Sunday, August 23, 2009
Good luck!
On Thursday, August 27th, workers at the Westland Public Library will vote on whether or not to affiliate with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). What better way to celebrate Labor Day than with newly won union representation. In Sweden almost nine in ten workers have a union. Unions represent professors, engineers, nurses, doctors, librarians, pilots. It works really well. If you want a voice in your work life - if you want dignity and respect on the job - if you want to be treated fairly, and you want the same for your colleagues - then you want a union. Good luck!
SEPTEMBER 2009 - Anne Feeney's Fellow Travelers' Advisory - VOLUME 5, #6
SEPTEMBER 2009 - Anne Feeney's Fellow Travelers' Advisory - VOLUME 5, #6
IN THIS ISSUE:
IMMEDIATE DESTINATIONS
LABOR DAY & AFL-CIO COMES TO PITTSBURGH!
COME TO PITTSBURGH FOR THE G-20!
SING OUT FOR SINGLE PAYER FINANCIAL REPORT
FAMILY NEWS/BIRTHDAYS
THE TOUR
§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§
IMMEDIATE DESTINATIONS:
PEORIA, IL
PITTSBURGH
CHICAGO
MIDWEST TOUR IN OCTOBER WITH DAVID ROVICS!
David Rovics http://davidrovics.com is a great friend and a wonderful writer... Amy Goodman calls him "the musical version of Democracy Now!" I'm thrilled to be touring the midwest with him in October. Be sure to tell your friends to come and see us. The schedule is below.
Details for my upcoming shows appear below and continuously update at http://annefeeney.com/calendar.html
Kopparberg, Sweden
August 23rd
Hi All
If you've been to any of my shows you've probably heard me quip that I have no corporate sponsorship. It's more than a joke, though... It's absolutely and permanently true. My work is labor of love spread by word-of-mouth ... so PLEASE spread the word. If you don't tell your friends and relations that I'm headed to their town, they probably won't find out any other way.
This is also my monthly invitation to you to stay in touch with me. Let me know what you're up to. If you've got something going on that would interest my readers, let me know about that, too. If you'd like to see me perform in your hometown, or at your next event, get in touch. We'll figure out how to make it happen.
You can get my cds (and I hope that you will!) at http://cdbaby.com/all/unionmaid - you can also download single songs or whole albums there!
I'm leaving for Ireland tomorrow afternoon, so if I don't get back to you right away, be patient.
In solidarity
Anne
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
LABOR DAY
Monday September 7th is Labor Day in the United States. The rest of the world honors labor on May 1st. But we do things differently from the rest of the world. Like our corporate-controlled health care system, we observe a corporate-controlled Labor Day weekend filled with shopportunities and blowout back-to-school sales. And both our health and the health of the labor movement suffer as a result. Very little goes on in the way of remembering the sacrifices and victories of the labor movement in the United States. Unfortunately, many of the Labor Day Parades held around the country are little more than excuses to have a picnic & get loaded.
I'm so excited to be welcoming the AFL-CIO to Pittsburgh for its national convention. My friend Rich Trumka will assume the responsibility of leading labor through the difficult times ahead. In a movement that celebrates great oratory - with fantastically inspiring speakers like Cecil Roberts, RoseAnn DeMoro and Leo Gerard - Rich Trumka stands alone. Millions of workers across the country have been encouraged, inspired and ennobled by his words. He will be a great spokesperson for labor. And God knows we need one. But we need a lot more than talk. We need bold leadership. This Labor Day I want to talk about the workers at Vincent Bach in Elkhart, Indiana.
Elkhart, Indiana is the brass instrument capital of North America. If you or anyone you know ever played a tuba, trumpet, trombone or horn it was almost certainly made at Vincent Bach in Elkhart. Generations of students and professionals alike have played these quality instruments. Big band leaders regularly stopped by to visit (and jam with) their colleagues at Vincent Bach. Eventually the predominantly musician board of directors was replaced by profiteers and bean counters and the company sold several times. In 2006 the company posted a $63 million profit.
So it was quite a shock to the workers when the company came to the table demanding dramatic pay cuts, concessions, and the end of many work rules that made working at Vincent Bach a career instead of a job. Many of these workers are second and third generation employees. Many had decades of service to the company when the ultimatum was presented. The 230 member of UAW 394 voted to strike on April 1, 2006.
photo (c) wsbt-tv
The company outsourced much of its production to China. They brought scabs into the plant. The strikers couldn't imagine how the company could afford to train scabs to make these instruments... but the Republican governor of Indiana appropriated almost $50,000 of tax dollars from the so-called "Skills Enhancement Fund" specifically to subsidize the training of the scabs, as part of a $1.1 million dollar package of taxpayer subsidies to this profitable union-busting corporate bad neighbor. The company engaged in multiple unfair labor practices, which the union filed charges on, but these take years to be adjudicated by the understaffed National Labor Relations Board.
In the meantime, the workers walked the picket line, and took their story to the community and to other unions. As the strike dragged on, those who could find other jobs and/or relocate did so. The remaining 130 workers were consigned to subsisting on $200 a week strike benefits. They were mostly folks with 20 or more years of service at Vincent Bach. Employment prospects at their age were slim to none. They hung tough, confident that the Labor Board would side with them and they would get their jobs back. Their options were limited by a number of factors. Unemployment in Elkhart is among the highest in the nation. There were no other jobs, and with real estate values tanking, moving wasn't a good option either.
On November 7, 2007 the scabs (no doubt at the company's behest) called for an election to decertify the United Auto Workers union. On Thursday, July 30th, 2009 an understaffed NLRB panel decertified the union, ending the strike. Part of the reason the union lost the election is because desperate strikers who liquidated their 401 (k) plans to survive during the strike were ruled inelegible to vote in the election! After 40 months of faithfully staffing the picket line, the loyal 130 workers of Vincent Bach/Conn Selmer have no union, no jobs, no benefits, and no recourse. That is just wrong.
$63 million dollars should have been enough profit for Vincent Bach. I believe that if Vincent Bach were locally owned, it undoubtedly would have been enough profit. Vincent Bach's profits didn't stay in Elkhart, or Indiana, and probably not even in the United States. The people making money from the work done in Elkhart don't give a rat's ass about Elkhart, Indiana - they don't give a rat's ass about anyone but themselves. We need to regulate corporate acqusitions more closely to stop this "race to the bottom."
The Vincent Bach plant is still operating, but the jobs there are no longer living wage jobs. Over 100 good workers left Elkhart during the strike... stranding elders, depleting the tax base, driving down property values as they sold quickly to relocate. The overburdened taxpayers of Elkhart will face more cuts to social services, more deterioration of the infrastructure, increased demand for social services. And Vincent Bach pays absolutely nothing in reparations for the damage they have done to this community. This kind of tragedy has been played out countless thousands of times in the United States. I've been an eyewitness to a lot of it. It's got to stop.
This Labor Day, we must commit ourselves to standing up for good, living wage jobs in this country, and around the world. We must rein in these greedy multinational corporations that ruthlessly shift capital around the globe (often with taxpayer subsidies), pillaging the planet and exploiting the poorest, weakest and most desperate among us. We can, and must, do better. Our parents and grandparents missed meals, risked (and sometimes sacrificed) their lives to bring us an 8 hour day, vacations, paid sick days, pensions, seniority, safety regulations, grievance procedures and the right to organize. These past few decades we have been spendthrift children - squandering this sacred inheritance in the name of "cooperation," "flexibility" and "teamwork." We must do better. This legacy, and what we can add to it, belongs to future generations.
(This Labor Day message is gratefully offered in tribute to the sacrifices and devotion of the members of UAW 394 - especially Don Wagner, Deneen Siegler, Ron Czarnecki... and the workers of Boilermakers 484, AFSCME 3494, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, United American Nurses, the Charleston Five, UE Republic Workers, UAW 174 at Hercules Drawn Steel, Local 459 OPEIU Nurses, AK Strikers, Delphi workers, Staley workers, Frontier Casino Strikers, and millions more who have struggled against this monstrous corporate greed.)
And a Labor Day salute to Kay Tillow, Jerry Tucker, David Newby, Shelley Kessler, Paul Bigman, Jeff Crosby, Turner Wright, Dave Johnson, John David, Rosemary Trump, Amy Newell, Ron Kaminkow, Barb Ingalls, Brian McWilliams, Angaza Laughinghouse, Karen Newman, Barbara Byrd, Dexter Arnold, Laura Griffin, Stan Swart, Mike Matejka, Amy Niehouse, David Elsila, Charlie McCollester, Rose Feurer, Nathanette Mayo, Judy Ancel, Robin Alexander, Henry Nicholas, Nick Molnar, Betsy Pernotto, Larry Daves, Ed Sadlowski (the elder and the younger!) and Julius Margolin (safe journey, dear comrade) for your tireless work for working people.
¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
COME TO PITTSBURGH FOR THE G-20!!
Looks like the first amendment isn't repealed in Pittsburgh after all!
Pittsburgh will be a very happening place in the month of September. Beginning with the pre-AFL-CIO conferences on the 10th and running through the G-20 (September 24th & 25th) there will be lots of action - teach-ins, demonstrations, marches, concerts, direct action and more.
Thanks to a grant from the Hen Foundation, I'll be presenting some cultural activities ... Look for the Coop D'Etat logo that Julie just made for me.
http://www.g20media.org/sectors is a great list of the activities planned in my hometown. Come join us!
I was disgusted to see that Channel 11 has a "What is the G20?" story on their website and I'd bet my bottom dollar they just printed up a G20 press release and ran it as "news." What crap. Leave them a comment at:
http://www.wpxi.com/politics/20429438/detail.html
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
SING OUT FOR SINGLE PAYER FINANCIAL REPORT
Citizens Band with Jason Luckett in Bellingham - July 27th
Expenses
Payroll: $17,000 (197 performances)
Rental Car: 2,825
Travel: 835
Hotels: 191
Meals: 984
Supplies:
Tee Shirts 1,690
Car Signs
+ shipping 284
Office 120
Sound Syst 800
Banner Frame 42
Buttons 200
Shipping 58
Fuel 522
Total $25,551
INCOME:
Donations & Grants:
prior to 7/1 $15,818
Los Angeles -
LaJolla 600
Santa Cruz 500
El Cerrito 100
Ashland 1,000
Bend -
Florence 300
OCF -
Corvallis -
Coos Bay -
Newport 150
Yachats 200
Eugene 300
Portland 300
McMinnville 200
Astoria 300
Vancouver 125
Olympia -125
Port Angeles -
Seattle 2,145
Tacoma -
Bellingham 200
Income Subtotal $22,133
post 7/1 2,253
Total Income $24,386
Shortfall 1,165
By folk musicians' standards, this was a howling success! To have this much fun and do this much great work and only have it cost me $1165 ... pretty fantastic. I know that I haven't written to the folks who mailed checks to me. I just had no time at all before I left for the tour, and I came straight to Sweden afterward. I hope I have time to write to each of you and thank you for your generous support of this amazing Road Show.
I hear that we were instrumental in inspiring the Mad As Hell Doctors' Road Show http://www.madashelldoctors.com/, leaving from Oregon for Washington, DC on September 8th
I hear we may have inspired a Senate campaign.
I hear we raised enough money in Portland to finance a radio advertising campaign for single payer.
