Economic
Justice Winter 2005
housing
- globalization - community
documentation - immigrant workers
Slumlord
Empire Unmasked
 |
| Demonstrators
demand justice for tenants of the Morrison Hotel, Los
Angeles. 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. What distinguishes
the Morrison Hotel campaign was SAJE's research that uncovered
a pattern of widespread, repeat violations and willful negligence
by the owners, the Danpour family. [read
full story]
For
more information, contact SAJE organizer Andrea Gibbons
(213-745-9961, ext 224), or Kim Rodgers (510-835-4692 x306)
at the DataCenter.
[back
to top]
Building
a Solidarity Economy
 |
| Photo courtesy
of South West Organizing Project |
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.
Since the
1970's when Intel began expanding outside California, the
chip-maker has become a powerful political player garnering
billions of dollars in property tax breaks, grants and giveaways
while influencing national and state laws taxing corporations.
Now Intel is seeking tax breaks and financial incentives
in China, India and Malaysia to support its growth overseas.
Corporate
property tax breaks often come at the expense of school
systems dependent upon this source of income. When the tax
incentives provided by Sandoval County, New Mexico, to Intel
in the 1990s further depleted the finances of the Albuquerque
school system, Rio Rancho—home of many of Intel's employees—split
away to form its own school district. The company made this
split possible with a $30 million donation for the new school
district's new high school. Albuquerque school children
were left behind while Rio Rancho's would become more privileged.
Southwest Organizing
Project's intent to promote alternative economic institution
building based on a Solidarity Economy is one way to halt
the destructive practices of corporate globalization. A
Solidarity Economy sustains the community rather than enriching
corporate stockholders at the public's expense, building
upon the reciprocity linking individual interests to the
collective interests. Venezuela is promoting a Latin American
trade policy premised upon a Solidarity Economy as an alternative
to the neo-liberal economic policies of NAFTA, CAFTA, CBI,
the FTAA and the WTO. This much we know: "Another World
is Possible."
For further
information see: Southwest
Organizing Project
[back
to top]
Supporting
Community Documentation Projects
Two years ago, Domestic
Workers United (DWU) asked if we'd support them to analyse
the domestic worker industry in New York. As we talked through
how to approach the project, it became clear that reliable
information could not be gathered from existing labor market
research sources—DWU would need to collect it. And
so DWU embarked on a community-based project conducting
surveys amongst their membership and community of domestic
workers. The project was designed, carried out, and led
by domestic workers. Although DataCenter has long integrated
popular education methods into our trainings, this project
opened up for us an additional approach to flatten inequities
that exist between researchers and communities that are
researched.
We see it as "de-colonizing"
research—creating a synergy between research and organizing,
challenging the power dynamics occurring between research
organization, organizing group and membership base, valuing
community-driven research as opposed to solely placing value
on "top-level" information sources such as census
data, news media, and academia, and leaving research outcomes
(report, campaign, etc.) in the hands of grassroots membership.
One particular area
where we've seen the "de-colonizing" research
play out is in community-based participatory documentation
projects. DataCenter has been building up its infrastructure
to support grassroots organizations that are choosing to
design, conduct, and lead their own survey projects. Our
Economic Justice program is currently supporting seven organizations
with their survey projects: the New York Taxi Workers
Alliance and South Asian Network that are surveying
taxi drivers' working conditions in New York and Los Angeles;
Desis Rising Up and Moving and CAAAV's Women Workers
Project that are surveying immigrant, undocumented communities
in Queens, NY; two domestic worker projects (in the Bay
Area and NY) with Domestic Workers United and the
Bay Area Coalition for Domestic Workers Rights (Mujeres
Unidas y Activas, Day Labor Program Women's Collective of
La Raza Centro Legal, and People Organized to Win Employment
Rights); and the National South Asian Advisory Committee
that consists of grassroots groups and technical assistance
providers from around the country and is conducting a needs
assessment of South Asian organizations.
[back
to top]
Documenting
the Need for Legalization, Not Deportation
Desis Rising Up and
Moving (DRUM)'s Immigrant Justice Program and CAAAV's
Women Workers Project (WWP) in New York City have joined
together to conduct a community documentation project to
show how Asian low-income immigrant workers are affected
by unfair immigration policies and practices.
DRUM's Immigrant Justice
Program builds the power of low-income immigrants to end
rising detention, deportation and abuse of immigrant detainees,
and to end anti-immigrant policies of the Department of
Homeland Security. As New York City's economy increasingly
relies on the exploited labor of undocumented immigrant
service workers, CAAAV's Women Workers Project seeks to
develop leadership among and create spaces for Asian women
working in these sectors to unite with other immigrant workers
to fight sweatshop conditions and build power for all low-wage
workers City-wide. Women Workers Project also mobilizes
Asian women workers to oppose racist immigration practices
that tear communities apart, and promotes policies supporting
human rights and dignity for all.
The documentation project
will support DRUM and WWP's campaign for legalization not
deportation of all undocumented workers and will help to
build a movement in Asian communities for immigrant rights.
Using a participatory, community-based research model, DRUM
and WWP members are engaged in all phases of the project,
from developing the survey tools and methodology to data
collection to data analysis and integration into their campaign
and movement-building work. Over the coming year, members
will collect surveys in Mandarin, Bahasa, Bengali, Hindi
and Punjabi. Additionally, the groups will gather stories
from immigrants, conduct historical research of patterns
of racism in U.S. immigration policy, and survey service
providers. DataCenter is working collaboratively with DRUM
and WWP to develop and implement the project. Data analysis
will be conducted at the DataCenter under the guidance of
and in collaboration with DRUM and WWP. The groups will
publish their findings in a report that will be disseminated
to legislators and the media.
For further information,
contact: DRUM
and WWP
