HungryBlues

Hungry Blues Has MOVED

This blog now lives at

http://hungryblues.net

Please update your bookmarks, blogrolls, rss feeds, etc. accordingly.

All comments and trackbacks on this site are now closed.

All existing content, including comments, has been migrated to the new site.

I will continue to maintain this site until I finish the long, tedious process of manually updating all of the internal links on the new site. Until that process is complete, internal links on older posts may take you back to this site.

If you want to comment on a post you have found here, copy and paste the title of that post into the search box in the sidebar of the new site. The search result should take you to the post in the new site.

For more on the site migration see this page on hungryblues.net.

"Diggin' coals so the world can run / And operators can have their fun"

I started to post Pete Seeger's rendition of Malvina Reynolds' "Mrs. Clara Sullivan's Letter," as a tribute to the twelve miners who died after the explosion that trapped them in the Sago Mine on Monday. But I stopped myself because I thought that it might be a stretch to apply the words of the song to this particular situation. This disaster was in West Viriginia; the Reynolds song is about Perry County, KY. This disaster is about safety violations and bad oversight; the Reynolds song is about other labor problems, like "goons on the picket line" who intimidate striking workers.

Turns out there was no reason to hesitate. In one of yesterday's Portside mailings, Jack Radey wrote:

If you really like Dramamine, the NPR reporting on the Sago Disaster was truly charming. They prattled on and on about how the news media got the story wrong, how did this happen? How were the wrong headlines printed?How were people put on this emotional roller coaster?

Then they interviewed a local pastor about the importance of accepting all this and not getting angry. They, like the rest of the media, mentioned in passing that a fight broke out where the families were waiting when the news of the dead was announced. But why were people fighting? There was even mention in one broadcast that the local SWAT team was deployed around the corner from where the families waited, in case disorder broke out. Oh, mine safety violations? Why would that be news? No doubt the families were so angry at the misleading news. Maybe about the fact that 12 of their men were killed in a mine with triple the normal (bad enough) rate of safety violations?

That the local goon squad is there to protect the mine owner and his property from the wrath of the families of the men murdered for his greed?

Oh come now, would anyone suggest that would be news? Remember why our flag (not the one on the courthouse, where no doubt those $25 fine were handed out), our flag, is the color it is?

And then it turns out the Sago Mine is owned by an Ashland, Kentucky company, known as Horizon Natural Resources (HNR). HNR had been facing bankruptcy since 2002 and was bought out in 2004 by the International Coal Group (ICG), led by New York billionaire Wilbur Ross. Ross' m.o. isn't pretty:

After the sale, six union operations previously owned by Horizon were shut down. The nonunion mines remained open.

Under the bankruptcy and reorganization plan, U.S. Federal Bankruptcy Judge William Howard in August agreed that Horizon should not be responsible for $800 million in health insurance contractual obligations to more than 3,000 active and retired United Mine Workers of America union members.

The judge threw out the contract and voided the collective bargaining agreement to make the sale of the mines more appealing to Ross and his partners.

As John Bennett, whose father James was killed in the Sago Mine, said to Matt Lauer on the Today Show (via American Rights At Work):

It’s not just the men that go down there every day that know the mines is [sic] unsafe…we have no protection for our workers. We need to get the United Mine Workers back in these coal mines, to protect [against] these safety violations, to protect these workers.

It's the same old story:

Lauer then asked Bennett “You feel as if the miners speak out they are at risk of losing their jobs?” “Yeah” Bennett answered.

Lest we forget where the rest of the responsibility for these deaths resides, David Corn explained the big picture three and a half years ago (via Jodan Barab), after another mine disaster, in Green Tree, Pa., which, fortunately, was not fatal:

That spirit, though, was not present earlier this year when the Bush administration proposed cutting the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) by $7 million. The administration defended the 6-percent reduction by noting the number of coal mines has been decreasing. Yet coal mining fatalities have gone up for three years in a row. There were 42 mining fatalities in 2001, 29 in 1998. In March, Senator Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, maintained the funding cut would cause a 25 percent reduction in the government's mine-safety inspection workforce. As of March, 612 federal mine inspectors were responsible for enforcing safety regulations in 25 states, and there were signs the system has not been functioning well.

