There was a time when hackers left me alone. But no longer. Guess this means that I can’t go even a week without checking-in and updating plug-ins and themes – what a pain! Hopefully I have fixed things a bit more – moving every blog to it’s own FTP account, deleting every plug-in, and all-but-one theme has been deleted, etc.

Not sure if I will want to bother another time, but for this round of the battle between the spammers and the blogger I took advantage of the hack to consolidate, erase everything, and then start over! So here goes….

Over the next few weeks I will be “back posting” some entries my old blog. Then I will start adding new entries, focusing on news and information about gender wage equity, family policy and child care, and barriers and bridges for new immigrants to Canada. The theme will be building stronger communities, as I attempt to weave common threads between the issues and ideas that interest me.

Here I am today at Vancouver ChangeCamp. The photo is by Jean Djinni.

More photos from the day at Flickr.

May 6 was my final day working as a staff Leadership Organizer with the United Workers. I am excited to start focusing on child care organizing, but will miss the incredible times I have had with the leaders, staff and allies of the United Workers.

There are so many transformative moments and processes that the United Workers has provided, including all-night vigils, planning and coordinating an announced hunger strike (called off because demands were met), powerful retreats, leadership schools, worship services, rallies, quiet times together, intense planning and strategy sessions and expressive and creative protests. Thank you, United Workers, for so much! I look forward to being an ally and friend to organization, and to seeing how the organization develops in the years to come.

Looking back at the final week… Here’s a photo taken right after Our Harbor Day, working on media right after Our Harbor Day:

From a recent article I wrote for Labor Notes, on the Human Rights Zone Campaign in Baltimore:

Baltimore needs a jolt. Poverty conditions for workers in the city’s Inner Harbor, a premier tourist and entertainment district, are threatening to become routine. Workers relate stories of poverty wages, sexual harassment, uncertain scheduling, inadequate health care, barriers to education, and unreasonable hours.

“Just because these are ordinary practices doesn’t make them tolerable,” said Luis Larin, an organizer with United Workers, a worker center founded in 2002 by homeless day laborers. It is intent on turning the retail zone, home to 1,000 service workers, into a “human rights zone.” read more

A bit of personal news!

Ron and I were married on May 22 and celebrated our 10th anniversary with friends and family after the ceremony.

Todd read the first reading: A passage from the book “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl”, by Harriet Jacobs, first published in 1861…

Why does the slave ever love? Why allow the tendrils of the heart to twine around objects which may at any moment be wrenched away by the hand of violence? When separations come by the hand of death, the pious soul can bow in resignation, and say, Not my will, but thine be done, O Lord! But when the ruthless hand of man strikes the blow, regardless of the misery he causes, it is hard to be submissive. I did not reason thus when I was a young girl. Youth will be youth. I loved, and I indulged the hope that the dark clouds around me would turn out a bright lining. I forgot that in the land of my birth the shadows are too dense for light to penetrate, a land,

Where laughter is not mirth; nor the thought the mind;
Nor words are language; nor [are] men mankind.
Where cries reply to curses, shrieks to blows,
And each is tortured in his separate hell.

Donna read the second reading: “Please Call Me By My True Names” by Thich Nhat Hanh…

Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow-
even today I am still arriving.
Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.
I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive.
I am a mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.
I am a frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.
I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.
I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.
My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up
and the door of my heart
could be left open,
the door of compassion.

Luke read the third reading: A passage from “The Power of Myth” with Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers. This passage is Joseph Campbell as he responds to a question by Bill Moyers on how to experience the meaning of myth…

Read the myths. They teach you that you can turn inward, and you begin to get the message of the symbols. Read other people’s myths, not those of your own religion, because you tend to interpret your own religion in terms of facts – but if you read the other ones, you begin to get the message. Myth helps you to put your mind in touch with this experience of being alive. It tells you what it is. It’s the reunion of the separated duad. Originally you were one. You are now two in the world, but the recognition of the spiritual identity is what marriage is. It’s different from a love affair. It has nothing to do with that. It is another mythological plane of experience. When people get married because they think it’s a long-time love affair, they’ll be divorced very soon, because all love affairs end in disappointment. But marriage is a recognition of a spiritual identity. If we live a proper life, if our minds are on the right qualities in regarding the person [we marry], we will find our proper . . . counterpart. But if we are distracted by certain sensuous interests we marry the wrong person. By marrying the right person, we reconstruct the image of the incarnate God, and that’s what marriage is.

