education. This important struggle needs our support.

Our solidarity with the struggle for quality public education in Puerto Rico is essential at this critical juncture when Wall Street corporations (represented by Mr. Duncan & the Obama administration) continue to lay the groundwork to impose and establish charter schools. To do so, the government-corporate forces have increased their attempts to destroy the frontline of defense of the public schools, the FMPR, and to weaken all resistance.

A free quality public school education is a universal right that was won by working families and unions both in Puerto Rico and the U.S. The fight to defend public schools and to stop privatization through charter schools is a common fight in both countries. Therefore our efforts at stopping the destruction of public schools in favor of prívate charter schools and corporate profits, will be strengthened by standing together. We should stand united!

JOIN US TO DEMAND:

• No to charter privatization. Yes to quality public education. No to cutbacks and layoffs.

• Down with the Duncan/Obama/Bush No Child Left Behind, the Race to the Bottom for our Children.

• No to Fraudulent Testing & Punitive Teacher Evaluation. Respect for Teacher Tenure, Seniority and Job Protections.

• Stop School Closings and top-down dictates (turnaround, transformation, restart) that only erode education.

• Reduce Class Size by providing jobs to all excessed teachers.

The Harvest/la Cosecha Available on DVD & VOD Today

8:43 am By Maegan La Mala · Labor|Movies · Comments Off

11 Oct 2011

Produced by Desperate Housewives’ Eva Longoria, Cinema Libre Studio‘s The Harvest/la Cosecha – a documentary about young Latino farmworkers in the United States – is available today on DVD and video on demand.

Read my review of the film here.

Community Leader Arlyn to be Deported this Week

6:53 am By Maegan La Mala · Activism|Immigration|Labor|New Orleans · Comments Off

7 Oct 2011

From National Immigration Law Center email alert:

A month ago, Arlyn was arrested during a raid in Kenner, Louisiana. Please call ICE to prevent him from being deported in the next three days. Numbers are below.

On August 29th, Arlyn and two dozen other workers gathered to collect their unpaid wages. It was an ambush. ICE had coordinated with 3 law enforcement agencies to carry out an immigration raid. The arrests were violent.

The arrested workers are members of the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice and the Congress of Day Laborers. They were involved in a dispute with their employer over failure to pay minimum wages and other egregious labor rights violations. ICE knew that. But rather than give these workers the civil rights and labor rights protections they deserve, ICE is deporting them. ICE’s actions contradict the agency’s recent public statements about its enforcement priorities and its exercise of prosecutorial discretion.

Most of the workers arrested during the raid have been released from detention and await deportation proceedings. But Arlyn and three others remain in detention.

Make a phone call now and tell ICE not to deport Arlyn and the other community leaders arrested during the raid.

Call to STOP the deportation of these important Community Leaders:
Call DHS head Janet Napolitano: 202-282-8495
Call ICE head John Morton: 202-732-3000
Call Scott Sutterfield, Acting ICE Field Office Director, at 318-335-7500 ext.7650

Sample Script:
I am calling to ask that four civil rights leaders be released from detention immediately and be allowed to remain in the US. Their names and immigration numbers are Arlyn Jose Caranza-Espinal A#094-923-622, Pedro Moreno-Cruz A# 098-500-026, Luis Ramon Franco-Martinez A# 099-653-230, and Cesar Gutierrez A# 088-018-479. Please stop their deportation.

For further information or to support the campaign please contact Jacinta Gonzalez at jgonzalez@nowcrj.org, (504) 655-6610

Today in NYC : Day of Action Against the Layoff of the 700 DC37 Workers & Against Criminalizing Schools

8:51 am By Maegan La Mala · Activism|Education|Labor|New York City|Police Violence · Comments Off

4 Oct 2011

From the VivirLatino Inbox:

DC 37 employees play a critical role in our school community as parent coordinators, tech support, and school aides who help our schools run like clockwork. They are invaluable members of every school community. Laying off DC37 workers not only hurts the learning of all children, but disproportionally affects low-income communities of color like the Bronx. Some neighborhoods are slated to lose up to 25% of their DC 37 staff members!

How can you get involved?

