AUPE VS UCP

Alberta labour union takes fight against Critical Infrastructure Defence Act to the Supreme Court of Canada

Paula Tran - Yesterday

Alberta's largest public sector union is taking its constitutional challenge against the UCP government's Bill 1 to the Supreme Court of Canada.

The Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) said Bill 1, or the Critical Infrastructure Defence Act, violates the rights of Albertans and is an attack on the freedom to take part in peaceful protests.

The union is seeking leave to have the Supreme Court hear an application to overturn a decision made by the Alberta Court of Appeal last December, after the appeal court ruled that AUPE had no standing to bring the claim because no one had yet been charged under the Act.

Read more:
Advanced education minister expects Alberta post-secondary institutions to drop vaccine and mask mandates

The union argues the Alberta Court of Appeal based its decision on hypotheticals, even though AUPE and its members were experiencing a "current chilling effect" from the bill's prohibitions.

"AUPE believes that peaceful protesting is a cornerstone of our democracy and that the aim of the government is to use the Critical Infrastructure Defence Act to silence opposition to its policies," said Patrick Nugent, AUPE's counsel, in an emailed statement on Friday.

Video: Alberta First Nation says response to Coutts blockade shows Bill 1 is ‘racially profiled’

AUPE first launched its constitutional challenge against Bill 1 in June 2020, after the bill passed third reading the month prior. The bill was passed in response to the rail and road blockades that were organized in solidarity with the Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs protesting the construction of the Coastal Gas Link natural gas pipeline in northern B.C.

Read more:
Comparing Coutts border protest to Indigenous land defenders inaccurate, says Alberta premier

The bill allows law enforcement to arrest and fine anyone trying to shut down critical economic infrastructure, including railways and highways. It also makes it easier for police to intervene at blockades rather than wait for a court injunction.

But questions arose about the fact that the bill has not been used until Monday, 10 days after protestors arrived in Coutts.

Video: Alberta border blockade remains adamant, demands nationwide mandates lifted

Alberta RCMP has laid charges under the Critical Infrastructure Defence Act against Calgary street preacher Artur Pawlowski, who is being accused of obstructing and interfering with essential infrastructure.

Pawlowski was arrested at his residence by Alberta RCMP and Calgary Police Service officers on Monday. A video of his arrest showed him being handcuffed and taken away by police. Multiple people can also be seen yelling at the police and filming the incident.

Read more:
Alberta NDP calls on UCP to suspend commercial operators licences as Coutts protest enters 13th day

He has been taken before a justice of peace and remains in custody until his next court appearance on Feb. 16, said an RCMP spokesperson.

The AUPE criticized the UCP government's response to the protest, accusing it of only imposing the law against groups they don't like.

“The fact that the government and police waited so long to charge anyone under Bill 1 during the border protests at Coutts and aren’t using the act to shut down the protests entirely suggests that this will be a law that is imposed only on those with whom the government does not agree," said AUPE president Guy Smith.

The Alberta government maintains that the blockades are unlawful and enforcement decisions remain solely in the authority of the police.

Read more:
Manufacturing association says blockades taking big pinch out of Alberta’s economy

"The Alberta government looks forward to defending against these baseless claims. As always, enforcement decisions about statutes such as the Critical Infrastructure Defence Act remain solely in the authority of law enforcement.

"Constitutional rights, such as those of free assembly, have been found by courts to have reasonable limits. The blocking of critical infrastructure is unacceptable, and we believe that the Supreme Court of Canada will agree that the AUPE claim is without merit," said Alex Puddifant, acting Justice Minister Sonya Savage's press secretary.

Alberta loosening COVID-19 restrictions as border protests resume

Earlier this week, Kenney also said comparing police responses at Coutts to police responses to Indigenous land defenders is "inaccurate," calling the situation at Coutts very fluid and complex.

“It is never lawful to block a railway and I’ve seen with much frustration those kinds of blockades go on, sometimes for weeks. I think that is wrong,” he said

Calls grow for Alberta to release data, recommendations used to lift COVID restrictions

Less than a week after unveiling its plans to roll back COVID-19 restrictions, the Alberta government is facing multiple calls to release the data and recommendations it got before making the decision.


© Provided by Edmonton JournalThe Alberta legislature on Nov. 5, 2020.

Ashley Joannou - Yesterday 7:12 p.m.
Edmonton Journal

Former Alberta cabinet ministers have differing opinions on whether the information — which is currently protected under cabinet confidentiality — should be made public.

