Losi on Cosatu@40: Union federation walks the tightrope as SACP pushes for ballot breakaway
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Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Organizers sue after Tacoma misses ballot deadline for minimum-wage hike
Local organizers are suing Pierce County, the city of Tacoma and Pierce County Auditor Linda Farmer after Tacoma missed a deadline to get a citizen's initiative to establish a 'workers bill of rights' on the November ballot. Organizers with United Food and Commercial Workers Local 367, Tacoma for All and the Tacoma Democratic Socialists of America filed the suit in Pierce County Superior Court on Aug. 12, alleging that the county and the city did not 'act with the reasonable promptness and diligence required to protect the people's right of initiative.' The lawsuit calls for the court to require the initiative to be placed on the Nov. 4 ballot, stating that local governments should not be allowed to 'slow walk' the processing of an initiative to deter it from appearing on a ballot. The groups in February started collecting thousands of signatures to get the controversial initiative, which would raise Tacoma's minimum wage to $20 per hour, on the November ballot. After the county validated the signatures and the city validated the petition early last month, the city had 30 days to approve it directly and eliminate the need to put it to the voters or call for an election to put it on the ballot. The City Council took the latter action at a special meeting on Aug. 8, calling for an election to get the item on the Nov. 4 ballot this year. But it missed the deadline to do so by three days. County officials rejected the city's resolution calling for an election on Nov. 4 because it missed the deadline, marking it as 'received' on Aug. 8. The lawsuit alleges that the county's rejection of the resolution is the 'direct result of Pierce County's failure to promptly validate the petition.' It states that the organizers submitted the signatures they collected on June 24, but County Auditor Linda Farmer did not begin the process of validating the signatures until July 7. The county's letter stating that it verified the petition states that the pages were submitted to the county on June 26. 'It is fundamentally unfair, and contrary to statutory requirements, for local government to delay the processing of an initiative and to use that delay to deny ballot access,' the complaint reads. Tacoma city spokesperson Dee Paul told The News Tribune that the city does not comment on pending litigation. Pierce County did not immediately return a request for comment. The lawsuit also takes issue with the timing of Tacoma's approval of the resolution to put the initiative on the November ballot. The City Council did so on Aug. 8 at a special meeting, but the lawsuit contends it could have done so at its regular Aug. 5 meeting and met the deadline. The suit states that the city chose a 'questionable path' in pushing the decision to Aug. 8. The initiative can only appear on the November ballot now with judicial intervention, the complaint reads. 'This lawsuit is about more than winning a $20 minimum wage and fair scheduling,' UFCW Local 367 president Michael Hines said in a release. 'It's about protecting the democratic rights of every Tacoma voter. Local leaders cannot be allowed to hide behind technicalities while openly colluding with big business to silence working people. We will fight this in the courts just as we will fight for victory at the ballot box.' The lawsuit comes as a similar effort continues in the city of Olympia where the City Council approved an initiative to appear on the November ballot on July 22. It also isn't the first time these organizers have entered into litigation against the city and county. Tacoma for All and UFCW Local 367 sued the city of Tacoma, Pierce County and Farmer in August 2023, alleging that the city violated its charter when the council put an alternate renters' rights measure on the ballot that year. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Legends and patriots of Civil War to be honored Saturday in Theresa
Aug. 11—THERESA — The 160th anniversary of the end of the Civil War will be commemorated at a cemetery here on Saturday, where the spirit of local legends and patriots will arise. It will include headstone dedications and a talk by a Watertown native and retired attorney about his new book on the three "Patriot" Civil War soldiers in his family who found a new life in America. The legendary "Schule Bell" will make a special guest appearance at the event, making its first road trip since being moved from the old Theresa High School nearly 90 years ago. The free program at Oakwood Cemetery begins at noon when the Walter H. French Camp No. 17 of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War will dedicate a few headstones, including that of Douglas Lucas, a young Black boy who aided Theresa soldiers during the Civil War. Lucas came back to Theresa with some returning soldiers to live after the war ended. He is not recognized as an official Civil War veteran, as he was too young to enlist and 13 when the war ended. Theresa Historian Timothy S. Minnick said that Indian River Central School Superintendent Troy Decker, a direct descendant of Theresa Civil War veteran August Kissel, will provide a narrative of the "Schule Bell." During the closing days of the Civil War, the bell from a Confederate locomotive was taken by Otis Brooks, a Theresa boy, and shipped home to Theresa in a coffin cleverly marked Schule Bell. Brooks sold the bell to Theresa High School and it hung in the old high school belfry until the new high school was built and the bell was retired. Minnick, who will offer Theresa history tours at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, teased, "There might be more to the Schule Bell story than we've always been told." Following the noon headstone dedications, Peter Kissel will discuss his new book, "Three Patriots: The Hopes and Trials of My Immigrant Ancestors in Civil War America." Kissel is a 1965 graduate of Watertown High School and a graduate of Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and the Washington College of Law. The retired attorney lives in Washington, D.C. "I was always very interested in the Civil War from my youngest days," Kissel said in a phone interview. "But I didn't know until middle age that I had any relatives who fought in the war." Those discoveries were eye-opening for him. The research for his book was bolstered by trips to Eastern theater Civil War battlefields where his ancestors fought and their footsteps traced to the National Archives, where they left behind invaluable pension records as to