Thus Jordan Barab concludes:

And finally, let's take one more step back and take a look at the even bigger picture. This administration has been obsessed with one thing since it took office: tax cuts and favor for its friends. What that translates into is "Shrinking government..." -- at least the part that provides protections for workers -- "to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub" as Bush Administration ideolouge Grover Norquist says.

Well "government" isn't some abstract thing. Shrinking government means that agencies like OSHA and MSHA have less power to enforce the law and maintain safe working conditions. So, while drowning government in a bathtub, we're also asphyxiating workers in a coal mine.

So, then, here's Pete, in memory of the twelve men and in solidarity with the one survivor and with all of the affected families and friends. You can read the lyrics here.

"If we're so smart and have all the answers, how come the movement is so small?"

Last month, I posted about Wade Rathke's self-seving, racist attack on Curtis Muhammad, Community Labor United, and the People's Hurricane Relief Fund. Though I posted Open Letter to the Labor Movement, an important response from a group of activists, I never got around to the further commentary I had promised. In the meantime, one of the signers of the Open Letter, Marsha Steinberg, has written a response of her own, much stronger than anything I could have done, in the wake of a supposed apology from Rathke to Muhammad. Immediately following Marsha's comments is the "apology" from Rathke, to which she is responding.

Marsha Steinberg to Wade Rathke:

Your apology to Curtis Muhammad again badly misses the point!

It is not personal attacks that are the most relevant although I personally doubt your explanation of "being over the top" because Chalabi was a liar and a thief, facts which I am sure you knew when you wrote the piece. It is the attack on CLU and The People's Hurricane Relief Fund ("couldn't organize a two car funeral") that deserve an apology. I personally believe that the attack was done in a personal fit over the fact that a coalition of community based, African American led, groups without staff or union money had out organized you and you felt free, as a white male, to attack them without fear of rebuke. How could they have accomplished some thing that you hadn't; specifically getting recognition in the national progressive movement here and in Europe as the legitimate voice of the poor backs of New Orleans which you think of as your personal turf. The arrogance and racism of the comments continue to send me "over the top".

As a SEIU staffer I see the same syndrome every day. White, mostly male, leadership at the top, feel free to plan for the lives of the membership of a union that is overwhelmingly poor, mostly female, people of color. They remain convinced that in every situation they know better than the members themselves and the field staff, what the members need and should care about. Only they know how to plan and build for the future. Again, what racist crap!

At some point the continued top down approach of the ACORNS and SEIUs will either have to be abandoned and genuine leadership be allowed to emerge and be nurtured with real education, training and sharing of the members resources or this country will continue it’s descent into fascism and barbarism.

I call on all white progressive activists to see this approach for what it is and understand that we must be prepared to relinquish the privilege and the right to lead that has come to us from a racist and classist country built on the labor of those without power or privilege. We must ask ourselves: if we're so smart and have all the answers, how come the movement is so small? We must accept the right of community-based groups to lead and speak for themselves. We must share our skills and resources generously. We must call racism when we see it. “If not us, who? If not now, when?”

Still today, white areas of New Orleans have electricity at least part of the day while the adjacent black areas have none. Whites are returning to the city while black males convicted of no crime are held hidden in jails throughout the South. Wade, why don't you write an over the top piece about that?

I came to labor as a long time community organizer because with a dues base, that's where all the money is. I was actually shocked to see the disregard for the members’ priorities and the 'we know what's best' attitudes.

I call on organized labor to examine its practices openly and honestly and to share the resources with community folks and their organizations. Rhetorically we say that our members and the community are the same people. Let's make that real. Let's admit that labor does not have the right to pick the leadership of community based organizations or expect them to follow labor's lead without true coalitions of equals. One start would be to post this message on your blog which I doubt you will do. Let's have an open dialogue about the nature of our organizations and labor's obligation to freely share resources and relinquish leadership.

In the meantime, I will send your "apology" around to my lists with my response.

Looking forward to an honest dialogue.

Wade Rathke's "apology" to Curtis Muhammad:

Posted by: Wade Rathke - November 3, 2005 02:38:04

When I wrote these comments a month ago, I was searching for a way to grieve for my city. It is amazing to find how few people really care about what happens to New Orleans on one hand and the level of opportunism from many folks who couldn’t find the city without a map. I still feel that way.