I know we have more than 60 musicians traveling the country now who know how vital this issue as and they're talking about it at their shows.
I know that thousands of people took literature to educate themselves and their neighbors.
I know we raised thousands of dollars for our host communities.
It couldn't have happened without your help. You're fantastic!
I extend my profound gratitude to all of you who made this happen...
ååååååååååååååååååååååååååååååååååååååååååååååååååååååååååå
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
FAMILY NEWS/BIRTHDAYS
My wonderful friend Faith Petric will be 94 on September 13th. Many of you already know this indefatigable "Fort Knox of Folk Music." You can watch her sing "I Wanna Be a Dog" at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12pW6LfQJEo You can send her a birthday card at:
Faith Petric
885 Clayton Stret
San Francisco, CA 94117
My son Dan got a nice break after studying for and taking the DC Bar Exam. He and Monique got to go to the Greek Islands for her brother's romantic 'destination' wedding. He keeps a terrific blog at http://balancingtheegg.blogspot.com/
My long-lost cousin Debbie Metcalfe Humphrey had a great visit with my sister Kathleen in New Jersey. It's great to be back in touch with her.
My sister and her daughter Kimberly, and Kim's son Casey have decided to come spend Christmas in Sweden with me and Julie! I'm so excited.
And in January, Julie and I will visit Dan and Monique in Ecuador! Cool beans.
My dear friend Julius Margolin celebrated his 93rd birthday in hospice care. Julius was stealing every heart at the nursing home, but he wanted to go home from the nursing home. Now he's back in his apartment in Manhattan, surrounded by friends. He sent our pal George Mann out to buy him a sixpack the night before last. I hope you'll make time to send him a card at:
Julius Margolin
PO BOX 697
New York, NY 10033
Birthdays - Friends
Windy Cooler-Stith, Aug 28th - Kris Deelane, Sep 12th, Faith Petric, Sep 13, 1915 - Danny Donnelly also Sep 13th - Tod Faller, Sep 14th -
Birthdays - Family
Jonas Engström, Aug 31 - Amy Sue Berlin, Sep 1st - Christina Mumphrey, Sep 3rd - Mary Grefenstette, Sep 11th - Mardy Weber McCahill, Sep 21st (60!) - Kay McCahill Mumphrey, Sep 25th, Charlie Warren, Sep 27 (3!)
££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££
THE TOUR
(always check with the contact people or call me at 412-877-6480 before heading off to the gig... I do my best to keep my schedule current at http://annefeeney.com/calendar.html ... but things change...)
Monday, September 7th, 2009 2:00 PM
Labor Day in Peoria!!
Riverfront Festival Park
Peoria, IL
n.paul9154(@)sbcglobal.net is the contact
Labor Day Picnic and Parade begins in front of the Fire Station on Monroe Street, and it ends at the Riverfront Festival Park. In 2008, the parade consisted of over 100 entries of various trade unions, etc. The picnic festivities run from 2 p.m. until 8 p.m. at Festival Park, and feature live music, beer garden and food vendors
Tuesday, September 15th, 2009 7:30 PM
Sing Out for Single Payer Road Show!
Allegheny Unitarian Universalist Church
416 W North Ave
Pittsburgh, PA 15212
412.877-6480
http://www.unitedforsinglepayer.org/multimedia/Anne%20Feeney%20Concert%207-25-09-H.264%20300Kbps%20Streaming.mov
Price: $10-20 suggested
I'm rounding up as many members of the tour as I can to give you a sample of the fabulous show that we took from San Diego to Bellingham over 26 days in July!
Sunday, September 20th, 2009 8:00 PM
Roy Zimmerman and Anne Feeney in Concert!
Allegheny Unitarian Universalist Church
416 W North Ave
Pittsburgh, PA 15212
412.877-6480
http://royzimmerman.com
Price: $10-20 suggested
Join me as I welcome the pre-eminent political satirist of our time to Pittsburgh. Roy is the author of "Defenders of Marriage," "Creation Science 101," and dozens of other hard-hitting and hilarious songs. Don't miss this show! Come after the huge march for jobs!
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 8:00 PM
IBEW conference
Adams Mark Holiday Inn
Chicago, IL
Price: members only
darlene johnson is the contact... 630-434-1683
Friday, October 2nd, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
details tba
Chicago, IL
Saturday, October 3rd, 2009 6:00 PM
Eugene Debs Annual Award Dinner
Indiana State University
Terre Haute, IN
http://eugenevdebs.com/pages/announ.htm
Sunday, October 4th, 2009 10:30 AM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics at UU Service
Tentative - All Souls
Indianapolis, IN
Sunday, October 4th, 2009 7:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
probably at the IMC
Champaign, IL
jrbarret@uiuc.edu is the contact
Monday, October 5th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
tentative
Bloomington/Normal, IL
mike matejka is the contact
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics on Campus and in Concert
Western Illinois University (tentative)
Macomb, IL
lj-barr(@)wiu.edu Lisa Barr is the contact
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
tba
Quad Cities area
Chris Dunn is the contact crisplydone(@)hotmail.com
Thursday, October 8th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
tba
Dubuque, IA
(563) 584-9300
for more information contact Art Roche rocheart3@msn.com or phone Mary Moody at the number above.
Friday, October 9th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
tentative
Des Moines, IA
Saturday, October 10th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics
The Art Center
228 East Fifth Street
Winona, MN 55987
507-453-9959
Price: $15 suggested
Polly Gower is the contact pollygower(@)hotmail.com
Sunday, October 11th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
tba
Minneapolis, MN
Colleen Rowley
rowleyclan(@)earthlink.net and Larry
Olds 612-722-3442, lolds(@)popednews.org are the contacts...
Monday, October 12th, 2009 8:00 AM
Anne Feeney
Women's Breakfast or Lunch (tentative)
Minneapolis, MN
Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 7:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
Goodman Center
Madison , WI
matt and john peck are working on this show
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
tba
Rockford, IL
David Stocker is the contact
Thursday, October 15th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
tba
DeKalb , IL
td0raf1(@)wpo.cso.niu.edu Rose Feurer is the contact
Friday, October 16th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
tba - University of Indiana
Indianapolis, IN
Greta Pennell gpennell@uindy.edu is the contact
Saturday, October 17th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics on Tour in the Midwest
AVAILABLE
call me at 412-877-6480 or email me at anne@annefeeney.com if you have any ideas for this lovely Saturday night!
Sunday, October 18th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
tba
Lafayette, IN
Harry Targ targ@purdue.edu is the contact
Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 7:00 PM
David Rovics and Anne Feeney in Concert
tba
Columbus, OH
bruce bostick and victoria parks are looking into this date for us!
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
tba
Cincinnati, OH
mfwood(@)fuse.net Maureen Wood is the contact
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
tba
Lexington, KY
Janet Tucker is the contact...
Friday, October 23rd, 2009 7:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
St John's Day Center
700 E Muhammad Ali Blvd
Louisville, KY 40202
dos4@insightbb.com - for more information
Saturday, October 24th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics
Charleston, WV
plantandgnome(@)verizon.net - Chris Higgins is the contact
Sunday, October 25th, 2009 10:00 AM
Unitarian Universalist Congregation
520 Kanawha Blvd W
Charleston, WV
304-345-5042
Price: all welcome
chris@plantandgnome is the host
Sunday, October 25th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
tba
Pittsburgh, PA
any ideas, folks?
Anne Feeney
http://annefeeney.com
http://cdbaby.com/all/unionmaid - Buy CDs!
412-877-6480 (cell)
"Anne Feeney is the greatest labor singer in North America." -- Utah Phillips
IN THIS ISSUE:
IMMEDIATE DESTINATIONS
LABOR DAY & AFL-CIO COMES TO PITTSBURGH!
COME TO PITTSBURGH FOR THE G-20!
SING OUT FOR SINGLE PAYER FINANCIAL REPORT
FAMILY NEWS/BIRTHDAYS
THE TOUR
§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§
IMMEDIATE DESTINATIONS:
PEORIA, IL
PITTSBURGH
CHICAGO
MIDWEST TOUR IN OCTOBER WITH DAVID ROVICS!
David Rovics http://davidrovics.com is a great friend and a wonderful writer... Amy Goodman calls him "the musical version of Democracy Now!" I'm thrilled to be touring the midwest with him in October. Be sure to tell your friends to come and see us. The schedule is below.
Details for my upcoming shows appear below and continuously update at http://annefeeney.com/calendar.html
Kopparberg, Sweden
August 23rd
Hi All
If you've been to any of my shows you've probably heard me quip that I have no corporate sponsorship. It's more than a joke, though... It's absolutely and permanently true. My work is labor of love spread by word-of-mouth ... so PLEASE spread the word. If you don't tell your friends and relations that I'm headed to their town, they probably won't find out any other way.
This is also my monthly invitation to you to stay in touch with me. Let me know what you're up to. If you've got something going on that would interest my readers, let me know about that, too. If you'd like to see me perform in your hometown, or at your next event, get in touch. We'll figure out how to make it happen.
You can get my cds (and I hope that you will!) at http://cdbaby.com/all/unionmaid - you can also download single songs or whole albums there!
I'm leaving for Ireland tomorrow afternoon, so if I don't get back to you right away, be patient.
In solidarity
Anne
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
LABOR DAY
Monday September 7th is Labor Day in the United States. The rest of the world honors labor on May 1st. But we do things differently from the rest of the world. Like our corporate-controlled health care system, we observe a corporate-controlled Labor Day weekend filled with shopportunities and blowout back-to-school sales. And both our health and the health of the labor movement suffer as a result. Very little goes on in the way of remembering the sacrifices and victories of the labor movement in the United States. Unfortunately, many of the Labor Day Parades held around the country are little more than excuses to have a picnic & get loaded.
I'm so excited to be welcoming the AFL-CIO to Pittsburgh for its national convention. My friend Rich Trumka will assume the responsibility of leading labor through the difficult times ahead. In a movement that celebrates great oratory - with fantastically inspiring speakers like Cecil Roberts, RoseAnn DeMoro and Leo Gerard - Rich Trumka stands alone. Millions of workers across the country have been encouraged, inspired and ennobled by his words. He will be a great spokesperson for labor. And God knows we need one. But we need a lot more than talk. We need bold leadership. This Labor Day I want to talk about the workers at Vincent Bach in Elkhart, Indiana.
Elkhart, Indiana is the brass instrument capital of North America. If you or anyone you know ever played a tuba, trumpet, trombone or horn it was almost certainly made at Vincent Bach in Elkhart. Generations of students and professionals alike have played these quality instruments. Big band leaders regularly stopped by to visit (and jam with) their colleagues at Vincent Bach. Eventually the predominantly musician board of directors was replaced by profiteers and bean counters and the company sold several times. In 2006 the company posted a $63 million profit.
