How an artist who stands with Teamsters sat in Hoffa's chair

<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">UPDATES to clarify Bowers is not from New York.</span></span><br /><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">An artist who stood with Teamsters in our battle against the Frieze New York Art Fair seized an opportunity to sit in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Hoffa" rel="nofollow">Jimmy Hoffa's</a><span style="font-size: small;"> chair on a recent trip to Detroit. </span></span></span><br /><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Andrea Bowers </span><a href="http://teamsternation.blogspot.com/2013/05/teamsters-take-stand-at-randalls-island.html" rel="nofollow" style="line-height: 18.18181800842285px;">openly protested at the Frieze New York Art Fair</a><span style="line-height: 18.18181800842285px;"> in May when the show refused to hire local Teamsters at fair wages. She and fellow artist Olga </span><span style="line-height: 18.18181800842285px;">Koumoundouros </span><span style="line-height: 18.18181800842285px;">drove</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/TransamericaRoadsideSale" style="line-height: 115%;">their latest art installation</a><span style="line-height: 115%;">across the country, visiting historic labor sites along the way. Bowers, a</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> former member of the <a href="http://www.aft.org/" rel="nofollow">American Federation of Teachers</a>, focuses much of her artwork on the struggle for workers' rights. That's why Bowers was blown away by the chance to sit in the former Teamster leader's chair at Teamsters Local 299. Said Bowers:</span></span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 18.18181800842285px;">It was a rare and amazing opportunity. </span><span style="line-height: 18.18181800842285px;">That room was </span><span style="line-height: 18.18181800842285px;">beautiful.  The whole office was preserved.</span></span></blockquote><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOdY5RBH_QgcDx2tCK-eQnsU2SMIPIviQhXwG6NmBJaQ6HkRcKve2wdh5zlGkKHjOlLCdn1sYf7gpZUa6IUKEkI925NuoFzQUwLJvXut9dAVTCByAV1drGSQ7a_Z5tHCe3kpX8BjKYH5tv/s320/Local+299.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="240" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">At Teamsters Local 299, in Jimmy Hoffa's chair</td></tr></tbody></table><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOdY5RBH_QgcDx2tCK-eQnsU2SMIPIviQhXwG6NmBJaQ6HkRcKve2wdh5zlGkKHjOlLCdn1sYf7gpZUa6IUKEkI925NuoFzQUwLJvXut9dAVTCByAV1drGSQ7a_Z5tHCe3kpX8BjKYH5tv/s1600/Local+299.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></a><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Shawn Ellis, an <a href="http://teamster.org/" rel="nofollow">International Brotherhood of Teamsters</a> staff member who introduced the artists to Detroit's labor history, said Andrea's smile was a mile wide when she sat in Jimmy Hoffa's chair. </span></span><br /><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 18.18181800842285px;">At the invitation of Joint Council 43 President Greg Nowak, Bowers and </span><span style="line-height: 18.18181800842285px;">Koumoundouros also visited "<a href="http://detroit1701.org/American%20Labor%20Movement%20Statue.html" rel="nofollow">Transcending</a>," a memorial in downtown </span><span style="line-height: 18.18181800842285px;">Detroit dedicated to the Michigan labor movement.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">They also attended a <a href="http://mlhs.wayne.edu/" rel="nofollow">MichiganLabor History Society</a> meeting on the Woolworth strike -- and gave a report on the successful effort to raise the labor standards for art fairs and other events in New York's public parks.<br /><br />“We actually took notes,” said Bowers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>“It was so rewarding to meet these amazing union members concerned about labor history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>We wanted to stay another week.”<br /><br />The 1937 Detroit Woolworth strike ignited worker activism across the country during the Great Depression.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  It was s</span>tarted by a bunch of teenage and early-20-something women, at a company so huge, “<a href="http://www.workers.org/2010/us/woolworth_0318/" rel="nofollow">it was like striking Wal-Mart, the Gap, and McDonald’s all at the same time</a>.” The protest improved the jobs of tens of thousands of workers:</span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: inherit;">On Feb. 27, more than 100 young women workers at (a) Woolworth store demanded raises, time and a half for more than 40 hours, company pay for uniforms, lunch allowances, breaks, (union) recognition and hiring only through the union. The union had only one staff person there.  </span></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The effects of the strike rippled for a year.  In Detroit itself, sit-downs spread among thousands of local workers, from waitresses to kitchen workers to cafeteria, hotel, and factory workers. By year’s end, chain variety stores, grocery and department stores had been organized in St. Paul and Duluth, Minn.; Tacoma and Centralia, Wash.; Superior, Wis.; and San Francisco.</span></blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">“(The whole trip) was just moving,” said Koumoundouros. </span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">“It was so amazing to see labor history alive.”</span></span><br /><br />

frieze james r. hoffa labor history Local 299 How an artist who stands with Teamsters sat in Hoffa's chair

