Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Call to Action: TYS Laundromat, Pay Your Workers What You Owe

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New York, NY - The TYS Laundromat workers held a picket line on October 31, 2018 outside the laundromat at 215 E 116th St, East Harlem. Minimum wage, overtime pay and appropriate protective gear. These were the demands that workers at TYS Laundromat in East Harlem fought for and won. But now TYS is cutting workers' schedules as a retaliation against the workers rights to organize.
For many years, the workers at TYS Laundromat have suffered from wage theft. For their work and dedication, they were regularly paid a sub-minimum wage without overtime pay.
The TYS Laundromat workers are saying "No more". Their demands to TYS are simple:

* Treat your workers with respect.
* Provide a safe work environment with appropriate safety gear and conditions.
* Pay a minimum wage with overtime.
* Come to the negotiation table in good faith for compensation of back wages.
TYS has met the workers' demands by paying the minimum wage and providing safety equipment. But now TYS is refusing to negotiate with its employees. They have cut their business hours and taken an additional day of work away from their employees, cutting workers' schedules by 13 hours a week. This is unacceptable. It is a clear retaliation against the workers, violating their rights to compensation and their rights to organize.
What do we do when the boss retaliates? Fight back!
Together we will demonstrate our community strength and let TYS Laundromat know that retaliation will not be tolerated.

Call to Action: TYS Laundromat, Pay Your Workers What You Owe

#Activism #demonstration #DirectAction #EastHarlem #FairContracts #FairWages #Harlem #HastaLaHuelga #Labor #LaborRights #LaundromatWorkers #LaundryWorkersCenter #LivingWage #LWC #MinimumWage #NewYork #NewYorkCity #NewYorkers #NYC #RetailLaundromats #safety #Solidarity #StreetVendorProject #TYSLaundromat #Union #WageTheft #WorkerRights #WorkersPower

© Erik McGregor - erikrivas@hotmail.com - 917-225-8963

Tuesday, October 30, 2018

NYC Rise Up with Pittsburgh - Solidarity vigil with gun violence victims

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New York, NY - Members of the Jewish community and allies gathered in Battery Park on October 30, 2018, holding a candlelight vigil to demonstrate support for the victims of white nationalism in Pittsburgh and resist this administration’s bigotry. Together, #WeWillOutliveThem. 
Today, Trump went to Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh Jewish leaders and allies are calling on Trump to denounce white nationalism and violence in all its forms — and they’re ready to resist him.
This is one of several solidarity events across the country. Now is the time to turn out, show solidarity, and hold each other close.
* We must drown out Trump’s empty words as he enables white nationalists. 
* We must resist his attack on immigrant communities as he prepares an executive order to end birthright citizenship.
* We must come together in solidarity, love, and community.


NYC Solidarity with Pittsburgh gun violence victims

#Activism #attack #BatteryPark #CandlelightVigil #demonstration #DomesticTerrorism #enough #GunControl #GunViolence #HateCrime #JewishCommunity #massacre #MassShooting #nationalism #NewYork #NotMyPresident #NYC #Pittsburgh #‎Solidarity #stopgunviolence #StopTheHate #Synagogue #trumpvsallofus #victims #Vigil #WeAreNotAfraid #WhiteSupremacy #WeWillOutliveThem

