Editor’s Note From Rivera Sun
In Nonviolence News this week, you can see the burning ties between environmental justice and labor rights. Last week, we shared a report about the first-ever strike among Amazon drivers who, in the middle of a brutal heatwave, protested their equally brutal and punishing schedule. Now, 340,000 UPS drivers are on the verge of striking over the same issues. As inaction on the climate crisis drives temperatures higher and higher, more industries are taking action – either planned or ad hoc in the moment. Under extreme heat, workers at Greece’s Acropolis walked off at midday, refusing to serve tourists. Garbage workers also went on strike to avoid the unbearable conditions in the streets.
As the climate group Just Stop Oil has been demonstrating, disruptive action is required to halt the devastation of business as usual. They’re mobilizing a new tactic to skirt around the United Kingdom’s restrictive anti-protest law: slow marching. Their US-counterparts also shut down a private jet airport in the wealthy Hamptons to stop the super-rich from fleeing climate impacts like extreme heat and wildfire smoke. It’s high time the rich and powerful paid attention and took action on climate.
The ultra-rich also felt some ‘street heat’ in a number of recent actions calling attention to the injustice of inequality and how the rich don’t pay their fair share of taxes. One group put a billionaire’s likeness on a cake and ate it outside his mansion. Another spray-painted the super-yacht of the Walmart heiress. It’s no mystery why people are frustrated with the uber-wealthy’s greed and destruction. Aside from climate issues, economic justice is a burning issue for humanity. In Kenya, cost-of-living protests have been met with deadly police repression. Hotel workers in LA are maintaining their rolling strikes. And Hollywood is in hot water as both writers and actors go on strike for fair wages and protections against AI.
In other Nonviolence News, Azerbaijani protesters won a rare victory in getting their president to order an investigation into a toxic gold mine that has been contaminating villagers. Afghan women faced harsh repression to protest a new Taliban law that shut down beauty parlors. Israel’s mass protests against right-wing judicial overhauls continue. And #StopCopCity is trying to allow Atlanta residents to vote directly on a referendum to stop the construction of the tactical urban warfare center. Meanwhile, new research explores how Nigeria’s #EndSARS protests against police brutality in 2020 have galvanized a new generation into political engagement.
Many of these stories illustrate how we need to “act local and think global”. We can push for change piecemeal, one workplace at a time. But we can also recognize the broad issue and unite across the boundaries of this company or that company, this town or that one, this nation or that. Our issues transcend such borders. So must our movements.
In solidarity,
Rivera Sun
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Four Big Banks Refuse To Renew Loans To Whitehaven Coal: Environment groups said the refusal by the Big Four banks to renew a $1 billion loan to Whitehaven Coal — Australia’s biggest coal-only mining company — is a win for people power. Move Beyond Coal (MBC) said on July 17 that National Australia Bank’s (NAB) announcement “sends a clear message to the coal industry, financial institutions and the government” that the movement against coal is powerful. Read more>>
Azerbaijani President Concedes To Environmental Protesters: Three weeks after the brutal dispersal of an environmental protest in the Azerbaijani village of Soyudlu, the president said the protesters had a point. He ordered an investigation into the actions of the Ecology Ministry and the British company operating a gold mine in the area that allegedly produces toxic runoff. Read more>>
Federal Judge Rules Oregon’s Tough New Gun Law Is Constitutional: A federal judge has ruled Oregon’s voter-approved gun control measure – one of the toughest in the nation – is constitutional. U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut ruled that banning large capacity magazines and requiring a permit to purchase a gun falls in line with “the nation’s history and tradition of regulating uniquely dangerous features of weapons and firearms to protect public safety,” Oregon Public Broadcasting reported. Read more>>
Ron Desantis Loses Again As Judge Refuses To Reinstate Florida’s Drag Ban: Florida’s drag ban has suffered a second legal defeat as a federal judge refused to allow the law to go back into effect after an earlier ruling placed a temporary injunction against it. In late June, federal Judge Gregory Presnell issued the injunction after the restaurant chain Hamburger Mary’s, which features drag waitresses and family-friendly drag performances, successfully sued Florida over the law, saying it harmed its business and violated its constitutional free speech rights. Read more>>
