The Gainesville Iguana

Joe Courter accepts the 2011 Penroad Award on March 30, 2011.Photo by Sherry Steiner.

BY JESSICA NEWMAN

In 2008, three progressive groups created an award to honor the legacy of John A. “Jack” Penrod, who dedicated his life to the fight of the people for dignity, freedom and a peaceful society.

Gainesville Veterans for Peace, the Alachua County Labor Party and the United Faculty of Florida wanted to honor and encourage activists in the community for their consistent track record of movement work.

This year, the committee chose Joe Courter, co-founder of the Civic Media Center and editor/publisher of The Gainesville Iguana.

Joe’s commitment to peace and justice, in many ways, mirrors that of Jack Penrod.

In his day, Jack Penrod worked with the Congress of Industrial Organizations and helped organize the first faculty union at UF, United Faculty of Florida. He was a member of Veterans for Peace and a vocal opponent of the Iraq war; he helped found the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, worked closely with the National Organization for Women and Gainesville Women’s Liberation, and also dedicated time to the Alachua County Labor Party.

As members of the Penrod committee remark, “Jack Penrod was at it all the time” until his death in 2008 at the age of 94.

Like Jack, Joe Courter is “at it all the time” and has been since his first taste of activism as a young boy in the 1950s, when he wrote a politician about fish dying in the river behind his New Jersey home.

His first political victory came in as an undergrad at Hope College in Michigan, where he discovered there was a mandatory chapel every morning. After he circulated a petition and worked with the chaplain, the service was abolished.

As a college student during the Vietnam War, Joe saw firsthand with his peers the realities of the draft, although he was never called up. Following this experience, Joe fell in with the anti-war crowd and joined in the 1969 moratorium.

Years later, Joe moved to Gainesville and participated with numerous activist groups, including Vietnam Veterans Against the War, the Equal Rights Amendment campaign, the Catfish Alliance, Humanist Society of Gainesville, and the Committee in Support of the People of Latin America.

In 1985, working with other groups in Gainesville for Central American solidarity, Joe, Jenny Brown and others in the movement created a monthly newsletter and calendar. This newsletter was dubbed the Iguana, in a nod to a Central American reptile and an answer to the Independent Florida Alligator.

In 1993, after joining the Gainesville Alternative Publishing group, Joe worked with others to found an alternative library and reading room, the Civic Media Center.

But on top of all these movement contributions, many of us here in Gainesville appreciate Joe for other things, like the famous lake house parties he and Jenny host, or the arts and culture scoop, or his guidance and wisdom for young activists, or his connection, somehow, to almost everyone here. If you live in this town, you’ve almost certainly met Joe Courter.

“Joe is powered by the activists, musicians, radicals and artists that make everyday life in Gainesville, and he contributes to the environment that makes radical politics and the counterculture something new people can join in and thrive in,” Jenny Brown said. “The counterculture for him is people’s answer to the ‘crap culture’ that’s all around us every day. He says activism is ‘paying your rent on the planet.’ If you want to live here, you’ve gotta contribute – leave it better than you found it.”

You can support the Penrod Award and the hard-working activists in the community by mailing donations to Gainesville Veterans for Peace, P.O. Box 142562, Gainesville, FL 32614. For more information, call 352-375-2832.

Adopting a budget each year is arguably the most important thing the Alachua County Commission does, but, historically, the general public has largely ignored the annual cycle of public hearings and deliberations. Over the past two years, that has changed.

The Gainesville-area Tea Party has been systematically attending hearings, making comments and writing letters to the newspaper. They’re taking democracy seriously, and they’re putting in the hours necessary to learn the process and the issues.  They’re having an impact.

It’s not a large group, but they’ve had the field to themselves. Media coverage of the county budget process last year was dominated by quotes from Tea Party members, because they’re the only ones making comments. This sets up a dynamic where elected officials have to respond to their issues, and further deliberations and options revolve around their proposals.  

In other words, the Tea Party is framing the debate. This creates an atmosphere of a besieged and evil government, defending itself against a universally angry and disaffected “public.”  It creates a sense of crisis and opportunity, and it motivates turnout for their side at election time.

So, what do they want?

