Elana Levin

UPDATED! This weekend, janitors attacked by mounted police.

I've seen massive police brutality to protesters happen before my eyes and it is always vastly under-reported by the press.
But as a friend said to me this weekend of the police who tasered a UCLA student for not having an ID card "YouTube is the enemy of rampaging cops." But this isn't really about the police, this is about the interests of the powerful that the police are ordered to protect.

With that in mind, I suggest everyone look at what police did to striking janitors in Houston. The workers were trampled by police horses. They were arrested with bail set at $888,888 each. At least a magistrate lowered that bail to $1,000 per person. Meanwhile an 83 year old female janitor has been hospitalized from injuries she sustained. Police are union members, where is their sense of solidarity? Workers have the right to strike, they have the right to public assembly. The striking janitors were making $20 a day with no health insurance. MyDD ran an testimonial by one of the protest's organizers about the conditions in the prison where they were kept after their arrest.

To quote Frederick Douglass "Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is in an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe." For more on the struggle of the janitors read Houston Janitors.org
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UPDATE!
Just received the following press release from the union:

More than 5,300 Houston janitors have reached a solid tentative agreement with their employers that will put workers and their families on the road to a better future and pave the way for workers throughout the country to unite to improve their lives. Details of the agreement are forthcoming, however the janitors' contract will lift workers and their families out of deep poverty and ensure access to quality, affordable health care.

Elana Levin: Author Bio | Other Posts
Posted at 9:47 AM, Nov 20, 2006 in Civil Rights | Economic Opportunity | Employment | Labor
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