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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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About 25 protesters taken into custody at Flint McDonald's during minimum wage rally
Detroit resident Janisha Allen, 20, slouches in her seat with her hands handcuffed behind her back as a Flint Police officer takes down her identification information while writing a ticket for impeding traffic after staging a sit-in across Stewart Avenue in front of McDonald's to raise minimum wage to $15 on Thursday, Sept. 4, 2014 in Flint. Flint Police took into custody 25 protesters, who sat across the street to not allow traffic to pass in front of the fast food establishment. Jake May | MLive.com
Jake May | MLive.com
Eric Dresden | edresden@mlive.com By Eric Dresden | edresden@mlive.com
on September 04, 2014 at 1:27 PM, updated September 04, 2014 at 4:51 PM
FLINT, MI -- Flint police officers took a group of about 25 protesters in to custody who were sitting in the road during a minimum wage rally at a McDonald's on Thursday, Sept. 4.
A crowd of about 150 gathered at McDonald's, 1510 Stewart Ave., to protest in favor of an increase in the minimum wage and unionization. The protesters blocked traffic on Stewart Avenue on Thursday afternoon.
Flint Police Chief Explains Why 25 Protestors Were Taken Into Custody
Flint Police Chief James Tolbert explains why police took 25 protestors into custody after a protest for a $15 minimum wage.
"Show them what democracy looks like. This is what democracy looks like!" protesters chanted.
UPDATE: Minimum wage protest at Flint McDonald's ends with 25 taken into police custody
The roads were blocked for at least 30 minutes, causing some drivers to watch the protest and some to turn around. Flint officers were on the scene just before 12:30 p.m.
About 30 people refused to leave the street after talking with Flint Police Chief James Tolbert.
After protesters were told that anyone left on the street would be ticketed and taken in to custody, some left the street but about 20 remained.
Michigan State Police and the Genesee County Sheriff's Department joined Flint police on the scene for a total of about 17 police vehicles.
As the protest came to an end at about 1 p.m., 25 protesters -- 15 women and 10 men -- were taken into custody, put on an MTA bus and transported to the Flint Police Department.
Similar protests were held today in Lansing and Detroit.
Eric Dresden is a reporter for MLive-The Flint Journal. Contact him at edresden@mlive.com or 810-285-0650. Follow him on Twitter or Facebook. |
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Thu Sep 04, 2014 9:00 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Thu Sep 04, 2014 9:03 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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More than 20 people arrested at fast food wage protest in Flint
by NBC25 Newsroom
Posted: 09.04.2014 at 1:32 PM
Arrests were made this morning in Flint at a fast food wage protest when protesters sat down in the road.
/ Kristen Aguirre
FLINT -- Arrests were made this morning in Flint at a fast food wage protest when protesters sat down in the road.
The protest began at 10:30 this morning at the McDonald's on Stewart Avenue near Dort Highway in Flint. The protesters were asking for $15 an hour for fast food workers.
At first the protestors marched through the McDonald's drive-thru and waved signs in front of the restaurant.
Around noon, many of the protesters moved onto Stewart Avenue and sat across the road, blocking traffic.
Flint police and the Michigan State Police responded to the scene. Flint Police Chief James Tolbert used a bullhorn and asked protesters to leave the street and stop blocking traffic.
Police began arresting protesters when they refused to move. Over 20 people were arrested by the Flint police and the Michigan State Police.
All arrested protesters are headed for booking. The arrests were made without incident.
The remaining protesters left shortly after the arrests were made.
Protests were held around with country, with Union organizers saying that they expected thousands to show up.
The protests, which are backed financially by the Service Employees International Union and others, has gained national attention at a time when the wage gap between the poor and the rich has become a hot political issue. Many fast-food workers do not make much more than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, which adds up to about $15,000 a year for 40 hours a week.
In Michigan, the minimum wage went up on Labor Day to $8.15 an hour. |
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Thu Sep 04, 2014 9:06 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Fight Against ‘Right-to-Work’ Not Over in Michigan ...
inthesetimes.com/working/entry/15498/fight_against_right_to_work...