Alberta is one of several provinces to announce plans to roll back restrictions. Alberta’s mandatory vaccine passport program has already ended and as of Monday, masks will no longer be required for students in the province’s schools. Additional stages lifting more restrictions come into effect on March 1, if hospitalization numbers trend down.

News of the restrictions being loosened has led to requests from municipalities and one of Alberta’s largest school boards to see the province’s data and recommendations made by chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw.

Let us share perspectives: Sohi

Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi sent a letter requesting the information to Premier Jason Kenney and Health Minister Jason Copping on Friday, after council passed a motion earlier in the week.

“Given that some of the next stages of the plan are tentatively scheduled, we are asking you for an opportunity to share our perspectives, including what we have heard from a wide variety of Edmontonians, on the timing and staging of the relaxations,” Sohi’s letter says.

“To have this discussion, and support city council’s further discussions on this topic, it would be helpful to understand the data which informed the Government of Alberta’s recent plan.”

In Calgary, city council has agreed in principle for Mayor Joyti Gondek to make a similar request but they still need to give it a final sign-off next week before a formal letter could go out.

Edmonton Coun. Andrew Knack said he trusts Hinshaw but doesn’t trust the government to follow medical advice after previous restrictions were lifted too soon.

Knack said city council makes the vast majority of its decisions after debating the facts in public.

“People can see clearly how we came to our decision and that builds trust in the decision-making process — being able to understand why somebody has decided made a decision the way they have, even if they don’t agree,” he said.

On Wednesday, Edmonton Public School Board chairwoman Trisha Estabrooks said the division will be asking Hinshaw to outline the data and rationale for the government’s decision to remove the masking requirement for students.

“That, to me, is critical data that needs to be shared publicly,” Estabrooks said.

At a press conference Thursday, Hinshaw deferred questions about the masking requirement to Copping and said she couldn’t share what recommendations she’s made because she took an oath of cabinet confidence.

Copping did not commit to sharing data with municipalities. He said the government is using a “prudent, phased approach” to lift restrictions.

“We take very seriously the recommendations made by our chief medical officer of health.

“We, as a cabinet committee, are balancing the needs of Albertans not only protecting health and protecting people from Delta, and Omicron and COVID, but also mental health, because of the cost that we have with putting in restrictive measures, and then also the overall economy.”
Former cabinet ministers weigh in

Former Alberta justice minister and Progressive Conservative MLA Jonathan Denis said cabinet confidentiality allows for free discussion of many competing views and he’s concerned about the precedent that would be set if information discussed in cabinet could be made public.

“You would not have the same free-flowing discussions and high-level decision making if the actors, in this case the ministers of the Crown, would know that this type of information could actually be disclosed,” said Denis, a Calgary lawyer, adding that provincial and federal governments of every stripe uphold the same rules.

“Having sat at the cabinet table before in five different ministries, there are often very many competing interests. There’s often competing data, competing studies that you have.”

If a municipal government wants to gather its own information, they can do that, he said.

“I know no situation where one government goes and asks for confidential information from another government.”

Retired Alberta politician Brian Mason, a former leader of the provincial NDP who was also the transportation minister in the Notley government, acknowledged that Hinshaw’s recommendations would be covered under cabinet confidence but said the government could and should voluntarily release them to restore confidence in the decision making process after restrictions were previously lifted too soon.

“Nobody’s suggesting that the government release the individual comments of cabinet ministers in a confidential cabinet meeting. They’re just suggesting that the information provided to the government upon which it claims to be making this decision be made publicly available, and that’s not a slippery slope,” he said.

ajoannou@postmedia.com

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Opinion: Dropping COVID restrictions puts the health of children at greater risk

Sabrina Eliason , Tehseen Ladha , Sam Wong - 

Yesterday 

Edmonton Journal

As the Alberta Medical Association Section of Pediatrics, we are very disappointed and concerned about the plan announced by our premier on Feb. 8, to lift public health protections. This announcement comes while our health system remains under significant strain due to staff shortages, test positivity rates are still in the 30-per-cent range and there continues to be unsustainably high rates of daily hospitalizations, ICU admission and deaths due to COVID.


© Provided by Edmonton Journal

Children in the school yard outside Garneau School in Edmonton on Thursday January 20, 2022.

Lifting these protections now will only increase the strain on our already strained health-care system. Meanwhile, the re-allocation of resources to meet the “surge” demand of COVID hospitalizations has come and will continue to come at the cost of health-care services for other patients, including children.

