YLO celebrates raises at Bill Miller’s BBQ

Wednesday, July 23^rd 2008 – 2:00 PM
Bill Miller Headquarters
430 S Santa Rosa Ave, San Antonio, Texas

Southwest Workers Union- Youth Leadership Organization (SWU-YLO) and members will be congratulating Bill Millers on their pay raises in the last year. One year ago, the YLO launched their campaign for “Equal Pay for Equal Work” after finding out Biller Miller’s was paying Southside, West, and Eastside workers up to $2.50 less an hour than Northside workers.

The restaurant chain has quietly increased wages by .50 to $1.50 at various San Antonio locations after receiving hundreds of postcards and a petition letter with over 1,100 signatures from customers. While the YLO commends Bill Miller’s on raising the pay at their lowest wage locations, we continue to demand that Bill Miller’s respect their workers by adopting a overarching policy of Equal Pay for Equal Work across San Antonio.

“Bill Miller partners continue to refuse to meet with us, the youth of the community. If the food costs the same, why do the workers who make it get less? They’ve never answered that question” said Julian Mendez, Jefferson High School.

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Labels: labor justice, protest, youth

Thursday, July 17, 2008 @ 1pm
Office of Congressman Ciro Rodriguez
1950 S.W. Military Drive (at I-35)
San Antonio, TX

Community demands Rep. Rodriguez stop family detention centers and the border wall

A coalition of grassroots community organizations will protest at the office of Congressman Ciro Rodriguez Thursday for not denouncing the Texas border wall and for his sponsorship of the SAVE Act. Communities across Rep. Rodriguez’s district, which includes Southwest San Antonio, Eagle Pass, Big Bend, and Del Rio, are overwhelmingly opposed to the wall, for which survey work has already begun. Earlier this year, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Chertoff waived over 36 federal laws protecting the environment, land-holders, native communities, including their burial and ceremonial grounds, and natural parks, and historic cross-border ways of life in order to begin work on the wall.

Consultation has been virtually non-existent with locals and DHS has overlooked studies that take into account the effects on local levees, such as in the Rio-Grande area, and ecosystems. Rep. Rodriguez has criticized DHS for the lack of consultation but has not denounced the wall for being inhumane, ineffective, and harmful to the economy and border communities. The protestors call on Rep. Rodriguez to use his position as member of the appropriations committee to work against the release of funding for the border wall.

The SAVE Act is an enforcement-only bill that would fund more walls and provides for the expansion of family detention centers with the T. Don Hutto facility as the model. Representative Rodriguez is one of only two Texas democratic supporters of the SAVE Act (H.R.4088). Representing primarily Mexican@ families, the community organizations feel that locking up children, separating families, and increased militarization of the border violate basic human rights and do nothing to curb immigration.

The organizations represented will include Southwest Workers Union, Fuerza Unida, the Hondo Empowerment Committee, Committee for Environmental Justice Action, the Brown Berets, the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, Austin-based Grassroots Leadership, and NO WALL-Big Bend.
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Labels: Border Wall, migrant rights

Thursday May 15^th at 8:45am
Main Plaza

As City Council is set to approve today the proposed CPS rate-hike, Southwest Workers Union calls on elected officials to set forward an innovative and clean energy future for San Antonio. In face of rapid increasing costs of fuel and food, along with foreclosures and stagnant wages, a CPS rate increased will add an additional burden to working-class families.

“We are calling on City leaders to invest significant resources into improving the energy efficiency of homes. Weatherize programs will offset the cost of the rate hike for local families and create jobs for workers here in San Antonio and combat poverty,” explains Sandra Garcia of SWU. “For a similar program in Austin, every dollar in energy savings initiatives generates $4.40 in savings.”

Last week City leaders announced that $40 million more from the rate hike would go towards efficiency. CPS’s rebate programs often run out of money, and $40 million is not enough.

Under public pressure over the dangers of nuclear energy, city leaders removed the $206 million commitment to nuclear from the rate hike. However, in a creative accounting move, that same money will come from CPS capital improvements fund. CPS continued pursuit of a multi-billion dollar open-ended commitment to nuclear will prevent San Antonio from investing significant resources into renewable power and efficiency programs.

A household in San Antonio uses more energy than any other major city in Texas or compared with other states in the Southwest. The 2004 KEMA report found that San Antonio could curb between 12,000-1,900 megawatts in 10 years through efficiency alone, and eliminate at least 36 percent of the energy use predicted for 2014. Pending federal legislation, the Green Jobs Act, would make $120 million a year available for green jobs training programs.

“It is time for real meaningful investments in the green economy by CPS, programs that will both create a healthy planet and train green collar workers poverty. Solar and wind are the wave of the future. San Antonio should be a leader in local solar power generation and open the doors for new economic development opportunities,” said Diana Lopez.

