Tag: Worker advocacy

Activism, Economics, Grassroots advocacy, Worker advocacy

Next protest: a 24-hour “economic blackout” Feb. 28 to highlight workers’ economic strife

by Anne Landman • February 26, 2025 • 28 Comments

Peoples Union graphic promoting the 24-hour Economic Blackout planned nationally for Friday, 2/28/25

Re-posting this article, previously posted on 2/19/25, as a reminder of the next protest.

The People’s Union, a grassroots organization that seeks to “unionize people to take back our power” is calling for a 24-hour nationwide “economic blackout” on Friday, February 28, 2025 targeting the biggest businesses in America, including companies like Amazon, Walmart, Starbucks, Target, Exxon and others, to highlight the companies’ part in creating an “economy designed to exploit workers, suppress wages, and keep the majority of us in a constant state of struggle. These are the forces that have stolen our financial freedom, manipulated our government, and kept power in the hands of the wealthy elite.”

Blackout participants are asked not to purchase anything online or at big retailers like Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, Target, Starbucks or other big companies for 24 hours on 2/28. Participants are also urged to not spend money on fast food or gas, or use their credit or debit cards for essential spending, since doing so financially benefits big credit card companies. Paying bills and buying food, medicine and other necessities are fine during the Blackout, but people are asked to patronize locally-owned businesses, and not big corporations or chain stores.

Group organizing a national labor strike

by Anne Landman • February 5, 2025 • 0 Comments

A decentralized group, GeneralStrike.us, is organizing a generalized national labor strike in the U.S. in an effort to force significant changes aimed at benefitting hard working, underpaid Americans who are struggling to stay afloat due to low wages and escalating costs of living. The appeal to join the strike is going out to all workers including, but not limited to teachers, fast food workers, drivers, gig workers, waiters, actors, artists, athletes, retail and grocery store workers and more.

GeneralStrike.us says “Our greatest power is our labor and our right to refuse it,” and “We are not one singular organization. We are a network of regular people united by our shared values, committed to a general strike to radically change our country.”

Red Rock wins wage theft case

by Anne Landman • December 13, 2024 • 9 Comments

Courtroom drawing of Red Rock GMC minority owner Bryan Knight sitting at the Defendant’s table. (Anne Landman)

In a “David vs. Goliath” case, Derek Paiz, a former detailer for Red Rock GMC, lost his pro se wage theft lawsuit against Red Rock Auto Group II, Inc. on December 11, 2024 after a six person jury returned a verdict (pdf) in favor of Red Rock.

Red Rock Auto wage theft lawsuit headed for trial Dec. 9-11

by Anne Landman • November 20, 2024 • 6 Comments

Red Rock GMC on First Street in Grand Junction, where Derek Paíz was employed as a detailer

A civil wage theft lawsuit, 23CV52 (pdf), filed by a tenacious former vehicle detailer against Red Rock Auto Group II, Inc. and Red Rock’s local minority owner Bryan Knight, is headed for a fast-approaching jury trial December 9-11, 2024 at the Mesa County Justice Center.

At a virtual pre-trial conference this morning, November 20, Judge Matthew Barrett confirmed that the trial is set for those dates and will be heard by a 6-person jury.

Bryan Knight, now listed as a minority (10%) owner of Red Rock GMC

Derek Paíz worked as a detailer for Red Rock GMC at 741 N. First Street in Grand Junction from April-September, 2022. He filed the case pro se (on his own, without an attorney) on October 26, 2023 seeking wages he alleges Red Rock failed to pay him for work he did while employed at the GMC dealership in 2022.

Former CMU Professor Tom Acker to run against Cody Davis for County Commissioner

by Anne Landman • March 26, 2024 • 7 Comments

Retired CMU Spanish Professor Tom Acker

A Democrat has joined the race against Cody Davis for Mesa County Commissioner. Tom Acker is currently the only Democrat running for local office in Mesa County.

Acker was a professor of Spanish language at CMU for two decades. He is now a retired professor emeritus, an honorary title conferred upon him for his distinguished service to the academic community. He is a founding member of the award-winning Hispanic Affairs Project.

Originally from the east coast, in the 1980s Acker worked with refugees from the Mariel Boatlift, after over 125,000 Cubans piled into boats and headed for Florida after the Cuban government announced that anyone who wanted to leave the country was free to do so.

While he lived in Pennsylvania, Acker worked with a federally-funded agency to help farmers interact with agriculture workers.

