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Building a Solidarity Economy

On 12.01.05, In Program Updates, By DataCenter

No gracias, Intel For almost a year, the DataCenter has been tracking Intel corporation’s international pursuit of government subsidies and tax breaks. Our research, prompted by Intel’s successful request for an additional $16 billion dollar Industrial Revenue Bond from Sandoval County NM to modernize its Rio Rancho facilities, is informing Albuquerque-based Southwest Organizing Project’s campaign to replace corporate globalization with locally controlled, sustainable, community-based alternative economic institutions. (more…)

Slumlord Empire Unmasked

On 12.01.05, In Program Updates, By DataCenter

Demonstrators demand justice for tenants of the Morrison Hotel, Los Angeles. Photo courtesy of Strategic Actions for a Just Economy.

Demonstration photo courtesy of Strategic Actions for a Just Economy.

The Morrison Hotel in Los Angeles, immortalized on the cover of a 1970 Doors album, has returned to the headlines as the target of a high profile anti-slumlord campaign led by Strategic Actions for a Just Economy. Morrison Hotel tenants put up with years of living amidst rats, roaches, chipping lead paint and raw sewage leaks, only to be served with eviction notices meant to empty the building so that it could be sold. When tenants spoke with SAJE organizers, Morrison management retaliated by shutting off electricity and even locking people out of their homes. Tenants and SAJE fought back. It took 50 demonstrators and intervention by the police and city housing officials for tenants to win back access to the building. Since then, the City Attorney has filed a criminal complaint, the City’s Housing Department has taken over rent collection, and the tenants have filed their own lawsuit. (more…)

Tagged with: morrison hotel • slumlord empire unmasked • strategic action for a just economy

YouthAction

On 12.01.05, In Program Updates, Youth Strategy Project, By DataCenter

The DataCenter has been providing training support to YouthAction (Albuquerque, NM) conferences annually since 2002. This year, in addition to facilitating workshops, staff set up a “research kiosk” where conference participants dropped in to discuss the relationship between research and organizing, or even specific research questions. In previous conferences, workshop topics have included campaign research strategizing, educational justice issues, accessing public records, and prioritizing research questions—all conducted within popular education (games, scenarios) approaches tailored for youth. Since 2002, training has evolved from a heavily technical one to one incorporating popular education methods and instant access to strategic research support. In addition to incorporating youth-responsive training methods, the DC has also been receptive to providing more substantial trainings on campaign research strategy, youth empowerment, environmental justice, economic justice, and immigrant and border justice issues.

Tagged with: youth action

Common Roots

On 12.01.05, In Program Updates, Youth Strategy Project, By DataCenter

The DC’s Youth Strategy and Environmental Justice Projects has collaborated to conduct annual workshops on popular education participatory research skills for the youth leaders of Common Roots since 2004 in San Francisco, CA. Common Roots explores the commonalities and differences between two historically racially segregated communities. A collaborative project between Chinese Progressive Association (CPA) and People Organized to Demand Environmental Rights (PODER), the Common Roots Youth Organizer program conducts organizing training and political education workshops for youth. Specific goals include developing leadership skills and equipping low-income youth with the skills and analysis needed to effectively address critical issues facing their communities in Southeast San Francisco.

Tagged with: common roots • youth strategy and environmental justice projects

Youth Groups Building Alternative Vision for Public Education

On 12.01.05, In Program Updates, Youth Strategy Project, By DataCenter

The DataCenter has partnered with Sisters in Action for Power (Portland, OR) since 2002 to provide research and analysis support for their efforts to address local affects of privatization. Their efforts launched a public land equity campaign designed to address gentrification of neighborhoods of color, the attack on public housing through HOPE VI and the sale of public school land. Recently Sisters in Action started a new campaign to take on the federal No Child Left Behind Act as it works to dismantle public education. In partnership with Sisters in Action and Movement Strategy Center, the DC co-convened a national NCLB gathering for grassroots, community based youth groups in the Winter 2005. We are aiming to develop a common analysis of NCLB, share organizing models and local responses to NCLB, as well as strategize a collective, radical response to federal education policies and create an alternative vision for public education.

Please consider making a donation or offering funding leads to Sisters in Action for Power. Sisters has been critical to the development and analysis of Youth Strategy Project’s educational justice work, and their sharp political framework tools and analysis were the lynchpin of the NCLB national gathering. Additional support is critical in supporting Sisters to continue their important work.

For further information contact Sisters in Action for Power at 503.331.1244 or sisters@hevanet.com.

Tagged with: Movement Strategy Center • Sisters in Action for Power

Community-based Options to End Interpersonal Violence

On 10.20.05, In Program Updates, By DataCenter

DataCenter is collaborating with Creative Interventions and Generation Five on a National Story Collecting Project to collect stories from people who have participated in a successful community-based intervention to interpersonal violence including domestic violence, sexual abuse and child abuse. Success is defined as an intervention that ended or reduced violence or was otherwise satisfying to the survivor of abuse, and whose intervention was not primarily dependent on the police or other public system.