After Years Of Criticism, Amazon Appears To Be Cutting Down On Plastics: Amazon announced in its latest sustainability report that orders shipped from its fulfillment centers used 85,916 metric tons of single-use plastic in 2022 — an 11.6 percent decrease from the amount used in 2021. The company attributed this decline to its expanded use of paper-based packaging, as well as an increased effort to ship items in their original containers — without adding any Amazon-branded packaging. Read more>>
NYC To Pay $13 Million To Protesters Brutalized By Police: Protesters fighting against police violence were awarded a historic victory this week. On Thursday, the City of New York agreed to pay over $13 million in a class action lawsuit brought on behalf of roughly 1,300 protesters arrested and beaten by police during protests held in the Summer of 2020. Read more>>
Israeli Military Reservists At Center of Anti-Government Protests: The Israeli government’s plan to overhaul the judiciary has led to months of protests, including from within the military. Demonstrators use flares as they stage a ‘day of resistance’ to protest the Israeli government’s judicial overhaul bill. The proposals have divided the nation and triggered one of the biggest protest movements in Israel’s history since being unveiled in January by the hard-right government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The voices of dissent from Israeli military veterans and reservists towards the country’s government are getting louder as protests against the “judicial reform” plans continue. Read more>>
Azerbaijani Activists Protest At US Embassy: Azerbaijani activists who had been invited to an American Independence Day reception at the U.S. embassy in Baku used the occasion to stage a small protest over the plight of the people of Soyudlu. The event was one of the rare occasions where civil society activists get to be in the presence of government officials. Three invited guests, local women’s rights activists, removed scarves from around their necks to reveal black hands painted on their throats symbolically strangling them. Read more>>
Canada’s Pacific Dock Workers Revoke Strike Notice After Trudeau’s Crisis Meeting: Dock workers on Canada’s Pacific coast said they have revoked a strike notice issued for Saturday, after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau directed a crisis meeting to pursue all options to ensure the stability of supply chains as he stressed the critical role of port operations. The strike notice revoked had been issued earlier Wednesday just hours after a federal watchdog ruled the workers’ current stoppage was illegal. Read more>>
Kenya Closes Schools Before Three Days of Tax-Hike Protests: Three days of protests, called by veteran opposition figure Raila Odinga against tax hikes and rising costs of living, begin on Wednesday. Kenya’s government has closed schools in the capital and two other areas as East Africa’s economic powerhouse on Wednesday braced for three days of demonstrations against the cost of living and tax hikes. Read more>>
Acropolis Workers Strike Over Extreme Heat: Facing 113 F, tour guides and security guards at the famed Acropolis are going on strike after the morning coolness wanes. Read more>>
European Outdoor Workers Walk Off the Job In Blazing Heat: As swaths of southern Europe continue to swelter under a deadly heat wave, for many outdoor workers, it’s turning into a brutal endurance test. In some cities, workers are walking off jobs — or threatening to — if more is not done to protect them and make working conditions more bearable. Read more>>
Amazon Teamsters’ Rolling Pickets Hit Facilities Nationwide: Amazon delivery drivers, employed by Amazon contractors, joined the Teamsters and won big gains. Amazon is fighting back, so workers are stepping up their struggle. Two hundred Teamsters from six different locals joined newly-unionized Amazon delivery drivers from California in picketing an Amazon warehouse in northern New Jersey July 6. Read more>>
Michigan Amazon Workers Stage Walkout On Prime Day: Joined by striking delivery drivers, last week Amazon workers in a Michigan warehouse staged the largest delivery station strike yet. Read more>>
WellBeing Economy in Scotland: 200 charities, economists, businesses, trade unions, and academics sent an open letter to Scotland’s First Minister calling for a “robust plan” to turn Wellbeing Economy rhetoric into action. Read more>>
Community Comes Out In Support of Taxing Wealthy Santa Fe Homeowners: There was overwhelming support Wednesday night to tax wealthy homeowners in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Two city councilors are proposing a three-percent excise tax on sales of homes that cost a million dollars or more which would charge three percent on every dollar over a million. Read more>>
160,000 TV and Film Actors Go on Strike for Better Pay and AI Protections: Television and film actors are going on strike after a breakdown in negotiations between the SAG-AFTRA union and Hollywood studios. More than 160,000 members of the union are taking part in the first major actors’ strike since 1980. This also marks the first time since 1960 that actors and screenwriters have been on strike at the same time, with members of the Writers Guild of America on the picket lines since early May. Both unions say pay has not kept up in the streaming age, with even hit shows and movies no longer a guarantee of stable income. The major studios are also pushing for adoption of artificial intelligence tools that could include scanning the likeness of actors to be reused in perpetuity. Watch or read more>>
