Youth resist, organize in Honduras

By LeiLani Dowell

NYC FIST

Youth and students are an important sector participating in the struggle against the illegal coup d’etat in Honduras. Video after video of the resistance actions that have taken place since the July 28 coup have shown youth in the streets and facing repression as well.

The U.S. Delegation of Labor, Community and Clergy in Solidarity with the Honduran Resistance was able to meet with several student organizers on Oct. 9 and 10. However, as a result of the repression, the delegation was not able to meet with as many youth as expected. On Oct. 9, two men attempted to kidnap one of the student leaders; while the young woman was able to escape with a fractured hand, it prevented her organization from meeting with the U.S. delegation. Instead, they needed to meet collectively to discuss security measures and tactics.

Digna Rodríguez is a student at the pedagogical university, which has become the meeting point for many of the daily marches and rallies taking place in Tegucigalpa. She reported that the entire university has been militarized and used as a detention center by the police, who torture their detainees on the campus grounds. The school administration has threatened students with academic discipline for participating in resistance activities and has denied permission for activities on campus. Meanwhile, teachers in the resistance have also faced harassment from the administration.

Workers, students, faculty target AVI

By Easton Smith

NYC FIST

On Oct. 5 workers, faculty and students from both Hunter and Sarah Lawrence colleges were joined by union representatives and New York activists for a rally in front of Manhattan’s Hunter College against AVIFresh, an anti-union dining service corporation.

Demonstrators held UNITE HERE Local 100 flags, placards showing solidarity with the workers, and signs calling for justice and a boycott. The crowd sang chants like “No justice, no peace” and “Solidarity Forever.”

Hunter College workers explained how AVIFresh has given them nothing and how the company wants them to get a 401k when the workers don’t want a 401k.  Workers shared stories of living with kids while the threat of no health care lingers over them and of their worries about not having a pension plan. Students and faculty spoke about possible boycotts. One faculty member addressed the crowd, saying, “It seems like they have not got the news: slavery days are over. … We are not the criminals. They are the criminals!” As the rally was ending, workers, students and union representatives attempted to present a petition to the president of Hunter College, Jennifer Raab. As they attempted to get on the elevator they were stopped by security guards, who explained that since the people there (including the AVI workers) were not employees of the college they were not allowed to go to the president’s office. After some negotiating a few of the workers were allowed to go up, where they were met not by the president but by a representative who took the petitions.

National sit-ins at health insurance companies

By David Hoskins

NYC FIST

Fifty-four activists and health care workers were arrested Oct. 15 during sit-ins at health insurance company offices in New York, Washington, Phoenix, Palm Beach, Boston, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Reno and Portland, Ore. The protesters, chanting “Patients not Profits,” occupied the offices to demand “Medicare for All”—a public single-payer health plan that improves Medicare and expands it to cover everyone.

The sit-ins were organized by the Patients Not Profit campaign of the Mobilization for Health Care for All. More than 1,000 people have signed up to engage in civil disobedience at insurance company offices around the country through the mobilizeforhealthcare.org Web site. The crisis in health care has left an estimated 47 million people in the United States uninsured and another 25 million underinsured.

Another wave of actions is planned at insurance company offices on Oct. 28.

CUNY students mobilize against budget cuts, tuition hikes

By David Hoskins

NYC FIST

Fifty students, faculty and community supporters protested at the Department of Education Oct. 15 to demand an immediate rollback of tuition hikes and budget cuts at the City University of New York.

The protest was called by the CUNY Campaign to Defend Education. Larry Hales of the youth and student organization Fight Imperialism, Stand Together (FIST) emceed the event. Student organizers from the International Socialist Organization, Socialist Alternative and Radical Women also spoke.

A public organizing meeting is called for Oct. 27 at the CUNY Graduate Center, Room 5414 at 7 p.m. to strategize for further mobilizations against recent proposals to cut an additional $53 million from the CUNY budget.

—David Hoskins