On this week's show:
We hear Deepa Fernandes of WBAI in New York, speak about reporting on immigration and border security issues;
The Pittsburgh Anti-Sweatshop Community Alliance says " No sweatshops bucco!" during the 2006 All Star game;
Environmental Activists are arrested in Canada;
The Mexican presidential election turmoil continues;
plus local and global headlines
Welcome to this week's edition of Rustbelt Radio, the Pittsburgh Independent Media Center's weekly review of the news from the grassroots and news overlooked by the corporate media.
On this week's show
We hear Deepa Fernandes of WBAI in New York, speak about reporting on immigration and border security issues
The Pittsburgh Anti Sweatshop Community Alliance says " No sweatshops bucco!" during the 2006 All Star game
Environmental Activists are arrested in Canada
The Mexican presidential election turmoil continues
plus more local and global headlines
Rustbelt Radio airs live every Monday from 6-7pm and again Tuesday mornings at 9AM on WRCT 88.3FM in Pittsburgh, every Thursday from 11am to noon on WARC Meadville 90.3 FM from the campus of Allegheny College, every Saturday from 5-6pm on WVJW Benwood, 94.1 FM in the Wheeling, West Virginia area, and also every Saturday at 5pm on WPTS 92.1 FM from the campus of the University of Pittsburgh.
And we' re also available on the internet, both on W-R-C-T's live webstream at W-R-C-T dot ORG and for download or podcast at radio dot I-N-D-Y-P-G-H dot org.
We now turn to local headlines from Pittsburgh Indymedia.
Headlines
Local News
[2:00] Resistance to Box Stores in PA
In Jefferson Hills, community members have voiced opposition to a proposal to build a box development in the vein of Wal-Mart and other superstores, near Route 51 and Ridge Road. Their struggles are part of a long history of local community resistance to Wal-Mart and other box stores that includes the work of a group called Communities First!
In 2004, 300 members of Communities First! voiced resistance to the building of a Wal-Mart in Kilbuck, Pennsylvania. Rustbelt Radio heard from Bob Keir, co-chair of Communities First!, on the challenges of community organizing around development.
Stay tuned for upcoming Rustbelt Radio reports on communities fighting sprawl.
[1:30] Abdul Hakeem Walk
When a mortar bomb hit Abdul Hakeem’s family home in Fallujah two years ago, the house was virtually destroyed and both Abdul and his Mother were injured. On July 9th, 2006 people gathered in Pittsburgh for a Journey of Hope and Healing: Walking to Rebuild Abdul Hakeem’s Home. We asked organizer Maria Roberts to tell us more about Abdul Hakeem.
abdul hakeem 1 (0:45) (use audio from last week's wiki)
Roberts felt the walk was successful.
abdul hakeem 2 (0:30) (ditto)
More more information about Abdul Hakeem and other Iraqi civilians who have been injured as a result of the U.S. invasion you can go to nomorevictims.org
[3:30] Workers rights rally downtown
Last Wednesday, July 12, a coalition of labor unions held a rally at the United Steelworkers Headquarters in Pittsburgh. The rally was called to defend workers’ rights against impending actions by the National Labor Relations Board that could make hundreds of thousands of American workers ineligible for union representation.
The board will decide three cases this summer which will affect the definition of the term “supervisor”. Unlike other employees, supervisors do not have protected rights under the National Labor Relations Act to form and join unions, and employers often try to classify workers as supervisors in order to deny them the right to union representation.
The three NLRB cases are called the Kentucky River Decisions because they will clarify issues left open in the U.S. Supreme Court’s Kentucky River case in 2001. The decisions could potentially reclassify hundreds of thousands of workers as supervisors. The affected workers would be those that, because of superior experience or knowledge of the job, direct the actions of other employees. Examples would include charge nurses, construction foremen, and load supervisors in a manufacturing facility. Currently, a supervisor is defined as a worker that has the power to hire, fire, promote, and discipline other employees. Large proportions of the employees in certain sectors would lose their right to unionize- 1/3 of all registered nurses, 2/3 of all physician’s assistants, and 1/3-to- one half of the employees in specialized building, engineering, and manufacturing trades.
AFL-CIO Pennsylvania president Bill George describes the potential impact:
bill_george.wav [:30]
Also at stake are more than sixty union election cases across the country, that have been held up in anticipation of the Kentucky River decisions, which will affect how many of the votes get counted.
At the Wednesday rally in Pittsburgh, Michalene Panzarella, a nurse at Hazelton General Hospital and member of OPEIU, told a cautionary tale:
Michalene.wav [1.30]
Labor representatives also protested the NLRB’s refusal to hold public hearings on the decisions. Between 1980 and 2000, the board held oral arguments in 23 significant cases, at least four per year, but since the Bush administration took office in 2001, it has not held a single oral argument. Labor representatives urged people to write or call the NLRB about the Kentucky River decisions, and threatened to organize affected workers to stop performing duties that direct other workers if the board does decide unfavorably.
