Spanish bank occupied by workers
Hildy Johnson

In the southern Spanish city of Granada today, a powerful workers demonstration has been taking place. It includes the simultaneous occupation of the offices of a local developer/estate agents and the main branch of the BBVA bank.

The Sindicat Andaluz de Trabajadores (Andalucian Workers Union) has been out in force on the streets of Granada today. This small activist union was formed in 2007 owing to disatisfaction with the representation offered by other larger trade unions. So far today city centre roads have been blocked and the offices of Osuna (major Spanish estate agent and developer) and BBVA bank have been occupied by several hundred protestors.

Zapatistas Call for Worldwide Festival of Dignified Rage
Mexico, September of 2008

To the adherents of the Sixth Declaration and the Other Campaign:
To the adherents of the Zezta Internazional:
To the People of Mexico:
To the Peoples of the World:

Compañeras and Compañeros:
Brother and Sisters:

Once again we send you our words.
This is what we see, what we are looking at.
This is what has come to our ears, to our brown heart.

I.
Above they intend to repeat history.
They want to impose on us once again their calendar of death, their geography of destruction.
When they are not trying to strip us of our roots, they are destroying them.
They steal our work, our strength.
They leave our world, our land, our water, and our treasures without people, without life.
The cities pursue and expel us.
The countryside both kills us and dies on us.
Lies become governments and dispossession is the weapon of their armies and police.
We are the illegal, the undocumented, the undesired of the world.

We are pursued.
Women, young people, children, the elderly die in death and die in life.
And there above they preach to us resignation, defeat, surrender, and abandonment.
Here below we are being left with nothing.
Except rage.
And dignity.

"SPECIAL" NEW YORK TIMES BLANKETS CITIES WITH MESSAGE OF HOPE AND CHANGE
Thousands of volunteers behind elaborate operation

* PDF: http://www.nytimes-se.com/pdf
* Ongoing video releases: http://www.nytimes-se.com/video

* The New York Times responds:
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/pranksters-spoof-the-times/

Hundreds of independent writers, artists, and activists are claiming
credit for an elaborate project, 6 months in the making, in which 1.2
million copies of a "special edition" of the New York Times were
distributed in cities across the U.S. by thousands of volunteers.

The papers, dated July 4th of next year, were headlined with
long-awaited news: "IRAQ WAR ENDS". The edition, which bears the same
look and feel as the real deal, includes stories describing what the
future could hold: national health care, the abolition of corporate
lobbying, a maximum wage for CEOs, etc. There was also a spoof site, at
http://www.nytimes-se.com/.

From the Occupied Faculty of La Sapienza, Rome
National Call, Rome, 22.10.2008

To the faculties in mobilization, to the undergraduate and Ph.D. students, and to all the precarious researchers

“We won’t pay for your crisis”, this is the slogan with which a few weeks ago we started our protest at the university of La Sapienza, Rome. A simple, yet at the same time immediate, slogan: the global crisis is the crisis of capitalism itself, of the financial and real estate speculation, of a system without rules or rights, of unscrupulous companies and managers. The burden of this crisis can’t fall on the educational system - from the school to the university - on the health system or generally on taxpayers. Our slogan has become famous, spreading by word of mouth, from town to town. From the students to the precarious workers, from the working to the research worlds, nobody wants to pay for the crisis, nobody wants to nationalize the losses, whereas for years the wealth has been distributed among few, very few people.

And it is exactly the contagion that has been produced in these weeks, the multiplication of the mobilizations in the schools, in the universities, and in the cities that should have stirred up a lot of fear. It is well known that a fearful dog bites; similarly, the reaction of President Berlusconi was immediate: “police against who occupy universities and schools”, “we will get rid of violence in our Country”. Only yesterday Berlusconi declared that he was willing to increase the financial support to the banks and that the State and the public expense would stand surety for the companies’ loans: in a few words, cutbacks to education, less founds for the students, cutbacks to the health system, but public money for the companies, for the banks and the private sector. We are wondering where is violence: is it a violence to occupy universities and schools or instead that of a government who imposes the Law 133 to cutback the founds for the education system refusing the parliamentary debate? Is it the dissent violent or is it violent who intends to put it down by the police? Who is violent: who mobilizes for the public status of university and schools or who wants to sell them for a few private profits? Violence is on Berlusconi government’s side, while in the occupied schools and universities there is the great joy and indignation of who fights for his own future, or who doesn’t accept to be put in the corner or forced to be silent. We don’t want stay in silence in the corner, of who wants to be free.

La Sapienza University of Rome Occupied in Protest Against Privatization
"University is not going to pay your crisis!!"

This morning in La Sapienza University of Rome has taken place a general assembly , participated in by over 10.000 students, asking the Director Luigi Frati to suspend lessons and the academic year as a protest against law 133, that will cause definitive privatization of italian university, massive job cuts and huge cuts of public foundings for research and education.

Starbucks to Require Employee Availability Around the Clock and Cut Workforce in Major National Initiative

The Starbucks Coffee Co. is in the process of an extreme revamping of its workforce policies according to company documents obtained by the Starbucks Workers Union of the Industrial Workers of the World. The initiative, dubbed "Optimal Scheduling", will require employees to make themselves available to work essentially around the clock to obtain so-called full-time status. Even for workers able to make the extraordinary sacrifice to obtain "full-time" status, no work hours are guaranteed- identical to Starbucks' current system of part-time status for all retail hourly workers. In addition, Starbucks will lay off workers who cannot meet minimum availability requirements. As baristas learn of the new program, discontent is rising.