Nonetheless, there were 3-4 comments we received from people several weeks after the blog ran either posted to the blog or sent to me directly. All the ones to me I answered.

Their message was that the treatment of Curtis Muhammad was wrong. They took particular umbrage at the metaphorical comparison with Chalabi.

Chalabi after years in exile returned in hopes of running Iraq. Though that has not worked out exactly as he – and some of his supporters -- dreamed, he has been a constant presence in the political life of the country since the occupation. He in fact is now a member of the ruling government with a significant position in the coalition arrangements and a base in various sides of the religious power blocs.

Feelings about Chalabi are obviously intense. My point was lost here and insult was taken, where observation and metaphor were meant. I am very sorry for all of that. My train was going one way and ended up on a side track. Reading the piece again one is reminded of how dangerous a form of communication these unfiltered, unedited blogs can be. There is a lesson for me to remember there, but my lesson should not have been at the expense of others, and I’m deeply sorry it occurred. I played with fire, and I got burned.

Curtis also contacted me directly by e-mail indicating his unhappiness with the piece. I sent him back an email offering to get together with him and straighten it out directly. I did not receive a reply.

I did see Curtis while I was visiting the October 29th rally in Baton Rouge on the capitol steps. I walked over to visit with him. He was still understandably not happy about all of this. He asked for a public apology.

I meant no harm to Curtis and in my ham handed and inarticulate way, I thought I had expressed that even in the piece. Obviously I failed, therefore I agree with Curtis that an apology is warranted, and here he has it, because I am sincerely sorry for any inadvertent insult I have given him and any offense he has felt. None was meant, but to the degree some was taken, that’s on me, and I hope over time perhaps he will come to accept my apology, because he certainly has it here, exactly where the offense was rendered.

This post-Katrina syndrome is real. There is no question that I am "over the top" these days, and more than one person has pointed it out to me. My boiling point is very low. My judgment is not as sound as it sometimes needs to be. I bet I am not the only one in the same situation. All of which makes this even more regrettable. Untoward comments, like mine, blurted out thoughtless to the full impact, are perhaps felt more deeply and taken more hurtfully than normal times would allow.

An Open Letter to the Labor Movement regarding Katrina

(Via MR Zine.)

Brothers and Sisters,

The crisis for the working class (whether employed or not, waged or not) continues to grow. Even as the nation, and especially the poor and Black working class of the Gulf states and New Orleans in particular, tries to pick up the pieces after Katrina's (and Rita's) devastation, the assault by capital and their partners in the government grows more intense -- the suspension of Davis Bacon and OHSA safeguards, plans to defund the safety net to finance business interests in the reconstruction of the region, little thought to how those left behind will find a home in the reconstruction process and its outcome. The Democrats have failed to articulate a credible alternative to this plan or address this crisis in any significant way.

It is also true that the flip side of disaster is opportunity. For the trade unions the moment presents a unique opportunity, not open since the sit-downs of the 1930s, to bring dignity, voice, a living wage and benefits in the form of unions to the masses left behind in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, particularly the poor and African Americans. It is a well-established fact that Blacks are the most pro-union force in the U.S. They have proven time and time again to be this country's most dedicated fighters of oppression. But the trade union movement may not be able to take advantage of this opportunity unless it addresses issues not yet confronted in any meaningful way by the debate and programs of the two new federations.

Now these issues have surfaced in the wake of Katrina, specifically in a piece by ACORN and SEIU leader Wade Rathke entitled "Chalabi and Katrina" (www.ChiefOrganizer.org, 3 October 2005) that disparages an organization, Community Labor United, and one of its principal organizers, Curtis Muhammad, with deep roots in the voter registration drives in Mississippi, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, and for the last 20 years a part of the New Orleans community.

Days after the hurricane and while struggling with their own displacement, CLU folks began to pull together what has become the People's Hurricane and Relief Fund. Since then they have held two national meetings, the first on September 10th with participation from 49 different organizations, and the second, September 30th-October 1st, with more than 100 participants from prisoners' and women's rights groups, predominantly black cultural, faith-based, and educational groups, non-union worker organizations, community groups, legal scholars, and the ACLU. A Coordinating Committee, representing the breadth and community organizations throughout the Gulf Region as well as CLU's own base, was chosen by the survivors, and working subcommittees and 6 regional communications centers (organizing offices) have been established. There has been widespread support for the PHRF both nationally and internationally. (For more, see the PHRF website: www.communitylaborunited.net.)