So it was quite a shock to the workers when the company came to the table demanding dramatic pay cuts, concessions, and the end of many work rules that made working at Vincent Bach a career instead of a job. Many of these workers are second and third generation employees. Many had decades of service to the company when the ultimatum was presented. The 230 member of UAW 394 voted to strike on April 1, 2006.
photo (c) wsbt-tv
The company outsourced much of its production to China. They brought scabs into the plant. The strikers couldn't imagine how the company could afford to train scabs to make these instruments... but the Republican governor of Indiana appropriated almost $50,000 of tax dollars from the so-called "Skills Enhancement Fund" specifically to subsidize the training of the scabs, as part of a $1.1 million dollar package of taxpayer subsidies to this profitable union-busting corporate bad neighbor. The company engaged in multiple unfair labor practices, which the union filed charges on, but these take years to be adjudicated by the understaffed National Labor Relations Board.
In the meantime, the workers walked the picket line, and took their story to the community and to other unions. As the strike dragged on, those who could find other jobs and/or relocate did so. The remaining 130 workers were consigned to subsisting on $200 a week strike benefits. They were mostly folks with 20 or more years of service at Vincent Bach. Employment prospects at their age were slim to none. They hung tough, confident that the Labor Board would side with them and they would get their jobs back. Their options were limited by a number of factors. Unemployment in Elkhart is among the highest in the nation. There were no other jobs, and with real estate values tanking, moving wasn't a good option either.
On November 7, 2007 the scabs (no doubt at the company's behest) called for an election to decertify the United Auto Workers union. On Thursday, July 30th, 2009 an understaffed NLRB panel decertified the union, ending the strike. Part of the reason the union lost the election is because desperate strikers who liquidated their 401 (k) plans to survive during the strike were ruled inelegible to vote in the election! After 40 months of faithfully staffing the picket line, the loyal 130 workers of Vincent Bach/Conn Selmer have no union, no jobs, no benefits, and no recourse. That is just wrong.
$63 million dollars should have been enough profit for Vincent Bach. I believe that if Vincent Bach were locally owned, it undoubtedly would have been enough profit. Vincent Bach's profits didn't stay in Elkhart, or Indiana, and probably not even in the United States. The people making money from the work done in Elkhart don't give a rat's ass about Elkhart, Indiana - they don't give a rat's ass about anyone but themselves. We need to regulate corporate acqusitions more closely to stop this "race to the bottom."
The Vincent Bach plant is still operating, but the jobs there are no longer living wage jobs. Over 100 good workers left Elkhart during the strike... stranding elders, depleting the tax base, driving down property values as they sold quickly to relocate. The overburdened taxpayers of Elkhart will face more cuts to social services, more deterioration of the infrastructure, increased demand for social services. And Vincent Bach pays absolutely nothing in reparations for the damage they have done to this community. This kind of tragedy has been played out countless thousands of times in the United States. I've been an eyewitness to a lot of it. It's got to stop.
This Labor Day, we must commit ourselves to standing up for good, living wage jobs in this country, and around the world. We must rein in these greedy multinational corporations that ruthlessly shift capital around the globe (often with taxpayer subsidies), pillaging the planet and exploiting the poorest, weakest and most desperate among us. We can, and must, do better. Our parents and grandparents missed meals, risked (and sometimes sacrificed) their lives to bring us an 8 hour day, vacations, paid sick days, pensions, seniority, safety regulations, grievance procedures and the right to organize. These past few decades we have been spendthrift children - squandering this sacred inheritance in the name of "cooperation," "flexibility" and "teamwork." We must do better. This legacy, and what we can add to it, belongs to future generations.
(This Labor Day message is gratefully offered in tribute to the sacrifices and devotion of the members of UAW 394 - especially Don Wagner, Deneen Siegler, Ron Czarnecki... and the workers of Boilermakers 484, AFSCME 3494, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, United American Nurses, the Charleston Five, UE Republic Workers, UAW 174 at Hercules Drawn Steel, Local 459 OPEIU Nurses, AK Strikers, Delphi workers, Staley workers, Frontier Casino Strikers, and millions more who have struggled against this monstrous corporate greed.)
And a Labor Day salute to Kay Tillow, Jerry Tucker, David Newby, Shelley Kessler, Paul Bigman, Jeff Crosby, Turner Wright, Dave Johnson, John David, Rosemary Trump, Amy Newell, Ron Kaminkow, Barb Ingalls, Brian McWilliams, Angaza Laughinghouse, Karen Newman, Barbara Byrd, Dexter Arnold, Laura Griffin, Stan Swart, Mike Matejka, Amy Niehouse, David Elsila, Charlie McCollester, Rose Feurer, Nathanette Mayo, Judy Ancel, Robin Alexander, Henry Nicholas, Nick Molnar, Betsy Pernotto, Larry Daves, Ed Sadlowski (the elder and the younger!) and Julius Margolin (safe journey, dear comrade) for your tireless work for working people.
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COME TO PITTSBURGH FOR THE G-20!!
Looks like the first amendment isn't repealed in Pittsburgh after all!
Pittsburgh will be a very happening place in the month of September. Beginning with the pre-AFL-CIO conferences on the 10th and running through the G-20 (September 24th & 25th) there will be lots of action - teach-ins, demonstrations, marches, concerts, direct action and more.
Thanks to a grant from the Hen Foundation, I'll be presenting some cultural activities ... Look for the Coop D'Etat logo that Julie just made for me.
http://www.g20media.org/sectors is a great list of the activities planned in my hometown. Come join us!
I was disgusted to see that Channel 11 has a "What is the G20?" story on their website and I'd bet my bottom dollar they just printed up a G20 press release and ran it as "news." What crap. Leave them a comment at:
http://www.wpxi.com/politics/20429438/detail.html
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SING OUT FOR SINGLE PAYER FINANCIAL REPORT
Citizens Band with Jason Luckett in Bellingham - July 27th
Expenses
Payroll: $17,000 (197 performances)
Rental Car: 2,825
Travel: 835
Hotels: 191
Meals: 984
Supplies:
Tee Shirts 1,690
Car Signs
+ shipping 284
Office 120
Sound Syst 800
Banner Frame 42
Buttons 200
Shipping 58
Fuel 522
Total $25,551
INCOME:
Donations & Grants:
prior to 7/1 $15,818
Los Angeles -
LaJolla 600
Santa Cruz 500
El Cerrito 100
Ashland 1,000
Bend -
Florence 300
OCF -
Corvallis -
Coos Bay -
Newport 150
Yachats 200
Eugene 300
Portland 300
McMinnville 200
Astoria 300
Vancouver 125
Olympia -125
Port Angeles -
Seattle 2,145
Tacoma -
Bellingham 200
Income Subtotal $22,133
post 7/1 2,253
Total Income $24,386
Shortfall 1,165
By folk musicians' standards, this was a howling success! To have this much fun and do this much great work and only have it cost me $1165 ... pretty fantastic. I know that I haven't written to the folks who mailed checks to me. I just had no time at all before I left for the tour, and I came straight to Sweden afterward. I hope I have time to write to each of you and thank you for your generous support of this amazing Road Show.
I hear that we were instrumental in inspiring the Mad As Hell Doctors' Road Show http://www.madashelldoctors.com/, leaving from Oregon for Washington, DC on September 8th
I hear we may have inspired a Senate campaign.
I hear we raised enough money in Portland to finance a radio advertising campaign for single payer.
I know we have more than 60 musicians traveling the country now who know how vital this issue as and they're talking about it at their shows.
I know that thousands of people took literature to educate themselves and their neighbors.
I know we raised thousands of dollars for our host communities.
It couldn't have happened without your help. You're fantastic!
I extend my profound gratitude to all of you who made this happen...
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FAMILY NEWS/BIRTHDAYS
My wonderful friend Faith Petric will be 94 on September 13th. Many of you already know this indefatigable "Fort Knox of Folk Music." You can watch her sing "I Wanna Be a Dog" at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12pW6LfQJEo You can send her a birthday card at:
Faith Petric
885 Clayton Stret
San Francisco, CA 94117
My son Dan got a nice break after studying for and taking the DC Bar Exam. He and Monique got to go to the Greek Islands for her brother's romantic 'destination' wedding. He keeps a terrific blog at http://balancingtheegg.blogspot.com/
My long-lost cousin Debbie Metcalfe Humphrey had a great visit with my sister Kathleen in New Jersey. It's great to be back in touch with her.
My sister and her daughter Kimberly, and Kim's son Casey have decided to come spend Christmas in Sweden with me and Julie! I'm so excited.
And in January, Julie and I will visit Dan and Monique in Ecuador! Cool beans.
My dear friend Julius Margolin celebrated his 93rd birthday in hospice care. Julius was stealing every heart at the nursing home, but he wanted to go home from the nursing home. Now he's back in his apartment in Manhattan, surrounded by friends. He sent our pal George Mann out to buy him a sixpack the night before last. I hope you'll make time to send him a card at:
Julius Margolin
PO BOX 697
New York, NY 10033
Birthdays - Friends
Windy Cooler-Stith, Aug 28th - Kris Deelane, Sep 12th, Faith Petric, Sep 13, 1915 - Danny Donnelly also Sep 13th - Tod Faller, Sep 14th -
Birthdays - Family
Jonas Engström, Aug 31 - Amy Sue Berlin, Sep 1st - Christina Mumphrey, Sep 3rd - Mary Grefenstette, Sep 11th - Mardy Weber McCahill, Sep 21st (60!) - Kay McCahill Mumphrey, Sep 25th, Charlie Warren, Sep 27 (3!)
££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££
THE TOUR
(always check with the contact people or call me at 412-877-6480 before heading off to the gig... I do my best to keep my schedule current at http://annefeeney.com/calendar.html ... but things change...)
Monday, September 7th, 2009 2:00 PM
Labor Day in Peoria!!
Riverfront Festival Park
Peoria, IL
n.paul9154(@)sbcglobal.net is the contact
Labor Day Picnic and Parade begins in front of the Fire Station on Monroe Street, and it ends at the Riverfront Festival Park. In 2008, the parade consisted of over 100 entries of various trade unions, etc. The picnic festivities run from 2 p.m. until 8 p.m. at Festival Park, and feature live music, beer garden and food vendors
Tuesday, September 15th, 2009 7:30 PM
Sing Out for Single Payer Road Show!
Allegheny Unitarian Universalist Church
416 W North Ave
Pittsburgh, PA 15212
412.877-6480
http://www.unitedforsinglepayer.org/multimedia/Anne%20Feeney%20Concert%207-25-09-H.264%20300Kbps%20Streaming.mov
Price: $10-20 suggested
I'm rounding up as many members of the tour as I can to give you a sample of the fabulous show that we took from San Diego to Bellingham over 26 days in July!
Sunday, September 20th, 2009 8:00 PM
Roy Zimmerman and Anne Feeney in Concert!
Allegheny Unitarian Universalist Church
416 W North Ave
Pittsburgh, PA 15212
412.877-6480
http://royzimmerman.com
Price: $10-20 suggested
Join me as I welcome the pre-eminent political satirist of our time to Pittsburgh. Roy is the author of "Defenders of Marriage," "Creation Science 101," and dozens of other hard-hitting and hilarious songs. Don't miss this show! Come after the huge march for jobs!
