September 2015 – Page 4

September 11, 2015

As I begin my fast

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I accuse!
As my friends have dared, so shall I dare. Dare to tell the truth, as I have pledged to tell it, in full, since the normal channels of justice have failed to do so. My duty is to speak out; I do not wish to be an accomplice in this travesty, the President’s Business Climate Action Plan. My nights would otherwise be haunted by the specter of the innocent people, far away, suffering the most horrible of tortures for a crime against Mother Nature they did not commit.

There you have it, a piece of my mind, freely adapted from Émile Zola’s J’accuse, but why and why now? Beyond Extreme Energy issued the following press release last Tuesday to announce their No New Permits fast at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC—this is the industry-captured body that rubber-stamps the projects described in a previous post)

(September 8, 2015) WASHINGTON, D.C.—On Tuesday morning, a dozen people begin an 18-day water-only fast in front of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to raise awareness of the agency’s contribution to worsening climate change and to harming the health and well-being of frontline communities where these projects are built.

The fasters, ranging in age from 23 to 72, are demanding that FERC issue “No New Permits” for industry projects such as interstate pipelines, compressor stations and LNG (liquefied natural gas) export terminals until the agency prioritizes solar, wind and other renewable sources of energy. These projects release methane pollution, a potent greenhouse gas that is worsening the impacts of climate change.

Fasters, organized by Beyond Extreme Energy, will hold vigil in front of FERC, 888 First St. NE, Washington, D.C., weekdays from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. They will be joined by others fasting for shorter periods at FERC or in their own communities.

They will end their fast on Friday, September 25, the day after Pope Francis speaks to Congress, where he is expected to address the issue of climate change and its disparate impact on the world’s poor.

In Rhode Island AFSC-SENE, Occupy Providence and Fossil Free RI are supporting the fast of our dear and unshakable friends in DC. I pledged to fast three days centered at each event in our community that I can attend. The fasts are Ramadan style: no food and liquids from sunrise to sunset. Beatrijs, my wife, is joining me to the extent that her diabetes allows it.

Here is our first event: a vigil with the Raging Grannies in Westerly this Saturday—hope to see you there!

September 10, 2015May 7, 2016

The Verizon, union standoff and the future of privacy

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Within the past few years, the issue of privacy in telecommunications has become a major controversy. Following the revelations by Edward Snowden and the WikiLeaks organization, the role of the providers in collaboration with the National Security Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and other law enforcement agencies has become a subject of debate. On August 28, Jenna McLaughlin of The Intercept published a story on the ruling by the US Court of Appeals regarding bulk metadata collection by the government which involved Verizon’s cooperation.

Part 1: The Verizon, union standoff and the future of labor
Part 2: The Verizon, union standoff and the future of customer service, copper

My sources revealed to me that union members on the ground level of customer service have been able to access tools that collect metadata in ways that disturb them. There is one tool in particular, called the ‘spy tool’ or the ‘creepy tool’, that could be used in an improper fashion. Approval for its use is to be found in the small print of the Terms of Services agreement under the guise of ‘marketing’. The union does not have an official position on not using this tool, but some union members savvy of privacy ethics refuse to use it.

This tool is one which has the capability to allow the technicians to see how many television set-top boxes are within a residence. In many cases, the installation technician or customers will label the boxes based on the room, meaning therefore the customer service technician can see what someone watches in which rooms. The tool works as an aggregator and creates a profile of the customer, showing hours of television watched, what channels, how long on each channel, and other material. This sort of data collection and profiling is easy to gather and use in fashions that would be extremely dangerous. For example, if a stalker had access to this data, the person would be able to see what room their intended victim spends time in the most, at what hours, and, by understanding whether the person is watching a movie channel or one that is playing music, what level of attention is paid to the program. And in this era of cyber attacks and hacking, it is not a remote possibility that such instances could occur.

Some union members actively oppose using these tools because it causes technicians to ‘cross crafts’, something that leads to weakening of the union bargaining position. However, the obvious concerns over privacy and security are something that the union could address and take up as a cause, which is not without historical precedent.

An interesting example of unions taking up prominent civil liberties issues is the instance of their role in the racism struggles of African Americans. The American Federation of Labor collaborated with the government in the enforcement of segregation in the Gilded Age, leading to the formation of rival unions, such as the Industrial Workers of the World and the Congress of Industrial Organizations, both of which saw their ranks grow precisely because of their anti-racism positions. After the Red Scare and the merger of the AFL and the CIO, the leadership of the Civil Rights Movement were able to get key endorsements and support from labor. Indeed, a major backbone of the March on Washington was a large contingent of labor union members. Figures like A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin had cut their teeth in the labor organization movement of the 1930’s and ’40’s. Lyndon Johnson signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act in part because of progressive voices from within the remnants of the New Deal coalition pledged their political support in the 1964 election against Barry Goldwater.

The 1963 March on Washington. The men in white hats behind King were members of the United Auto Workers.

Also in that case, there were both practical results for their union members, ending disparities in the lives of their members, and wider social results, collapsing the Jim Crow system. There are real issues to contend with, going up against the will of the military-police-industrial complex is fraught with major challenges. But after years of being championed by anti-union libertarians like Rand Paul, there would be a great level of support gained by labor if they took up the cause of privacy protection.

This is a fight we all need to be concerned about. In the next term, the Supreme Court is hearing a case that was tailor-made to decimate the Abood decision and revoke the right of unions to collect dues in public-sector workplaces. The Verizon struggle, if lost by the workers, would have the same effect on private-sector unions. If you have any ability, whether it be through money, agitation, or just a FaceBook post, stand in solidarity with Verizon workers. The stakes are too high to sit this one out.

Visit the Stand Up To Verizon website by clicking here.

The CWA can be reached at 401-275-0760.

The IBEW can be reached at 401-946-9900.

September 10, 2015September 10, 2015

de Leon’s ‘Origins’ examines first Gilded Age

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de leon cvr1 (3) — Click on the image to buy this book.

For the last several years, I have written in various forums about how the United States has entered a New Gilded Age. That is, through decimating workers’ rights and empowering corporations to dominate the political system, we are recreating the Gilded Age of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. That period was noted by its incredible levels of income inequality, by the state using the military to crush strikes, by plutocrats buying off politicians with cash and illegal stock trading schemes, by economic collapses because of unregulated corporate behavior, and by a lack of regulations that allowed corporations to kill workers on the job and pollute with impunity.

In the twentieth century, workers fought to tame this corporate behavior with a great deal of success. The Progressive Era, New Deal, and Great Society were all periods where real victories over corporate misbehavior were won. But over the last fifty years, corporations and their politician lackeys have decimated unions by moving jobs overseas, retaken control of the political process through the Citizens United decision (among many other events), and rolled back regulations designed to protect Americans from corporate exploitation. As we saw in the brief Occupy movement and the outpouring of support for left-populist politicians like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, Americans are waking up to this sudden shift in their fortunes and are increasingly outraged about inequality. But the system is so heavily weighted to the corporations that it may take decades to win back decent lives for working Americans.

Scholars are beginning to rethink the Gilded Age through the framework of the New Gilded Age. Providence College sociologist Cedric de Leon is at the forefront of this movement in his new book The Origins of the Right to Work: Antilabor Democracy in Nineteenth-Century Chicago. He examines the origins of the “right to work” idea in the mid-nineteenth century, attempting to provide a historical background to formerly union states like Michigan and Wisconsin embracing a war on unions and implementing right to work legislation that allows public sector workers to opt out of union dues while forcing unions to continue representing them. Using Chicago as a case study, he explores how workers conceived of the challenges of the new capitalist economy as avoiding dependence on employers. Self-reliance and the shunning of dependence were central to the growth of American political culture and mythology in the first century after the Revolutionary War and this shaped working-class politics of the antebellum period.