[1:45] CR Protestors doused in water
On Saturday Pittsburgh Organizing Group continued it counter-recruitment pickets, this time at the Market Square Army Recruiting station downtown. They were met with an unexpected response.
cr.ogg
Wrapup
For more on all of our local news stories, visit pittsburgh dot I-N-D-Y-M-E-D-I-A dot O-R-G.
Global News
Intro
You are listening to Rustbelt Radio, the Pittsburgh Independent Media Center's weekly review of news overlooked by the corporate media. We turn now to headlines from Independent Media Sources around the world.
Resistance Against Anti-Immigrant Forces in France
French Minister of the Interior and candidate for the next presidential election, Nicolas Sarkozy, is working to step-up efforts to deport “sans papiers,” or illegal immigrants. Grassroots initiatives to protect immigrants have created stumbling blocks for his campaign.
Last year Sarkozy was forced by demonstrations and strikes throughout France to extend amnesty to immigrants at least through the end of the school term. As this deadline approached, a group called RESF (Reseau Education Sans Frontieres) or Learning Without Borders organized throughout the country to again push the French government to grant amnesty.
RESF has achieved many small, but significant victories in the battle for immigrant’s rights, perhaps most notably the return of illegal immigrant Mariam Sylla and her two children from Mali during Sarkozy’s controversial tour of Mali and other African countries.
Richard Moyen, founder of Learning Without Borders, says, “For 15 years we’ve had propaganda from the extreme right that immigrants are responsible for AIDS, for crime, for unemployment, but it really opens people’s eyes when they realize that the illegal immigrants are the school pals of their children. Then they want to help.”
The French government estimates that somewhere between 200,000 and 400,000 immigrants are living in France illegally. Recently Sarkozy has pushed a new anti-immigrant law through the Parliament and the Senate but a national petition of civil disobedience has already garnered 62,000 signatures.
[3:45] Massive Demonstrations as Turmoil continues over Mexican Elections
Yesterday on Sunday July 16, over 1 million people rallied in Mexico City for the second time in the last eight days to support leftist presidential challenger Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. At one point Lopez Obrador had to halt his speech to acknowledge the chanting of his supporters, telling him quote “You are not alone.” Lopez Obrador has cited what he finds to be serious irregularities during Mexico’s July 2nd presidential election. He is continuing to demand a nation-wide recount despite the declaration by election officials that conservative candidate Felipe Calderon of the PAN party won the election by a margin of less than 1%. The results have yet to be certified by the Federal Election Tribunal.
Rustbelt Radio spoke to Robin Alexander of the United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America.
We first asked her what the next step was in this electoral debate:
* robin mexico clip 1 (1:10)
We also asked Robin to describe the affect that massive demonstrations have had during this presidential election year in Mexico:
robin mexico clip 2 (1:43)
Robin also commented on the importance of respecting Mexico's political autonomy:
robin mexico clip 3 (0:33)
That was Robin Alexander of the United Electrical Workers Union. To find more information from the UE on the current situation in mexico log on www. Ueinternational .org
[1:00] Indigenous and environmental activists arrested in Ontario
Last Thursday July 13, about 80 demonstrators, protesting the logging of the boreal forest near Grassy Narrows, Ontario, created a barricade blocking a stretch of the Trans-Canada highway. Protestors included aboriginals from Grassy Narrows First Nation and activists from an international group called the Rainforest Action Network. Members of the groups maintain that the Grassy Narrows land is protected from logging by a treaty made with indigenous groups.
For almost four years, Grassy Narrows First Nations have had a blockade near Slant Lake, Ontario, in an attempt to protect their land from logging by logging companies Abitibi and Weyhaeuser. Protesters say logging has persisted through alternate access points.
Protester David Sone said from the blockade: "They've filed every kind of legal proceeding and every kind of official complaint possible, and there's been absolutely no response from Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty government or from Weyerhaeuser or Abitibi".
Susanne McCrea, communications director for the Winnipeg-based Boreal Forest Network, said protesters are upset there has been little government intervention to settle Grassy's territorial dispute.
Thursday’s barricade was dismantled voluntarily by demonstrators at around 10 pm, after having successfully blocked logging trucks throughout most of the day and evening.
Now, in retaliation for Thursday’s blockade, Ontario Provisional Police have reportedly arrested 17 people at Grassy Narrows. There are serious concerns regarding the health of one of the arrestees who is still in custody.