Although COVID is often milder in children, it is not harmless. We have seen increased hospitalizations in extremely young children with COVID and multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) in older children. We have watched pediatric ICU beds be used for adult ICU patients. We have seen youth suffering prolonged symptoms after mild COVID infections.

We have seen therapies for children with disabilities cancelled due to redeployment of staff to support the surge of COVID patients. We have supported children experiencing mental health and developmental issues exacerbated by the unmitigated spread of COVID causing school and activity disruptions. We have been left wondering what resources will be left for children with complex developmental, medical and mental health conditions and what impact the lack of access to these supports will be on their lives and their families.

There have been significant negative impacts on children and their families, not only from the public health measures themselves, but from having to put these measures in place because of uncontrolled spread of COVID due to premature removal of public health protections by our government.

We have watched for two years as the health of children has been put behind the health of adults with COVID. The cost of this is reaching a point of crisis and will not improve if COVID cases continue to rise. Our government’s plans for removal of public health measures have come without the necessary commitment to investing in protecting our children and communities.

We need our government to prioritize the community accessibility of COVID vaccination for all eligible children along with concomitant education and awareness campaigns. This could happen through school vaccination sites, public-transit accessible vaccine sites and community outreach programs. We need a strong and clear message from our government that acknowledges the evidence that COVID vaccines are safe and one of the best ways to protect our children.

We also need a commitment to other evidence-based mitigations such as masking in schools to reduce the transmission of COVID amongst children and their families. There is currently no evidence that masking in these situations negatively impacts children’s mental health or development.

Until we are at a point where larger numbers of children are vaccinated and case rates are consistently low, it is vitally important that we keep in place the protections that have led to Canada having one of the lowest death rates per capita among the developed countries of the world. This means continuance of masking in indoor spaces including schools, optimizing ventilation, isolating when symptomatic or COVID positive, using rapid tests appropriately, and getting booster doses of the COVID vaccine when eligible.

Without adequate control of COVID infection rates, families risk daycare shut-downs, school closures and activity cancellations due to outbreaks and health resources will continue to be redirected from children to treat hospitalized COVID patients. Rampant COVID transmission in the community is a major factor in families’ decisions to keep their children home to avoid exposures that may occur via activities and socialization.

The long-term health and development of Alberta’s children is dependent on consistent and adequate mitigation of COVID. It is time for our province to truly start putting children first.

Authored by: Drs. Sabrina Eliason and Tehseen Ladha, members-at-large, and Dr. Sam Wong, current president of the AMA Section of Pediatrics executive. The AMA Section of Pediatrics represents the almost 300 doctors who care for children in Alberta.

Co-signed by: Drs. Bonnie Islam, Mary-Pat Schlosser, Hasu Rajani, Christopher W. Andrews, Catherine Macneil, Charlotte Foulston, Natalie Forbes, Kyle McKenzie, Elsa Fiedrich, Breanne Frohlich, Juan Pablo Appendino.

Alberta plan to phase out all COVID-19 restrictions reckless: public health faculty

EDMONTON — Faculty members from the University of Alberta School of Public Health, saying it could prolong the pandemic, are voicing strong opposition to what they call the rapid relaxation of COVID-19 health measures in the province.

In an open letter sent to Premier Jason Kenney and top-ranking United Conservative officials, about 25 experts with varied experience in public health, infectious diseases and social epidemiology say the government is using selective data to support its policies.

"We know and agree that restrictions have had deleterious effects on our society. However, this extreme back and forth of on-again, off-again restrictions only serves to prolong the course of this pandemic," the letter reads.

"We cannot tell what the future will hold, but the history of other pandemics, our immediate experience with Omicron and the fourth wave, and the wealth of evidence should teach us that a cautious, slow easing of restrictions would be the prudent way to proceed."

Premier Jason Kenney announced earlier this week a phased, but speedy approach to dropping all pandemic health measures. Kenney said the threat of COVID-19 to public health no longer outweighs the damaging impact of restrictions.

Alberta's vaccine passport is already a thing of the past and masking requirements for children 12 and under, as well as for all students, are to end Monday. Most remaining measures are to be lifted in March should pressure on hospitals continue to ease.

Steve Buick, press secretary to Health Minister Jason Copping, said the letter released Friday gives a "distorted view" by ignoring that other jurisdictions in Canada are taking similar approaches.

"Restrictions take a heavy toll on society, from workers earning modest wages in service businesses to students who have seen their education compromised by the change to online classes. The letter takes an unbalanced view, with almost no acknowledgment of that impact," said Buick in a statement.

