Barcelona pro-democracy march met by police violence

Police and demonstrators clash during a pro-democracy demonstration against the World Bank in Barcelona, Spain Sunday June 24, 2001.

Compiled by Sean Marquis

Barcelona, Spain, June 24— Today just after noon a march of between 30,000-50,000 people marched from the intersection of Diagonal and Passeig de Gracia in Barcelona to Placa de Catalunya.

The march was specifically a protest against the World Bank, but many of those attending were also protesting various capitalist globalization policies and various systemic injustices against indigenous peoples, people of color, and those with non-heterosexual sexual orientations.

It was a group similar to the ones seen in the past two years in places such as Seattle, Washington DC, Prague, Davos, Porto Alegre, London, Quebec, and other places demonstrating against the same undemocratic powers that rule practically every country on the planet.

It was a festive mood with various types of music, drumming, dancing, singing and chanting but the message was a serious one — that many people have had enough of a global system of corporate control and have taken to the streets to protest. In fact, one of the most common signs at the march was “A better world is possible” written both in Spanish and Catalan.

As the march continued along Passeig de Gracia, windows were smashed and locations were covered in anti-capitalist graffiti. Targets were specific — banks were the prime ones with global corporate entities next (such as Dunkin’ Donuts, Burger King, McDonald’s and Swatch stores), and some small groups of men and women taunted riot police.

The march ended in Placa de Catalunya where police presence then became more noticeable although still small in comparison to recent large scale demonstrations.

Riot police then made what appeared to be an unprovoked attack on protesters, resulting in at least 32 people being injured and 19 arrested.

Thousands of screaming and shouting demonstrators, some with small children, fled in panic as the police behind shields pushed into the crowd, wielding truncheons and firing blank gunshots.

“We raised our arms and shouted, ‘Peace, Peace,’ but they just kept coming,” said a woman who identified herself as Yolanda.

Thousands of other demonstrators had joined the marchers at the park following the march. They had been peacefully listening to speakers and chanting slogans when the police swept through the plaza.

The police charged the crowd after a small group of masked men and women who appeared to be police agents staged a fight at the edge of the park in full view of a line of riot police standing in front of police vans. A few dozen demonstrators were pulled into the fight.

Reporters watched as the police appeared to use the staged scuffle as bait to pull protesters into it and then use it as a pretext to charge into the park. A second charge emptied the park within minutes.

Reporters saw a group of men and women in masks gathered on the fringes of the demonstration in the park. Some wore earphones, and though carrying sticks they were able to walk freely past police, pull on their masks and position themselves between police and protesters.

One man in the group grabbed another and pulled him to the ground, and other members of the group began kicking and slugging each other.

When demonstrators saw what was going on and became involved in the fight, the police charged into the park. The masked men and women involved in the scuffle walked back through the police lines and boarded the police vans.

A reporter asked one of them if they were police. He at first said yes, and then said no, before walking undeterred by police to the vans.

The human rights commission of the Barcelona Bar Association urged a court to investigate Sunday’s violence by examining video footage, then issue a report. The panel accused the Spanish Interior Ministry of waging a policy of police intervention aimed at inciting violence in order “to delegitimize certain social groups.”

Municipal Assemblywoman Roser Veciana promised a local investigation.

Jordi Pedret, a Socialist Party member of the national Parliament, said he had been informed that police undercover agents threw rocks through store windows and then arrested protesters. Pedret called for a formal investigation by the Interior Ministry.

Spanish Interior Minister Mariano Rajoy defended the police action, calling it proper.

Source: Associated Press, Indymedia www.indymedia.org

Living wage law may become national model

By Vivian Rothstein

Santa Monica, California, June 19— On May 22, while most of the nation slept, history was being made in Santa Monica. The Southern California beach town, renowned for its progressive politics and its picture-perfect sunsets, became the first city in the country to apply living wage requirements to private businesses that have no direct financial relationship with municipal government.

In so doing, the Santa Monica City Council may have changed the terms of debate in what has become one of the most important social movements of our time. With their 5-1 vote following four hours of public testimony, the council majority created a new model for lifting workers out of poverty — one that has big business mobilizing legions of corporate attorneys and activists thinking about the next generation of living wage legislation.

Beginning July 1, 2002, some 2,000 workers in Santa Monica’s tourism district will be guaranteed a wage of no less than $10.50 an hour. Those without employer-provided health insurance will receive an additional $1.75 an hour, increasing to $2.50 the following year. Workers who assert their rights under the law will also be protected from retaliation by employers.

But it is the expansion of the living wage concept that has business opponents up in arms. Until now, the 60 living wage measures passed in the U.S. have applied only to city contractors, lessees or financial assistance recipients. The Santa Monica law will cover not only city contractors, but also businesses with gross revenues of $5 million or more in the city’s Coastal Zone — a booming tourism mecca where workers toil for poverty wages in luxury hotels, chain retail outlets and high-end restaurants.

