The vote was done by mail-in ballot, which can slow down the counting process, however even with a group of 5800 people it is highly unusual for a vote to take this long to count, or more than a few hours. The union says that this is a result of several hundred challenges being filed by the employer to votes cast, which has slowed the process considerably.

Actual counting of the votes is expected to begin on Thursday, April 8 in the afternoon, or on Friday morning. While counting the ballots may only take a couple hours by itself, the counting process may be laden with more challenges to ballots by either party if one party or the other argues that a ballot has been spoiled. Ballots can be spoiled in many ways, including if a worker wrote their name on a ballot, or did not fill it out in a manner in which the intent is clear.

Depending on the numbers, we may find out a result by the end of Friday. Or we may see further delays of weeks or even months if the number of challenges proves greater than the margin by which the vote is decided, which would mean the challenges would be ‘determinative’ and could result in a delay of results being certified until after those challenges are settled by the NLRB.

Many in the U.S. labor movement see this as an important time for the movement and are watching results anxiously.

#BirminghamAL #union #unionElection #Amazon #Alabama #Ballot

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.

HB 56 turns K-12 public school teachers into U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. Schools will now be required to determine the immigration status of all their students at enrollment. HB 56 encourages teachers to report undocumented children and their families. This provision is meant to discourage undocumented families from enrolling their young ones into school, denying them a right to an education. The new law also places a ban on undocumented students attending any state colleges or universities. HB 56 makes it a crime to rent housing to undocumented people and even goes so far as to criminalize providing any form of transportation to undocumented people. The law requires police officers to racially profile and hold people in custody until their immigration status is determined.

Overwhelmingly, protesters wore white and carried candles to symbolize unity. The march began with prayers in both Spanish and English from Islamic, Christian and Jewish faith leaders. Protesters marched in dignified silence, at the request of the organizers. Activists at tables around the gathering site gathered petitions demanding the repeal of HB 56.

One of the organizers, Scott Douglas, head of the antipoverty group Greater Birmingham Ministries, looked at the very diverse crowd of protesters and announced, “You look like Alabama to me.”

Students for a Democratic Society activist Scott Daniel, said, “Organizers expected 1000 protesters, and there are well over 2000 people here. That just goes to show that the people of Alabama will not be silenced, that our voices will be heard.”

The protest drew the attention of local and national media, and it certainly drew the attention of Alabama's lawmakers who seek to criminalize and deny the rights of undocumented people. A broad movement of immigrant rights groups, religious organizations, farmers, small businesses, civil rights groups and students are uniting in state after state to oppose these new separate and unequal laws. The South is seeing a new movement for legalization and equality.

#BirminghamAL #SB1070 #HB56 #USImmigrationAndCustomsEnforcementICE

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.

Tuscaloosa's chapter of Students for a Democratic Society traveled to the Birmingham rally. They spoke and handed out flyers about the unionizing of their campus bus drivers. The union, ATU Local 1208, is fighting for a living wage and benefits from the multinational British corporation that employs them. This corporation, FirstGroup PLC, has a contract with the University of Alabama and is refusing to negotiate with the workers. The students urged the rally attendees to call the president of their university to demand fair pay for the bus drivers.

As the march made its way through downtown Birmingham, the marchers, primarily people of color and many homeless, chanted, “Feed the poor! Stop the war!” and “One, two, three, four – we don't need no rich man's war!” Signs held by the marchers demanded that the government “Stop taking from the poor to give to the rich,” and, “All war is against the poor.”

Victor Beard of the Coalition for the Homeless stated, “It's about time that people got together to make some noise about what’s been hidden from society. We have 30,000 living in poverty here in Jefferson County and 25,000 homeless, while all around we see vacant houses, vacant buildings and vacant hearts.”