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 8:00 PM
IBEW conference
Adams Mark Holiday Inn
Chicago, IL
Price: members only
darlene johnson is the contact... 630-434-1683
Friday, October 2nd, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
details tba
Chicago, IL
Saturday, October 3rd, 2009 6:00 PM
Eugene Debs Annual Award Dinner
Indiana State University
Terre Haute, IN
http://eugenevdebs.com/pages/announ.htm
Sunday, October 4th, 2009 10:30 AM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics at UU Service
Tentative - All Souls
Indianapolis, IN
Sunday, October 4th, 2009 7:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
probably at the IMC
Champaign, IL
jrbarret@uiuc.edu is the contact
Monday, October 5th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
tentative
Bloomington/Normal, IL
mike matejka is the contact
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics on Campus and in Concert
Western Illinois University (tentative)
Macomb, IL
lj-barr(@)wiu.edu Lisa Barr is the contact
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
tba
Quad Cities area
Chris Dunn is the contact crisplydone(@)hotmail.com
Thursday, October 8th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
tba
Dubuque, IA
(563) 584-9300
for more information contact Art Roche rocheart3@msn.com or phone Mary Moody at the number above.
Friday, October 9th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
tentative
Des Moines, IA
Saturday, October 10th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics
The Art Center
228 East Fifth Street
Winona, MN 55987
507-453-9959
Price: $15 suggested
Polly Gower is the contact pollygower(@)hotmail.com
Sunday, October 11th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
tba
Minneapolis, MN
Colleen Rowley
rowleyclan(@)earthlink.net and Larry
Olds 612-722-3442, lolds(@)popednews.org are the contacts...
Monday, October 12th, 2009 8:00 AM
Anne Feeney
Women's Breakfast or Lunch (tentative)
Minneapolis, MN
Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 7:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
Goodman Center
Madison , WI
matt and john peck are working on this show
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
tba
Rockford, IL
David Stocker is the contact
Thursday, October 15th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
tba
DeKalb , IL
td0raf1(@)wpo.cso.niu.edu Rose Feurer is the contact
Friday, October 16th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
tba - University of Indiana
Indianapolis, IN
Greta Pennell gpennell@uindy.edu is the contact
Saturday, October 17th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics on Tour in the Midwest
AVAILABLE
call me at 412-877-6480 or email me at anne@annefeeney.com if you have any ideas for this lovely Saturday night!
Sunday, October 18th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
tba
Lafayette, IN
Harry Targ targ@purdue.edu is the contact
Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 7:00 PM
David Rovics and Anne Feeney in Concert
tba
Columbus, OH
bruce bostick and victoria parks are looking into this date for us!
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
tba
Cincinnati, OH
mfwood(@)fuse.net Maureen Wood is the contact
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
tba
Lexington, KY
Janet Tucker is the contact...
Friday, October 23rd, 2009 7:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
St John's Day Center
700 E Muhammad Ali Blvd
Louisville, KY 40202
dos4@insightbb.com - for more information
Saturday, October 24th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics
Charleston, WV
plantandgnome(@)verizon.net - Chris Higgins is the contact
Sunday, October 25th, 2009 10:00 AM
Unitarian Universalist Congregation
520 Kanawha Blvd W
Charleston, WV
304-345-5042
Price: all welcome
chris@plantandgnome is the host
Sunday, October 25th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
tba
Pittsburgh, PA
any ideas, folks?
Anne Feeney
http://annefeeney.com
http://cdbaby.com/all/unionmaid - Buy CDs!
412-877-6480 (cell)
"Anne Feeney is the greatest labor singer in North America." -- Utah Phillips
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
AUGUST 2009 - Anne Feeney's Fellow Travelers' Advisory - VOLUME 5, #5
IMMEDIATE DESTINATIONS:
Spejaren in Leksand
Blacksmith Marathon in Smedjebacken
Joe Hill House in Gävle
Streaming on Swedish National Radio P2
Folkbildningshuset - Stockholm (Solna)
Labor Day in Peoria!
Pittsburgh in September...
October in the Midwest with David Rovics!
details at the bottom of this message and continuously updating at http://annefeeney.com/calendar.html
Thanks so much for signing up for my once-a-month email news - The Fellow Travelers' Advisory. It's the best, and really, the only way I have of staying in touch with all the wonderful folks I meet in my travels. It may seem impersonal, but I promise you that a very real person (me) is working hard every month to find items that will interest, inspire and amuse you. If you write back - and I hope you do - I'll answer.
You can buy my cds (or download single songs) at http://cdbaby.com/all/unionmaid
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IN THIS ISSUE:
Preliminary Report on the Sing Out for Single Payer Road Show
Sweden in August!
The AFL-CIO *and* the G-20 Come to Pittsburgh in September!!
David Rovics and I Tour the Midwest in October
Family News
Hej, allihop! (as we say in Sweden...)
I went straight from the Sing Out for Single Payer Road Show to Stockholm. My husband is still hoping to catch me with my eyes open. We're settled in to his fabulous new place in Kopparberg. I've been sleeping a LOT! Sorry the newsletter is a little late this month, but I was REALLY tired when I got here. Yesterday I was a guest on the Swedish national morning show (like being on the TODAY show or GOOD MORNING AMERICA).
You can see the interview http://tv4play.se/aktualitet/nyhetsmorgon?videoId=1.1121233&renderingdepartment=2.34562
or hear me sing "A Song for Santiago Cruz" http://tv4play.se/aktualitet/nyhetsmorgon?videoId=1.1121438&renderingdepartment=2.34562
or "Have You Been to Jail for Justice?" http://tv4play.se/aktualitet/nyhetsmorgon?videoId=1.1121422&renderingdepartment=2.34562
And next Sunday, August 9th, Swedish national radio will broadcast an interview I did with Jan Hammarlund on Irish music. The show on P2 is called Irländska sånger (Irish Songs) and will broadcast at 19:00 (which is 1PM EDT, noon CDT, etc..)
Here's the link -
http://www.sr.se/cgi-bin/P2/tabla/p2Musik/index.asp?date=2009-08-09 and it should be archived there for a week after the broadcast, too.
I'll be pretty busy here this month, but it's nothing compared to last month's schedule, or to how busy I hope to be in Pittsburgh in September with the AFL-CIO convention, the G20, and numerous local activities scheduled around both events. Look for a reprise of the Sing Out for Single Payer Road Show in Pittsburgh during the AFL-CIO Convention!
David Rovics http://davidrovics.com and I are still trying to fill in a few dates on our October midwest tour. If you have ideas, suggestions, email me anne@annefeeney.com.
I hope you enjoy the newsletter and that you'll stay in touch!
Love and solidarity
Anne
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SING OUT FOR SINGLE PAYER ROAD SHOW!!
What an amazing 26 days! Altogether it was a 3600 mile trip, with 30 shows and several radio shows to boot. Over 60 musicians participated in what totalled out over 170 musical services. We passed out tens of thousands of pieces of literature. We performed for about 7,000 people. We had dozens of good newspaper articles on single payer and on the concerts themselves.
Here are some responses we got...
"Dear Anne, Chris, Dave, Eric, Jason and Joyce,
Just want to thank you all again for putting on a great show! I've gotten some wonderful feedback that it was the best event some of these people ever attended! Now, if we can just get them to DO SOMETHING! I think you also made Rep Bob Filner's day.....and the song you sang for him, he actually thought you had just written it for him!
Have a great Sing Out road show tour and may your audiences be as receptive as ours." (Anita Simons, activist/playwright and presenter in La Jolla)
"I am blown away by the donation from the show...I had no idea there was to be any such thing... I want to thank you most sincerely for this extremely generous gift....HCA appreciates it very much. This is the kind of lift that encourages us all to go on with the good fight! Thank you so much!!!" Health Care for All, Santa Cruz..
"The promotion of your Sing Out for Single Payer Health Care will bring a tremendous amount of attention to the subject. Thanks again for the incredible energy and planning it is taking to put on the Sing Out. Thanks to all of you for your inspiration last night. Onward to Oregon!" Sandra Decker, Contra Costa County Green Party
Anne Feeney's Road Show Rocks Ashland
Vanessa Houk, 08.07.2009 08:43
"I have ... to tell you why Anne and many other fine musicians are touring the West Coast for the Single Payer Road Show to support HR 676 and SB 703 for National Health Care. All across the United States, artists, musicians, poets and writers often have to choose between their craft or finding a job that provides at least some sort of coverage (or marrying someone who has access to health care). That this great country does not recognize the people who entertain us is something worth changing. That many millions of people do not have access to health care is staggering, inexcusable, embarrassing and something that we can change. So Anne Feeney got together with dozens of other singers and started touring the West Coast to agitate us a bit and start a dialogue about the need for National Health Care. What I didn't know is that the show is not "two hours of songs about health care", as she joked, "because that would be boring." Musicians sang about a number of subjects, styles and the evening was full of variety and fun! The list of performers was long and also included Jason Luckett, Raina Rose, Jack Williams, Citizens Band, Trevor Smith, Andrew Pressman, Little Thom, Patrick Dodd and another favorite local performer, Frankie Hernandez. I hope I didn't forget anyone, because they were all wonderful."
From Margaret Butler of Portland Jobs with Justice:
Dear Anne, Thanks again for helping us raise so much money for the single payer work. We are going to start our radio ad buy next week. Attached are a couple of the best photos of you performing! Everyone loved the event! Solidarity, Margaret
From the Port Angeles organizers:
Dear Anne,
Although your audience was disappointingly small in Port Angeles you left a big
impact on those of us who were there.
With the money we raised we have invited Paul Hochfield here to speak on Aug 25 to
raise interest in the Doctors Mad As Hell Caravan. Between now and then i am showing
the DVD at the Sequim Library three different times to get people out to hear Paul.
On Aug 1 we marched in a small community parade in Joyce with our signs chanting
"Hey, hey, ho, ho Insurance greed has to go" and people watching applauded and
chanted along with us. This in an area reknown for its conservatism.
We've got to relearn how to shout louder.
Yours
Carlyn
_______________________________________________________________________________________
I'm hoping that folks who saw the show will posts comments at http://fellow-travelers-advisory.blogspot.com/ or at http://annefeeney.com/guestbook.html.
________________________________________________________________________________________
We have lots of great dvd footage from the shows, which may turn into a recording ... Right now we're on the front page of http://www.unitedforsinglepayer.org
Or you can click here to go straight to the video of our standard 'encore.' http://www.unitedforsinglepayer.org/multimedia/Anne%20Feeney%20Concert%207-25-09-H.264%20300Kbps%20Streaming.mov
And here's one of my favorite moments from the tour, provided by the incomparable Roy Zimmerman -
I wish I had a link Little Thom's Ashland performance of "I Just Can't Wait to Do a Tracheotomy." http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/littlethom
It was such a joy to perform with Green Mountain Grass, and to have their oh-so-talented Bluegrass Dave Wilmoth continue on with us for the last dozen shows. Jason Luckett was the ideal traveling companion and a red-hot guitar player too! Dan Scanlan, Pat Dodd, Bob Wickline, Citizens Band, Chris Chandler & Paul Benoit, David Rovics and Raina Rose all were on hand for a bunch of shows and brought so much to the stage! Every show was different - and every show was great. We raised more than $3000 at the Portland and Seattle shows. All in all, I think we raised more than $20,000 for Single Payer activities in host communities, and we also received great support for the Road Show from many of our hosts. Many thanks to Stuart Henderson, Wes Brain, David McLanahan, Paul Hochfeld, Anita Simon, Leslie Lashinsky, Cate Engel, Betsy Pernotto and Bob Marshall, Rich Staggenborg, Ray Duray, Michael Funke, Louis and Nancy LaFortune, Sandra Decker, Joanne Cvar, Ann Miller, Jeanine Malito, John Chadwick, Margaret Butler, Tom Leedham, Joe Munger, Cindi Fisher, Carol Newman, John Sandige, Steve Zeltzer, the New Morning Bakery, Kate Reeves, Charlotte Maloney, Marc Shapiro, Liz Stein, Grace Cox, Carlyn and all the great folks in Port Angeles, Bob Barnes, Marilyn Kimmerling, Al and Dotty Dale.
