Author Archives: jillian

State of Emergency Campaign, The Blunt Truth About Furloughs

( from Justice Speaks Vol.24 No.3 May/June 2009)

The Blunt Truth

About Furloughs and the Budget!

Cutting pay doesn’t cut into the problems of the economic crisis.
The budgets should not – and can not – be balanced on the backs of workers.

North Carolina Governor Beverly Perdue has already ordered a 10-hour furlough for state workers and it hurts! The one-half percent pay cut rose to 3% from our wallets when he imposed it over just two months. That means $120 to $150 less income in May and June for workers making $24,000 to $30,000 annually. Now the Legislature is considering handing the Governor power to impose 20 more payless days – an 8% annual cut!

The state is saving more money by stripping back our hard-won healthcare benefits. Gov. Perdue imposed a “temporary” healthcare plan that reduces benefits and increases co-pays and deductibles for all state employees, teachers and retirees. Everyone is initially forced into the more expensive Basic Plan; an enrollee must not smoke or be overweight to qualify for the less expensive Standard Plan. To stay in, enrollees must pass “smokalyzer” and body-weight checks. Prescription co-pays rise to $35 and $55 and eye exams are no longer covered as of Jan. 1, 2010.

Yet corporations and rich folks make out like bandits!
NC currently has more than $1 billion on the books in corporate tax breaks and the Senate handed corporations an additional $325 million a year, beginning in two years, by cutting corporate taxes. For individuals, $100,000 income for a couple carries the highest tax rate there is. This means a couple with $10 million in annual income is taxed at the same rate as a couple with $100,000 annual income.

And it gets even more unfair!
The poorest 20% of North Carolinian households have an average income of $10,000 and pay 10.7% in state and local taxes. The wealthiest 1% of families have average annual incomes of $970,000 and pay only 7.1%.

And – It won’t even work!
State employees are so poorly paid the half-percent wage cut this year adds up to just $70 million – against a $3.5 billion budget shortfall. The cuts that are killing some of us will make only a 0.2% dent in the deficit.

The Governor, Legislature and the corporations that run NC will wring as much as they can from state employees, create a climate of fear among all working and oppressed people for our families and our futures, and keep on steppin’.

It’s time for us to step up!

Don’t Balance City of Durham Budget on Backs of Workers

Durham City Workers and Allies at Rally Before Council Meeting

(From Justice Speaks May/June 2009)

As the banks and big corporations receive trillions in bailout money, governments are balancing budgets on workers’ backs. Public workers are under attack! There is no fat left on services. Any cuts will be cuts to the bone and still city manager Tom Bonfield recommends kicking 35 workers to the curb and eliminating their jobs, plus no pay-for-performance merit increases, longevity cuts, 2% cut to 401K contributions, and benefit cuts to part-time employees working less than 30 hours per week.

If cuts are necessary, then it should happen at the administrative levels only. Fire and police workers should be treated the same as other front-line city employees who provide essential services. Any stimulus money should be used for public jobs, not more privatization. The city manager proposed that the City of Durham’s Fund Balance, Rainy Day Fund, will not be used to balance the budget, “It will be maintained at 11%, but may increase using savings from FY2009.”

Well, HELLO. . . IT’S RAINING!! In fact, it’s a severe thunderstorm bordering on hurricane conditions for front-line workers! We are certainly being forced to go into our “rainy day funds” or savings, if we have them, to balance our household budgets or to keep from slipping two or three months behind in our bills. We’ve had to pay for necessities for our family with high interest credit cards and, yes, even from time to time, visit the dreaded cash advance/check cashing establishments. If workers’ rainy day funds can get drained to 0%, why do the city administrators refuse to even consider lowering the city’s below 11%? The pain should be shared!

Workers came out to the Durham City Council Meeting on May 18 to show our opposition to the budget being balanced on our backs! That we are not happy just to have a job! That we see attacks on co-workers as attacks on all of us! More will join the efforts of the Durham City Workers Union Chapter of UE 150, the NC Public Service Workers Union.

North Carolina Public Employees Hold Mock Funeral for Jim Crow Era Anti-Labor Law

Charleston Sanitation Workers Campaign Building Momentum

by Kerry Taylor

In little more than a week, the Charleston sanitation workers have gathered hundreds of signatures in support of their efforts to establish a union to protect their safety and defend their rights on the job. Members of Local 1199, which represents the sanitation workers, and their allies have spread across the city to take their case directly to the voters. The workers are demanding that the City negotiate with the democratically-elected representatives of Local 1199 in order to restore some dignity to the department.

Organizers launched the campaign on April 4 to mark the dark day 41 years ago when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis. It is sometimes forgotten that Dr. King was murdered while lending his support to the Memphis sanitation workers as they organized for union recognition.

Canvassers will continue their efforts each Saturday morning through May, when the matter is taken up by City Council. Supporters gather at the International Longshoremen’s Association hall (ILA 1422) on 1142 Morrison Dr. at 9am. For those who cannot canvass, please sign the newly available online petition and pass the word along to friends.

http://www.petitiononline.com/loc1199b/petition.html

If you can volunteer or for more information, please contact Mary Moultrie at 843-805-9697 or show up at the ILA hall on Saturdays for the canvass.

Eugene Godfried-Presente!

