Welfare Warriors

Summer 2008

MW Voice FEATURE

Letters to the  Editor

War

Editor's Tidbits

Mothers news from around the world

Victories

  Summer 2008

VICTORIES

Women Win Right to be Bishops

 The Church of England's ruling body voted to back women becoming bishops. A male-only lobby wanted concessions. They would have created a second class status for women bishops.  The concessions were voted down.

Anglican women have been ordained since 1994. But they were not allowed to become bishops.  Ironically a woman, Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, leads the US Episcopal Church. (The Anglicans call themselves Episcopalians in the US.)

Fight-Back Wins $63M from Con Ed         

The Western Queens Power for the People Campaign (PFP) won $63 million in a lawsuit against Con Edison. In 2006, Con Edison’s negligence caused a 10-day power outage. Blue collar and immigrant communities in Queens, NY were devastated.

            Con Ed must also send out a written apology. It must appear on customer bills in English and Spanish. $17 million in Con Ed stocks will go benefit the affected communities. Half will pay for $100 refunds to victimized residents. The rest will pay for tree planting and other greening projects.

Con Ed must also pay $500,000 to study the economic and health costs caused by the outage. The study can improve the way Con Ed reimburses victims of future outages. Con Ed may not pass on $46 million in outage-related costs to its customers.

            Western Queens Power for the People Campaign was formed during the outage. For two years they petitioned, testified at hearings and picketed Con Ed’s headquarters. They also engaged in direct negotiations with Con Ed and the state.

Alyssa Bonilla of PFP said. “This settlement does not come close to compensating the community for its losses. But it will put money directly into the pockets of struggling residents. And it will help green sections of Queens. It has the lowest rates of open space in the city.”

Victory for Unemployed Workers 

Congress has enacted a 13-week extension of unemployment benefits. This will help 3 million unemployed workers in 50 states. They would have exhausted their 26 weeks of benefits in the next nine months.

            There are now 3.7 million job vacancies. But there are 8.5 million people looking for work. The problem is the government’s failure to turn around a failing economy. Instead it promotes industries’ moves to countries with cheaper labor and their outsourcing of jobs. It also promotes use of technology to eliminate jobs and impose self-service on Americans.

Thank God It's Thursday 

States are offering their employees four-day workweeks to relieve commuting and energy costs. For a real victory, the four-day workers would receive full-time pay for 4 eight-hour days. Unfortunately they must still work 40 hours.

            Utah is imposing a four-day workweek on 17,000 state employees. Employees will work 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays. 1,000 of the 3,000 state buildings will be closed on Fridays. Highway patrols, courts, public schools and colleges will not be affected.

The changes are expected to save the state $3 million.

Some state universities and community colleges are moving to four-day workweeks for the summer. In Kentucky, employees in the secretary of state’s office are now working with staggered four-day workweeks. Productivity has increased and office morale is higher,

Research showed that city employees who work four 10-hour days reported less at-home conflict.

            The Florida attorney general’s office offered four-day workweeks to 500 employees. Eleven percent of the South Carolina Department of Transportation employees have enrolled in a four-day week.

            Vermont has proposed shifting state government and public schools to a shortened workweek.

Mom Free After 8 Years in Prison

Regina McKnight was convicted in 2001 for “homicide by child abuse.” Her baby was stillborn. She had used cocaine.  So the DA used junk science to convict her of murder. She was sentenced to 20 years, suspended to 12 years without parole.

For ten years the National Advocates for Pregnant Women worked on McKnight’s case. Nurses’ groups and public health organizations signed on to the appeal.

In May the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled that McKnight was convicted on “outdated and inaccurate medical information” --the false claim that cocaine is linked to stillbirths.

New Orleans Now Has Chance for Justice 

Incompetence and fraud of the US Army Corps of Engineers caused most damage to New Orleans after Katrina. The Corps had evaded financial liability because of a loophole. The federal government cannot be sued if something goes wrong with a flood control project such as a levee, reservoir or dam.

But Federal Judge Stanwood Duval dismissed that argument. He said the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, or MRGO, was clearly a ship channel. It was not a flood control project.

The Army Corps of Engineers can now be held liable for flood damage. It was caused by a navigation channel known as a “hurricane highway.” It funneled Hurricane Katrina’s storm surge into the city.

This decision is a victory for homeowners. They have suffered endlessly and needlessly. Finally the government is legally responsible for storm damage.

PEPFAR Passes

Thanks to the tireless work of activists, the AIDS Relief bill passes by 80 to 16 in the Senate. The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) will provide $48 billion for AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. ($2 billion was appropriated for health and safety projects on American Indian reservations also). The House is expected to pass PEPFAR easily.

PEPFAR overturns the embarrassing Congressional HIV/AIDS travel and immigration ban.