And special thanks to Jerry Tucker, Kay and Walter Tillow, Mark Dudzik, Labor for Single Payer, All Unions Committee for Single Payer HR 676, Health Care Now!, CNA, Donna Smith, Shelley Kessler, Sign & Display Local 510, Gary Huck, Peter Yarrow and Physicians for a National Health Plan.
I'm disgusted at the manipulation of the truly stupid people in this country that's being done by the teabaggers - Limbaugh, Beck, O'Reilly etc. It's crazy to watch people shouting down legislators who are trying to bring health care to them and their families.
And the disinformation continues - often with outright LIES! The Republican pawns of the insurance/pharma/medical-industrial complex were actually caught lying:
http://www.care2.com/next/707426685/
This is the month to turn on the heat with Congress. I hope you got to see Rep. Weiner introduce his amendment substituting HR 676 for the Obamacare plan. You can see it here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x346087
This got a promise from Nancy Pelosi and Henry Waxman that Single Payer will be voted on in the House. Insist that it come with a Congressional Budget Office study. Single payer is the only plan that we can afford. It will cover everyone. It will expand and improve Medicare and extend coverage to all of us. I can't wait!
Many thanks to the wonderful musicians who made the Road Show happen! I love you all and I'm so grateful you were part of this historic campaign!
Sweden in August
It's certainly wonderful to be here. Even if it means missing my 8th grade reunion.
My classmates and I have been doing a lot of online reminiscing. I'll have to catch up with some of them in September when I'm back in Pittsburgh.
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THE AFL-CIO and G-20 COME TO PITTSBURGH!
September will be a very exciting month in my hometown. If you're planning on coming to Pittsburgh for either the AFL-CIO Convention, the G20 resistance, or the many teach-in type events in between, let me know.
G20 resistance events are being co-ordinated at http://www.thomasmertoncenter.org/g20action.htm and it should be a most exciting and informative time to visit my hometown!
Thanks to some support from the Hen Foundation, I may be organizing a Coop d'Etat in September!
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David Rovics and Anne Feeney Midwest Tour - October 2009
Many dates are already settled, but if you'd like to host me and David Rovics (http://davidrovics.com) - the fellow Amy Goodman calls "the musical version of Democracy Now" - check http://annefeeney.com/calendar.html to find an empty date and fill it for us!
If you live in any of the towns along our route, you can download this cool poster in color
or black & white:
and post it freely in your neighborhoods.
That's it for this month! Hope to see you somewhere soon!
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Family News
My son Daniel took the bar exam in Washington, DC last week. No more pencils, no more books! He won't find out until November if he passed. He and Monique are on some island in Greece for Monique's brother's wedding. Mazel tov!
Congratulations to Danielle and Dan on the birth of Lulu Pepper Juliana Bern!
Happy 60th birthday to Jeanne Clark!
Happy 93rd birthday to Julius Margolin. Julius is not well. He could use a card or a letter from you. Send it to:
Happy August birthdays to: Steffi Domike, Cathy Weldon, Judy Wolfson, Janet Stecher, Gun Magnusson Forsberg, Windy Cooler-Stith and Jonas Engström
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THE DATES:
Wednesday, August 5th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney In Concert
Spejaren
Leksand
Sweden
fredrik@goatbridge.com is booking me in Sweden this month!
Friday, August 7th, 2009 8:00 PM
Blacksmith Marathon with Abalone Dots and Anne Feeney
Smedjebacken
Sweden
(0)240-65 12 70
fredrik@goatbridge.com is booking me this month in Sweden
Saturday, August 8th, 2009 7:00 PM
Anne Feeney in Concert
Joe Hill Huset
Nedre Bergsgatan 28
Gavle
Sweden
070-3186391
http://www.gavle.se/turism/sevart/gamla_g.html
fredrik@goatbridge.com has more information
Sunday, August 9th, 2009 7:00 PM
Irländska Sånger
P2 Radio
Sweden
http://www.sr.se/cgi-bin/P2/tabla/p2Musik/index.asp?date=2009-08-09
This radio interview, conducted by Jan Hammarlund with me - our subject was Irish music - will be streaming live at 19:00 on Swedish national radio (that's 1PM Eastern Time, noon Central, etc...)
Friday, August 21st, 2009 8:15 PM
Temadag om Industrial Workers of the World med Anne Feeney konsert!
Folkbildningshusen
Häggviksvägen 2
Stockholm/Solna/Sollentuna
Sweden
08-290585
http://www.motkraft.net/kalendarium/1177
solna.ls@sac.se for more information - This wonderful event begins at 18:30 and runs until 23:30 and is presented by SAC
Tuesday, August 25th, 2009 8:00 PM
Come to Ireland with me!
Clare, Dublin and Galway
Ireland
http://www.annefeeney.com/Pages/enchantedwaytours.html
Price: $1950 + airfare
sold out long ago! 2010 tour dates will be posted soon!
Monday, September 7th, 2009 2:00 PM
Labor Day in Peoria!!
Peoria, IL
n.paul9154(@)sbcglobal.net is the contact
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 8:00 PM
IBEW conference
Adams Mark Holiday Inn
Chicago, IL
Price: members only
darlene johnson is the contact... 630-434-1683
Friday, October 2nd, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
details tba
Chicago, IL
Saturday, October 3rd, 2009 6:00 PM
Eugene Debs Annual Award Dinner
Indiana State University
Terre Haute, IN
http://eugenevdebs.com/pages/announ.htm
Sunday, October 4th, 2009 10:30 AM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics at UU Service
Tentative - All Souls
Indianapolis, IN
Sunday, October 4th, 2009 7:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
probably at the IMC
Champaign, IL
jrbarret@uiuc.edu is the contact
Monday, October 5th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
tentative
Bloomington/Normal, IL
mike matejka is the contact
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics on Campus and in Concert
Western Illinois University (tentative)
Macomb, IL
lj-barr(@)wiu.edu Lisa Barr is the contact
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
tba
Quad Cities area
Chris Dunn is the contact crisplydone(@)hotmail.com
Thursday, October 8th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
tba
Dubuque, IA
(563) 584-9300
Mary Moody is the contact - mamoody@live.com
Friday, October 9th
A FRIDAY NIGHT OFF??? IMPOCEROUS!!
Saturday, October 10th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics
The Art Center
228 East Fifth Street
Winona, MN 55987
507-453-9959
Price: $15 suggested
Polly Gower is the contact pollygower(@)hotmail.com
Sunday, October 11th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
tba
Minneapolis, MN
Colleen Rowley
rowleyclan(@)earthlink.net and Larry
Olds 612-722-3442, lolds(@)popednews.org are the contacts...
Monday, October 12th, 2009 8:00 AM
Anne Feeney
Women's Breakfast or Lunch (tentative)
Minneapolis, MN
Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
Goodman Community Center
Madison, WI
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
ROCKFORD?? (Tentative)
Thursday, October 15th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
DeKalb , IL
td0raf1(@)wpo.cso.niu.edu Rose Feurer is the contact
Friday, October 16th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics on Tour in the Midwest
AVAILABLE
call me at 412-877-6480 or email me at anne@annefeeney.com if you have any ideas for this lovely Friday night!
Carbondale, perhaps??
Indianapolis? Bloomington??
Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 7:00 PM
David Rovics and Anne Feeney in Concert
tentative
Columbus, OH
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
tba
Cincinnati, OH
mfwood(@)fuse.net Maureen Wood is the contact
Thursday, October 22nd
help!! Louisville??
Friday, October 23rd
help!! Lexington??
Saturday, October 24th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics
tba
Charleston, WV
plantandgnome(@)verizon.net - Chris Higgins is the contact
Sunday, October 25th, 2009
Pittsburgh
venue tba
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Spejaren in Leksand
Blacksmith Marathon in Smedjebacken
Joe Hill House in Gävle
Streaming on Swedish National Radio P2
Folkbildningshuset - Stockholm (Solna)
Labor Day in Peoria!
Pittsburgh in September...
October in the Midwest with David Rovics!
details at the bottom of this message and continuously updating at http://annefeeney.com/calendar.html
Thanks so much for signing up for my once-a-month email news - The Fellow Travelers' Advisory. It's the best, and really, the only way I have of staying in touch with all the wonderful folks I meet in my travels. It may seem impersonal, but I promise you that a very real person (me) is working hard every month to find items that will interest, inspire and amuse you. If you write back - and I hope you do - I'll answer.
You can buy my cds (or download single songs) at http://cdbaby.com/all/unionmaid
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IN THIS ISSUE:
Preliminary Report on the Sing Out for Single Payer Road Show
Sweden in August!
The AFL-CIO *and* the G-20 Come to Pittsburgh in September!!
David Rovics and I Tour the Midwest in October
Family News
Hej, allihop! (as we say in Sweden...)
I went straight from the Sing Out for Single Payer Road Show to Stockholm. My husband is still hoping to catch me with my eyes open. We're settled in to his fabulous new place in Kopparberg. I've been sleeping a LOT! Sorry the newsletter is a little late this month, but I was REALLY tired when I got here. Yesterday I was a guest on the Swedish national morning show (like being on the TODAY show or GOOD MORNING AMERICA).
You can see the interview http://tv4play.se/aktualitet/nyhetsmorgon?videoId=1.1121233&renderingdepartment=2.34562
or hear me sing "A Song for Santiago Cruz" http://tv4play.se/aktualitet/nyhetsmorgon?videoId=1.1121438&renderingdepartment=2.34562
or "Have You Been to Jail for Justice?" http://tv4play.se/aktualitet/nyhetsmorgon?videoId=1.1121422&renderingdepartment=2.34562
And next Sunday, August 9th, Swedish national radio will broadcast an interview I did with Jan Hammarlund on Irish music. The show on P2 is called Irländska sånger (Irish Songs) and will broadcast at 19:00 (which is 1PM EDT, noon CDT, etc..)
Here's the link -
http://www.sr.se/cgi-bin/P2/tabla/p2Musik/index.asp?date=2009-08-09 and it should be archived there for a week after the broadcast, too.
I'll be pretty busy here this month, but it's nothing compared to last month's schedule, or to how busy I hope to be in Pittsburgh in September with the AFL-CIO convention, the G20, and numerous local activities scheduled around both events. Look for a reprise of the Sing Out for Single Payer Road Show in Pittsburgh during the AFL-CIO Convention!
David Rovics http://davidrovics.com and I are still trying to fill in a few dates on our October midwest tour. If you have ideas, suggestions, email me anne@annefeeney.com.
I hope you enjoy the newsletter and that you'll stay in touch!
Love and solidarity
Anne
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SING OUT FOR SINGLE PAYER ROAD SHOW!!