Labels: city council, energy justice, nuclear power

Hondo Residents and Businesses Take Action Against Foul Odor

City of Hondo neglects community safety issues

Hondo, Tx --The Hondo Empowerment Committee has grave concerns about the City’s handling of the public nuisance and health hazards due to Chapman grain silos on 18th Street between Avenues N & P. City officials promised that the moldy grain would be cleaned by Friday, March 21st. One week later, the nauseating odor worsens for the blocks surrounding the facility. The community and local businesses have been subjected to this unacceptable smell and potentially toxic mold for over a month.

The same owner is in the process of tearing down another silo complex on 14^th Street. The HEC met with the mayor and city manager last week to bring up the concern of safety for children and families because of the lack of fencing. That same day children were seen playing in the rubble and the next day a fire erupted on the site.

Also at the meeting last week, the residents were informed by City Manager Robert Herrera that an investigator from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) had taken samples of grain from the site to determine potential negative health impacts. In a follow-up call to TCEQ, HEC learned that no samples had indeed been taken.

This pattern of misleading statements and unfulfilled promises is very disturbing and is indicative of a complete lack of concern for the citizens of Hondo that live by this facility and nearby businesses. HEC is calling on you again to immediately clean up the moldy grain, and to inform us what fines ($250-$1,000) have been assessed on the property’s owner for failing to meet last week’s deadline.

Labels: environmental justice, Hondo, nuestra voz

Thanks again to everyone who made this amazing journey possible. Linked is the report by SWU. Please enjoy!!

Peoples%20Freedom%20Caravan

Labels: ussf; people's freedom caravan

For Immediate Release
July 17th, 2007

Scientists should focus liver cancer study on chemicals, not corn

Tuesday July 17, 2007 – 6:15PM
Cuellar Community Center
5626 San Fernando (Old Highway 90 & 36th Street)

Organizers with the Southwest Workers Union and the Committee for Environmental Justice Action will be offering residents popcorn and green KoolAid symbolizing toxic waste in protest of a meeting organized by the Metropolitan Health District (MetroHealth) tonight. At the meeting, study organizers are asking cancer victims to undergo testing to see if higher-than-average liver cancer rates on San Antonio’s West and South sides are linked to eating corn. The study’s organizers are ignoring a much more obvious and likely cause for the cancer cluster: the several square mile groundwater plume of trichloroethylene (TCE), a potent cancer-causing solvent underlying 10s of thousands of Southside homes.

Community residents, suspicious of yet another health study that tries to point the finger away from the need for a clean-up of Kelly Air Force Base contamination, insist that the study should examine whether the high liver cancer rates are linked to a lifetime of exposure to TCE.

While MetroHealth’s meeting is in progress, the Air Force is holding a separate meeting of its Restoration Advisory Board to discuss how TCE gas can enter homes above the groundwater plume. TCE levels under homes are still up to 20 times higher than the current federal standards. A study released by a panel of scientists last year recommended that those federal standards for TCE be tightened because of overwhelming evidence that TCE causes liver cancer in mice and rats.

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Labels: cancer, community oversight, Kelly AFB, MetroHealth, TCE

Union Leaders face Racial Harassment and Unjust Firings

June 6, 2007@12PM
Driscoll Middle School
17150 Jones Maltsberger

“I feel that I have been treated unfairly and feel it is a form of retaliation in an attempt to terminate my employment, because I am the President of Local #14”-
Marco Velasquez, NEISD employee.

North East Independent School District (NEISD) has been involved in union busting efforts at Driscoll Middle School, and at other campuses, violating worker’s rights to organize by unjustly firing and continually harassing members of the Southwest Workers' Union. Marco Velasquez, President of Local #14 and a custodian in NEISD, has received disparate treatment from the assistant head custodian who labelled him a ‘wetback’, a racist slur for immigrants from Mexico.
Marco Velasquez, who is a U.S. citizen, was also wrongfully accused of stealing in an effort to unfairly terminate him. Former NEISD Local #14 President Ken Kopcinzsky was also unjustly terminated in October 2006 for his participation with the Southwest Workers' Union.

NEISD has also denied the Southwest Workers' Union from reasonable access to its members and employees during their duty-free lunch. SWU organizes in five (5) other school districts in San Antonio, TX and none of these districts deny SWU the right to access members and employees. SWU members’ rights are being violated by denying them the right of freedom of assembly and association.

Southwest Workers' Union demands an immediate stop to the harassment of its members and denial of basic rights of access to members and employees.

Dignity and Justice for NEISD School Workers!!

Labels: labor justice, NEISD, protest, school workers