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Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Finally, OWS gets police to arrest the people in suits / Waging Nonviolence - People-Powered News and Analysis

Finally, OWS gets police to arrest the people in suits / Waging Nonviolence - People-Powered News and Analysis


Finally, OWS gets police to arrest the people in suits


Sometimes justice requires a little imagination. On Saturday, when much of the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York was loudly denouncing police violence against minorities and protesters, a small group of environmentalists dreamed up a way to get the police to focus on the crimes of the 1 percent, to the point of arresting five corporate suits on United Nations property.
Granted, those five were actually members of the OWS affinity group Disrupt Dirty Power, which used Saturday’s action (billed as a “mock’upation”) to launch a month of actions targeting the “corrupt partnership between Wall Street, politicians and the business of pollution.” Police officers seemed thrown for a loop as they tore down tents bearing corporate logos and cuffed people who claimed to be from Bank of America and ExxonMobil. Compared to the rowdy anti-NYPD march earlier that afternoon, this time, the cops had more of a chance to think about what side they’re really on.
As the action began around 5 p.m., the police presence was focused on the small group of OWS protesters gathered in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, a few blocks away from U.N. headquarters. The officers must have noticed the signs and banners, heard the people’s mic, observed the silly improv performance skewering corporate polluters and thought they were in the right place. But if they had paid closer attention, they might have seen where things were going.
At one point, a couple of “representatives” from Bank of America addressed the crowd, satirizing the bank’s all too real connection to the U.N. and its upcoming Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro this June. One of them announced:
The most exciting news of the day is that we have accepted U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon’s invitation to permanently occupy the U.N. climate conference. Our hats go off to the Occupy movement for this concept of occupation, and we feel that we at Bank of America are well-equipped to realize the full free-market potential.
After wrapping up their discussion of the many ways Bank of America metaphorically occupies the U.N. to build a consensus around deregulation as the main vehicle for international development, the “representatives” invited the crowd to visit their physical occupation. As if that wasn’t quite enough to tip off the police, an OWS organizer then belted out the day’s objective:
Today when we march, we are not going to get arrested. We want the 1 percent to get arrested. We’re going to have fun and we’re going to put pressure upon this great institution. … And we’re going to be peaceful and jubilant to show just how peaceful we can be as opposed to this violent system.
Police officers then processed along with the protesters toward United Nations Plaza. But as soon as the march turned the corner, and the corporate tents came into full view, the officers took off, leaving the protesters in the dust. Within minutes the suit-wearing culprits were arrested beside their tents. Not having planned for this, however, the police had nowhere to put them. So while they waited for a van to arrive, the handcuffed 1 percenters stood and shouted to the protesters still marching peacefully across the street.
Bloomberg is in our pocket! … We control everything! … We have PR companies, the media, Obama, Congress! … I just invested $5 million in a Super PAC, I’m good! … We will be released soon, don’t worry! … Those are the occupiers you should be arresting!
Rebecca Manski, who helped organize the action and was among the five arrested, said the police really didn’t get that she and the others were just pretending to be corporate executives. “They were totally fooled by 1-percent appearance,” Manski explained. “They thought we were of a different class — maybe not the 1 percent exactly — but their perception was challenged of what a protester looks like.”
Seeing the protesters in different clothes seemed to make a big difference. Some of the officers had just come from Union Square, where the situation was tense after a long, angry march from Zuccotti Park. Manski actually overheard her arresting officer talk about being called “a goon” earlier in the day. The officer could hardly believe that Manski and the other suits were from the same protest movement.
OWS legal consul typically advises protesters not to speak with police officers once they’ve been arrested, but Manski decided to bend the rules. She apologized for the name-calling and was treated so gently that she wasn’t even sure where she was supposed to go. Eventually, she found her way into the police van, where an officer actually told her, “I’m sorry we had to arrest you today. We support what you are doing.”
Once at the station, the arrestees continued to be treated well. Manski reports that when one officer began complaining that they were to blame for him having to work overtime on a Saturday night, another corrected him, saying, “No, it’s the banks’ fault.” The first officer ended up agreeing, and he added, “It’s the banks’ fault and the 1 percent’s fault.” Both officers then worked to get everyone released that day, when originally it seemed that some were going to have to spend the night in jail.
“They were getting the connection between the banks and abusive power,” says Manski. Much to her relief, the day’s action had brought attention back to the issues and those who need to be held accountable. She couldn’t help but wonder about possible next steps: “Wouldn’t it be great to have a whole march on Wall Street with everyone dressed as bankers?”
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Friday, March 9, 2012

