50th Annual Event: Black Voices for Peace – Gaza to Connecticut

Excitement is growing as this year marks the 50^th annual People's World Black History Month celebration which is headlined “Black Voices for Peace – Gaza to Connecticut.”

The occasion includes an arts and writing competition for students in grades 8 to 12, and a family program on Sunday, February 25 at 4 pm at the New Haven Peoples Center 37 Howe Street, and live streamed.

Guest speaker Joe Sims, lifelong civil rights and peace activist, who co-chairs the Communist Party USA, helped lead a national peace conference last fall.

The conference held in November highlighted the demand for a ceasefire as key to both achieving a just and lasting peace in the Middle East and to redirecting funds from the military budget to meet the needs of Black and Brown and working class communities at home.

Quoting W.E.B. DuBois, “Peace is not an end to be achieved, but the gateway to a new civilization,” Sims said, “We are walking, marching, dancing toward that gate. And the gate is working-class power.”

A panel at the event will include members of 1199 health care workers union who recently went on strike for living wages and benefits and the 4C's community college teachers union in a battle for state funding of public higher education. Both unions have called for a ceasefire in Gaza.

A drumming circle by Brian Jarawa Gray and friends will also highlight the program.

Students will present their winning submissions to the high school arts and writing competition. All entries will be recognized. Submissions can be artwork, essay, poetry, rap or song and must be received by February 16. For more information contact ct-pww@pobox.com.

The competition announcement quotes Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death," and notes that the speech, 'Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence.' “has great meaning today, as civil rights groups speak out for a permanent ceasefire to end the destruction of Gaza, humanitarian aid and release of hostages.” In the speech King spoke out against hate and called for “a radical revolution of values” to overcome “the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism.”

Donations to the People's World 100^th Anniversary fund drive will be accepted.

100 Rally to Support Food Service Workers at UNH

As Bob Marley's "Get Up Stand Up" blared loudly through the speakers, over 100 Unite Here Local 217 food service, hospitality and cafeteria workers joined by Unite Here Locals 33 and 34, CT CPUSA clubs, and union members from across the state, gathered to support the facilities workers at University of New Haven’s campus.

They picketed the University to demand fair wages and benefits and settle a good contract with the workers who keep UNH functioning day to day.

The target of the demonstration was the private contractor that runs UNH’s food service operations.

“We demand that they pay their workers a living wage, and good benefits" said Isadora Munoz, an organizer for Hotel and Restaurant Workers Local 217, which represents the UNH cafeteria workers.

Soon after, UNH workers took the podium to address the crowd and spoke about the challenges they face on the job, and how the employees in the UNH food service facilities make considerably less than their Local 217 counterparts at other Connecticut universities. Twenty-year employee Carlos Santiago and other facility workers made it clear that “without us, there is no UNH.”

The huge crowd, charged up and ready to march, walked up the stairs onto the university, circling through the campus holding picket signs that said Sodexo at UNH has no contact with Local 217, while the large group chanted “When I say Union, you say Power, Union (POWER!),Union (POWER!)” gathering support from students and faculty as they handed them pamphlets along the way.

The crowd proceeded to stop in front of the university’s campus headquarters where Joshua Stanley, Secretary Treasurer of Unite Here Local 217 grabbed a megaphone and shouted out to the crowd about the importance of union solidarity.

He said that together the union members from across the state can all win good contracts, have their voices heard and demands met by having unity adding that it’s inspiring to see workers come together and fight for their rights.

The action fell on the eve of Rev. Martin Luther King's birthday which gave the crowd even more morale, knowing that King dedicated his life to the fight for racial and economic justice and was a devoted supporter of the labor movement.

The rally was a reminder that we continue his legacy by fighting for equality for all working people.

Funds and Protections Demanded in Housing Crisis

As the housing and homeless crisis grows, tenants and advocates are raising their voices for immediate funding of services and protections for tenants. According to the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness (CCEH) over 3,000 people including 500 children are without housing in the state.

It is “a moral failure,” said State Sen. Saud Anwar during a press conference last month calling for $20 million in ongoing “stable, consistent funding,” a small part of the $300 million needed to fully address homelessness according to CCEH.

Gov. Lamont, who does not support allocating funds, citing his strict interpretation of the spending cap, has formed a Connecticut Interagency Council on Homelessness to bring all relevant agencies together in collaboration and draw upon successful initiatives..

While greeting this development, advocates say that for the Council to be effective it will take funding.

“We are concerned that Governor Lamont’s rigid application of the spending cap will prevent the Council from offering any real solutions.,” said the State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition (SEBAC) made up of 15 public sector unions.

“Solutions require services and services require spending.” they said citing under funding and under staffing at the Department of Social Services (DSS) and the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS) both vital to the new Council.