Until ten years ago, this area was little more than a sleepy backwater. But the city embarked on an ambitious revitalization campaign in hopes of developing a more viable tourist economy. With the help of $170 million in taxpayer investment, the effort succeeded wildly, turning Santa Monica into one of the nation’s most lucrative seaside resort towns. Tourism now generates three quarters of a billion dollars every year.

Trouble is, despite the phenomenal growth of the tourism industry, there has been no trickle-down effect for the thousands of service-sector workers in the Coastal Zone. Indeed, a study commissioned by the city last year found that the majority of low-wage Coastal Zone workers are living in conditions of poverty or near poverty. Most are eligible for some form of government anti-poverty assistance, despite working full time.

By contrast, the study reported that beach hotels — the largest employers in the Coastal Zone — doubled their revenues over a six-year period. Room rates increased an average of 10 percent a year during this span, with the most exclusive hotels charging anywhere from $300 to $1800 a night.

It was these establishments which last year masterminded one of the most devious political campaigns in recent memory. Hoping to derail the living wage campaign, they concocted a misleading ballot initiative that purported to be a living wage measure. In fact, Measure KK would have provided raises for some 70 workers, while permanently preventing the City Council from enacting any living wage legislation for low-wage tourism workers.

The hotels spent $1 million on their initiative, to no avail. On Election Day, voters trounced Measure KK by a margin of 79 to 21 percent. The defeat was the result of a massive grassroots campaign on the part of a broad-based coalition of community activists, religious leaders, labor unions, students, academics and elected officials.

Now, six months later, the City Council has finished the job. Business opponents are already threatening legal action, even though experts such as USC constitutional scholar Erwin Chemerinsky have concluded that the law will almost certainly survive any court challenge. There is also talk of a referendum, despite the lopsided failure of Measure KK.

But even as the fight goes on, activists are looking beyond Santa Monica. Popular support among Americans for living wage legislation seems to grow stronger every year. In addition to the 60 laws on the books, another 80 have been proposed. The idea seems to defy ideology, with conservative areas like Ventura County, California, joining liberal strongholds such as Boston and San Francisco.

The reason for the popularity of living wage laws is simple enough: an epidemic of working poverty that neither business nor national leaders seem interested in addressing. Even amidst the economic boom of the ’90s, millions of full-time workers were losing ground. In Los Angeles County, for example, the number of working poor rose from 36 to 43 percent of the population between 1990 and 1999 — a staggering situation will only worsen with the economic downturn.

Living wage laws offer one response to this economic undertow. But for all their appeal, they reach only a fraction of poor workers. Santa Monica’s Coastal Zone living wage law opens the door to a much broader kind of legislation that could bring tens of thousands of workers out of poverty in cities across the country. The most likely candidates for future campaigns are tourism-oriented cities where a substantial investment of taxpayer dollars has generated a booming economy supported by a low-wage workforce. But the concept could also be applied anywhere public funds are directly or indirectly subsidizing business.

Source: AlterNet: www.alternet.org

Discrimination suit filed against Wal-Mart

San Francisco, California, June 25— Six female employees of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. launched a class action lawsuit on Tuesday charging the nation’s largest private employer with systematically discriminating against hundreds of thousands of female workers in Wal-Mart and Sam’s Clubs stores nationwide.

“It’s as if the last 25 years of progress for women never happened at Wal-Mart,” said Brad Seligman of The Impact Fund, a Berkeley, Calif.-based civil rights organization that helped create what is believed to be the largest sex discrimination case ever filed against a private US employer.

“There is a company policy and practice across the country of sex discrimination,” Seligman said, adding that as many as 700,000 current and former Wal-Mart employees could eventually be a part of the case.

The suit, filed in US District Court in San Francisco, charges Wal-Mart with discriminating against female employees in pay, promotion and training, and with retaliating against women employees who complain about the alleged abuse.

A spokesman for Bentonville, Arkansas-based Wal-Mart did not immediately return a call seeking comment on the case.

The suit demands a court order directing Wal-Mart to stop its allegedly discriminatory practices as well as compensation for lost wages for hundreds of thousands of women affected — potentially making it one of the largest sex discrimination suits ever filed.

Three current and former employees at Wal-Mart and its affiliated Sam’s Club stores appeared at Tuesday’s news conference to outline what they said was a pattern of discrimination by their employer.

“There have been numerous occasions that I have been aware of over the last seven years where men have been favored over women for positions,” said Betty Dukes, a Wal-Mart employee from Pittsburg, Calif. and one of the named plaintiffs in the case.

The plaintiffs say that although women comprise over 72 percent of the US Wal-Mart workforce of 962,000, men account for 90 percent of Wal-Mart store manager positions. The company’s global workforce numbers more than 1.24 million.

Overall, less than one-third of store management at Wal-Mart is female — a percentage far lower than the number of female managers employed by Wal-Mart’s major competitors, the suit charges.

The suit also charges that Wal-Mart creates a “sexually demeaning atmosphere” for women employees, who are told that “women do not make good managers,” and “a trained monkey” could do their jobs, a news release said.

Wal-Mart reported sales in excess of $191 billion in 2000 and has 3,153 stores in the United States. Wal-Mart employs more women than any other company in the United States.

Source: Reuters