NYC Labor Battles Continue // LGBTQ+ Existence Under Siege
As the holiday season gets underway, workers at Amazon, Starbucks and beyond are still fighting to receive a fair share of the wealth they create. And they are inspiring others, like Seth Goldstein, a longtime labor attorney who became the Amazon Labor Union’s pro-bono lawyer soon after ALU was formed and has since organized the Amazon Labor Union Legal Support Group, a collective of 100 law school students across the country who are helping ALU go toe-to-toe with Amazon’s high paid legal mercenaries.
Amazon Labor Union’s Small Army of Law School Volunteers
By Katie Pruden & Amba Guerguerian
More Labor Coverage
More Than 100 Starbucks Shops Stage One-Day Strike As Company Refuses to Bargain
By Blake McMillan
Hundreds of Part-Time Faculty at The New School Strike After Months of Negotiation
By Safiyah Riddle
Yes, I want to give to The Indypendent today!
Trans Rights Are Human Rights
While we mourn for the five people killed and the dozens injured in the Colorado Springs nightclub shooting, local police say they are investigating whether the attack on Club Q, the popular queer nightclub, was a hate crime. Oh please, give us a break. Rightwing politicians, media and QAnon conspiracy theorists have been relentlessly smearing queer and trans people as “groomers” intent on defiling America’s children while reserving a special level of venom for trans youth and their families. And then they do everything they can to make it easy for unhinged haters to acquire high-powered weapons. The blood is on their hands.
Here in New York City, nine trans-rights protesters were recently violently arrested by the NYPD outside City Hall while protesting an anti-trans group that had brought their nationwide hate tour to NYC.
“This anti-trans movement is the spearhead of fascism,” said one protester. “They aren’t going to find a welcome audience in New York.”
NYPD Arrests 9 Trans-Rights Protesters Outside Anti-Trans Event
By Katie Pruden
From The Archive
“Violence. It hovers over queer life like a dark cloud,” The Indy’s Nicholas Powers wrote in 2016 after the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida that left 49 dead. “Freedom. LGBTQ+ people have more rights in the West than ever. These opposing poles are connected by a deep dynamic of counter-reaction. In order to hold power, corrupt elites and conservatives have channeled populist anxiety into sexual and gender fundamentalism. They have framed homosexuality as perversion or decadence and promoted tradition as a container for resentment. The result is the bloodbath of hetero-terrorism.”
Hetero-Terrorism: The Backlash Against Gay Liberation
By Nicholas Powers
It’s the support of our readers that makes our fiercely independent journalism possible. Our annual winter fund drive officially begins next week, but you can help us get off to a fast start today by becoming a monthly sustainer or making a generous one-time contribution.