AGITPROP NEWS: 8.31.3

["Alewitz, Mike (Dept. of Art)" <ALEWITZM@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Please Post and Distribute:



LaBOR aRT & MuRAL PRoJECT
AGITPROP NEWS: 8.31.3



In this issue:



1.  Report on LaMP Palestine Delegation
2.  Five in the Morning
3.  The Grinch That Stole Labor Day
4.  Wild Night
5.  Growth Industry
6.  True Tech Stories
7.  Drawing Support 3: Murals and Transition in the North of Ireland 
8.  Cradle Will Rock
9.  Art at Work
10.  Darwin Awards
11.  New Website
12.  Quote
13.  Feedback
14.  LaBOR aRT & MuRAL PRoJECT


_____________________________



1.  Report on LaMP Palestine Delegation



Thanks to everyone who responded to our requests for protest letters re: the 
threatened demolition of the new Beit Arabia peace center and mural in Anata, 
East Jerusalem the building and mural memorializing Rachel Corrie remain whole 
and stand defiantly in the face of the Israeli interrogation center going up on 
the opposite hill.  

The dedication ceremony on Aug. 21 drew around 100 people and heard greetings 
from the mayor of Anata, the PLO, a former member of the Hadash faction of the 
Knesset, the muktar of the neighboring Bedouin compound, the muralist Mike 
Alewitz, and a number of Israeli peace activists.  The head of the Israeli 
Committee Against House Demolitions moved the crowd with his declaration that 
the Israeli authorities, who have destroyed houses on the site four times, can 
go ahead and destroy the new center 100 times, but that it will be rebuilt each 
time as an act of resistance to the occupation.  ICAHD is making posters of the 
mural, and in the eventuality that the center and mural are demolished, plans 
to sell pieces of the mural as a fundraiser for their projects.

The labor delegation, consisting of Ed Hunt of SEIU at U. of Washington, Sam 
Goldberger of the SEIU at the four C's in CT, Becky Wasserman of the US Student 
Association and Board member of Jobs with Justice, Paul Karolczyk--a CT student 
and construction worker, and Dan Levine--a labor reporter from CT, was able to 
meet with official union representatives, union dissidents, and labor advocates 
on both sides of the Green Line.  As a result we developed a highly nuanced 
appreciation of the intersection of the politics of Israel's neoliberal 
austerity plan and the occupation, as well as of the challenges facing labor in 
each of the distinct sectors of the economy in both the territories and Israel 
proper.

On the evening of our arrival, we drove to Kfar Qara, an Arab village in the 
northern triangle of Israel, to join the dedication rally for a mural painted 
by Alewitz and local construction workers on one wall of the municipal stadium 
there.  Sam Goldberger delivered greetings from our group and the unions who 
had contributed to the solidarity mural project and recalled the struggle to 
integrate the U.S. labor movement. The Palestinian workers, in response, 
concluded the rally by singing the Internationale in Arabic, astounding some of 
our delegates who had come to believe that the secular left had vanished  in 
the region.  We then retired to the patio of one of the local leaders for 
coffee, tea, and an exchange of messages of solidarity.  The workers, active in 
Ma'an, or the Workers' Advice Centers, a broad formation led by activists from 
the ODA, or Party for Democratic Action, invited our delegation to a day of 
meetings to discuss a call for an international labor delegation to investigate 
the discrimination against Palestinian Israelis in hiring and the concurrent 
exploitation of the Romanian, Thai, and Chinese workers that Israeli employers 
have brought in to replace them and to drive down wages and to extend the hours 
of work.  We will circulate this call and report on our discussions around it 
in a later reportback.

In Tel Aviv, we were able to meet with groups that attempt to aid the "guest" 
workers brought to Israel in the most superexploitative manner.  Kav LaOved and 
the Workers' Hotline together attempt to respond to the needs of the most 
distressed members of this group.  There are over 250,000 "foreign" workers in 
Israel.  The vast majority are brought in legally by the employers after they 
have "proven" to the Ministry of Labor that Palestininan workers have "refused" 
work.  