With this background we want to examine the issues raised by "Chalabi and Katrina":

1. Confront racism within our movement. White leaders, even those whose membership base is predominantly Black and Latino, should be careful about making pronouncements about who is genuine and who has the requisite skills. Confronting racism means understanding that our culture and economic and political system is build on racialized capital and we operate within that context. Diversity should not be confused with power. If we are serious about bringing unions to the south (all those red states and their right-to-work laws), then we need to cede power to those very folks we seek to organize. The job of unions is to help give these forces additional information and resources they might not currently have so that they can chart their own future.

2. This movement must be built democratically from the bottom up, engaging the base to develop tactics and strategies that speak to their constituencies' own needs, culture, and history. The grassroots must control their own organization and movement. Remarks that belittle the work of grassroots activists of many years standing, organizing on a model based on experience among working-class and poor Blacks of the south that does not fit the union template, have no place in the labor movement. We have too much to learn from each other.

3. Fund and collaborate, and be prepared to take leadership from indigenous Black (and Latino, Asian, and Native American) forces on the ground. Many of these forces prior to the hurricane were not organized in ways that the unions are. They do not have a large paid staff, or offices with all the trappings. But that does not mean that organizations like CLU are "little bitty" or insignificant or cannot "handle money" or could not "organize a two car funeral" (as Rathke puts it in "Chalabi and Katrina"). This disrespect fails to acknowledge, on one hand, that the base of the labor movement (and with it dues dollars) and that of the CLU are the same, and on the other hand, the severe obstacles, principally racism and the legacy of slavery, that on-the-ground folks face in the south. Networking and informal ties have protected and nourished their organizing long after efforts like Operation Dixie or the Civil Rights Movement have moved on or declared victory. Organizations like CLU demand our respect and support.

4. Build a united front against the enemies of working people, employed or the unemployed poor. Our task is so huge that we can not afford to undercut each other with name-calling, patronizing statements, and inappropriate remarks. We must air differences in a principled way. Many of us work with ACORN in our cities and are on good terms with many organizers from that group. We cannot believe that such a provocative and destructive letter was circulated by Rathke to other ACORN leaders or reflects their views. We hope that people of good will in ACORN will give some signals to disassociate themselves from this divisive and chauvinist tactic. None of us has discovered the sure-fire way to organize or build a movement. Let's not give our enemies more fire power than they already possess. The Cold War era purges of the labor movement should have taught us that.

We exist at what one might describe as a "Katrina moment." It is a moment of both reflection and action. It is a moment to better understand and unpack the issues of race and class that have become so obvious through this disaster. It is also a moment to challenge the prevailing neo-liberal economic theories that were partially to blame for the scope of the disaster and seem to be central to the discussion of the nature of reconstruction. It is also a moment for a mass response to the disaster, which means that this is not the time for any one organization to hold itself up as the central core or the provider of franchises. To put it in other terms, this may be a moment to lay the foundations for a rebirth of a labor movement that is in synch with other social forces that share our opposition to the steady slide toward barbarism.

In solidarity,

(In alphabetical order)

Ajamu Baraka, Executive Director, US Human Rights Network

Gene Bruskin, co-convener of USLAW*

Kathy Engel, founding Executive Director MADRE, cultural and communications worker

Ray Eurquhart, retired UE 150 volunteer organizer

Bill Fletcher, Jr., President, TransAfrica Forum

Badili Jones, member, SEIU Local 1985

Elly Leary, Vice President and Chief Negotiator, UAW 2324 (retired)

Eric Mann, veteran of CORE, SDS, and UAW

Marsha Steinberg, Field Representative/Organizer SEIU Local 660

Makani Themba-Nixon, Executive Director, The Praxis Project

Jerry Tucker, former member, International Executive Board, UAW

Steve Williams, Executive Director, People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER)

* for identification purposes only

White Labor Leader Wade Rathke Attacks Black-Led CLU/PHF

Wade Rathke is a seasoned organizer who helped found ACORN and SEIU Local 100 in the 1970s. He has remained strongly active in both groups and in a number of others. It is therefore all the more disturbing to see Rathke, a key player in building an organization that "pioneered multi- racial and multi-issue organizing," make such an concerted and destructive attack on Community Labor United and its Black leader Curtis Muhammad. On Friday, on his blog, Chief Organizer, Rathke was unbelievably condescending.