[1:45] G8 Summit and Counterdemonstrations
From July 15th to 17th, the G8 Summit met in Streina, Russia,
a suburb of St. Petersburg. The summit brought together heads of state from 8 countries: Canada, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, and the United States. The three main themes of this year's summit were education, energy security, and AIDS/health care. There was a large focus on the development of nuclear power. G8 members also planned to promote the investment of trillions of dollars in oil and other fossil fuels, according to Olga Rodriguez of Reuters news service.
Critics of the G8 Summit based in St. Petersburg called for protests, and organized against the summit for months. Russian police stepped up their repression of political dissent early as well. On May 27, at a gay rights march by the Kremlin, 1000 riot police kicked and pushed demonstrators and arrested over 120 people, just after the mayor of Moscow threatened that any gay rights events would be "resolutely quashed." In June 2006, St. Petersburg police fingerprinted, questioned, and intimidated at least ten anti-G8 activists in their homes.
One activist, Vladimir Solocheivik, was not home when police showed up to question him, so instead police questioned his 67 year old mother about her use of the internet, if she had ever driven a car, and if she had looked at "extremist websites." Solocheivik remarked on a Toronto Star report, "It was against the law and completely ridiculous. She is a sick old woman who hasn't left the apartment in years." The anarcho-syndicalist Siberian Confederation of Labor estimates at least 200 arrests and detentions related to the summit in the past month.
July 14th marked a global day of action against the G8 with actions in Manila, Washington, Berlin, and Paris, among other cities. From July 15th to 17th, an alternative to the G8 called Le Forum des Peuples, or Forum of Peoples, took place in Gao, Mali. Discussions focused on the negative impact of transnational corporations in Africa, the growth of African social movements, and strategies to resist the oppression of African immigrants worldwide.
[1:15] Cuba after Fidel
The Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, a program of the Bush administration, has presented a new proposal that outlines a plan for the restructuring of Cuban society following the end of the rule of Fidel Castro. The report has many proposed actions including a restriction on study abroad programs in Cuba to only those that “directly support U.S. policy goals,” a limit on the number of times Cuban Americans can visit family in Cuba to once every three years, and privatization of social programs and public services in Cuba including education and health care, through the intrusion of U.S. corporations. The plan also states that the US government should encourage Cuba to join the IMF and World Bank “as quickly as possible.”
Tom Crumpacker,a critic of the plan writing on Z Magazine’s ZNET referred to it as an attempt at recolonization.
A passage from the plan’s executive statement reads, “As the transition to a multiparty democracy progresses---with the help and encouragement of the United States---Cubans will be able for the first time in decades to enjoy the privileges that prevail in the rest of the Western Hemisphere.”
On ZNet, Tom Crumpacker notes, “There's very little said in the Plan about what already exists in Cuba, and nothing about the effects of our blockade and terrorism against Cubans. “ Crumpacker continues, “The Plan is to rebuild the Cuban nation from the bottom up, from scratch to an eventual capitalist neo-colony similar to those that now exist in Central America and the Caribbean.”
You can read more about our global news stories by visting I-N-D-Y-M-E-D-I-A dot O-R-G. We'll be back after a brief break.
Features
[13:00??] All Star Game/ PASCA
take me out to the ball game intro (0:35)
Last Tuesday July 11th, Pittsburgh was home to the 2006 All Star game. The city prepared for the influx of tourists and its place in the national spotlight by installing a 1 million dollar robotic video surveillance network for downtown and Oakland, purchasing new K-9 units, patrol cars, and crowd control equipment. The city’s Redd up Campaign involved boarding up abandoned buildings, removing graffiti, towing cars, cleaning up abandoned lots, and displacing homeless people from their normal gathering places on the Northside and Downtown.
The Pittsburgh City Paper reported that 54 law enforcement agencies came together during All Star week, including the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, police departments as far away as Erie and Beaver Country, and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. The city of Pittsburgh went to these lengths for the 25,000 fans and tourists who came to the city to watch baseball and eat 50,000 hot dogs.
While many Pittsburghers were excited for the game to come to town, others were disappointed with the civil rights violations that came along with it.
The city's homeless population felt the pressure of the City’s Redd Up campaign. Many chose to seek refuge in temporary shelters that opened specifically during all star week.
At the request of the city and the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, The United Church of Christ on Smithfield Street downtown, which is normally a shelter only on cold winter nights, opened its doors as a temporary shelter for homeless people from Friday the 7th until Wednesday the 12th. Approximately 75 to 100 people slept there each night, and even more came to receive a free meal at breakfast and lunch time.
We spoke with John, a homeless man who has been staying at the UCC and is a member of the church. He spoke about his concerns for what would happen after the all star game.
John homeless 1 (0:40)
John also shared his thoughts on how the city needs to address its homeless population and work to help them, not just hide them temporarily:
john homeless 2 (0:57)
Concern for Pittsburgh’s homeless population was not the only issue that was swept under the rug in anticipation of the big game.
