Speaker followed by open discussion. Teddy Shibabaw, community organizer with Socialist Alternative, will present on the ecological and economic disaster unfolding along the Gulf Coast following the explosion and sinking of BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig two weeks ago. Who will be made to pay for this disaster and the massive clean-up? Can the profit-driven agenda to expand drilling pushed by big oil, Obama, and the Republicans be stopped? Is it possible to adequately regulate polluting industries under capitalism? How can we channel the rage at this disaster into a stronger movement for transforming our energy economy into a sustainable and humane system of renewable energy production? Come join us for a discussion on these crucial questions and more. For more analysis, see: http://socialistalternative.org/news/article19.php?id=1373

Sponsored by Mayday Books and Socialist Alternative

SocialistMinnesota.org  |  612.760.1980  |  mn@socialistalternative.org
SocialistAlternative.org  |  SocialistWorld.net

MaydayBookstore.org  |  612.333.4719  |  maydaybookstore@gmail.com

Date: Thursday, April 22, 2010
Time: 12:00pm - 2:00pm
Location: Smith Hall 100, East Bank, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

“Official” facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=103267583048445&ref=mf
Unnofficial counter event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=108530932518033&ref=mf

Karl Rove is coming to town! Rove was a primary architect of the Bush administration’s policies and political strategy. He was a major player in organizing the theft of the 2000 elections, the cynical policy of using 9/11 to justify wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, curtailment of civil liberties, and Bush’s pro-corporate, right-wing domestic agenda. Rove is on a book tour now, promoting his methods of deception and corruption to right-wing audiences across the country.

As the far-right and corporate power grows more bold, it is essential that antiwar activists and progressive confront criminal figures like Rove and the policies he represents

This is also Zero Recruitment Day so there should already be various anti-war activities going on: http://www.antiwarcommittee.org/?q=node/435

Protest called by UofM SDS and the Anti-War Committee, and others including Socialist Alternative are also mobilizing for the protest.

Saturday, April 17

NOON - 6PM

University of Minnesota - West Bank Auditorium
(In the basement of Willey Hall, 225 19th Avenue S, Minneapolis)

12:00 PM Building a Left in the Age Of Obama
SPEAKER: Paul Street, author of “Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics” and featured ZNet contributor

2:00 PM WE WON’T PAY FOR YOUR CRISIS! Global resistance to attacks on jobs, education and public services
Panel discussion featuring Eckhard Geitz, leading German trade union activist, serving on the National Committee of Sozialistische Alternative

4:00 PM FILM SCREENING and PANEL discussion:
“Rock El Imperio,” - Documentary of local hip-hop band Junkyard Empire’s tour of Cuba last summer, featuring Cuba’s top hip-hop artists in interviews and performances

Followed by a panel discussion on “Art and Revolution” with Chris Cox of Junkyard Empire and others

More speakers TBA

AFTER PARTY FEATURING PERFORMANCE BY JUNKYARD EMPIRE AND OTHER GUESTS
9PM AT 3029 CHICAGO AVE IN MINNEAPOLIS
(NEAR CORNER WITH LAKE ST)
$5 DONATION

Sponsored by Socialist Alternative

612-760-1980 | mn@socialistalternative.org

Solidarity Meeting for Twin Cities janitors of SEIU Local 26
fighting against vicious attacks on wages, benefits and working conditions
7pm on Tuesday, Feb 16th
Coffman Union Room 211, University of Minnesota
300 Washington Ave SE, Minneapolis
Twin Cities Janitors Prepare to Strike
By Dan DiMaggio
February 10, 2010

Thousands of janitors in the Twin Cities are preparing to strike, if necessary, for decent wage increases, affordable health care, paid sick days, and in defense of full-time jobs.

These janitors, members of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 26, clean buildings owned by some of the most profitable corporations and banks in Minnesota, including Wells Fargo ($8 billion in profits in 2009), U.S. Bank ($1.8 billion), Target ($2.2 billion), and Medtronic ($2.2 billion). Yet the cleaning contractors hired by these companies have proposed ZERO wage increases, no paid sick days, increased health care premiums, and a host of other attacks. These cleaning companies are also quite profitable enterprises, with the largest, ABM, a Fortune 1000 company with 100,000 employees and revenues of $3.6 billion (MPR, 11/9/09).

The importance of this struggle was summed up in the words of one worker, a young mother of two, who said, ” The bosses, they sleep easy at night. I wanna sleep easy at night like they do! And if my kids have to do something like this - though I hope they don’t - it will be easier for them because we fought.” … I consider us a gang now. There are more of us than there are of them. We’ve got the dust pans, the brooms, the mops, and if we stop using ‘em, what do you think, they’re gonna start doing the work?

The struggle by Twin Cities janitors deserves the support of all workers and youth, and anyone who is fed up with the greed of the big banks and corporations, who aim to take advantage of the recession to roll back the gains made by workers in order to boost their profits. While CEOs might be able to survive a pay cut (the CEO of Goldman Sachs is “only” getting a $9 million bonus this year – how will he pay the mortgage on his mansions and pay off his yachts and still be able to feed his family?), janitors making less than $13/hour can hardly afford to “tighten their belts” anymore.