"The letter calls for restrictions to continue but distorts the basis for them. The justification for restrictions is to prevent the health system from being overwhelmed. That has not happened."

COVID-19 hospitalizations decreased by 20 to 1,566 Thursday with no significant changes to intensive care admissions. The seven-day average positivity rate was about 32 per cent.

The letter says the province's plan is reckless when waning immunity after two vaccine doses, slow uptake for booster shots and lagging vaccination of children are considered.

It says it's time to expand vaccine mandates to include third doses, rather than ditch them altogether. The group also expresses concerns that the government is removing the freedom of municipalities, post-secondary institutions and school boards to make their own decisions.

Education Minister Adriana LaGrange told school boards Tuesday that they will not be able to bring in their own mask mandates. Advanced Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides similarly informed post-secondary schools that he expects them to return to pre-pandemic rules when more measures are expected to be lifted March 1.

That phase would see an end to keeping students in cohorts at schools, capacity limits and the indoor mask mandate.

Letter co-author Dr. Simon Otto, who specializes in epidemiology and infectious diseases, said in an interview that he is concerned government decisions are being driven by politics rather than all available evidence-based data.

"We speak from a position of expertise," he said. "We're training the next generation of public health professionals and we train them to think in this way, so we really feel it's important for the government to hear from us."

Otto said the government should release the data it is using to guide its decision-making and be more transparent with the public about crafting COVID-19 policies.

"Ignoring the evidence and dismissing the concerns and fears of parents, students and educators is a dangerous and irresponsible overstep by the government," the letter says.

"Now is absolutely not the time to make these drastic changes."

— By Alanna Smith in Calgary

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 11, 2022.

The Canadian Press

LABOUR NEWS ALBERTA TELL KENNEY TO KEEP COVID PROTECTIONS

The pandemic is not over but this week, Kenney announced he was removing the vaccine passport immediately and masking rules for students in Alberta schools and children under 12 on Monday. At the same press conference, Dr. Deena Hinshaw reported 1,623 people in hospital with COVID-19, including 129 in intensive care, and 13 people died in the past 24 hours, yesterday, 22 people died. 

Action

Demand safe schools in Alberta!

The relaxing of school safety protections by the UCP government is premature and the AFL is partnering with Support our Students Alberta on an email tool to demand that the Alberta government adopt a more rational approach to ensure schools are safe for every child and education worker!  

Tell Kenney to keep COVID-19 protections in schools until hospitalizations are down and ventilation is improved. Take action.

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News

Alberta health care workers call on their fellow citizens to help them push back against the UCP’s reckless decision to prematurely remove COVID-19 protections

The following joint statement released was today from a coalition of Alberta health care unions:

“On behalf of the more than 75,000 health care workers who we represent in Alberta, we want to express our profound concern about the provincial government’s recently announced plan to end the vaccine passport program, remove mask mandates in schools and begin treating COVID-19 as another seasonal illness like influenza. We believe these decisions are premature, reckless and irresponsible. We have no doubt they will lead to increased illness, disability and death. We also think they were clearly based on political considerations, rather than on science or the kind of concern for the public good that citizens should reasonably be able to expect from their governments. Read more.

 

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Alberta's plan to remove COVID-19-related restrictions: What you need to know

Albertans are no longer required to show proof of vaccination under the first step of the provincial government's three-part plan to phase out most public health measures by March 1.

Premier Jason Kenney, Health Minister Jason Copping and Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw laid out the plan Tuesday, saying hospitalization trends will be monitored as restrictions are relaxed.

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Alberta businesses wrestle with fate of vaccine passports

Some entrepreneurs worry ditching the system too quickly could lead to another resurgence in cases — mirroring the province’s reopening of the economy last summer — and potentially trigger more public health measures down the road.

Labour leaders say they’re concerned with the province taking steps to end the vaccine passport at this point.

“Removing these protections will make workplaces less safe,” said Alberta Federation of Labour president Gil McGowan. “This is all about politics.”

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Listen to AFL President Gil McGowan talk about the "freedom convoy" on Global radio 770 CHQR & read his statement: 

The authoritarian bullies who are terrorizing Ottawa do NOT represent Alberta workers

“On numerous occasions over the past week, the so-called “Freedom Convoy” has been portrayed as an uprising of ordinary Canadian workers, particularly truckers. I want to make it clear that the people who descended on Ottawa this weekend – and who continue to essentially occupy and terrorize the city – are in no way, shape or form representative of the vast majority of working Canadians or Albertans, including truckers. 

