>
> WW News Service Digest #74
>
> 1) For Mumia: Up on the roof--of the embassy
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 2) NYU graduate employees win right to union
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 3) 20,000 NYC building workers 'meet in the streets'
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 4) Striking Los Angeles janitors demand justice
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 5) Al-Amin case: Picture emerges of intense police pressure
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 6) Vieques braces for more struggles vs. Navy
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 7) Why Koreans celebrate April 15
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 8) Yugoslavia: U.S. bombing amounted to ecocide
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Apr. 20, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>UP ON THE ROOF--OF THE EMBASSY
>
>Seven members of the Committee to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
>and the youth group Blitz seized the roof of the United
>States Embassy in Oslo, Norway, on April 5.
>
>After climbing over the embassy's main entrance, the
>young activists occupied the roof for two hours before
>surrendering to police. They could be fined.
>
>"The focus shouldn't be on us up here, but on Mumia Abu-
>Jamal," one demonstrator said.
>
>Eight others were arrested on the ground, then released,
>according to the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten.
>
>In February 1999, Norwegian Social Minister Magnhild
>Melveit Kleppa and 47 members of parliament signed the
>committee's petition calling on President Bill Clinton and
>Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge to grant the African American
>journalist a new trial.
>
>Meanwhile, Italian activists announced a National
>Assembly in Support of Mumia Abu-Jamal. The assembly will
>take place April 15 in Florence.
>--G.B.
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted
>to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document,
>but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>
>Message-ID: <004001bfa705$26e61070$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] NYU graduate employees win right to union
>Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2000 14:05:15 -0400
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
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>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Apr. 20, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>HUGGING, CLAPPING, DANCING:
>
>NYU GRADUATE EMPLOYEES WIN
>RIGHT TO UNION
>
>By Shelley Ettinger
>New York
>
>Champagne corks popped. Whoops of joy resounded. People
>hugged and clapped and danced.
>
>Not the sort of behavior commonly associated with ivory-
>tower academics.
>
>That's because those celebrating April 4 in the Wagner
>Labor Archives of New York University's Bobst Library live
>in the real world of toil and struggle. They are workers.
>And they had finally won legal recognition as such.
>
>On April 3, National Labor Relations Board Region 2
>Director Daniel Silverman ruled in favor of NYU graduate
>employees' right to union representation and collective
>bargaining. He said the union--United Auto Workers/Graduate
>Students Organizing Committee--was free to file for a
>representation election at any time.
>
>That filing came days later. The vote will take place
>April 25-27.
>
>And the union expects to win, despite the "anti-union PR
>campaign" UAW organizer Lisa Jessup accused NYU
>administrators of waging.
>
>STOP CAMPUS UNION BUSTING
>
>Silverman's decision was historic. It will have far-
>reaching national ramifications. For the first time, the
>board found that federal labor law covers teaching
>assistants and graduate assistants--graduate students who
>work for wages.
>
>While unions have made great strides organizing graduate
>workers at public universities around the country, the
>effort has been tougher at private schools. Dipping into
>million- or even billion-dollar endowments, administrators
>have hired top-gun anti-labor law firms to fight long legal
>battles to keep the unions out. At Yale University, for
>example, the graduate workers' struggle to win union rights
>has gone on for over a decade.
>
>Yale and other universities have been watching the NYU
>struggle closely. Not just watching, either. It's clear
>that Yale and NYU are in close touch, strategizing jointly
>about how to crush the graduate workers' aspirations.
>
>In fact, the bosses' interests extend beyond university
>campuses. This ruling class as a whole has a lot at stake.
>
>NYU is the biggest private university in the country.
>Although nominally non-profit, it is a big-money
>institution with billionaire bosses. Its board of directors
>is a Who's Who of New York's real-estate oligarchy. Not top
>ranked in academic prestige, NYU still manages to charge
>tuition that is among the country's highest.
>
>Yet the people who actually perform the labor that is
>supposed to be the basic mission of a university--teaching
>undergraduate students--are treated shabbily.
>
>In addition to pursuing graduate studies and writing a
>doctoral dissertation, a typical TA is expected to put in
>about 30 hours a week teaching, holding office hours,
>reading and responding to papers, conducting and grading
>exams, making copies, preparing lectures, and so on.
>
>For this NYU pays about $10,000 a year before taxes. No
>medical insurance. No provision of affordable housing. No
>family benefits.
>
>Even these sub-standard wages and conditions are
>apparently not available to people of color. The ranks of
>NYU's TAs and GAs are heavily white.
>
>So it should not have come as a shock when these workers
>decided they need a union. Their demands are the same as
>those of low-wage workers in many other industries: decent
>wages, basic benefits, improved working conditions and an
>end to discrimination.
