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| Greens Support Boycott of Borders, Yearlong Nurses' Strike. |
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Green Party of Michigan Rev. Pinkney Gives Benton Harbor Update:
"It's Our Time" Michigan Greens unanimously passed resolutions supporting unionized workers picketing Borders in Ann Arbor for closer-to-living wages, and honoring the one-year anniversary of the nurses' strike at Northern Michigan Hospital in Petoskey, at the party's fall state membership meeting Saturday. At the meeting, held in Lawrence and hosted by the new Van Buren County Chapter, the Green Party of Michigan (GPMI) also voted to support the Black Autonomy Network of Community Organizations after hearing guest speaker and BANCO's executive director, the Reverend Edward Pinkney, give an energetic report on the situation in Benton Harbor. GPMI also settled on a timeline for the process of selecting its national delegates to the United States Green Party (USGP) 2004 Presidential nominating convention, scheduled for June 24-27 in Milwaukee, and reviewed the successes and lessons learned from recent local elections. Backing a Broader Boycott, Spreading the Strikers' Story Susan Fawcett, one of GPMI's top vote-getters in 2002 as a candidate for the University of Michigan Board of Trustees, urged the party to back the boycott called for by Borders workers and their union, as well as the support group Borders Readers United. The boycott extends to Waldenbooks, owned by Borders Group Incorporated -- and to Amazon.com, which runs the Borders Web site. Workers at Borders' Ann Arbor store voted 51-4 last December to join Local 876 of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW). Workers now start at $6.50 an hour, far below the $9.70 living-wage rate for Ann Arbor. The union is seeking a $7.95 starting rate, plus 4.5% annual increases (compared to the current 3%). They also want to negotiate a contract on vacation time, scheduling, health benefits, and overtime. Meanwhile, the corporation is refusing to negotiate in good faith -- and paying millions of dollars a year to retain notorious union-busting attorneys Jackson Lewis Schnitzler & Krupman, noted Fawcett. She added that the job action is setting a precedent for retail, which she called "the new blue collar", and invited members to hand out flyers at their own local Borders stores. Members passed the hat to contribute to the strike fund, and to spread the word on the strike and boycott through USGP, invoking the value of social justice -- one of worldwide Greens' Four Pillars. Supporting NMH Nurses in Longest Strike in Nation's History GPMI also unanimously expressed solidarity with nurses who went out on strike against Northern Michigan Hospital in Petoskey on November 14 -- of 2002. The party's UpNorth local has been working with the NMH nurses from the beginning. As the party's statement of support points out, the aim of the strike is "to win improved wages, working hours and conditions, and benefits; lower nurse-to-patient ratios; and improved grievance procedures." The nurses' union -- Local 406 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters -- has estimated that NMH management has spent four times as much fighting the strike, easily the longest ever by nurses in the United States, as settling would have cost the hospital. The hospital and a few anti-union nurses have just put the nursing staff through a second certification vote to prove that the majority of working nurses wants the union to represent them. And, unless the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) upholds more than 100 frivolous "job abandonment" challenges against striking nurses who found temporary work to make ends meet during the strike, re-certification will pass with more votes and a bigger percentage margin than before. Report from Benton Harbor: "It's Our Time" More votes were also one of the issues on the mind of Rev. Pinkney, who said BANCO's 400 members had helped decide the recent races for Mayor and City Commission. "Candidates have to come through us," he said. All of the incumbents running were defeated -- and earlier in the fall, voters passed a school millage proposal for the first time in decades. Pinkney told the crowd, "We believe in social justice -- and I believe in the Green Party . . . and your ideals." He added, "The Green Party can be the strongest party in the state -- this is something we can do!" On Friday, BANCO filed a $1 billion lawsuit against the Department of Corrections over the Department's contract with Sprint. Pinkney called the contract "a form of monopoly", because it prevents prisoners from talking with their families unless they have $50 in their accounts to call home . . . or are customers of Sprint. Citing a $25 million check the Department recently received from Sprint, Pinkney pointed out, "By filing the lawsuit, we now get to look at the books." The contract was signed in the Engler years -- but the suit named current governor Jennifer Granholm as well as the Department, to "let her know business is not as usual." Pinkney gave Granholm credit for helping to get a re-hearing on the case of Maurice Carter, who has been in jail 28 years for a crime he couldn't have committed -- even an eyewitness now says so -- has liver disease, and is not expected to live much beyond six months. However, the judge assigned to the case -- who is personally responsible, says Pinkney, for moving his courthouse out of Benton Harbor -- refused to free Carter or order a new trial. That judge is due to retire soon, Pinkney noted . . . adding that BANCO has a prospective candidate preparing to run to fill the judge's seat on the bench. "This is an opportunity for the Green Party to stand tall . . . we've got to start mobilizing, put everyone together to fight as a team. And I'll be with you -- I live in Benton Harbor, I know what's going on there -- we need to tell people what's going on." Pinkney spent an hour at the meeting, speaking and answering questions, before returning to a BANCO-sponsored workshop on how to apply for grants to fund development of jobs, justice, and education in the community. On the prospects for Benton Harbor, Pinkney said, "I hope we're moving forward -- everyone on the City Council now we can work with." Solutions to many problems facing the community will take money -- for example, staffing schools with actually certified teachers. Benton Harbor schools get about $7,000 per student, while in Saint Joseph just across the river the funding is almost twice that. But "at least now we have people who care," he concluded. Pinkney started by picketing the Courthouse in Saint Joseph every Tuesday morning from 9am to 10am: "We've been doing it for three years." And now, with a little push from his involvement in the Governor's Task Force on Benton Harbor, he has an office in that courthouse. He advised Greens, "Be persistent and consistent . . . you'll get a lot of people who'll say you're nuts -- but you don't have to disagree with them, and argue. Don't get sidetracked . . . don't let nobody turn you around." When asked if things have changed since the murder described in the book about Benton Harbor and Saint Joseph, _The Other Side of the River_, Pinkney noted, "The man who did it was promoted -- to the head of the Parole Board -- and he's been promoted again since." But he added, "Sometimes it takes conflict to generate an opportunity for change . . . and now everyone wants to be part of that. "Now it's a different time -- our time." Reviewing Successes in Fall Elections, Planning for 2004 Among the reports from officers and committees, the most attention was paid to election results across Michigan this month. Greens running in non-partisan races won two seats in Kalamazoo and another in Ferndale, came within 250 votes of winning election to two more posts, and did better than ever before in several more places. Support from Green Party members also contributed to the election of several unaffiliated but progressive candidates. The report fed into a discussion of strategies and planning for next year's elections. Michigan Greens have led calls for a vigorous Green Presidential campaign, to move the political dialogue and "give the other hundred million people of voting age in this country a reason to vote," as one member put it. After some discussion, the meeting reached con- sensus on a timetable for selecting the state's estimated 22 delegates to the national nominating convention. The State Central Committee will draft a selection process for these delegates, and bring it to the next statewide membership meeting in February in Flint; after it is approved, delegates will be selected. At the May meeting in Traverse City, the party will fill holes in the delegation, and approve final directions to the delegation on how to cast their votes and/or exercise their own judgment at the convention. Members also exchanged ideas on recruiting candidates, raising funds and awareness, and boosting membership. In other business, GPMI members filled some vacancies among party offices and at-large representatives on the State Central Committee. The party also gave its unanimous support to protests at Fort Benning, Georgia later this month against the "School of Assassins" (formally known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security and Coöperation, and formerly called the School of the Americas) and in Miami against the proposed Free Trade Agreement of the Americas. For more information about the Green Party of
Michigan, please visit the GPMI Web site: http://www.migreens.org |