The ultimate goal of the cleaning companies and building owners is to revert back to part-time, poverty-wage janitorial jobs, with workers firmly under the thumb of management and afraid to assert their rights. All workers have a stake in this struggle, because defending and expanding the number of good jobs helps counter the race-to-the-bottom and raise standards for all workers.

Janitors are not taking these attacks lying down. In a union meeting in early February, they voted to authorize their bargaining committee to call a strike. The African-American, white, Latino, Somali, and Ethiopian members of the union chanted “Sí se puede” (“Yes we can”) in 5 languages, in an inspiring display of unity. (See video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XglK_L8CaBo)

Janitors have been working without a contract since January, and the companies have offered virtually nothing in negotiations. The biggest company, ABM, is proposing NO pay increase for 2010 and 2011, and then 13 cents in 2012. Marsden, another major contractor, proposes no raise for 2010, and 5 cents in both 2011 and 2012. When workers were presented with the employers’ proposal at a recent union meeting, most laughed at what they consider a sick joke.

Right now, Twin Cities janitors covered under the union contract make $12.97 per hour, a wage that is extremely difficult to raise a family on, or even to survive on alone. But the proposal from the companies amounts to a pay cut, given inflation.

In addition to offering no wage increases, the employers want yearly increases in health insurance premiums paid by workers, while offering the same bad plans. Many workers complain they have racked up thousands of dollars in debt for hospital bills and other medical expenses despite having insurance. The union is demanding better coverage, fighting to achieve free health care like janitors in Boston, Chicago, and Seattle have won. The companies have also refused to accept the union’s demand for three paid sick days per year – an extremely modest demand (and one that is many other countries a constitutional right, with 127 countries guaranteeing at least a week of paid sick days a year – and 102 countries guaranteeing a month or more, while in the U.S. 48% of private sector workers have no paid sick days - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sick_leave).

The companies are also trying to do away with any commitments to full-time work, to allow them to create more part-time jobs. They have refused to give workers job protection when buildings change contractors, refused to guarantee paid breaks on the job, and callously refused to allow workers to save vacation up (crucial to many immigrant workers with elderly relatives and families in other countries).

The union is also calling on the companies to make janitorial jobs “green jobs,” by transitioning to day-shift cleaning instead of having to light buildings at night while workers clean. They also want to move to more environmentally-friendly, safer cleaning products.

There is no reason why janitorial jobs shouldn’t be good jobs, paying a living wage, with good health care, full-time hours, paid sick days, and decent working conditions. Yet for the past 30 years, building owners have shifted to subcontracting work to cleaning companies who often pay poverty wages with no benefits, in an effort to cut costs. SEIU’s Justice for Janitors campaign has fought against this trend and built a fighting union in numerous cities across the country.

If the union did not exist, the building owners and cleaning companies would be happy to be paying workers $7 an hour, with no benefits and absolutely no rights. The struggle by Twin Cities janitors is a struggle in which all workers have an interest. As one security guard, also a member of SEIU Local 26, put it at a recent union meeting in offering his support to the janitors, “If the janitors don’t fight it will affect everyone,” encouraging the employers to go for blood against the security guards and other workers throughout the cities and surrounding suburbs.

The mainly immigrant janitors are setting a heroic example by fighting back against some of the biggest corporations in the Twin Cities – and the country – during this time of economic recession and corporate assault on working people. This is even more the case given that 1,200 janitors working for ABM lost their jobs in October in a “quiet immigration raid,” “one of the largest immigration crackdowns under the Obama administration to date” (http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/11/09/immigrants-fired/). As one janitor put it, “I really want people to hear — and if possible even get to the ears of President Barack Obama — that we don’t come here for anything other than to work. And if anyone could see the places we come from and were in our shoes, they would do the same thing” (MPR, 11/9/09). Coincidentally, this raid just happened to take place a few months before the janitors’ contract was set to expire.

It is to the enduring credit of these janitors that they are still standing up to their employers, at the bargaining table, in their workplaces, and on the streets. As the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass put it, “Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted … The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”

Come out and march with SEIU Local 26 on Monday, February 15 at 11:30am, starting at the Hennepin County Government Center in downtown Minneapolis. And hear from janitors and union activists about their struggle at a public meeting sponsored by Socialist Alternative, La Raza, and the SEIU Local 26 Solidarity Committee on Tuesday, February 16 at 7pm at the University of Minnesota in Coffman Union Room 211. The union is also looking for supporters willing to walk on the picket lines and even be picket captains.

An injury to one is an injury to all! Support the struggle of Twin Cities janitors!