>
>Kimberly Johnson, one of the organizing drive's leaders
>and a doctoral student in American Studies, said, "It is
>very clear to me that what we do here is work, and like any
>other workers we should be able to take an active role in
>setting our working conditions."
>
>Almost a year ago the union submitted cards signed by a
>majority of the 1,700 teaching assistants and graduate
>assistants seeking representation. In response the NYU
>administration sought a labor board ruling that the TAs and
>GAs are not employees.
>
>New York City Central Labor Council President Brian
>McLoughlin appealed to NYU President L. Jay Oliva to stop
>stone walling and allow the workers their right to
>representation. He was told that the university would fight
>all the way to the Supreme Court.
>
>A long process of hearings, testimony and legal briefs
>ensued. NYU trotted out its academic deans--including some
>formerly known as progressive scholars--to make tortuous
>arguments that these workers don't work.
>
>But the workers themselves testified movingly about their
>struggles to feed families on starvation wages. The union
>submitted factual documentation. And this stage of the
>struggle was won.
>
>After Silverman issued his ruling, the NYU administration
>howled in outrage--issuing a barrage of press statements
>and interviews and beefing up efforts to enlist the faculty
>in its anti-union campaign. Yet the bosses had to change
>their arguments in light of the ruling.
>
>In earlier letters issued to the "university community,"
>Provost Harvey Steadman had cited 20-year-old rulings
>against graduate-employee unionizing. Now NYU is suddenly
>singing a different song, with Vice President Robert Berne
>complaining, "Silverman's decision gives little recognition
>to the realities of modern graduate education."
>
>Those realities now include unions. Calling the
>administrators' union busting "a waste of money, time, and
>a denial of basic rights," UAW Assistant Regional Director
>Julie Kushner said this struggle will continue until a
>contract is signed. Leaders of Teachers Local 3882, the NYU
>clerical workers' union that has long experience
>confronting the administration's union busting, pledged
>support and solidarity.
>
>[The writer, an NYU secretary, is a member of Local 3882.]
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>
>Message-ID: <004601bfa705$3ee1e550$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] 20,000 NYC building workers 'meet in the streets'
>Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2000 14:05:56 -0400
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Apr. 20, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>20,000 BUILDING WORKERS "MEET IN THE STREETS"
>
>Twenty thousand chanting building service workers and their
>supporters flooded the streets the Upper East Side on April
>12. The "Meet in the Streets" rally was a stunning show of
>strength and unity in one of New York City's richest and
>most prestigious neighborhoods.
>
>The contract between Local 32B-J's 55,000 members and New
>York's rich building owners is about to expire and the
>landlords are demanding give-backs. But the unionists are
>in no mood to see their standard of living eroded. Not with
>the boom on Wall Street that's brought unprecedented
>prosperity to the already filthy rich real estate barons.
>Against this backdrop, the workers are demanding economic
>justice and are ready to strike, if necessary.
>
>Representatives from other unions joined the huge protest
>and pledged support should there be a walkout. This latest
>street mobilization reflects the new mood of militant
>struggle that was ushered in when Gus Bevona was forced to
>resign as head of the union because of the local's
>dwindling membership and other charges. The local was
>placed into trusteeship under the Service Employees
>International Union.
>
>The demonstration is part of a national struggle to win
>economic justice for janitors and other building service
>workers that has erupted across the country recently.
>
>--Pat Chin
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>
>Message-ID: <004c01bfa705$5a4f6150$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] Striking Los Angeles janitors demand justice
>Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2000 14:06:42 -0400
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Apr. 20, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>STRIKING L.A. JANITORS DEMAND JUSTICE
>
>By Magda M. Miller
>Los Angeles
>
>On April 7, some 3,000 striking janitors and their
>supporters marched for 10 miles from downtown Los Angeles
>to Century City. It was the biggest in a series of strike
>marches that have clogged traffic and drawn the city's
>attention to the struggle of these super-exploited workers.
>
>Janitors who earn an average of $11,000 a year marched
>outside an office tower occupied by three Los Angeles
>billionaires.
>
>The janitors, represented by Service Employees Local 1877,
>went out on strike April 3. Negotiations with the cleaning
>companies are at a deadlock, but solidarity and support for
>the janitors continues to grow.
>
>The most important support has come from other workers--
>like members of Operating Engineers Local 501, the
>Teamsters union, and the building-trades unions, who refuse
>to cross the janitors' picket lines--and from hundreds of
>downtown workers. From the beginning, many have come out to
>cheer the janitors on as they march by in the thousands.
>
>The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor is publicly
>demanding that those politicians who have benefited from
>union support in the past now make good on their promises
>and pressure the contractors to move quickly to meet the
>strikers' demands.
>
>At the April 7 march, strikers were accompanied by the
>Rev. Jesse Jackson, the president of the United Teachers of
>Los Angeles, the Los Angeles city attorney, city controller
>and other local politicians.
