Jim Slattery on Unions and Prevailing Wage

I've been posting a number of clips of US Senate candidate Jim Slattery talking issues with Wichita union members from an informal June 23 meeting. This is one of the most important-- in this clip Slattery emphasizes his long-standing support for the rights of workers to form unions and for prevailing wage legislations which protects a race to the bottom in construction wage.

Only a glitch in my understanding of how to use my video software has delayed.




Correcting the gross imbalances in US labor law in favor of companies should be a top concern for everyone in the libera and progressive community.

But that's a subject for another day.

(See here on Air Force tanker decision and here on why he's running and here on why climate change legislation must be done right.)

Sunflower activists acquitted

I commented (here, here, and here) on the travesty of leaders of Sunflower Community Action being prosecuted for leaving a few signs at the home of Wichita City Manager George Kolb in a protest about the city's failure over years to clean up a lot in Wichita.

This week, a jury acquitted them of the charges.

After the group protested at his house, Kolb asked the city to charge Perry Fisher and Sunflower leaders J.J. Selmon and Louis Goseland with trespassing and illegal dumping, accusing the group of more than a dozen of leaving protest signs scattered across his lawn on Dec. 9, 2006.

After testimony on Monday and closing arguments Tuesday morning, the Sedgwick County jury of three men and three women found them not guilty.

"We can all sleep tonight, finally," Perry Fisher said after the verdict. "I am happy, happy, happy.

Meanwhile, Kolb resigned in a mutual agreement with the City Council, which gave him an extremely generous severance package. Eagle columnist Randy Schofield had some germane comments

Council members cited "philosophical differences."

Philosophical differences?

What's that supposed to mean? Did they argue about Kant's categorical imperative? Bicker about the symbolism of Plato's cave?

Schofield rightly points to problems with Wichita's city manager form of government. It seems that the city manager view themselves as being the real boss of the city. The mayor and council members like corporate board of directors are to do what the manager wants. And the citizens are just an awkward encumbrance. When Kolb resigned he wished the "organization" well in the future. The ORGANIZATION? As if the city of Wichita were a corporation or a non-profit.

Wichita City Paper on the Mess

From the latest City Paper, a good article on blight in some of Wichita's neighborhoods, and the disinterest of some of our city government and prominent elected officials

Wichita’s Sunflower Community Action believes Wichita officials are not doing enough ... The group is planning to not only address the city council at its scheduled March 20 meeting, but is also inviting the community and its officials to the group’s own meeting at 6:30 p.m., Thursday, March 22 at The Church of the Living God, 2725 N. Hillside.

The group has extended personal invitations to city manager George Kolb, District 1 councilman and mayoral candidate Carl Brewer, mayor Carlos Mayans, the city’s Environmental Services director Kay Johnson, and Central Inspection superintendent Kurt Schroeder. However, Brewer — whose District 1 encompasses all 20 of Wichita most blighted properties — has declined to meet with the group until after April 7 when his bid for the mayor’s office will come to an end. Kolb, also, has declined the invitation for not only himself, but also Johnson and Schroeder, who are his employees. Mayans has not yet replied.

City comes down on blight protestors

This is ridiculous. The city of Wichita allows a homeowner in a minority, working class area to keep what can only be described as an junky eyesore for years and when a community group out of desperation holds a protest at the city manager's house and leave a letter and 11 posters, the city brings criminal charges.

According to the Wichita Eagle

4 headed to court over protest at Kolb's house

Four members of the nonprofit Sunflower Community Action group will appear
in court next week on misdemeanor criminal charges stemming from a December
protest at Wichita City Manager George Kolb's house.

City Attorney Gary Rebenstorf filed the charges, which include criminal
trespassing and illegal dumping, Dec. 9. The group left 11 poster-board signs
and a letter addressed to Kolb at his home after the protest.