Lack of funding has a disproportionate impact on communities of color, warned the Connecticut for All coalition saying, “Governor Lamont's unwavering commitment to fiscal guardrails neglects the urgent need for targeted investments in racial justice initiatives to combat homelessness effectively and ensure a better future for Connecticut."

At a public forum held by the Connecticut Black and Puerto Rican Caucus of the State Legislature, over 100 testimonies addressed a wide array of issues including funding for services and expanding protections for renters from evictions.

Addressing the need to curb the greed of corporate landlords who are evicting families in order to raise the rent, members of the Connecticut Tenants Union testified in favor of expanding “no cause” eviction protections to all renters. Legislators responded favorably to the proposal that protections now covering disabled and senior tenants be expanded to cover everyone.

This proposal builds on advances made in recent legislative sessions in response to public demands, including the right-to-council requiring legal representation for tenants in housing court, requiring fair rent commissions in municipalities and establishing an Eviction Prevention Fund that stopped nearly 3,800 evictions in its first year.

Calls for Peace and Justice Mark Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday

Calls for unity and calls for ceasefire in Gaza marked events held on Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday weekend in Connecticut.

“2024 is a pivotal year. We can be divided and conquered, or we can come together with unity in action and win more than ever before,“ says the call to the annual gathering of New Haven Rising, themed Unity in Action, to be held on Monday, January 15 at Trinity Temple,. 285 Dixwell Ave. in New Haven at 6 pm.

Upholding King's legacy, the event publicity highlights his remarks to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) on March 30, 1967:

“The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and racism,” said King. “The problems of racial injustice and economic injustice cannot be solved without a radical redistribution of political and economic power."

More specifically, King warmed, "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."

That message linking the peace and civil rights movements was central to King's courageous speech“Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence” delivered at Riverside Church in New York on April 4, 1967.

The relevance of that message to the growing movement for ceasefire was emphasized at an annual community reading of the speech on Friday January 12 hosted by the Greater New Haven Peace Council along with the City of New Haven Peace Commission, Veterans for Peace and the Connecticut Peace and Solidarity Committee. 

 

Held in the atrium of New Haven City Hall, the reading was dedicated to lifelong peace and justice leader Al Marder who passed away at 101 in December. His final message was a call to demand a ceasefire in Gaza to stop the slaughter as over 20,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children have been killed by US-funded Israeli bombs since the October 7 attack by Hamas killed 1,200 in Israel.

 

Participants signed postcards to Congress calling for support of an immediate and lasting ceasefire and uninterrupted humanitarian aid to Gaza. They also signed a petition to the New Haven Board of Alders supporting a resolution for ceasefire as other municipalities have done. On January 2 the Bridgeport City Council became the first in Connecticut to pass a ceasefire resolution.

 

SEIU 32BJ Building Cleaners Win Historic Wages and Protections

Over 3,000 commercial building cleaners, members of SEIU 32BJ in Connecticut, are starting the year with historic increases in wages and expanded benefits instead of having to walk the strike picket line.

Two contracts, one covering cleaners in Hartford and New Haven counties and the other in Fairfield county, were won after overwhelming strike votes, rallies and support from elected officials.

The central Connecticut agreement with dozens of companies in the Connecticut Cleaning Contractors’ Association provides 1,600 workers unprecedented wage increases between 15.9 and 17.7 percent over four years. Two more paid days-off, including Juneteenth, and improved contributions to the pension fund were also won.

The 32BJ members clean Hartford’s commercial buildings, from the Hartford and Travelers Insurance companies to state and municipal buildings like New Haven City Hall and the State Capitol, the UConn campus in Hartford and UConn Health Center, and major manufacturing locations like Pratt & Whitney.

“This contract secures wage increases that allow our members to keep up with inflation, and it extends some important new benefits, like the Juneteenth holiday.  After the trials of the pandemic, which took many members’ lives and threatened countless more, it takes a big step toward ensuring a brighter future for them, their families, and their communities.” said 32BJ SEIU Vice President Rochelle Palache, who leads the union in Connecticut.

This Central Connecticut contract is part of the union’s campaign to win strong new contracts for over 70,000 building cleaners across the East Coast, including the new Tri-State agreement covering 1,400 cleaners in Fairfield County, plus 8,600 more in the Hudson Valley, Long Island, and across New Jersey where a strike was also averted.

It is the first combined labor agreement covering 10,000 cleaners in three states in a single contract and includes an average 4 percent wage increase each year over four years, expanded access to pensions, protections against workforce reduction and sexual harassment, and Juneteenth as a paid holiday.

“Thanks to all the support we received from members in all three states, we have achieved a fantastic tentative agreement,” said Esther Alamias, a 32BJ SEIU bargaining committee member and a cleaner in Greenwich, Connecticut. “We got the wage increase that we need to stay ahead of inflation, additional paid-time off, including the important holiday of Juneteenth, and an extension of retirement benefits, which is a great victory for future workers, too.”