Video: Interview with Cedric de Leon
Meet Cedric de Leon: Saturday, September 12, 5 to 7pm, at AS220 (115 Empire St.), Providence

As the nation moved toward the Civil War, fears over the expansion of slavery creating wide-scale dependence of the white working class to the planter class allowed the nascent Republican Party to initially recruit workers into the fight against the South, even as the party’s economic ideology rapidly developed into the pro-corporate mentality that would feed the Gilded Age upon the war’s conclusion. As Chicago workers felt betrayed that the war had spawned increasingly large corporate powers, they began organizing for workers’ rights, including an 8-hour day movement in 1867 and the famous strikes of 1886 that led to the Haymarket Riot, where an anarchist responded to police violence by throwing a bomb into a crowd of police.

The political parties responded harshly to this worker challenge through both ideological constructions and state violence, such as the execution of anarchist leaders after Haymarket. Elites twisted the ideas of freedom to fit an ideology revolving around the freedom of contract. In other words, unions were unnecessary and dangerous because they interfered with a worker’s right to sign a contract for a given wage he negotiated with his employer. Of course this ideology ignored the power relations between workers and employers, as well as the actual struggles of workers in Chicago to make a living but exploiting the working class was the point.

And while the Republican Party more openly supported the Gilded Age’s new corporate order, many leading Democrats also embraced these intellectual origins of modern right to work laws. Union opponents in 1875 and in 2015 both used the language of freedom that originated in pre-Civil War America, twisted for the benefit of corporations, but which still holds mythological power among American citizens. Or in de Leon’s words “This book argues that the current generation of workers and trade unionists, like other generations before it has come face-to-face with a long-standing inheritance: a democracy—born in the epic fire of civil war—that safeguards the individual worker’s right to access the American Dream while simultaneously denying a collective route to its fulfillment.” (x)

The only place where I slightly disagree with de Leon is in his discussion of the implications of recent right-to-work legislation on labor’s relationship with political parties today. While he’s certainly correct in diagnosing the dangers of unions becoming captured by a Democratic Party that doesn’t really care about them, I cannot see an alternative outside the two-party system. While it would be nice if Republicans competed for union votes, without that happening, unions have no choice but to fight for pro-union Democrats if they want any influence over the political process at all. And given that unions have only won major political victories when Democrats have had power, moving away from that party is extremely risky, especially when there is no clear alternative or third-party path to help workers win better lives.

de Leon has written a compelling book that goes far to explain the historical roots of the recent attacks on unions. He is also an example of the amazing scholars teaching at Rhode Island colleges and universities and how much they have to offer for workers’ fights in the present.

September 9, 2015

Methane gas is no bridge fuel

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After a persistent campaign by a broad coalition of environmental groups and a string of escalating acts of civil disobedience, Rhode Island mainstream media have slowly begun to question the claim that “burning natural gas is about one-half as carbon-intensive as coal, which can make it a critical bridge fuel for many countries as the world transitions to even cleaner sources of energy.”

That misleading statement was pivotal in The President’s Climate Action Plan of June of 2013. Business climate would have been more appropriate. But the media are discovering that the claim fails to account for the climate impacts of methane, the main constituent of “natural” gas, over its full life-cycle.

The latter starts at the well. From there, gas is transported via pipelines and compressor stations, to its final destination downstream. Gas escapes unburned at every stage. When the global warming potential of this so-called “fugitive methane” is taken into account, it turns out that “natural” gas (both conventional and fracked) is a greater threat to the climate than coal or oil burned for any purpose. This came to light in 2011, when Cornell University researchers Anthony Ingraffea and Robert Howarth, along with actor and anti-fracking activist Mark Ruffalo, were named among Time Magazine’s 50 “People Who Matter” for performing and publicizing a study that undercut the bridge-fuel claim. In April of 2014, a recent update of the research has confirmed this finding.

Meanwhile, Rhode Island continues on its misguided path of expanding the fracked-gas infrastructure with two proposed build-outs of Spectra Energy’s compressor station in Burrillville—part of a 3-stage pipeline expansion that will ultimately send fracked gas from Pennsylvania to Canada for export overseas—and the planned construction of a new gas-fired power plant, also in Burrillville. In addition, there is a plan is for a liquefaction facility at Fields Point in Providence, RI.

In a striking instance of environmental racism, the LNG facility will be sited next to a residential, low-income community of color with numerous schools and day care centers, and several hospitals. The area also is the site of the Univar chemical facility which has a hazard radius of 14 miles, within which there are 311 schools with almost 110,000 children.

Increasingly, climate activists across the nation have mounted campaigns against fracked gas, not only because it is disastrous for the climate, but also because fracking causes wholesale destruction of communities and the environment. Indeed, the expansion of fracking and fracked-gas infrastructure across the country continues to draw people from all walks of like into defiant acts of civil disobedience.

On August 13, Curt Nordgaard and I were arrested after locking ourselves to the front gate of Spectra Energy’s fracked-gas compressor station in Burrillville, Rhode Island in a direct action organized by the group Fighting Against Natural Gas (FANG) to block construction at the site.

Nordgaard, a pediatrics resident at Boston Medical Center with no prior history of arrests, gave this explanation for his actions: “if we had legal means to stop this project, we would use them. Instead, we are forced to protect families and communities through nonviolent civil disobedience, in proportion to the severity of this threat.”

As a professor of physics at the University of Rhode Island with four grown children and six grandchildren, I am alarmed by the destruction we visit upon the Earth they shall inherit. In the spring of 2013, we founded Fossil Free Rhode Island to push for a swift transition away from fossil fuels.

Last December, I was arrested for the first time during a sit-in in U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s office in Providence to protest his tacit support for the pipeline expansion; with this recent arrest, I have lived up to my words at that time: “Science has shown that natural gas is more dangerous for the climate than other dirty fuels such as oil and coal. This pipeline is immoral and unjust, and we will keep taking action until this project is stopped.”

Let me correct a detail of the Providence Journal article Methane release from gas extraction seen as climate threat. The article states that compared to carbon-dioxide, methane is “20 times or more as potent in trapping heat while it lasts.” In reality, that factor is 86 times over the first 20 years after release. Considered over a 100 year time frame, methane was considered 21 times as potent as carbon dioxide, but the IPCC revised this figure to 34; the EPA still uses 21 as the global warming potential, an estimate decades out of date. (The ProJo has thus far chosen not to publish my Letter to the Editor with this correction.)

Numerous current developments, such as polar sea-ice loss, land-based ice sheet melt, and permafrost thawing, show unambiguously that the 20-year time frame is critical if we want to have a chance to avoid run-away climate change.

Meanwhile, our congressional delegation continues to recycle National Grid’s talking points in favor of more fracked-gas infrastructure. Supposedly, it is all about avoiding price spikes and choke points. Never mind that there were none of these last winter, as explained by Reuters in this article As New England freezes, natural gas stays cheap.

In all those years since Howarth was honored by Time as a “person who matters,” and in spite of his 100+ climate change speeches in the US Senate, despite countless attempts to get him up to speed, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse has been unable to absorb the fact that, as far as global warming is concerned, natural gas is worse than coal and oil. No surprise; this comes with our corrupt political system in which access exchanged for campaign contributions takes precedence over the common good. Our state government, of course, is just as much a victim of the corrupt political system we still tolerate: Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo’s Campaign Contributions From Financial Services Industry Come Under Scrutiny.

In this picture below we see access in action: Lindsey Graham, Sheldon Whitehouse tour coal-fired plant with new technology. I still try to teach my students to consult independent experts when they want to educate themselves. How quaint!

**Industry educating Tom Rice, Lindsey Graham and Sheldon Whitehouse (CBC)**

September 9, 2015

PVD firefighters stand strong against Elorza at City Hall

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“This is an issue that starts here and ends here,” said Paul Doughty, the president of the Providence fire fighter union IAFF Local 799, from the fourth floor of the Providence City Hall to the more than 300 people, firefighters and their families, who had come out in a peaceful show of force against Mayor Jorge Elorza‘s recent shift changes that have resulted in firefighters working more hours for no additional pay.

The City Council met in executive session, which is not open to the public. They were briefed on the legal issues by the City Solicitor’s office. Doughty was inside the meeting for a while, and reported to the crowd that, “The councillors in there tonight, taking up our cause, at this point they’ve lead me to believe that they think we are on the side of right, that we speak the truth, and that we mean what we said, and when we signed a collective bargaining agreement, we expect it to be followed.”