A $13 Minimum Wage Isn ... to protest Republican Gov. Rick Snyder's 'right-to-work ... a “real uphill battle” in its fight against right-to-work.
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Thu Sep 04, 2014 9:13 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Working In These Times
Thursday, Aug 22, 2013, 11:52 am
Fight Against ‘Right-to-Work’ Not Over in Michigan
BY Matthew Blake
Union activists rally outside the Michigan state capitol to protest Republican Gov. Rick Snyder's 'right-to-work' legislation, in December 2012. (Photo by Bill Pugliano / Getty Images)
Last December, Gov. Rick Snyder outraged unions and progressives when he abruptly signed two bills into law making Michigan the 24th so-called "right-to-work" state.
The laws—Public Act 349, governing public-sector workers, and Public Act 348, applying to the state’s approximately 600,000-strong private-sector union workforce—allow workers to get union benefits such as contractually guaranteed wages without paying mandatory union membership dues. Organized labor has widely decried right-to-work laws as dangerous to unions’ financial bases and, ultimately, detrimental to all workers.
Gov. Snyder’s decision sparked three separate legal challenges. Last Thursday, the state Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 on the suit filed by public employees against P.A. 349, the public-sector right-to-work law. The court upheld the law, but unions have vowed to appeal, as well as to pursue two other lawsuits and a political campaign to oust Snyder and the Republican-controlled state legislature.
Henry William Saad and Pat Donofrio, two judges appointed by former Michigan Republican Gov. John Engler, wrote the Court of Appeals’ majority opinion. The judges determined that the “political, economic and social controversies underlying the enactment of P.A. 349 are unrelated” to the court’s duty to interpret the state constitution.
Instead, these two judges wrote that they ruled on the “limited, narrow” question brought forward by the plaintiffs: Whether the state legislature or the Michigan Civil Service Commission, a state government body that is part of the executive branch, had jurisdiction over union fees.
The majority decided state lawmakers had such power, upholding the law. But dissenting judge Elizabeth Gleicher—appointed by former Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm—argued that the Civil Service Commission was established precisely to “insure that the political preferences or the legislature would not infect” public employees.
Some analysts feel that the majority decision did not fully reflect the context of the acts’ passage. “Right-to-work was passed during one of the most undemocratic and partisan sessions in Michigan history,” says Roland Zullo, a research scientist at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Labor and Industrial Relations. “A friendlier court could have matched these facts against the original purpose of the Civil Service Commission and decided differently.”
Now, a group of Michigan labor unions representing public employees plans to fight the decision.
“The ruling is almost certain to be appealed to the state Supreme Court,” says Karen Murphy, spokeswoman for the Michigan State Employees Association, which is one of the lawsuit plaintiffs and which represents about 4,700 of the 36,000 unionized state government workers affected by right-to-work.
Winning any subsequent court challenge, however, will be tough for Michigan unions.
Another plaintiff in that suit, United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 6000, represents about 17,500 Michigan government workers. One UAW official, who asked to remain anonymous so he could discuss the case candidly, said that the state Supreme Court’s Republican leanings will make persuading its justices to overrule the Court of Appeals a “difficult task.” The official noted that, like the Michigan Court of Appeals, Republican governors appointed the majority of the state Supreme Court justices.
While unions representing public employees respond to the Court of Appeals decision, a separate lawsuit filed jointly by ACLU of Michigan and Michigan unions before Ingham County Circuit Judge William Collette has yet to be heard.
That suit seeks to overturn both right-to-work laws, alleging the laws were passed in an undemocratic process that violated the state Open Meetings Act. On December 6, 2012, the plaintiffs point out, the Republican-controlled state legislature locked Capitol doors to bar some journalists and members of the public from entry.
“Because the statute was enacted while the public was being locked out of the capitol,” explains ACLU of Michigan staff attorney Dan Korobkin, “the law should be invalidated, which is a remedy provided by the Open Meetings Act itself.”
Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, a Republican, has now twice appealed to dismiss the ACLU case—and Judge Collette has let the case proceed both times. But Collette has also said from the bench that ACLU has a “real uphill battle” in its fight against right-to-work. According to Korobkin, the trial date has been set for March 2014.
Additionally, the Michigan AFL-CIO has filed a suit in federal court contending that the new right-to-work laws violate provisions of the National Labor Relations Act. Given that similar lawsuits against other state right-to-work laws, such as legislation in Indiana, failed, it is not clear if the federal challenge has legs.
The best chance unions have to overturn right-to-work, then, may be through voting out Snyder and Republican state lawmakers in the November 2014 election. “I believe the issue will be central to the 2014 election,” says Zullo. “Labor has a large task in that they will have to alter the composition of the legislature.”
In the meantime, public employee unions must bargain for a new contract: Collective bargaining agreements relating to Michigan civil service employees expire on December 31.
Zullo suspects that “unions have their platforms in place” in these upcoming negotiations and “little will change” right away in unions’ bargaining positions because of right-to-work. “The more significant change will be long-term,” Zullo says.
Full disclosure: United Auto Workers is a website sponsor of In These Times.
Matthew Blake
Matthew Blake is a freelance journalist based in Chicago. He has written for the Chicago Journal, Washington Monthly, Washington Independent and The Nation, among other publications. |
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Thu Sep 04, 2014 9:15 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Thu Sep 04, 2014 9:19 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Dozens arrested after protest at Flint McDonald's
Posted: Sep 04, 2014 11:58 AM EDT
Updated: Sep 04, 2014 6:11 PM EDT
By Jessica Dupnack - email
FLINT (WJRT) - (09/04/14) - Two dozen people were arrested after a protest at a Flint McDonald's.
The group known as D-15 started gathering on Stewart Avenue near 475 Thursday morning, protesting for higher minimum wage. They are asking for the minimum wage to be raise to $15 an hour, with a focus on fast food workers.
"It will help feed the children, pay our gas bill and give us a better economy for all of us," said Allen Bailey, protester.
By noon, things escalated.
Police arrived in full force after around 25 protesters linked arms across Stewart Avenue, blocking traffic. Police say their dangerous decision took them away from other calls and cost them money and manpower.
Flint Police Chief James Tolbert asked the protesters to disassemble over a bull horn, but they refused. Anyone who refused was cuffed with zip ties and loaded onto MTA buses to be taken back to the police headquarters in Flint.
The protesters were issued two tickets: one for impeding traffic and another for failure to obey lawful police order, which carries up to a $500 fine or 93 days in jail.
When we talked to the protesters refusing to listen to police, they said they had no fear of being cuffed and ticketed.
Stewart Avenue was blocked off for about an hour between 475 and Dort Highway during the ordeal, frustrating drivers and forcing them to go around.
The protest was organized by the same group carried out protests across the country on Thursday.
Representatives who say they're organizers on behalf of the group D-15 said any costs that comes from the tickets issued will be paid for by D-15. |
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Thu Sep 04, 2014 9:25 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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The photos and videos tell the story. While one photo shows two Flint Police cars, there are nine State police and one Sheriff deputy. While some Flint police are shown, it is predominantly a State police operation.
One of the protesters announces he is at the rally to oppose "right to work".
Now they need to "Get out the vote" to stop the corporate welfare programs of Snyder. |
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Thu Sep 04, 2014 9:30 pm |
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twotap
F L I N T O I D
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Say hi to the new burger flipper. Never late, doesn't miss days and no demands for $15 an hour for doing something that requires no skills and little intelligence.
http://www.businessinsider.com/momentum-machines-burger-robot-2014-8  |
_________________
"If you like your current healthcare you can keep it, Period"!!
Barack Hussein Obama--- multiple times. |
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Fri Sep 05, 2014 12:23 pm |
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