The system of recruitment, fees to coyotes in both the country of origin and 
the country of entry, and kickbacks to the employers who originally called for 
the workers is said to amount to a $3billion per year industry.  It is said 
that workers from Romania pay about $2000 for entry and that workers from China 
need to come up with around $10,000. These workers are very often deprived of 
their passports by Israeli border guards, who then hand them over to the 
employers.  Often the employer has entered into the scheme only for the 
kickback and quickly fires the worker.  This worker is, in this way, deprived 
of any legal status and is subject to deportation. Those who actually go to 
work, are forced to work 12 and 14 hours a day, to sleep at the work site, and 
to accept subminimum wages.  If a worker is fired, yet escapes immediate 
deportation, he can often do a bit better in wages as a free agent in the 
underground economy, but must suffer the consequences of being criminalized for 
having lost his job.

While waiting for a meeting in the office of the Workers Hotline, we met a 
Filippino woman whose case was typical.  She had been in Israel for four days.  
She had once been a schoolteacher, but had sought to improve her economic 
status by doing domestic contract work abroad.  She had paid $5000 to an agent 
to come to Israel and another $2000 to an agency here. She was sent on a job as 
a home care staffer for an infirm woman.  By the second day, the extended 
family was demanding that she clean the whole house.  She complied but the 
family fired her anyway, telling the agency she was a bad worker.  The agency 
refused to place her on another job and she was stranded in Israel with her 10 
year old son, without  a passport or any means to travel or to live.

The Workers Hotline was in discussions with Ma'an, trying to come up with a 
joint declaration about the plight of Palestinian workers thrown into 
unemployment and the superexploited guest workers brought in to replace them.  
Still in dispute is one demand of Ma'an which calls on the Israeli state to 
"close the skies", i.e. to stop colluding with the employers in the trafficking 
of workers.  Dr. Roy Wagner of KavLaOved objected to any demand which might 
encourage chauvinism against the foreign workers. The discussion continues.  I 
have included as an attachment a report on the situation of these workers in 
Israel being circulated by Ma'an.  One important development is the recent 
organzing effort of Turkish "guest" workers inside Israel.

The plight of both "guest" workers and Palestinian workers who live inside 
Israel was part of our discussions with labor advocates inside the Green Line 
as well.  Hassan Barghouti, the director of the Democracy and Workers' Rights 
Center in Ramallah, said that he hopes the development of a new and vibrantly 
democratic workers' movement in the territories will be the inspiration for a 
radicalization of the labor movement inside Israel.  Barghouti's optimism about 
the possibility of stimulating a mass workers movement in the face of the 
obstacles posed by the occupation surprised many on our delegation, but his 
vision was backed up by the anecdotal evidence he provided about successful 
organizing efforts.  

According to Barghouti, only about 22% of Palestinians in the territories 
support Islamic factions and about 30% support Fateh.  In the current situation 
only about 3% support the old "left" factions in the PLO.  Around 48% of the 
Palestinians in the territories view themselves as political independents and 
are looking for a voice to defend their rights as part of civil society and as 
workers.  The traditional Palestinian trade union leadership comes out of the 
national struggle and their salaries are paid by the Palestine Authority, which 
is burdened with all the compromises of Oslo. At this moment, when those 
compromises  weigh so heavily on the working people of the territories and when 
the Palestine Legislative Assembly is composed primarily of longtime militants, 
professionals, or Palestinian employers, the great majority of Palestinian 
workers have no representatives to fight around basic class issues. Political 
fights inside the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions and fledging 
efforts at electing work site workers' councils independent of the structures 
of the PGFTU suggest that the status quo will not hold for long.

In our meetings with the PGFTU, we learned of the obstacles to organizing posed 
by the occupation and the continued closures, checkpoints, and curfews.  U.S. 
trade unionists will be able to learn more about their perspectives first hand, 
as a U.S. tour of several PGFTU members will kick off at the Labor Notes 
Conference in Detroit on Sept. 12.  For more information on this tour, go to 
www.palestinelabor.com.