>
>"The mostly Latino immigrant janitors in Los Angeles face
>the same challenges as coal miners in Appalachia or
>sweatshop garment workers, all of whom are struggling to
>raise families on low-wage jobs," Jackson said. "If the
>Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Cesar Chavez were alive,
>they would surely have joined their march."
>
>"Instead of doing our job for less money, they should be
>out here with us so we can all get a raise," a striker told
>Workers World, walking a line that stretched for blocks
>through downtown Los Angeles. When marchers passed through
>the giant Arco Plaza, home of the giant petroleum
>consortium, he pointed up and said, "That is where I work,"
>raising his sign up toward the building.
>
>The striking janitors have disrupted business as usual.
>Some businesses, like 20th Century Fox Studios, have had to
>close early. The police are constantly on tactical alert.
>
>The nation's biggest janitorial contractor, American
>Building Maintenance had sought a restraining order against
>striking workers who are preventing the scab workers from
>crossing picket lines. On April 7, a judge denied the
>bosses' request.
>
>On April 4 Los Angeles County supervisors, who last year
>adopted a living-wage policy with a minimum $8.32 hourly
>wage, voted three to two to support the strikers. The board
>also urged building owners to settle the dispute with the
>janitors who earn an average $6.80 per hour. The Los
>Angeles City Council has passed a similar resolution.
>
>This strike is very popular because everyone is aware of
>the hard work the janitors do every day. The strikers are
>mostly Latino. Many are in their 50s and 60s. They make
>such low wages that many have had to take on second jobs to
>make ends meet, depriving them of time with their families.
>
>Then, when negotiation time comes around, janitors are
>treated like they are dispensable. The 18 contractors
>involved in negotiations offered workers a 50-cent hourly
>raise on the condition that wages be frozen the first year
>for others. Janitors are demanding a $1-per-hour raise each
>year for the next three years.
>
>The labor movement in Los Angeles is growing in militancy
>and power. The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor
>recently refused to sign a "no-strike pledge" for the
>August Democratic National Convention to be held here. As
>part of what is called "Mobilization 2000," and with over
>20 contracts expiring this year, unions are pledging to
>fight together for decent contracts, planning solidarity
>and coordinated struggles in the coming period.
>
>On April 8, members of Service Employees Local 2028 in San
>Diego approved a janitors' walk-out in that city.
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>
>Message-ID: <005201bfa705$73722a00$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] Al-Amin case: Picture emerges of intense police pressure
>Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2000 14:07:24 -0400
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Apr. 20, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>AL-AMIN CASE: PICTURE EMERGES OF INTENSE POLICE PRESSURE
>
>By S. Tomlinson
>Atlanta
>
>Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin called his arrest on charges of
>killing an Atlanta sheriff's deputy and wounding another
>the result of a "government conspiracy." Reports appearing
>in the Atlanta media since his arrest reveal that Al-Amin
>has, at the very least, been the target of extreme
>government scrutiny for decades.
>
>Al-Amin is charged in the March 16 shootings of Fulton
>County sheriff's deputies Ricky Kinchen and Aldranon
>English. Kinchen died the day after the shooting. The
>deputies were attempting to serve Al-Amin with a warrant
>for a non-violent offense.
>
>Since the 1960s, when Al-Amin was known as H. Rap Brown
>and was leader of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating
>Committee, the government has taken a keen interest in his
>activities. For example, in 1967 FBI documents released
>under the Freedom of Information Act, investigators detail
>any time Brown ever mentioned violence, even though these
>comments were made in the context of revolutionary
>resistance against racist governments and oppressors.
>
>This scrutiny apparently continued beyond Brown's days as
>a civil-rights leader. Now that Al-Amin is charged with
>killing a deputy sheriff in Atlanta, police and media are
>painting a portrait of him as a dangerous, violent radical.
>
>Al-Amin's brother, Ed Brown, spoke out publicly to decry
>the behavior of the Atlanta media and police officials.
>Brown said police and media have acted with "the frenzy of
>a lynch mob" in releasing irresponsible statements. He said
>they have created an atmosphere in which it will be
>difficult for his brother to get a fair trial.
>
>Al-Amin's lawyers have just filed motions charging
>prosecutors and police with ethics violations. They asked a
>judge to bar prosecutors from seeking the death penalty.
>
>Lawyers Jack Martin and Bruce Harvey also filed a motion
>requesting a gag order to silence prosecutors, stating that
>the police have given "reckless" and "unfounded" statements
>to the media.
>
>The April 1 Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that
>from 1992 to 1997 the FBI and Atlanta police investigated
>Al-Amin, trying to tie him to everything from domestic
>terrorism to gun running to a number of murders in his
>
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