what they did following the war. The three central figures in the book, who were 18 and 19 years old when they enlisted, were each born in different countries — reflecting the worldwide attraction held for American ideals in the 19th century, Kissel said. August Kissel, from Germany and Theresa, enlisted in the 94th New York Infantry. His experience in the Civil War is one of the most storied among Northern New York soldiers of the war. The story of how he arrived in Theresa is also an adventure, which is explored by Kissel in his book. All three patriots profiled by Kissel were volunteers. The Smiths were his wife's ancestors. The Smith family landed at Sackets Harbor when they immigrated from Ireland in 1845. Richard Smith joined the 35th NY Regiment, and brother James Smith, the first of his family born in America, enlisted in the 186th New York. Both would receive eerily similar, and horrific, wounds. Kissel's book also explores the dynamics of public debate in the north country in the run up to the Civil War, and the uncertainties of life for immigrant families in the face of war, disease, and still-primitive but evolving medical practices. It also provides a compelling assessment of the war's life-altering impact on the soldiers through the end of their lives. August Kissel, a native of Germany, arrived in Theresa by stage coach in 1857, unable to speak a word of English, and $75 in debt to relatives. When he got off the train in Rome, he and a traveling companion did not have enough money to continue on to his relatives in Theresa. August and Mary Nell Hild obtained a loan in Rome, but had to stay there as a sort of collateral to ensure that the borrowed funds were repaid. "Apparently, family members in Theresa collected the amount and then returned to Rome to pay off the loan and retrieve August and Mary," Kissel said. August went to work to pay back his relatives. In Theresa, August was first employed by his brother, Peter, learning the trade of a stone mason. August would excel at it. On Memorial Day 1911, August dedicated the monument he built to the men from the north country who served in the Revolutionary War, War of 1812 and the Civil War. The dedication ceremony on May 30 was a grand occasion in Theresa, which had sent many young men to defend the Union. All three soldiers fought in key battles of the Civil War. Richard Smith, who enlisted shortly after the attack on Fort Sumter in April of 1861, was wounded at South Mountain, Maryland, in September of 1862. August was wounded four times and was also captured by Confederate forces. He was able to escape after bribing a guard at Salisbury Prison in North Carolina. In his book, Kissel also documents that adventure. James Smith was wounded seven months after he enlisted at Petersburg, Virginia, on April 2, 1865. Like his brother, he was shot in the face. James died in 1873 and Richard died in 1909. They rest together at Glenwood Cemetery in Watertown. August died March 29, 1923. He was laid to rest at Oakwood Cemetery, Theresa. His gravestone states, "Born in Germany." Kissel said that he originally planned to write a family history abut August's exploits. "But when I learned about the Smith brothers and started digging into their records, I started thinking larger. Everything kind of took off from there." As he got deep into writing the book, Kissel said he couldn't help but think about the roots of the "Three Patriots" and comparing that to today's anti-immigrant landscape in the U.S. "I thought it was reflective of America," he said. "I was educated in Watertown public schools. I remember from my earliest days there that the teachers taught us, with pride, that America is a melting pot. That has stuck with me. When I started writing the book, I wasn't thinking quite so deeply about where they came from. But by the time I got through with the book, it struck me how relevant it is in today's anti-immigrant climate and political debate." He added, "The whole story now seems more relevant than ever."
Washington Post
3 hours ago
- Washington Post
Macron admits France's repressive violence in Cameroon's war for independence
DAKAR, Senegal — French President Emmanuel Macron acknowledged that France waged a war marked by 'repressive violence' in Cameroon before and after the country's independence in 1960 in a letter made public Tuesday. It is France's first official acknowledgment of its repression of Cameroon's independence movement as a war. The letter sent last month to Cameroonian President Paul Biya , follows a report released in January by a French-Cameroonian commission of historians. The report revealed that France carried out mass forced displacements, detained hundreds of thousands of Cameroonians in internment camps, and backed brutal militias to suppress the country's fight for independence and sovereignty between 1945 and 1971. The commission was established by Macron during a 2022 visit to the capital Yaoundé. It examined France's role leading up to Cameroon's independence on Jan. 1, 1960, and in the years that followed. 'At the end of their work, the historians of the Commission clearly highlighted that a war had taken place in Cameroon, during which the colonial authorities and the French army carried out multiple forms of repressive violence in certain regions of the country — a war that continued beyond 1960 with France's support for actions carried out by the independent Cameroonian authorities,' the letter from Macron read. Macron also acknowledged France's role in the deaths of independence leaders Ruben Um Nyobè, Paul Momo, Isaac Nyobè Pandjock and Jérémie Ndéléné, who were killed between 1958 and 1960 in military operations under French command. Cameroon was a German colony until the end of World War I, when it was divided between Britain and France. The French-administered territory gained independence in 1960, and the southern British Cameroons joined in a federation the next year. The independence war began in the 1950s when the nationalist UPC launched an armed struggle for full sovereignty and reunification. Even after independence, the French-backed government continued to fight the UPC for years, The letter follows earlier moves by Macron to address France's colonial past, including his recognition of French responsibility in the 1994 Rwandan genocide and the massacre of Senegalese riflemen after World War II . However, the French president has so far ruled out an official apology for torture and other abuses committed by French troops in Algeria. The letter comes at a time when France's presence in its former colonies in Africa has become increasingly contested , particularly in the Sahel region. ___ Associated Press writer Sylvie Corbet in Paris contributed to this report.
