May Day on the New Haven Green Sunday, May 1, from noon to 5 p.m.

by May Day Celebration Committee

Come celebrate May Day, International Workers’ Day, Sunday, May 1st from 12 noon until 5 p.m. on the New Haven Green. Raindate: Sunday May 8.

may-day-2015This is the 30th consecutive year of May Day on the Green. May Day is a multi-cultural festival featuring live music, poetry, dance, children’s activities, speak-out time, a May Pole Dance and displays and information tables from local labor, peace, social service and social justice groups. May Day is a participatory event that is free and everyone is invited.

At a time when labor unions are being harassed around the country, we celebrate labor unions as being a worker’s best hope. At a time when immigrants are still struggling for their rights, we celebrate our immigrant heritage and culture.

Our featured performers on the New Haven Green include “Coalition Hip Hop” and “N-Finity Muzik.”

For more information visit us at #newhavenmayday or call (203) 843-3069.

Schedule May Day 2016

  • Noon Opening Remarks “May Day and New Haven’s demand for immigrant rights”
  • 12:15 Steph Serenita (Singer/Songwriter)
  • 12:45 Bread Is Rising (Poetry Collective)
  • 1 p.m. Open Mic
  • 1:15 Phil Dunlop (Clean water activist, Singer/Songwriter)
  • 1:30 Luke Rodney (Caribbean, World)
  • 2 p.m. Not Here (Jam Music)
  • 2:30 Open Mic
  • 2:45 Chris Garaffa (ANSWER Coalition –Act Now to Stop War And End Racism)
  • 3 p.m. Coalition (Hip Hop)
  • 3:30 May Pole Dance led by Bill Fischer with Out On a Whim–Mickey Koth and Kendall Alderman
  • 4 p.m. N-Finity Muzik (Hip Hop)
  • 4:45 Speak Out Time and Closing Remarks

Also: Fun activities throughout the day–Flint Ladder Circus Arts, New Haven Radical Cheerleaders, Snappy the Peas/ce Pod, Face Painting, Bubbles, Free Vegetarian Food, Graffiti Wall participatory art project, Information Tables

Admission: Free

International Workers’ Day: Fighting for Our Future, May 1

by Joelle Fishman, CT People’s World

The People’s World in Connecticut is hosting its annual celebration of International Workers’ Day on Sunday, May 1 at 4 p.m. at the King-Davis Labor Center, 77 Huyshope Ave., Hartford. The lives of workers and the 99% are on the line here and around the world and people are in motion. On May Day 2016 we are “Fighting for Our Future.”

We are honored to welcome keynote speaker John Wojcik, editor of People’s World and vice president of the International Labor Communications Association who lives in Chicago.

A panel including representatives of state workers and immigrants and those struggling for jobs in Connecticut will highlight key demands of the moment.

The program includes a presentation of May Day Around the World, music and home made buffet. Donation is $5 or what you can afford. A fund appeal for the annual People’s World will be made. For more information, call (203) 624-4254.

Victories on Earth Day

by Terry Eichel, Inter-Religious Eco-Justice Network (IREJN)

April 22 was Earth Day and the celebrations for our planet will be going on all week!

*Kinder Morgan announced on Wednesday that it was abandoning plans to build a natural gas pipeline that would have cut through Western Massachusetts, Southern New Hampshire, and Merrimack Valley. A day later, the New York Department of Environmental Conservation denied a permit to Kinder Morgan to bring natural gas through New York. As a result, Kinder Morgan has cancelled the Northeast Energy Direct Pipeline from New York to Connecticut!

*SB422 won in the Senate on April 19 – now it needs to win in the House! This legislation will protect us from corporate raids on our water. It creates state oversight for the acquisition of large amount of water for bottling plants, protects us in a drought, and adds the issue of large volume discounts to the state water plan. Please urge your representative today to support the bill.

70 People Rally for Environmental Justice in Bridgeport

Dan Fischer, Capitalism vs. the Climate and Gabriella Rodriguez, Moral Monday CT

On Sunday, April 3, about 70 people attended a rally at Bridgeport’s McLevy Green to raise awareness about environmental justice. The rally was hosted by Healthy CT Alliance, a Bridgeport-based health advocacy group, Capitalism vs. the Climate, a statewide climate justice group, and Moral Monday CT, a faith-based affiliate of the #BlackLivesMatter movement.

bridgeport-pseg-harbor-coalSpeakers included Bishop John Selders, founder of Moral Monday CT, and Reverend Sekou, an author and theologian active in the #BlackLivesMatter movement. They declared it unjust that low income communities and communities of color are consistently exposed to higher levels of pollution.