Many of the signs carried by the firefighters were critical of Elorza’s recent trip to Guatemala, where he met with President Otto Perez Molina, who was ousted from power and brought up on fraud charges within days of Elorza’s ill-timed visit. Molina has also been implicated in possible war crimes. Other signs were pointed reminders that working longer hours keeps parents away from children, and denies firefighters much needed rest.

Right now talks seem to have broken down and a judge will decide if the issue will go to arbitration.

“There is… a path to resolution,” said Doughty, “That is to restore us to our shifts and hours, follow the collective bargaining agreement, and then come talk to us.”

September 9, 2015September 10, 2015

Providence College prof Cedric de Leon takes on ‘right to work’ laws

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Cedric de Leon is a local activist, a former union organizer and a sociology professor at Providence College. He’s also the author of an important new book for anyone who cares about worker rights, living wages and even gender and racial equality. His book “The Origins of Right to Work” details their sordid racist history as well as how they prey on the dreams of the working class. He will be discussing his book and “right to work” laws at As220 (115 Empire St. in Providence) this Saturday from 5 to 7pm.

But wait. What is a “right to work” law?

Since the 1890’s through the 1940′ and 1950’s, “right to work” laws of various sorts have played on the racial fears of southerns and midwesterners. Today, says de Leon, they are sold much more covertly but still have a somewhat similar effect.

de Leon wrote the book after his home state of Michigan, a stallwart of the labor movement and where de Leon was the president of his grad student union, became a right to work state. “This is partly my way of dealing with it, which is to fight back.”

And fighting back, he said, is important because the Supreme Court is slated to consider a case that could effectively make every public sector union in the nation a “right to work” shop, if you will.

But he seems imminently confident the labor/progressive coalition can beat back the neoliberal attempts to destroy unions.

Originally a conservative from Canada, de Leon came to the progressive left after seeing rampant poverty in Mexico.

He worked with the United Farm Workers to “get grapes out of the Yale dining hall,” he said. “That was my gateway drug to the labor movement.” He also worked for SEIU 1199 organizing health care workers right here in Rhode Island. “It was my first job out of college

Years later, he returned to the Ocean State as a sociology professor at Providence College. He’s been critical of PC on labor positions and in this interview was critical of the Catholic college on racial issues in this interview.

de Leon doesn’t speak of any kind of animus lightly. He’s been the victim of a seemingly politically-motivated hat crime in Providence, he told me.

You can watch my full interview with de Leon here:

September 8, 2015September 8, 2015

Rhode Island Labor History Society’s Annual Labor Day Address

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The Rhode Island Labor History Society held their Annual Labor Day Address in Moshassuck Cemetery in Central Falls yesterday. Ryan McIntyre, the society board member who lead the effort to erect a monument in the cemetery to commemorate the Saylesville Massacre, where workers were killed by the National Guard during the General Textile Strike in September of 1934, gave an address entitled, “1915 – A Tumultuous Year That Shaped the American Family.”

In this part of the graveyard one can see the bullet holes that penetrated a tombstone, evidence of the violence that can erupt when working people challenge the capitalist class over the proper allocation of profit.

Rhode Island was first industrialized and the first organized state in the nation, said McIntyre in his presentation (see video below). Both the industrial revolution and the organized labor movement had a genesis here.

The rich history of Rhode Island labor and the important wins of the labor movement that we all take for granted today, such as the forty hour work week, the eight hour day, the abolition of child labor, even Labor Day itself, mark the Labor Movement as deserving of our respect, yet too often, the opposite is true.

The assault on labor over the last three decades has been nonstop and withering. As union participation falls, economic inequality skyrockets to levels never before recorded in history. Today in Rhode Island UNAP, SEIU, Unite Here and the Providence Firefighters, to name just four, are all fighting for fair contracts and fair negotiations. The battle between Verizon and its workers is escalating. Other local labor battles are brewing.

The Labor Movement is not without its problems, like any human institution, it is vulnerable to human foibles and has an ignoble history in regards to issues of race and gender, but the ultimate goal of Labor is liberation and empowerment, and that is a goal always to be embraced and nurtured.

2015-09-07 RI Labor History Society Annual Labor Day Address 005 — Central Falls Mayor James Diossa

2015-09-07 RI Labor History Society Annual Labor Day Address 006 — **Scott Molloy**

2015-09-07 RI Labor History Society Annual Labor Day Address 008 — Mike Araujo

2015-09-07 RI Labor History Society Annual Labor Day Address 009 — James Parisi

2015-09-07 RI Labor History Society Annual Labor Day Address 011 — **Ryan McIntyre**

September 8, 2015

Tuesday to Tuesday arts and entertainment calendar

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RIFuture is a fine institution that has made important contributions to the Rhode Island news culture. It is our hope that this new feature – the ‘Tuesday to Tuesday Arts and Entertainment Calendar’ will bring a lighter side to the fare. As we move beyond the dog days of summer, I’m open to tips and press releases regarding the events you or someone you know may be holding in the next few weeks. Feel free to e-mail data to me at andrew.james.stewart.rhode.island@gmail.com.

MY PICKS
Here is my selection of events that you should definitely consider checking out this week.

9/8
Black Wool, Auvn, The Conversation, and Antonio Forte at AS220 Main Stage, 9:30 pm, $6
Check out some local bands and support one of our favorite venues in Providence.
9/9
Frequency’s Providence Anthology Release at Providence Public Library Ship Room, 6 pm, Free
I’m a bibliophile, so something in me is just yearning to see what happens here.
9/10
Movies on the Block: THE MUPPET MOVIE at Grants Block, 7:30 pm, Free
This is one of my favorite movies of all time and is certainly one for the whole family.
9/11
The Diversity Fellows Present “The 9/11 Show!” at AS220’s Blackbox, 7 pm, $5-10 sliding scale
This is a truly interesting event I highly encourage you to check out, it is intentionally flying in the face of nationalism and faux-sentiment in the name of the unity art gives us.
9/12
Happy hour book party for Cedric de Leon’s new release “Origins of Right To Work” at AS220, 5 pm, Free
This is the event not to miss this week, folks, there’s no two ways about it.
9/13
Free Writer’s Workshop at Annex Room, 4 pm, Free
Consider brushing up on your skills as we head back in to the school year.
9/14
Again, this week was light in terms of events, so please send me press releases and event notices as you come across them
9/15
Hartley C. White Project, CE Schneider Topical, Universal Cell Unlock at Psychic Readings, 9 pm, $6
Again, let’s send some loving to AS220 and support local music!

9/8
Stretch & Strength at AS220 Live Arts Dance Studio, 12-1 pm, $5

Open Life Drawing at AS220, 6 pm-8:30, $6

Intermediate Ballet Class with Danielle Davidson at AS220 Live Arts Dance Studio, 7:15 pm-8:45 pm, $13 per class/$60 for 6 classes

Brian 4 Ever, Mike Mountain, Invisible Robot Hands at Psychic Readings, 9 pm, $5

Black Wool, Auvn, The Conversation, and Antonio Forte at AS220 Main Stage, 9:30 pm, $6

9/9
Vinyasa Yoga with Julie Shore at AS220 Live Arts Dance Studio, Noon-1 pm, $5

Open Level Modern Dance at AS220 Live Arts Dance Studio, 6:30-8 pm, $13 per class/$60 for 6 classes

Frequency’s Providence Anthology Release at Providence Public Library Ship Room, 6 pm, Free

Providence Student Union’s Back to School Bash! at AS220 Main Stage, 5:30, Free

Lulz! Comedy Night at AS220 Main Stage, 9 pm, $6

The Florists, Feng Shui Police, Speechcraft and The Woods at Psychic Readings, 9 pm, $6

9/10
Evening Yoga at AS220 Live Arts Dance Studio, 6:15 pm, $13 per class; $60 for 6 classes

Movies on the Block: THE MUPPET MOVIE at Grants Block, 7:30 pm, Free

LAST SHOW! 2015 Burnside Music Series: Mark Cutler and Men of Great Courage + DJ LaRochelle at Kennedy Plaza, 4:30 pm, Free