The most bizarre, and in some ways insulting, question I have been asked in the wake of Katrina is to identify groups to act as sponsor go betweens, just as if New Orleans was another foreign country like Iraq. It is insulting because whether we are talking about almost 10000 family members of ACORN in New Orleans or a couple of thousand members of Local 100 from the city – we have a base, it just doesn't happen to be in New Orleans, since it is caught in the diaspora now.

A good example is something called Community Labor United (CLU). This is a little bitty thing of maybe a dozen or two activists that has convened meetings off and on for years mostly on Saturdays for a while at Dillard and last I heard at the Treme Community Center. Mainly it is not labor but it has a couple of well intentioned AFT teachers that are personally involved and Curtis Muhammad, who ran a small local union for UNITE for a couple of years before he retired, was often in attendance. Mostly I didn't recognize the few other folks there, but some may have been students or whatever. Curtis is a good guy, but good love him, he wouldn't be able to really move any thing in New Orleans, because he doesn't have the base, the weight, the contacts, or the history god love him. To the best of my knowledge CLU was semi-defunct in recent years and certainly never had a paid staff or any capacity. Back 5-6 years ago when it was trying to first get started, we used to send folks to some of the Saturday meetings because they wanted to support our work and act as a bridge to other communities, but over the last couple of years that has also petered out. But now a wave of water moves through New Orleans and I actually get inquires about whether or not CLU can help in some way.

Huh? What? They are nice people and we count them as friends and allies, but are we talking about something real there? Of course not! Could they handle money? No reason to believe that. Do they have a base in New Orleans? No not whatsoever. Heck, I don't know if they could organize a two car funeral if they were driving both cars. They have only convened forums in the past to talk about stuff. If that was needed, they could do that I suppose, but there are a lot of folks who can do that.

What is truly bizarre about this attack is that the passing reference to Iraq is actually part of an extended conceit, in which Rathke compares CLU and Curtis Muhammad to Ahmad Chalabi.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had a candidate to front for the Iraqi people – Dr. Ahmad Chalabi. He had been running the Iraqi National Congress for many years from the United Kingdom. He had a degree from the University of Chicago. He was connected. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell was not as certain and neither was the Army. Each in turn had their own ex-pat Iraqi leaders who they hoped would get traction once repatriated to home soil.

Make no mistake though. When they were not in Iraqi, but working the world promoting schemes for liberation armies or business ventures or this or that, they had friends and sponsors based on the value that these men and their political formations served to their sponsors, not for the Iraqi people. They were tools in the hands of others.

Watching the embarrassment of the Bush Administration when it was trying harder to install provisional and puppet fronts for the invading force, I would have thought we might have all learned lessons about making sure as an a priori in these matters that one should be very, very careful not to anoint someone from afar, who can not operate on the ground. Now in the middle of the post-Katrina shakeout, I can see that this is not the case. Progressives seem not to want to learn what the conservatives have taught us. We want to make sure we learn the lessons the hard way with our own embarrassment.

In the wake of Katrina everyone and their brother seems to suddenly be interested in New Orleans and trying to figure out a way to insert themselves and their issues into the muck that remains of the city. Some of this is a good thing.

Where it gets hairy is when people try to create representatives for the people for the purposes of the sponsors and the donor community, just like we have seen in Iraq.

The obvious implication here is that CLU and Curtis Muhammad are not only corrupt, but pawns of the Bush administration. Complicating matters for Rathke is Naomi Klein, who has written positively of CLU in The Nation. Thus, in addition to his racist dismissal of Muhammad ("Curtis is a good guy, but good love him [sic], he wouldn't be able to really move any thing in New Orleans"), Rathke takes a sexist swipe at Klein.