Sandy read the fourth reading: “From the Gospel According to John,” after the washing of his disciples’ feet and at the Last Supper, Jesus says to his disciples…

I loved you in the same way the Father loved me. Live in my love. If you observe my instructions, you will live in my love, just as I have observed my Father’s instructions and live in his love. I have told you all of this so you will be the source of my happiness and so you yourselves will be filled with happiness. This is my order to you: You are to love each other just as I loved you. No one can love to greater extent than to give up life for friends. You are my friends if you follow my orders. I no longer call you slaves, since a slave does not know what his master is up to. I have called you friends, because I let you know everything I learned from my Father. . . . This I command you, to love one another.

Baltimore Sun: Workers Unite for Human Rights [PDF] (October 26, 2008)

The Inner Harbor laborers, who work in restaurants and janitorial services, were joined by United Workers Association members from Camden Yards who successfully waged a three-year battle for better wages and working conditions.

Last year, the Maryland Stadium Authority agreed to pay workers – who were making $7 an hour to pick up trash at Camden Yards – the state’s new $11.30-an-hour “living wage,” beginning last spring.

“Workers have identified the same issues that were found at Camden Yards as being present in the Inner Harbor, so we are transferring our efforts from Camden Yards to here, and we hope to be victorious,” said Tom Kertes, a UWA leadership organizer.

“We’re putting the Inner Harbor on notice. Workers here are demanding that we start the process, and employers have a responsibility to their workers,” he said. “And on April 18, 2009, we are going to publicly identify the worst offender.”

Kertes said the UWA has yet to speak with business operators in the Inner Harbor, but, he said, “We will be doing that very soon.”

Kertes said that the UWA is not a union and does not engage in collective bargaining.

“We believe instead in moral outrage,” he said. “Every low-wage worker is entitled to the same longtime respect other workers are given.”

Members and allies of the United Workers Association celebrated tonight’s historic victory at a vigil and rally at the Light Street Presbytarian Church held just hours after the MSA voted to pay cleaners a living wage. Members and allies made speeches, sang together, cut off the yellow unity bands and held a candle light vigil. We reflected on the long and difficult struggle to get to victory and on the next steps that must be taken to ensure the current cleaners all get an opportunity to work at a living wage when the new contract goes into effect at the start of the next baseball season.

Following the MSA Board meeting on Sept 6, 2007 the United Workers called off the planned Living Wages Hunger Strike and declared a living wages victory for the cleaners at Camden Yards. The Living Wages Hunger Strike was called off in response to the Maryland Stadium Authority’s decision to re-bid the current cleaning contract and to include living wages in the request for proposals.

While celebrating the living wages victory, the United Workers remains committed to ensuring that working conditions at Camden Yards improve. The United Workers will work to ensure that the current cleaners at MSA sports facilities have a fair opportunity to keep their jobs and to work at the new living wage rate.

“After three long and difficult years of struggle, we’re very excited about today’s living wage victory at Camden Yards,” said Carl Johnson of the United Workers. “Our next priority will be making sure that the current cleaners get a fair opportunity to keep their jobs next season and to work at a living wage.”

Tonight is an historic day for low-wage workers in Baltimore! After three years of struggle, the workers who clean Camden Yards won their single demand of a living wage at the stadium.

The Maryland Stadium Authority voted tonight to re-bid the contract when it expires at the end of the year, and to include living wages in the request for proposals. This is an historic victory of day laborers, marking the first time that an organization led by the poor has won a living wage for day labor workers. Needless to say the members and staff of the United Workers are excited tonight – we just finished an amazing victory celebration at Light Street Presbyterian Church, located near Camden Yards.

I have been working on this campaign as a communications organizer since the campaign started. My role has been to help develop the campaign strategy, to train members to act as effective spokespersons and to conduct press outreach. Last year I volunteered full-time for the United Workers, commuting between Seattle and Baltimore. That’s when we put together the strategy that led to the Aug 15 announcement of the Living Wages Hunger Strike. The hunger strike was postponed on Sept 3 at an event attended by Baltimore Mayor Dixon, days after the Governor publicly announced his support for living wages at Camden Yards. Today we canceled the hunger strike minutes after the Maryland Stadium Authority voted to pay living wages to stadium cleaners.

The United Workers is an amazing organization that has brought me in touch with amazing people. I am moved to be part of this organization, and to share in the victory we won today.

I am planning to head home to Toronto either Friday or Saturday. Ron has been an amazing support for me these past two years as the campaign heated up. He has been with me, even as I have left him for months at a time to focus on work. I am ready to go home and to have some time to just hang out in our new apartment – perhaps I’ll even take a few days off before I start the next campaign.

I worked with The Real News twice – most recently for the past six months. I worked with Paul during its earliest stages – when it was still branded as IWT News. I learned a lot from the two experiences and enjoyed working with the entire team. I support the vision of creating an honest news source, funded entirely by an audience committed to objective reporting and preservation of democracy, and wish The Real News the best as it continues with this ambitious goal.