New SPLC Report: ‘Patriot’ Movement Explodes | Hatewatch | Southern Poverty Law Center

New SPLC Report: ‘Patriot’ Movement Explodes | Hatewatch | Southern Poverty Law Center


New SPLC Report: ‘Patriot’ Movement Explodes

Posted in 'Patriot' GroupsHate GroupsIntelligence ReportYear-End by Mark Potok on March 8, 2012

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The number of antigovernment “Patriot” groups grew at an astounding pace last year, as it has in all three years of the Obama presidency, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) annual count of extremist groups, released today. The number of these groups rose from 824 in 2010 to 1,274 last year.
This dramatic expansion of the radical right was driven by fears related to economic dislocation, the country’s changing racial makeup, and the prospect of four more years under our first black president. The campaign season, with its vitriolic rhetoric, has also contributed to the overheated atmosphere that is fostering these groups. In addition, many politicians and other public figures increasingly have been pushing conspiracy theories and demonizing rhetoric into the political mainstream.
The report on SPLC’s annual count and review of the last year in American extremism may be found here. The table of contents for the entire new issue of the SPLC’s Intelligence Report is here. What follows are synopses of the major stories found in the new edition.
  • Last year, little noticed by the mass media, a Massachusetts man burned himself to death to protest treatment of men by family courts. The death opened a window into a dark world, sometimes called the “manosphere,” of woman-hating “men’s rights” activists.
  • The National Association for Research Therapy of Homosexuality, which promotes therapies that supposedly “cure” gay people, is seen by many as the preeminent source of “junk science” that demonizes homosexuality.
  • The little-known Church at Kaweah in California boasts of a “militant Christian separatist worldview” and is training its congregants for armed combat against the “New World Order.”
  • Four members of a Georgia militia were in their late 60s and 70s, but officials say that didn’t stop them from planning assassinations, bombings and biological attacks.
  • Floridian Camille Marino is the newest star on the radical animal rights scene, and she’s frightening. “If I have my way,”she says, “you’ll be praying to us for mercy.”
  • Breaking a long silence, the son of the neo-Nazi who murdered a guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum describes how his father ruined his life. Now, Erik von Brunn is just trying to survive.
  • The United Nation’s Agenda 21 accord is a voluntary global sustainability initiative. But to hear antigovernment hardliners tell it, it’s the leading edge of one-world totalitarianism.
  • Bad press, internecine quarrels and co-optation of their issue by state legislatures have almost halved the number of hard-line anti-immigration groups in America.
The New York Times ran a story this morning reprising the findings of the new SPLC Report. Another, longer story was prepared by MSNBC. CNN also weighed in.

14 Responses to
'New SPLC Report: ‘Patriot’ Movement Explodes'
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  1. Gregory said,

    ON MARCH 8TH, 2012 AT 9:40 AM
    It has been my experience that anyone who describes themselves as a “Patriot” (upper case P) are usually anything but, if we rely on a dictionary to describe the meaning of the word.
  2. Reynardine said,

    ON MARCH 8TH, 2012 AT 9:48 AM
    I have seen some of the “manosphere” posts you have alluded to, and we have all seen legislatures pushing misogynist legislation and heard Rush Limbaugh’s inflammatory rhetoric towards a female law student who dared to want to testify, as spokeswoman for an advocacy group, about insurance coverage for contraception and post-rape medical care. The implication of such a site as “RegisterHer”, which outs the identities and locations of rape and abuse victims, is ugly in the extreme. Even before the rise of an internet “manosphere” such victims have been subjected to terrible levels of fear through stalking. So have their lawyers, and even judges have been at risk if they ruled in favor of these women. One locally had his dog poisoned after ruling in favor of a woman I later represented. I found this out later, after my own dog was poisoned. Misogynist hate groups running sites like RegisterHer are going to make this situation many times worse.
  3. Ruslan Amirkhanov said,