How do Calabi's happen? Just this way! CLU was somehow mentioned by Naomi Klein in a piece in the Nation. I have no idea what she knows about New Orleans, but I imagine she was grabbing something out of the hat. The article gets reprinted some places, and all of a sudden Chalabi is out and about in New Orleans.

Naomi Klein isn't from New Orleans, but she is a good investigative reporter, who went to New Orleans early in the disaster and did important work. The article Rathke alludes to certainly shows Klein to have done her homework about community organizations, political leaders, and business interests in NOLA. Further, organizers who support the interests of low-income people should be very interested in what Klein turned up about the housing situation in New Orleans.

More to the point, however, CLU did not simply ride the wave of the fifteen minutes of fame that Klein afforded them. From the first weeks following the disaster, there was a steady stream of press releases and media appearances that indicated a broad political vision and ambitious and determined political organizing, which I was also hearing about through my own contacts among the Civil Right Movement veterans community, of which Muhammad is a well-known part.

If Rathke has a legitimate argument with CLU about organizing tactics or a different political vision, that's fine. He has not articulated anything concrete. Rather, he has engaged in the worst kind of baseless attack that plays on racial power dynamics and has the potential to be highly destructive to a grassroots people's movement.

I have more to say about the racism involved in Rathke's attack and in some of the responses to it and to Curtis Muhammad's response. But first I will post an important response to Rathke from a coalition of activists (next up).

Community Labor United: The People's Hurricane Relief Fund And Oversight Coalition

The website is up!

http://communitylaborunited.net

People’s Hurricane Relief Fund and Reconstruction Oversight Committee and Misssssippi Emergency Relief CommitteeWelcome IFCO/Pastors For Peace Caravan With Aid Donation

NEWS NEWS NEWS

WHAT: PRESS CONFERENCE

WHEN: 2:30PM FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 16 2005

WHERE: 927 PALMYRA, JACKSON, MS

People’s Hurricane Relief Fund and Reconstruction Oversight Committee and Misssssippi Emergency Relief Committee
Welcome IFCO/Pastors For Peace Caravan With Aid Donation

16 September 2005, Jackson, Mississippi: Eighteen days after the worst storm in U.S. history ravaged the Gulf Coast, displacing hundreds of thousands of people. The People’s Hurricane Relief Fund and Reconstruction Oversight Committee (PHRF, a coalition of more than 42 community organizations comprised of people displaced by the hurricane,) and the Mississippi Emergency Relief Committee, will receive seven truckloads of supplies from IFCO/Pastors For Peace.

PHRF, initiated by Community Labor United, a seven year old New Orleans based coalition dedicated to bringing together grassroots organizations to engage in dialogue, strategic planning and collective work, intends to build and maintain a network of community leaders, organizers and community based organizations to help meet the needs of people most affected by the hurricane, who are demanding that local, grassroots, black and progressive leadership oversee the relief, return and reconstruction process in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

"The poverty, the racism, the environmental hazards before Katrina were devastating. Now the open sores of this disregard, neglect and bias are bursting for the world to see the infection. It is absolutely imperative, urgent, for those most affected by this crisis to be in charge of all aspects of their own rebuilding," according to Curtis Muhammad of Community Labor United and PHF. We have been moved by the enormous response from people throughout the country and the world, which helps us continue. We thank the Pastors for Peace from the depth of our hearts."

The PHRF is setting up mechanisms to track and support evacuees, document their stories, work to reunite families who have been divided and dispersed, offer medical, legal, educational and other support and advocacy for those who have been displaced, oversee the testing of water, soil and air and direct the reconstruction of their homes, communities and lives. The new coalition is also appealing to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights to investigate conditions before, during and after Katrina.

"We are the ones who’ve been treated without care, dignity or respect in our own place, our own country. We are the ones who will decide how to claim what we know as home. The officials have engaged in what we consider to be criminal neglect. We feel like war survivors. We are watching our own lives in disbelief and we call on the world community to listen and support us," stated Mr. Muhammad.

IFCO/Pastors For Peace, a project of the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO), a New York ecumenical organization founded in 1967, has delivered humanitarian aid "friendship caravans" to Africa, Chiapas, Mexico, Central America and Cuba. The organization directs its donations towards victims of U.S. foreign policy and natural disasters. The seven trucks with supplies for Katrina survivors will go to Algiers/New Orleans, Lake Charles and Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Houston, Texas; Columbia, Gloster and Jackson Mississippi where the main office of PHF is located.