In all cases, we asked activists about their assessment of the spring strikes 
and demonstrations of the Histadrut.  Did this increased display of opposition 
to Netanyahu's austerity budget suggest that the ranks of Israeli Jewish labor 
might be pushed into protest against the costs of the occupation? If the 
question was interpreted to mean would the Histadrut ever be moved to publicly 
oppose the occupation, the answer was always "no."  But if the question was 
interpreted more broadly, avoiding the question of the organizational fate of 
the Histadrut and addressing the social forces in motion in Israel, the answers 
were more cautiously optimistic.  Jihad Akel, a Palestinian on the Executive 
Board of the Tel Aviv Histadrut, hoped that the spring mobilizations signaled 
the beginning of a new labor activism.  For two months, single mothers, mostly 
Mizrahi or Arab Jews, have been camped in a  tent city outside the Knesset to 
protest the cuts in social benefits.  Dr. Bahar of the Alternative Information 
Center looked to this development as a sign that the Mizrahi working class  may 
yet return to the militancy  of the 70's.  Dr. Bahar is one of a number of 
Mizrahi academics who are writing revisionist histories of the Arab Jewish 
working class in Israel.

Overall, our solidarity mission generated a great deal of publicity.  Labor 
muralist Mike Alewitz was featured in a full page article in Ha'aretz and in a 
small Tel Aviv weekly.  Israeli TV Channel One carried an interview with 
Alewitz that was broadcast in prime time and in which Alewitz's murals in 
Palestine/Israel were contextualized as part of his other international 
projects.  Alewitz was able to speak about the growing opposition to war among 
U.S. labor activists and to denounce the U.S. backed Israeli occupation of 
Palestine.  Local activists were thrilled by the attention that he brought to 
their work.

Our delegation will be producing a more formal and comprehensive report on our 
experiences, which will eventually be available at www.palestinelabor.com.  We 
will also be participating in an interest meeting and tabling at the Labor 
Notes Conference, in an effort to begin to share our new insights about the 
struggle to develop real ties of solidarity with Palestinian working people and 
anti-occupation Israelis.  Thank you for your support.

Chris Gauvreau, Labor Art and Mural Project, Aug. 27, 2003



_____________________________


2.  Five in the Morning


Film on Arab construction workers 
8/21/2003 
 
 
           ?Sana Cinematheque in Nazareth has recently hosted an initial show 
for a new documentary film about the Arab construction workers in Israel and 
their daily sufferings in the past few years.
           ?The film carries the title "Five in the Morning" and it is the 
second film in the Video 48 Group. The film documents the changes that took 
place on the construction sector in the last decade and talks about the efforts 
Ma'an Society has held in an attempt to return some construction workers to 
their organized work.
           ?The film documents the conditions of the Arab construction workers, 
whose number reaches 35,000 workers in Israel. It also talks about those 
workers, who have lost their working places since 1995, when Israel started 
imposing the policy of closure on the occupied territories, preventing the 
Palestinian Arab workers from entering Israel and bringing foreign workers 
instead.
           ?The film highlights the issue of these workers in the globalization 
era that got them out of the cycle of production to unemployment, which was 
deemed a basic factor in the Al Aqsa Intifada. The film lasts 55 minutes and 
was produced by Nir Nader and directed by Sheri Filla.

asafadiv@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


_____________________________



3.  The Grinch That Stole Labor Day


Friday, 29 August, 2003

In celebration of the working person's holiday, Secretary of Labor Elaine
Chao has announced the Bush Administration's plan to end the 60-year-old
law which requires employers to pay time-and-a-half for overtime.

I'm sure you already knew that -- if you happened to have run across page
15,576 of the Federal Register.

According to the Register, where the Bush Administration likes to place
it's little gifts to major campaign donors, 2.7 million workers will lose
their overtime pay -- for a "benefit" of $1.53 billion. I put "benefit" in
quotes because, in the official cost-benefit analysis issued by Bush's
Labor Department, the amount employers will now be able to slice out of
workers' pockets is tallied on the plus side of the rules change.

Nevertheless, workers getting their pay snipped shouldn't complain,
because they will all be receiving promotions. These employees will be
re-classified as managers exempt from the law. The change is promoted by
the National Council of Chain Restaurants. You've met these 'managers' -
they're the ones in the beanies and aprons whose management decisions are,
"Hold the lettuce on that."