The workers who I know and represent are at work today, not intimidating innocent citizens or rubbing shoulders with known white supremacists and other extremists. Instead of supporting what’s going on in Ottawa, all but a tiny sliver of Canadian workers are doing what they do every day: providing health care, educating our children, making our cities and municipalities work, producing and moving goods, working on construction projects, stocking shelves, serving customers and doing the myriad of other things that make our economy run."  Read more. Listen to radio interview.

'They Are Firing the Entire Committee!' Memphis Workers Say Starbucks Targeting Union Organizers

"The arc of Starbucks' union-busting is long, but it bends toward losing," said Starbucks Workers United.



Nikki Taylor, a shift supervisor at the Poplar and Highland Starbucks in Memphis, Tennessee, was one of numerous workers fired by the coffee chain for what they say are their union organizing efforts. (Photo: More Perfect Union/YouTube/screen grab)

BRETT WILKINS

February 8, 2022

Workers at a Memphis Starbucks who were fired Tuesday after launching a unionization effort vowed to carry on their fight, with one employee invoking the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.—who was assassinated in the Tennessee city while campaigning for workers' rights.

"Starbucks has been fighting desperately to silence us because we did not back down or let them shake us."

"I was fired by Starbucks today for 'policies' that I've never heard of before and that I've never been written up about before," Nikki Taylor, a shift supervisor at the Poplar and Highland store, said in a statement.

"This is a clear attempt by Starbucks to retaliate against those of us who are leading the union effort at our store and scare other partners," she added. "Starbucks will not get away with this—the entire country will be outraged."

Taylor tweeted: "This is an outrage! They are firing the entire committee!"

Beto Sanchez, another shift supervisor at the store, said that "Starbucks has been fighting desperately to silence us because we did not back down or let them shake us."

A Starbucks representative told The New York Times that the workers were fired for violations including allowing at least one reporter inside the store to conduct an after-hours interview in which some of the employees were unmasked.

Starbucks Workers United, which is representing company employees seeking to unionize at various locations around the country, said that "in their most blatant act of union-busting yet, Starbucks is retaliating against the union organizing committee at the Poplar and Highland store after they allowed the media to conduct interviews in their store after hours."

The group added that "Starbucks is using policies that have never been enforced, such as going behind a counter when a partner is not officially working, to fire workers. Starbucks chose to selectively enforce policies, that have not previously been consistently enforced, as a subterfuge to fire union leaders. Many of these workers did not have any prior offenses or write-ups."

Starbucks Workers United said it would file charges against the company at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Last year, an NLRB administrative judge found that Starbucks had illegally retaliated against two baristas at a Philadelphia Starbucks who sought to unionize.

According to the NLRB, the judge, Andrew Gollin, "found that Starbucks closely monitored their public social media activity, attempted to gauge employees' support for the employees' efforts, and unlawfully spied on protected conversations one of the employees initiated with coworkers."

The agency added that Gollin "concluded Starbucks retaliated against the employees and discharged them in an attempt to quell the organizing drive."


The Memphis terminations come amid a wave of unionization efforts at dozens of Starbucks locations around the nation.

The Poplar and Highland workers chose January 17, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, to launch their unionization drive. King was assassinated in Memphis in 1968 while participating in a sanitation workers' strike. The store employees are demanding higher pay—including a minimum wage of at least $15 an hour—better working conditions, and improved Covid-19 safety precautions.

"This store is a family, and an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us. We as partners should not be afraid to speak to the media, to organize our stores, or to fight for our right to have a union," said Sanchez, noting that King "was killed in our very city while fighting for the right to organize a union."


"We have no intentions [of] backing down or wavering," Sanchez added, "and we're ready for the rest of the community and other stores to join us in our fight for workers' rights."

Paid Leave for All: Worker Advocates Demand Expanded Protections

"The call for paid leave has never been clearer or louder from all corners of our country," said a pair of Senate Democrats marking the 29th anniversary of the Family and Medical Leave Act.


A woman works at a distribution station at the 855,000-square-foot Amazon fulfillment center in Staten Island, one of the five boroughs of New York City, on February 5, 2019. (Photo: Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images)


ANDREA GERMANOS

February 5, 2022

Economic justice advocates and Democratic lawmakers on Saturday issued fresh demands for comprehensive paid leave for the nation's workers, saying such protections would address crucial gaps in labor law that the ongoing pandemic has underscored.

The calls came on the 29th anniversary of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which provides eligible employees with up to 12 weeks of job-protected leave to care for a new child or take care of one's own or family member's illness. But, worker advocates say, the groundbreaking law is sorely insufficient, because the leave is unpaid and FMLA doesn't cover all workers.