Live@RWU: Quincy Jones Presents the Justin Kauflin Trio at RWU Global Heritage Hall Auditorium, 7:30 pm, Free

newportFILM Outdoors! THE MASK YOU LIVE IN at Great Friends Meeting House Lawn, 7:15 pm, Free

Counter-Productions Theatre Company presents a staged reading of AMERICA’S FAVORITE PASTIME by Dennis A. Allen II at AS220’s Blackbox, 7 pm, Free

Songwriters In The Round @ AS220, 7 pm, $5

Jesse Holstein (violin) and Clara Yang (cello), and Sun Speak at AS220 Main Stage, 9 pm, $6

9/11
ART OPENING! Creative Compassion & The Art of Kindness at New Urban Arts, 5 pm, Free

The Diversity Fellows Present “The 9/11 Show!” at AS220’s Blackbox, 7 pm, $5-10 sliding scale

Pixels, Aloud, Cat Has Claws, and Food Court at AS220 Main Stage, 9 pm, $6

9/12
Traditional Irish Music Session at AS220 Bar & FOO(D), 4 pm, Free

Collage Creators at Providence Children’s Museum, 10 am, Free with Museum admission of $9.00 per person

Blackletter, Leiko, and Seven Hats Parade at Parlor Bar & Kitchen, 10 pm, $5 (21+)

Happy hour book party for Cedric de Leon’s new release “Origins of Right To Work” at AS220, 5 pm, Free

Saturday Switch Series Masterclasses at AS220 Live Arts Dance Studio, 10 am, $15 per class; $60 for 6 class package

AS220 Residents’ Open House at AS220 Empire Fl. 3/Dreyfus Bldg./Mercantile Block, 2:30, Free

AS220 Industries Open House at AS220 Industries, 5 pm, Free

September Gallery Openings at AS220, 5 pm, Free

All About Buttons, Treehouse Live, Rat Ruckus at AS220 Main Stage, 9 pm, $6

9/13
Core Workout with Daniel Shea at AS220 Live Arts Dance Studio, 9 am, $5

Beginner Ballet at AS220 Live Arts Dance Studio, 10:30, $13 per class/$60 for 6 classes

Intermediate Ballet w/ Stephanie Albanese at 95 Empire Dance Studio, Noon, $13 per class/$60 for 6 classes

Happy Grandparents Day! at Providence Children’s Museum, 9 am, Free with Museum admission of $9.00 per person

Stacey Peasley Band at Governor Henry Lippitt House Museum, 3 pm, Free

Hann Cassady, Dan Dodd, Bill Bartholomew, and Alexandra Dutremble at Dusk, 8 pm, $5 (18+)

Arduino For Total Newbies With Mitch Altman at AS220 Labs, 1 pm, $35

Free Writer’s Workshop at Annex Room, 4 pm, Free

Math The Bland The Bland, Slingshot Dakota, Twin Foxes, and Honest Living @ Psychic Readings, 9 pm, $6

9/14
Intermediate/Advanced Modern Dance at AS220 Live Arts Dance Studio, 6:30 pm, $13 per class/$60 for 6 classes

9/15
Stretch & Strength at AS220 Live Arts Dance Studio, Noon, $5

Open Life Drawing at AS220, 6 pm, $6

Intermediate Ballet Class with Danielle Davidson at AS220 Live Arts Dance Studio, 7:15 pm, $13 per class/$60 for 6 classes

Hartley C. White Project, CE Schneider Topical, Universal Cell Unlock at Psychic Readings, 9 pm, $6

Vana Mazi, Orion Rigel Dommisse and Wolf Hongos at AS220 Main Stage, 9:30 pm, $6

September 8, 2015May 7, 2016

The Verizon, union standoff and the future of customer service

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Previously I posted a story regarding the current standoff between the IBEW and CWA with Verizon in regards to its impact on the labor movement. This post will discuss how a strong unionized workforce impacts the customer service of subscribers.

The issue of customer service is fundamentally an issue of unionized labor. If the call centers are unionized, then the customers will get quality service. Furthermore, if the service is union-certified, it carries with it a level of insurance that can be the difference between life and death. That might strike some as a bit hyperbolic, but anyone who has ever dialed 911 knows exactly what I mean.

The company has engaged in a series of practices intentionally meant to break the union, including the roll-out of automation tools that have hindered the ability of unionized workers and shortened shifts. For readers who are Verizon customers, they probably have begun to experience instances when they 4 out of 5 times have quality customer service, but then 1 out of 5 times they have had awful service. This is not an accident, it is because the company has been redirecting calls to non-union contractor offices either at vendor centers within the US or in Latin America where the labor force has no access to the services they are supporting. This is particularly gruesome because these laborers are subjected to brutal work regimens for little money and can be disciplined if calls last longer than a few minutes.

One source told me “If Verizon really cared about working families, they wouldn’t be paying basically what equates to slave wages in South America and minimum wages to folks in other vendor centers.” Should Verizon break the unions, customer service, which they do not care about, would drop significantly and it would be equivalent to Time Warner or Comcast, who have totally non-union help lines. A source told me that s/he sees the work of non-union customer service reps in the files of people s/he works with. S/he said there are problem-solving steps skipped, wrong answers, and a lack of literacy in the products being serviced because these workers are so poor they do not have access to these first-world niceties.

But there are other issues to consider. Currently, our internet and cable in America is the highest-priced for the lowest-quality service in the developed world. In comparison to South Korea, a nation that only exists because of the American military presence in the Pacific, we are a joke. Even Google Fiber and municipally-owned internet services embarrass Verizon. This lack of quality can be attributed to what is labelled by many as the ‘oligopoly’. In essence, the major cable companies have conspired to fix the prices and speeds of the utilities so to maximize profits and minimize user satisfaction. Our existing infrastructure is capable of much higher capacities but is intentionally prevented from reaching full potential by the corporations’ collusion and greed. A unionized workforce helps serve as a final barrier to complete corporate hegemony and consumer robbery.

But also consider the aforementioned copper cable. Currently, Verizon is allowing the existing lines, some of which are literally wrapped in paper, to rot. This is so they can roll out a wireless service that would cut back the necessary unionized workers significantly. The proposed method would be Verizon installs on every house an LTE X antennae that receives the broadcast video and data signals. Leaving aside the obvious health concerns to be raised by flooding the area with that many electro-magnetic bursts of energy, there is the issue of quality of service. Wireless phone service is inferior to copper cable, with higher wait times and fewer amenities. Also, important health and safety services, such as LifeAlert and 911, do not always work with wireless in the same fashion they do with copper cable. And when you are in a health emergency where seconds can mean life or death, a little bit of lag can result in a lot of grief.

Some of the infrastructure for wireless calling that would end copper cable as we know it has already been put in place. For example, in New York, Verizon Voice Link has already begun the roll-out of wireless-based landline phone service in certain circumstances. The Verizon Quantum TV set-top boxes contain chips that are unactivated but would serve as wireless IP set-tops and contain technology that could be used by the cellular network. Verizon claims this is about everything from customer satisfaction to environmental concerns. But the bottom line is simply busting the union and maximizing profits from the established LTE-X network.

As previously mentioned, it is vital that both customers and non-customers reach out to both Verizon and the unions to express solidarity. If you are a member of a faith community, consider both offering prayers and raising funds for the union should they strike. If you are a community leader, express public solidarity. Write your local newspaper, post on social networks, make a public show of solidarity. This is a winnable battle if the people unite.

Read the first part in this series here.

Visit the Stand Up To Verizon website by clicking here.

The CWA can be reached at 401-275-0760.

The IBEW can be reached at 401-946-9900.

September 7, 2015May 7, 2016

The Verizon, union stand-off and the future of labor

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This is the first of a three-part series. Part two deals with customer service and part three deals with privacy issues.

On August 1, 2015, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Communications Workers of America contract with Verizon expired. However, unlike previous years, they decided to not strike – a move meant to undermine the company’s hiring and housing of scabs. This is a labor struggle that will have a major impact on the entire labor movement.

“I think the days of the short strike is over,” said Dan Murphy, a retired member of the union. “Verizon wants to break the union and is willing to overwork lower levels of management in the process.”