•                Wear GREEN to school on Tuesday, October 4 to show your support to all DC37 employees throughout the city.
•                Join DC37 workers at a protest rally at City Hall on Tuesday, from 4pm-6pm.
•                Call 311 to tell the mayor to stop the layoffs of all 700 DC37 workers. Our students need these workers and there is a surplus in the budget!
Tuesday, October 4: Day of Action Against School Pushouts and to Create Positive Discipline in NYC Schools (City Hall, 5pm)
•                In collaboration with the DC37 rally, students, parents, educators and organizers involved with Dignity in Schools Campaign-NY will also be at City Hall on Tuesday, at 5pm. This New York City rally and student street theater action is part of a national campaign supporting local and federal policy change to reduce suspensions, expulsions and arrests, and implement positive approaches to school climate and discipline like restorative practices and positive behavior supports.

• Supporters will walk from the DC37 rally to the other side of City Hall for the Street Theater Action at 5pm.October 1- October 8 (this week) National Week of Action on School Pushout.

Students and educators across the country are participating in political actions to raise awareness of the negative impacts of zero-tolerance discipline policies and over-policing of public schools. These policies contribute to a disproportionate number of poor (especially Black and Latino) students who end up dropping out of our schools. Some facts:
•                Nationwide, over 1 million students who start high school this year won’t finish.
•                In New York City in 2008-2009, there were 73,000 suspensions in public schools.
•                Students with disabilities in NYC are four times more likely to be suspended than students without disabilities.
•                More than 38,000 Black students are suspended every year in NYC, and the majority are male.

In Mississippi, Promise of Immigration Changes Does not Equal Lessening of Immigrant Fears

9:44 am By Maegan La Mala · Immigration|Labor|Mississippi · 2 Comments

21 Sep 2011

While reports are written urging an end to Secure Communities and while the Obama administration and the Department of Homeland Security make announcements promising change to the “good & hardworking” undocumented immigrants, a months ago ICE audit in Ecru and Ripley (Northeast Mississippi) casts a long shadow over a community. This so-called kinder, gentler “raid lite” which took place in April at Ashley Furniture Industries, Inc. resulted in the firing of hundreds because of “irregularities with I-9 forms.”

IC from the Mississippi Immigrants’ Rights Alliance (MIRA) in Jackson, MS shared with me that many of the undocumented immigrants who lost their jobs after this event found other jobs in other factories, a few decided to leave the country, and a few decided to start small businesses, but none of them have filed suits with the EEOC or Department of Labor regarding back pay for wage theft they endured over the years because they are afraid.

What happened at Ashley Furniture Industries, Inc. is a prime example of some of the problems that mandatory E-Verify cause and how widespread the impact can be. Inside the company supervisors, employees, managers and HR personnel encouraged identity theft. From the MIRA Newsletter:

One supervisor, Ricardo* and one HR Supervisor Jeff* collaborated in selling identities for anywhere from $400-600, and in selling jobs for anywhere from $300-1200, depending on the wages of the job involved. Ricardo went to jail for six months for his crime, but when he was released, the company gave him his old job back. During that time, various female employees accused him, of sexual harassment, while male employees often complained that he forced them to pay weekly quotas.

Certainly none of the displaced workers have been able to get their jobs back and workers that remain employed at Ashley have complained of lowered starting wages.

Today, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) is pushing a bill in the House Judiciary Committee to make E-Verify mandatory nationwide. Given the current economic crisis and unemployment numbers, the focus on how E-Verify drives down wages and actually increases job instability for U.S. workers is understandable. However, the immediate impact on the lives of the undocumented workers shouldn’t be swept under the rug in the name of political expediency.

Monday Movie : La Cosecha/The Harvest

6:48 am By Maegan La Mala · children|Labor|Movies|youth · Comments Off

15 Aug 2011

What did you eat this weekend? Onions, tomatoes, strawberries, watermelons, blueberries, cucumbers, or apples? If you said yes to any of the above it is possible that your food passed through the hands of one of the three teenagers featured in the documentary la Cosecha/The Harvest.

The Harvest/La Cosecha – Theatrical Trailer from Shine Global on Vimeo.

The film follows the lives of Zulema, Victor, y Perla as they follow their families as three of the 400,000 who pick the food that passes over our tables. The teens, are described as American children – as in from the United States, but one shouldn’t gloss over the fact that they are Latin American children as well. The children of immigrants or immigrants themselves. They speak the languages of Latinos – our languages : Spanish, English, and Spanglish.
“My dad no esta” – says 14 year old Zulema.
“Vamos al field,” says 16 year old Victor.
And they In the words of 14 year old Perla:

Because you are brown they think you’re from Mexico. They think your stupid, poor, a migrant. I was born here. Where am I supposed to go?

