People

Taken aback by growing employee resistance and turnover, Amazon recently suffered the embarrassment of backing away from its intention to force all staff to return to the office five days a week, instead allowing them to work a hybrid schedule. Apple’s plan to force its staff back to the office has caused substantial internal opposition and churn.

Taken aback by growing employee resistance and turnover, Amazon recently suffered the embarrassment of backing away from its intention to force all staff to return to the office five days a week, instead allowing them to work a hybrid schedule.

Taken aback by growing employee resistance and turnover, Amazon recently suffered the embarrassment of backing away from its intention to force all staff to return to the office five days a week, instead allowing them to work a hybrid schedule.

Juneteenth is a day to honor the resilience and tenacity of those who survived slavery and fought for justice and freedom. On June 19, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger brought news to enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, that they were freed in accordance with President Abraham Lincoln's 1863 Emancipation Proclamation. That news took 2 1/2 years to arrive.

Juneteenth deserves an honored place in our labor history as we as we continue the fight for workers’ rights and to build worker power. On this day, we recognize the origins of the U.S. labor movement in the struggle of enslaved African people for emancipation. W.E.B. Du Bois characterized the American Civil War as a general strike. Black Americans’ withholding of their unpaid work collapsed the Southern economy and, with it, the defection of many Black residents to the Union military effort proved decisive in the Confederacy’s defeat. 

We do not need qualified immunity for vigilante cops! We need Qualified Communities to police themselves by living the golden rule. Love has the power to heal and protect people by engaging as thy neighbor’s keeper. Perhaps if people stopped voting for a political party and focused on the content of the politician’s character then we will not have greedy politrickcians capitalizing from human suffering.

It is the recycled ineffective strategies of these leaders that create tragedies in our neighborhoods. Disruptive honesty by law abiding citizens in peaceful demonstrations demanding accountability and transparency of our officials is a constitutional right. Corrupted leaders get re-elected by misinformed voters who belong to their political party or have the same skin color. The Covid 19 pandemic has fueled violence, overdoses, unemployment, poverty, and loss of homes, and shut down of nonprofits.

At yesterday afternoons Columbus City Council Columbus Metropolitan Club Debate, City Council candidate Joe Motil stated in his opening comments that, “The musical chairs appointment process is in place to keep control and power over the people and to benefit councils campaign contributors. And if Ms. Brown wins and completes her 4-year term I will remove the words tax abatement from my vocabulary”. Motil has been the city’s most outspoken critic of Ms. Brown and her City Council colleagues on handing out tax abatements over the last 4 ½ years and having called City Council’s appointment process a ‘farce.”

The May Free Press Second Saturday Cyber-Salon, hosted by Columbus Institute for Contemporary Journalism Board Member and longtime activist Mark Stansbery, had the theme of Immigrant and Worker Rights.

Watch the video here.

Mark started out acknowledging that the salon was happening right after May 1st – International Worker’s Day, as well as the day before Mother’s Day.

The first speaker was Andrew Lin of the Socialist Alternative who talked about the Amazon unionization effort in Alabama that Columbus Socialist Alternative supported along with organizations all over the country. Although the effort failed, it was a great step forward and taught the organizers a lot of lessons going forward.

When we recently spoke with Cynthia Brown she was driving around town on a sunny Saturday morning visiting “every activist event” in Central Ohio that day.

Brown is seeking roughly 1,000 signatures needed by the Ohio Attorney General to approve ballot language for a 2022 initiative she is proposing to end qualified immunity for Columbus and Ohio law enforcement. If the language is accepted, Brown knows she will need a small army to gather the 400,000-plus signatures to get approval for a statewide vote.

Disheartening was how some state level and City of Columbus office holders talked tough during the summer of 2020 about ending qualified immunity, which they could do themselves, but as usual so found their promises were empty. 

I learned yesterday that Babachu Spriggs, a friend of mine with whom I had frequently performed music on Wednesdays at noon at a church in downtown Columbus, has died.

Miriam Vargas walked into First English Lutheran Church on June 29, 2018 and was sheltered by the church in sanctuary from a deportation order issued by  Immigration, Customs and Enforcement (ICE).

Nearly 1000 days later, on February 23, 2021, she walked out of the ICE office in Westerville, Ohio freedom. Due to a memo send to ICE on January 20, 2021 from the Biden administration, priorities were set to deport only undocumented individuals that were aggravated felons. 

Previously, the Trump administration determined that all undocumented and documented immigrants were subject to deportation.

Miriam is currently in no danger of removal.

Miriam is now under an Order of Supervision (OSUP) which is a way that ICE can keep tabs on immigrants before immigration court hearings.

According to Ms. Vargas' immigration attorney, Jessica Rodriquez Bell, the benefits of the OSUP are that Miriam Vargas can leave the sanctuary of the church without the threat of deportation. She is required to report weekly to ICE via telephone to document where she is located.