But it also could impact customer service for one of the biggest telephone, internet, and television providers in America as well as basic issues of privacy.

The current ownership of the Verizon Communications Corporation is one of the most militantly anti-union groups in the country despite the fact they have brought in $1 billion per month for the past 18 months. Their CEO Lowell McAdam has been public about his intention to “kill the copper,” eliminating all the landline service within the Verizon network. How that would impact customer service will be addressed later, but from a labor perspective, it is important to understand that these words translate to plain old fashioned union busting. But first a little explanation is required.

Verizon as a company is in fact two extremely segregated workforces, the unionized wire telecom services provider and the nonunion wireless provider. By eliminating the wireline business, including copper cable and FiOS fiber optic, the company would be able to justify a significant series of layoffs, diluting the union presence. In February 2015, Verizon sold off the copper landlines in 14 states and fiber wireline footprint of FiOS West to Frontier Communications. They would have sold more of the FiOS service, but the unionized labor costs were far too great. Therefore, when their two-year contract expired last month, this presented the company with an opportunity to bust two of the major labor unions in America, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) and Communications Workers of America (CWA).

There have previously been signals that Verizon is trying to eliminate the landlines and therefore the unions. Following Hurricane Sandy, they were given substantial subsidies to rebuild the infrastructure, funding that would have covered 50 percent of their costs, but they claimed the storm’s damage was too significant to rebuild. This is of course complete nonsense.

In June, the New York City Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications released a damning report that showed Verizon had broken a major agreement with the Five Burroughs. In 2008, the company had accepted a bargain in exchange for a cable television franchise, agreeing to lay fiber optic cable and bring high-speed internet to everyone in the city. But apparently, the company merely activated the cable service and refused to roll out the fiber optic, thereby keeping unionized workers from acting on what would have been the most fruitful jobs on the Eastern seaboard. In response to the report, Verizon denied the charges and blamed the union.

The general feeling of the workers is that the company wants to take all the money and run, as made obvious by the sale to Frontier. The company is trying to reduce the workforce, wants to raise the cost of healthcare despite the savings created by the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, and gut job security. Already they have had some success, forcing workers to pay into a 401 (k) as opposed to the pension system that defined the benefits package of the Ma Bell and Baby Bell telephone companies for generations.

As the end of the contract approached, unionized customer call center workers noticed something very odd. First, under the auspices of a farcical ’employee well-being’ effort, the company cut the hours of the Providence office significantly, from 7 am-11 pm to 7 am-7 pm. Overtime was offered during peak hours to other offices for reasons sources tell me had to do with hurting the New England labor force. ‘Preferred shifts’ were offered to employees as part of a re-canvass of the office, allowing workers to keep their different pay, but it still was problematic for both the work and outside life of many employees.

Then, as closing approached, the workers noticed their call queues jump into the hundreds every night. Sources tell me they see this as a blatant sign that the company was training scab labor in this window of time. This and a variety of other signs led the union leadership to choose not to strike as they did two years ago.

But this is not a painless effort, it is causing great stress for the workers and their families. They are going in to work daily and getting pay as well as benefits, but they have no arbitration process in place in case of grievances. Hoping to provoke a walk out and implement their scab workforce, the company made a proposal to the unions that was repulsive. And keep in mind, Frontier, who just bought a large section of the Verizon network, settled with IBEW and CWA without a strike very recently. The writing is on the wall, this is an effort to destroy the union, a serious blow to organized labor that would carry as much of an effect as the laws passed by Gov. Scott Walker in Wisconsin just a few years ago.

There are, however, some interesting developments to consider. Recently, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that corporations must directly participate in negotiations with labor unions at franchises. Previously, if a union were to form at a fast food restaurant that is a franchise, the union would need to negotiate with the individual owners. But now, should Verizon Wireless franchise workers choose to organize, Verizon would need to directly negotiate with the side of their business they have worked so hard to prevent from doing so. As such, a union victory here could eventually lead to an organization drive in Verizon stores by the CWA, who organizes groups like graduate students and nontraditional workplaces.

There are things that both customers and non-customers can do to express solidarity. Those who are not paying a Verizon bill can reach out to their local IBEW and CWA branches and ask if they are accepting donations for support during this time. The unions know if they strike that this could be as brutal as the Caterpillar battle in the mid-1990’s. It is going to take old-fashioned solidarity to help them stay above water, but unions, as non-profit organizations, are allowed to accept donations.

Customers can also do a great deal. Write Lowell McAdam and the Board of Directors and tell them to settle fairly with the unions or else you are canceling your subscriptions. If you make a call to Customer Service, ask if you are speaking to a union operator, and if not, ask to be transferred to one. There are already a variety of utilities that can take the place of Verizon cable services, such as Netflix, Hulu, or YouTube. There is a way to make them know the customers stand with the workers. Part Two of this series will address customer service and the future of telecom while Part Three will address privacy concerns.

Visit the Stand Up To Verizon website by clicking here.

The CWA can be reached at 401-275-0760.

The IBEW can be reached at 401-946-9900.

September 7, 2015September 7, 2015

Labor Day and the Saylesville Massacre

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President Grover Cleveland pushed through the legislation to make Labor Day a national holiday in 1894, just days after the violent break up of the Pullman Rail Strike – a walk-out led by Eugene Debs that started with 3,000 workers in Pullman, Illinois and grew to almost 250,000 by the time the president deployed some 12,000 army troops to dismantle the protests.

The holiday declaration was meant as an appeasement to organized labor; 13 strikers were killed and 57 were wounded during the insurrection.

Some 40 Labor Days later, Rhode Island would leave its mark with regard to famous organized labor insurrections in what has become known as the Saylesville Massacre – although it really wasn’t so much of a massacre as it was a 48-hour stand-off, spanning two cities, between union workers and the Rhode Island National Guard.

TODAY: Celebrate with your union brother and sisters at the annual Labor Day address at the site of the Saylesville Massacre.

Textile workers from all over the Eastern Seaboard had gone on strike for better wages and mill owners responded by hiring non-union laborers to keep their businesses in operation. On Monday, September 10, at the Sayles Finishing Company in Central Falls, 600 union supporters had gathered in front of the textile mill that was now making due with non-union workers.

John A. Salmond describes the events that then transpired in his 2002 research paper “The General Textile Strike of 1934: From Maine to Alabama”:

“Minor scuffles turned more serious as the shifts changed at 3 and 11 p.m. The state police, augmented by special deputies lost control at the second change, and, as the crowd surged forward to invade the plant, they fired blindly into it. Two strikers were hit with buckshot while a score or more were injured by bricks, rocks and billy-clubs as the police added ‘to the uproar the thump of swinging nightsticks and exploding teargas bombs.’ One, Louis Fercki, was critically hurt, his skull fractured by a club during a fracas at the mill gate. The strikers prevailed, however, trapping seven hundred workers inside the mill until first light.”

Militia attacking striking from behind gravestones in Saylesville, Rhode Island.

The next day, September 11, Governor Theodore Francis Green called in the National Guard, but Salmond wrote that “he was too late to prevent an escalation in violence at Saylesville.”

Local and state police were joined by some 260 national guard troops, who could not keep in control the reported 4,000 people who were continually charging the gates of the Sayles Finishing Company throughout the day and into the next evening. They threw rocks and pieces of headstones from a nearby cemetery at the troops, according to Salmond.

“Indeed, the local cemetery had become a battleground. Troops, firing machine guns from the mill roof, eventually drove the crowd away from the gates. Eight strikers were shot, none fatally, due to the determination of the guard commander to use only buckshot and to fire, for the most part, safely over the heads of those in the crowd. More than 100 were injured by clubs or missles, however, including 18 guardsmen, before the fighting ceased. Governor Green, meantime, had placed the whole Saylesville district under martial law.”

Bullet holes in headstones can still be found at the Moshassuck Cemetery in Central Falls, 978 Lonsdale Ave, where today’s crop of local labor leaders will hold a vigil at 11 a.m. to honor the event and the people who took part. You can watch some old news footage of the events by clicking here.

But the real massacre occurred the next day in Woonsocket, at the Rayon Plant. There, guard troops fired on striking workers again. One, 19-year-old Jude Courtemanche, was killed and four others were seriously-wounded.

