SEIU LOCAL 32BJ MEMBERS WIN NEW CONTRACT

New four-year contract provides more than 16% in wage increases! Thank you to all of our labor, community and religious allies for your support and solidarity during this fight.

December 29, 2007, New York, NY - The Local 32BJ Bargaining Committee announced on December 29th a tentative agreement on a new $6.8 billion contract for 26,000 commercial property service workers in New York City that provides more than 16% in pay increases over the life of the contract, improves the pension benefit for the first time in four years and maintains fully employer-paid family health care coverage. [Read more →]

Press conference & peaceful protest against sexual harassment on Public Sidewalk outside Outback Steakhouse, North Haven

Friday January 4, 7 p.m. (Directions Below) [Read more →]

Danbury to Vote on Plan to Deputize Police as ICE Agents
Community Leaders demand NO! to 287(g)!

All out for protest on Thursday, 6:30 p.m.

PRESS ADVISORY: Dec. 31, 2007
For more information call :
203-512-3452 (Jean) before 3pm
203-448-9140 (Beth) after 3pm.

On January 3rd, 2008, Danbury Common Council is due to vote on the 287g ACCESS program that would allow the Local Police, and the City of Danbury to enter into a memorandum of understanding with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). Under this memorandum, local police officers would be trained by ICE Agents, to perform ICE investigations, arrests, detainments, and possibly even begin the deportation process.

Local Police who sign on for the training within this program are under the direction and supervision of Federal ICE Agents, and are not bound by the same limits as police officers who are not under the auspices of ICE. [Read more →]

The white nationalist organization North East White Pride has announced that it plans to hold a meeting in Meriden, Connecticut on Saturday, January 12.

http://www.newp.org/bbs/index.php?topic=4729.0

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*Happy New Year*

Unidad Latina en Accion takes Outback Steakhouse to task for their worker abuses.

From the New Haven  Independent.

But the leaflet itself from 2002 Gay PRIDE in Boston is nice to see.

Romney  *  Healey

for Governor  * Lt. Governor

Mitt and Kerry

Wish you a Great

Pride Weekend.

www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57786

From libcom.org, libertarian communist website from the UK.

So I’ve had this design floating around in my head for awhile, and I got the old layout-fever tonight. I really love to cut, paste, juxtapose, nudge, stretch, preview, adjust and touch-up flyers.

So, we have two slightly different versions here, and I’m open to suggestions on what to change/add. The differentiations have more to do with message clarity than content, which is the positioning of the “queers without borders” text. They’re meant to be cut in half.

First one

Second one

Be brutal.

Here’s a couple more with different logos.

This is a classic image everyone will recognize, and I like for leftists to identify with it.

And this is just because I like the flying pig. Plus, I think having it coupled with QWB gives it an interesting new dimension.

I haven’t designed any of the logos, just borrowed them from elsewhere. If anyone has any graphics they’d like to see on there let me know, or we could just go without one.

From Upping the Anti, a Journal of Theory and Action (Canada)

http://uppingtheanti.org/node/2789

Please join the members of AFSCME Local 595 on the morning of Christmas Eve as they rally for dignity and justice!

Date: Monday, December 24
Time: 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.
Place: Meriden City Hall, 142 East Main Street

The City of Meriden locked out AFSCME Local 595 members on the day after Thanksgiving and intends to do the same thing on Christmas Eve and New Years Eve. “This is no way to begin the holiday season. Cutting public services, slashing pay rates and locking out dedicated workers, even for a day, is a destructive path for the citizens of Meriden,” said Local 595 President Diana Naimo, who is the recreation coordinator at the Meriden Senior Center.

Please join your union sisters and brothers as they tell Meriden city officials, “No one should be locked out for the holidays!”

Meriden City Hall is located at 142 East Main St., Meriden, CT. People should try to park at the Meriden Public Library, 105 Miller ST. For directions to the library: http://www.cityofmeriden.org/CMS/default.asp?CMS_PageID=313

For additional information, please contact:
Andy Romegialli, (860) 989-9134
Anne Peckham, (860) 989-9120

What a surprise was announced at the Justice For Janitors Rally yesterday.  32 BJ of The Service Employee’s Union and the cleaning contractors that hire the workers had come to a tentative agreement on the new contract. This action gave the unionized cleaners in Hartford and in the suburbs most everything they had asked for. The length of the contract is for four years. [Read more →]

THE NIGHT BEFORE THE CONVENTION
by RECREATE 68

‘Twas the night before the Convention, when all through the land

a revolution was stirring, the people were making a stand;

[Read more →]

New Orleans City Council incites brutal police attacks and tear-gassing of public housing tenants and their allies

Today, Dec. 20, in the City Council chambers in New Orleans, public housing tenants and their allies gathered to exercise their democratic right to speak against the vote to demolish their homes.

The city council’s response was to call in the city council security, the NOLA (New Orleans, LA) swat teams and police force to forcibly remove, arrest, beat, drag, brutalize and tear-gas those who wanted the to express their opposition to the loss of stable housing stock.

An elderly woman with a cane was seen being dragged across the city council parking lot by the police. Media persons, tenants and community supporters were tear-gassed at rapid fire by an over zealous NOLA woman cop as if she was on the battle field in Iraq.

[To see the video of police using tasers and pepper spray against protesters, click here.]

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Justice for Janitors Rally
Local 32BJ
Fighting for Health Care for All

Date: Thursday, December 20, 2007
Time: 3:30 pm
Where: Downtown Hartford at the corner of Main Street and Gold Street

For more information, please contact Art Perry at 860-560-8674 ext 307.

SEIU Local 32BJ members are fighting for affordable health care and a living wage in their current contract negotiations. Come out and support their fight!

