Voz Representatives at the National Gathering

From February 19 to the 23rd, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) Assembly was held in Los Angeles, the city with the longest history of day laborer organizing in the country. More than 350 people were in attendance from some 50 member organizations from across the United States to celebrate the 10th anniversary of NDLON. Participants made connections, received leadership training, and planned a course of action for the day laborer movement in the United States for the coming years.   Six day laborer leaders– Marcos Cardenas, Felix Chuma, Daniel Alvarez, Johnny Escoto, Jesus de León, and Jesus Sánchez—and three staff members– Romeo Sosa, Francisco Aguirre, and Paul Riek– travelled to Los Angeles to represent VOZ at the national event.

The Assembly was inaugurated th evening of Sunday February 19th. Monday’s activities were focused on remembering 10 years of NDLON history and improving effectiveness of Worker Centers in obtaining more work for day laborers. Tuesday’s theme was the “Turning the Tide” campaign against unjust immigration enforcement programs. On Wednesday, the experience of women in the struggle for immigrant rights was highlighted, and then participants marched to protest Los Angeles Sheriff Baca’s participation in the “Secure Communities” program.

While VOZ Organizer, Paul Riek, described the march as an incredible experience, he said another highlight of the National Assembly was the musical entertainment provided by the day laborer music group, Jornaleros del Norte. The band played throughout the week, starting each session with music which brought excitement to the meetings while reinforcing day laborer identity within the context of the National Network. The Assembly was powerful as it promoted solidarity among so many different day laborer organizations throughout the country.

Voz representative Félix Chuma made a proposal to the Assembly to include indigenous identity issues as they parallel gender equality issues covered in the program in relevance to day laborer and workers’ rights. A working group was created to recognize this newest expression of diversity in the day laborer movement.

In preparation for the National Assembly, Voz day laborer leaders Marcos Cárdenas, Alex Gonzalez, Johnny Escoto, Daniel Alvarez, and Braulio Torres; and staff members Romeo Sosa and Paul Riek, attended the Northwest Regional Assembly on January 26th and 27th in Seattle at Casa Latina, the other active member organization in the Northwest. Workshops were conducted on LGBTQ sensitivity, social inequality, and health and safety on the job.  Finally, tours of the Casa Latina facilities allowed the VOZ staff members and day laborers in attendance to learn about the partner organization operations.

Overall there was a positive response to the Assembly including an appreciation for Casa Latina’s worker center structure, procedures, and computer software for assigning work. Inspired by the visit, VOZ has the objective of using similar strategies to advance our work in Portland. Since Casa Latina offered to share their new software, VOZ has a wonderful opportunity to improve the effectiveness of our own Martin Luther King Jr. Worker Center when we are able to obtain necessary equipment.

On February 25th, medical students from OHSU visited the Voz Worker Center to conduct health screenings for those in need of health consultation free of charge. The group was made up of aspiring dentists, nurses, physicians and medical researchers from a class at OHSU called ICHEE; the Interdisciplinary Community health and Education Exchange. Their professor is Valerie Palmer, a tall South African immigrant who is currently a senior research associate of the Global Health Center at OHSU as well as director of the Neurotoxicogenomics labs.

Palmer explained that her goal for this class is to bring together students of different medical disciplines to solve global health issues. Years ago, while tackling an infectious bacteria in Ethiopia, a member of her medical team questioned why it was necessary for chemists, as well as microbiologist and epidemiologists to work together on the project, rather than taking the more standard approach of working with solely professional medics. “It is a hindrance to effective diagnosis and treatment to only see sickness through one angle,” she said to me.

My own reason for attending the health screening event was to learn more about translation work of two kinds: Spanish to English, as well as the conversion in perception of health for Latin Americans to a typically Western biomedical view of health. Patients described their problems in their terms (headaches, lower abdomen pain, one man describing symptoms “caused by a lack of faith”). I translated these words into English as best able, from which the medical students then transformed symptoms to diagnosis: one man was said to have hernias, another—lymphoma. For these problems, various clinics around Portland were recommended, most of them suggested because of the possibility of free or state subsidized health care. The Wallace Clinic was the most frequently suggested clinic, as it is well know for providing health care to those for whom English is not a first language. Workers at Voz spoke positively about the event, at which there were nearly equal numbers of medical students and workers, allowing for a short wait in order to receive consultation. However, a few workers expressed that they had already tried going to clinics in Portland, including the Wallace Clinic, and discovered that the wait time to receive emergency surgery was longer than expected, or the cost of care more expensive than anticipated.

