From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>(WW News Service)
Date: Thu, 08 Mar 2001 05:00:38 -0500
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>(WW News Service)
Subject: wwnews Digest #241
WW News Service Digest #241
1) This St. Pat's Parade was Inclusive
by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
2) Rally vs. Corporate Takeover of Pacifica
by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
3) Int'l Women's Day vs. Sweatshops
by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the March 15, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
LESBIAN, GAY, BI & TRANS: THIS ST. PAT'S PARADE WAS
INCLUSIVE
On March 4, the Sunnyside and Woodside neighborhoods hosted
the second annual Queens St. Patrick's parade--New York's
only such event that welcomes all participants. The Queens,
N.Y., parade is dubbed "St. Pat's for All" in contrast to
the Manhattan St. Patrick's Day Parade, which bars the Irish
Lesbian and Gay Organization.
The day's theme was "cherishing all the children of the
nation equally," taken from the 1916 Easter Proclamation of
the Irish Republic. In fact, the parade drew participants
from many nations. Queens is the most ethnically diverse
borough in New York and home to many recent immigrants.
There were Korean drummers. Latino schoolchildren stepping
lively in a marching band. Caribbean dancers.
Representatives of Native nations.
Neighborhood residents, mostly Latino and Irish, lined the
parade's route. They clapped and cheered enthusiastically
for marchers from ILGO and Pride At Work, the National
Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans Labor Organization.
--Shelley Ettinger
- END -
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From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: torstai 8. maaliskuu 2001 12:12
Subject: [WW] Rally vs. Corporate Takeover of Pacifica
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the March 15, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
AS PACIFICA RADIO BOARD MEETS: LISTENERS, STAFF
RALLY TO END CORPORATE TAKEOVER
By Joanne Gavin
Houston
Calling Pacifica Radio the progressive movement's only mass
medium, hundreds of listeners and staffers of its stations
rallied in Houston March 1-4 at teach-ins, picket lines and
in the audience at public meetings of the network's board of
directors.
Telling their stories of mass lockouts, firings and
cancellations of programs, staffers from several cities
called for a mass movement to restore Pacifica to
listener/broadcaster control and end a corporate takeover.
Speakers cited motivations ranging from capitalist greed for
a mass audience for corporate sponsors, to deliberate
conspiracy to deprive voices of dissent of their major means
of communication. All agreed the present Pacifica board of
directors must be removed.
A cross-section of Houston's progressive community attended
the events. Some told of how this city's KPFT radio station,
once the most community-based of the network's five
stations, had been stripped of most of its substantial,
multinational programming, and was well along the road to
becoming a "Musak" outlet for what the station's current
management terms "Texas music."
This leaves out most of the area's richly diverse musical
heritage, once available there along with community and
worldwide news and views. All people of color who were KPFT
programmers have been purged.
Among network programs still available here is "Democracy
Now," a morning magazine produced and hosted by Amy
Goodman
out of New York's WBAI. Goodman's completely open policy on
subjects and guests is under attack by the forces that want
to remove democracy from the airwaves, according to Juan
Gonzalez, the show's former co-host.
Gonzalez' recent on-air resignation sent shock waves through
management circles. He wants Goodman and "Democracy Now" to
remain on the air, but feels he can be more effective by
working to mobilize listeners.
The noncommercial Pacifica stations rely heavily on listener
subscriptions for operating funds. Gonzalez proposed that
listeners stop contributing to the stations and inform
management of their reasons. He dismissed as unfounded fears
that this would speed up the sale of the stations and mean
the end of the network.
Listener base, he pointed out, is a major selling point in
any sale negotiation. He urged that such funds be diverted
to the legal struggle to restore listener control and to a
"strike fund" for staffers whose incomes would be affected.
Gonzalez called also for public pressure on individual non-
salaried board members to force their resignations. People
attending the meetings and pickets supported his proposals.
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to
copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: torstai 8. maaliskuu 2001 12:12
Subject: [WW] Int'l Women's Day vs. Sweatshops
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the March 15, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY: WORKERS FROM MANY
COUNTRIES HIT SWEATSHOPS
By Anne Pruden
New York
A march against low pay and oppressive working conditions
for women wound through lower Manhattan on March 3, ending
at the site of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire. In
that terrible fire, 146 women garment workers died because
exit doors had been locked by the sweatshop owners.
Just three years earlier, a demonstration of tens of
thousands of garment and textile workers in New York had
inspired the Socialist International to declare March 8 as
International Women's Day.
Then, as now, immigrant women workers were leading protests
in the United States against the intolerable conditions in
garment and other sweatshop industries.
This year's International Women's Day march drew around 200
women, men and children. They included women from Haiti,
Central America, Mexico, the Phil ip pines and Palestine as
well as African Americans and whites.
Highlights of the spirited march were rallies in front of
several stores that use sweatshop labor or sell products
made in sweatshops, such as the Gap and Footlocker. In the
spirit of today's growing awareness of corporate greed and
globalization, speakers exposed big business while
supporting workers' right to organize.
After gathering at Union Square, the IWD marchers eagerly
joined pickets at the East Natural delicatessen on Fifth
Avenue and 13th Street where UNITE Local 169 has a boycott.
Joining in the cry for these immigrant workers to be able to
join the union, which deli bosses won't recognize, they
listened to speeches by Local 169 picketing workers.
Sandra Rosero told of getting fired for fighting
discrimination and demanding benefits. Other Local 169
members also explained their struggle against such retail
sweatshops, and received strong support from the IWD
marchers.
At the site where the Triangle Shirtwaist factory had once
stood, speakers made connections between the struggle today
and 90 years ago. A New York University worker related how
the workers at that school, who were mostly low-paid women,
won a union after a militant organizing drive. A Palestinian
woman spoke of the racism of the bosses here. Other speakers
included women from a NIKE shoe factory in Indonesia and a
sugar cane plant in the Dominican Republic.
It was easy to see the connections between the racism,
sexism and exploitation that 90 years of capitalist "reform"
have spread all over the globe. As the colorful banner held
by a group of young people at the rally said, "An injury to
one is an injury to all."
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to
copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to:
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