    ON MARCH 8TH, 2012 AT 11:19 AM
    This is really weird because I used to live in a town called Tomball in Texas. Also, I hate misogyny to the core, but I was impressed by the term “ass harpies.”
  4. Shadow Wolf said,

    ON MARCH 8TH, 2012 AT 11:49 AM
    The despicable Tea Pottier and “Patriot Movement” has also crept it’s slimy hands into our U.S. military branches. A Marine has gone as far as to disobey any orders from our current Commander-in-Chief, via his Facebook page. He founded the “Armed Forces Tea Party”. His military code of conduct is questionable. And I believe that Sgt. has no business serving this country, serving the American people. And certainly no business protecting America’s interests. The unAmerican movement is surely a cause for alarm.
  5. Reynardine said,

    ON MARCH 8TH, 2012 AT 12:59 PM
    Tomball? Both my toms have balls; male cats without them are called “gibs”. I guess Tom was a stud and Gilbert was a dud, but that is back in linguistic history.
    Wolf, by allowing Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and the like to broadcast continually to our armed forces, our command is encouraging mutiny against the Commander in Chief, in violation of 18 USC 2387 et seq. and is liable to prosecution for it. Senator Durbin has expressed concern over it, but feels it is “not his place to legislate”. In the first place, the foregoing legislation already exists; in the second place, it is exactly the business of legislators to legislate. If you can document this, copy one file to him and one to the USAG and say exactly what you said here. The last thing we need in this country is “Traitor Battalions”, let alone another Civil War.
  6. Reynardine said,

    ON MARCH 8TH, 2012 AT 2:00 PM
    I was mistaken, Wolf; that was Sen Carl Levin. The blog where I got the info was taken down a number of times by hackers, so I couldn’t check that till now.
  7. Shadow Wolf said,

    ON MARCH 8TH, 2012 AT 2:09 PM
    Rey,
    I agree. There has to be line drawn somewhere. I also believed this Marine Sgt. may have stepped into TREASONOUS waters. It’s gone too far.
    Whatever happened to “Semper Fi”?
  8. Concerned Citizen said,

    ON MARCH 8TH, 2012 AT 2:39 PM
    This does not surprise me about the hate groups. My husband and I have bee living in Wisconsin and I mean to tell you that I have seen some real hate out this way. But what’s disturbing is that these people stalk and believe that they have a right to push their beliefs on others.
    It appears that they are simply organized bigots and it’s very sad to see so much ignorance concentrated in these small areas of Wisconsin. I hope that it’s not like this all over. But you can tell just by looking at whose employed in many of the local business’s it’s a hard pressing matter to find minorities at any of the counters taking orders.
    And the attitude is underline hostile by the local Nazi wannabes.
  9. Concerned Citizen said,

    ON MARCH 8TH, 2012 AT 2:42 PM
    It also appears that the so called “Patriot” groups not all of them mind you but as I read about the ones calling themselves Patriots who are really just hate groups, there’s nothing more unpatriotic.
  10. Reynardine said,

    ON MARCH 8TH, 2012 AT 2:45 PM
    He has surely committed sedition. Apparently there are some people think “Semper Fi” applies only when the President is white, or only whe he’s Republican, or only when he’s a white Republican.
  11. Concerned Citizen said,

    ON MARCH 8TH, 2012 AT 2:45 PM
    We need to be aware of covert racist activity as well. The ones who literally stalk their victims commit trespassing and property damage in the name of their sick and twisted cause.
    There is nothing patriotic about people who act in this way. It is the furthest away you can get from “American”. These people live in a world of their own bent on twisted ideals and it’s unfortunate that they are living here in America.
  12. Ian said,