Monday Morning Movie Preview : The Harvest/la Cosecha

18 Jul 2011

No doubt this morning, the buzz is how much money the final episode in the Harry Potter film franchise made this past weekend. I would like to draw your attention to less magical matters. Thinking specifically of a comment that longtime reader Sabina made last week saying how all of us in the U.S. benefit from immigrant labor made me think of this upcoming film.

The Harvest/La Cosecha – Theatrical Trailer from Shine Global on Vimeo.

The Harvest/La Cosecha tells the story of the children who feed America.

Coming to NY July 29th
Coming to LA August 5th
Coming to TV on Epix Oct 5th

www.theharvestfilm.com

The film, Executive Produced by Eve Longoria and released though a non-profit (of which I know little about), Shine Global Inc., certainly deals with an important issue. How it tells the story of the young farm laborers will be important too. Already in the marketing of the film we see language used to make these children “American” as in of the U.S., not of the “Americas”. This is supposed to clearly elicit more sympathy than say if the film was about “non-Americans”. I worry about this divide.

The film also apparently is being used as a way to promote policy – pushing not from the DREAM Act, or AGJobs or CIR but rather equal protection under the Fair Labor Standards Act, which prevents children under a certain age from working and applies conditions for youth labor. On the official website of the film there is even a place for people to contact their local congressperson and senators.

I am certainly interested in seeing the film to do a full review. Screening information is here.

What do you all think?

Where’s The Pro-Union/Worker Outrage? Entire Leadership of Puerto Rican Teachers Federation (FMPR) Fired from their Teaching Positions

10:13 am By Maegan La Mala · Education|Labor|Puerto Rico · 2 Comments

27 Feb 2011

I hate to be the mean one, really (ok maybe not) but reading the outrage over the lack of mainstream media coverage over the masive pro-union, pro-worker, pro-gente rally in Wisconsin yesterday again had me thinking about Puerto Rico, also part of the United States. Anti-union, anti-worker, and anti-gente moves by a Governor who would be/could be a “tea party” poster child, and his administration, have been largely ignored in the U.S. media and even in the independent “progressive” media.

One of the latest actions was the firing of the entire leadership (11 people) of the Puerto Rican Teachers Federation (FMPR) from their teaching positions by Puerto Rican Education Secretary Jesús Rivera Sánchez. The union’s president, Rafael Feliciano, together with the ten other dismissed leaders, had their teaching licenses permanently revoked, blocking them from exercising their profession in public and private systems.

The FMPR is an independent democratic social justice justice union that has defied their version of the repressive Taylor Law (Law 45) and have had successful strikes and continuously organizes walk-outs with parents, students and communities against the horrible school conditions.

Attacks on Immigrant Workers Cross Party Lines

7:50 pm By Maegan La Mala · Immigration|Labor|Politics · 10 Comments

9 Feb 2011

Just last month, I wrote about how I.C.E., a division of the Department of Homeland Security announced that it was stepping up so called “silent raids” or audits of companies suspected of hiring undocumented workers. This announcement, which really was just an official announcement of what I.C.E. has already been doing (besides “loud” raids in communities), certainly can be related to the mass firings and investigations into the employees of faux Mexican chain Chipotle.

Fact : Department of Homeland Security is run by Janet Napolitano, Democrat, appointed by Democrat President Obama. In fact here is what Napolitano had to say about E-Verify on C-Span.

Workplace Raids Targeting Employers or Employed?

10:58 am By Maegan La Mala · Immigration|Labor · 16 Comments

20 Jan 2011

This morning U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E) is set to announce the creation of a new office with the express job of auditing companies suspected of hiring undocumented workers. While the alleged purpose of these efforts to is to insure that companies use workers eligible to the work in the U.S. and to find those that don’t, the effects increase the number of unemployed overall.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Morton [head of I.C.E] said the new center would have the “express purpose” of providing support to regional immigration offices conducting large audits. “We wouldn’t be limited by the size of a company,” he said.

The audits, which have affected garment makers, fruit growers and meat packers, result in the firing of everyundocumented immigrant on a company’s payroll. Companies say this has hurt them, especially as they can’t attract American workers even during an economic downturn.

Last year, for example, Gebbers Farm, an agricultural concern in Brewster, Wash., dismissed an estimated 550 workers—about a quarter of the local population—after ICE told the company a number of its employees’ hiring documents were suspect.

VivirLatino