"I've had to make myself available each week from Tuesday to Sunday starting at 4:45am until 11pm in the hopes of possibly getting 32 hours of work but not being guaranteed a single hour," said Liberte Locke, a Starbucks barista in New York and member of the IWW Starbucks Workers Union. "It's impossible for me to get a second job now even though I need one and impossible to have a life outside of work."

Under the new system, baristas who opt for pseudo full-time status have to make themselves available to work 70% of the total hours their store is open during the week. In an example given in the company documents, a store open 115 hours per week requires a barista to be available to work 80.5 hours each week - over double the standard work week. Week-to-week Starbucks can then schedule workers anywhere within that availability. In addition, workers who cannot make themselves available for at least three shifts a week will be fired, absent a "compelling reason" which Starbucks has not defined. Weekend workers must be available for at least 16 hours to avoid termination.

I-Witness Video From DNC/RNC Protests
Emily Forman

Emily Forman here, writing from Chicago, finally having escaped from the police-state vortex of the Denver and St Paul presidential conventions. I traveled to Denver and St Paul to work as a member of the amazing I-Witness video collective:
http://www.iwitnessvideo.info/news/index.html

In both cities I-Witness was met with intense surveillance and police intimidation. Our work was almost completely derailed in St. Paul by a series of raids and false arrests. We were forced to leave our homes and office multiple times due to these police intimidation tactics. Below follows video footage and a short account of some the context of the St Paul RNC convention, a Patriot Act-enabled environment of preemptive arrests of activists, journalists, medics, and legal observers. People were not only kept from exercising their first amendment rights here, but they were additionally charged with various kinds of thought crimes such as felony 'conspiracy to riot'. A federal hand has guided operations in both cities, with homeland security, national guard, and police details having been shipped in from states as far away as Arizona.

I will update you all after I catch my breath for a moment. Please be in touch, as these stories need to be getting out!

Violence and cruel treatment directed at protesters by police;
Journalists targeted for arrest, harassment, intimidation and surveillance

Police Violence in the Streets

The members of I-Witness Video have been appalled to see a high level of
violence directed against peaceful demonstrators, medics, legal observers
and journalists at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul,
Minnesota.

Concussion grenades, smoke bombs, CS gas (tear gas), rubber bullets and
pepper spray were used to attack and herd demonstrators.

ANTIWAR ACTIVISTS WIN $2 MILLION SETTLEMENT FROM NEW YORK CITY

A group of 52 local activists today announced a $2 million settlement in their lawsuit against the City of New York. The activists were illegally arrested on April 7, 2003 while protesting against the Iraq war in front of a military contractor's offices in midtown. The settlement in Kunstler et al v. New York City follows the dismissal in 2003 of all criminal charges brought against these individuals and four costly years of delays by the City in negotiating an end to the civil lawsuit.

“The New York Police Department violated core constitutional rights when it arrested a group of peaceful demonstrators who were lawfully protesting against the commencement of the Iraq war and those who stood to profit from it,” notes Sarah Netburn, attorney with Emery Celli Brinkerhoff Abady LLP, which handled the civil rights case along with the Center for Constitutional Rights. “We are gratified by the City’s decision to compensate these individuals whose targeted arrests were without probable cause and intended to quell future protest in New York City. This lawsuit, and this settlement, vindicates our clients’ rights to assemble and speak their mind free from the fear that they will be punished for their views.”

Attorneys and plaintiffs noted, however, that the City's decision to drag the case out is part of a long and disturbing pattern by which it attempts to “wear down” plaintiffs to avoid political damage, even at huge expense of tax dollars and City resources. “My question is, why did the NYPD send over 100 police in riot gear, along with vehicles to block the street and disrupt the flow of morning rush hour traffic, all to stop a legal, peaceful protest, when there are far more important matters they could be pursuing? And, why did they fight us in court so doggedly when they knew the evidence proved that we were arrested without any police orders to leave?” asked Ahmad Shirazi, a film editor and grandfather and one of the plaintiffs in the case.

Kittichai Restaurant Stops Serving Wild Edibles Seafood Over Workers' Rights Concerns

New York, NY- Kittichai, the popular Thai restaurant in Soho, has stopped serving seafood from wholesaler and retailer, Wild Edibles, Inc. over concern for employee rights. Wild Edibles workers and their allies have been campaigning for almost a year to reclaim stolen overtime pay; to compel compliance with workplace laws including the right to support a labor union; and to win a more livable wage as well as a health care and retirement plan.

Letter from Steve Kurtz to His Supporters
July 12, 2008

From the CAE Defense

Dear Supporters,

After four long, difficult years I have been released from my legal ordeal. I want to thank everyone who supported me through this—the greatest challenge I’ve ever had to face. I feel vindicated today because I am innocent, but today I am also humbled by a legal and political victory that is not mine alone. Everyone who contributed their support to this case can lay claim to a victory against the forces aiming to abridge our fundamental rights. I am mindful that my case was just one of many examples where fear and irrationality gained the upper hand after 9/11. I am aware that my vindication is an exception. I continue to have anxiety about the outcome of many pending cases still awaiting justice.

Although it seems that my case has come to a conclusion, it is only now that I can fully comprehend the immensity of what happened. The tragic death of Hope was a profound loss. The unfortunate events following Hope’s death occurred at a moment of intense pain and sadness for all of us. Neither my life nor the work of Critical Art Ensemble has been the same without her. If she were here today, I know she would be proud of everything that has been done by all the people involved. Collectively, we stood without flinching, and defeated a monster of social injustice. Hope always said that we should “never surrender” to authoritarian power, and we didn’t.