Progressive News, Opinion, and Analysis
Without comment, just thought folks would be fascinated by the office’s logo, as noted by Spencer Ackerman today.
I’m really psyched that Netroots Nation will be in town next week — it’ll make for an exciting time for Providence, and will yield a welcome economic boost — the estimates are on the order of $4 million in economic activity for Rhode Island, including a nice chunk of revenue for the city in hotel and meal and beverage taxes. (And, shameless self promotion: I’m happy to have played a key role in securing the conference for Providence.)
I also unequivocally support the right to protest, and believe that Occupy Providence has every justification in the world to make its presence known outside of the event and draw further attention to economic justice issues.
Most attendees of the conference absolutely support their cause, but far too much of the Democratic Party establishment is still complicit in Wall Street’s crimes, helped bring about the ruin of our economy, and is still contingent upon Big Finance for campaign contributions. (Obama’s relatively new to sucking up to high finance, but our Vice President spent most of his 4-decade career in politics as a particularly notable shill for the industry.)
Which brings me to the point: In late 2006 janitors throughout Rhode Island were agitating for better wages. This included a scheduled 5-day fast outside of City Hall, but circa day 3 thereof one janitor was roughed up by management of the custodial contractor at the Turks Head Building. So we moved the protests to the sidewalk adjacent to that building, on Westminster street. A dozen or so people brought lawn chairs — and blankets and sleeping bags (as per the photo from the Brown Daily Herald at right) — and set up shop flush with the wall of the building, leaving at least 8 or so feet of passable sidewalk width between themselves and the street.
The police — ostensibly under the direction of our illustrious “progressive” mayor at the time — tried to arrest the janitors and their supporters for blocking the sidewalk. Working with attorney Marc Gursky, SEIU and the protesters secured a restraining order against the police department, affirming the right of the protesters to protest on the sidewalk.
So I wanted to bring to the attention of the powers-that-be the ordinance that the late Miguel Luna and I oversaw passage of thereafter to ensure that the right to protest on city sidewalks would not again be questioned. The explicit legislative intent was to make it clear that protests that look the one above are legal in Providence, as long as enough room is left for pedestrians to use the sidewalk. See (c) below:
Sec. 16-13. – Obstruction of public ways.(a)
No person shall stand on any footwalk, sidewalk, parking lot, doorstep or in any doorway in this city as to obstruct a free passage for foot passengers; nor place sports equipment or other obstructions within any street or sidewalk within the city so as to impede the flow of vehicular or pedestrian traffic; or to hinder or delay passers-by or persons residing or doing business in the vicinity thereof.
(b)
Any person obstructing any footwalk, sidewalk, parking lot, step or doorway, or utilizing sports equipment or other obstructions within any street or sidewalk within the city, shall move, or remove the equipment or other obstruction, immediately when requested to do so by a police officer.
(c)
The preceding paragraphs shall not apply to individuals who are exercising a right to protest; however, in no event shall there be less than three (3) feet of unobstructed sidewalk access at all times.
(d)
The director of public works, or his designee, is hereby authorized to remove sports equipment or any other obstructions from any street or sidewalk within the city at the request of a police officer.
(Ord. No. 1914, ch. 30, § 11; Rev. Ords. 1946, ch. 23, § 8; Ord. No. 1969, ch. 69-1, 1-2-69; Ord. 1971, ch. 71-55, § 1, 10-21-71; Ord. 1971, ch. 71-56, § 1, 10-21-71; Ord. 1971, ch. 71-72, § 1, 11-19-71; Ord. 1973, ch. 73-13, § 1, 3-9-73; Ord. 2005, ch. 05-61, § 1, 12-15-05)
Sec. 16-13.1. – Resid
From DL:
Just wanted to put out a tickler to join us for drinks, conversation and an all around good time tomorrow at Wild Colonial. And our apologies for the duplicate messages last week, we were obviously working out some technical kinks! See you then!
DL Providnece Presents Faces you should know – Feb. 22 from 7 – 9pm
2012 is already shaping up to be an exciting year in politics. Not only is it a presidential election year, but we have our local politics to keep us entertained. With the ongoing redistricting fight, the many social and economic issues that will be at play in elections, and Netroots Nation coming to RI in June, we knew we needed to get the gang back together and kick-start Drinking Liberally Providence. As the new hosts of DL Providence, we thought it was fitting to dedicate our first month to the new faces in Rhode Island politics.
On the Docket for Wednesday:
Little fanfare, but this work-sharing legislation will (hopefully) come to make a difference in the lives of millions of Americans by creating incentives for employers roll back hours during downturns rather than lay people off wholesale.