"It's been 29 years today since the FMLA was passed—the first federal protection for people to take time off work when they need it most. But about 10.5 million need leave and don't take it," tweeted the National Women's Law Center.

"All workers should not only be covered," the group added, "but be able to afford to take their leave."

The House Education and Labor Committee similarly noted that "millions of workers are not eligible for FMLA. And unpaid leave is not practical for most Americans."

"We must build on the FMLA by expanding access to PAID leave for workers across the country," the panel added.

Such expansion would also help advance racial equity.

According to NARAL Pro-Choice America: "The 44% of Americans not covered by the FMLA include 48% of Latinx workers, 47% of AAPI workers, and 43% of Black workers. Every American should be covered by the FMLA."


In a Friday statement, Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who heads the Senate's Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) said the lack of guaranteed paid leave is especially problematic in light of the ultra-contagious Omicron variant.

"American parents still can't take paid time to care for a seriously ill child. Patients can't take paid time to recover from surgery or cope with a cancer diagnosis. And workers with a cold, the flu, or even Covid-19, can't take the time to get well and keep their coworkers safe—because they would risk losing a paycheck or even their job," said Murray and Gillibrand.

Related Content

Calls for Paid Leave Grow as Workers Face 'Vicious Cycle': Their Jobs or Covid Safety

In addition to harming families and the economy, the pair said the absence of paid leave and sick days is "hurting our ability to fight this pandemic. If we want to stop the spread of Omicron, be ready for whatever this pandemic brings next, and prepare for future public health crises—then we need paid leave."

Pointing to recent polling showing overwhelming public support for such protections, the lawmakers added that "the call for paid leave has never been clearer or louder from all corners of our country" and urged their congressional colleagues to help enact such a measure.

President Joe Biden, for his part, said in a Saturday tweet marking the FMLA anniversary that he is "committed to continuing the fight for national paid family and medical leave."

That vow was welcomed by Center for Economic and Policy Research co-director Eileen Appelbaum, who expressed hope Biden would "push for it when bills to provide it are introduced in the Congress."

"People are desperate for paid leave," she said, calling it "policy that is needed and popular."

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Advocates urge Biden to grant clemency to Leonard Peltier

by Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan

February 10, 2022

President Biden must take action, granting long overdue clemency to Leonard Peltier after close to half a century in prison for a blatantly political prosecution.

Leonard Peltier is a 77-year-old Anishinabe-Lakota Native American activist imprisoned for 46 years for a crime he says he did not commit. Amnesty International calls him a political prisoner. Peltier recently contracted COVID-19 inside the Coleman maximum security federal penitentiary in Florida, where prisoners have reportedly been denied vaccine booster shots.

“In and out of lockdown last year at least meant a shower every third day, a meal beyond a sandwich wet with a little peanut butter—but now with COVID for an excuse, nothing,” Peltier recently wrote. “No phone, no window, no fresh air—no humans to gather—no loved one’s voice. No relief. Left alone and without attention is like a torture chamber for the sick and old.”

Peltier, a member of the American Indian Movement, was convicted of involvement in the killing of two FBI agents, Jack Coler and Ron Williams, in a shootout on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota on June 26th, 1975, during a period of intense violence on the reservation. Peltier’s arrest and trial were marred by prosecutorial misconduct, withheld evidence, coerced and fabricated eyewitness testimony, and more.

The shootout occurred just three years after the death of J. Edgar Hoover. Under Hoover, the FBI engaged in widespread illegality with its COINTELPRO program, directed against civil rights and antiwar organizations. Groups like the Black Panthers and individuals including Martin Luther King, Jr. were targeted for surveillance, disruption, infiltration, intimidation, and false prosecutions. The FBI intensively targeted the American Indian Movement, which was active protecting elders on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

Peltier’s attorney, Kevin Sharp, learned that Peltier had a negative COVID test recently, but not much more: “When will boosters be made available? Any changes in prison COVID protocols to ensure prisoners are safer? When can I speak to Leonard? ” Sharp wrote in an email to us Wednesday. “I was earlier denied a call with the Assistant Warden trying to get these answers.”

Sharp’s route to Peltier’s case was unusual. Nominated to the federal bench by President Obama in 2011, he served as a federal judge in Tennessee for six years, three of them as Chief Judge. In 2017, he resigned, denouncing the mandatory minimum sentences that he was forced to impose. He then worked for the release of Chris Young, who he had mandatorily sentenced to life without parole. TV personality Kim Kardashian got involved, and they won clemency for Young from President Donald Trump. Publicity from that prompted long-time Peltier supporter Connie Nelson, the ex-wife of musician Willie Nelson, to send Sharp information on Peltier’s case.