Sarah White of the Mississippi Worker's Center for Human Rights delivered an inspiring speech, describing her experience at a catfish processing factory. 95% of the factory workers were Black women; they were being subject to long hours in a strict work environment, as well as many instances of harassment. White took part in unionizing her fellow workers, who have since been experiencing a vastly improved work environment. She concluded her speech by saying “We can overcome anything, just lock hands.”

As Rosa Clemente, the event's final speaker, took the stage, she said “Free the land down here,” in a tribute to the struggle for self-determination of African Americans in the south. She said after the event that the significance of the event being held in Birmingham was great. “The history down here is amazing. It is home to the first modern-day struggles for civil rights that were covered by the media. Martin Luther King, Jr. would have spoken to the people I spoke to today. This is the best place to be today.”

#BirminghamAL #Birmingham #AntiwarMovement #PoorPeoplesMovements #StudentsForADemocraticSociety #AfricanAmerican #DrMartinLutherKingJr #RosaClemente #BirminghamHomelessCoalition #BirminghamPeaceProject #ATULocal1208 #MississippiWorkersCenterForHumanRights

The miners union and the International Labor Relief Fund filed a civil suit against Drummond in 2002. Despite the court case, even more Drummond workers have since been threatened and murdered by paramilitaries. The civil suit was going to start on July 9 in Birmingham, Alabama. But on June 20 Bush-appointed judge Karen Bowdry ruled that Drummond will not have to stand trial on ‘wrongful death’ charges, even though there are numerous Colombian citizens willing to testify that Drummond paid right-wing death squads to kill union organizers. “Drummond, which made $2 billion last year strip mining coal in Colombia, is an Alabama firm, owned by Republicans, being tried in a Republican court,” explains Birmingham community activist Reverend Jack Zylman.

At the trial multiple witnesses were scheduled to testify that Drummond made regular payments to the U.S. government-sponsored death squads, and a paramilitary officer was going to testify to being hired to ‘neutralize’ union leadership.

Peace and student groups are organizing a demonstration for what would have been first day of the trial on July 9 at the federal courts building in Birmingham. This case brings further national and international attention to the crimes of U.S. corporations in Colombia and to the role of U.S. sponsored death squads. Chapin Gray of Tuscaloosa Students for a Democratic Society explains, “Corporations should not be allowed to literally get away with murder. Period. When Colombians try to improve their working conditions, they are killed so that big corporations like Drummond can continue raking-in high profits. We want to bring attention to these charges so that more people will realize what is going on, will see the ties between the U.S. government, the Uribe administration and the paramilitaries, and to demand that those ties be severed. We want Drummond to know that we’re watching them. We want justice.”

U.S. Aid Funds Colombian Death Squads

“Colombia is a country dominated by U.S. economic and political interests. There is growing U.S. intervention with soldiers on the ground engaged in combat, and $5 billion given to Colombia since 2000. The U.S. is running Colombia for the benefit of corporations. Worker after worker and peasant after peasant told the Colombia Action Network delegation that U.S. military aid goes straight into the hands of U.S. government-sponsored death squads that terrorize their communities,” said Meredith Aby of the Colombia Action Network.

Colombia receives more U.S. military aid than any other country outside of the Middle East. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Colombia Action Network delegations have documented that the right-wing Colombian government uses U.S. tax dollars to kill and threaten trade unionists, human rights workers, and campesinos (peasants) who organize against the U.S.’s free trade agenda.

As a result Colombia is the most dangerous place to be a trade union activist in the world. U.S. corporations like Coca-Cola, Chiquita, Drummond and Occidental Oil hire paramilitaries to target trade unionists in order to kill union organizing and negotiating efforts. This corporate-death squad link has come under increasing scrutiny recently. Since 2002, the Colombian Action Network has been leading a boycott of Coca-Cola products for Coca-Cola’s collusion with death squads and the murders of eight trade unionists. Campuses across the country have been ending their contracts with ‘Killer Coke.’ This spring, Chiquita pled guilty to arming and funding paramilitaries in Colombia.