© Erik McGregor - erikrivas@hotmail.com - 917-225-8963

Sunday, October 28, 2018

Baby Trump balloon in New York City as part of Impeachment Parade

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New York, NY - Hundreds of New Yorkers joined activist groups By the People and Baby Trump Tour at the Impeachment Parade organized on October 28, 2018 at Battery Park. The event featured the infamous 20-foot-high Baby Trump Balloon, which made Trump feel 'unwelcome' in the UK. 
This parade was organized to kick off mass campaign to mobilize millions of Americans to support impeachment and remove Trump's Administration from power and allow the people to build a country that works for all of us.
The Baby Trump Balloon, a 20-foot tall balloon depicting the president as a petulant child, wearing a diaper and holding a cell phone in his tiny hands, has been on a nationwide “Baby Trump Tour”. The tour has gone from Bedminster to Palm Beach (near Mar-a-Lago) alongside a rally for Power to Puerto Rico, to the Women’s March in Chicago, to Politicon in Los Angeles, and more.
The parade comes the weekend after a wave of attempted bombings targeted Trump’s top political opponents, just before the 2018 midterm election.
America must defend the freedom and dignity of all those who call it home. But Donald Trump is separating families and children, promoting religious discrimination, encouraging white supremacists, obstructing justice, and working with a foreign dictator to undermine our democracy.  
We must decide what kind of country we want to live in. Do we want to live in a country by and for a corrupt few? Or a country by and for all of us, no matter the color of our skin, the religion we practice or the people we love?
Resisting this President and his administration is not a political action, it is one of survival. He has proven every day since elected that he is unfit to serve as our country’s leader. We must use every tool at our disposal to push back. 
Ego and insecurity is Trump’s Achilles’ Heel - help us take aim at it together, and give Trump the parade he really deserves! We think it's time he started to feel unwelcome in the US too. Impeachment will stop this president. 

NYC: Impeachment Parade with Baby Trump Balloon

#Activism #BabyTrumpTour #balloon #BatteryPark #ByThePeople #collusion #corruption #DefendDemocracy #demonstration #DirectAction #DonaldTrump #DumpTrump #FakePrez #impeach #ImpeachmentParade #ImpeachTrump #LoveTrumpsHate #MangoMussolini #NewYork #NotMyPresident #NYC #PeacefulProtest #PeacefulResistance #ResistTrump #revolution #treason #TrumpBalloon #trumpvsallofus

© Erik McGregor - erikrivas@hotmail.com - 917-225-8963

Friday, October 26, 2018

Defense Rests in Historic Climate Trial for Activists Who Crawled Into Fracked Gas Pipeline

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Cortlandt, New York - This week defense attorney David Dorfman made a compelling case that his clients Rebecca Berlin, David Publow and Janet González crawled into a segment of 42 inch diameter steel pipe in Cortlandt, New York in October 2016, halting construction of the Spectra/Enbridge AIM pipeline for 18 hours, in order to prevent a greater harm.  
Judge Kimberly Ragazzo is set to make a verdict on the case on January 8, 2019. In July, Ragazzo ruled the pipeline crawlers would be allowed to present the necessity defense, meaning their unlawful actions were necessary to prevent a greater, imminent harm. 
If Judge Ragazzo finds Berlin, Publow and González not guilty by reason of necessity, it will be the first time for a criminal trial employing a climate related necessity defense and could have implications for communities trying to stop fossil fuel pipelines across the country.  
The Spectra/Enbridge AIM pipeline transports fracked gas from Pennsylvania through New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. The high pressure pipeline runs within 105 feet of critical safety infrastructure at the decaying Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant, endangering 20 million people in the New York metropolitan area in the event of a rupture. 
Earlier this week expert witnesses testified that in addition to its dangerous placement near Indian Point, the fracked gas pipeline already substantially contributes to climate change and exposes the local community to carcinogens and other toxic components of fracked gas. 
The defendants also took the stand this week testifying that they, along with the local community opposing the pipeline, exhausted all legal means before resorting to civil disobedience and were forced to take action when elected officials like Governor Cuomo and Senators Schumer and Gillibrand failed to exercise the full extent of their powers to stop the pipeline. 
The local community and New Yorkers across the state are still calling on Governor Cuomo to be a true climate leader and shut off the gas in the pipeline. 