Visiting volunteer, poet Suheir Hammad observed after going to New Orleans: "The presence of the military vehicles and the private security firms running the streets of New Orleans didn’t translate to a feeling of comfort and security for the evacuees in the shelters we visited. People want to go home. They want to be reunited with their families. Mrs. Brown, in her late 70s, said over and over, I never thought I’d be in a shelter. She has been in The River Center shelter for two weeks."

According to Father Luis Barrios, Board of Directors member of IFCO/Pastors For Peace: "We are called in this moment to demonstrate not just charity but to demonstrate compassion for our sisters and brothers in this region who have been neglected by racist and classist institutions. We’re talking about a radical form of compassion in which we identify the problem and denounce the problem. Most importantly we help transform the problem by working for justice. Our commitment is for the long term."

For more information on The People’s Hurricane Relief Fund and Reconstruction Oversight Committee contact Curtis Muhammad at 601 346-5995, 504 236-4703 or Malcolm Suber at 504 931-7614.

Additional People's Hurricane Fund / Community Labor United Info From Becky Belcore

The last three posts, which were announcements from The People's Hurricane Fund / Community Labor United, came via Becky Belcore, who also said:

Hi Everyone,
 
First, we would like to thank everyone for your amazing work and energy around this project.  Since we put out the first call for action a few weeks ago, we have been inundated with calls, emails, donations and offers of support. We have been overwhelmed by your commitment and generosity.
 
In light of proposals made at the meeting in Baton Rouge, Community Labor United (CLU) has been working to establish a structure with work committees. Based on the concept of a national campaign with local leadership, this committee structure will allow the work to be efficient and transparent. CLU members will finish reviewing the final draft of the committee structure by tomorrow morning and a call for volunteers for committees will be issued tomorrow afternoon.

Please let everyone know that tax-deductible donations should be earmarked for the People's Hurricane Relief Fund and checks made out to:

Vanguard Public Foundation
383 Rhode Island St., Ste 301
San Francisco, CA  94103

 
For more information about the People's Hurricane Relief Fund & Reconstruction Project, please email bbelcore[at]hotmail[dot]com.

Website coming soon!

Below is some information about the work we have been doing. Thank you again for all of your help and support!  We look forward to working together!
 
Sincerely,
Community Labor United

People's Hurricane Relief Fund and Reconstruction Oversight Committee: Baton Rouge Meeting Report

15 September, 2005
Jackson, Mississippi

In the wake of the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States, intensified by catastrophic, criminal government neglect and racist repression, Community Labor United -- a New Orleans based coalition dedicated to creating spaces for grassroots organizations to engage in dialogue, strategic planning and build collective work -- has been facilitating the development of a People's Hurricane Relief Fund and Reconstruction Oversight Committee.

More than 42 organizations participated in the convening meeting of the People's Hurricane Fund in Baton Rouge on Saturday September 10, 2005, to develop a People's Oversight Committee with the purpose of overseeing all aspects of recovery and reconstruction for our people. The Committee is dedicated to building and maintaining a coordinated network of community leaders, organizers and community based organizations with the capacity and organizational infrastructure to help meet the needs of people most affected by Katrina, and to facilitate an organizing process that will demand local, grassroots black and progressive leadership in the relief, return and reconstruction process in New Orleans.

The evacuees from Hurricane Katrina call on the world community to support our demands for determining our own future. The population of New Orleans is 67% black, 40% illiterate, with more than 30 % living below the poverty line. The abandonment, neglect and militarization by the government have led community leaders and evacuees to determine that we will take the necessary, comprehensive steps to redevelop our communities, our homes, our lives, attend to our well being. The official entities -- federal and local government agencies -- have criminally failed the black survivors of Katrina, and are engaged in the militarization of our city, constituting a form of ethnic cleansing, what we believe to be a gross violation of civil and international human rights. We believe ourselves to be operating without a government, and like ravaged and attacked communities throughout the world, we call upon conscious and compassionate people throughout this nation and the world to support us in our claim to determine our destinies.

We are committed to creating space to engage all those who want to work in support of our recovery and reconstruction, within the United States and throughout the world community.

