Protest Planned for New Orleans Meeting of Powerful Right-Wing Think Tank

From our friends at the Student Labor Action Project LSU:
Stand up, and fight back in New Orleans! The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) will be hosting their annual summit at the Marriott in New Orleans from August 1-6th. We will meet them there to let them know they can’t pull the strings from the behind the curtain any more!

The ALEC Protest Team will be coordinating a day of protest against ALEC’s anti-social policies on August 5th. At 2:00pm, we will be holding a public demonstration at the Hale Boggs Federal Building on Poydras and Camp, followed by a march to the Marriott. A number of leaders active in the fight to protect the public interest in Louisiana and beyond will be speaking at the event.

What Is ALEC?

They meet in secret. They write our laws. And they want us silent.
ALEC is a conservative think-tank run by right-wing politicians and corporate and financial interests within the banking industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the big oil and gas industries, and others. They are aligned to many right-wing and conservative interests, including the election-manipulating Koch Industries.

In Arizona, the text for anti-immigrant SB 1070 came from ALEC model legislation. In the Midwest, the attack on public servants had the same source. In Wisconsin and Ohio, ALEC is promoting voter ID laws that will disproportionately disenfranchise students. And finally, in Indiana, ALEC provided the text for a state resolution calling for an end to much federal environmental regulation. In 2009 alone, ALEC was behind over 800 laws written for state governments. Scratch the surface of right-wing state legislation, and you’ll most likely find ALEC underneath.

On March 15th, University of Wisconsin Professor Bill Cronon posted a study guide on his blog on the history and actions of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). He asked: What is behind the “sudden and impressively well-organized” wave of right-wing legislation targeting workers, students, women, immigrants, and the environment in state legislatures? He found that all roads led to ALEC.

For offering his research to the public, Professor Cronon then immediately found his character, privacy, and livelihood under attack by the GOP.

What Are We Doing?

Hoping to carry on the movement begun by a wonderful group of Ohio activists, we here in Baton Rouge and New Orleans are working to put together an even bigger demonstration that lets them know that they can’t hide and we will fight them nation wide!

ALEC’s legislation seeks to solve “crises” by attacking the vulnerable – often in ways that do very little to address the problems at hand, and that ultimately function to transform power structures in favor of private interests. We want to use this day of resistance to do more than just express discontent. We want to convey the message that there are policy alternatives to ALEC’s legislation – alternatives which can only be pursued as a part of an independent political movement of the workers. It’s time the bosses are held accountable for the crisis they created, rather than the path of austerity and union busting!

What Can You Do?

First, we need you at the Hale Boggs Federal Building on Poydras Street and Camp on August 5 at 2:00pm!

Resistance means feet on the ground and people in the street. Hop on a bus, take a train, or car pool with friends. We are communicating to a breadth of organizations and individuals negatively impacted by ALEC’s agenda that the time to fight back and propose our own solutions has come.

Second, we are looking for representatives of the many movements that ALEC works against to speak before our March to the Marriott. ALEC is a shining example of the right-wing’s united front of corporate and political forces, and they can only be stopped by the strength of solidarity. We, the working class, are poor, Black, immigrants, LGBTQIA, women, and union members. The only way we can put a stop to the work ALEC is doing is to unite in an independent political movement that not only challenges ALEC and it’s members on the streets but also in the halls of government. We must show them that we can fix the problems we face without breaking the backs of the working class!

You can email us at slaplsu@gmail.com or contact@protestalec.org.

Louisiana Unions Organize “We Stand with Wisconsin” Solidarity Rally Tomorrow in Baton Rouge

From a press release by SEIU Local 21LA:

“We Stand with Wisconsin,” a solidarity rally, will be held at 5:00pm on Wednesday outside of the Baton Rouge City Hall (the Governmental Building) located at 222 St. Louis Street.

The event is being organized by Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 21LA along with American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the state AFL-CIO, the Building and Construction Trades Unions, and other Louisiana unions to show local support for the Wisconsin nurses, firefighters, teachers and all the other public employees under fire by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s attack on Wisconsin working families.

“We want to tell our Louisiana leaders that politicians like Governor Walker must stop scapegoating the working families of this country for the nation’s economic woes caused by the Wall Street greed that crashed our economy,” said Louis Reine, president of the Louisiana State Federation of Labor.

“Today Wisconsin … tomorrow Louisiana? We won’t allow it. More than a year after the financial crisis and bailout, working families are still reeling from the effects of a shattered economy. Politicians should be creating good jobs – not attacking nurses, teachers and firefighters.”

Charles Selders, a city-parish employee in Baton Rouge and SEIU Local 21LA leader, agrees. “We need our elected officials to create jobs, not wage attacks on middle class and working families to score political points with big donors,” Selders said. “The real bad guys are the rich CEOs and Wall Street bankers not the hardworking people who provide vital services to our communities.”

For more information about the “We Stand With Wisconsin” solidarity rally, please call Jewel Bush, SEIU Local 21LA Communications Specialist, at (504) 322-4243 or email Jewel. Bush@seiu21la.org.

LJI Guest Column: Standing up for Worker's Rights, By Ted Quant

May 1st is International Labor Day, also called May Day. I will be celebrating May Day at a rally and second line sponsored by the Congress of Day Labors that will also be raising the demand for the passage of a city ordinance making wage theft a crime in New Orleans.

I urge you to join me on May 1st, in the common cause of human rights and worker solidarity, starting at 11:30am at Armstrong Park.

May 1st is a day of international working class solidarity. It was born in the United States on May 1st, 1886, when more than 300,000 workers across the United States walked off their jobs to demand the 8-hour day. It spread from the United States around the world and eventually won the 8-hour day in country after country.

We don't have to look around the world for international working class solidarity. Globalization and the Katrina disaster have placed the international working class in our city. This new reality is creating for us both a threat and opportunity. The threat is that we will blame and victimize immigrants for the lack of jobs and low wages, instead of uniting in a fight for our shared need for jobs, peace and justice in our community and in the world.

May 1st is a day to seize this opportunity and to begin building the solidarity we need for the challenges ahead. The old slogans, “an injury to one is an injury to all,” and “solidarity forever” are as true now as they ever were. Let us unite on this International Labor Day and make the first concrete act of solidarity be a united effort to pass the city ordinance making wage theft a crime in New Orleans. People of every race and ethnicity are impacted by wage theft in New Orleans. Also honest businesses that pay their workers their just wages are undermined by the competition with the criminal businesses that steal from their workers. This is truly a case where, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Ted Quant is the director of the Twomey Center for Peace Through Justice, based at Loyola University in New Orleans. The Twomey Center seeks to shape social justice consciousness through education, and to take action on critical social problems confronting society.