Defense Rests in Historic Climate Trial

#Activism #ActOnClimate #AIMpipeline #CivilDisobedience #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #climatejustice #ClimateTrial #ClosingStatements #Cortlandt #CourtHearing #courthouse #CourtSupport #CuomoWalkTheTalk #FossilFree #Fracking #IndianPoint #infrackstructure #KeepItIntheGround #Methane #NecessityDefense #NewYork #NoPipelines #NuclearPowerPlant #NYC #OffFossilFuels #ResistAIMpipeline #ResistSpectra #SAPE #SEnRG #StopAIMpipeline #StopSpectra #WalkTheTalk #WaterProtectors #WeSayNo 

© Erik McGregor - erikrivas@hotmail.com - 917-225-8963 

Wednesday, October 17, 2018

The Sev7nth Circle Begins: Storytelling on Instagram

The Sev7nth Circle Begins: Storytelling on Instagram

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The Sev7nth Circle is a feminist sci-fi thriller about a young woman named ROO (age 23) and an ancient society of women called the Sev7nth Circle. The story unfolds via Instagram and a website (sev7nthcircle.org) and will include real world “events.” Chapter one is about the lost and erased women of science, who will be revealed, at the end of ROO’s quest to open a secret portal. 

>>CLICK HERE TO SEE MORE PHOTOS<<

This is basically what Marilyn Oliva, one of its creators, told me early this summer when she asked if I would like to play one of the guardians of the sev7nth circle. We met in a direct action activist group after the 2018 presidential election. I said yes, of course! It’s hard to imagine what storytelling looks like on Instagram and the best way to “get it” is to follow the series through your Instagram account @sev7nthcirle

>>CLICK HERE TO SEE MORE PHOTOS<<

The creators of the Sev7nth Circle are Marilyn Oliva – an Affiliated Scholar at Fordham University and a freelance archivist, and Jan Libby – writer, designer, and producer of immersive and interactive stories. 

>>CLICK HERE TO SEE MORE PHOTOS<<



Our goal in creating this series was to recover the many women who have been whitewashed from history in a compelling and unusual way. To do this we developed the idea of a limbo-like universe where women from the Humanities, Arts and Sciences languish and wait to be released into the public consciousness. We then created the @sev7nthcircle story about a young woman’s quest–to discover the whereabouts of her mother–during which she discovers a secret society that fights for the return of the forgotten, lost, and erased women of history.

>>CLICK HERE TO SEE MORE PHOTOS<<

The Project: We wanted to tell the story of the women who have been whitewashed from history in a compelling and unusual way. To do this we developed the idea of a limbo-like universe where women from the Humanities, Arts and Sciences languish and wait to be released into the public consciousness. 

>>CLICK HERE TO SEE MORE PHOTOS<<

We then created an Instagram series about two young women who go on a sort of personal quest–to discover the whereabouts of one of their mothers–and stumble on a secret society that both guards and seeks the return of these forgotten, lost, and erased women. 

>>CLICK HERE TO SEE MORE PHOTOS<<

Instagram is the perfect platform to share the Sev7nth Circle story: it allows us to use a fun combination of content: still images, video, gifs, music, and text to tell our feminist sci-fi thriller and lets followers stay connected to the unfolding story whenever they check into Instagram.

>>CLICK HERE TO SEE MORE PHOTOS<<

#Activism #feminism #FeministSciFi #LightProjection #NewYork #NYC #SEV7NTHCIRCLE #TheIlluminator #womeninscience #womenrisingup

© Erik McGregor - erikrivas@hotmail.com - 917-225-8963

Monday, October 15, 2018

Indigenous Women’s Delegation takes fossil fuel divestment demands to Chase Bank’s doorstep