We are developing working committees and will call for volunteers to begin to sign up for committees on Tuesday, September 20, 2005.   Some examples of the work that needs volunteers is:

• documentation of all evacuees, their whereabouts and condition
• community organizing
• meeting the health care needs of evacuees
• legal advocacy, exploration of human rights and civil rights abuses, wrongful deaths, and other legal issues
• teachers and educators to work with our displaced children
• assist in support for all those still in shelters, monitoring of the conditions, publicizing the abuses and advocating on behalf of evacuees
• help in collecting the stories of displaced New Orleanians, including our vision of the new New Orleans
• publicize all aspects of our work
• experts to test the air, water and soil in preparation for reconstruction
• engineers, architects and solar experts to advise and participate in reconstruction.

International Call
We will be presenting a petition on behalf of New Orleans and Gulf Coast Region Survivors of Hurricane Katrina to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights to investigate the conditions that brought about the worst disaster in U.S. history and to help ensure social justice for the Survivors, their rights to return to their communities, economic redress for their losses, and a speedy reconstruction of new communities with affordable housing for all and repaired levees and other protections against preventable tragedies.

We call on international human rights communities to join in the demand to keep the spotlight on the actions of the U.S. government, to hold it accountable for its actions, and to support the self determination of Katrina survivors.

We call on international human rights monitors to come to New Orleans to show the world the disgraceful actions perpetrated against the people in our communities.

Principles: Community Labor United

CLU devoted its first three months to developing the following Principles of Unity:

We are community leaders, labor leaders, and cultural workers committed to ending the exploitation of oppressed peoples everywhere.

We believe that all people have the right and responsibility to determine their destiny.

Our organizations and unions are committed to building a society where the realities of race, gender, class, and sexual orientation are not barriers to human progress.

We are committed to building a society where the bottom line interests of corporations and the rich are not balanced on the backs of workers and the poor.

We are committed to building local, regional, national, and world economies that are democratic, just, ecological, and do not exploit labor, culture, and natural resources.

We are committed to building an organization of organizations and individuals, focused on educating, organizing, and mobilizing the masses within our organizations and communities from the bottom up.
 
We believe in the prospect of multiracial and trans-generational efforts to develop our communities.

The People's Hurricane Relief & Reconstruction Project Statement of Demands

The U.S. government, which has failed to rescue victims of Hurricane Katrina and provide adequately for many survivors, has recently announced that it will spend more than $50 billion to reconstruct New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. 

On Saturday September 8, a group of New Orleans activists and supporters from around the country met in Baton Rouge, LA, to plan a people's response to the crisis caused by Hurricane Katrina.   This meeting was called by Community Labor United (CLU), a coalition of progressive community based organization in New Orleans.  The purpose was to ensure that every displaced person be allowed to return to his or her homes, participate in the reconstruction process and call for transparency of the billions of dollars appropriated by Congress for relief and reconstruction.

U.S. government officials have deliberately and effectively scattered our people throughout the United States.   Thousands of families have been broken up- children from their mothers; husbands from their wives; brothers and sisters from each other.

The attendees came to the general conclusion that the most fundamental demand must be the right of the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast to return to their homes and their communities and participate in reconstruction.   This encompasses the following:

• First, the government must provide funds for all families to be reunited. The databases of FEMA and other organizations must be made public.
• Second, the more than $50 billion belongs to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. We demand a Victims Compensation Fund as was done after 9/11 for the people in the World Trade Center in New York City.
• Third, the People's Committee demands representation on all boards that are making decisions on spending public dollars for relief and reconstruction. We also demand that those most affected by Hurricane Katrina be part of the planning process.
• Fourth, we demand public work jobs for the displaced workers and residents of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. We must take a lead in the rebuilding of our communities. The jobs must be at union wages so that our population is no longer characterized by extreme poverty. 
• Lastly, we demand transparency in the entire reconstruction process. Citizens must know where all the monies are being spent and with whom they are being spent.

We must be guaranteed the right to plan our future free from the dictates of the politicians in Washington D.C., Baton Rouge, LA, and at the local level.  We must work to ensure that those most affected and displaced by Hurricane Katrina play an integral role in rebuilding our communities.