Local Postal workers warn of changes coming that will further slow mail delivery

by Anne Landman • January 11, 2024 • 20 Comments

A brand new sorting machine lies in a dumpster at the Postal Sorting Annex on Patterson Rd. and Burkey St. on August 24, 2020. Employees said it was ordered dismantled and disposed of by Postmaster Louis DeJoy, who has been carrying out changes that are leaving the U.S. Postal Service in disarray

Local Postal Service workers shared a memo distributed to employees at the Burkey Street Sorting Facility on January 10 that warns changes are likely coming to the Burkey Street facility that will threaten jobs and further slow mail delivery by moving mail processing and distributing (PD&C) out of these facilities to Denver.

The 6 page memo, called a “Stand Up Talk” (pdf), warns of an impending facility review that will likely lead to consolidation of plant operations here in Grand Junction and the relocation of parcel operations from here to Denver. It indicates Trump-appointed Postmaster Louis DeJoy will likely take steps that will further erode mail service in Grand Junction and mountain towns. A veteran postal worker said the plan “will definitely slow down mail processing and probably cost some jobs in our areas,” adding that “They seem to cut service then lower their standards so it looks like they are ‘fixing things’.”

Instructor salaries at CMU remarkably low compared to state and nation

by Anne Landman • November 13, 2023 • 6 Comments

Classified ad placed by Colorado Mesa University in the 11/12/23 issue of the Daily Sentinel for a tenure-track assistant professor of nursing

Colorado Mesa University (CMU) has been advertising for a tenure-track assistant nursing professor for its Montrose campus.

The position requires teaching 12 course credit hours each semester, or 24 credits over an academic year, which is considered a standard, full-time teaching load. Applicants must also have a current RN license, plus a minimum of two years of full time professional clinical experience and a graduate degree in nursing from a nationally accredited school of nursing, with a Ph.D. preferred, as well as other requirements.

But the pay is only $55,000 – 60,000 a year.

It’s a bad time to go to the Main Post Office

by Anne Landman • June 23, 2023 • 7 Comments

Note taped in the window of the downtown Post Office on Friday, June 23, telling people about technical difficulties and delays.

If you’re thinking about heading to the downtown Grand Junction Post Office, you might want to think again.

If you do decide to go, bring cash or checks for your transaction.

About six weeks ago the Post Office changed their internet provider to Verizon, and now their internet is frequently down. When it does work, it is extremely slow, according to postal workers. Lines are long and the bogged-down computer systems are causing lost revenue and angry customers.

Basalt Post Office employee attacked by co-worker

by Anne Landman • February 2, 2023 • 4 Comments

A frightened employee in the Basalt, Colorado Post Office managed to video the last minute of a vicious assault she endured by a co-worker while at work early in the morning on January 26, 2023.

Grand Junction Scarlet Post Office sorting facility reportedly in disarray

by Anne Landman • January 16, 2023 • 18 Comments

USPS carrier facility at 734 Scarlet: turmoil inside

It may look peaceful on the outside, but a longtime U.S. Postal Service employee at the Grand Junction Carrier Annex at 734 Scarlet Drive reports that inside the building the Postal Service is “going crazy lately.”

The employee reports, “We are delaying mail and it is running horribly.”

What’s going on and why is this happening?

“It started when they decided to lay off our newest hires,” the employee said:

“They claimed ‘lack of work’ as the reason, but since then, we’ve been 5 or 6 people short of a normal crew to process the mail. I worked over 80 hours last week and we can’t catch up. In addition to that, we process mail for DHL, UPS and FedEx as part of an agreement with them. They dropped half of a semi [truck full] of bags of mail at our office at Scarlet Drive on Wednesday, and all of that mail is still sitting there.”

7th Street Deli saved by Tim Foster

by Anne Landman • February 2, 2022 • 6 Comments

The 7th Street Deli has been at the same location on 7th Street and Bookcliff for 15 years

The 7th-Street Deli has been saved!

The deli was threatened with eviction in mid-January for non-payment of back rent. The owner had suffered a prolonged 50% loss of business due to back-to-back renovation projects that took place on 7th Street in 2019 and 2020, and then got hit with the no-indoor dining order in 2020 from Covid. Deli owner Debbie Allen had made it through all those obstacles and was finally getting out of her debt when the property owner slapped her with an eviction notice and a lawsuit for tens of thousands in back rent. The deli started a GoFundMe account and donations poured in. By the end of January they had raised about $8,000, but it wasn’t enough to pay off all the back rent.

How Trump’s sabotage of the Post Office is playing out locally

by Anne Landman • August 18, 2020 • 1 Comment

Trump mega-donor and Postmaster General Louis DeJoy

In May of 2020, President Trump appointed Louis DeJoy, a Trump mega-donor with no postal experience as Postmaster General of the United States.