>>CLICK HERE TO SEE MORE PHOTOS<<

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New York, NY - The indigenous Women's Divestment Delegation, facilitated by Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN), along with environmental organizations in NYC  and national organization Rainforest Action Network stood together on October 15,2018 to demand JPMorgan Chase divest from fossil fuels. Six women leaders, from the frontlines of pipeline battles across the nation, spoke out and disrupted Chase Bank’s Private Client offices in the landmarked 28 Liberty building downtown.  
Today the Canadian company, Enbridge is seeking to renew its credit with Chase  in order to complete the Line 3 expansion pipeline.  Enbridge’s Line 3 Replacement is dangerously similar to Keystone XL. They are both proposed 36” transborder pipelines which would carry heavy tar sands crude oil from Canada through the United States and across delicate water, land, and cultural resources, with some oil potentially bound for export. Despite harsh public backlash and environmental warnings from the disastrous KXL and DAPL fights, banks like JPMorgan Chase refuse to learn and continue funding outdated and dangerous pipelines.
JPMorgan Chase should prohibit all financing for companies with current or planned operations in the tar sands sector, in recognition of its environmental, social, and growing  financial risks.
This rallying cry from the fourth Indigenous Women’s Divestment Delegation launches their mission to New York City and Washington D.C. from October 15-17th, to take part in high-level meetings engaging the Equator Principle Association banks (EP banks) and the credit rating agency MSCI, regarding fossil fuel developments; Indigenous and human rights violations; dangers to increasing climate chaos; and demands for institutional action to change the harmful financing practices supporting extractive industries. 
The call from the Indigenous Women’s Divestment Delegation is for rights and environmental violations to be more thoroughly reflected in the rating scores given to fossil fuel extraction companies. Such shifts in rating agency procedures would act as as one tool to contribute to the continued divestment of funds from unjust and dangerous extractive corporations and projects.
JPMorgan Chase, Wall Street’s worst offender when it comes to funding tar sands, and French bank Crédit Agricole are joint bookrunners and lead arrangers for the line of credit for Enbridge Energy Partners.

* The Mille Lacs, White Earth, and Red Lake tribes in Minnesota whose lands would be crossed by the pipeline are all strongly opposed to the pipeline due to its impact upon their territories, especially the culturally significant wild rice beds.
* The opposition of three Ojibwe tribes demonstrates that Enbridge’s Line 3 project violates the internationally recognized principle of Free, Prior and Informed Consent for impacted Indigenous peoples.
* Environmentalists and landowners along the proposed route, oppose the project. 
Minnesota’s commerce department has concluded that the state does not need the project, and an Administrative Law Judge had ruled that the state’s Public Utility Commission should deny Enbridge its preferred route.
“Enbridge has the only fully approved, fully funded major tar sands line in North America. It is a 1/3 owner in Dakota Access, and therefore a 1/3 owner in the brutality on unarmed people that took place in Standing Rock. Enbridge now plans to send almost one million barrels of oil per day through my people’s treaty territory, against the will of the tribes and people. Enbridge holds an A credit rating. No bank with even the most basic respect for human rights should be funding this company.” - Tara Houska (Couchiching First Nation Anishinaabe, Tribal attorney, National Campaigns Director of Honor the Earth, and former advisor on Native American affairs to Bernie Sanders)

“Divestment from dirty fossil fuel extraction and infrastructure demonstrates a commitment to our collective future and the web of life. What is needed immediately from financial institutions, insurance companies and rating agencies, is a show of leadership and dedication to ecological sustainability, and human and Indigenous rights, as we face the unprecedented challenges of a world plunging into climate chaos. Indigenous women have long bore the brunt of extractive industries, and despite this, shine powerfully with solutions to the harms that come from these destructive practices. Financial institutions, businesses, and governments need to listen to Indigenous women and adhere to their demands, which are founded on requests for basic respect for obtaining free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous communities, as required under international law. WECAN International stands with representatives of the ongoing Indigenous Women’s Divestment Delegations - and is calling for justice and accountability from institutions engaged in or enabling fossil fuel extraction. Business as usual cannot continue. Now is the time to move forward towards renewable, regenerative energy for all.” - Osprey Orielle Lake (Executive Director of the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network and Co-Director of the Divest, Invest, Protect campaign) 


Indigenous Women’s Delegation demands Chase to divest from fossil fuels


#Activism #Chase #ChaseBank #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #climatejustice #CorporateGreed #DefendTheSacred #DefundTarSands #divest #FossilFree #IndigenousRights #IndigenousRising #IndigenousWomen #JPMorgan #JPMorganChase #KeepItIntheGround #mniwiconi #NewYork #NoBayouBridge #NoDAPL #noKXL #NoPipelines #NoTarSands #NYC #PeacefulProtest #PeacefulResistance #peopleoverpipelines #ProtectTheSacred #RainforestActionNetwork #StopLine3 #stopLine3pipeline #StopTheBlackSnake #StopThePipeline #WaterIsLife 

© Erik McGregor - erikrivas@hotmail.com - 917-225-8963