My favorite of Chao's little amendments would re-classify as "exempt
professionals" anyone who learned their skill in the military. In other
words, thousands of veterans will now lose overtime pay. I just can't
understand why Bush didn't announce that one when he landed on the
aircraft carrier.

by Greg Palast
(excerpts)

http://www.gregpalast.com/contact.cfm



_____________________________




4.  Wild Night


An old man was sitting on a bench at the mall. A young man walked up
and sat down. He had spiked hair in all different colors: green, red,

orange, blue, yellow. The old man just stared. Every time the young
man looked, the old man was staring.

The young man finally said sarcastically, "What's the matter old
timer, never done anything wild in your life?"

Without batting an eye, the old man replied, "Got drunk once and had
sex with a parrot. I was just wondering if you were my son."


Todd@xxxxxxxx



_____________________________



5.  Growth Industry


Thirty Percent Of Black Men In Us Will Go To Jail


Black men born in the United States in 2001 will have a one in three
chance of going to prison during their lifetime if current trends
continue, according to a report by the US Justice Department.

More than 5.6 million Americans are either in prison or have served
time there - and that number will continue to rise, the report
shows.

By the end of 2001 one in every 37 Americans had some experience of
prison, compared with one in 53 in 1974. Continuing at that rate,
the proportion will increase to one in every 15 of those born in
2001.

In 2001 a sixth of African-American men were current or former
prisoners, compared with one in 13 Latinos and one in 38 whites. The
incarceration of women remains lower than of men but has increased
at twice the rate since 1980 and shows similar racial disparities.

"Prison had become the social policy of choice for low income people
of colour," says Marc Mauer, assistant director of the Sentencing
Project, a group which promotes reduced reliance on imprisonment.
"Nobody's stated it that way but we have inner-city areas starved of
investment but no shortage of funds to build and fill prisons."


by Gary Younge in New York - August 19, 2003 - The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1021430,00.html



_____________________________



6.  True Tech Stories


True Tech Support Stories:

Compaq is considering changing the command "Press Any Key" to "Press 
Return Key" because of the flood of calls asking where the Any Key is.

SAT technical support had a caller complaining that her mouse was hard to 
control with the dust cover on. The cover turned out to be the plastic bag the 
mouse was packaged in.

Another SAT customer was asked to send a copy of her defective diskettes. 
A few days later a letter arrived from the customer along with photocopies of 
the floppies.

Another Dell customer called to say he couldn't get his computer to fax 
anything. After 40 minutes of troubleshooting, the technician discovered the 
man 
was trying to fax a piece of paper by holding it in front of the monitor 
screen and hitting the "send" key.

A confused caller to IBM was having troubles printing documents. He told 
the technician that the computer had said it "couldn't find printer." The user 
had also tried turning the computer screen to face the printer but that his 
computer still couldn't "see" the printer."

Another IBM customer had trouble installing software and rang for support. 
"I put in the first disk, and that was OK. It said to put in the second disk, 
and I had some problems with the disk. When it said to put in the third disk, 
I couldn't even fit it in...." The user hadn't realized that "Insert Disk 2" 
meant to remove Disk 1 first.

A woman called the Canon help desk with a problem with her printer. The 
tech asked her if she was running it under "Windows." The woman responded, "No, 
my desk is next to the door. But that is a good point. The man sitting in the 
cubicle next to me is under a window and his printer is working fine."



_____________________________



7.  Drawing Support 3: Murals and Transition in the North of Ireland 


Drawing Support 3: Murals and Transition in  the North of Ireland 
by Bill Rolston 

During the past three decades of political conflict in the North of  Ireland, 
murals have been a highly visible part of the political  scene. Having charted 
their development in two best-selling  books - Drawing Support: Murals in the 
North of Ireland  (1992) and Drawing Support 2: Murals of War and Peace  (1996) 
- Bill Rolston now brings the story up to date. 

The 114 photographs and ten pages of text in this latest book  cover the 
developments in mural painting between 1996 and the  present. The period has 
been one of a live, if at times precarious,  peace process. Republican murals 
responded in a number of  ways: dropping paramilitary references except in 
memorial  murals, and frequently commenting on progress - or the lack of  it - 
in the peace process. They have also continued to represent  themes that were 
their hallmark since the 1980s: electoral  campaigns, opposition to state 
repression, Irish history and  mythology, and references to political struggles 
against  colonialism and repression elsewhere in the world. 