It is with great sadness that I inform you that brother Eugene Godfried passed away on Sunday. He had been in the hospital since last Monday due to a stroke. It was reported to me that he was listening to a dvd of The Afro-Cuban Legends when he passed away. As an authority on Cuban Son, it was appropriate that his final transition was in what brought him joy. For those of you who knew Eugene, Rhythm & Blues was another of his passions — Eugene loved R&B, especially the music of Motown, which he was also listening to in his last days.

I will never forget when we were in Santiago De Cuba talking to an 80 year old Afro Cuban lawyer who was one of the founders of the University of the Oriente that we had bumped into by chance. Eugene was so excited to have met this elder because he was involved in one of the black societies who consciously fought against the racism that existed in Cuba. In fact, the founding of the university was so that Black Cubans would be able to get a college education in the 50´s because of the segregation nature that existed during that time. Anyway, as Eugene spoke about his research of Black people in Cuban and begun to talk about and sing some of the verses of the music of Cuban Son, the elder began to cry. He asked Eugene how did someone as young as you know this. The elder said that Eugene made him happy and hopefully for Black Cubans that someone is passing the tradition on.

That moment reminded me of the exchanges I had witness growing up in Harlem, on the corner of 117th street on 8th Avenue, where the older men would sit up against the wall and discuss politics and the events of the day.

Eugene´s passing is a great loss. He was very talented, committed and dedicated to creating a new society in which all people are equal, free and able to develop according to their abilities. Eugene dedicated and sacrificed the majority of his life for the Cuban revolution. He was a humanitarian and an internationalist of the highest degree. He was born in Curacao, and was fortunate to spend the past year or so with his family. Several years ago, Eugene had to have his leg amputated as a result of some complications with diabetes. I went to visit Eugene in Cuba to take him some material support when many of you made contributions. Even after his recovery, Eugene began to carry out his research on African Cuban history and was able to get a commission developed in Cuba around honoring the Party of the Independents of Color, which existed in early 1900´s — several thousand of its members were massacred in 1912. Eugene continued to write and post on AfroCubaweb.com as well as do internet radio broadcasting. Eugene spoke 7 languages fluently. I remember one evening when we were in Boston and went to a Chinese restaurant to eat. Eugene ordered the food in Chinese. The waiter was absolutely stunned. He called the cooks and kitchen help who came to the door smiling to look at this Black man who was speaking their language.

Eugene was the one who opened the doors to Cuba for me. It was because of him that I was able to convince the chair of the Africana Studies Department to develop an exchange program. As a result, several colleagues, Professors Marc Prou and Robert Johnson along with Eugene visited Havana, Matanzas, Santiago and Guantanamo, setting up a program for students at the University of Massachusetts Boston to visit. Eugene was also the connection that got Assata Shakur to write the introduction to my book, State of the Race, edited by Jemadari Kamara and myself.

What I love the most about Eugene was that he was a grassroots person and made it clear, as my wife said, he acknowledged that ordinary people were extraordinary. He was a true revolutionary.

He loved observing how the very least of us lived their lives and how they survived, how they were innovative and creative. We would visit and hang out with working people in some of the poorest areas in Havana, Santiago and Guantanamo, talking and listening to their likes and dislikes, about music and food. He would eat, sign and joke with them. It is important to understand that Eugene was a member of the communist party in Cuba and was a member of its ideological bureau. Yet, Eugene was not lecturing, debating or imposing on the people, he was humble among them, learning from them and reinforcing their value, and the people didn´t know that Eugene was a party person, a linguist, a musicologist, a historian, or a journalist. Like all of us he was not perfect. He loved to smoke, have a drink, say the occasional curse and loved his women. Despite how hard life was, Eugene had, if any, very few regrets. He enjoyed and lived his life as full as he could. There are projects that I´m sure he would have loved to continue but time was short. When he worked, he worked hard, often doing so with very little resources, but nevertheless, producing good products. Even when he was sick and living in Michigan, getting dialysis every Tuesday, he had established a makeshift radio and broadcasting studio in his living room. He would post them in English, Spanish, French and Dutch Creole on YouTube. I was amazed at his persistence and the volume of work he was able to produce.

I also witnessed Eugene sternly and principally challenge the views of some very powerful people in Cuba, and I watched them acknowledge and even agree with his points. I also want to make it clear that Eugene loved Cuba – he sacrificed his life for Cuba. He was a Che Gueverra. He was more Cuban than some of the Cubans I have met.

There have been a few people I have met in my life who walk the walk and practice much of what they preached. There have also been few people that I have met that were humble, authentic and self critical of their own actions and had the passion, courage and perseverance to stand up against the giants of the world and speak truth to power – Eugene was one of them.

I am also going to miss the Eugene who made me laugh so hard that I had to bend over because it was hurting in my gut and made tears come to my eyes as I have now thinking about him. We know that our lives are not permanent, but when the time comes to visit the ancestors it is still a difficult process for us who are still here to deal with the loss. Eugene is one of the people I always mentioned in my prayers to the Orisas asking to protect and help him. Now I ask the ancestors to welcome him and I will now ask him as an ancestor to continue waging a spiritual battle to help us on earth continue to fight for humanity and our right be self determining and free. As Eugene always said as we departed, “we don´t say good bye comrade Tony, we will see each other again,” – well, I salute you comrade brother Eugene, I look forward to seeing you again when it’s my time to visit the ancestors.

ASE!

EUGENE GODFRIED – PRESENTE !