First let me make on thing very clear. I do not care for any religious leaders or organized religion and don’t give a rats pa-tooey if they are liberal or conservative. But that old thing that resides in Rome looking half crazed really gets my goat. Now I love peace as much as everyone else in fact most of my adult life has centered around working for peace. During the Vietnam days I was a conscientious objector even if the draft board tried to convince me that Lutherans were not pacifists. (Oh those outsiders telling a person who they are.) I have been arrested in many a demo and could go on and on but what the heck I don’t need to go on and on putting my credentials out there like the wash on a clothes line. I just am who I am and what I am.

[Read more →]

[cross posted from HIMC] I think all of us who attended today’s Nashawn Williams Rally in Plainfield would say that it was a true success. Our goals were to assure that the Williams family knew that Connecticut stood behind them in their outrage to the racial violence that was perpetrated upon Nashawn. We were honored that Nashawn’s mother and her fiance were able to attend and speak at the rally. And she saw that many people stood in solidarity with her in outrage at, and quest for, justice from the Plainfield Police, City Officials and residents of Plainfield. Though a number of Plainfield residents were hiding behind closed doors in the Town Hall whose steps we took for the day, there were a number of brave Plainfield residents who joined us and spoke out against the racism in Plainfield and in support of the Williams family. We hope that this visible presence will begin to allow Plainfield to openly discuss and deal with its institutionalized racism and white supremacy and [Read more →]

THE NIGHT BEFORE BLACK FRIDAY
By Jerimarie Liesegang of Queers without Borders

Twas the night before Black Friday, when all through the store,
Not a cash register was ringing, not even a penny rolling on the floor;

The sale signs were hung with the rollback prices near,
In hopes that the greedy capitalists would soon appear;

[Read more →]

The New Haven Coalition to End the Parole Ban - Protest
The Board of Pardons & Parole
Waterbury (55 West Main St.)
Monday, December 17, at 11:30 am

Sign the Petition to END the Parole Ban

Governor Rell has banned parole. Even those, out of parole, who had already rejoined society are being taken back to prison (this includes

[Read more →]

Jena is Plainfield, CT.
Racist Assault with no arrest or prosecution of attackers!

Stand up to a racist Klan organization and a racist law enforcement system that fails to uphold the law.

Download flier at:
http://www.faithCT.org/flyers/nashawn.doc [Read more →]

Today poverty prevails as the gravest human rights challenge in the world. Combating poverty, deprivation, and exclusion is not a matter of charity, and it does not depend on how rich a country is. By tackling poverty as a matter of human rights obligation, the world will have a better chance of abolishing this scourge in our lifetime…poverty eradication is an achievable goal.

Louise Arbour ….UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

****OUTRAGE****

[Read more →]

The link below is to a video of a police attack on Bill Quigley, an NLG lawyer in New Orleans who has helped lead the legal battle against efforts to demolish public housing in that city. Bill has been in the forefront of legal battles on behalf of the people of New Orleans since long before Hurricane Katrina. As you can see from the video, Bill was literally doing nothing more than standing with a group of people engaged in a loud debate with public officials when a police officer grabbed him, slammed him head first against a wall and handcuffed him for “disturbing the peace.”

The City is making it clear that little things like the law won’t stand in the way of its efforts to make New Orleans a playground for well-heeled white people.

——– Original Message ——–
Subject: [NLGMassdefense] Bill Q & Southern Hospitality
Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2007 19:31:33 -0800 (PST)
From: bill quigley

http://www.wdsu.com/video/14794232/index.html

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Just recently I read these words,  “all that is happening right now is a perfect example of why organizations might prefer to be single issue!” I am not going to write about the whole flap that was happening but instead I wish to write and think about single and multi-issue movements within our TBLG stories.  This essay could well be called Around and Around and Up and Down and Back and Forth we go. [Read more →]

After the Cheshire murders, the political atmosphere in Connecticut has been contaminated by the same kind of security state mentality that characterized Congress after 9/11. Even some “good” legislators have offered what they call solutions for public safety that involve spending millions on more prisons and rely on harsher punishment and longer prison sentences.

Today’s Courant includes a great Op-ed article by Khalil Iskarous that takes on the “liberal” law-and-order proposals. Khalil is a New Haven activist and member of the Committee Against the Ban on Parole and Unidad Latina.

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NASHAWN WILLIAMS SOLIDARIY VIGIL

Thursday, December 6, 2007

5:30 PM

Charter Oak Cultural Center 21 Charter Oak Ave, Hartford

Candlelight Vigil Steps of Charter Oak Cultural Center

5:30 – 5:50 PM

Discussion & Networking on Ways to Resist Racist Hate Crimes

5:50 PM – 7:00 PM

[Read more →]

On International Human Rights Day, join us in calling on the federal government to:

Gather at 4:30 p.m. in South Green Park (corner of Park and Main streets)
Step off at 5 p.m. and march to the ICE headquarters, 450 Main St., for a rally. [Read more →]

Well TransAdvocacy and Queers Without Borders braved the horrid cold (thank you Richard, Frank, Alvin, Paul and Philip) to tell HRC what we think. Click on the link below to see photo’s from the event. Click to view photo’s from the HRC protest at UCONN. It’s a good thing we kept our numbers small otherwise [Read more →]

First, I would like to offer the following video I created from two great sources: TransHouston and Shona’s Flames in the Looking Glass: I presented this video at a panel this morning on Trans & HIV/AIDS that I shared with Mucha, Mucha Pleasure and Lola.

Download link

Each year World AIDS Day is remembered on December 1st. World AIDS Day originated [Read more →]