If you needed to cut payroll by 10%, the new law would make it more sensible to reduce everybody’s hours by 10% rather than lay off one out of ten employees.
This week, Congress passed the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012 that carried the essential provisions of work-sharing bills proposed by Sen. Jack Reed and Rep. Rosa DeLauro. The bill would have the federal government pick up some of the expenses associated with state work-sharing programs, thereby giving them more incentive to promote work sharing….
Work sharing, or short-time compensation as it referred to in the bill, allows workers who had their hours reduced to receive benefits equal to half of their reduction in pay. From the standpoint of the worker, the employer, and the economy as a whole, it is likely to be a better outcome if workers can be kept on the job working shorter hours rather than being laid off.
Netroots Nation — in Providence in June — is offering free exhibit booths and passes to a select few non-profit orgs. Sounds like being a local non-profit helps your chances:
Would your nonprofit or small business like a free booth in the 2012 Netroots Nation Community and Exhibit Hall in Providence, Rhode Island? Then enter our “Grab a Booth” contest!
In an effort to bring in new community organizations that might have fewer resources, we will offer six free booths in this year’s Exhibit Hall. The top three vote-getters in our online contest will automatically get a booth in the Hall. The rest of the entrants will go through a second round where a panel of judges will decide, based on merit, which three entrants will receive the last three spots.
And to sweeten the deal, the top three vote-getters will also receive two comped registrations each to Netroots Nation. What a deal!
“How do I enter?” I’m glad you asked. Details and rules below.
Some number of us will be gathering at 8pm on Wednesday at the Wild Colonial in Providence. (And we’re looking for new folks to help organize Drinking Liberally — if you’re interested, please come by and let us know.)
Huge win for the Internet, its users, and democracy. LA Times:
The SOPA online piracy bill that helped spark this week’s unprecedented Internet protests will be redrafted, its lead sponsor said Friday.
The move came shortly after the Senate postponed a key vote on the companion PIPA bill scheduled for next week and amid calls for consensus before Congress moves forward on any legislation to address the problem of foreign piracy websites.
This New York Times article covers a lot of the work many of the grassroots groups — including Demand Progress — have undertaken to help us win this fight. (We’ve grown from squat to more than one million members strong over the last year.) And these quotes from the boss of the Hollywood Lobby are perhaps the most extraordinary words of all:
The MPAA (the lobby for big movie studios which created these terrible bills) was shocked and seemingly humbled. “‘This was a whole new different game all of a sudden,’ MPAA Chairman and former Senator Chris Dodd told the New York Times. ‘[PIPA and SOPA were] considered by many to be a slam dunk.’”
“’This is altogether a new effect,’ Mr. Dodd said, comparing the online movement to the ArabSpring. He could not remember seeing ‘an effort that was moving with this degree of support change this dramatically’ in the last four decades, he added.”
Demand Progress delivered 500k signatures in opposition to the Internet Blacklist Bill today — at a press conference alongside Congresmembers Zoe Lofgren and Darrell Issa. (That’s our David Moon to the left of the podium.)The legislation gets heard tomorrow, and there’s an unprecedented avalanche of opposition snowballing among online advocacy groups tech companies, and rank-and-file Internet users.Opponents object to provisions that would allow the government to block users’ access to websites accused of copyright infringement, jail users for uploading streamed content, and require social media sites and blogs to go to new lengths to police users’ contributions — threatening the very existence of sites like YouTube and Twitter.
You can still email your lawmakers and ask them to oppose the legislation by clicking here.
That’s right, RIFuture knew Joey before he was famous. (You can check out the viral YouTube video here.) Everybody should go see him and the What Cheer Brigade next Saturday, November 19, 2011 at Firehouse 13 (fh13.com) 8:00pm. More details at bottom.
DS: From what I’ve seen of the press you’ve gotten, people are really psyched about your quitting the way you did, because it was indeed awesome. But they’re treating it like you guys made a cameo in a Dilbert cartoon: “Work sucks, so it’s sweet that you told your boss to shove it. Period.” But there’s a much more interesting political underpinning to what you did.
JD: There’s a big history to the video. You can sense in the manager’s face that we’ve had a rough relationship for a long time. I started work at the Renaissance in 2008 and quickly learned how bad it was there. Many people ask, “Why did you stay there if it was so bad?” Well, I had to. I was paying for school and this was at the bottom point of the recession–there were no other jobs in Providence.
Since I had to stay, I decided to fight to make the place better. My co-workers and I fought managers informally, confronting them with groups if they were doing something terrible or simply sticking up for ourselves in meetings. We also fought more formally, though, by organizing a union.
