Tag Archives: New York City

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Paying customers left behind by Peter Pan Buses


                                      Click on Photo for more information

  By Cristina Moon
                                                Providence, Rhode Island

Earlier this summer, I waited in 90 degree heat for a Peter Pan bus from Providence, RI to New York, NY. Not only was the bus late, five passengers including myself were left behind because there weren’t any seats left on the bus — even though we had bought our tickets hours, if not days, in advance! The relief bus we were promised never showed, we were never guaranteed seats on the next scheduled bus, and nobody from Peter Pan ever contacted any of us to apologize, offer our money back or guarantee us a ride to New York.

I started this petition because it’s not just bad customer service to oversell buses — the practice exploits people who don’t have the resources to walk away and book another ride with a different bus company. Please sign my petition calling on Peter Pan to immediately stop overselling its buses and guarantee passengers a seat on the buses they’ve paid for. I know that if enough people in the northeast US make enough noise, Peter Pan will want to make the changes necessary to avoid damaging their brand.

Throughout my experience with Peter Pan, I was shocked at how the bus company disregarded the needs of passengers it had left stranded. The driver of the full bus told us that Dispatch was sending a relief bus, and that it would be there within 30 minutes. But the relief bus was canceled and nobody ever contacted us to let us know — even though there’s a Peter Pan representative inside Providence’s Kennedy Plaza bus station and I had been tweeting at Peter Pan since the moment we weren’t able to get on the original bus.

While I was fighting for a refund of my fare in the following weeks, Peter Pan’s customer service later told me that seating is “first come first serve” — but nowhere on any of the documentation I received from them (an email receipt or my actual ticket) is this stated.

Corporate practices like these harm and exploit the most vulnerable — people who don’t have the money or a smartphone to just walk away and choose another bus line. I want Peter Pan to stop this practice of overselling buses now, and guarantee their customers a seat on the buses they’ve paid for.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

NMAAHC Brings “Treasures​” to Brooklyn on July 20


NMAAHC -- National Museum of African American History and Culture

Brooklyn Museum and Smithsonian Present “Save Our African American Treasures”
Saturday, July 20, 2013 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Brooklyn Museum Martha A. and Robert S. Rubin Pavilion and Lobby 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NY 11238 Free and open to the public
array of photos 2010-12392.jpg
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Brooklyn Museum will co-host “Save Our African American Treasures: A National Collections Initiative of Discovery and Preservation,” a daylong program to help New York-area residents identify and preserve items of historical and cultural significance.
Participants are invited to bring up to three personal items for a 15-minute, professional consultation with experts on how to care for them. The specialists will serve as reviewers, not appraisers, and will not determine an item’s monetary value. Objects such as books, photographs, ceramics, metalwork and textiles no larger than a shopping bag (furniture, carpets, firearms and paintings are excluded) can be reviewed.
“We are extremely proud to bring ‘Save Our African American Treasures’ to New York City and of our partnership with the Brooklyn Museum,” said Lonnie Bunch, director of the Smithsonian museum. “Whether it’s Weeksville, Jackie Robinson and the Brooklyn Dodgers or the Harlem Renaissance, New York City has been steeped in African American history from before the Emancipation. We encourage people to become aware of what they have, to protect it and to preserve it so the story of the African diaspora in this country can be told.”
The “Treasures” program also includes the following activities throughout the day:
violin or fiddle 2010-12444.jpg
  • Gallery Tour: Kevin Stayton, the Brooklyn Museum’s chief curator, will offer a tour of selected galleries in the building.
  • Preservation Presentations: learn how to preserve clothing and textiles, family photographs and papers. Participants will have the opportunity to ask questions.
  • Hands-on Preservation: participants will learn how to properly store letters, pack garments and prepare photographs for preservation storage and presentation.
For more Treasures event information, visit nmaahc.si.edu/Programs/NYTreasures, email treasures@si.edu or call (877) 733-9599.
“Save Our African American Treasures” is made possible with support from the Bank of America Charitable Foundation and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
quilt 2011-03071.jpg
~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Rallies, Not Riots


By CAP Action War Room

Rallies for Trayvon Martin Sweep the Nation

While many right-wing pundits predicted riots if George Zimmerman was found not guilty of murdering Trayvon Martin, what we saw instead were moving rallies meant to honor Trayvon’s memory and the ongoing pursuit of justice for him and his family.

Here are some of the most moving images from across the country.

 

NYC, NY via AP

 

NYC, NY via AP

 

NYC, NY via @shokufeyesib

 

NYC, NY via @IrvingDeJohn

 

Miami, FL via AP

Oakland, CA via @shadirahimi

 

 

Newark, NJ via AP

 

Atlanta, GA via AP

 

Atlanta, GA via AP

 

Detroit, MI via AP

 

 

Seattle, WA via seattlepi.com

 

Milwaukee, WI via @ShantTHEGREAT

 

 

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

NMAAHC Brings “Treasures​” to Brooklyn on July 20


NMAAHC -- National Museum of African American History and Culture

Brooklyn Museum and Smithsonian Present “Save Our African American Treasures”

Saturday, July 20, 2013 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Brooklyn Museum Martha A. and Robert S. Rubin Pavilion and Lobby 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NY 11238 Free and open to the public

array of photos 2010-12392.jpg

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Brooklyn Museum will co-host “Save Our African American Treasures: A National Collections Initiative of Discovery and Preservation,” a daylong program to help New York-area residents identify and preserve items of historical and cultural significance.