“This work as interesting to me,” said a student of nursing, “because we get to meet people in the field and get to learn about their lives. In a hospital setting, you only get five minutes to talk to someone and figure out the problem, but usually it’s a lot more complicated than that.” Palmer likewise stressed the importance for both students and workers to interact freely and without time limit, in order to understand health issues from both the side of the patient and medical student. “It’s an opportunity in learning how to listen to patient, and to encourage the patient in speaking openly.”

The next and last Voz health screening by OHSU will be on Saturday March 10th 2012, also occurring at the worker center.

Oregon residents can help stop wage theft in the construction industry by signing this petition in support of State Senate Bill 612-A today.

Click here to read and sign the petition:
http://www.change.org/petitions/end-wage-theft-in-oregon-get-sb612-a-hearing-in-the-house-by-monday

OVERVIEW

Our last petition helped get SB 612 passed out of the Senate, now we have until Monday to get a Hearing in the House to make sure our bill to stop wage theft keeps moving forward.

Can you imagine working hard at your job for a day, a week, or longer and having your boss tell you to “get lost” without paying you?

Thousands of workers in Oregon have their wages stolen from them by corner-cutting abusive employers. As it is now, most of the time, the employer can get away with it. Many unregulated construction labor brokers are skirting the rules. These brokers keep their workers on informal books and do their business in the shadows.

SB 612-A closes the loopholes to make sure that the labor brokers are subject to the same oversight as any other Oregon company. Lifting them out of the shadows helps to lift the standards for us all. A recent analysis by the Oregon Center for Public Policy found that $700,000 in wage claims from the construction industry were determined by the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries to have been illegally withheld last fiscal year. That is only the tip of the iceberg. <http://www.ocpp.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?page=nr20110426WageTh>

The Oregon Coalition to End Wage Theft asks residents of Oregon to:

Sign the petition to make sure that in the 21st century no one in Oregon is laboring without being paid.

For more info: http://portlandvoz.org/, www.facebook.com/protectoregonworkers <http://www.facebook.com/protectoregonworkers>

On the 18^th of December, 2010, Voz, the American Friends Service Committee, and the Comite de Solidaridad y de Apoyo Mutuo en Portland (Committee of Solidarity and Mutual Support of Portland) got together during the Week of Action in commemoration of THE INTERNATIONAL DAY OF IMMIGRANTS, in order to hold the Fifth Indigenous Forum.  Participants included representatives from many different peoples of Abya Yala (Latin America).  On this day we shared our space so that we could also share our struggles, realities, challenges, dreams, and visions as forcibly displaced peoples.  We shared this space in order to reaffirm our identity, our spirituality, and to share our thousand-year-long history, inherited from our fathers and grandfathers.  Mayans, Inca-Canñari, Nañu, Zapotecas, and our Native brothers from North America all participated in the event.  Not only did we (and here I speak as a Mayan) share our stories, but we also shared with our allies our altar, where the flowers, the candles, the fruit, the incense, and the water are all important elements in our ceremonies.  I should also mention that we shared a traditional dish with those who were present. 

We have convened on the 18^th of every December of every year for the past five years in order to reunite.  It is important to convene in order to make known that there are indigenous peoples from Abya Yala here in this country.  No one says it, no one will talk about it, but here we are among the multitude, in anonymity, in the realm of the invisible, resisting triple discriminations:  because we are indigenous, because we are immigrants, because we are poor, and, in many cases, because we are women.  Our effort to maintain our identity will continue in a society where the whole world works to transform one’s image and one’s values in order to fit in, leaving behind mother tongues, traditional dress, spirituality, respect, and collectivity.  We will go on defying the modern world, or modern life, which the First World places in our hands in order to absorb us and make it so that our peoples of origin disappear.  We take this moment to thank the community that accompanied us in this event.

By Emiliana Aguilar

Marcha del Primero de Mayo en Portland:
¡¡Empleo para todos!!  ¡Los Derechos de los Inmigrantes también son Derechos Humanos!


12:00 del medio día en el South Park Blocks (entre SW Park Avenue y SW Salmon Street en el centro de Portland).

El Primero de Mayo 2006

¡¡Compañero esta lucha es tu lucha no la dejes para tus hijos!!
¡¡Queremos una Reforma Migratoria justa y Humana!!
¡Migra fuera de las carceles!
¡No más redadas!
¡No más separación de familias!

Viste una playera blanca, trae agua y una bandera de Estados Unidos.  Te invita la Coalición Pro-inmigrante de Portland y la Coalición de Primero de Mayo.