Worker’s rights and human rights were also not a central theme of All Star week, however, some Pirate’s fans combined their enthusiasm for the sport, with a global consciousness for the workers who sew major league baseball apparel.
For the past four years, the Pittsburgh Anti Sweatshop Community Alliance, or PASCA, have been working towards calling attention to the sweatshop conditions that Pirate’s apparel are made in. They have been calling on the City of Pittsburgh and the Pirates to go sweatfree, and purchase products that were made in fair working conditions.
The members of PASCA have recently introduced a new resolution to City Council entitled “ We are a Global Family” Anti Sweatshop Resolution. This resolution calls for the Pittsburgh Pirates to quote “ promote the ‘academic standard’ for sweatshop accountability to Major League Baseball in the spirit of fair play for all. The academic standard includes compliance with international fair labor standards… living wages, public disclosure of factory locations, independent monitoring of factories, and fair prices for factory products.” (unquote)
On the morning of the All Star game, Ken Miller of PASCA spoke at the City Council meeting:
city co hearing Ken Miller (1:15)
Later that day, PASCA members and their supporters gathered at Freedom Corner in the Hill District.
We hear from Celeste Taylor an organizer with the Pittsburgh Anti Sweatshop Community Alliance:
Celeste at freedom corner(1:20)
Tim Stevens of the Black Political Empowerment Project also described his desire for Pittsburgh to become a leader of the justice movement for sweatshop workers.
tim stevens (1:45)
From Freedom corner, the group marched to the Roberto Clemente Bridge where they passed out literature educating baseball fans about the conditions for the workers that sew sports apparel.
We will now hear the voices of PASCA members including Clark Claggitt, Celeste Taylor, and Michelle Gaffey, and also from a representative of the United Workers Association of Baltimore, who clean Camden Yards for the Baltimore Orioles baseball team:
all star (1:55)
Spoken word artist Vanessa German shared a piece with the crowd entitled “Hey Man, I like your shoes”
vanessa edited (1:18)
[17:30] Reporting on Immigration Issues with Deepa Fernandes
Deepa Fernandes is the host of New York City’s Wake Up Call on WBAI, the local Pacifica station. As a radio journalist, she has been covering immigration issues since the immigrant sweeps began after 9-11.
At the 2006 Allied Media Conference held last month, she hosted a session on the challenges of reporting on immigration
issues.
She first spoke about HR 4437, the Immigration Bill passed last December that has caused an uprising of immigrant activism. Deepa describes a little known proposed amendment to the bill known as the “Bounty Hunter Amendment”
deepa bounty hunter 4:30
Deepa also spoke about how she investigated the links between corporations and the Department of Homeland Security:
deepa imm (13:00)
That was just Deepa Fernandes speaking at the 2006 Allied Media Conference.
Outro
And now we present the Indymedia calendar of events:
Wednesday July 19th, from 7 to 9 pm State Senator Jim Ferlo and Codepink Pittsburgh Women for Peace will present an Articles of Impeachment Teach In and Town Hall Meeting. The documentary "How To Impeach a President" will be shown, followed by a panel discussion moderated by Professor Jules Loebel from the Center for Constitutional Rights in Pittsburgh. Please pre register for this event at www.articlesofimpeachment.net. The Union Project is located at 801 N. Negley Avenue in Highland Park.
This Thursday July 20th, there will be a panel discussion on the Ongoing Abuse of Federal Executive Power. This event will take place at the First Unitarian Church, located at 605 Moorewood Avenue in Shadyside. For more information contact www. aclu pgh. org
This Saturday the 22nd from 1 to 4:00 PM, there will be a fundraiser picnic in Schenley Park to benefit the Africa Project. This event will be held at the Oval Grove Pavilion. For more information visit their website www. africa project. net
Thanks for tuning in to Rustbelt Radio here on WRCT Pittsburgh, WARC Meadville, WVJW Benwood and WPTS Pittsburgh.
Our hosts this week are Morgan Ress, Anitra Van Lier and Carlin Christy with additional contributions from Matt Toups, Andalusia Knoll, Jessica McPherson, Ellen Pierson, Vani Natarajan, Rob Cullen & David Meieran. This week's show was produced by Donald Deeley. Special thanks to all of our hosts, producers, and contributors.
Your story submissions are welcome! To get involved with Rust Belt Radio, or to send us your comments, email RADIO at I-N-D-Y-P-G-H dot ORG or call 412-923-3000. All of our shows are available for download on our website at RADIO dot INDY-P-G-H dot ORG, and this program can be heard again on Tuesday morning at 9AM after Democracy Now on WRCT 88.3FM Pittsburgh.
Tune in next week at this time for another edition of Rustbelt Radio, the Pittsburgh Independent Media Center's weekly review of the news from the grassroots.
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