Dinner Fundraiser and Party, 6:30pm - 10pm
After the forum, people are welcome to stay for a great home-cooked meal, drinks, music and fun. Donations for food and beverages goes to the campaign fund of Socialist Alternative. Menu and other details to be announced soon at SocialistMinnesota.org

Sponsored by Socialist Alternative
For more info or to get active, contact us at mn@socialistalternative.org or 612.760.1980
www.SocialistMinnesota.org  |  www.SocialistAlternative.org  |  www.SocialistWorld.net

Paul Street is the leading left analyst of Obama and author of Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics, which journalist John Pilger calls “perhaps the only book that tells the truth about the 44th president of the United States.”

*** TWO DATES ***
Wednesday, December 9th
7pm, Macalester College
Humanities Room 226
Map: http://www.macalester.edu/about/mapbyalpha.html

Thursday, December 10th
7pm, University of Minnesota, West Bank
Blegen Hall Room 010
Map: http://www1.umn.edu/twincities/maps/BlegH/index.html

On December 10th, Barack Obama will receive the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, NOrway. Yet in what seems to be a contradiction of this award, his administration is preparing to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, and recently signed one of the largest military budgets in U.S. history. Come hear anti-war activists’ views on Obama’s foreign policy, and discuss what we can do to achieve real peace.

Sponsored by Socialist Alternative, and endorsed by the Iraq Peace Action Coalition and Youth Against War & Racism. For more information, to endorse, or help organize the event, contact Dan DiMaggio at 617-519-3026

——————-

About the speaker: Paul Street is an independent journalist and writer. He is the author of Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics, described by British journalist John Pilger as “perhaps the only book that tells the truth about the 44th president of the United States.” He is now working on a new book, The Re-Branding: A Leftist’s Guide to Barack Obama in the Real World of Power. He was formerly Director of Research at the Chicago Urban League from 2000 to 2005 and Visiting Professor in U.S. History at Northern Illinois University during 2005-2006.

Some of Paul Street’s recent work:
The Nobel Gift - http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/22842
Obama’s Violin: Populist Rage and the Uncertain Containment of Change - http://www.zcommunications.org/zmag/viewArticle/21334
Perverted Priorities: One Year Later - http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/23068
There Is No Peace Dividend: Reflections on Empire, Inequality, and “Brand Obama” - http://www.zcommunications.org/zmag/viewArticle/20129

Main October 17th demonstration endorsed by: Anti-War Committee; Bread and Roses Forum of the Sisters of St. Joseph; Burnsville and Eagan Peace Vigil; FMLN Minnesota; Freedom Road Socialist Organization; Growing Communities for Peace; Hands Off Venezuela; Iraq Peace Action Coalition; Iraq Veterans Against the War; Lyndale United Church of Christ; Mayday Books; Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers; Minnesota Tenants Union; Military Families Speak Out; Minnesota Cuba Committee; Pakistan Trade Union Defense Campaign; St. of Arc Peacemakers; St. Paul Regional Labor Federation; Sacred Heart Church, Peace and Justice Committee; Socialist Action; Socialist Alternative; Students for a Democratic Society (U of M); Twin Cities Peace Campaign - Focus on Iraq; Veterans for Peace; Welfare Rights Committee; White Bear Unitarian Church Social Action Committee; Women Against Military Madness; Workers’ International League; Youth Against War and Racism.

These actions are part of a national day of action, with protests happening in dozens of cities across the country. See: http://october17.org/

————————

WHY WE’RE PROTESTING THE WARS ON OCTOBER 17

Because there are currently more combined troops in Iraq and Afghanistan than at any time under Bush, despite Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize victory.

Because we oppose sending tens of thousands more troops to Afghanistan. Already, the Obama administration has added over 30,000 troops there, doubling the numbers under Bush - but now, they want to send 10,000-45,000 more! 58% of Americans oppose the war in Afghanistan (and only 25% support adding more troops).

Because we want money for jobs, health care, and education, not war. The U.S. spends as much on its military as the rest of the world combined - $713 billion in 2009 - while millions are losing their jobs and homes in the economic crisis.

Because we want our friends and family in the military home now, not risking their lives in unjust foreign occupations. More troops were killed in July and August in Afghanistan than in any other months since the war began. 5,130 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan thus far, and tens of thousands more severely wounded. 1/3 of all soldiers return with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression, or traumatic brain injury.

Because 8 years of occupation in Afghanistan does not equal liberation. The lives of Afghans have been worsened through military occupation. Thousands of civilians have been killed by bombs dropped by U.S. and NATO planes. 53% of the population still lives on less than $1 per day, and 77% lack access to clean water. Female literacy rates, 1t 13%, haven’t improved despite the overthrow of the Taliban. Recent elections were marred by fraud and low voter turnout, and the country continues to be ruled by corrupt warlords who have cut deals with the U.S. occupying forces.

Because we are opposed to unjust foreign military occupations and empire. The U.S. was founded by a revolution against British occupying armies. The Iraqi and Afghan people have the right to run their own countries, free from foreign occupation.

It is only by building a movement in the streets that we can force the politicians to end these unjust wars!