(from rnicosa)

5:30 p.m., Monday, December 15
The Cambridge City Council will consider and probably vote on prohibiting: Smoking in all Cambridge public parks and in all seating areas adjacent to restaurants

These restrictions don’t promote health, they only punish smokers, many of whom are poor or mentally disabled. This is class warfare. Please attend this public meeting where anyone can speak and help us oppose smoker apartheid!

Cambridge Rindge and Latin School
Henrietta S. Attles Meeting Room
459 Broadway, Cambridge

(Update: the date of the hearing was changed from Dec 8th to Dec 15th).

(source)

Stop Veolia/City Escalating War on USW 8751 Boston School Bus Union

Drop Outrageous Union Busting Frame-up Charges filed by Boston Police Department (BPD) against Steve Kirschbaum, Chair of the Grievance Committee and a founder of the Local.

All out for start of jury trial, Monday, Nov 24, 9:00 A.M. Dorchester District Court 510 Washington St Dorchester, MA

Facebook event page:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1475330462754376/

Sign on to the Community/Labor Statement!
http://bostonschoolbus5.org/drop-kirschbaum-charges

National call-in to drop the charges – Call Suffolk County DA Daniel Conley, 617-619-4000 fax 617-619-4210. Tell him to drop the frame-up, anti-union felony charges against USW 8751 union leader Steve Kirschbaum. Then connect to the call-in day event page at https://www.facebook.com/events/874321135920323 and add a comment describing the response you get.

Help mobilize, phone bank, distribute! Sun 10 a.m. – 8 p.m. IBEW 2222, 1137 Washington St, Lower Mills (Dorchester), MA 02124

To volunteer, email schoolbus5(AT)teamsolidarity.org

download poster/flier:
http://iacboston.org/11-24-packthecourt.pdf

Sign on to the Community/Labor Statement!
http://bostonschoolbus5.org/drop-kirschbaum-charges

Join and donate to the crowdsourcing campaign to support the four fired leaders
http://youcaring.com/schoolbus4

Video of 11/15 demo at Veolia Headquarters in Times Square, NYC:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V20uuFSdz7Q

Boston School Bus Drivers Union USW 8751 Will Win!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V20uuFSdz7Q

(source)

Join us Saturday Nov 15th

On Friday, Nov. 7, President Obama doubled down on the war in Iraq and Syria, ordering 1500 more troops on the ground in Iraq and requesting over $5 billion in funding.

Saturday, Nov 15, 1:00 pm
Park Street Station, Boston

Rally and march to Downtown Crossing with a mock drone and die-in

• Stop the Bombing in Syria and Iraq
• Bring the troops home now
• Stop sending weapons into the region which are leading to so much bloodshed
• Support humanitarian aid, through neutral institutions, for victims of the conflict
• Support self-determination and the demilitarization of the area

It appears that Congress is about to give the President authorization to carry out an ever-expanding war in Iraq and Syria.

Our leaders say that these new wars will last for years. But over the past 13 years, this country has already spent one trillion, five hundred billion dollars for wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and other parts of the Middle East and South Asia.

These military actions have brought hundreds of thousands of deaths, but neither peace nor security. Meanwhile, these hundreds of billions of dollars could have been used instead to provide for jobs, human needs and renewable energy.

The current campaign to sell this war has nothing to do with protecting us or the people of the area. Instead, it is intended to secure control of the area by repressive governments and sectarian militias allied (for the time being) with Washington.

The current bombing campaign is a violation of the U.N. Charter and the U.S. Constitution. In its sweep through Syria and Iraq, ISIS is using modern U.S. weapons that were previously sent into the region in order to stabilize a corrupt and brutal regime in Baghdad and to overthrow Syria’s government.

Is bombing an answer to these sectarian conflicts? Do these actions reflect the interests of working people in the U.S. or the peoples of the Middle East?

We should not be involved militarily in a sectarian conflict that our war in Iraq set off. Rather, we should support a policy of non-intervention and self-determination. Any real and lasting solution to the problems in the region must come from the peoples of that region themselves, not from the Pentagon.

Call Congress toll-free at 877-429-0678 and say:

I want you to speak out strongly and to vote against against proposals that authorize use of military force and support for armed groups in Syria and Iraq.

Save the date for an educational forum on Syria and Iraq featuring Prof. Elaine Hagopian, Wednesday, Dec. 10, 7pm.

For more info or to help organize: United for Justice with Peace, 617-383-4857, info@justicewithpeace.org http://justicewithpeace.org

(source)

IWW Organizer and Insomnia Cookies employee Colin complained of homophobic slurs, sexual harassment of a co-worker, and denial of break time by his manager.* The next day he was confronted by the boss, who asked “So it’s a problem for you when I say the word f*gg*t?” and told him to quit if he didn’t like the conditions. Colin was later fired on flimsy pretexts. No action was taken by the company against the manager. Join members of the Industrial Workers of the World as we picket to demand Colin be reinstated with full back-pay!

