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Double your contribution for peace and justice! Thanks to a generous donor, new WNPJ memberships in 2013 will be matched, up to $2,000. Not yet a member? Please join and help us build a stronger statewide network! Already a member? Why not get a gift membership for a friend who shares your commitment to peace and justice? |
Student activists at UW-Madison are celebrating a victory after playing key role in winning restitution for 1200 Honduran workers who had been employed manufacturing Nike merchandise and then were fired without being paid millions in back wages. In April, after a months-long campaign by the Student-Labor Action Coalition, the UW became the first university in the U.S. to cancel its apparel contract with Nike over the issue of back pay for the fired workers. Cornell University then threatened to cancel its Nike contract as well and officials at other universities warned Nike that it would face larger student protests once the fall semester began, ultimately forcing Nike to agree to pay back wages to the Honduran workers.
Wisconsin mayors John Dickert of Racine and Paul Soglin of Madison were among those speaking in favor of a resolution passed by the US Conference of Mayors Monday, calling for efforts to end our current wars and asking the President and Congress to "bring these war dollars home to meet vital human needs."
The last time the mayors did that was during the Vietnam war. David Swanson offers a detailed rundown on how it happened.
Mayor Soglin also described the resolution on CNN. You can view the video below.
In a stunning advance, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers has reached a far-reaching agreement with the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange that will improve pay and working conditions in 90 percent of Florida’s tomato industry. The victory is the result of a years-long strategy of targeting well-known brands that purchase tomatoes from FTGE growers, including Taco Bell, McDonalds and Whole Foods. The CIW’s combination of worker-led organizing in the fields and publicity about farmworkers’ conditions among the general public resulted in a series of agreements from food companies to pay an extra penny a pound for tomatoes, a 60 percent raise for tomato workers. In Wisconsin, Interfaith Coalition for Worker Justice and Student Labor Action Coalition worked to educate the public about the CIW campaign. Read more about the Immokalee Workers victory here...
WNPJ members, Will Williams and Vicki Berenson led a 2 hour workshop at the Wisconsin State Human Relations Association’s Statewide Equity and Multicultural Education Conference on November 18. Will is a member of Veterans for Peace and Vicki is a member of the Madison Friends Meeting. Both have been involved with counter-recruiting efforts through TAME – www.tamewisconsin.org. The workshop was called "Alternative Perspectives on Military Recruiting and Service".
The Swiss Cabinet announced today a plan to completely phase out the country's use of nuclear power in favor of wind, solar and other renewables. The announcement comes days after an estimated 20,000 people took part in the biggest anti-nuclear protest in Switzerland in 25 years. The recommendation will be debated in parliament, which is expected to make a final decision next month. If approved, Switzerland's five nuclear reactors would go offline between 2019 and 2034 after they reach their average lifespan of 50 years. Switzerland now gets about 40% of its electricity from nuclear power. Full story here...
States across the country are taking a hard look at "Supermax" prisons and the widespread use of solitary confinement at those facilities, citing high costs, lawsuits and new research that shows that the Supermax model doesn't reduce prison violence. Illinois will be closing its Supermax facility, saying $26 million cost of the prison - about $62,000 per inmate per year - could no longer be justified in a time of budget crisis. Mississippi has cut the number of prisoners kept in solitary confinement by nearly 90 percent, and Colorado reduced the number of prisoners in solitary by half in the past year and will shut down a Supermax facility that is only two years old. In Maine,
Reversing their earlier decision, U.S. Consular officers have now issued a visa for Dr. Wee Teck Young (left) to come to the U.S. for a multi-state speaking tour as part of the U.S.-Mexico “Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity” organized by Global Exchange. Dr. Young prefers to go by the name Hakim, a name bestowed on him after he served as a public health doctor among refugees on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. In the Dari language, “Hakim” means “learned one and local healer.” The visa approval comes after Voices for Creative Nonviolence, Global Exchange, and Fellowship of Reconciliation urged their members and supporters to contact the State Dept. on Hakim's behalf. Responding to the news, Hakim said, "Your support letters to me and to the U.S. Embassies in support of my U.S. visa re-application encourage me deeply in my wish and work for global peace. Your acts of love show me that without extending our hand to one another, neither simple nor difficult steps towards a better, non-violent world could be taken successfully."
Thanks to a grassroots campaign on her behalf, Afghan human rights activist and former Member of Parliament Malalai Joya has now been granted a visa by the U.S. State Department, a little over a week after her visa application was initially rejected. Joya, an outspoken critic of the war in Afghanistan, was informed by State Department officials that she would not be allowed into the U.S. for an extensive speaking tour because she “lived underground” and was “unemployed,” even though she had been granted visas 4 times over the past several years (Joya, who has spoken against the control of the Afghan government by corrupt warlords, is often forced to go into hiding in response to death threats she has received.) Although the State Department's delay caused her to miss events scheduled for New York and Washington DC, she was able to appear in Boston on March 25th in a joint appearance at Harvard with Noam Chomsky to present "The case for withdrawal from Afghanistan."
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WNPJ member group Solidarity Sing-Along was awarded ACLU of Wisconsin's Civil Libertarian of the Year award for 2011. The award was presented on March 17th in Milwaukee at the ACLU's annual Bill of Rights Celebration. |
Accepting the award for the group, Sing-Along director Chris Reeder said, "Prior to last year, I thought about my first amendment rights, but only in an abstract way. I knew of them, and I valued them, but I had not made an effort to use them, and I hadn’t worked to protect them. That all changed when I began attending the Solidarity Sing Along. And now, after having stood in my state’s capitol and sung, every weekday, for an hour, without a permit, for over a year, over three hundred times now, I’ll never look at those rights the same way again. What I think about now, every day, is how easily those rights can be taken away if we don’t defend them. More importantly, how easily they can be taken for granted if we don’t exercise them." (Read MORE to see photos: Members of Solidarity Sing-Along at the ACLU event....)
School of Americas Watch news: Step by step, the longest march can be won. You did it! After protests and nonviolent direct actions, thousands of petitions, and letters from religious leaders and Members of Congress, the White House has agreed to sit down with an SOA Watch delegation to discuss the School of the Americas / Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation mid-October. WNPJ has been involved with this movement over the last years, with our former Lifetime Achievement Awardee, Maureen McDonnell, OP leading the way. And longtime WNPJ member Fred Brancel of Monona (photo) served 6 months in a federal prison, for crossing the line at Ft. Benning, GA several years ago. Many of our members have made the annual trip to Geoargia each November in protest, written letters, and made call to our representatives. Thank you all. Read more below, of what you can do now is support of this upcoming meeting.
608-250-9240, Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice, 122 State Street, Suite 405A, Madison, WI 53703, Send an email to the office diane@wnpj.org.
WNPJ is a member of the Community Shares of Wisconsin.