The ruling comes at an important time. The Bush administration and Colombia’s President Uribe want the U.S. to pass a new free trade agreement. Drummond has laid off 1700 U.S. miners who earned $18 an hour and moved their operations to Colombia. In comparison, Colombian miners earn an hourly wage of $2.45, receive no other benefits, and are threatened, kidnapped and murdered by paramilitaries for union organizing. Passage of this free trade agreement would only further hurt workers in both countries.

Despite the increasing publicity of the atrocities that the Colombian government really does with U.S. support, President Bush has requested $600 million more in military aid for Colombia. However, Congress is currently debating whether to discontinue U.S. military aid. “Drummond’s crimes give us the opportunity to make the impact of U.S.-sponsored death squads real to the American public and to Congress,” explained Aby. “Trade unionists and peace activists should come demonstrate in support of the workers in Colombia and to protest the judge’s unjust ruling.”

#BirminghamAL #InJusticeSystem #News #Colombia #WorkersAndGlobalization #Drummond #InternationalLaborReliefFund #Sintramienergetica

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.

Drummond, an Alabama-based coal company, is being charged with arranging the murders to halt unionizing efforts in its La Loma plant in Northern Colombia. Initially the corporation faced both wrongful death and war crimes charges, but the former charge was thrown out by Bush-appointed judge Karon Bowdre.

“The political atmosphere that has been perpetuated by Drummond's actions is despicable. The people of the USA need to realize the damage, terrorism and murder that American companies are doing in Colombia,” said protester Christine Jackson.

While jury selection was taking place inside the courthouse, protesters picketing in the hot sun held signs demanding justice for Colombia. SDS-Tuscaloosa, which organized the event, made sure to stress to onlookers and passersby that Drummond's involvement in the murders is not the case of ‘one bad apple,’ but is indicative of the attitude of many U.S. corporations operating without impunity in Colombia and around the world.

“The people in Colombia become targets for violence when they resist the U.S.'s so called free-trade agreements that impoverish their country and hand over their wealth and resources to U.S. multinationals like Drummond,” said Chapin Gray, a student activist with SDS. “Jobs were exported from the southern U.S. to Colombia so that the company could pay the workers dollars a day, ignore safety and environmental concerns and reap enormous profits at the expense of the people. When workers try to organize to improve their situation, they are threatened, kidnapped and even tortured and murdered.”

The protesters also stressed the role of the U.S. government in perpetrating the violence: the U.S. gives billions of dollars in aid to Colombia that ends up in the hands of right-wing paramilitary death squads. These death squads do the dirty work for Colombia’s President Uribe administration and the big corporations. Colombia has one of the worst human rights records in the world, yet the U.S. continually pumps in money, paying for weapons, for fumigation, for murder. Moreover, the U.S. has soldiers on the ground in Colombia, who are there to protect the economic interests of oil companies and other corporations. Just as it invaded Iraq to promote its own economic dominance, the U.S. is after the rich resources of Colombia and doesn't care how much destruction and death it creates so long as companies rake in high profits.

So far this case is also evidence that the judicial system is in the hands of pro-corporate forces. Judge Bowdre has already dismissed eyewitnesses prepared to testify about the crimes in Colombia and is making it difficult to obtain a conviction against Drummond. The protesters hope that bringing attention to this trial will put public pressure on Drummond and force the judge to carry out justice. They also hope to alert people to the vicious crimes being committed by U.S. corporations and its foreign policy. “We are prepared to continue putting pressure on Drummond and the U.S. courts,” said Gray. “We are not going to let these big corporations literally get away with murder.”

#BirminghamAL #News #Colombia #WorkersAndGlobalization #StudentsForADemocraticSocietySDS #DrummondCo

Lawyers from the International Labor Rights Fund and the United Steelworkers brought the case to U.S. courts under the rarely-used Alien Torte Claims Act of 1789 – originally meant to protect other countries against piracy – to expose Drummond’s involvement with the right-wing paramilitary (the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia) and the U.S. government’s support for the corruption and violence against workers in Colombia.