    ON MARCH 8TH, 2012 AT 5:47 PM
    Looking at the updated hate group list, I can’t help but wonder what took so long for You Can Run But You Cannot Hide to make the list of anti-gay groups.
    For those that haven’t heard of the group:
    And I am very, VERY glad to see that some Islamic groups other than the Nation of Islam are finally listed as hate groups. I was disapointed to see that many other groups such as Revolution Muslim and the Islamic Thinkers Society did not make the list, but still a terrific start. Kudos, Intelligence Project.
  13. Ian said,

    ON MARCH 8TH, 2012 AT 6:02 PM
    Addendum:
    Two questions about the list of anti-Muslim groups. First, do websites count as hate groups. I vaugly remember someone at the Intelligence Project differentiating between hate sites and hate groups, namely by saying a site only counts as a hate group if it has activities outside the Internet. I’m not sure many of the groups listed as anti-Muslim qualify.
    Second, Faith Freedom International is a well-respected group for ex-Muslims fleeing persecution. Its creator, Ali Sina, has been targeted for death threats many times. The site, while critical of Islam as many sites are critical of many religions, does not advocate discrimination against Muslims as far as I know. If a site that offers support for those leaving a religion or simply criticizing a religion is a hate group, then many groups such as American Atheists, the Richard Dawkins Foundation, Internet Infidels, or the Freedom From Religion Foundation are all hate groups. That I find hard to believe.
  14. Robin said,

    ON MARCH 8TH, 2012 AT 6:41 PM
    The same thing has been happening in Alexandria, MN., douglas co. as the woman mentions what is happening in the small towns of Wisconsin.
    The same same thing……EXACTLY. Homegrown terrorism is more rampant than ppl think.
    yes, stalking, trespassing, and property damage…….they use the tactics listed on covert organized gang stalking, to terrorize common ppl. there is law enforcement envolvement as well. To run single, or divorced women with children, blacks, gays out of this region.
    This is what I have uncovered by connecting the sickening dots after I have received no help from Law enforcement here. The rest of L.E. look the other way.

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Wednesday, March 7, 2012

State Investigators, Workers Cite Labor Abuses in Warehouse Empire - New America Media

State Investigators, Workers Cite Labor Abuses in Warehouse Empire - New America Media


State Investigators, Workers Cite Labor Abuses in Warehouse Empire

State Investigators, Workers Cite Labor Abuses in Warehouse Empire

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As a warehouse worker in the Inland Empire region of Southern California, the nation’s biggest distribution hub for consumer goods, Jorge Soto handles shipments for retail giant Walmart every day.

But Soto, who works for a subcontractor, claims that, along with routine jobs such as unloading trucks, he also has been ordered to perform an illegal task: falsifying employees’ time sheets to cheat them out of getting the minimum wage.

Mexican-born Soto, 47, said in a sworn court statement that his supervisors forced him, when he served as the lead member of his crew, to severely understate workers’ hours. He said the purpose was to cover up the widespread practice of paying well below the legal minimum, which is $8 an hour in California.

As Soto explained in an interview, “they wanted to wash their hands of it through me,” adding that workers sometimes received as little as $3 or $4 an hour.

A suit filed in federal court in Los Angeles on behalf of Soto and dozens of other warehouse workers charges three companies that handle Walmart goods with fraudulent pay practices. The case, along with recent investigations by California labor officials that have led to proposed fines of close to $1.4 million, depict what critics say is the underside of the vast Inland Empire warehouse business.

An economic juggernaut in the arid flatlands east of Los Angeles that employs about 100,000 people, the warehouses are a staging point for Apple computers, Gerber baby clothes, Polo apparel and other brand-name imports. They handle goods from Asia that come through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, to be distributed around the U.S.

According to court documents and interviews with workers:

–Crew leaders such as Soto were under orders at some warehouses to force workers to sign blank time sheets, a tactic that made it easier to cheat employees out of their rightful pay.

–Workers often were paid only for the time they spent loading and unloading trucks – not for the time they put in sweeping warehouses, labeling and restacking boxes or waiting to find out if they would be assigned work.

–High heat in the warehouses and constant pressure for speed created safety problems. These and other issues triggered an investigation that led the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, or Cal/OSHA, in January to accuse four warehouses of more than 60 workplace safety violations and to seek $256,445 in penalties.