“I sat down to read the stacks, just reams of information on Leonard’s case, not really coming at it with any preconceived notion… looking at it from the viewpoint of a federal judge,” Sharp explained on the Democracy Now! news hour. “What I saw was shocking. The constitutional violations just continued to stack up. I was outraged that this man was still in prison.”

The movement for executive clemency for Peltier peaked in late 2000, as President Bill Clinton was leaving office. Clinton promised to give Peltier’s clemency application “a looksee” on WBAI radio in New York City, when he called us on election day to get out the vote.

Clinton infamously abused the presidential power of clemency, granting pardons to campaign donors and cronies of his half-brother, among others. He denied clemency to Peltier, as did his successors, Presidents George W. Bush, Obama and Trump.

One of the federal prosecutors who put Peltier in prison spoke out, in 2017. “Leonard Peltier’s conviction and continued incarceration is a testament to a time and system of justice that no longer has a place in our society,” retired U.S. Attorney James Reynolds wrote to President Obama. “I have realized that the prosecution and the continued incarceration of Mr. Peltier was and is injust.”

Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii, who chairs the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, wrote a letter to President Biden on Jan. 28. “I write to urge you to grant a commutation of Leonard Peltier’s sentence. Mr. Peltier meets appropriate criteria for commutation: (1) his old age and critical illness, (2) the amount of time he has already served, and (3) the unavailability of other remedies,” Schatz wrote.

On February 2nd, HuffPost reporter Jennifer Bendery asked White House press secretary Jen Psaki, “Does the President know who Leonard Peltier is?” Psaki replied, “I’m sure he does, but I have not discussed it with him.” Bendery also asked Senate Judiciary Committee chair Sen. Patrick Leahy about Peltier. Leahy said he would ask President Biden about Peltier in their upcoming private meetings.

President Biden must take action, granting long overdue clemency to Leonard Peltier after close to half a century in prison for a blatantly political prosecution.

This column originally appeared in Democracy Now!

 

Fighting with Tools: Prefiguration and Radical Politics in the Twenty-First Century (Rethinking Marxism, 2015)

Mathijs van de Sande

299 Views18 Pages

1 File ▾

Social Movements,

Anarchism,

Antonio Negri,

Mikhail Bakunin,

Autonomous Marxism

 ...more ▾

This article conceptualizes some of the political practices and discourses that characterize recent protest movements such as Occupy and the Indignados. These movements’ strategies are distinguished by the central role they give to the occupation and recomposition of public spaces and also by their refusal to engage with representative politics and public institutions. Critics argue that this so-called strategy of withdrawal illustrates a categorical misunderstanding of the political. But as notions such as “withdrawal” or “exodus” give only a rather partial account of these movements’ practices and discourses, this paper aims to introduce an alternative, contemporary concept that has a much stronger explanatory potential: “prefiguration” or “prefigurative politics.” In order to flesh out and apply this concept, it reconstructs the political ontologies of two radical traditions that significantly influenced more recent protest movements—namely, early anarchism with its antithetic dialectics (Mikhail Bakunin) and contemporary autonomist Marxism (Antonio Negri).

Anthropology and the Social Factory

Stephen Campbell

2018, Dialectical Anthropology

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Anthropology,

Antonio Negri,

Operaismo

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Since its birth in the early 1960s, Italian operaismo (workerism) has provided an optimistic reading of working-class militancy, a theoretically stimulating account of capitalist transformation, and a set of highly productive conceptual categories. Despite a shared provenance, however, operaista-influenced movements and theorists have since taken these categories in quite varied directions. Given this conceptual heterogeneity, I consider herein one such category—the “social factory”—and its conceptual reworking by Antonio Negri, as he elaborates in his 2017 book, Marx and Foucault. I employ, as means to pursue this inquiry, an anthropological lens—drawing, to do so, on anthropological theory and ethnographic research. My aim is to build toward to a reconception of the social factory analytic for use in a contemporary anthropology of state formation.

Judge grants City of Edmonton interim injunction for downtown protest convoys

Emily Mertz and Caley Gibson - Yesterday

The City of Edmonton applied for and was granted an interim injunction on Friday in regards to the noise from downtown protest convoys that have taken place around the Alberta legislature and 109 Street the last two Saturdays.

