Nonviolence News: Pink Vest Safety Teams, Stroller Lock-Downs, Singing Protests & a Historic Win
Pink Vest Safety Teams, Stroller Lock-Downs, Singing Protests & a Historic Win
Editor's Note From Rivera Sun
This week’s Nonviolence News is just full of fascinating stories: Cornell University workers just won a historic contract that includes up-to a 25.4% increase in wages, a cost-of-living adjustment, elimination of a two-tiered wage system, and much more. Australians can now ignore their bosses on the weekends, thanks to a “Right To Disconnect” rule. After protesters raised a ruckus, Indonesia shelved plans to change elections laws to favor the ruling party. Nearly 70,000 international students in Canada face deportation after visa laws changed – and demonstrations are erupting all over the country.
But one aspect of the stories to look closely at is the savvy – and unusual – tactics that many of the campaigns are using. Instead of the same-old protests and strikes, the organizers are making an impact by breaking out some of the less-commonly used tools in the nonviolent action toolbox.
A daring work-to-rule action led to a bold win for Kroger foods factory workers. A work-to-rule action is when workers follow the rules to the letter, often bogging down operations and costing companies money in the process. For Kroger workers, this meant that, instead of getting changed out of their street clothes off-the-clock, hundreds of workers charged the company for putting on the snow clothes they wear for working in the freezers. The action took 30-40 extra minutes and reportedly panicked the management as the factory systems were delayed.) The strike was also organized in five languages, emphasized solidarity between immigrant and non-immigrant workers, and had 150 workers come to the open bargaining sessions.
On a remote road in northwest Canada, Gitanyow hereditary chiefs burned a benefits contract that was signed with a gas pipeline company nearly 10 years ago. Then they launched roadblocks to stop construction. In another part of Canada, an unarmed patrol wearing pink vests is providing safety for the community in Winnipeg, the epicenter of the missing and murdered Indigenous women’s crisis. In the United States, members of the Wampanoag Nation are exercising their right to hunt, fish, and gather in their ancestral lands in Massachusetts – and defying private property signs to do so. It’s a proven strategy for asserting and reclaiming treaty rights; Anishinaabe tribal members in Northern Wisconsin were successful with a similar campaign decades ago.
In India, amidst mass protests over the rape and murder of a female doctor, women called out the silence and inaction of the Women’s Commission by symbolically locking the doors of their office. In Afghanistan, women are singing in public and on camera (under burkas) in protest of the Taliban’s new rule prohibiting women from being heard speaking or singing. An international team of librarians are working to preserve Palestinian cultural archives and ensure that library collections provide accurate and factual information about current events and historic contexts for the conflicts between Israel and Palestine. And climate activists made a bold statement by locking down to baby strollers outside the apartment of the CEO of a Citibank – one of the worst fossil fuel financiers.
Find these stories and more in Nonviolence News>>
Each of these stories reveals the startling range of powerful approaches that nonviolent activists can use to challenge and transform injustice. One of the gifts of Nonviolence News is our ability to see them used in current events, not just in history books. We can learn on our feet … and make our efforts even more strategic and effective as we do.
In solidarity,
Rivera Sun