Birmingham, AL – On April 7, more than a week after union voting ended for workers at Amazon’s Bessemer Distribution Center, the Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union says that 3215 votes were cast, which is 55% of the 5800 workers at the location. Up until now the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) – which oversees this type of union election – as well as the union and the employer, were engaged in a process of going through every name on the eligibility list and checking if they voted, and seeing if either the employer or the union wished to file an objection to the validity of each ballot based on eligibility of the voter.

Birmingham, AL – Nearly 2500 people came together here, June 25, to march and speak out against Alabama House Bill 56 (HB 56), recently signed into law by Governor Bentley. The bill is being called “the harshest anti-immigrant state law in the nation.” While many immigrant rights activists say, “the bill was inspired by SB 1070 in Arizona”, others describe the law as, “a pre-civil rights movement Jim Crow law enforcing inequality.” The new law is set to take effect on Sept. 1.

Birmingham, AL – On Jan. 18, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, dozens of people gathered here to participate in the Solidarity March with the Birmingham Homeless Coalition and Birmingham Peace Project. Under the banner of, Breaking the Silence: Perpetual War=Perpetual Poverty, protesters spoke out against the war and for affordable housing and fair wages. Marchers began in Linn Park downtown and continued on to the Greater Birmingham Ministry. There, several speakers took the stage, including Rodney Cole, videographer of police harassment and violence towards the homeless; Sarah White, union organizer and human rights activist and Rosa Clemente, community organizer, hip hop activist and former Green Party vice-presidential candidate.

Birmingham, AL – In northwestern Colombia in 2001, the president and vice president of the mining union Sintramienergetica were taken off a Drummond bus and shot to death by paramilitary death squads hired by the corporation. Later that year, paramilitaries also killed the new president. These men were all killed during negotiations with Drummond.

Birmingham, AL – “Who is a terrorist? Drummond is a terrorist!” rang through downtown here, July 9 as members of Students for a Democratic Society at Tuscaloosa and Birmingham peace activists marched towards the Federal Courthouse to demand justice for the three Colombian trade unionists murdered in 2001 and 2002.

Birmingham, AL – On July 26, Drummond Co., a Birmingham-based coal company, was found ‘not liable’ in the deaths Colombian trade unionists Valmore Locarno and Victor Orcasita – the head of a union local and his deputy – as well as the next union president Gustavo Soler. The three leaders of the Sintamienergética miners union worked at the Drummond’s La Loma mine in northern Colombia. They were tortured and murdered in 2001.