Based in Oakland, CA, Creative Interventions helps communities end and prevent family, intimate partner and other forms of interpersonal violence through community accountability strategies. Generation Five is a national organization working to end child sexual abuse through community organizing. Initiated and led by Creative Interventions, the National Story Collecting project is part of Generation Five’s Transformative Justice project, working to evolve community-based alternatives to end violence by supporting community and social transformation of conditions that collude in and perpetuate violence.

The goals of this community-based research include documenting and sharing stories from many diverse cultures and situations of abuse, learning from these stories about what can make these interventions successful, and increasing community capacity to end violence using resources within social and community networks. DC has provided support in creating the methodology and tools for the project, and will also help in compiling and analyzing data.

To participate in the National Story Collecting Project as a story teller or story collector or to get more information, contact Creative Interventions at stories@creative-interventions.org or tel: 510.452.8595. For more information about the project, see www.creative-interventions.org.

Tagged with: creative interventions • generation five • national story collecting project

Challenging Police Lockdown of Oakland Neighborhoods

On 09.18.05, In Program Updates, By DataCenter

Photo Courtesy of Critical Resistance Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown’s crusade to crack down on sideshows and open-air drug markets has reached new lows. In an attempt to make Oakland safer the Mayor, with the support of most of the City Council, has stepped up efforts at harassing motorists and youth of color through Operation Impact. According to Sitara Nieves, Critical Resistance National Development Organizer, the operation is “a policing program where the Oakland Police Department, the California Highway Patrol, and Alameda County Sheriff’s Department pool their resources to lock down an entire neighborhood for a few days, stopping drivers and confiscating their cars for minor infractions like broken tail lights or loud music…” Critical Resistance is working on a campaign to stop Operation Impact, and has launched an East Oakland cop watch to document police abuses and organize to stop Operation Impact. The DataCenter has helped by working with Critical Resistance to get information on the number of cars the Oakland Police Department and City Attorney’s Office have seized and the amount of money they’ve collected through car auctions.

For further information see: Critical Resistance

Photo courtesy of Critical Resistance.

Tagged with: critical resistance • oakland police department • operation impact

Close the California Youth Authority

On 09.01.05, In Program Updates, By DataCenter

For over a year Books Not Bars “Alternatives for Youth” campaign has been fighting in Sacramento and all over California to close down the eight notorious youth prisons in the California Youth Authority system. After years of stories of youth dying while in custody and being subjected to cruel punishments and inhumane searches, Books not Bars has started organizing families with youth in the CYA and allies in a campaign to close the prisons and open local rehabilitation centers and expand community-based alternatives in their place. The DataCenter has helped with research on juvenile arrest trends and possible county alternatives to CYA incarceration.

For further information see: Books Not Bars

Tagged with: books not bars • california youth authority

Benefits for Low-Wage Workers

On 09.19.04, In Program Updates, By DataCenter

In 2000, the San Francisco Living Wage Coalition was successful in passing living wage laws in San Francisco to support low-wage workers – the San Francisco Minimum Compensation Ordinance and the subsequent Health Care Accountability Ordinance. The Coalition is now exploring how to extend these laws to cover more workers and to provide health coverage for workers’ spouses and children. Coalition members, including no- and low-income workers and their allies, are conducting an extensive research project to inform their legislative strategy. To inform the research process and strengthen members’ research skills, we provided a campaign research training in November that covered research strategy, obtaining public records, and presenting data effectively. We are giving a follow-up training in March on research techniques and to address specific questions Coalition members have on their particular research projects. We also collaborated with the Coalition on research to assess San Francisco’s implementation of negotiated workfare reforms.

Tagged with: low wage workers • san francisco living wage coalition

Workers Negotiate in Levi’s Closures

On 09.19.04, In Program Updates, By DataCenter

In January, Levi Strauss closed its last two U.S. plant operations, both in San Antonio, laying-off 800 workers. Workers at the San Antonio plants have sewn and finished jeans for a quarter century. Levi Strauss will be contracting out this work to manufacturers in foreign countries with cheaper labor cost. For more than a decade, Levi Strauss has been closing plants and laying off workers. After massive layoffs in 1990 Fuerza Unida quickly emerged. For years, the DataCenter has been assisting Fuerza Unida’s efforts to carry forward the long-term struggle for Levi workers’ rights and to publicize the growing disparities at home and abroad of apparel industry outsourcing strategies. In the midst of these new closures, Levi Strauss is negotiating with the Union of Needletrades Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE) over severance packages. Fuerza Unida is working to make sure that UNITE and the workers have the best information to negotiate a fair deal. To support the workers’ demands, we provided research on past worker severance packages and compared these to current executive compensation and examples of generous executive severance packages.

Tagged with: fuerza unida • levi strauss • san antonio • union of needletrades industrial and textile employees

Building a Solidarity Economy

Slumlord Empire Unmasked

YouthAction

Common Roots

Youth Groups Building Alternative Vision for Public Education

Community-based Options to End Interpersonal Violence

Challenging Police Lockdown of Oakland Neighborhoods

Close the California Youth Authority

Benefits for Low-Wage Workers

Workers Negotiate in Levi’s Closures

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