We’ll meet at Insomnia Cookies’ Boston location, 708 Comm Ave (BU East stop on the MBTA’s Green Line B train), starting at 8 pm. The Facebook event is here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1576560655907119

*This is the email protest originally sent by Colin to Insomnia’s Regional Manager (warning: the boss’ comments are very offensive):

Dear Patrick,

I work at the Harvard location of Insomnia and am appalled by Josh’s behavior. He pops handfuls of [Vicodin] where employees and customers can see…This has led to…comments which are VERY inappropriate for work…

If a driver is listening to to headphones and cannot hear he’ll say “You’re gay” or “Don’t speak if your the gayest man in the world” as [if] that is a joke, and looks to the others to laugh.

He said once “When you’re not sucking dick 90% of the time you’re swallowing loads”

Last [Wednesday] when I came in at 6 pm, he spent 20 minutes talking about rectal examinations of chickens to inspect eggs and called Billy (a driver there) a “chicken fucker” I then noticed two orders that were due at 5:30pm. He then interrogated Jahnay as to why they were late.

He told a female worker to “pretend you’re flirting with the customer.”

He is also [threatening] to fire everyone and trying to instill fear in everyone and has denied me a 30min unpaid break when I work for 9 HOURS. NINE HOURS.

I wish to be kept anonymous so as to not face retaliation, but also want Insomnia to be a good workplace that is not hostile or homophobic.

Thank You,
Colin

Join us to Close Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant NOW

Dear Friends,

On this journey we are on, no passengers: only crew and we need all hands on deck now. On Behalf of Planet Earth is partnering now with
Capedownwinders, to close Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant now. (Official name is Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station.)

There is no safe dose of radiation. We are all downwinders.

Please, come to a meeting on Sunday, November 16 at the Democracy Center in Cambridge, 7:30PM-9PM, 45 Mt. Auburn Street. Hear what we are planning to do to close Pilgrim now and come with your ideas and bring friends. Members from Capedownwinders will talk to us at the meeting. WE NEED YOU NOW. Here are directions to the Democracy Center:
http://democracycenter.org/directions.

We will be vigiling weekly at Senator Markey’s office, located in the JFK Building, 15 New Sudbury Street. We had a cordial meeting with an aide recently to ask the Senator to make a public statement that we must close Pilgrim now. And also to make a public statement about Fukushima. We are planning to meet with the entire MA congressional delegation to ask them to do the same. We have already contacted Rep. Michael Capuano’s office and Rep. Joe Kennedy is next on our list. After that, we will meet with local state representatives and senators.

Vigils will be weekly on Thursdays, 8:45AM-9:15AM. We will have signs and bring your own. FIRST VIGIL IS THURSDAY, JANUARY 8, 2015 AT SENATOR MARKEY’S OFFICE.

It is a short walk from Park Street Station to the JFK Bldg. office. (Government Center T stop closed) Walk down Tremont Street, toward Government Center and you are there. It is a high rise building, on the right hand side as you walk down Tremont, right next to government plaza.

The Pilgrim nuclear reactor is the same design as Fukushima Diachii in Japan, where a meltdown of three of the plant’s six nuclear reactors occurred on March 11, 2011. Very large amounts of radioactive material continue to be released from the plant, including 300 tons of radioactive water/day into the Pacific Ocean. Pilgrim is also a General Electric Mark 1 design, a boiling water reactor (BWR). One of every eight Mark 1 reactors have exploded and released massive radioactive contamination into our environment.There is no safe dose of radiation. There are over 75 thousand people within 10 miles of Pilgrim and nearly five million within 50 miles.

http://capedownwinders.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/pilgrimradiusmap516w.jpg

Nuclear waste contains some of the most toxic substances known to humankind and there is no place to put it. It is said to last at least 200,000 years. Is this the legacy we want to leave to our children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and out way more than seven generations. Here is a fact sheet by Beyond Nuclear, about nuclear power and children

http://www.beyondnuclear.org/storage/radiation-and-health/radchild.pdf

Here is a fact sheet by Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS)”Nuclear Power and Climate: Why Nukes Can’t Save the Planet”
http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/nukesclimatefact614.pdf

On April 7, 2014, Dr. Richard Clapp, Professor Emeritus of Boston University, School of Public Health, wrote to Diane Turco, co-founder of Cape Downwinders that “…when I was Director of the Massachusetts Cancer Registry in the 1980’s, we noted that the incidence of leukemia in Plymouth and surrounding towns was significantly higher than the state average rate. Although less frequent than leukemia, we also noted that thyroid cancer was elevated above the state average in these same towns. These findings were consistent with documented radiation releases from the plant in the early to mid-1970s. As the result of these statistical excesses, a formal case-control study of leukemia in Southeastern Massachusetts was conducted by the Department of Public Health ….The results of this study, published in a peer-reviewed scientific article in 1996, were that there was a nearly four-fold excess of leukemia in those who lived or worked near the Pilgrim plant. More recent cancer statistics form the Massachusetts Cancer Registry indicate that there was a continuing excess of leukemia in Plymouth through the years 2000-2009.”

We will also be in communication with Massachusetts Peace Action about this work.

Any questions and/or for more info contact sheilaruthparks AT comcast. net or call 617 744 6020

PLEASE SHARE WIDELY. THANK YOU

We are looking forward to seeing you there and working together to close Pilgrim now,

For On Behalf of Planet Earth: Sheila Parks, Cornelia Sullivan, Jean Miller, Joe Kebartas, Pat Ferrone, Eric Zinman

Sheila Parks, Ed.D. On Behalf of Planet Earth Watertown, MA sheilaruthparks@comcast.net 617 744 6020