The cards were stacked in Drummond’s favor from the start. The Bush-appointed Judge Bowdre threw out the wrongful death charge before the trial even began, which left the plaintiffs the difficult task of proving the murders constituted a war crime. Key witnesses who could have convinced the jury that Drummond was at fault were not allowed to testify. One of those witnesses, Rafael Garcia, saw Drummond’s top Colombian executive Augusto Jimenez hand over a briefcase containing $200,000 in cash to a well-known paramilitary member.

During the trial, other witnesses like Sintamienergética union treasurer Francisco Ruiz were flown in from Colombia and testified to Drummond’s lack of concern for its workers’ safety, as evidenced by the poor working and housing conditions in La Loma, as well as the company’s refusal to act when union leaders’ lives were repeatedly threatened. For instance, Drummond would not allow workers – who were in the middle of contract negotiations with the company and had been threatened by the paramilitary – to sleep in between shifts on company grounds for security. And this despite the fact that Colombia is notorious for being one of the most dangerous places in the world for trade unionist, hundreds of whom are murdered in Colombia each year.

However, it was more than simple negligence on the part of Drummond; even more damning was the fact that several witnesses, including retired army sergeant Edwin Manuel Guzmán and former security guard Isnardo Ropero González, say Drummond regularly paid the paramilitaries as well as allowed them free range at the mine.

Drummond claims the acquittal proves its innocence, and maintains that the company only pays the Colombian military for protection. However the facts of the case and the situation in Colombia as a whole suggest otherwise. Under the guise of a ‘war on drugs,’ the U.S. government has given billions of dollars under Plan Colombia to protect U.S. business interests, fund death squads, and quell peoples’ movements for social and economic justice.

“No one else but Drummond had an interest in murdering and terrorizing these trade union leaders,” said Jim Toweill of the Tuscaloosa chapter of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). “Drummond benefits from the violence against Colombians – with an absence of strong unions, the company is free to exploit the workers for its own gain. Both the U.S. government and the Colombian government under Colombian President Uribe work to protect the interests of the multinationals and use paramilitary death squads to carry out their dirty work. That Drummond got off scot-free only proves that the U.S. courts are corrupt, and serve the interests of big business, not of justice.”

This is not the first incident where U.S. multinationals have been caught red handed working shoulder-to-shoulder with the Colombian paramilitary. In recent years, organizations like the Colombia Action Network have campaigned against Coca-Cola and Chiquita, who also face heat for their role in human rights abuses in their Colombian plants and for giving arranging and funding the murders of workers who were trying to improve working conditions. As news spreads about Drummond’s role in the murders, European power companies such as DONG of Denmark and Essent of the Netherlands have pledged to stop purchasing Drummond coal.

The trial did have some positive outcomes for working people. The case paved the way for other U.S. corporations operating in Latin America to be tried in U.S. courts and held accountable for their crimes against workers. While Drummond will not suffer from negative publicity like companies that depend heavily on name recognition, such as Chiquita and Coca-Cola, the trial was observed by people all over the world. Local activists and students were inspired to demand justice for Drummond workers and all Colombians who are under attack from the U.S. government and multinational corporations.

“We will continue this semester to take a stand against the actions of U.S. corporations and the U.S. government in Colombia, especially if the case is appealed,” said Toweill, who helped organize the picket against Drummond in July. “Drummond is not acting alone. They have the support of both the Colombian and U.S. government. The corporations are arranging assassinations; the U.S. is sending billions of dollars of aid to the corrupt Uribe administration under Plan Colombia. Our campaign against Drummond is also a campaign to end stop Plan Colombia and U.S. intervention in Latin America.”

#BirminghamAL #Labor #News #SDS #Colombia #WorkersAndGlobalization #Steelworkers #DrummondCo #ValmoreLocarno #VictorOrcasita #InternationalLaborRightsFund #Americas