AUSTIN AREA EVENTS (facebook link)

The Workers Defense Project is holding a rally to support the proposed city ordinance mandating rest breaks for construction workers.

This vigil, on the date that Arizona's SB 1070 is set to go into effect, will express solidarity with the people of Arizona who are resisting the legislation and also call attention to increased collaboration between Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and local police nationwide.

Join Third Coast Workers for Cooperation on Saturday, July 31, at 5604 Manor to congratulate the first Cooperative Business Institute graduating class! Over the course of 16 weeks, we worked with a dedicated group of women from Mamas of Color Rising who will now move on to form “Yo Mamas Catering Cooperative,” Austin’s first worker-owned catering business.

During the CBI, participants covered a lot of ground -- from the history, values and principles of cooperatives, to the organizational and financial essentials needed to start and expand a worker-owned business. Now that the class is over, it’s time to celebrate! Enjoy music by DJ Mahealani, sample Yo Mamas Catering cuisine, and take home something special from our silent auction, featuring a variety of goodies from around Austin.

The doors open at 7 pm, with the graduation ceremony at 7:30 pm, and the reception at 8 pm. The dance party with DJ Mahealani will begin at 9 pm. Proceeds from the silent auction and donations made at the event will help members of Yo Mamas attend the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives conference in San Francisco this August. Help us meet our $2,000 goal to bring the entire group to this important event, and celebrate a milestone in worker cooperative development in Austin.

The event, which is open to the public, will take place at 5604 Manor, the new progressive community center launched by the Third Coast Activist Resource Center and Workers Defense Project.

5604 Manor is a new space on Manor Road dedicated to making a better community and a better world. Austin Voices and the Third Coast Activist Resource Center are combining this summer to offer free Saturday night screenings of great films that show what is possible when people use their creative talents to achieve a goal. The film screenings are open to the public with free snacks and beverages.

The final film of the summer is “Walkout,” the true story of a little-known but profoundly significant moment in the history of the Latino community in East Los Angeles. In 1968, Lincoln High School honor student Paula Crisostomo (Alexa Vega) was outraged at the shabby treatment afforded Chicano students in the L.A. school system -- including lowered expectations, poor facilities, an absence of bilingual courses or textbooks, unfairly administered penalties, demeaning corporal punishment, and refusal to write letters of recommendation to choice colleges -- and organizes a mass student walkout at five barrio high schools. Mentored by dedicated young teacher Sal Castro (Michael Pena), Paula and her fellow student activists intend to make their protest a peaceful one, but the L.A. cops use force to quell the "radicals." Even when it seems that the school board will capitulate to the Chicano students' demands, the kids are betrayed and the leaders of the walkout are threatened with lengthy prison sentences on trumped-up "conspiracy" charges. The students are ultimately successful, and the events have a lasting effect on its participants. The film is directed by Edward James Olmos, who also plays one of the school board members.

In June we kicked off a new series of gatherings to explore the question, "What does it mean to be human?" One of the topics that emerged in that discussion was our struggles to confront the ecological crisis, honestly but without going crazy, which we discussed in July. Another theme has been the injustice and unsustainability of our economic system, the predatory corporate capitalism that dominates the global economy.

In this session, Jim Rigby will connect the best of our spiritual traditions to a critique of our economic system. Pastor of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, Rigby has become a national voice on progressive Christianity and is working on a book that will explore the radical potential of the faith.

Also speaking will be Carlos Perez de Alejo of Third Coast Workers for Cooperation, an Austin-based organization committed to the development of ecologically sustainable worker cooperatives. The group’s mission is to empower low-income communities to create a thriving network of eco-friendly, worker-owned businesses throughout the greater Austin area -- combating the growing crisis in our economy and the environment at the local level.

The event, which is free and open to the public, will take place at 5604 Manor, the new progressive community center launched by the Third Coast Activist Resource Center and Workers Defense Project.

This 1996 film starring Moira Kelly and Martin Sheen tells the story of Dorothy Day, a New York journalist who along with Peter Maurin established the Catholic Worker Movement and the activist newspaper “The Catholic Worker.” Controversial for her support of the economic system called “distributism,” she was often called an anarchist and did not hesitate to use that word to describe herself. Day sought to apply Catholic social teachings to make a difference in the lives of those who were suffering from homelessness and hunger during the Great Depression. A convert to Catholicism, Day has been an inspiration to both advocates for social justice in the religious and secular arenas.