Loyalist murals, on the contrary, became for some years  increasingly dominated 
by paramilitary imagery and made few  direct comments to current political 
events and issues. There has  been some change in welcome years with the 
appearance of a  number of murals on historical themes - including World War 1  
- and murals on the theme of Ulster Scots language, culture and  history. 

Finally, the book contains a number of photographs of murals  painted by 
loyalist and republican prisoners inside Long Kesh.  With the release of these 
prisoners by July 2000, the murals  were painted out. 


Details: 60 pages, with 114 photographs, paperback. ISBN 1- 900960-23-0. Price: 
£11.99. Free postage for sales to Europe  and surface mail for the rest of the 
world. Airmail option for rest  of the world. 

Order direct from the publisher, Beyond the Pale Publications:  { HYPERLINK 
"http://www.btpale.com"; }http://www.btpale.com 


wj.rolston@xxxxxxxxxx


_____________________________



8.  Cradle Will Rock


Frank Theatre will mount its first full-scale musical production, Mark
Blitzstein's 1937 THE CRADLE WILL ROCK at the former Sears building
on Lake Street and 10th Avenue in south Minneapolis. The production will
run October 3-26, 2003. Performances are Thursday-Saturday at 8:00,
and Sundays at 2:00. There will be one Monday night performance on Oct.
20. Tickets are $16-20. For reservations and information, please call
FrankTheatre at (612) 724 3760.

http://www.franktheatre.org/



_____________________________



9.  Art at Work


Here are some projects I've been working on that may be of interest.


1. "At Work: The Art of California Labor," two San Francisco exhibits and a 
companion book that trace the rich history and recent trends of California 
labor art.
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/~lcushing/addpages/AtWork.html


2. Eighteenth Annual Western Workers Labor Heritage Festival
January 16-18, 2004
San Francisco Bay Area, location yet to be determined
A weekend of inspiration, solidarity, and workers culture!
for more information, contact: David Winters, (831) 426-4940 or Lincoln 
Cushing (510) 642-1056
Endorsers include AFL-CIO Central Labor Councils of the greater Bay Area, 
California Arts Council, Labor Heritage Foundation, and others
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/~lcushing/WWLHF/WWLHF04.html

3. Union Women's Alliance to Gain Equality - Union WAGE (1971-1982)
Exhibit of photographs by Cathy Cade, UC Berkeley Institute of Industrial 
Relations
2521 Channing Way, Berkeley, CA (near Telegraph)  call for hours (510) 643-8140
August 20, 2003 - January 16, 2004
Reception Thursday, October 2, 5:30-7
On-line exhibit http://www.iir.berkeley.edu/exhibit/ includes archived 
previous shows

4. One Struggle, Two Communities: Late 20th Century Political Posters of 
Havana, Cuba and the San Francisco Bay Area
September 28th - December 13, 2003, Berkeley Art Center
Curated by Lincoln Cushing, author of Revolucion! Cuban Poster Art, 
Chronicle Books, 2003.
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/~lcushing/CubaGen.html

The poster was the popular art form in Cuba following the Cuban Revolution, 
when the government sponsored some 10,000 public posters on a fascinating 
range of cultural, social, and political themes. From the mid-1960s through 
the early 1980s, posters rallied the Cuban people to the huge task of 
building a new society, promoting massive sugar harvests and national 
literacy campaigns; opposing the U.S. war in Vietnam; celebrating films, 
music, dance, and sports with a unique graphic wit and exuberant colorful 
style. During the same period, graphic artists in the San Francisco Bay 
Area were actively engaged in a cultural renaissance of their own. 
Politically engaged art became vital currency in fueling the various 
domestic movements. Communities of color were struggling for 
self-determination, women were challenging the patriarchy, and there was 
massive opposition to our government's war in Viet Nam, all which were 
dynamically coupled with insurgence overseas.

Missing from a retrospective assessment of this history is the role of 
artistic solidarity. Artists, as cultural agents, played a significant role 
in establishing links that deepened and enhanced the artistic and political 
impact of both communities. This exhibit explores the connections between 
Bay Area graphic artists and their counterparts in Havana, Cuba. 


