Carol Berg
poses with a
display for
the event.
LABORPALOOZA! TO
HONOR WORKERS
Labor poets, labor musicians and labor
artists are joining political activists in cele-
brating America’s working families at a free
Labor Day weekend gathering Aug. 30 and
Sept. 1 in Pleasant Hill. The event will be
held at the corner of Highway 58 and
Parkway Road, about 12 miles southeast of
Eugene.
LABORpalooza! 2003 will feature arts,
crafts, children’s games and contests, live
music and poetry. St. Vincent de Paul has do-
nated more than 100 good used toys to be
given away as prizes. Other children’s activi-
ties include a poster contest where kids can
depict what their parents do for work, and
what kinds of work they want to do when
they grow up.
Organizer Carol Berg says, “All workers
will be honored at our event, but a special
focus on the achievement of organized labor
will be emphasized,” says organizer Carol
Berg. She notes that union struggles resulted
in 40-hour work weeks, safer working condi-
tions, overtime pay, retirement benefits,
health benefits, equal employment rights, and
more.
Haymarket Circle, an area of flea market
and yard sale items gathered by working fam-
ilies will be new this year. “This is an exam-
ple during the economically challenging
times of people empowering themselves and
their communities,” says Berg. “Dollars
made at this event will assist families and
those dollars will stay in our communities.”
For camping space reservations and ven-
dor spaces, call 746-0345.
BUSH’S OREGON TRIP
STIRS PROTEST PLANS
Eugene environmental and social activists
are traveling to Portland Thursday, Aug. 21,
to join demonstrations targeting President
Bush’s $2,000 a plate fund-raising dinner at
the Chiles Center at the University of
Portland (UP), a private Catholic college.
Portland Sierra Club conservation orga-
nizer Nat Parker says the environmental
community will be protesting “the Bush ad-
ministration’s systematic rollbacks of 30
years of environmental safeguards that pro-
tect Oregon’s air, water, and wilderness.”
The Sierra Club and other groups will be
gathering at 9:30 am Thursday at the corner
of North Stafford Street and North Woolsey
BY PAUL NEEVEL
Gloria Griffith and
Joann Olivas
For the past six years,
Springfield Schoool
District employees
Gloria Griffith and
Joann Olivas have
supplied free used
clothing to district
families through their
volunteer project, the
Clothing X-Change. “I
noticed a portable
classroom that wasn’t
being used,” says
Olivas, who was then
Family Center coordinator at Springfield Middle School. “I asked the principal
about it,” she says. Springfield/Marcola Family Resource Center Coordinator
Griffith brought the idea to the school board, “and that’s how it all got started.”
Two-thirds of the X-Change’s stock comes in by way of an arrangement with UO
housing. Donation barrels are placed in residence halls for the final 10 days of the
school year, when students are moving out. “We empty the barrels every day and
haul it away by truck,” says Olivas, who has spent a couple of hours daily this
summer sorting through a mountain of clothes. “We guessed it was five tons.”
During the school year, clothing is sorted and racked by students to earn commu-
nity-service credits. “They divert several tons of reusable goods from the landfill,”
say UO Housing Recycling Coordinator Robyn Hathcock. “It makes an impressive
— Paul Neevel
difference.”
8 AUGUST 21, 2003
Avenue near UP. Some groups are meeting
earlier at the Oregon Natural Resources
Council office at 5825 N. Greeley Ave.
The Cascadia Forest Alliance met this
week in Eugene with peace, human rights
and labor activists to organize their response
to the Bush visit.
Portland independent media (www.port-
land.indymedia.org) is urging Oregonians to
“take the day off and take on Bush” in a
widely distributed e-mail: “Bring friends,
music, art, performance, dialogue, questions,
solutions, food to share, and your voice ... His
reign has been a nightmare: unprovoked in-
vasion and illegal occupation of Iraq, lies
about weapons of mass destruction, massive
budget deficits, stolen election, tax cuts for
the rich, growing unemployment, cronyism
and corporate crime and corruption at all-
time highs.”
“Yelling at or making fun of the appointed
stooge is a waste of time,” says Eugene pun-
dit George Beres, commenting on the
Portland events. “He understands little of
what he does. He is a puppet who succeeds at
one thing — keeping his jaw jutting out for
all photo ops — content to implement disas-
trous policies chosen by those who pull his
strings.” — Ted Taylor
BARNHART: TIE A KNOT
IN TAX LOOPHOLES
How do we solve our state’s economic
woes? Tax breaks for corporations and
wealthy individuals should be cut substan-
tially and the money shifted to education,
says state Rep. Phil Barnhart.
“Tax breaks yield very questionable re-
turns for their cost,” says the Democrat who
represents central Lane and Linn counties..
“Lane County, for example, gave substantial
tax breaks to large corporations that have
since abandoned the area. Companies that
have stayed around and continue to provide
jobs are small, locally owned firms that bene-
fit far less from loopholes and tax
breaks.”
Barnhart says businesses will choose lo-
cations based on other factors ranking far
above tax breaks, such as good schools to
supply a quality workforce, and good roads
to deliver goods. “Tax breaks are ‘icing on
the cake’ but hardly ever serve as the prime
motivator,” he says.
“Do good schools attract business? Yes! ”
says Barnhart, noting that business owners
and managers locate where their children can
go to good schools. “But the bottom line is
that passing an adequate school budget by
closing the loopholes would kill not two, but
three birds with one stone,” says Barnhart. “It
would fix our schools, attract business, and
solve the budget problem. It’s time to tie a
knot in the tax loopholes.”
SALEM FAST ENDS
A contingency of Eugene women have
ended their three-and-a-half week fast and
vigil on the steps of the Capitol building in
Salem. The demonstration was in support of
increased funding for social services in the
state budget process. The vigil ended Aug.
14.
Peg Morton began the vigil in July with a
seven-day fast. Morton inspired Kathleen
Piper who fasted for seven days, and the third
Eugenean was Carol Seaton, who fasted for
nine days.
Morton says hundreds of people stopped
by the vigil to tell their stories and lend their
support, including a surprise visit by a
Republican lawmaker, Rep. Pat Farr of
Eugene.
“There really needs to be a restoring of the
cuts that have affected thousands of people,”
says Morton. She says many people don’t re-
alize that cutting social services “is just a
transfer.” If Oregonians don’t pay now for
basic maintenance social services, they will
pay even more later for higher health care
costs and incarceration.
Eugene folk were also involved in a
“cyber rally” at the Atrium Building down-
town Aug. 13. Kitty Piercy, Sandra Morgan
and others addressed the staggering cutbacks
in social services at both the state and federal
level and urged people to send e-mail mes-
sages to lawmakers. Sip N-Surf Cyber-Cafe
offered free computer access for the event,
which was sponsored by SOSA (Support Our
Services Alliance), LILA (Lane Independent
Living Alliance), JNW (Justice Not War
Coalition) and WAND (Women’s Action for
New Directions). — TJT