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).
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.
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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.”
In follow-up to an earlier post from October 2010 —
From the IRS: IRS Identifies Organizations that Have Lost Tax-Exempt Status – Special Steps Announced to Help Revoked Groups
The Internal Revenue Service announced that it has released a listing of approximately 275,000 organizations that under the law have automatically lost their tax-exempt status because they have not filed annual reports as legally required for the past three years. If an organization appears on the list of auto-revoked organizations it is because IRS records indicate the organization has a filing requirement and has not filed the required returns or notices for 2007, 2008 and 2009.
The IRS has issued guidance on how organizations can apply for reinstatement of their tax-exempt status, including retroactive reinstatement. In addition, the IRS announced transition relief for certain smaller tax-exempt groups – those with annual gross receipts of $50,000 or less for 2010 and eligible to file Form 990-N, the e-Postcard. The relief allows eligible revoked groups to gain retroactive tax-exempt status and pay a reduced application fee of $100 rather than the typical $400 fee. More information, including FAQs and a Fact Sheet, can be found on the IRS website.
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.
The 2011 Polish Summer Festival at the Albany Polish Community Center, 225 Washington Ave Ext., Albany, NY on Sunday, July 10th from 1:30 – 7pm.
Music, Dancing, Polish-American food, Kids’ activities, Polish exhibits and Polka Music by the Polka Country Musicians from 2:30 – 6:30pm
Children 16 and under free admission, Spacious Dance Floor, Plenty of Parking.
For reservations please call Tom Raymond at 518-283-0129 or Frank Koslow at 518-456-1961.