What an amazing 26 days! Altogether it was a 3600 mile trip, with 30 shows and several radio shows to boot. Over 60 musicians participated in what totalled out over 170 musical services. We passed out tens of thousands of pieces of literature. We performed for about 7,000 people. We had dozens of good newspaper articles on single payer and on the concerts themselves.
Here are some responses we got...
"Dear Anne, Chris, Dave, Eric, Jason and Joyce,
Just want to thank you all again for putting on a great show! I've gotten some wonderful feedback that it was the best event some of these people ever attended! Now, if we can just get them to DO SOMETHING! I think you also made Rep Bob Filner's day.....and the song you sang for him, he actually thought you had just written it for him!
Have a great Sing Out road show tour and may your audiences be as receptive as ours." (Anita Simons, activist/playwright and presenter in La Jolla)
"I am blown away by the donation from the show...I had no idea there was to be any such thing... I want to thank you most sincerely for this extremely generous gift....HCA appreciates it very much. This is the kind of lift that encourages us all to go on with the good fight! Thank you so much!!!" Health Care for All, Santa Cruz..
"The promotion of your Sing Out for Single Payer Health Care will bring a tremendous amount of attention to the subject. Thanks again for the incredible energy and planning it is taking to put on the Sing Out. Thanks to all of you for your inspiration last night. Onward to Oregon!" Sandra Decker, Contra Costa County Green Party
Anne Feeney's Road Show Rocks Ashland
Vanessa Houk, 08.07.2009 08:43
"I have ... to tell you why Anne and many other fine musicians are touring the West Coast for the Single Payer Road Show to support HR 676 and SB 703 for National Health Care. All across the United States, artists, musicians, poets and writers often have to choose between their craft or finding a job that provides at least some sort of coverage (or marrying someone who has access to health care). That this great country does not recognize the people who entertain us is something worth changing. That many millions of people do not have access to health care is staggering, inexcusable, embarrassing and something that we can change. So Anne Feeney got together with dozens of other singers and started touring the West Coast to agitate us a bit and start a dialogue about the need for National Health Care. What I didn't know is that the show is not "two hours of songs about health care", as she joked, "because that would be boring." Musicians sang about a number of subjects, styles and the evening was full of variety and fun! The list of performers was long and also included Jason Luckett, Raina Rose, Jack Williams, Citizens Band, Trevor Smith, Andrew Pressman, Little Thom, Patrick Dodd and another favorite local performer, Frankie Hernandez. I hope I didn't forget anyone, because they were all wonderful."
From Margaret Butler of Portland Jobs with Justice:
Dear Anne, Thanks again for helping us raise so much money for the single payer work. We are going to start our radio ad buy next week. Attached are a couple of the best photos of you performing! Everyone loved the event! Solidarity, Margaret
From the Port Angeles organizers:
Dear Anne,
Although your audience was disappointingly small in Port Angeles you left a big
impact on those of us who were there.
With the money we raised we have invited Paul Hochfield here to speak on Aug 25 to
raise interest in the Doctors Mad As Hell Caravan. Between now and then i am showing
the DVD at the Sequim Library three different times to get people out to hear Paul.
On Aug 1 we marched in a small community parade in Joyce with our signs chanting
"Hey, hey, ho, ho Insurance greed has to go" and people watching applauded and
chanted along with us. This in an area reknown for its conservatism.
We've got to relearn how to shout louder.
Yours
Carlyn
_______________________________________________________________________________________
I'm hoping that folks who saw the show will posts comments at http://fellow-travelers-advisory.blogspot.com/ or at http://annefeeney.com/guestbook.html.
________________________________________________________________________________________
We have lots of great dvd footage from the shows, which may turn into a recording ... Right now we're on the front page of http://www.unitedforsinglepayer.org
Or you can click here to go straight to the video of our standard 'encore.' http://www.unitedforsinglepayer.org/multimedia/Anne%20Feeney%20Concert%207-25-09-H.264%20300Kbps%20Streaming.mov
And here's one of my favorite moments from the tour, provided by the incomparable Roy Zimmerman -
I wish I had a link Little Thom's Ashland performance of "I Just Can't Wait to Do a Tracheotomy." http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/littlethom
It was such a joy to perform with Green Mountain Grass, and to have their oh-so-talented Bluegrass Dave Wilmoth continue on with us for the last dozen shows. Jason Luckett was the ideal traveling companion and a red-hot guitar player too! Dan Scanlan, Pat Dodd, Bob Wickline, Citizens Band, Chris Chandler & Paul Benoit, David Rovics and Raina Rose all were on hand for a bunch of shows and brought so much to the stage! Every show was different - and every show was great. We raised more than $3000 at the Portland and Seattle shows. All in all, I think we raised more than $20,000 for Single Payer activities in host communities, and we also received great support for the Road Show from many of our hosts. Many thanks to Stuart Henderson, Wes Brain, David McLanahan, Paul Hochfeld, Anita Simon, Leslie Lashinsky, Cate Engel, Betsy Pernotto and Bob Marshall, Rich Staggenborg, Ray Duray, Michael Funke, Louis and Nancy LaFortune, Sandra Decker, Joanne Cvar, Ann Miller, Jeanine Malito, John Chadwick, Margaret Butler, Tom Leedham, Joe Munger, Cindi Fisher, Carol Newman, John Sandige, Steve Zeltzer, the New Morning Bakery, Kate Reeves, Charlotte Maloney, Marc Shapiro, Liz Stein, Grace Cox, Carlyn and all the great folks in Port Angeles, Bob Barnes, Marilyn Kimmerling, Al and Dotty Dale.
And special thanks to Jerry Tucker, Kay and Walter Tillow, Mark Dudzik, Labor for Single Payer, All Unions Committee for Single Payer HR 676, Health Care Now!, CNA, Donna Smith, Shelley Kessler, Sign & Display Local 510, Gary Huck, Peter Yarrow and Physicians for a National Health Plan.
I'm disgusted at the manipulation of the truly stupid people in this country that's being done by the teabaggers - Limbaugh, Beck, O'Reilly etc. It's crazy to watch people shouting down legislators who are trying to bring health care to them and their families.
And the disinformation continues - often with outright LIES! The Republican pawns of the insurance/pharma/medical-industrial complex were actually caught lying:
http://www.care2.com/next/707426685/
This is the month to turn on the heat with Congress. I hope you got to see Rep. Weiner introduce his amendment substituting HR 676 for the Obamacare plan. You can see it here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x346087
This got a promise from Nancy Pelosi and Henry Waxman that Single Payer will be voted on in the House. Insist that it come with a Congressional Budget Office study. Single payer is the only plan that we can afford. It will cover everyone. It will expand and improve Medicare and extend coverage to all of us. I can't wait!
Many thanks to the wonderful musicians who made the Road Show happen! I love you all and I'm so grateful you were part of this historic campaign!
Sweden in August
It's certainly wonderful to be here. Even if it means missing my 8th grade reunion.
My classmates and I have been doing a lot of online reminiscing. I'll have to catch up with some of them in September when I'm back in Pittsburgh.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
THE AFL-CIO and G-20 COME TO PITTSBURGH!
September will be a very exciting month in my hometown. If you're planning on coming to Pittsburgh for either the AFL-CIO Convention, the G20 resistance, or the many teach-in type events in between, let me know.
G20 resistance events are being co-ordinated at http://www.thomasmertoncenter.org/g20action.htm and it should be a most exciting and informative time to visit my hometown!
Thanks to some support from the Hen Foundation, I may be organizing a Coop d'Etat in September!
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David Rovics and Anne Feeney Midwest Tour - October 2009
Many dates are already settled, but if you'd like to host me and David Rovics (http://davidrovics.com) - the fellow Amy Goodman calls "the musical version of Democracy Now" - check http://annefeeney.com/calendar.html to find an empty date and fill it for us!
If you live in any of the towns along our route, you can download this cool poster in color
or black & white:
and post it freely in your neighborhoods.
That's it for this month! Hope to see you somewhere soon!
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Family News
My son Daniel took the bar exam in Washington, DC last week. No more pencils, no more books! He won't find out until November if he passed. He and Monique are on some island in Greece for Monique's brother's wedding. Mazel tov!
Congratulations to Danielle and Dan on the birth of Lulu Pepper Juliana Bern!
Happy 60th birthday to Jeanne Clark!
Happy 93rd birthday to Julius Margolin. Julius is not well. He could use a card or a letter from you. Send it to:
Julius Margolin
PO BOX 697
New York, NY 10033
Happy August birthdays to: Steffi Domike, Cathy Weldon, Judy Wolfson, Janet Stecher, Gun Magnusson Forsberg, Windy Cooler-Stith and Jonas Engström
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THE DATES:
Wednesday, August 5th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney In Concert
Spejaren
Leksand
Sweden
fredrik@goatbridge.com is booking me in Sweden this month!
Friday, August 7th, 2009 8:00 PM
Blacksmith Marathon with Abalone Dots and Anne Feeney
Smedjebacken
Sweden
(0)240-65 12 70
fredrik@goatbridge.com is booking me this month in Sweden
Saturday, August 8th, 2009 7:00 PM
Anne Feeney in Concert
Joe Hill Huset
Nedre Bergsgatan 28
Gavle
Sweden
070-3186391
http://www.gavle.se/turism/sevart/gamla_g.html
fredrik@goatbridge.com has more information
Sunday, August 9th, 2009 7:00 PM
Irländska Sånger
P2 Radio
Sweden
http://www.sr.se/cgi-bin/P2/tabla/p2Musik/index.asp?date=2009-08-09
This radio interview, conducted by Jan Hammarlund with me - our subject was Irish music - will be streaming live at 19:00 on Swedish national radio (that's 1PM Eastern Time, noon Central, etc...)
Friday, August 21st, 2009 8:15 PM
Temadag om Industrial Workers of the World med Anne Feeney konsert!
Folkbildningshusen
Häggviksvägen 2
Stockholm/Solna/Sollentuna
Sweden
08-290585
http://www.motkraft.net/kalendarium/1177
solna.ls@sac.se for more information - This wonderful event begins at 18:30 and runs until 23:30 and is presented by SAC
Tuesday, August 25th, 2009 8:00 PM
Come to Ireland with me!
Clare, Dublin and Galway
Ireland
http://www.annefeeney.com/Pages/enchantedwaytours.html
Price: $1950 + airfare
sold out long ago! 2010 tour dates will be posted soon!
Monday, September 7th, 2009 2:00 PM
Labor Day in Peoria!!
Peoria, IL
n.paul9154(@)sbcglobal.net is the contact
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 8:00 PM
IBEW conference
Adams Mark Holiday Inn
Chicago, IL
Price: members only
darlene johnson is the contact... 630-434-1683
Friday, October 2nd, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
details tba
Chicago, IL
Saturday, October 3rd, 2009 6:00 PM
Eugene Debs Annual Award Dinner
Indiana State University
Terre Haute, IN
http://eugenevdebs.com/pages/announ.htm
Sunday, October 4th, 2009 10:30 AM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics at UU Service
Tentative - All Souls
Indianapolis, IN
Sunday, October 4th, 2009 7:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
probably at the IMC
Champaign, IL
jrbarret@uiuc.edu is the contact
Monday, October 5th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
tentative
Bloomington/Normal, IL
mike matejka is the contact
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics on Campus and in Concert
Western Illinois University (tentative)
Macomb, IL
lj-barr(@)wiu.edu Lisa Barr is the contact
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
tba
Quad Cities area
Chris Dunn is the contact crisplydone(@)hotmail.com
Thursday, October 8th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
tba
Dubuque, IA
(563) 584-9300
Mary Moody is the contact - mamoody@live.com
Friday, October 9th
A FRIDAY NIGHT OFF??? IMPOCEROUS!!