Selders said, “Environmental racism is bound up with Connecticut’s industrial past and continues to feed health disparities and economic injustice. Natural resources and marginalized peoples have been relegated as dumping grounds in our urban areas – five cities are home to 71% of Connecticut’s people of color and at least 20% of pollution sources. Yet, large majorities of people of color support environmental justice. That’s why Moral Monday CT supports clean power – to the people! Green is for all of us. Black loves Green!”

Toxic facilities in Bridgeport include wastewater treatment facilities, a trash incinerator, a coal-fired power plant, and a fracked-gas plant. PSEG plans to begin building a new fracked-gas plant next year, locking in decades more of pollution in the South End. Forbes Magazine has ranked Bridgeport the country’s fourth dirtiest city. Meanwhile, Spectra Energy’s fracked-gas pipeline construction near New York’s Indian Point nuclear power plant endangers Bridgeport residents and others in the New York metropolitan area, since there is a small but real chance that a pipeline rupture could trigger a meltdown at Indian Point. A recent headline in The Nation warned, “A High-Pressure Pipeline Next to a Nuclear Power Plant… What Could Possibly Go Wrong?” For photos and videos from the rally, visit http://capitalismvsclimate.org.

Unidad Latina en Acción and Rosa DeLauro Push to Stop Wage Theft

Brothers Axel and Henry Tubac worked for a company installing kitchens. For the first two years they were paid without fail. Then, for six and seven weeks, respectively, their employer stopped paying them.

When they met with U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro at New Haven Legal Assistance headquarters Tuesday afternoon, the brothers still hadn’t been paid.  They have filed suit against their former employer for wage theft.

“It was just a nightmare what happened to me,” Axel Tubac recalled. “I did not have food. I talked to my boss many, many times. He just seemed like he don’t care. He owes me about $4,000; $500 in overtime that he did not pay.”

….

Lugo was arrested on Nov. 22 for disturbing the peace during a protest outside of Goodfellas. He argued that the police are more interested in harassing him for protesting rather than going after restaurant owners that are allegedly committing the far more serious crime of stealing from their employees and thumbing their noses at the law.

To read the entire article with all the photos, visit: DeLauro Targets Wage Theft | New Haven Independent

 

New Haven Stood Up for Planned Parenthood

WORD (Women Organized to Resist & Defend) New Haven

New Haven stood strong with Planned Parenthood April 23 in a beautiful action of support and defense against hate! Over 80 people came out to stand up for healthcare and equality. We vastly outnumbered and drove away the anti-choice bigots who were threatening mass action against Planned Parenthood.

WORD and the people of CT say: we will not stand by while reproductive rights are under attack! As long as patients and workers are being attacked in the streets and legislature, we will be in the streets standing up to the bigotry.

planned-parenthood-protest

Ultimate Net Zero Energy House Tour May 21

by Judi Friedman, People’s Action for Clean Energy

The ultimate net zero energy house will be open to the public on Saturday, May 21. With a rating of -23, this South Glastonbury, Connecticut, home is the most energy-efficient house in North America. It was the 2014 CT Zero Energy Challenge winner; the RESNET 2015 Cross Border Challenge winner; and the 2015 Housing Innovations Award winner.

Tours and seminars will be held at noon and 2:30 p.m. The 2,755 square-foot house has a geothermal heating and cooling system; a rotating photovoltaic steel pole array that powers all appliances, LED lights and the hot water heater. The PV is connected to the grid but is able to get power when the grid goes down.

Other energy saving features in this home for four people include a centrally heated foundation; aluminum roofing shingles with a 70-year lifespan; an energy recovery ventilator; triple glazed windows and Energy Star appliances. The tour is sponsored by Peoples Action for Clean Energy (PACE), the only all-volunteer nonprofit public health organization in Connecticut devoted solely to clean energy education.