‘Game-Changing Moment’ as Workers at Second UK Amazon Facility Vote to Strike: “They’ve thrown everything at stopping this, but workers at Amazon Rugeley, UK, have organized and delivered a clear message that they demand fair pay and union rights,” said a GMB senior organizer. Read more>>
Billionaire Walmart Heiress’s $300m Superyacht Splattered With Paint: Members of Spanish group Futuro Vegetal sprayed paint across the stern of Nancy Walton Laurie’s yacht, Kaos. Activists were photographed holding a sign that read: “You Consume Others Suffer”. Read more>>
Activists Eat Cake With Billionaire’s Face On It: The scene outside fossil-fuel-gobbling billionaire Henry Kravis’ palatial monstrosity of a home in Southampton. Kravis’ firm, KKR, owns 28 fossil fuel companies. So we ate a cake with his face and a message on it: “If we tax the rich, maybe we won’t have to eat them”. Watch here>>
Climate Activists Demand Justice for ‘Unjustly’ Arrested Ugandan Anti-EACOP Protesters: “The arrests of these activists are a clear attempt to silence dissent and suppress opposition to the EACOP,” said one organizer. Climate campaigners around the world on Wednesday urged Ugandan authorities to drop charges against four climate activists arrested and jailed overnight after peacefully protesting a highly controversial oil pipeline under construction in the region. Read more>>
These Activists Want Biden – And The World – To Squirm: The climate activists spent those first three months barging into speeches and fundraisers headlined by Biden administration officials and Democratic lawmakers, including White House climate adviser Ali Zaidi and West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin. On Wednesday evening, they charged onto the field at the Congressional Women’s Softball Game, an annual contest that pits lawmakers against reporters. Sometimes they sneak in and sometimes they storm in. They hold big banners that face out to the audience and chant about the Biden administration’s broken promise to end drilling on federal lands. They’re trying to get the attention of the White House, the press, activists and donors. It’s working. Read more>>
Activists Won’t Budge Until Politicians Stop ‘Backsliding On Environment’: Activists from the United Kingdom group Green New Deal Rising have staged more sit-outs targeting Labour Party MPs. The group has vowed to protest outside their offices every week until the party takes “bold action” on the climate crisis. Read more>>
How Suing the US Government Can Empower The Climate Movement: As the youth-led climate lawsuit Juliana v. United States heads to trial, plaintiff Nathan Baring discusses the important role legal action can play within a movement. Read more>>
Just Stop Oil Met With Counterprotest: As detractors argued against disruptive action, Just Stop Oil explained their rationale for bold action to demand a stop to oil and gas use. Ultimately the counter-protesters dispersed and the direct action continued. Read more>>
Extreme Heat Is Ramping Up All Over The World. So Are Solutions. From Seville to Phoenix, city governments and community-based organizations are trying new strategies to protect residents from deadly heat. Read more>>
Pennsylvania Locomotive Manufacturing Workers Are Striking For Greener Jobs: A 1,400-worker strike at a locomotive plant is part of a larger trend of national labor organizing and calls for a just transition. Read more>>
340,000 UPS Drivers Poised To Strike Over Extreme Heat, Safe Working Conditions: The largest single-employer strike in U.S. history could frame worker power as a climate solution. Editor’s Note: Last week, we reported on how Amazon delivery workers went on strike over this same issue. Read more>>
Protest at East Hampton Airport Over Private Jet Use to Shut Down Airport: As unprecedented heat and dizzyingly myriad examples of climate crisis unfold around the world, a group of community organizations is partnering with members of the Shinnecock Nation and individuals including philanthropist Abigail Disney (yes, that Disney) to shut down the East Hampton Airport as part of a weekend of action. “The 1% can hide away in the Hamptons, but as their fossil fuel investments overheat our planet, we’ll be at their doorsteps.” New York Communities for Change, the Sunrise Movement, Reclaim Our Tomorrow, and Disney engaged in a “nonviolent civil disobedience and airport blockade” to “prevent private plane arrivals and departures at the airport to bring awareness to the immense carbon emissions from private air travel.” Read more>>
Prison Abolitionists Provide Jail Support: The abolitionist movement is thriving in Chicago, and gaining momentum each day. One of their strategies is jail support. Every evening, seven days a week, CCJS volunteers set up a tent and tables outside Cook County Jail where they offer snacks, bus passes, clothing and emotional support to newly released people who are often disoriented and malnourished from conditions inside. Supplies are crowdsourced and donated, including a creaky van which serves as both a home for supplies and a quick warming center during cold Chicago evenings. Read more>>