The commission is now discussing whether the county needs an Environmental Protection Department. Commissioner and Tea Party member Susan Baird has repeatedly expressed her desire to sell off public conservation lands. Every public interest and environmental regulation is now suspect. Sidewalks and bicycle paths are frivolous luxuries that we can’t afford, and transit is a waste of money. Sprawl is the fulfillment of the American Dream. Social Services spending is government charity that should be eliminated.

The war begins at home.  We need progressive voices at county and city commission budget hearings this spring and summer. Local government needs to hear from people who believe that it’s an important and legitimate function of government to protect our natural resources, build transportation alternatives and provide a basic safety net for our most vulnerable citizens.

Several local groups are organizing to follow the county budget process this year. Stay tuned into the Iguana to find out more.

BY JESSICA NEWMAN

Early last month, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) and other supporters of the fair food movement (more than 1,000 people in all) rallied outside of a Publix in downtown Tampa. Why? To tell Publix to “do the right thing.”

The CIW represents farm workers who pick 45 percent of the tomatoes eaten in the U.S. year round, many of whom temporarily live in Immokalee, Fla., for the growing season six or seven months of the year. They survive on less than $10,000 a year and have been the victims of modern-day slavery cases as recently as 2010.

The CIW and its allies merely want the mega-grocer to sign on to pay a penny more per pound for its tomatoes picked by the farm workers to go toward increased wages, an idea the store publicly supports.

But after more than a year of actions, campaign-building and attempted negotiations, Publix still refuses to officially sign on to the program.

“Simply stated, Publix is more than willing to pay a penny more per pound or whatever the market price for tomatoes will be in order to provide the goods to our customers,” said Dwaine Stevens, spokesperson for Publix, by email. “However, we will not pay employees of other companies directly for their labor. That is the responsibility of the employer.”

This is the typical response of Publix throughout the duration of the CIW’s campaign. “They’re not our employees, so why should we pay them? Put it in the price.”

But there’s just one slight problem with this mentality.

Publix would not pay the farm workers directly; in fact, the increase would be incorporated into the price of tomatoes, just like Publix wants.

The repackers (middlemen between the growers and the retailers) would charge the extra penny to Publix and then allocate those funds back to the grower, who then passes them onto the farm worker. Publix pays in the price of tomatoes, not wages. This is the way the CIW has instituted the program in the past with corporations like Taco Bell, McDonald’s, Aramark and Whole Foods (to name a few).

So why is Publix making this bogus argument? Probably because executives have never once sat down to talk or negotiate with the CIW. All dialogue has been confined to back-and-forth in the media.

Instead of getting their story straight, Publix and its representatives continue to mix the message, arguing “this is a dispute between the growers and the workers.” Essentially, they’re saying it’s not their problem, and the farm workers need to negotiate with their employers.

Well, they’ve tried that, and it’s a slow struggle. It’s more effective, the Coalition has found, to hold the large corporations buying the produce responsible for the influence they hold as the most powerful part of the supply chain.

The CIW is not targeting Publix because they think the store has a bad track record of employee treatment, even though the grocer seems to think this.

The CIW is pressuring Publix because the retailer has a huge amount of negotiating power in this campaign. All they have to do is officially sign on to the penny-per-pound increase and a code of conduct in the fields, and they could play a significant role in changing Florida’s agricultural system.

While they haven’t won yet, it’s safe to bet that the CIW is going to keep on fighting, and they won’t back down until Publix comes to the table.

To learn more and find out how you can get involved, visit the CIW’s website at www.ciw-online.org.

BY FRAN RICARDO

An undercurrent of fear has rippled through the U.S. since the passage of Arizona’s SB1070, a broad and strict anti-illegal-immigration measure. However, it now appears that people are realizing, even in Arizona, the impact of such a stringent bill. With the current economic crisis and continued boycotts against Arizona, people are beginning to put the brakes on similar bills throughout the country.

Here in Florida, we are in the throes of 14 bills that the new Florida Legislature is molding into an anti-immigrant bill, stripping immigrants of their human rights.

One aspect of the bill would institute E-verify, requiring employers to use a costly federal system – one proven faulty – to verify the eligibility of an employee. If not used, employers could be fined and in some cases lose their licenses. 

Secondly, the expansion of 287(g) (a rule in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement handbook) would result in police taking on the additional role of immigration officers, further burdening their workload, leaving many people vulnerable to crime.