Reservations are accepted in order of receipt for the tour, which will be held rain or shine. The non-refundable tickets are $15.00 per person. To order tickets, go online to http://www.pace-cleanenergy.org and click on Events, indicating the choice of time for the tours and seminar. Tickets may also be ordered by sending $15.00 per person to PACE c/o Donna Grant, 128 Melrose Road, Broad Brook, CT 06016. Include the ticket holder’s name, phone number, address, email address and choice of time. For ticket information, call Judi Friedman, (860) 623-5487. For tour information, call (860) 693-4813.

Governor’s Council on Climate Change (GC3) Stakeholder Events in New Haven May 5

During 2016, the Governor’s Council on Climate Change (GC3) will be gathering input from stakeholders across the state, as part of its charge to develop a strategy/plan to meet the state’s mandated goal of an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions below 2001 levels by the year 2050.

The current plan involves three rounds of stakeholder events (May, July and October) to engage stakeholders at different points in the process. For the first round — scheduled for 5:30-7:30 the evening of May 5 — the primary/central location will be in Hartford, with six satellite locations around the state. Participants at the satellite locations will view the presentation(s) via video link and then engage in facilitated dialogue at the local level.

The May 5 gatherings will provide stakeholders the opportunity to learn about and provide feedback on the technologies and measures that will be modeled in the Long range Energy Alternatives Planning System (LEAP). This widely-used software tool for energy policy analysis and climate change mitigation assessment will help us understand the GHG reduction potential of various measures and technologies (and combinations thereof).

The CT Roundtable on Climate and Jobs is helping to coordinate logistics for these gatherings.

Register for May 5! Please register at http://bit.ly/GC3_May5 in order to receive updated info and background materials prior to the gatherings.

May 5 Site—Yale University, Sage Hall, 205 Prospect St., New Haven. Refreshments available at 5 p.m.; program begins at 5:30 p.m. (Other sites are available; see http://bit.ly/1UC3pUb) Registration is not necessary, but it allows us to send you preparatory materials and help us ensure adequate food and proper room set-up.

Info: John Humphries, [email protected], 860-216-7972.

PAI investigates CT Racial Profiling Project

by Elizabeth Neuse, PAI

People Against Injustice (PAI) has obtained the raw data file and the preliminary results of traffic stops in Connecticut, compiled by the CT Racial Profiling Prohibition Project. The site http://ctrp3.ctdata.org provides access to raw traffic stop data and tables for each police district in the state for stops conducted between Oct. 1, 2013 and March 31, 2015. New data will be posted as it is released.

According to the site, here’s what you will find in Phase I on your computer:
Using the filters on the left of the screen, you can create views of descriptive statistics on traffic stop data collected by each department [e.g., New Haven] and statewide totals.

Here’s what you will NOT find:
The ability to make comparisons for multiple departments simultaneously or alongside the statewide totals.
The ability to determine in the pre-stop descriptive statistics which departments were identified as exhibiting racial disparities in traffic stop practices.
To determine whether there are racial disparities by department, read the April 2015 report issued by the IMRP [Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy, Central Connecticut State University, New Britain] which utilized a rigorous statistical analysis. You can also read our data story which explains the methodology applied and the departments that were identified.
Here’s what is coming in Phase II:
Visualizations [e.g., charts] of the econometric analysis that identifies which departments show statistically significant racial disparities in treatment of minority drivers versus non-minority drivers.

Visualizations enabling the comparison of post-stop data

In 2016, IMRP will complete an analysis of pre-stop data at the officer level and the results will be posted at its website.

PAI is planning to investigate further the results of the study.

Institute Library Reading Series May 17

by Bennett Lovett-Graff, Publisher, New Haven Review

Join us for a night of classic short stories selected by the staff of the New Haven Review and read by cast members of the New Haven Theater Company. Reading starts at 7 p.m., with a talk back at 8 p.m. that explores the background, meaning, and dramatic interpretation of that night’s stories.  Also, freshly baked cookies and tea are available.

Admission is free!

Join us every third Tuesday of the month at the Institute Library, 847 Chapel St. Our next reading will be May 17. Our theme: “Strange Days.” Our stories: “House Taken Over” by Julio Cortazar and “The Enormous Radio” by John Cheever. Please note that the Institute Library is one flight up and not wheelchair accessible. For more information, visit us at http://www.institutelibrary.org.

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