[olympiaworkers] May 27-31 Ecovillage and Radical Media Convergence

Dear fellow Olympia Workers friends and friends
worldwide I haven't met,

Are you interested in forming an Ecovillage in Olympia? Or, are you
interested
in creating stronger, radical media in Olympia and the pacific
northwest? Me too. So
far we have had several meetings that are not effective in getting to
know each other and learning about what we want in a shared media and an
Ecovillage
and how to move beyond paperwork towards living in community.

Many of the most successful media groups and intentional communities,
like Brietenbush and Twin Oaks, have found that having group retreats
and getting involved in Media have improved their community and outreach
considerably.

So a group of friends and I will have a May 27th-31st Meet-up and
radical Media Convergence event.

The first two days and two nights in Seattle starting on May 27. This
will give us the chance to tour the successful Emma Goldman Finishing
School (an intentional community) that has already been arranged.

The second two days and two nights will be in Olympia starting on May
29th. :)

It is all free. This will give us a great chance to talk about
forming a Pacific Northwest ecovillage as part of the A-Welcome-To-All
Olympia Ecovillage and Intentional Community found here:
http://www.weinviteyou.org

If you need housing, it is best (for safety reasons) to sign up on the
below
Email lists for future updates:

Radical Road Trip group -
http://www.couchsurfing.org/group.html?gid=5982

We also have our own online community with over 290 members here:
http://www.peacecommunities.ning.com

The direct URL and web address for our Peace Communities discussion
forum about this event is here: http://tinyurl.com/mutualistproject

More details and PDF schedules with photos of this event are found
here: http://peacecommunities.org/5001.html

A description of one of the workshops in Seattle is below with
conference highlights.

Thanks.

Keep working for a better world everyone!

WoOOooooooooooooooooooHooOOOOoooooooooooo!

Love for the people,
Keep love alive! ;)
-T

"If love does not know how to give and take without restrictions, it
is not love, but a transaction that never fails to lay stress on a
plus and a minus."
-Emma Goldman

"The demand for equal rights in every vocation of life is just and
fair; but, after all, the most vital right is the right to love and be
loved."
-Emma Goldman

"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To
never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of
life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty
to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what
is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To
try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget."
-Arundahti Roy

"Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating
than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will."
- Martin Luther King, Jr., "Letter from Birmingham Jail"

"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the
final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is
stronger than evil triumphant."
- Martin Luther King, Jr., Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech

---------------------------------------------

Workshop title: Radical Healthcare Justice and Media Empowerment
Workshop

Pamela Wible, a practicing radical doctor from Eug
ene, Oregon, will give a remarkable presentation. She has merged
health care empowerment with radical media in every manner including
videos, itunes, website publishing, social bookmarking, search engines
and soon a nationwide book tour. She has given workshops around the
country including at the Gesundheit Institute (as featured in the
movie Patch Adams) and at Andrew Weil's Center for Integrative
Medicine: "Burnout to Bliss: How Patients are Healing Physicians and
Changing the Face of Medicine." She has also volunteered during the
Hurricane Katrina at the Astro Dome among other places and later given
presentations on "Googling My Way to Katrina: Breaking Rank When
Necessary" and "Community-Designed Ideal Medical Care: The Grassroots
Health Care Revolution." She was also in the middle of the 1999
protests that successfully shut down the 1999 WTO in Seattle and found
herself surrounded by police shooting people at point black range with
rubber bullets while the police threw concussion grenades at people
and she decided, in her words "to engage in my own form of protest."
Her love-centered work combined with her radical experience and
workshops have resulted in inspired audiences throughout America. She
has helped to give people the tools and the resources they need to
start their own grassroots community medical practice. She continues
her medical practice in Eugene, Oregon at the Ideal Medical Practice.
http://www.idealmedicalpractice.org

Her workshop will start at 9am on Thursday, May 28th, 2009 and
continue until 11am. To register and receive location details, please
call (206) 337-1556 anytime, 24 hours 7 days a week and leave your
number and the best to return the call or contact us through the
contact form at http://www.peacecommunities.org

This workshop is free of charge and is brought to you by a
collaboration of the Freeschool Community, the Radical Media
Convergence and the Peace Communities.