Drivers in the convoys have been showing their opposition to a number of issues, mostly to do with public health measures related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read more:
Ottawa asks Superior Court for injunction against trucker convoy protesters

In a special council meeting Friday afternoon, city manager Andre Corbould told councillors that an Alberta Court of Queen's Bench Justice granted the city's request for a temporary injunction "to address nuisance noise from vehicles that participate in protests against public health restrictions," under Section 554 of the Municipal Government Act.

He said it would apply to prohibiting protesters from creating incessant sound with horns and megaphones.

A news release from the city said: "the injunction compels people who are organizers, participants or drivers involved in a protest convoy of vehicles or farm equipment to refrain from sounding vehicle horns, airhorns or other noise-making devices from creating unnecessary noise within the city.

"The city sought this injunction after witnessing and hearing from residents and businesses about the effects of noise during protest convoys on Jan. 29 and Feb. 5."

City officials said they believe another protest will take place Feb. 12.

"We fully support the right to peaceful protest," said Mayor Amarjeet Sohi. "When that protest impacts nearby people and businesses to the degree that the well-being of individuals is compromised or a business cannot operate, we must take action.

"As a legal measure that prohibits certain behaviours or actions, an injunction was a reasonable step that allows the city to also support those Edmontonians who want to carry on with daily life.

"The people of Edmonton have been through so much over the last two years, this was one way we could stand up for their right to peace and quiet."

Sohi said the temporary injunction will give bylaw and police officers "added tools" to enforce the noise bylaw.

"I also hope it sends a message to protestors that what they're doing is breaking the law and there's an injunction in place to prevent them from doing what they're doing.

"If they're going to protest, they have to protest peacefully."

Sohi said the city has heard from a lot of downtown residents, including seniors, who felt disturbed by the loud horns and scared to go outside their homes.

The injunction is in effect immediately until March 4, 2022.

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Trucker protest: Judge grants injunction against honking in downtown Ottawa

On Monday, an Ontario judge granted a 10-day injunction to prevent protesting truckers in downtown Ottawa from honking their horns incessantly.

That same day, Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson told Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Ontario Premier Doug Ford that the city needed 1,800 more officers, in addition to his current contingent of 2,100 police and civilian members, to “quell the insurrection” the local police cannot contain.

An injunction is a court order that a person cease certain behaviour. If they don’t comply, they can be charged with contempt of court.

Paul Champ, a lawyer representing central Ottawa residents in a proposed multimillion-dollar class-action lawsuit, argued the loud and prolonged honking is causing irreparable harm.

Keith Wilson, representing three of the respondents in the case, told the judge the ruling on the injunction would carry national importance.

Read more:
Injunction granted to prevent protesters from blocking Ambassador Bridge

Councillors were meeting Friday to discuss possibly implementing a local COVID-19 vaccine passport, what that would look like and what implications it might have.

Video: Injunction considered against anti-mandate protesters

Earlier Friday, the Edmonton Police Service issued a media release saying it is aware of another convoy planned for the city on Saturday.

Police said convoys may be coming from various parts of the province, convening at the Alberta legislature grounds. The convoys are anticipated to affect Edmonton traffic anywhere between 10:30 a.m. and 6 p.m.

Significant traffic disruption may include Anthony Henday Drive, Yellowhead Trail, Stony Plain Road, Whitemud Drive, Gateway Boulevard, Walterdale Hill, Queen Elizabeth Park Road and the downtown core.

"We recognize that these demonstrations cause significant disruptions to traffic and create many concerns for residents and businesses," the EPS said.

The EPS said policing during public demonstrations is a complex task that includes upholding multiple laws, while balancing fundamental rights set out in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The EPS said it will continue to work with municipal and provincial partners to ensure proper resources are in place to manage traffic and crowds, while preventing situations from escalating.

Police urged people not to call 911 unless it is an emergency.

The EPS said it may use verbal warnings, tickets and arrests to mitigate any disorderly conduct.

"Our focus will be to prevent these convoys from developing into situations that actively threaten the safety and security of our community. We are closely monitoring this demonstration and are ready to adapt our response as required."

When asked how the injunction would impact EPS' response, a spokesperson told Global News:

"The EPS will continue to work with its municipal and provincial partners to ensure proper resources are in place to manage traffic and crowds and prevent situations from escalating," Cheryl Voordenhout wrote.

"The injunction will be incorporated into these enforcement strategies."

Video: Ontario under state of emergency as police prepare for third weekend of convoys

-- With files from Mike Blanchfield and Laura Osman, The Canadian Press