–Many workers, classified as temporaries despite years of service, said they were threatened with being blackballed and never being hired again if they raised questions about their pay or took part in protest or unionizing efforts. Labor leaders, who announced plans in 2007 to recruit the warehouse employees, say that the intimidation and perpetual job insecurity are key reasons why their “Warehouse Workers United” campaign has failed to unionize any workers.

–Workers also were subjected to other indignities, such as being forced to pay $1 per week to rent a shirt with a company logo, and being required to show up every day, only to be sent home some days for lack of work.

The Inland Empire warehouses help bring consumers low-cost goods, and they provide lots of sought-after jobs for unskilled workers, most of them Latino immigrants. Yet the relentless pressure to hold down costs that runs through the industry also means low wages and few or no benefits for warehouse employees.

Warehouse workers in the Inland Empire — as well as in the next two biggest distribution hubs, the Chicago area and central New Jersey — are cogs in a system that stocks the shelves of stores such as Walmart, Target and Foot Locker. Even so, the big retailers are separated from the workers, and shielded from legal exposure, by layers of intermediary companies.

In two federal suits in Chicago, for instance, scores of warehouse workers have charged three staffing companies with illegally failing to pay minimum wages. But the cases don’t include any retailers.

Likewise, the Inland Empire warehouse workers’ suit doesn’t name Walmart as a defendant, even though the case is based on practices at three warehouses run exclusively for the retailer in the Inland Empire city of Mira Loma. Walmart failed to respond to calls and e-mails seeking comment.

Instead, the litigation is against the operator of the three warehouses, Schneider National Inc., a company with annual revenue of more than $3 billion. The suit also names two staffing companies that have employed many of the workers at the Schneider warehouses.

One of those staffing firms is Soto’s employer, Impact Logistics, a national company that loads and unloads merchandise bound for retailers. The other staffing firm named in the case is Premier Warehousing Services.

The suit, filed in October, claims that the companies used an opaque piece rate pay system that based compensation on the number and type of semi-truck containers emptied or loaded. The system, according to the suit, left workers in the dark about what they were owed, and often kept their pay below the legal minimum.

Still in its early stages, the suit already has won the workers a court order requiring the companies to provide properly itemized wage statements, and the employees have since been switched back to an hourly pay system.

However, the defendant companies, in court filings and in response to questions from FairWarning, continue to dispute the suit’s contentions. Schneider said it isn’t responsible for the wages of workers involved in the suit. The company, more specifically, denied a claim that it replaced employees earning hourly wages of $12 to $17 by bringing in contractors that often paid their workers less than the minimum wage.

Schneider also disputed sworn statements by workers that, after the suit was filed, the company called a mandatory meeting where a supervisor threatened to “destroy” and “throw away” any employee supporting the litigation “like a crumpled piece of paper.”

Premier said it properly compensated its employees but declined to answer questions. Following the court order, it stopped serving as a staffing company for the three warehouses, and Schneider now employs the former Premier workers directly.

Similarly, Impact Logistics said it “properly and adequately paid all employees identified” in the litigation but also indicated that it continues to investigate charges raised by employees. At the same time, Impact added that “erroneous payment of any wage was due to inadvertence, mistake or negligence” and was “not willful or intentional.”

The company, in an emailed statement, further said that it recently switched from piece rate compensation back to hourly pay “to have no appearance of impropriety.”

But during his seven years with Impact, both as an ordinary warehouse worker and, later on, as a lead on his crew, Armando Esquivel said he witnessed abuses first-hand.

In a sworn statement, Esquivel said that when he was underpaid by Impact and protested to his boss, “He always promised to look into it but my pay was never corrected, not even once. When I would repeat my complaints, he would tell me, ‘I have a pile of job applications on my desk more than a foot high, if you don’t like this job, you can go home.’”

As a result of being shortchanged, Esquivel said, he sometimes struggled to pay for basic necessities for his wife and two children.

As a lead, Esquivel said he “repeatedly” was directed “to record work time that was far less, sometimes less than half, of the time we actually spent working.”

