Experiments with truth: 9/10/09
- Four people protesting Massey Energy’s mountaintop removal mining practices were arrested Wednesday morning after linking their arms together with plastic pipe and duct tape, briefly blocking a private road to the coal company’s office in southern West Virginia. The protesters are affiliated with Climate Ground Zero and ranged in age from 22 to 81 years old.
- A trio of activists from the environmental group Avaaz.org disrupted a press conference yesterday in Washington DC held by city officials from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who were attempting to highlight the city’s role as the venue for the G20 summit later this month. The activists held a sign that read, “Why is the greenest city silencing green voices?”, before being escorted out.
- Hundreds of AT&T workers in Danbury, Connecticut went to work wearing t-shirts saying “prisoner of AT&T” to protest the expiration of their contract. Bosses sent them home without pay, but the workers are threatening to file a grievance with the National Labor Relations Board over arbitrary suspensions.
- Hackers temporarily shut down Australian PM Kevin Rudd’s website last night in an apparent protest of government proposals for a mandatory internet filtering system.
- On their first day back to work, US Senators were greeted by 40 climate activists, who built miniature windmills and made mechanical noises in the middle of the Hart Senate Office building until interrupted by the Capitol Police. At that point, a 50 ft banner dropped demanding that the Senators “Get to Work” for “Green Jobs Now”.
- About 20 frustrated parents at NY Public School 123 in Harlem picketed outside the school yesterday to protest what they said was preferential treatment for Harlem Success Academy 2 charter school, located in the same building.
- More than 270 faculty members from the University of California have signed an online petition in support of a walkout later this month to protest budget cuts.
- Thousands of the mostly female porters from the slums of Ghana’s largest city, Accra, halted their routine job of carrying loads to protest the government’s intention to evict them.
- Union workers for Kaiser Permanente picketed at the Kaiser Roseville Medical Center in Sacramento, California on Wednesday to protest company plans to slash 1,350 jobs statewide to offset enrollment losses and declining margins.
- Teachers from a school district in Kashmir are staging a sit-in to protest discrimination and marginalization by school administration.