Lincoln Cushing
Electronic Outreach Librarian
Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley


from rahl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx



_____________________________



10.  Darwin Awards


Darwin Awards commemorate those who improve our gene pool by removing 
themselves from it. This honor is usually awarded posthumously. 


Here are a few:

BOOBY TRAPS TRAP BOOB
The Netherlands | A retired engineer booby-trapped his home with twenty 
deadly devices, with the intention of killing his estranged family. Anyone with 
common sense could predict the inevitable outcome. He inadvertently triggered 
one 
of his own hidden traps, and removed himself from the planet.

WRONG AND WRONGER
Ukraine | A man was walking his dog, when a Police Academy cadet pointed out 
that dogs on a public street must be leashed and muzzled. The men began to 
argue, until the dog owner pulled out a military hand grenade and threw it to 
the 
cadet's feet. His well-trained dog immediately fetched it back, and man and 
dog met the same messy fate.

ELECTRIFIED WORMS
Norway | If you need worms for fishing, just put a 12-volt electric current 
through ground, and up they come. A 23-year-old man withdrew his genes from the 
pool when he tried to speed up the process by using 220V household current. 
Alas, he did so squatting on a steel bucket, holding an electrode in one hand 
while pushing the other in the ground.

FOOLISH COURAGE
Brazil | On New Year's Eve, some friends were befogged by Pinga, a 
traditional Brazilian liquor, when they began competing to see who could hold a 
lit 
firework in his mouth the longest. Antonio was the winner, biting a firework a 
bit 
too long, and thereby earning praise for his "courage" at his funeral.


_____________________________


11.  New Website

I recently put together a website about my work that might be of interest. 
It can be found at: http://www.artic.edu/~gshole/

gregory g. sholette <gsholette@xxxxxxxxx>


_____________________________



12.  Quote


"I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of 
Iraq."  - Paul Wolfowitz


There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government 
working for you. -- Will Rogers 


_____________________________



13.  Feedback

Dear Mike,

I might ask, if the Israeli's are as oppressive as you present them, how 
come they allowed your art on their land critical of their policies? I 
would suggest it is because they are an open democratic society...so 
open and democratic that I'm sure you found many Israeli sympathizers 
and supporters of your work. Israeli's don't hate Palestianians or want 
to see them suffer. They do however, want to live securely, not afraid 
for their lives, hence the reason for the wall.
I wonder if there would have been the same sympathy or permission to put 
up a mural in an Arab/Palestinian area,  that was denouncing Arab 
Terrorism on innocent Jewish lives and destruction of property? I have a 
feeling rather then finding sympathizers and being granted a space, you 
would have been stoned.

Sincerely,
Carol Buchman

A good article in Honest Reporting to read regarding Israeli and 
Palestinian views of each other and how they are distorted by the media
http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/critiques/Day_In_The_Life.asp

carolbuchman@xxxxxxx


- - - -

as glad i am to know what you are doing, i simply can't accept such large
files, so i will regreetfully be leaving your list; most of those images
are not necessaary, in my opinion. post em on a website!
sincerely
martha rosler

navva@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

- - - -

Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2003 13:26:52 -0500
From: Roy  Tamboli <roy@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Palestine Snapshots

Dear Mike,
Thanks for sharing your snapshots. I kept wondering how your project was coming 
along while I was relaxing on the beach in Brazil.
Roy



_____________________________


14.  LaBOR aRT & MuRAL PRoJECT



Help LaMP use art as a weapon in support of international working-class 
struggles for social and economic justice.  Become a the LaBOR aRT & MuRAL 
PRoJECT sponsor! 


> ___ I/ My organization would like to become a Labor Art & Mural Project 
> sponsor.
> 
> ___ I/ We can pledge $________ per month.  
> 
> 
> Name: __________________________________
> 
> Email: __________________________________
> 
> Address: ________________________________
> 
> Phone: _________________________________ 
> 
> Organization:_____________________________
> 
Additional comments:




Reply to alewitzm@xxxxxxxx



________________________________________

Mike Alewitz

LaBOR aRT & MuRAL PRoJECT
Art Department/ Central CT State University
1615 Stanley Street
New Britain, CT 06050

860.832.2359/ Office
860.518.4046/ Mobile
________________________________________