Daniel Lopez, a loader who had worked for Premier, said in a court declaration that his manager told him two years ago he would earn more when the company switched to a piece rate system. But he and other workers say that, instead, the pay got lower.

What’s more, Lopez said, when it came time to fill out time sheets, “We were directed simply to sign our names on blank forms maintained by the supervisors. We did not write in the time we arrived at work or the time we finished.”

Some support for the workers’ complaints has come from an investigation by California labor authorities. October inspections at Schneider warehouses in Riverside County, which together with San Bernardino County forms the Inland Empire, “confirmed stories of abuses in the warehousing industry that must stop,” Julie A. Su, the California labor commissioner, said in a news release.

Based on the inspections, state authorities proposed fines against Impact and Premier of more than $1.1 million. They accused both companies of failing to provide properly itemized wage statements, leaving workers unaware of what they were being paid for their piece work.

“Employers cannot simply make up a piece rate and change it at their whim,” Su warned.

A separate state investigation at four other warehouses, carried out by workplace safety regulators with Cal/OSHA, backed up charges by the Warehouse Workers United campaign of hazardous on-the-job conditions. The probe focused on four warehouses in Chino in San Bernardino County.

Among other problems, Cal/OSHA cited the operator of the warehouses and its staffing company for allegedly failing to provide fall protection for “pickers” working at elevated heights, running machinery without safety guards and leaving boxes “precariously stacked,” where they could tumble down on employees below.

In addition, investigators cited a failure to deal with stifling 90-degree indoor temperatures, reflecting the heat problems that repeatedly have come up at warehouses around the country. Cal/OSHA investigators pointed to the case of a 49-year-old who became dizzy and nauseated while performing his work.

That worker, Domingo Blancas, said in an interview that there was “pressure to move fast” at his warehouse. One day last summer, when he became overwhelmed by the heat, he asked one of his bosses for a ride to a hospital, but she refused.

At that point, Blancas said, his son, a worker at a nearby warehouse, took him to Pomona Valley Hospital, where records show that he was admitted for dehydration and heat exposure.

He recovered, but still has bitter memories of the incident. “These are people who don’t care about the welfare of their workers,” Blancas said. “What they did is just wrong.”

Tri-State Staffing, Blancas’ employer and one of the two companies cited by Cal/OSHA, indicated it is appealing the charges but declined to respond to repeated requests for comment.

NFI, the New Jersey-based firm whose National Distribution Centers unit is the other company charged, said in a statement that it is committed “to providing a safe working environment that meets or exceeds all state and federal workplace safety standards.”

Yet workers at NFI-run operations such as Jonathan Lopez, 23, challenge that portrayal. Lopez, who is taking premed classes at a community college, is unusual among the workers in that he speaks fluent English.

He said Tri-State asked him to sign a paper indicating that he received safety training – even though, at that point, he hadn’t. (He said he received training only weeks later, after state workplace safety officials began investigating the warehouse.) Lopez complied, however, rather than risk losing his job. For the same reason, Lopez said, his co-workers also signed.

“No one else was able to read it, but I told them what it said,” he said.

Looking to tap into discontent among warehouse workers, Change to Win, a national coalition of unions with about five million members, in 2007 launched a recruiting effort in the Inland Empire. It founded Warehouse Workers United, an organization advocating for higher wages, ending the practice of temporary employment and securing affordable health care coverage.

Led by activist unions such as the Service Employees International Union, Change to Win broke away from the AFL-CIO labor federation seven years ago to more aggressively recruit members. After more than four years, however, its campaign among the Inland Empire warehouse workers has failed to create any new union locals, or even bring about a single union representation election.

Union officials say warehouse employers have shifted from permanent workers to temporary employees largely to make people so fearful of losing their jobs that they won’t risk being identified as union activists. The industry, however, counters that it uses temps simply because the flexibility helps employers deal with busy and slow periods without resorting to layoffs.

Meanwhile, workers such as Soto, the Impact employee who claimed he was ordered to falsify other workers’ timesheets, say they still support the labor-organizing effort because they need a union to be treated fairly.

“They need to raise the pay, improve the conditions,” Soto said. “I’m going to stay there as long as I need to until that happens.”

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