Immediately following the question and answer portion of this workshop
we will have a short open forum discussion on creating a participatory
society.

In Olympia, the following workshop will take place:

Title of workshop: Beyond reporting the news: Is the second stage of
the progressive movement to help create independent, self-sustainable
activist communities rather than to simply criticize our oppressors?

Description of workshop:

Has the use of progressive, independent media to simply criticize our
oppressors causing globalization to decrease? When we witness that 51
of the world's largest economies are now multinational corporations
rather than countries, the answer becomes self-evident. In this course
we will cover four elements. First we will briefly cover the
collectives and communities which live and work together that have
used Media to empower their communities rather than to simply
criticize the unjust power structure of globalization. Second, we will
discuss how creating multiracial, multicultural communities and non-
traditional cohousing activist groups may be the most effective means
of using time, rent, utilities, gas and volunteers in long-term
organized resistance activities. Third, we will cover the need to
internationally network those groups in order to prevent the
traditional fragmentation amongst community-based media activist
groups in order to enable those communities to most effectively
confront the pillars of globalizations. And fourth, we will have an
break out action groups and an open forum to discuss some of the most
effective methods used to create a multicultural, multiracial
community-based media activist group.

This session should also particularly benefit those who desire to
learn about financially realistic means of increasing multiracial
diversity in their communities and organizations worldwide.

T. Love has given this workshop to inspired audiences at the 2009 All
Power to the Imagination Conference in Florida; given this workshop at
the NW Progressive Conference in Pullman, Washington; given this
workshop at the Annula A World Beyond Capitalism conference among many
other community building conferences nationwide.

Other Conference Highlights:

Title: [Seattle, WA] Informal open forum networking amongst friends
and those interesting in creating an intentional community and
ecovillage in Olympia
Time and Date: 7pm-10pm on Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

Title: [Seattle, WA] Social Justice Networking and Participatory
Society Open Forum, facilitated by Joel Isaacs, Z Media Institute
Alumni member
Time and Date: 11:30am-1pm on Thursday, May 28th, 2009

Title: [Seattle] Open House Tour of the Emma Goldman Finishing School
Time and Date: 2pm-3:30pm on Thursday, May 28th, 2009

Title: [Olympia, WA] Open Forum Discussion on what Everyone is Doing
or Desires to Do to Create a More Participatory Society
Time and Date: 11am-1pm on Saturday, May 30th, 2009

Title: [Olympia, WA] Informal open forum networking amongst friends
and those interesting in creating an intentional community and
ecovillage in Olympia
Time and Date: 2pm-5pm on Saturday, May 30th, 2009

--
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[olympiaworkers] Workplace Organizer Training Olympia May 16

Start: 2009-05-16 10:00 am

Workplace Organizer Training
Saturday May 16th
10:00am-5:00pm
(free breakfast served at 9:30am)
at The Labor Temple
119 ½ Capitol Way
(in downtown Olympia next to The Brotherhood)

Do you have a job?
Will you have a job in the future?
Are you a worker?
Do you want higher wages and more benefits?
Do you want to fight discrimination at work?
Do you want more rights, power and a voice at your work?
Do you want democracy on the job?

If the answers to any of these questions are YES, then you should consider
organizing at work and joining the one union open to all workers, the IWW.

This training is completely free. Organizing materials, packets and
refreshments will also be provided.

Brought to you by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and the
American Postal Workers Union (APWU). The training will be given by union
organizers from Olympia and Seattle.

Please RSVP: olywobs@riseup.net

For more information on the IWW, please visit www.iww.org.

"An injury to one is an injury to all!"

[olympiaworkers] Crackdown in South Korea as President Lee emphasises need for "labour market flexibility"

May 8 2009 Libcom.org

http://libcom.org/news/labour-crackdown-south-korea-president-lee-emphasises-need-labour-market-flexibility-080520

Nineteen former workers at the Kor-Tek guitar and bass factory in
Dungchon, Seoul, have been indicted on serious charges relating to the
occupation of the plant late last year. The charges, alongside similar
cases, have led to protests from unions which describe them as "excessive"
and "preposterous".