At least 15 Sunflower members -- upset about illegal dumping at a house
in central-northeast Wichita at 10th and Volutsia -- staged the protest Dec. 9
at Kolb's house in the 13500 block of East Buckskin Court, near Harry and 127th
Street East.

Kolb was not home at the time.

The charges are pretty serious.

An illegal dumping conviction carries a mandatory fine between $240 and $1,000 and a potential prison sentence of up to 12 months, Rebenstorf said. A trespassing conviction carries a fine of up to $1,000 and up to six months in jail....

And who believes this comment from city attorney Gary Rebenstorf:

"If it happened at anybody else's house, we would have followed the same procedure."

The city manager have declined to prosecute this case. He's a highly-paid public servant and if he can't take the heat of a few posters being left on his front porch, then he's probably in the wrong line of work.

Anti-war rally in Washington

I didn't watch CSPAN coverage of Saturday's anti-war rally in Washington, but here's an interesting comment by someone who attended.

"Joe and I are heading down to the peace rally in an hour, to take photos, etc. And I'm watching it on C-Span right now, and I'm asking myself - though I'm not surprised - why is some woman from the "US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation" speaking? And why is she speaking, ad naseum, about the "Israeli occupation of Palestine" rather than speaking aboutthe war in Iraq? She gave 10% of her speech to Iraq and spent the rest of the time railing against Israel?

First off, wrong topic.

Second off, way to alienate most Jews in America, a rather influential group of people we could use as allies.

Third off, way to alienate the rest of us who don't hate Israel, don't hate the Palestinians, and don't feel that the problem over there will be solved by simply blaming everyting on Israel - there's more than enough blame to go around. And in any case, this rally has nothing to do with Israel leaving Palestine, so STFU and stay on topic.

I'm sorry, but as many of you know, I tend to have issues with "peace rallies," not because I have issues with peace or rallies, but because I find myself cringing when I see the substance of them, who's attending, the issues they feel compelled to bring up (Mumia, Israel, trans fats, the suffering of amoeba, whatever). Would it kill someone organizing these events to tell the speakers to speak about Iraq or don't speak at all? Would it kill people to try to present their message in a way that appeals to themajority of Americans?..."

A later post from the same blogger was more positive.

11 Rules for Radicals

After mentioning Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals recently , I came across a short summary on the internet . While the whole book is worth reading here's the essence.

In 1971, Saul Alinsky wrote an entertaining classic on grassroots organizing titled Rules for Radicals. Those who prefer cooperative tactics describe the book as out-of-date. Nevertheless, it provides some of the best advice on confrontational tactics. Alinsky begins this way:

What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.

His “rules” derive from many successful campaigns where he helped poor people fighting power and privilege

For Alinsky, organizing is the process of highlighting what is wrong and convincing people they can actually do something about it. The two are linked. If people feel they don’t have the power to change a bad situation, they stop thinking about it.

According to Alinsky, the organizer — especially a paid organizer from outside — must first overcome suspicion and establish credibility. Next the organizer must begin the task of agitating: rubbing resentments, fanning hostilities, and searching out controversy. This is necessary to get people to participate. An organizer has to attack apathy and disturb the prevailing patterns of complacent community life where people have simply come to accept a bad situation. Alinsky would say, “The first step in community organization is community disorganization.”

Through a process combining hope and resentment, the organizer tries to create a “mass army” that brings in as many recruits as possible from local organizations, churches, services groups, labor unions, corner gangs, and individuals.

Alinsky provides a collection of rules to guide the process. But he emphasizes these rules must be translated into real-life tactics that are fluid and responsive to the situation at hand.

Rule 1: Power is not only what you have, but what an opponent thinks you have. If your organization is small, hide your numbers in the dark and raise a din that will make everyone think you have many more people than you do.

Rule 2: Never go outside the experience of your people.
The result is confusion, fear, and retreat.

Rule 3: Whenever possible, go outside the experience of an opponent. Here you want to cause confusion, fear, and retreat.