Participants are invited to bring up to three personal items for a 15-minute, professional consultation with experts on how to care for them. The specialists will serve as reviewers, not appraisers, and will not determine an item’s monetary value. Objects such as books, photographs, ceramics, metalwork and textiles no larger than a shopping bag (furniture, carpets, firearms and paintings are excluded) can be reviewed.

“We are extremely proud to bring ‘Save Our African American Treasures’ to New York City and of our partnership with the Brooklyn Museum,” said Lonnie Bunch, director of the Smithsonian museum. “Whether it’s Weeksville, Jackie Robinson and the Brooklyn Dodgers or the Harlem Renaissance, New York City has been steeped in African American history from before the Emancipation. We encourage people to become aware of what they have, to protect it and to preserve it so the story of the African diaspora in this country can be told.”

The “Treasures” program also includes the following activities throughout the day:

violin or fiddle 2010-12444.jpg
  • Gallery Tour: Kevin Stayton, the Brooklyn Museum’s chief curator, will offer a tour of selected galleries in the building.
  • Preservation Presentations: learn how to preserve clothing and textiles, family photographs and papers. Participants will have the opportunity to ask questions.
  • Hands-on Preservation: participants will learn how to properly store letters, pack garments and prepare photographs for preservation storage and presentation.

For more Treasures event information, visit nmaahc.si.edu/Programs/NYTreasures, email treasures@si.edu or call (877) 733-9599.

“Save Our African American Treasures” is made possible with support from the Bank of America Charitable Foundation and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

quilt 2011-03071.jpg
~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Building momentum for workers’ rights nationwide


Paid sick time is now a reality for a million more working New Yorkers.

Deal for Paid Sick Leave: Approved

Bring the fight for humane working conditions to Walmart and Darden Restaurants.

Over the past several months, thousands of ColorOfChange members and our partners helped build such monumental support for New York’s Earned Sick Time Act that the City Council easily overrode Mayor Bloomberg‘s callous veto earlier this week.1 The paid sick time benefit will improve the lives of over a million low-wage, largely Black and brown workers2 — it’s an important victory that we should all celebrate and feel proud of.

But there’s much more work to be done to ensure we’re all treated humanely in the workplace, and to effectively combat the growing attacks on workers’ rights we’re seeing across the nation. We’re working to shine a spotlight on the most egregious offenders — like Walmart and Darden Restaurants, which owns the Olive Garden and Red Lobster brands — whose long record of labor abuses has had devastating effects for Black workers in particular.

Can you chip in $10 or more to keep up the momentum of New York’s critical workers’ rights victory and help put an end to the endemic culture of worker abuse across the country?

Despite powerful business interests’ attempts to obstruct a vote on New York’s Earned Sick Time Act, ColorOfChange members,3 advocacy groups, labor unions and everyday New Yorkers remained undeterred, overcoming fierce anti-worker objections from Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Now when New Yorkers get sick, they can stay home instead of spreading airborne illness to co-workers, customers and fellow riders of public transportation.4

But the sad reality is that millions of Black folks across the country will still report to work tomorrow under inhumane conditions — without the benefit of paid sick time, and to workplaces where wage discrimination, worker abuse and harsh retaliation for speaking up are the norm.5,6 And these workers need your help, because corporations like Darden and Walmart have shown a stubborn commitment to squeezing as much profit as they can out of their underpaid employees. Both companies made headlines for slashing workers’ hours to avoid obligations under President Obama’s health care reform law,7 and Walmart is notorious for paying such meager wages that full-time workers must rely on public assistance to survive.8

ColorOfChange members have joined Darden and Walmart workers to force these companies into taking decisive action to reform their exploitative practices with regard to wages, scheduling, benefits, hiring and promotion policy, and workplace safety. And we’ve supported the first nationwide worker strike in the Walmart’s 50-year history.9 We will continue to stand with Walmart, Darden and other workers seeking humane working conditions and sensible, dignified benefit packages. But in order to secure more critical victories for workers’ rights like the one we we’re celebrating in New York, we’ll need your support.

Can you donate today to help build on New York City’s workers’ rights achievement? Click here to donate $10 or or whatever you can afford to help ColorOfChange effect positive change at Walmart and Darden. And when you do, please ask your friends and family to do the same.

Thanks and Peace,

–Rashad, Matt, Arisha, Jamar, Kim and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team    July 3rd, 2013

References

1. “City council overrides Bloomberg; paid sick leave passes,” Amsterdam News, 06-27-13 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/2738?t=8&akid=2967.1174326.amnBxC

2. “Paid Sick Leave for One Million New York workers,” Community Service Society, 08-30-12 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/2731?t=10&akid=2967.1174326.amnBxC

3. “Black leaders increase pressure on Quinn to allow a paid sick leave vote,” Capital New York, 03-13-13 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/2739?t=12&akid=2967.1174326.amnBxC

4. “NYC Needs Paid Sick Days, Not Lame Excuses,” City Limits, 04-03-12 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/1658?t=14&akid=2967.1174326.amnBxC

5. “Workers grill Darden’s CEO at shareholders meeting,” Orlando Sentinel, 09-18-12 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/2720?t=16&akid=2967.1174326.amnBxC

6. “Wal-Mart punishes its workers,” Salon, 07-26-12 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/1915?t=18&akid=2967.1174326.amnBxC

7. “Darden CEO Fights California Bill That Would Fine Medicaid-Dependent Companies,” Huffington Post, 06-19-13 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/2721?t=20&akid=2967.1174326.amnBxC

8. “Walmart Workers Need a Raise and a Voice, Truthout, 06-06-13 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/2740?t=22&akid=2967.1174326.amnBxC

9. “Walmart employees kick off longest strike yet,” MSNBC, 05-28-13 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/2722?t=24&akid=2967.1174326.amnBxC