“This time there was no shooting over the heads. Faced by an angry mob of nearly 10,000, guardsmen shot to wound, if not kill. ‘The screams of the wounded stopped the strikers,’ ran one report. They beat a disorderly retreat to the town’s business district, where for three hours they laid waste, looting stores, setting fires, and hurling stones and other missles before the guard was able to restore order. Governor Green, by now thoroughly shaken, closed all of Woonsocket’s nighclubs, saloons, dance halls and stores until further notice, and an uneasy calm returned to the city.”

September 5, 2015September 6, 2015

PawSox Stadium opponents film music video outside McCoy

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On Saturday morning over 75 people assembled outside McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket to sing a slightly altered version of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” for a video planned to protest moving the Pawtucket Red Sox to a proposed new stadium in Providence. Director Murray Scott lead the crowd in singing the song, from cue cards, four times as volunteers stopped traffic. Surprisingly, none of the drivers of any of the cars evidenced anything but support for the effort, despite the inconvenience of being stopped. instead drivers honked horns, waved, or gave thumb’s up to the efforts of the singers.

Despite what appears to be recent victories for stadium opponents in the form of RI Speaker of the House Nicholas Mattiello‘s admission that a deal with Brown University and the City of Providence seems unlikely, organizers Tim Empkie, Sharon Steele and David Norton all feel that the pressure needs to be kept on.

Murray Scott says that the video made today will be premiered in a couple of weeks on the Motif Magazine and GoLocal Prov news sites. In the meantime, below is a preview.

September 5, 2015September 9, 2015

Meet Cedric de Leon, author of new ‘Right To Work’ book

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RI Future presents….

Progressive Providence College professor Cedric de Leon discusses his new book:

“Origins of Right To Work: Antilabor Democracy in Nineteenth Century Chicago”

At AS220, Saturday, September 12 from 5 to 7 pm

de Leon’s book contends Right To Work-style laws first came in to fashion after the Civil War when anti-labor forces said unionization was akin to employment slavery. He’ll be discussing his research as well as what Rhode Islanders can do to prevent RTW laws from coming here, and how we may not be able to stop them from becoming the law of the land through an impending Supreme Court case.

Check out this extended interview with de Leon about his book, right to work laws in general, what Rhode Islanders can do to keep RTW out of the Ocean State and how the Supreme Court may foist it upon us anyways.

September 5, 2015February 15, 2016

Is this the end of Lucchino’s field of dreams?

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By Friday evening, the opponents of the PawSox proposal to build a stadium in Providence were ecstatic. After a ruling by the federal government that the I-195 land must be sold at fair market value, a well-attended and media-friendly party on Monday at the proposed site, followed by reports that Brown refused to sell their property that PawSox owner Lucchino would have needed to build his stadium on and Speaker Matiello’s comments that the project now looked unlikely, it seemed to some like a victory.

Or is it?

The late African freedom fighter Amilcar Cabral once told his troops “tell no lies, claim no easy victories.” There are several reasons that would indicate this is not the end of the PawSox putsch, just a break before a real offensive. Even if the parcels designated as parkland remain as such, that does not mean Larry Lucchino is done, not by a long shot.

First, consider the fact that, following the Dueling Pianos forum on August 25, Lucchino was spotted the next day touring the site of the old Victory Plating factory, now called Victory Place. Throughout the I-195 land forum, members of the audience were almost unanimous in opposing building a stadium on that parcel in particular. But several members of the audience did in fact suggest Victory Place as an alternative they would be open to see developed into a stadium. The crowd at Dueling Pianos that evening was not unanimous in opposition to a state subsidy for a ballpark, they were just opposed to the parcel in question being used for that purpose. There is a big difference there.

Second, Gov. Raimondo told WPRO that the negotiations continue despite the revelations about Brown regarding the land. She said then:

As I’ve said all along, it’s a complex deal, you have to get it right for the taxpayers, we’re working through it but there are definite obstacles and we can’t rush through them.

Coming from someone who said her scheme to bail out Wall Street was ‘pension reform’, that does not sound like any conversations involving Mr. Lucchino have been terminated.

Mattiello was subjected to a lot of constituent pressure following a round of canvassing of his district by stadium opponents. He also is probably feeling a little stress around the recent revelations about 38 Studios, which show that his mentor William Murphy and his predecessor Gordon Fox were pulling strings long before former Gov. Carcieri laid eyes on Curt Schilling. He has said he is open to having all the facts come out regarding the ongoing litigation so that the public can know the truth. But if he were serious about it, why has he yet to grant Oversight Committee Chair Rep. Karen MacBeth the subpoena power she has been requesting since Mike Stanton profiled him for Rhode Island Monthly in September 2014? Back then, Mattiello was sticking to the original narrative about how the 38 Studios deal was concocted and had a rather problematic excuse regarding MacBeth:

As for 38 Studios, Mattiello says that it was “stone-cold conservatives” — Schilling and former Republican Governor Donald Carcieri — “who put this together.” Carcieri “was trying to throw a Hail Mary pass” to jump-start the economy.
Then [Gordon] Fox and friend Mike Corso, the shadowy 38 Studios agent and Providence tax-credit king, got involved and pushed it through a largely unsuspecting legislature… Representative Karen MacBeth, whom Mattiello had made chair of the powerful Oversight Committee in exchange for her support for speaker, is publicly challenging him on 38 Studios. MacBeth is upset that Mattiello won’t allow her to subpoena witnesses to investigate, which she says he promised during a meeting at a McDonald’s to secure her vote for speaker. Mattiello says he never explicitly promised subpoena power. While he favors a full airing of the facts, he says, he doesn’t want to interfere with the ongoing state police probe or civil suits. Furthermore, he questions going to the time and expense to subpoena witnesses who would likely take the Fifth, given the other investigations.

If he was so worried about the expense of a few subpoenaed testimonies before the Oversight Committee, what could possibly have changed his mind in regards to a construction project that economists agree is a way to loose money and proposed by a man who left Baltimore and San Diego rueing the day they met him?

Video games? What do I know about video games, my kids play them!

More than likely, this is the reality of the situation: Lucchino has struck out once but will be up to bat again very soon. We are approaching an election year where Mattiello and the rest of the General Assembly are up for re-election but Gina Raimondo is not. She is also trying to get her tolls bill passed. The construction trade unions have not rescinded their endorsement of a stadium proposal. Lucchino has not come forward and said he will stay in Pawtucket. The Providence Journal, who are always to the right and almost always in the wrong, to paraphrase Gore Vidal, continue to print editorials in support of a ball park, which is a meter of how viable their sources think a deal is. More than likely, stadium subsidies will become a bargaining chit following the November election, Mattiello will push the toll bill through in exchange for support for a publicly-funded stadium. All the while, he will hem and haw about due process while quietly praying that the State Police don’t produce a damning report akin to the one regarding Allan Fung that shows he was not totally oblivious as the Number Three on Smith Hill regarding what Number One and Number Two were dreaming about video games until after the polls close on November 8, 2016.

Like Yogi Berra said, it ain’t over ’til it’s over.

September 5, 2015September 5, 2015

Groden Center employees picket, demand better wages

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More than 50 staff, union reps, and concerned families chanted and picketed Thursday afternoon at The Groden Center in Providence. The gathered participants were making their concerns public in their struggle for fair wages and safe staffing practices.

“At one time the Groden Center was considered an excellent school for autism,” said Cory Lafleur a staff member and key figure in negotiations with the Groden management, “and I want to help it get there.”

According to Lafleur the staff has been negotiating with Groden management since October with no changes and are now going public with their fight. Lafleur, who has worked at Groden for ten years, says he’s “seen things deteriorate,” and that the school is “loosely run,” with an emphasis on a “high turnover” rather than taking care of employees. Lafleur has accused Groden of walking away in the middle of negotiations and wasting the staff’s time while not budging on any point.

Among those in attendance were reps like Chas Walker from Service Employees International United (SEIU) Local 1199, who was running the event, United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 328, Teamsters Local 251, among a plethora of other local reps. All supporting the cause of Groden staff members including Rep. Patricia Serpa (D-West Warwick) and Rep. J. Aaron Regunberg (D-Providence).