Fighting Industrial Development and Defending Black History in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley”: In Wallace, descendants of enslaved people live on one of the last preserved stretches of Louisiana’s Mississippi River. Now, a massive grain export facility threatens the community’s history and future. Twin sisters are now fighting to preserve the history and health of their community. Read more>>
Activists Are Working to Give the People of Atlanta a Chance to Vote on Cop City: Ignored in public comment and denied responsive public officials, residents are taking matters into their own hands. When it comes to Atlanta’s planned $90 million police training center, widely dubbed “Cop City,” the project’s nonprofit backer, the Atlanta Police Foundation, has long run a reality deficit, trading on political power to support factually improbable claims while keeping the public in the dark. In 2021, Atlanta City Council approved a lease of public Intrenchment Creek Park land, known to activists as the Weelaunee Forest, to the Police Foundation that was riddled with unanswered questions and irregularities. Read more>>
Whistle-blowing Texas Trooper Says They Were Told To Push Children Into River & Deny Migrants Drinking Water: A trooper employed by Greg Abbott’s initiative expressed concern over ‘inhumane’ actions. “I believe we have stepped over a line into the inhumane.” In one instance on 30 June, Wingate wrote, troopers treated a four-year-old girl who passed out from heat exhaustion after she attempted to pass through the wire amid 100F (nearly 38C) conditions. Texas national guard soldiers pushed her and her group back towards Mexico. The same day, a pregnant woman was treated after troopers found her caught in the wire and in extreme pain. The woman was having a miscarriage and emergency responders took her to a hospital. One teenager also broke his leg trying to avoid the wire and had to be carried by his father. Read more>>
‘Work, Food, Freedom’: Afghan Women Protest Beauty Parlor Ban: Security forces break up Kabul protest by dozens of women against a ban on beauty salons. Security forces in Kabul have dispersed a demonstration by dozens of women protesting against a Taliban order to shut down beauty parlors, the latest curb to squeeze them out of public life. Security forces used fire hoses, tasers and shot their guns into the air to break up the protest in the Afghan capital. Read more>>
50+ Groups Urge Biden to Pause Trade Talks Until Kenyan President Vetoes Anti-LGBTQ Bill: “Stopping trade talks would send a message to countries around the world that the United States does not tolerate the violation of LGBTQI+ rights.” Read more>>
Anti-War Protesters Say Talisman Sabre War Games Should Be Cancelled: The Australian Anti-Bases Campaign (AABC), Sydney Anti-AUKUS Coalition (SAAC) and other peace groups organized a protest against the Talisman Sabre war games outside Sydney Town Hall on July 19. The biennial Talisman Sabre war games are due to start on July 22 at the Shoalwater Bay Military Training Area, Queensland and other locations across Northern and Central Australia on land and sea. Read more>>
In Brussels, Global Women For Peace United Against NATO Meet With EU Parliament & NATO Reps: The weekend before the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, Global Women for Peace United against NATO representing women in 35 countries met July 6-9, 2023 for three days of peace discussions in Brussels, Belgium. On July 6, 2023, twenty Global Women delegates met with members of the European Parliament to express their concern about the war-making role of NATO. Article and videos. Read more>>
New Recruits Quit Desantis’ Florida State Guard Over Militia-Style Training: When the first recruiting class of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ new Florida State Guard showed up for training last month, they had varied experiences and expectations. Over 30 days in June, teenagers out of high school and retired military veterans came to Camp Blanding, the National Guard base near Jacksonville. Many were told they would volunteer for a revived State Guard with a nonmilitary mission: help Floridians in times of need or disaster. Instead, the state’s National Guard trained the volunteers for combat. Khakis and polos were replaced by camouflaged uniforms. Read more>>
The Guerrilla Gardeners Seedbombing The Suburbs: How guerrilla gardeners supply healthy food, beautify their community and support the local ecosystem. Read more>>
Rebellious Robes And Stitches From The Civil War: The radical story of Palestinian embroidery is on display at a new art exhibit. From dresses sewn using forbidden colors to the needlework of political prisoners, a new exhibition threads together rural life in Gaza and today’s modern art. Read more>>
Reverse Boycott For the Oakland A’s Baseball Team: A fan-mobilized campaign to keep the iconic team in Oakland is trying to stop the owner from moving them to Nevada. They recently mobilized a reverse boycott to show their loyal support of the baseball team is unwavering. Read more>>