We went public with the union in January 2010, presenting the hotel with about 85% of workers signed up on union cards. The union had a card-check agreement with the hotel so we expected to quickly enter into negotiations. We did immediately win many concessions from the hotel–they were so scared of us having a formal union that they tried to appease us. Suddenly hey had all this money to go around they always denied they had! We got raises across the board, new uniforms, many of the worst managers were fired, and so on.
But they also began a vicious anti-union campaign. They quickly began giving me fewer shifts and less lucrative shifts. They held large captive-audience meetings where they spread lies about the union. Managers held private conversations with employees where they made statements like, “If the union comes in, we’ll have to fire half of the workers here.” The hotel even targeted and fired pro-union workers for fabricated reasons. My good friend, a strongly pro-union bartender who had worked at the place since it opened, was fired for supposedly giving away a shot for free. There were no witnesses, the security cameras were conveniently turned off that night, and they provided zero evidence other than the word of a single manager.
This is still going on. The hotel refuses to negotiate and they continue their anti-union campaign.
I was one of the leaders of the union campaign, and so these managers really didn’t like me. I knew that if I was going to give them the pleasure of me quitting that I would have to go out in a big way, and I did.
DS: Do you have a sense of what effects “Joey Quits” is having on your former colleagues? Is morale up? Are the bosses on edge — and does that make them meaner or nicer?
JD: I’ve spoken with a lot of workers who are still at the hotel and a lot of workers who were fired or left the hotel. All my friends who were fired for made up reasons–often directly by the manager in the video–are obviously thrilled about the whole thing. We all agree we’ve gotten back at them 3 million times over.
From everything I hear, the video is a big hit with workers still at the hotel. It became so popular that the hotel had to ban youtube from the hotel’s computers and they’ve had to instruct the phone operators to reject any media inquiries. I think it’s helped to instill a general attitude of rejecting the authority of the managers. I’ve heard the manager in the video has been extremely nice as of late, expect for one or two epic outbursts.
Several people have told me that the hotel has started telling workers that they should hate me for taking business away from the hotel. I don’t think I need to explain why that’s ridiculous–and it doesn’t seem anyone there is buying it. I’m sure in the long run that all this public attention has shame the hotel–and hopefully Marriott as a whole just a little bit–into treating their workers better.
DS: Did you guys have any allies in management?
JD: Some. It is important to note that low-level managers in the service industry often get exploited more than anyone. They are made to work 60 hours a week and kiss-ass all day for maybe a $30000 salary. I know that’s better than what a lot of people are pulling, but it still isn’t glamorous. We actually have an amazing post of our website from a former housekeeping manager at the Renaissance. He always respected the workers and stood up for people, and he was fired for it. His story is great though because he got to see all the disgusting stuff managers said about workers behind closed-doors.
DS: Do you think the conditions at the Renaissance are endemic to hotel work, or does it vary shop by shop? Is having a union vs not having a union the big difference?
JD: The conditions at the Renaissance are typical of hotels in the US. I’d actually say many hotels are worse because they haven’t scared the company with a union. There are cities where working conditions are decent because there is such a high density of unionized hotels. New York, for example, has something like 85% union density, and the workers at those hotels generally get treated very well. And there are unionized hotels all over where things are much better than at the Renaissance. Right down the street at the Biltmore and the Westin workers have all sorts of protections that they don’t have at the Renaissance. It’s not perfect there, but it’s much better.
DS: My sense is that the foreign press gets the labor organizing angle more. Is that your sense too? Why do you think it’s that way?
JD: Some domestic press gets the labor angle. The Huffington Post, for example, wrote a really amazing article. Our local Channel 10 did a good story, too. In general, though, the foreign press is much more interested into the labor angle. I did an interview for a big German paper and all we talked about was the US labor movement. The US is unique in the first world in it’s harsh anti-labor attitude. You could see that come over most viciously in the fights in Wisconsin and elsewhere over the past year. You can see it in our pathetic labor laws. And you can see it in the fact that we have the starkest inequality in the first world. The domestic press’ indifference to labor issues is just a reflection of the larger problem in the US. And I think the international press is so interested because they’re excited to see that there are people fighting for workers rights here.
DS: What do you want to do with all the attention and acclaim that’s followed from this?
JD: I’m trying to channel it all into the fight for hotel workers’ rights. We’ve just launched a website, www.joeyquits.com, where hotel workers from all over the country can post their stories of being mistreated in the hotel industry. I know my video has deterred my managers and maybe even Marriott as a whole from exploiting workers. As we collect stories from workers in hotels everywhere, we can hold the entire industry accountable. We already have a bunch of amazing posts and there will be more put up everyday. Visitors will be able to search by hotel name or city, so they can look up working conditions in the city they’re in or a city they’re visiting. There’s also a resources page that directs workers to organizations fighting for workers’ rights and tells non-workers how they can assist in the fight.
