Editor’s Note From Rivera Sun
From Sept 25-27, thousands of Indigenous Colombians marched in Bogata, calling for an end to paramilitary violence in their regions. They also voiced support for social reforms to alleviate poverty, pointing out the systemic connection between economic hardship, drug cartels, and the violence. It’s a connection that many places worldwide can, unfortunately, relate to.
In Los Angeles, hotel workers are making a little headway, securing a deal with a second hotel. The agreement covers 300 workers and offers increased wages, improved healthcare, more robust staffing, pension increases, and more inclusive hiring procedures for formerly incarcerated people and unauthorized immigrants. United Auto Workers have employed a similar strategy to the hotel workers, launching rolling strikes that have kept the industry scrambling and cost manufacturers $200 million so far. The UAW won one of their demands already, which was to gain battery factory union jobs for US workers as the industry shifts to hybrid and electric vehicles.
Perhaps due to the rolling strike strategy, mainstream media is coming up short in calculating the size of the strike wave happening. While their headlines mention thousands of workers on strike, the total is in the hundreds of thousands. A new report shows that at least 453,000 workers have participated in 312 strikes in the U.S. this year. This week alone, 75,000 Kaiser striking workers joined the 160,000 SAG/AFTRA actors, 32,000 LA hotels workers, 150,000 UAW auto workers, and many more who are on strike. Of course, if Quebec’s 420,000-person strong public worker union goes on strike (as they’re threatening to), Canadian labor action will outstrip the United States’ annual tally in one fell swoop. (It’s even more impressive when you remember the relative population size of the two nations: Canada has 36 million people. The US equivalent would be around 4 million workers on strike. May we see that day soon.)
In other Nonviolence News, Londoners marched against North Sea oil extraction; Haitians are protesting a US-backed, Kenyan military presence in their country; thousands of people worldwide once again protested Japan’s Fukushima wastewater discharges; and a 6-year campaign succeeded in getting rid of Chicago’s racist gangs database.
Find these stories and many more in this issue of Nonviolence News>>
There are so many creative actions this week. A pair of climate protesters locked down to the stage during a performance of the musical Les Miserables – and invited the audience to sing-along to their rendition of “Can You Hear The People Sing?” Portugal’s public art installations are in the crosshairs of a reckoning with the nation’s role in the slave trade. Germans launched a floating anti-nuke art show in a river. Italian climate activists built a 20-ft tall Trojan Horse to warn people that pretending the climate crisis doesn’t exist is a dangerous deception. An ecofeminist art show from tree-huggers to Greenham Common reveals the deep, abiding connection between feminism and nonviolent action.
There’s much to learn … and more to celebrate in Nonviolence News this week.
In solidarity,
Rivera Sun