After taking office in June, Mr. DeJoy immediately started making changes to the Postal Service that resulted in delayed delivery of mail across the country. His actions included removal of 23 top postal executives, removing high-speed mail sorting machines from post offices around the country and prohibiting employees from logging overtime to deliver mail.

Sen. Ray Scott’s tweet opposes progress and planning for future

by Anne Landman • September 14, 2019 • 1 Comment

Ray Scott’s tweet lamenting planning for the future, and indicating he can’t wait for such folly to end

Is Republican State Senator Ray Scott concerned about Colorado’s economy and workforce?

It sure doesn’t look like it, judging from his twitter feed.

On September 4, Scott posted a tweet that said “2022 an’t come fast enough.” It was his response to an announcement that Governor Polis had just created a new government office to deal with pressing new problems facing Colorado’s workforce. Scott’s tweet referred to the year when Governor Polis’s first term in office will be over.

Sen. Scott tweeted his disdain Governor Polis’ newly-created “Office for the Future of Work,” announced September 4.

Sen. Scott either 1) failed to investigate the need for this office, or he 2) doesn’t care what’s going to happen to Colorado workers in the near future if we fail to plan for coming trends.

BLM to G.J.? Moving federal offices out of D.C. is a way to dismantle them, Mulvaney tells Republicans

by Anne Landman • September 6, 2019 • 0 Comments

Don’t cheer the relocation of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) out of Washington, D.C. to Grand Junction until you understand the Trump administration’s real motive behind moving federal agencies out of Washington. Hint: It’s not to help them, and it’s not to help us.

The real motive for moving agencies out of Washington is to hobble and destroy them.

Uprooting federal agencies and moving them out of D.C. into “red” areas is a method the Trump administration is using to pressure skilled federal workers to leave by attrition and destroy federal oversight agencies. Republican Senator Cory Gardner, all three of our Republican Mesa County Commissioners (John Justman, Rose Pugliese and Scott McInnis) and Trump administration employees have all been telling the public that moving the agencies out of Washington is a way to streamline them, and make them more efficient and responsive to the people and industries they oversee.

Hogwash.

Lessons from past G.J. City Council elections

by Anne Landman • March 16, 2019 • 1 Comment

Rick Brainard, one of the best-funded candidates who ever ran for Grand Junction City Council, was backed to the bitter end by the Grand Junction Area Chamber of Commerce and the Old Guard Republican Establishment

Were you around for the 2013 City of Grand Junction election?

If not, then you really missed a doozy.

That was a year in which Grand Junction residents learned some big, important lessons about city council elections.

Here is one of them:

The best-funded candidates for city council are often the WORST people to sit on city council.

Rep. Scott Tipton votes to continue government shutdown, keep federal workers unpaid

by Anne Landman • January 14, 2019 • 1 Comment

House Rep. Scott Tipton voted to keep inflicting financial pain on government employees to help President Trump extort American taxpayers for $5.6 billion to pay for a 2,000 mile wall between the U.S. and Mexico. (Chart courtesy of the Daily Sentinel of Grand Junction.)

The western slope’s House representative in Washington, D.C., Scott Tipton, voted AGAINST a bill on Jan. 6 to end President Trump’s shutdown for most federal agencies.

The bill, HR 265, passed the House by a wide margin — 243 to 183 — and would have funded most of the parts of government that are shut down, including food safety inspections, child nutrition programs, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as the food stamp program), rural utilities programs, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Farm Credit programs and other crucial agencies and functions on which Americans depend.

Currently over 800,000 federal employees are furloughed or working without pay due to the shutdown, negatively impacting commerce across the country.

Sen. Ray Scott defends taking corporate PAC money

by Anne Landman • October 12, 2018 • 2 Comments

Colorado state Senator Ray Scott came out swinging in a blog posted four days ago defending himself against the hard-hitting new “Pay Scott” video posted online by his challenger, Chris Kennedy, that lists all the Corporate PAC money Scott takes.

Kennedy says he will not take any corporate PAC funds, “period.”

Scott justified his taking corporate PAC money by claiming that the PACs that fund him represent the “hard-working families of Mesa County.”

Ha!

Liberals, be very proud of who you are

by Anne Landman • September 2, 2018 • 8 Comments

Mesa County vehicle that displays enmity towards liberal and progressive residents

Right wingers often disparage political liberals in western Colorado with nasty names like “libtard” and “snowflake.” Some even claim without foundation that liberalism is a “mental disorder.”

But being politically liberal is a profoundly positive thing.

Why?

Because liberals have made most of the progress in American society.

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