Family planning groups were upset with the bill’s continued focus on abstinence. And the global gag on contraception still applies, along with a required pledge condemning prostitution.

Survivors of Residential Schools Receive Apology—and Cash

Canada is paying reparations to 80,000 Native people who were forced to attend residential schools. Each will receive $10,000 for their first year in the school. Added to that will be $3,000 for each additional year they spent in residential schools.

Canada’s Prime Minister also issued a public apology to the Native communities. The brutal residential schools were run by the Catholic and Episcopalian churches. But neither church has acknowledged, nor apologized for, their abuse of the children.

            The first residential school opened in 1840. By 1931 there were 80 residential schools across Canada. The last school closed in 1996 in Saskatchewan. The residential schools routinely assaulted the Native students physically, sexually and psychologically.

Indian children were kidnapped from their parents. Residential school staff beat, stripped naked, and ridiculed children in front of others. They forced them to sleep outside or walk barefoot in winter. They made bedwetters wear wet underwear on their heads and wet sheets on their bodies. Teachers pushed needles through children’s tongues if they spoke their native languages.

Residential school staff forced native children to stand for hours, on two feet or one, until they collapsed. They confined children in closets without food or water. They used electric shocks on them. They immersed children in ice water. They ripped their hair from their heads. The schools conducted medical experiments on students.

Many children, both boys and girls were sexually assaulted in the schools. Thousands died from exposure to disease and lack of care. They were often buried in mass graves.

And all residential schools taught the native children contempt for their own elders, religion and culture.

There are currently five class action suits against the schools. About 14,000 survivors of residential schools seek compensation. If a survivor receives compensation from the current settlement, they can no longer sue the state or church.

Guinea Women Win Asylum in Manhattan from Female Genital Mutilation 

Three women from Guinea have won a court victory in Manhattan. They sought asylum in the US because they were fleeing from female genital mutilation.                       

A three-judge federal appeals panel ruled unanimously against the Board of Immigration Appeals. They said that the BIA ignored its own regulations in denying asylum to the women.

The BIA had wrongly assumed that the women were safe from future persecution. Their genitals had already been cut. The board compared the injuries to the loss of a limb.

But they ignored the long-term complications and lifelong trauma. And they overlooked the likelihood of forced marriage and violence the women may face upon return.

The board previously denied asylum to a Mali victim of female genital mutilation. They used the same sloppy reasoning. Her case is on appeal.

Homeless Win $2.3 Million from Fresno

240 homeless people won a $2.3 million settlement from the city of Fresno. A Court ruled that city sweeps of homeless encampments violated the 4^th and 5^th amendments. The constitution prohibits unreasonable search and seizure.

Between 2004-2006, Fresno sanitation workers and police routinely invaded homeless encampments. They seized or destroyed all the peoples’ possessions. This included food, clothing, medicines, bicycles, tents and even grandma’s ashes.

In addition to the lawsuit, homeless people and their allies held two actions. They had a sleep-in at City Hall. And they ran a Homelessness Marathon radio show. In these ways they put a national spotlight on Fresno’s illegal practices.

Tenants Defeat Developers in LA 

The Los Angeles Community Action Network’s (LA CAN) won a crucial victory on May 6. The LA City Council enacted a permanent Residential Hotel Preservation Ordinance.

In 2002 LA planned to eliminate almost 4,000 low-income housing units. 95% of this housing was in residential hotels. In 2004 police removed 100 tenants from the Bristol Hotel at gunpoint in three days.

Several hundred very poor and homeless people launched the LA CAN campaign to protect low-income housing. The new Ordinance will protect about 19,000 housing units and almost 30,000 people.

Farmworkers Win Yearlong Battle With Burger King 

On May 23, Burger King agreed to pay 1.5 cents more per pound of tomatoes. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) pressured Burger King for a year to win this victory. A penny will go to the workers. A half cent will cover the growers’ additional administrative costs. This is the first wage increase in decades.

Tomato farmworkers typically make $10,000 to $12,000 a year. Now they could earn $16,000 to $17,000. Burger King expects the deal will cost about $300,000 a year. Last year Burger King made $2.2 billion.

Florida produces almost half of the tomatoes eaten in the US. From October to May 30,000 people work in the fields. Florida tomato workers often come from Central America. Many are undocumented. They work sunrise to sunset, seven days a week. Each worker picks, carries and loads two tons of tomatoes a day. Workers live in crowded, rundown trailers and have few benefits.

CIW won its first victory in 2005 after a four-year boycott against Taco Bell. Since then KFC, A&W, Long John Silver, Pizza Hut and McDonald’s have joined the extra penny-per-pound program.

Sources: Planet Out, Workers World, EPI News; National Round Up; AP; NAPW-advoatesfor pregnantwomen.org; redwire; Carnegie News-carnnews@vcn.bc.ca People’s Tribune; People’s Weekly World