The original dispute at the plant related to management plans to close the
factory and move production to China. Workers quickly staged a sit-in
strike, but this was broken up by police after only four hours. The
strikers were rounded up, and two local union leaders were given one year
sentences, which were later commuted to suspended sentences.

However, prosecutors have again targeted the workers, seeking a second
round of charges. It is this move which has drawn fire from unions and
other organisations, with Sung Sei-Kyung of the Korean Metalworkers' Union
stating, "The union members thought the case was over, and we feel the
indictments are preposterous. " Prosecutors are pursuing charges of armed
housebreaking against 19 strikers and union members.

The move isn't an isolated one, and follows similar cases. Two union
leaders have recently been arrested over their participation in a protest
against Donghee Auto Co., a company which supplies parts for Kia motors,
four months after the event. Three union officials had already been
sentenced in relation to the demonstration.

Critics are claiming the moves represent an attempt to send a message that
actions around such disputes will be treated harshly, and are part of the
South Korean state's oppressive response to the threat of spreading
industrial unrest.

Meanwhile, the office of president Lee Myung-Bak has been emphasising its
intentions to "solve labour flexibility" i.e. to encourage further
casualisation and the erosion of working conditions through the
Contractual and Part-time Worker Protection Act and the Labor Standards
Act. The law currently requires that companies offer irregular workers
regular contracts after two years of employment, but the Lee
administration is attempting to extend that threshold to four years.
President Lee's spokesman emphasised this aim at a recent emergency
economic council meeting on the 7th of May.

[olympiaworkers] End crackdown on labor activists' in Vietnam, says human rights group

libcom.org

The Vietnamese government should immediately free activists who have been
unlawfully imprisoned for peacefully campaigning for workers' rights,
Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today.

The 32-page report, "Not Yet a Workers' Paradise: Vietnam's Suppression of
the Independent Workers' Movement," documents the Vietnamese government's
crackdown on independent trade unions and profiles labor rights activists
who have been detained, placed under house arrest, or imprisoned by the
Vietnamese government in violation of international law. The report calls
on donor governments and foreign firms investing in Vietnam to press the
government to treat workers properly.

"By arresting the most prominent labor leaders, the Vietnamese government
is trying to wipe out the independent trade union movement," said Brad
Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "The government continues to
target and harass independent labor activists, who are seen as a
particular threat to the Communist Party because of their ability to
attract and organize large numbers of people."

Since 2006, at least eight independent trade union activists have been
sentenced to prison on dubious national security charges. All have been
held under Vietnamese laws that violate fundamental freedoms. Those who
have been tried have not been afforded internationally recognized due
process rights. Other labor activists have been harassed, intimidated, and
forced to cease their union activities or flee the country.

Amid double-digit inflation and the global economic downturn, labor unrest
continues to soar in Vietnam. Thousands of workers, primarily at
foreign-owned factories, have joined strikes to demand wage increases and
better working conditions. Though permitted under international law,
virtually none of these strikes are considered legal by the Vietnamese
government.

Workers are prohibited from forming or joining unions - or conducting
strikes - that are not authorized by an official labor confederation
controlled by the Communist Party. The minimum monthly wage was increased
to 650,000 dong (US$36) for most workers, but it still fails to provide an
adequate standard of living, especially given racing inflation, and the
increase has failed to stem labor discontent.

The report details provisions in Vietnam's labor laws, such as amendments
to the Labor Code that took effect in 2007, which have imposed
increasingly harsh restrictions on strikes and independent unions. While
the Labor Code allows party-controlled unions to strike, it establishes
strict and cumbersome conditions that must be met, which effectively
nullify this right.

"Vietnam's labor laws ensure that there is virtually no way for workers to
call a legal strike," said Adams. "The so-called reform process and
amendments to the Labor Code have focused on tightening government control
over workers' movements and effectively denying workers their rights. The
People's Committees, People's Courts, and the official labor confederation
- all controlled by the Vietnamese Communist Party - work as a machine
that is rolling out rules to prevent legal strikes."