Saturday, October 10th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics
The Art Center
228 East Fifth Street
Winona, MN 55987
507-453-9959
Price: $15 suggested
Polly Gower is the contact pollygower(@)hotmail.com
Sunday, October 11th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
tba
Minneapolis, MN
Colleen Rowley
rowleyclan(@)earthlink.net and Larry
Olds 612-722-3442, lolds(@)popednews.org are the contacts...
Monday, October 12th, 2009 8:00 AM
Anne Feeney
Women's Breakfast or Lunch (tentative)
Minneapolis, MN
Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
Goodman Community Center
Madison, WI
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
ROCKFORD?? (Tentative)
Thursday, October 15th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
DeKalb , IL
td0raf1(@)wpo.cso.niu.edu Rose Feurer is the contact
Friday, October 16th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics on Tour in the Midwest
AVAILABLE
call me at 412-877-6480 or email me at anne@annefeeney.com if you have any ideas for this lovely Friday night!
Carbondale, perhaps??
Indianapolis? Bloomington??
Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 7:00 PM
David Rovics and Anne Feeney in Concert
tentative
Columbus, OH
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics in Concert
tba
Cincinnati, OH
mfwood(@)fuse.net Maureen Wood is the contact
Thursday, October 22nd
help!! Louisville??
Friday, October 23rd
help!! Lexington??
Saturday, October 24th, 2009 8:00 PM
Anne Feeney and David Rovics
tba
Charleston, WV
plantandgnome(@)verizon.net - Chris Higgins is the contact
Sunday, October 25th, 2009
Pittsburgh
venue tba
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Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Sing Out for Single Payer Road Show Update #1
The road show began in Los Angeles at Local 47 of the American Federation of Musicians hall. The gorgeous room was decorated with banners from the many sponsors of that evening's concert. The show featured Jason Luckett, Eric Schwartz, Joyce Woodson, Dave Crossland and me, with Freebo on bass and tuba and MB Gordy on percussion. We were joined by surprise special guests Chris Chandler and Dan Bern in the second set.
The tour is too hectic for me to do a detailed diary of the dates so far - but here are some images...
Here is Roy Zimmerman singing his hilarious health care song, "DEAR NUMBER 1036924053887" at the 33 revolutions cafe in El Cerrito in a show presented by the Greens of Contra Costa County.
Here is Malvina Reynold's daughter Nancy Schimmel leading us in song at the El Cerrito concert. Seated from L to R - me, Roy Zimmerman, Aileen Vance, Jason Luckett, Peter Straus, Hali Hammer and (hidden) Jon Fromer.
Here's Jon, getting ready to play "It's Gonna Take Us All."
Jason Luckett is "stirring it up" with his music.
The tour is too hectic for me to do a detailed diary of the dates so far - but here are some images...
Here is Roy Zimmerman singing his hilarious health care song, "DEAR NUMBER 1036924053887" at the 33 revolutions cafe in El Cerrito in a show presented by the Greens of Contra Costa County. 
Here is Malvina Reynold's daughter Nancy Schimmel leading us in song at the El Cerrito concert. Seated from L to R - me, Roy Zimmerman, Aileen Vance, Jason Luckett, Peter Straus, Hali Hammer and (hidden) Jon Fromer.
Here's Jon, getting ready to play "It's Gonna Take Us All."
Jason Luckett is "stirring it up" with his music.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
JULY 2009 - Anne Feeney's Fellow Travelers' Advisory - VOLUME 5, #4
Welcome to the July Fellow Travelers' Advisory -
In this issue:
IMMEDIATE DESTINATIONS
CD & MP3 Links
SING OUT FOR SINGLE PAYER ROAD SHOW
FAMILY NEWS
SWEDEN
IRELAND
THE DETAILS
IMMEDIATE DESTINATIONS:
details at the bottom of this post and continuously updating at http://annefeeney.com/specialevents.html and http://annefeeney.com/calendar.html
Washington, DC
St. Catharines, ON
Hamilton, ON
Los Angeles
San Diego
Santa Cruz
El Cerrito
San Francisco
Ashland
Bend
Florence
Oregon Country Fair
Corvallis
Coos Bay
Newport
Yachats
Eugene
Portland
Salem
Astoria
Everett
Olympia
Port Angeles
Seattle
Tacoma
Bellingham
Sweden!
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Thanks for subscribing to The Fellow Travelers' Advisory. If you didn't, this incredibly wonderful SING OUT FOR SINGLE PAYER ROAD SHOW wouldn't be happening. This isn't just a newsletter, it's a vehicle for major organizing. Your support for my work and my music mean more than I can ever express. I love it when you write back and tell me what you've been up to, when you share news of your community, suggest song ideas or places I should play.
You can buy my cds at http://cdbaby.com/all/unionmaid
You can listen to and/or download my extremely cool new single "We're Nursing as Fast as We Can" at http://soundclick.com/share?songid=7729813
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SING OUT FOR SINGLE-PAYER ROAD SHOW!
It was only a few weeks ago that I began imagining turning my regular summer tour of the Pacific Northwest into a barnstorming Chautauqua for Single Payer Health Care. My friends Kay Tillow and Jerry Tucker both thought it was a great idea. I got some seed money from them. Chris Chandler whipped up a poster for me. I sent out my June newsletter on May 22nd and this project took off!
This whole concept was developed during Holly Near's wonderfully collaborative and energizing "SING OUT THE VOTE OHIO" tour last October. Holly is an inspiration!
I've never seen so many people so excited about an issue. Almost fifty musicians between San Diego and Bellingham have joined the tour. We are going from border to border! Jason Luckett of LA is doing the whole tour with me! As I write this, over 236 of you have sent donations ranging between $10 - $100.... (Well, one $150 donation too - Thanks, Dave!)
Contributions have already come in from Denmark, Sweden, Ireland, Northern Ireland, England, Canada and from 34 states!
If you haven't made a donation yet, IT'S DEFINITELY NOT TOO LATE! There's a "Donate" button at http://annefeeney.com/specialevents.html that you can securely click on. Or use the "Donate" button in the right hand column here >>>>
If you're not a "click and donate" kind of person, you can send a check to:
Anne Feeney
2240 Milligan Ave
Pittsburgh PA 15218
(If your check is for $500 or more and you want it to be tax-deductible you can make it out to "Universal Health Care for Oregon." Still send the check to me, so that I can make sure that UHCO credits it properly.)
Another fun way to support the tour is to download my new recording of Joan Hill's fabulous "We're Nursing as Fast as We Can." All sales during June and July will benefit the tour.
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=164922&songID=7729813
And there are posters at http://annefeeney.com/specialevents.html that you can print out and customize and hang in your neighborhood (of course, if you don't live in CA, OR or WA it might be somewhat impractical).
GO ON THE ROAD VICARIOUSLY!
Every day of the tour we're going to send out tweets (http://twitter.com/annefeeney), YouTube Videos - http://www.youtube.com/user/SingOut4SinglePayer, and a phone message at 1-800-749-0558. In the meantime, I've collected some great YouTube clips on Single Payer - including the Austin Lounge Lizards' hilarious music videos "The Drugs I Need (Progeniveritox)" and "Pirates of the (Health)Care-i-bean," and regular Facebook updates... so stay in touch with us!
GETTING THE SHOW ON THE ROAD -- MANY THANKS TO!!!
Peter Yarrow, Neal Eckstein, Hilary Chiz, Karen Newman, Alice Friedman, E'Layne Koenigsberg, Candice Carter, Sharon McAleavey, Theodore Kuhn, Bo & Inger Johannson, Deborah Spector, Al Cholger & Maureen Sheehan, Bennet Zurofsky, Gregory Brown, Karen Wildmo, David Finley, Claudia Kienholz, Tommy Sands, Alison Frost, Jonathan March, Don Conoscenti, Annelise Pysansky, Stan"Buck" Nelson, Tommy Simonds & Holly Graff, Talbot Katz, Charlie Stewart, Eugene Kotrba, Alice Carlson, Charles Vance, David Nicholson, Robyn Rosencrantz, David Newby & Kathy McElroy, Jean Converse, Gary Lawrence, Jack Herbert, Doug Hill, Mikael Elsila, Mary Kambic, Katherine Rhoda, Patty Lee Parmalee, Gordon Flett, Tom Wetzler, Michael Goff, Patricia Hoyt, Mary Anne Lawrence, ML Liebler, Steve Schnapp, Dave Hewitt, Jacob Holdt, Danusia & Ron Brandsetter, Michael Crouch, Tony Sturtevant, Solidarity Info Services, Jeff Bernstein, Walter Tsou, Peter Tucker, Tom Poteet, Manny Moss, Lane Adams, John Carrigan, John Thompson, Phoebe Wooding, Sandy Goldfarb, Rudy Arredondo, Anita Waters, Maryellen Marino, Melissa Karolak, Matt Redabaugh, Lawrence Hanley, Hudson Holistic Health, Carrie Biggs-Adams,Vince Lipsio, John Rozett, Eric Marchbein, Lloyd Cunningham, Susanne Paradis, David Hurlburt, Tsunami Recordings, Sarah Lamble, Michael Schneider, Eleanor Walden, Amy Niehouse, Michael Matejka, Susan Moss, Michelle Nielsen, Gene Bruskin, Jack Hereford, Cathy Howell, Bob Howell, Patrick Mountain, Jady Montgomery, Charles Bonner LPN, Caron Cadle, Jeff Bernstein, Lane Poncy & Doug Hausmann, Bill Yund, Stuart & Joann Henderson, Gilda DeFerrari, Joe Hughes, Ginny Hildebrand & Jan Neffke, Mariza Costa Cabral, Bette McDevitt, Kenneth Monefeldt, Stan "The Union Man" Swart, Sandra Hazley, Mary Litman, John & Claudia Detwiler, Millie Beik, Dick Walker, Jennifer Murphy, Sara Mastellone, Jeff Knight, Preston Harris, Howard Shapiro, Alice Shapiro, Hugh Moore, Mona Shaw, Debra Cowan, Hali Hammer, Jaime McLeod, Terry Meadows, Dan Lane, Peter Doob, Christopher Stoney, Craig Rouskey, Richard Karch, Ed & Emilie Sadlowski, Will Covert, Joanne Sanders, Alan Curry, Allen Nielsen & Carol Hamisfar, Charles & Marilyn Bernhardt, Lolita Hernandez, Jean & Laurence Romsted, Johanna Halbeisen, John Cloud,People's Music Network, Bill Austin, Grace Ackerman, Harriette Seiler, Josie Buckley McNeil, Doug Wilkin, Sol Weber, Alice Hoffman, Richard & Linnea Kuszmar, Zada Merrill & Bill Riordan, Janet Tucker, Jacqueline Ziegler, Terry Davis, Wess & Nikki Harris, Virginia Leishman, Steve & Marilyn Suffet, Don & Sharon Wagner, Frank Youngk, Cindy Judd Hill, Diane Crowe, Laura and Robert DeSpain, Julie Hauserman, Harry & Holly Stamper, Helena Worthen & Joe Berry, Carol & Bill Sumner, Pansy Swinson, Peter Kardas & Lin Nelson, Barbara Lebeau & Tom Aspel, Jacquelyn Wolf & Barry Levy, Carol Lambiase, Kay & Gerald Joslin, Guy Zahller, Raymond Kenny, Bob & Patty Bender, Alice & Bruce McCain, Gilda Brodsky, Betty Reardon, Berget Jelane, Celeste Howard, Nella Villafranco, Marvin & Demmi Murphy, Deborah Rosenstein, Myra & Guido Lesser, Briget & Doug Shields, Lee Graham, Richard & Jeanette Dillihunt, Jack Williams, Guy Blue, Mel Packer & Emily DeFerrari, Barbara Edmonds, Sharon Streeter, Laura Murra, Phil Schulman, Claire Staples, Jerry & Elaine Tucker, Peter Straus, Gerald Alexander, Steven Baker, Karen Spindel, HealthCare Justice Fund, Labor for Single Payer, Solidarity Education Fund, Cynthia Jimenez, Craig Johnson, Amy Newell, Paul Hyer, Jerry & Margaret Fillingham, Janet Stecher, Brenda Smith, Janet Kneedler, Leonard Potash, Judith & Marshall Deutsch, PJ Ramsey, Edmund Haffmans, Andrew Kafel, Laurie, Bruce & Ann Huntwork, Peter Chabarek, Edna Oberman, Elizabeth Elgie, Frank & Sheila Rosenthal, Pat Bennett, Mike Stout, Christine Abbey, Darien DeLu.Emilie Marlier, Dan Roberts, Margaret Skinner, Veronica & Mark Poss, Anne Jamieson, Connie Cohen, Stan Parker, Tom Pittman, Dotty and Al Dale, Vicky and Doug Ryder, Pete Bohmer, Mary Lehman, Gus & Joanne Ricca, Mary Donch, Joan Hill and Karen McCahill.