Most of The Groden Center staff receive as little as $11.25 an hour, with very few making above $12.00 an hour. Allison Peterson, who has worked at The Groden Center in Coventry for three years, claims to have only received one raise in that time and only because of new hiring practices. Rep. Serpa called the treatment of the staff “morally repugnant” and “incomprehensible.”

According to Peterson during emergencies the staff are able to make “support calls” and have additional staff from nearby facilities intervene to ensure student safety. But even at times that’s not enough.

The chanting rang out in the Eastside neighborhood as Fil Eden lead the calls through a megaphone, various chants of “Can’t survive on eleven twenty-five!” and “What do we want? Safe Staffing. When do we want it? Now!”

Corey Lafluer wearing a sign before handing out fliers to passing traffic.

Safe staffing means hiring more guides to take care of the children, with current student to staff ratios being nearly 1 to 2, or a 1 to 1. It would seem this number should mean each student is properly cared for but many students need near constant care as well as emergency cases where more 2, or even 3, staff members need to stop a student from hurting themselves or others. Leaving other students unattended.

“I’m passionate about it, I love the kids, I love what this institution is built on, but I don’t see them caring as much as I care. And that’s a problem,” said Lafleur.

Lafleur, Peterson, and many other staff spoke at length about the quality of care they provide and the love they have for the children under their care. As well as having the right kind of staff and people work at the school. The job coming with many difficulties, from the above mentioned emergencies to the slow progress of many of the students who are on somewhere on the autism scale.

“Not everybody is cut out for this job, so when you have people that are willing to work here, that enjoy working here, understand that they’re not gonna get rich working here, and don’t want to leave,” Lafleur said through a megaphone to the gathered crowd. “You need to recognize those people and pay them what they deserve.”

September 4, 2015September 12, 2015

10 PVD city councilors voted for exclusionary zoning last night

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The Providence City Council voted 10-3 to modify the zoning code to add exclusionary zoning restrictions on student housing on Thursday night. Under the provision, persons defined as “college students” would not be able to live more than three to a house in zones 1 and 1A (map), despite reports in The Projo that many of the homes in question have as many as five bedrooms.

Zoning laws in Providence must be passed by City Council twice, and either have a veto-proof majority or be signed into law by the mayor. The measure, if passed a second time, would be a challenge to housing affordability and transit-oriented design. The upshot is that the 10-3 vote is very fragile. Just one turnaround would allow Mayor Jorge Elorza to veto the zoning change. I am contacting Mayor Elorza’s chief-of-staff Brett Smiley for comment, but by publication time it is unlikely that I will have word on the mayor’s position. Keep your eyes peeled for updates!

The tempest-in-a-teapot in Ward 5 started around student noise. Councilwoman Jo-Ann Ryan has tried proposing other methods of shunning students, including additional fees on student housing, but decided to settle on this zoning measure, according to reporting done in The Projo.

Changes in density affect transit. Transit viability is affected along an exponential curve, rather than a linear progression, based on density. So small changes in density through exclusionary zoning can have large reverberating effects on transit frequencies, and those changes disproportionately hurt low income people, especially time-poor low income people, like those with multiple jobs or children.

Changes in zoning like this also negatively affect housing affordability, not only for students, but for everyone. You might find yourself saying, “Who cares what happens to college students?” It’s not like someone is being discriminated against on the basis of race, or gender, or sexuality. Being a college student is just a stage in life, and it’s not even a stage in life that everyone goes through.” But the students who are most affected by this type of rule will be disproportionately those students who are riding the razor’s edge of affording school. Upper class students will shrug this off, and perhaps not even notice it, or be annoyed by it for lifestyle reasons.

Students who can find housing will. When students overflow from housing they may have previously been able to occupy, they may outbid others with less money looking for apartments. While sometimes this outbidding process can lead to greater housing development, resolving the imbalance, the zoning ordinance itself stops an increase in zoning density, and actually reduces densities below their existing levels. The price increases here are also not due to people’s increased desire for a neighborhood–which is at least a mixed blessing–but by artificial regulations that will just keep certain people out. The process of using zoning to limit housing is one of the things that has most affected displacement of working class families from homes. It tries to shape our cities into an imagined ideal of single-family homes that never existed except in the imagination of someone like Frank Lloyd Wright. This means that housing will become expensive, but with none of the attendant positives of that process–a kind of “stagflation” of housing policies.

Who are the people who voted for exclusionary zoning?

Councilman Kevin Jackson, Ward 3, Mt. Hope (my councilman)

Mr. Jackson narrowly won his last election against a write-in candidate, Marcus Mitchell, who started a write-in campaign for his seat just before Election Day. The election went to a recount. I have contacted Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Jackson on this issue, but as yet have not heard back, but multiple previous conversations I’ve had with Marcus Mitchell have centered on his involvement with RhodeMap, which opposes exclusionary zoning.

Councilwoman Jo-Ann Ryan, Ward 5, Elmhurst

Somewhat unsurprisingly, Councilwoman Ryan voted for her own bill. She is a new councilor.

Councilman Michael Correia, Ward 6, Manton

Councilman John Iggliozzi, Ward 7, Silver Lake

Councilwoman Carmen Castillo, Ward 9, Elmwood

Council President Luis Aponte, Ward 10, Lower South Providence and Washington Park

The Councilman’s vote for exclusionary zoning shocks me, because he has frequently been a voice for tenant’s rights and an acceptable if not perfect voice for transit-oriented development. This is a misstep for the Council President, and we hope he’ll change his vote.

Councilwoman Mary Kay Harris, Ward 11, Upper South Side

Councilman Bryan Principe, Ward 13, Federal Hill and the West End

I have to report disappointment on this vote by Councilman Principe, as I’ve found him to be a very urbanist-oriented councilman much of the time. I hope that residents in my old neighborhood of the West End will speak out to Councilman Principe, and that he’ll change his vote next week.

Councilman David A. Salvatore, Ward 15, Elmhurst and Wanskuck

Councilwoman Sabina Matos, Ward 16, Olneyville

Many of these councilpersons represent districts that ought to be unified in their opposition to exclusionary zoning for one reason or another.

Councilmen Yurdin, Zurier and Jennings voted against the measure. Councilmen Narducci and Hassett were not present at Thursday night’s meeting. Councilman Zurier’s hands haven’t exactly been clean. In his own district he has worked to make apartments and other types of multifamily housing less easy to develop.

Please contact your city councilor–and indeed, please contact the entire Providence City Council–and let them know that Providence is not supportive of exclusionary zoning policies. And ask Mayor Elorza to veto any vote next Thursday that isn’t over the veto-proof margin of 10.