El Día Internacional del Trabajo comenzó en los 1880 en los Estados Unidos con la lucha por una jornada laboral de ocho horas. Hoy conmemoramos la lucha de los trabajadores y los pobres de todo el mundo por la justicia económica. Estamos unidos contra el racismo, la violencia policial, y los ataques a inmigrantes a través de las redadas y detenciones de ICE. Nadie es ilegal. Nuestro objetivo es acabar con la discriminación por orientación sexual e identidad de género. A través de la solidaridad vamos a reformar nuestra inmigración, la justicia penal, y los sistemas económicos para satisfacer las necesidades humanas. Exigimos un aumento al gasto público, no más recortes a la educación, al transporte público, y servicios sociales. Exigimos una vivienda digna accesible, no perdidas hipotecarias y desalojos. Exigimos atención de la salud con un solo pago para todos. Exigimos empleos con salarios justos, trabajos para todos, y la restauración de nuestro derecho de organizar en los lugares de trabajo. Podemos lograr estos objetivos mediante impuestos a los ricos y a las corporaciones en vez de fináncialos. Podemos parar los acuerdos de libre comercio que aquí ha externalizado los empleos y mantenido los bajos salarios, mientras crean fábricas de explotación y la destrucción de los recursos en otra parte. Podemos acabar con las guerras y ocupaciones, así como las catástrofes ambientales que sirven para mantener a las corporaciones más ricas y la gente en la pobreza.

Para más información: 503-233-6787      http://maydaypdx.blogspot.com

Solidaridad por siempre.

¡Sí se puede!

Portland May Day March and Rally:

Jobs for all!
Immigrants’ Rights are Workers’ Rights!

WHEN: Saturday, May 1st, 2010
WHERE: South Park Blocks, Downtown Portland

11am— Gather at SW Park and Salmon
Noon— Rally: Speakers and Entertainment
1pm— March

Join the Portland Immigrant Coalition and the Portland May Day Coalition for this family-friendly event.

International Workers’ Day began in the 1880s in the United States with the fight for an eight-hour work day,  Today we commemorate the struggle of working people and the poor around the world for economic justice.  We stand together against racism, police violence, and attacks on immigrants through ICE raids and detentions.  No one is illegal.  We aim to stop discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.  Through solidarity we will reform our immigration, criminal justice, and economic systems to meet human needs.  We demand an increase in public spending, not more cuts to education, public transportations, and social services.  We demand decent affordable housing, not foreclosures and evictions.  We demand single payer health care for all.  We demand living wage jobs, full employment, and the restoration of our right to organize workplaces.  We can achieve these goals by taking the rich and corporations instead of bailing them out.  We can stop free trade agreements that have outsourced jobs and kept wages low here while creating sweatshops and destroying resources elsewhere.  We can end the wars and occupations as well as environmental catastrophes that serve to keep the corporations rich and the people in poverty.

Solidarity Forever!  ¡Si se puede!

For more information, visit http://maydaypdx.blogspot.com

Photo Taken by Douglas Yarrow

Participants also enjoyed poetry, traditional Guatemalan dancing, and some entertainment from some of the children in attendance.

The celebration also presented an opportunity to share the history of immigration and immigration reform, and to address what is currently on the table in relation to the immigration reform bill proposed by Rep. Luis Gutiérrez. The bill is not perceived to be of benefit to many migrants, thus VOZ will be lobbying representatives in Congress to ensure that reform is fair and humane, and that it benefits all migrants.

el 12 de Diciembre en el centro de Jornaleros 240 NE MLK Jr Blvd, Portland

Esta tradicion empieza hace muchos anos entre los jornaleros para
agradecerle a la virgen de Guadalupe por las oportunidades de trabajo  y
pedirle su proteccion en la lucha diaria de encontrar un trabajo.

Habra
Procesion, las mananitas, servicio religioso, teatro, musica y deliciosos
tamales Mexicanos.

Programa

• 7:00 am     Procesion y las mananitas desde la esquina de la 6 y la Ankeny

• 7:30 am     Pasamos en la esquina de la MLK y I-84 y llegar en el centro de jornaleros

• 8:00 am     Serivicio, musica, teatro

• 9:00 am     Desayuno

Traditional Celebration for Our Lady of Guadalupe

December 12th at the Worker Center: 240 NE MLK Jr Blvd. Portland, OR

This tradition began a few years ago with a group of day laborers who wanted to thank Our Lady of Guadalupe for their work opportunities, and to ask Her for continued protection in their daily struggle to look for work.

There will be a procession, prayer service, music dedicated to the
Virgin, and delicious Mexican tamales

Program

• 7:00 am     Procession and Las Mananitas starting from the 6th and Ankeny St.

• 7:30 am     We will pass by the second corner of MLK and I-84 and arrive at the Worker Center at 240 NE MLK Jr Blvd.

• 8:00 am     Prayer service, music and theater

• 9:00 am     Breakfast