NYC, 11/21: Rally to Support the Golden Farm Workers

Mitin en Apoyo de los Trabajadores de Golden Farm

Rally at 6 pm, Wednesday, November 21
Golden Farm at 329 Church Ave, Kensington, Brooklyn
Contact Lucas (NYCC) 646 600 2426 or Eleanor (OK) 347 403 3798 or e-mail occupykensington@yahoo.com

[Vea abajo para español]

The Golden Farm workers have stayed strong throughout their fight, week after week, and they couldn’t have kept it up without you-the community-supporting them along the way. As we approach the first round of negotiations between the workers (represented by RWDSU/UFCW Local 338) and the owner Sonny Kim with his lawyer in the final days of November, the workers have asked the community to show our strength on the busiest shopping day of the year.

On November 21st, 2012, the day before Thanksgiving, Kensington community members, workers and allies from all over the city will take to the streets to say “No Thanks, Sonny Kim-we won’t shop until you Give the workers a fair contract and a job with dignity!” We will picket Golden Farm at 329 Church Ave. from 11A-9PM, and all community allies are called to a rally starting at 6PM. Bring your empty pots and pans and show Sonny we won’t be cooking with rotten wages this year. [...]

Read the full announcement:

http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2012/11/121203.html

Immigration Reform May Be Big Winner in US Elections

by Carey L. Biron, Common Dreams
November 10, 2012

WASHINGTON - In the aftermath of a surprisingly lopsided victory for President Barack Obama’s Democratic Party and for progressive causes more broadly, one of the key discussions taking place here is over the suddenly increased prospects for comprehensive immigration reform, long an issue so divisive that few politicians have been willing to tackle it.

“Coming out of this election, there is now increased debate in political circles on how to create a pragmatic immigration system, with Republicans and conservatives engaging in this debate to a degree our country has never seen,” Ali Noorani, the executive director of the National Immigration Forum, the largest such group in the country, said while speaking with journalists on Thursday. [...]

Read the full article:
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/11/10-0

Speaker ‘Confident’ of Deal With White House on Immigration

By Jennifer Steinhauer, New York Times
November 8, 2012

WASHINGTON — Fresh off an election in which Hispanic voters largely sided with Democrats, Speaker John A. Boehner said Thursday that he was “confident” Congress and the White House could come up with a comprehensive immigration solution.

Immigration reform is “an important issue that I think ought to be dealt with,” Mr. Boehner, an Ohio Republican, said in an interview with Diane Sawyer on “ABC World News.” [...]

Read the full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/09/us/politics/boehner-confident-of-deal-with-white-house-on-immigration.html

MAKE THE CALL, SIGN THE PETITION TO SUPPORT SERGIO - It's a matter of life or death!

Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC United)
November 8, 2012


This week, there were some great victories for workers, immigrants, the LGBT community, and more BUT the work for us and for the people we fight for continues.

One of our leaders of the Dignity at Darden campaign in Los Angeles has been in an ICE detention facility since May of this year. Sergio is a ROC-LA member, a gay man living with AIDS, who was recently diagnosed with cancer. Doctors found a tumor in his head - but Sergio is not getting the medical treatment he needs.

Please take a minute to sign this petition: http://action.dreamactivist.org/california/sergio/

Sergio was told he needs chemotherapy as soon as possible but he is not getting the treatment he needs in detention. His health is deteriorating rapidly, and without the proper treatment Sergio could die soon. Santa Ana City Jail has a record of abuses of gay and transgender detainees, delays in medical care, and reports of mistreatment. Sergio needs to be released immediately!

Please take a minute to sign the petition, share it with others, and make a call to ICE!
Call ICE – John Morton @ 202-732-3000

Sample Script: “Hi, I am calling to urge ICE to release Sergio Vazquez Gutierrez (A# 200-243-222) from the Santa Ana City Jail in California. Sergio was recently diagnosed with cancer and a tumor in his head. He needs immediate surgery to remove the tumor before it's too late. Sergio must be released from detention to get the treatment he urgently needs. Let him go!"