DS: Highlights and lowlights from the tour so far? There are rumors you got offered a pilot — are they true?
JD: I’ve really just been very busy–trying to get word out about the issues and setting up this website. It has been great getting to see all these shows, but there hasn’t been any of the celebrity fun you imagine would just appear. No pilot yet. Maybe the pilots’ union will get behind me though.
DS: Why have you already sold out? I mean, you wore a “f*** Nazi skinheads” shirt the last time What Cheer played one of my fundraisers, but you’re so prim and proper when you appear on GMA and Access Hollywood. What gives?
JD: Do you think that hurt your campaign? I’d like to sell out more–no real money from any of this! The band actually got in a lot of trouble on Good Morning America. We got yelled at multiple times for being too loud backstage and they even threatened to cut our segment to get us to shut up and stay in our room. I also got to say “union” of Access Hollywood. So don’t worry, we’re still keeping it real.
And, the details on next Saturday’s show:Saturday, November 19, 2011
Firehouse 13 (fh13.com)
8:00pm
$7
All Ages
Presenting:
What Cheer? Brigade – Providence’s own 19-piece brass mayhem party.
whatcheerbrigade.com
Brunt Of It – Evil sounding punk and ska from RI and Boston.
facebook.com/bruntofit
DJ Schleifdog spinning hip-hop, 80’s, booty bass and the most
tastefully selected out-of-leftfield pop hits.
PLUS a special guest, to be announced the day before the show!
Netroots Nation — the big annual gathering of lefty bloggers and activists — will be in Providence next year. It’s looking like we’ll be having a meet-up of the local welcome committee (not sure exactly what we’re calling ourselves) sometime in the next couple of weeks.
If you’re interested in helping out could you please email me at davidadamsegal@gmail.com, with “NETROOTS” as the subject?
It was twenty years ago this week that Tim Berners-Lee, while working at CERN, put the world’s first website online. It announced his new creation: the World Wide Web. Last year while urging Internet users to sign Demand Progress’s petition against the Internet Blacklist Bill, Berners-Lee wrote this about the principles that underpin his project:
“No person or organization shall be deprived of their ability to connect to others at will without due process of law, with the presumption of innocence until found guilty. Neither governments nor corporations should be allowed to use disconnection from the Internet as a way of arbitrarily furthering their own aims.”
The Internet Blacklist Bill — S.968, formally called the PROTECT IP Act — would violate those principles by allowing the Department of Justice to force search engines, browsers, and service providers to block users’ access to websites that have been accused of facilitating intellectual property infringement — without even giving them a day in court. It would also give IP rights holders a private right of action, allowing them to sue to get sites prevented from operating. Demand Progress’s new mash-up, posted here, explains the bill in more detail.
S.968 has passed the Senate Judiciary Committee, but Ron Wyden (D-OR) is temporarily blocking it from getting a floor vote by using a procedural maneuver known as a hold, noting that “By ceding control of the internet to corporations through a private right of action, and to government agencies that do not sufficiently understand and value the internet, PIPA represents a threat to our economic future and to our international objectives.”
The House is expected to take up a version of the legislation in coming weeks.
“We encourage Americans to mark this 20th birthday of the World Wide Web by defending the principles that underpinned its creation — now under persistent threat by overzealous governments and corporate interests across the globe,” said Demand Progress executive director David Segal. “In particular, the Internet Blacklist Bill would undermine the basic integrity of the Web, and we expect Congress to take it up when they return from their summer break.”
More than 400,000 Demand Progress members have urged their lawmakers to oppose the Internet Blacklist Bill. You can email your Senators and Representatives and ask them to oppose S.968 by clicking here.
Many of you know Erica Sagrans from her time in Providence as a student and activist. This month she’s self-publishing an awesome new book about the labor fight in Wisconsin:
In February of 2011, the people of Wisconsin changed the political landscape in America overnight. In response to their Republican governor’s move to strip workers of the basic right to organize, Wisconsinites decided to fight back—occupying their Capitol for days on end and protesting in record numbers throughout the freezing Madison winter. Their bold action inspired progressives across the country, and revived the conversation on organized labor, direct-action, and civil resistance.
We Are Wisconsin gives an up-close,view of the Wisconsin struggle, as told by the grassroots activists, independent journalists, and Wisconsinites who led the fight. This collection of essays, blog posts, and original writing looks at what happened, what it means, and what comes next—including the real-time, fast-paced story of the Capitol occupation as told through tweets from those who were on the inside.
We Are Wisconsin will be released in August, and will be one of first books out on the Wisconsin fight.
