UFW delivers Ruby Ridge Petition

For regular readers of my blog it's no secret that I support the efforts of farmworkers to obtain justice. I carry in my wallet a card that says I am a supporter member of the United Farmworkers. I recently inserted a link for those who wanted to sign the UFW petition to help the workers at Ruby Ridge farm. (http://roominhouseblues.blogspot.com/2011/01/farmworkers-at-ruby-ridge-farms.html) UFW has emailed its supporters to thank them for posting links on Facebook or blogs. Here is a press release and a photo. Yes I know that I should rewrite the press release and that the photo is a little blurry, but I have only a little time for this today. Thank you to any readers that responded.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011 at 11:30 a.m.

Thousands urge Spokane lender to help end

Ruby Ridge Dairy’s abuse and retaliation against workers

More than 30,000 signatures gathered during online petition

Ruby Ridge Workers and supporters on the way to deliver petitions.

SPOKANE, WASHINGTON – A delegation led by Ruby Ridge Dairy workers, UFW leaders and supporters will hand deliver thousands of signatures from an online petition urging Spokane-based lender Northwest Credit Services to help halt labor rights violations by Ruby Ridge Dairy.

According to Ruby Ridge Dairy workers, they are not allowed to take breaks or provided with clean drinking water. Workers also say that they have been threatened with a gun by the owner when they ask for better working conditions. Workers from Ruby Ridge approached the United Farm Worker for its assistance in the summer of 2009 in trying to solve those issues. As a result, Ruby Ridge Dairy fired 12 workers, all of whom have filed suit against the Dairy for wage and hour and other state law violations.

Ruby Ridge workers and their supporters approached Northwest Credit Services last summer asking the bank to consider labor and human rights as part of its corporate responsibility. The lender has not responded. Northwest Credit Services lent Ruby Ridge dairy $13 million. A Northwest Credit Services loan document issued to Ruby Ridge on January 28, 2008 clearly states: “Mortgagors agree to comply with all laws, ordinances, regulations, covenants, conditions and restriction affecting the Property use including without limitation all environmental laws. Also not to use or permit the use of the Property for any unlawful or objectionable purpose or for any purpose that poses an unreasonable risk of harm, or that impairs or may impair the value of the Property."

Dairy workers will be joined by farm workers from other Washington areas, students from Eastern Washington University, Whitworth College, Peace and Action League, MeCHA from EWU and other local Spokane organizations to hand in the petition signatures gathered by the UFW, Americna Rights At Work (ARAW) and other local organizations.

Who: A delegation of Ruby Ridge Dairy workers, students, farm workers and community organizations.

What: Delivering online petitions with more than 30,000 signatures to Northwest Credit Services protesting abuse at Ruby Ridge Dairy

When: Tuesday, January 11, 2011 at 11:30 a.m.

Where: Northwest Credit Services Headquarters, 1700 S. Assembly St., Spokane, WA

America Magazine Benedict XVI weighs in on "Redistribution"

Paul Ryan should perhaps look at the writings of Benedict and other recent popes on redistribution. they are most definitely teaching redistribution to help the poor, as this America article attests. America Magazine Benedict XVI weighs in on "Redistribution" : 'via Blog this'

Serenading the Donkey

Over the years I have had many times when I have had to call out others on their words, behavior, or attitudes on race, class or ethnicity and I have used a variety of means to get my point across. The first such incident was when I was 13 years old and my sister and a friend were skipping rope to the rope song that uses the "N_" word. I said we don't use that word in this place and the girls argued with me about it. I just said that if they used that word I would go tell Grandpa, and they complied. In a high school the teacher had let the discussion degenerate and the topic of "welfare" came up and a girl stated an old stereotype that my Daddy says "All the blacks go pick up their welfare checks in Cadillacs." I wanted that direction of the conversation to end immediately, so I blurted out "Well your Daddy is a racist." There was silence in the room for a couple of minutes and then the teacher changed the subject. When people have b

Striking at Bourgeois Values with "Free Stuff" Why is it that in middle class neighborhoods no one would think anything of it if you are having a "yard sale" or a "moving sale", spending your entire day selling your possessions at pennies on the dollar, a tenth of what you could get on E-Bay, making less than the federal minimum wage for your efforts, but they would shrink in horror from a "free stuff pile". What is the world coming from that they place so little value on material possessions that they would give it away for nothing. Someone will surely complain that you are doing "illegal dumping", even if you tend the pile and fold things back up. Fortunately for me, I live in a neighborhood with a heavy student population, north of Seattle's University of Washington campus, and such a pile is welcome. Having purged the house of unneeded things that aren't worth my time trying to sell (unlike my art, which I will find

Roomin' House Blues

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