Another aspect of these proposed bills requires law enforcement to determine a person’s immigration status when there is “reasonable suspicion” that this person is unlawfully present in the U.S. If this passes, potentially anyone will need to be prepared to prove their status at any time, at any place, if they are stopped or questioned by law enforcement.

Individuals of various ideologies, including conservative Rep. Connie Mack, oppose this type of infringement of liberties. In a piece for the Washington Post, Mack wrote, “Our Constitution protects individual freedoms and liberties… Anger about the economy, increased crime and security concerns are fueling this law, not constitutional principles.” Furthermore, Mack stated, “I do not want to live in a nation where American citizens are asked, ‘Where are your papers?’ We are better than that.”

Florida’s top agricultural producers, along with religious leaders, actively oppose these bills. Racial profiling and the potential separation by deportation of undocumented family or friends keep many on edge – whether documented or not, citizens or visitors.

Immigrants and the general public both are endangered when criminals can feel free to attack people of color who will be afraid to talk with police and when the poor are kept away from health services by fear of arrest.

The focus on racial profiling from these proposed bills, with potential harassment of legal residents and citizens, creates insecurity for people of color and reduces their trust in the police. The present political atmosphere jeopardizes the health and safety of all communities.

States, including Florida, should focus on the economic crisis, which has real problems and needs real solutions. Take a moment to contact your State Representative and Senator. The message is clear: leave the immigration issue to the federal government and focus on concrete actions to improve Florida.

Jose Soto, Graduate Assistants United member at UF, speaks at a rally in late March to protest two bills that would take away many rights of unions in Florida. Photo by Amanda Adams.

BY GRADUATE ASSISTANTS UNITED AT UF

While the campaign to eliminate collective bargaining rights for public-sector unions in Wisconsin has captured national headlines, similar measures being proposed here in Florida have received far less attention. Two bills in our state legislature would be no less devastating in their effects. Although these bills do not explicitly criminalize unions—to do so outright would be unconstitutional—their combined impact could essentially render unions impotent.

HB 1023 would require unions to have 50 percent membership by July 1 of this year in order to retain the right to negotiate contracts on behalf of employees. SB 830/HB 1021 would prohibit public-sector unions from collecting dues via payroll deduction, making dues collection a logistical nightmare.

With the passage of these bills, Florida politicians would hypocritically hold unions to a far higher standard than they hold themselves:  while unions must achieve 50 percent membership from among all potential members to continue to represent them, a political candidate may be elected to office with a mere plurality of those registered voters who actually turn out. Governor Rick Scott, for example, received only 48.9 percent of the votes cast in the 2010 election, with a mere 48.7 percent of registered voters casting a ballot. In other words, he holds office despite receiving votes from less than a fourth of all registered voters in Florida.

The Teaching Assistants’ Association has been at the forefront of the resistance against anti-union legislation in Wisconsin. Here in Florida, Graduate Assistants United (GAU) has similarly taken up the cause. GAU, which has represented the interests of graduate students at UF for 30 years, has made it a top priority to meet the 50 percent threshold and is in the midst of a rigorous membership drive. Because Florida is a right-to-work state, meaning employees receive the benefits negotiated by unions whether or not those employees are union members, many people do not understand why it is so important to join.

Should GAU lack 50 percent membership by July 1, GAs would lose representation and their current contracts. Those contracts, negotiated by GAU, guarantee all the rights GAs currently enjoy: free health insurance, minimum stipends, maximum class sizes, tuition waivers, workload limits, fee deferment, due process and many other basic working benefits.

Additionally, these legislative measures will have consequences far beyond the immediate impact felt by GAs. If UF ceases to offer applicants the sort of package GAs currently receive, the university will become less competitive and fail to attract the best graduate students.  Because GAs teach the majority of lower division courses, undergraduate students will no longer have the high quality of instruction to which they have grown accustomed, and UF’s prestige will suffer, and so will UF graduates’ careers.

As in Wisconsin, lawmakers in Florida are using the rhetoric of budgetary crisis to justify these measures. Also as in Wisconsin, they are having a hard time explaining how debilitating unions will help fill state coffers. We do know these bills, should they become law, will have an economic impact here in Gainesville: if grad students are forced to buy health insurance and pay higher tuition, they will each have thousands fewer dollars to spend at local businesses each year.

For more information, you can visit GAU’s website at www.ufgau.org.