Rule 4: Make opponents live up to their own book of rules. “You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.”

Rule 5: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It’s hard to counterattack ridicule, and it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage.

Rule 6: A good tactic is one your people enjoy. “If your people aren’t having a ball doing it, there is something very wrong with the tactic.”

Rule 7: A tactic that drags on for too long becomes a drag. Commitment may become ritualistic as people turn to other issues.

Rule 8: Keep the pressure on. Use different tactics and actions and use all events of the period for your purpose. “The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. It is this that will cause the opposition to react to your advantage.”

Rule 9: The threat is more terrifying than the thing itself. When Alinsky leaked word that large numbers of poor people were going to tie up the washrooms of O’Hare Airport, Chicago city authorities quickly agreed to act on a longstanding commitment to a ghetto organization. They imagined the mayhem as thousands of passengers poured off airplanes to discover every washroom occupied. Then they imagined the international embarrassment and the damage to the city’s reputation.

Rule 10: The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative. Avoid being trapped by an opponent or an interviewer who says, “Okay, what would you do?”

Rule 11: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it. Don’t try to attack abstract corporations or bureaucracies. Identify a responsible individual. Ignore attempts to shift or spread the blame.

According to Alinsky, the main job of the organizer is to bait an opponent into reacting. “The enemy properly goaded and guided in his reaction will be your major strength.”

AFL-CIO and Day Laborer Group Announce Partnership

From the AFL-CIO Now Blog

The AFL-CIO and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) have reached a historic partnership agreement that will pave the way for AFL-CIO central labor councils and state federations and NDLON’s day laborer worker centers to work together on issues ranging from workplace rights to immigration reform to health and safety and other job-related concerns.

Wichita Sit-ins Recognized by NAACP

Sit-ins at lunch counters are a well-known part of the civil rights movement. There is a an important part of that story is almost unknown.

During the 1940s, CORE, the Congress on Racial Equality, an organization of socialists, pacificists, and others, used sit-ins to desegregate a number of restaurants in the Chicago area. Almost two decades later, sit-ins by Negro students in Nashville, Tennessee, and then to hundreds of communities across the South caught the nation's attention and helped intensify the modern civil rights movement.

But, the first student sit-ins of the modern civil rights movement took place, not in Nashville, not in Greensboro, North Carolina, but in Wichita, Kansas and Oklahoma City.

Today the national NAACP is recognizing those pioneers.

Christina Woods writes about it in the Wichita Eagle

It was 48 years ago today that Ron Walters and other members of the local NAACP Youth chapter sat down inside Dockum Drugstore in downtown Wichita.
By silently sitting to demand service, the youths, ages 15 to 22, were protesting the discriminatory practice that pushed black people outside to eat while white people dined inside.
Less than four weeks later, the business agreed on Aug. 11, 1958, to desegregate all nine of its Wichita locations.
Wichita's sit-in story is largely unknown outside of Wichita, even though it sparked sit-ins by the NAACP youth chapter in Oklahoma City.
But much of that anonymity should change today.
The National NAACP is officially recognizing Wichita's sit-in as the first youth-led lunch counter sit-in that brought about widespread changes.
Walters and a representative from the Oklahoma sit-in, Clara Luper, will accept the honor tonight during the organization's annual convention in Washington D.C.
"They're going to be recognized as the youth councils that led some of the first protests," said John C. White, the NAACP's national spokesman.

The Eagle also has a very nice multimedia feature on the sit-ins.

After looking at the multimedia stuff, I thought, "gee, the Eagle should have reprinted some of their articles and photos from the period. Woods explains why they didn't.

The Eagle carried just one article on the local demonstration. No photos were published.
"Those stories never got in," said Mary Cooley Gardner, a former Eagle columnist and reporter from 1957 to 1961.
Staff was instructed not to write articles that would upset the downtown business community.

For more about the Wichita sit-ins and civil rights movement, read Gretchen Cassel Eick's Dissent in Wichita.