Update: According to a by Patrick Anderson, Mayor Elorza’s office will support the zoning change, as proposed.

~~~~

September 4, 2015September 4, 2015

Procaccianti promotes pain in Providence

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Hotel workers gathered outside Providence City Hall Thursday evening to call attention to a new report, “Providence’s Pain Problem,” that details higher rates of injury at The Procaccianti Group Providence hotels Renaissance and Hilton than at other hotels nationally. According to their report,” the incidence rate for work-related injury and illness was 69% higher at the Hilton and 85% higher at the Renaissance Hotel than the national average rate for hotel workers in 2013.”

In addition, “workers at Procaccianti hotels suffered injuries resulting in days away from work at a rate nearly four times the national average. The incidence rate for work-related injuries and illness that resulted in days away from work was 42% higher at the Procaccianti hotels than the Omni and Biltmore hotels.”

Workers at The Procaccianti Group are worked harder than their counterparts at unionized hotels. At the Hilton workers are expected to clean anywhere from 17 to 23 rooms in one shift. The work-load per shift is 15 at the Omni and 14 at the Biltmore, where employees are protected by their union.

“My life has changed completely due to my injury and I am unable to work or even walk without the use of a cane,” said Susana Ramirez, a housekeeper at the Hilton for 13 years, in a statement, “The Procaccianti Group needs to stop hurting us.”

Also speaking at the rally was Providence City Councilor Carmen Castillo, workers’ compensation lawyer Steven Dennis and RI Committee on Occupational Safety and Health (RICOSH) Executive Director Jim Celenza.

After the main section of the rally, workers continued with a candle-lit vigil and passed out copies of the report to people and politicians entering City Hall before the city council meeting.

September 4, 2015

Fighting for voting rights in RI

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“Before the Voting Rights Act of 1965,” said Jim Vincent, president of the NAACP Providence, “the majority of Black Americans were unable to vote. That’s what was happening in the Jim Crow south… Civil Rights activists fought, bled and died for these rights, and they are being rolled back every day.”

Vincent was speaking at an ACLU panel discussion held at the Providence Public Library in August entitled, “The Voting Rights Act at 50: The Promise and The Struggle.” Hilary Davis of the ACLU directed the event, and in addition to Vincent, Kate Bowden of the RI Disability Law Center and Lee Ann Byrne of the RI Coalition for the Homeless attended.

The history of voter disenfranchisement was briefly discussed, as was the Voter ID laws that the RI General Assembly passed a few years ago. Many politicians feel that having to show a picture ID at the polls is not an undue burden, but Hilary Davis pointed out that years ago, many thought poll taxes, now seen as exclusionary, were not a big deal. Poll taxes, Jim Vincent added, “were designed to disenfranchise a whole group of people so that they couldn’t participate in our democracy.”

After the Voting Rights Act was passed 50 years ago, the percentage of registered black voters rose from 25 to 62 percent. More than that, the Voting Rights Act “provided the right to assistance in the voting booth. This allowed the illiterate, or the disabled, to vote,” said Kate Bowden.

For 47 years or so the Voting Rights Act was doing great. “Then states began to role back voting rights,” said Davis, adding that the Supreme Court virtually eliminated the VR Act when they struck down key provisions. “Over night… states started to enact laws to limit access… It was within a number of hours of Supreme Court decision that laws were introduced to limit voting rights.

And these laws are racially biased. Before Obama was elected President, seven states had laws restricting voter rights,” said Vincent. The number is around 25 now, and Rhode Island is not exempt.

“Rhode Island rushed to pass a [Voter ID] law,” said Davis, “Unlike most laws this is based on a couple of anecdotal incidents… Stats show their is virtually no evidence of voter fraud. Mail ballots became easier to obtain, the only place where fraud was found…No one thought that a Democratic [Party majority] state would manage to do that.”

Lee Ann Byrne said that for the homeless population though, “obtaining an ID is important to access many services… it comes at a major expense” and “despite the availability of the free IDs, it doesn’t make sense to get one that is good only for voting.”

Furthermore, said Byrne, “Poll worker training is a bit spotty” on the issue of voting without a permanent address. “We have a highly mobile population, our constituents almost never have an ID that matches their address.” And denying someone the right to vote or forcing them to cast a provisional ballot under these conditions, is not the law.

People can become embarrassed or caused distress at the polls if they can’t be certain about their right to vote. “There is a concern about being challenged or turned down when they make the effort,” said Byrne. To date only about 900 voter IDs have been issued by the Secretary of State’s office. Before the introduction of voter ID in Rhode Island, there were “zero prosecutions for in person voter impersonation’” but since the passage of the law, said Davis, otherwise qualified voters have been turned away.

Being forced to get a photo ID in order to vote, said Vincent, “is a form of poll tax.”

Another issue of voting concern to the ACLU is “prison based gerrymandering.” Right now the 4000 inmates at the ACI are counted as living in Cranston, on Howard Ave. These people are unable to vote, meaning that the citizens in this district have more voting power than people in the rest of the state. Their vote counts as more because there are less people voting in their district.

The state Senate passed legislation to correct this problem, which would count those people at the ACI as living at their home address, but it has not moved in the House.

The panel discussed other issues, such as long lines and long waits at the polls in some districts, which may cause people to lose out on their chance to vote if time is scarce, broken voting machines, lack of childcare at polls, mail ballot fraud, the need for early voting and issues regarding the Board of Elections.

The ACLU recommends two things needed immediately for the needed reform of our elections. First, the ACLU needs people to volunteer as poll monitors. Poll monitors would note when voters are turned away, when equipment malfunctions or when other irregularities occur. Secondly, the ACLU would like to see the voter ID law repealed.

To accomplish the second goal the public needs to talk to our legislators. Too many people think showing an ID at the poll is no big deal, but for the homeless, the disabled or the poor, securing an ID can be a terrific burden. Thoroughly discouraged, eligible voters may decide to skip voting all together, and this can’t be good for our putative democracy.

September 3, 2015September 3, 2015

If Denali can change it’s name, should Block Island?

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Mohegan Bluffs, Block Island (Photo by Bob Plain)

Nick Kirkpatrick in the Washington Post speculated a few days ago that Block Island might be a candidate for renaming in the wake President Obama’s executive decision to revert the name of Mt. McKinley back to the Native American name Denali. As Kirkpatrick explains it:

“For thousands of years, Native Americans called this pear-shaped island in southern Rhode Island ‘Manisses‘ (‘Island of the Little God,’) until it was visited in 1614 by Dutch explorer Adriaen Block, who renamed it after himself. Block? Have you ever heard of him?”

Boston.com elaborated somewhat on the history, saying, “War soon broke out between native groups and colonists,” and suggested that, “Given Block’s legacy, maybe the island, as the Post suggests, deserves its old name back.”

I called Blake Filippi, the independent Representative whose district includes includes all of Block Island (as well as Charlestown and portions of Westerly and South Kingstown,) what he thought of the idea. Though he wouldn’t comment on the idea’s merits, he did point out that in his opinion, Block Island residents would have to vote to amend the town charter, and that such a name change could not be done through executive action, as was the case with Mt. Denali.

Filippi also corrected my pronunciation of “Manisses” which is properly “Man-uh-sees” and doesn’t rhyme with “missus.”

I placed a second call to Nancy Dodge, town manager of New Shoreham, located on Block Island. I asked her if the residents of Block island were open to the idea of changing the name from “Block island” to Manisses.

“I don’t sense a groundswell of activity on this,” said Dodge, adding that such a change didn’t seem likely.

September 3, 2015September 3, 2015

Cicilline stands with child care providers

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Congressman David Cicilline met Wednesday with local child care workers to discuss the need for high quality care that pays a living wage.

“It’s time for Congress to take action to ensure that high quality, affordable child care is accessible for every American family,” said Cicilline. “And that the childcare workforce can access the training and wages they need to make a living.”

Cicilline joined a forum of 11 child care workers, state representatives, and local parents to discuss House Resolution 386, which recognizes the need for better child care for the working parents.

Among possible solutions identified by the participants on Wednesday, raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour for child care workers was the most popular.

“They want us to better ourselves, but we need help,” said Nichole Ward, a certified nursing assistant and mother of two. Ward spoke of the difficulties finding care for her two children while working and going to school at the same time.

Ultimately she had to ask her family to watch her children as childcare proved too expensive, a common solution for working families. Ward explained that her children had “fallen behind.” in their educations. Her mother and sister “aren’t teachers,” unlike the child care providers, and cannot provide the vital early childhood development.

“Between 2007 and 2015, funding for Rhode Island’s subsidized child care program shrank by 30 percent (from $71 million to $51 million),” said Rachel Flum, senior policy analyst at the Economic Progress Institute. “The reduction was primarily in state support for the program which was accomplished by reducing eligibility – causing hundreds of families to lose coverage.”

Cicilline cited a University of California, Berkeley study that found child care workers are paid less than $10 an hour and wages have stagnated with no real increase since 1997 while at the same time child care costs have doubled.

“Pay the workers like their work matters,” said Marti Murphy with Fight for 15, an advocacy group currently celebrating victories big and small across the nation.

Cicilline expanded that childcare is becoming the “biggest number, bigger than rent, bigger than food.”

“Things are different now than 25-years-ago,” he said, talking about the need for Congressional action. “We can’t pretend it’s 1950…and recognize the reality that both parents are working.”

Added Chas Walker of 1199 SEIU New England, “From 1-5-years-old are the most important years in a child’s life. We have to value the people providing the care for them.”

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