Young People in Nigeria Are Taking on Political Corruption and Police Brutality: The #EndSARS protests in October 2020 called for the abolition of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), a sector of the Nigerian police whose members became known for extortion, theft, and brutal violence against Nigerian citizens. The movement awakened a new consciousness among the hundreds of thousands who got involved and led to heightened interest in the political sphere, where decisions on democracy, governance, and socioeconomic policies are made. Read more>>
How To Create A Debt Co-op To Take Back Your Student Loans: Community cooperative lending has been, and can be, used to tackle many different issues—from student loans to medical debt, prison debt, or even the financing of projects for a green economy. Here’s how you can start one. Read more>>
What Should We Do With The Perpetrators of The Climate Crisis? A new novel about a climate activist who kills a fossil fuel CEO raises important questions of strategy in the fight for a livable future. Ultimately, such violent strategies backfire on movements – and we can’t afford that on climate. Read more>>
What Does It Take To Win a Strike? John Womack’s Labor Power and Strategy makes the case that by targeting strategic industries, workers can not only win power for themselves but also for labor generally. Read more>>
I Fell Down the Alt-Right Rabbit Hole. Eventually, I Climbed My Way Out. At a time of personal confusion and pain in my life, Jordan Peterson and the alt right gave me direction and purpose. I eventually realized that purpose was spreading a cruel, antisocial worldview — but not before I inflicted that cruelty on those around me. Read more>>
In the UK? Slow March With Just Stop Oil: The climate group Just Stop Oil asks people to join them in ‘slow marching’ through central London for multiple days. Learn more>>
Love and Feminism: An Introduction to Nonviolence: Join the Metta Center For Nonviolence for a six-week Zoom course exploring nonviolence through a feminist lens. Often thought of as a powerful means of civil disobedience, resistance against unjust laws and oppressive governments, or as a form of personal communication, this course will explore how the term “nonviolence” marks an alternate meaning-making framework. The course will examine nonviolence and feminism, and deepen our understanding of how these two systems work together. (Starts July 24) Learn more>>
Volunteer With #HotUnionSummer: Hot Union Summer is here, and these corporations that thought they could exploit workers – from Starbucks to UPS to Amazon to McDonald’s – are thinking twice. The jobs are different but many of the issues are the same: workers are sick of being disrespected. We’re sick of getting paid less than what we deserve just so wealthy CEOs and their shareholders can pad their profits. We’re sick of racist, bigoted systems that try to divide us, whether it’s racist policies that keep Black and brown workers’ wages low or homophobic and transphobic employers threatening to take away our healthcare if we unionize. Learn more>>
Gender Justice & Nonviolence: Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. held that nonviolence is “a way of life for courageous people.” This “way of life” includes all of who we are and who we are becoming, including our beautiful and diverse gender identities and expressions. As more and more people are targeted in our society because of their gender, faithful and strategic nonviolence is needed. Our trainers, Rev. Lauren Grubaugh-Thomas and Rev. Jerry Monroe Maynard, will lead us in exploring nonviolence as a powerful lens for gender justice in our churches, social circles, and global human family. You’ll come away with practical tools rooted in proven strategies and informed by lived experiences. (July 27) Learn more>>
A World of Change: Summer Film & Discussion Series: Films. Friends. Fantastic stories. Fascinating conversations. Join Pace e Bene’s six-week summer film series featuring A Force More Powerful on the power of nonviolent action in South Africa, Poland, Chile, India, Denmark, and the US. In each of these six sessions, we will watch and discuss one of the incredible 30-minute documentary video segments on a classic nonviolent struggle for change. (July 27-Aug 31) Learn more>>
March To End Fossil Fuels: People are taking action building up to the March to End Fossil Fuels in New York on September 17th. On that date, the United Nations Secretary-General is hosting a first-of-its-kind Climate Ambition Summit to demand that nations stop the fossil fuel expansion that is driving the climate emergency. Thousands of us will march to demand President Biden take bold action to End Fossil Fuels. (Sept 17 – NYC) Learn more>>
Campaign Nonviolence Action Days: From Sept 21 to Oct 2, 2023, (Int’l Day of Peace to Int’l Day of Nonviolence), join tens of thousands of people in calling for a culture of peace and active nonviolence, free from war, poverty, racism, and environmental protection. Learn more>>