UPDATES to clarify Bowers is not from New York. An artist who stood with Teamsters in our battle against the Frieze New York Art Fair seized...

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'Labor was there, leading the way'

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren's speech to the AFL-CIO convention over the weekend was even better than <a href="http://teamsternation.blogspot.com/2013/09/supreme-court-subsidiary-of-business.html" rel="nofollow">we reported yesterday</a>. She (correctly) warned that the U.S. Supreme Court is about to become a wholly owned subsidiary of Big Business. But she said some other true and powerful things as well -- mostly about organized labor. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.alternet.org/economy/elizabeth-warren-slams-corporate-supreme-court">Alternet</a> brought us part of the speech, and we thought you really would want to read it:<br /><blockquote>When important decisions are made in Washington, too often, working families are ignored.  From tax policy to retirement security, the voices of hard-working people get drowned out by powerful industries and well-financed front groups.  Those with power fight to take care of themselves and to feed at the trough for themselves, even when it comes at the expense of working families getting a fair shot at a better future. </blockquote><blockquote>This isn’t new. Throughout our history, powerful interests have tried to capture Washington and rig the system in their favor. But we didn’t roll over. At every turn, in every time of challenge, organized labor has been there, fighting on behalf of the American people. </blockquote><blockquote>At the beginning of the 20th Century, when factories were deathtraps, when owners exploited workers and children, and when robber barons amassed the kind of power and influence that made them think they were modern day kings, the American people came together under the leadership of progressives to bring our nation back from the brink. And labor was there, leading the way. </blockquote><blockquote>Labor was on the front lines to take children out of factories and put them in schools. Labor was there to give meaning to the words "consumer protection" by making our food and medicine safe. Labor was there to fight for minimum wages in states across this country. </blockquote><blockquote>Powerful interests did everything they could to block reform. But our agenda was America’s agenda, and we prevailed. </blockquote><blockquote>A generation later, when our country was mired in the Great Depression, when people were on bread lines and looking for work, we fought back.  We created jobs by investing in infrastructure and public works. We brought light and power to our poorest and most remote areas. We established federal laws on wages and hours. We enshrined into law the right to organize. We made banking boring and put real cops on the beat on Wall Street. And because we believed those in old age should not be mired in poverty, we created Social Security.  And all along that journey, labor was there, leading the way. </blockquote><blockquote>Once again, the powerful interests did everything they could to stop it. But our agenda was America’s agenda, and we prevailed. </blockquote><blockquote>When political injustice threatened to break our democracy, members of the labor movement were there, working for jobs and freedom, marching right alongside the Reverend Dr. King, fighting together for the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. </blockquote><blockquote>When hard working families were getting squeezed, labor was there, fighting alongside our beloved Ted Kennedy, and now we have the Family and Medical Leave Act, we have the Lilly Ledbetter Act, and we have continued to protect Medicare. </blockquote><blockquote>And in 2008, when the economy crashed and it was time to reign in financial predators and Wall Street banks, labor was there—you were there—standing shoulder to shoulder with me, standing with President Obama, and fighting for consumer protection. And thanks to those efforts, we now have a strong Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – with a confirmed Director to lead it. And just so everyone knows, that little agency has already returned half a billion dollars to families who were cheated by big financial institutions and helped tens of thousands of consumers solve their problems with big banks. </blockquote><blockquote>In every fight to build opportunity in this country, in every fight to level the playing field, in every fight for working families, we have been on the front lines because our agenda is America’s agenda.</blockquote>Read the whole thing <a href="http://www.alternet.org/economy/elizabeth-warren-slams-corporate-supreme-court" rel="nofollow">here</a>.

labor history Sen. Elizabeth Warren 'Labor was there, leading the way'

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren's speech to the AFL-CIO convention over the weekend was even better than we reported yesterday . She...

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