Thank You!
ROC United

Haiti: Hidden Costs of the Industrial Zone

The displacement of local farmers to build the Caracol Industrial Park neatly exemplifies the "economic development" programs the United States and international institutions regularly promote in Haiti.

By David L. Wilson, World War 4 Report
November 7, 2012

On Oct. 22 Haitian president Michel Martelly hosted the official opening of the Caracol Industrial Park, a 617-acre tax-exempt factory complex in Haiti's rural northeastern corner that promoters say will bring as many as 65,000 jobs to the country.

The Haitian president was joined by an array of foreign officials and celebrities. The United States, which invested $124 million in the project, was represented by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, and Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT). Another guest, former US president Bill Clinton, now the United Nations special envoy for Haiti, was a major promoter of the Caracol facility. [...]

Read the full article:

http://ww4report.com/node/11671

Photo of Oct. 8 workers' rally outside the Port-au-Prince industrial park, courtesy of Marty Goodman/Socialist Action.

Outrage in Texas After Airborne Police Sharpshooter Kills 2

By Manny Fernandez, New York Times
November 4, 2012

LA JOYA, Tex. — As a red pickup truck believed to be carrying drugs raced down a rural road near this border town last month, a state police helicopter that joined the pursuit warned units on the ground to keep their distance.

.“Going to try to shoot one of the tires out,” a member of the helicopter crew announced, in radio communications broadcast by the television station KRGV. “We have a clear spot.”

An officer with a high-powered rifle in the helicopter opened fire, but after the truck came to a stop, the authorities discovered that the sharpshooter had made a tragic mistake. The truck’s cargo was not drugs but people. Illegal immigrants from Guatemala being smuggled across the border had been hiding in the bed of the truck, covered by a dark blanket. Two of them were killed by the sharpshooter from the state’s top law enforcement agency, the Department of Public Safety. [...]

Read the full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/05/us/outrage-in-texas-after-airborne-police-sharpshooter-kills-2-immigrants.html?ref=us&_r=0

After Hurricane Sandy, Day Laborers Play Central Role in Cleanup, Rebuilding

By Elizabeth Llorente, Fox News Latino
November 5, 2012

Palisades Park, N.J. – It is about 8:30 a.m., just days after superstorm Sandy unleashed her force and fury in the northeast.

Men with calloused hands, world-weary lined faces that make them seem years older than they are, practically stand on their toes in the lot of a closed gas station on the exit ramp off Route 46 in New Jersey.

Each time a car slows, pulling into the lot, they swarm around it.

“How many do you need?” they ask the drivers. “What kind of work is it?”

These are day laborers, nearly all of them undocumented immigrants, who are helping to clean up and rebuild New Jersey and New York after the storm that left power lines down, homes and buildings flooded, sidings contorted ,and trees lying across roadways, or atop cars and roofs. [...]

Read the full article:
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2012/11/05/after-sandy-immigrant-day-laborers-play-central-role-in-cleanup-and-rebuilding/#ixzz2BUneRVmG

Valeria "Munique" Tachiquin: U.S. Agent Kills Young Mother of 5 in Latest of Growing Border Deaths

by Democracy Now!
October 25, 2012

In the wake of a dramatic increase in deaths at the hands of U.S Border Patrol agents, the Department of Homeland Security has agreed to launch a long-awaited investigation into the agency’s use of force. Since 2010, border agents have killed at least 18 people, including Valeria "Munique" Tachiquin, slain by a Border Patrol agent on September 28 in broad daylight several miles north of California’s border with Mexico. Tachiquin was a U.S. citizen and mother of five children. Her family is now bringing a wrongful death lawsuit against the Border Patrol. We’re joined by Valeria’s father, Valentin Tachiquin, and by Christian Ramirez, director of Southern Border Communities Coalition and human rights director of Alliance San Diego. [...]

Watch the video or read the transcript:
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/10/25/valeria_munique_tachiquin_us_agent_kills