Starting in 2006, unprecedented numbers of workers began to join "wildcat"
strikes (strikes without the approval of union officials) at foreign-owned
factories around Ho Chi Minh City and in surrounding provinces in the
south. As the strikes quickly spread to Vietnam's central and northern
provinces, workers broadened their demands for labor rights, such as the
ability to form independent unions and the dissolution of the
party-controlled labor confederation.

In October 2006, Vietnamese activists announced the formation of two
independent trade unions, the United Worker-Farmers Organization of
Vietnam, or UWFO (Hiep Hoi Doan Ket Cong Nong) and the Independent
Workers' Union of Vietnam, or IWUV (Cong Doan Doc Lap). Their stated goals
were to protect workers' rights, including the right to form and join
independent trade unions, engage in strikes, and collectively bargain with
employers without being required to obtain government or party approval.
They also planned to disseminate information about workers' rights and
exploitative and abusive labor conditions.

For a brief period in 2006, the Vietnamese government - prior to entering
the World Trade Organization and normalizing trade relations with the
United States - tolerated a budding civil society. Opposition political
parties, underground newspapers, and Vietnam's first independent trade
unions publicly emerged, a rare situation in the one-party state dominated
by the Communist Party of Vietnam.

The government's tolerance of peaceful dissent proved to be short-lived,
however. Within weeks after the two independent unions began operations,
the government arrested all of the unions' known leaders and supporters.

Of eight independent trade union advocates sentenced to prison since 2006,
three remain in prison and at least two under administrative probation or
house arrest. The remaining three have been subjected to a series of
detentions and interrogation by police, intrusive surveillance, and
harassment by vigilantes.

Vietnamese agents are thought to have abducted Le Tri Tue, one of the
founders of the Independent Workers' Union of Vietnam. Le Tri Tue went
missing in May 2007 after fleeing to Cambodia to seek political asylum.
The US State Department noted grimly in its 2008 report on human rights in
Vietnam that "Le Tri Tue was still missing ... amid rumors that Vietnamese
government security agents had killed him."

"None of Vietnam's peaceful labor activists should ever have been
arrested, detained, or imprisoned," said Adams. "Donor governments, the
UN's International Labor Organization, companies investing in Vietnam, and
others should insist that Vietnam treat its workers properly and release
all jailed activists."

http://libcom.org/news/vietnam-end-crackdown-labor-activists-07052009

[olympiaworkers] Workplace Organizer Training, May 16th (Olympia)

Workplace Organizer Training, May 16th

Learn tactics and strategies for organizing on the job!

Workplace Organizer Training
Saturday May 16th
10:00am-5:00pm
(free breakfast served at 9:30am)
at The Labor Temple
119 ½ Capitol Way
(in downtown Olympia next to The Brotherhood)

Do you have a job?
Will you have a job in the future?
Are you a worker?
Do you want higher wages and more benefits?
Do you want to fight discrimination at work?
Do you want more rights, power and a voice at your work?
Do you want democracy on the job?

If the answers to any of these questions are YES, then you should consider
organizing at work and joining the one union open to all workers, the IWW.

This training is completely free. Organizing materials, packets and
refreshments will also be provided.

Brought to you by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and the
American Postal Workers Union (APWU). The training will be given by union
organizers from Olympia and Seattle.

Please RSVP: olywobs@riseup.net

For more information on the IWW, please visit www.iww.org.

"An injury to one is an injury to all!"

[olympiaworkers] Venezuela: Union leader murdered

info from PGA North America

From: EL NUEVO TOPO <giltapia@igc.org>
May 5, 2009

Venezuela: On May 5th, companero Argenis Vasquez, was murdered in
front of his house. He was Secretary of Organization for the
Toyota Workers Union.

CCURA (the labor group led by Orlando Chirino) has called for an
emergency meeting of all labor organizations in Cumara to call a
general strike against gangsterism.

Orlando Chirino stated: "It is not enough to call for an
investigation because everything gets covered up with impunity such
as what happened with the murder of our comrades Richard, Luis and
Carlos as well as what happened to the Mitsubishi comrades and the
case of the student leader of the ULA in Merida.
We have to respond to the gangsters and their sponsors with
struggle, with mobilization and automatic work stoggages every time
theres a murder so that the bosses, gangsters and everyone
invbolved know the value of a leader of the working class."

translated by Earl Gilman