Month: July 2006

Day Laborers Demanding Higher Wages

Here’s an article in the L.A. Times about day laborers in a Southern California suburb (near where my wife’s parents live) demanding $15.00/hour minimum wages. Pretty cool that they’re able to organize like that, although there is a relevant point made by a dissenting worker that the wages should be tied more to the type of work. Banding together for one minimum wage is strong; perhaps if they wanted to implement some sort of graduated scale for the type of work, they could draw up and approve a relatively simple wage schedule that still ensures good pay.

Stone digs into library policies

The Telegram’s Matt Stone is digging into the Worcester Public Library’s stupid lending practices that have gotten it sued.

No bombshells in these reports, but it’s good to see that investigations are in progress. Mr Stone has looked at lending policies of other Massachusetts libraries, and the sloppiness of the Worcester library’s policy.

One sentence I noticed in the most recent article:

Social service agencies have largely been satisfied with the policy, [head librarian] Ms. Johnson said.

Mr Stone notes that at least two of the agencies affected by the policy had no idea it existed.

The Catholic Worker shelter, also on the list, was never contacted about the policy, either before or after it was enacted, as far as anyone there remembers.

Library: no data on losses to homeless?

I’m in Philly, catching up on my Internet reading. An interesting statement in the Globe’s coverage of the Worcester library getting sued for dissing the homeless:

[Head librarian Penny] Johnson said she did not have data on how many books had been lost over the years to homeless patrons, but said the policy had helped curb the problem.

It’s a good guess that the library is losing lots of books to homeless patrons. But before you turn guesswork into a policy, you need to gather some actual facts.

(As Kevin notes at Indymedia, in meetings earlier this year the library quoted stats on book losses to activists. What happened to this data since then?)

Items

Greetings from West Virginia, home of beautiful mountains and dial-up Internet access.

Mr. Hetero: The T&G had an update last week:

WORCESTER— Pastor Thomas Crouse of Holland, who brought his controversial Mr. Heterosexual contest to Worcester, is suing the city for expenses surrounding a police detail he says he was forced to endure. The city claims it never charged Mr. Crouse for the detail.

Lots of he-said-she-said. Note that “forced to endure” seems a bit strong, considering that Mr. Crouse revelled in the police detail at the time.

Google: worcester library homeless, someone googled, and got the IMC article just ahead of a copy of the T&G article (as well they should), with P&C in third place for local reports. Why is the now-free-to-the-general-public T&G website itself not on the first page of the rankings?

Eggs: Adam Durand, who was jailed for rescuing dying hens from a factory farm, was released pending appeal after being in jail for a month. If you haven’t already, check out the movie he made about conditions at the Wegmans egg farm.
Continue reading “Items”

Library news: the morning after

Last night, Kevin Ksen posted a story to Indymedia giving some of the background on the lawsuit against the library for its borrowing policy.

He points out that the first solid information about the policy came from a public information request from Real Solutions in January; and that Indymedia first ran hard facts about the story back in January.

In his article in the T&G, Lee Hammel gets quotes from some of the lawyers involved, and makes the City look stupid:

But City Solicitor David M. Moore said, “Legally, this is a reasonable policy to address non-returned books.” He said library research shows “people without addresses or addresses at shelters accounted for a substantial percentage of books not returned,” although the library yesterday had no figures available to quantify that.

Worcester library officials said other libraries have similar policies, and Mr. Moore said there are “no courts that have found this practice legally objectionable or unconstitutional.” He said that he knows of no cases that have gone to court.

Jonathan Mannina, Legal Assistance Corp. executive director, said that other libraries, including Porter County, Ind., have dropped similar policies in the face of opposition without going to court over it. He said the Worcester library has not shared figures on non-returns it attributes to people living in shelters, but he said he is not aware of city policies that discriminate against others who might have a higher rate of no-returns, such as college students, people who live in apartments, or people who live out of town and are allowed to take up to 40 items at a time from the library.

All this is breaking while I’m moving to the midwest, taking Greyhounds hither and yon. My hat is off to these gents for adding facts to the story.

I’m still wondering: Did the library “run the numbers” for all addresses in the city, or just shelters?

Update: Kevin Ksen reports that the drive-time guys on WTAG this morning called the suit “frivilous.”

Library sued for bad lending policy

Legal Assistance and the ACLU are suing Worcester and the library because the library has a policy that discriminates against borrowers who live in homeless shelters.

I love the library, and I hate lawsuits, but I think Legal Assistance has a point here. The early copy of the policy that I saw only looks at where a person lives, not whether the person has a habit of returning books on time.

Most library patrons can borrow 40 books at a time. But even if a person in a homeless shelter is all Abraham Lincoln, and walks ten miles through the snow each week to return his library books on time, he can only check out 2 books at a time. The policy says that the library will never trust him, so long as he’s living in one of the homeless shelters, transitional housing programs, or adolescent programs on “the list.”

I’m not aware of a library policy that restricts borrowing for people who live at other addresses that cater to transients, such as Single Room Occupancy (SRO) buildings.

Note that at least one non-institutional, private residence—the Catholic Worker house on Mason St—is listed included among the addresses “on the list” in the draft policy.

Updates to follow here and at Indymedia.

Coffee in Worcester: Part Three

A special Pie and Coffee videocast—or as Bruce would say, a viteocast.

Video: Download the MPEG4 (78 MB). More formats at the Internet Archive.

Featuring: Mike Benedetti, Bruce (“The Snow Ghost”), Kevin Ksen, and Ken Hannaford-Ricardi

  • First on the agenda is A&D Coffee & Lunch X-Press, on Pleasant Street. Carl Weaver has an interview with proprietor Ali Khalaf, and another video of Mr. Khalaf reading a poem about Hurrican Katrina.
  • Kevin sees Dunkin Donuts as being “anti-immigrant,” and Ken thinks they sometimes exploit their workers.
  • Mike and Bruce also went to Eric’s LaPatisserie on Commercial Street. Worcester Magazine interviewed Eric last year.
  • The White Hen is still Bruce’s favorite Worcester coffee.
  • Everyone gossips about Java Joe’s, which is Bruce’s main hangout.
  • Mike tells the story of Dave Maciewski and Napoleon Dynamite.
  • Bruce comes up with a mix of songs that will turn Worcester’s mayor into a metal fan.
  • Bruce mentions his new track, “Once Upon a Time on a Water Lily.” Jacob Berendes describes Bruce’s demo CD as “totally ruling.” {{{5MB mp3}}}
  • Mike reads part of Harsh Truths About Catholicism.
  • Bruce thinks people have the wrong idea about King Diamond.
  • Ken & Bruce support access to clean needles, and have some suggestions on how it should work.
  • Mike dismisses the risk of discarded needles, but Ken & Bruce see them around their neighborhoods.
  • Mike thinks that needle legalization means an individual can now do informal needle exchange, and that if the Main South Alliance for Public Safety supports public safety, that they’ll start a needle exchange project.
  • The sound isn’t very good on this recording, and Bruce’s parting words are especially inaudible:

    There’s just one more quote about Tim Murray’s response about not liking metal. Hands up to the man. He’s not British.