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=164922&songID=7729813 soon!
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FAMILY NEWS
I'll spend my July 1st birthday on airplanes en route to Los Angeles to start the Road Show. Cousin Patrick Mitchell and pal Suzanne Beers - July 3rd, Cousin Michael Grefenstette - July 8th, Cousin Kristen Grefenstette - July 9th, Cousin Judy Lane McCahill - July 10th, my Cousins, the Duncan Triplets - Emma, Tara and Colin - turn four in San Diego on July 16th, which is also the birthday of my pal Emily DeFerrari. Cousin Erin Grefenstette Henninger's birthday is July 18th. My darling Daughter-in-law Monique Murad shares a birthday with my pal Hilary Chiz - July 23rd. My Cousins Jim and Karen McCahill celebrate their birthdays on July 25th. My friend Susan Lewis from Rebel Voices will celebrate her birthday on July 27th. And Erin and Mark's little girl Marlo will be two on July 30th.
My cousin Eileen Metcalfe would have been 64 this July 14th - she died unexpectedly in mid-May. My Jacksonville friend David Thundershield Queen shed his body and moved on after a courageous and inspiring battle with cancer. And I was stunned to learn that my friend Mary Kerchner died of a heart attack last Monday. Our time here is so brief, eh?
Dan and Monique celebrated their second wedding anniversary in Quito on June 16th. He's studying for the DC bar - talk about long-distance learning!
SWEDEN!!
I'm off to Sweden at the end of the Road Show and so looking forward to seeing my husband and all my friends in Sweden. I think I'll be busy performing too. If you want me to come and play for you while I'm in Sweden July 31 - August 23rd, contact fredrik@goatbridge.com .
IRELAND
This year's Ireland tour is full. It's going to be a great trip - Galway, Dublin and Clare. And we have a fabulous group.
I'll have my 2010 dates soon. Look for them at http://annefeeney.com/Pages/enchantedwaytours.html soon!
That's all for this month... I know there's a lot more going on in the world, but this opportunity for real health care for all of us is taking all of my time and energy...
See you on Twitter, Facebook and Youtube until next month!!
NATIONAL HEALTH CARE NOW!!
Anne
Here are the dates:
June 21st-23rd, 2009
Great Labor Arts Exchange
National Labor College
10000 New Hampshire Ave NW
Silver Spring, MD
http://www.laborheritage.org/?p=388
Price: see web page
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009 6:00 PM
Ontario Federation of Labour Presents Anne Feeney
St Catharines, ON
Bruce Allen is the contact - ballen@cogeco.ca
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Ontario Federation of Labour Presents Anne Feeney
Hamilton, ON
Bruce Allen is the contact - ballen@cogeco.ca
Thursday, July 2nd, 2009 8:00 PM
Sing Out for Single Payer with Peter Alsop, Dave Crossland, Anne Feeney, Jason Luckett, Joyce Woodson, Freebo, M.B. Gordy and Eric Schwartz!
Local 47, AFM
817 Vine St
Los Angeles, CA 90038
213-252-1351
http://laborforsinglepayer.com
Price: $10 suggested
Friday, July 3rd, 2009 2:00 PM
Sing Out for Single Payer Road Show with Jason Luckett, Anne Feeney, Eric Schwartz, Joyce Woodson & Dave Crossland!
House Concert
La Jolla, CA
858-554-0482
Email asimonsays@gmail.com or call 858-554-0482 or 760-271-3328 to reserve a seat for this show. All welcome - first come, first served! Call NOW!!
Saturday, July 4th, 2009 8:00 PM
Sing Out for Single Payer with Jan Luby, Jason Luckett, Anne Feeney, Jon Fromer, Aileen Vance and Michal Lauren
Live Oak Grange
1900 17th Avenue
Santa Cruz, CA
Price: $10-20 sliding scale donation
lafort(@)cruzio.com is the contact. Declare your independence from big pharma and the insurance companies! health care for all! doors at 7:30
Sunday, July 5th, 2009 10:00 AM
Anne Feeney live on KPIG - Please Stand By
KPIG-FM - streaming live at the URL listed below
Watsonville, CA
http://kpig.org
Sunday, July 5th, 2009 12:00 PM
Labor Fest
ILWU Local 10
400 N Point
San Francisco, CA
http://www.laborfest.net/2009schedule.htm#5
Sunday, July 5th, 2009 5:00 PM
Sing Out for Single Payer Road Show with Anne Feeney, Roy Zimmerman, Jon Fromer, Jason Luckett, Aileen Vance, robert temple and Peter Strauss!
33 Revolutions Cafe
10086 San Pablo Ave
El Cerrito, CA 94530
(510) 898-1836
http://www.33revolutions.com/
Price: Donations welcome
Need more information? call: Sandra Decker 650-303-1176
or email revdecker@msn.com
Sponsored by the Green Party of Contra Costa County
Monday, July 6th, 2009 6:00 PM
Labor Fest International Solidarity Night
ILWU Hall
801 Second Street
San Francisco, CA 94107
http://www.laborfest.net
International Labor Music Night with singers from around the world and labor musicians Anne Feeney and Jack Chernos. Join in on a night of labor music. We will have labor solidarity songs about workers´ lives from Japan, Korea, Turkey, Italy and the Philippines. Bring your instruments, your tunes and music for an international music solidarity night.
http://www.annefeeney.com/
Friday, July 10th, 2009 5:15 PM
Anne Feeney Singing Out for Single Payer!
Kesey Stage
Oregon Country Fair
Veneta, OR
http://oregoncountryfair.org
Saturday, July 11th, 2009 3:00 PM
Anne Feeney Singing Out for Single Payer!
Chez Ray
Oregon Country Fair
Veneta, OR
http://oregoncountryfair.org
Sunday, July 12th, 2009 2:15 PM
Anne Feeney Singing Out for Single Payer!
Blue Moon Stage
Veneta, OR
http://oregoncountryfair.net
Monday, July 13th, 2009 7:00 PM
Sing Out for Single Payer Road Show with Raina Rose, Chris Chandler, Paul Benoit, Jason Luckett, Anne Feeney, David Rovics, Green Mountain Grass, Patrick Dodd and Citizens' Band
Central Park Gazebo
8th Street and Madison Avenue
Corvallis, OR
Price: donations welcomed
Paul Hochfeld is the contact - phochfeld(@)msn.com
Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 5:00 PM
Sing Out for Single Payer with Raina Rose, Patrick Dodd, Green Mountain Grass, Jason Luckett, Anne Feeney, Citizens' Band and more!
Mingus Park
752 N 10th St
Coos Bay, OR 97420
541-217-8044
Price: donations welcome
Rick Staggenborg, MD is the contact - stagmd(@)hotmail.com; Sponsored in part by the Pacific Greens of Coos County. Come straight from work. Refreshments available & plenty of parking!
Wednesday, July 15th, 2009 7:00 PM
Sing Out for Single Payer Road Show with Anne Feeney, Jason Luckett, Bluegrass Dave Wilmoth, Patrick Dodd, David Rovics, Pickles, Wickline and more!
Cafe Mundo
NW Coast and 2nd St
Newport, OR
541-265-9747
Price: $10 suggested
Contact: Joanne Cvar cvar(@)peak.org
Thursday, July 16th, 2009 6:00 PM
Sing Out for Single Payer with David Rovics, Anne Feeney, Jason Luckett, Wickline, Patrick Dodd, Pickles and Bluegrass Dave Wilmoth!
Green Salmon
220 N Hwy 101
Yachats, OR 97498
541 563 3615
http://www.thegreensalmon.com/
Price: donations welcome
Contact: Joanne Cvar cvar@peak.org
Friday, July 17th, 2009 8:30 PM
Sing Out for Single Payer Road Show with Adam & Kris, Anne Feeney, Wickline, Raina Rose, Green Mountain Grass, Jason Luckett, Brian QTN, and Patrick Dodd
The Very Little Theater!
2350 Hilyard Street
Eugene, OR 97405-2954
http://www.thevlt.com/Calendar/Calendar.htm
Price: donations welcome
Charlotte Maloney - charuhc(@)comcast.net and Jeanine Malito - Jmalito(@)continet.com are the contacts
Saturday, July 18th, 2009 7:30 PM
Sing Out for Single Payer Road Show with Anne Feeney, Pickles, Hunter Paye, General Strike, Bluegrass Dave Wilmoth, Jason Luckett, Wickline, Dick Weissman and more!
SEIU Local 49 Auditorium
3536 SE 26th Ave.
Portland, OR 97202
Price: donations
OR Jobs with Justice is organizing this! Contact Margaret Butler - margaret(@)jwjpdx.org
Sunday, July 19th, 2009 7:00 PM
Sing Out for Single Payer Tour with Raina Rose, Green Mountain Grass, Wickline, Anne Feeney, Jason Luckett and more!
tba
Salem, OR
Price: donations
this show will definitely happen one way or another... details soon. Joe - mungfam@hotmail.com is the contact
Monday, July 20th, 2009 7:00 PM
Sing Out for Single Payer with Trevor Smith, Anne Feeney, Jason Luckett, Wickline and more!
Blue Scorcher Cafe & Bakery
1493 Duane St
Astoria , OR 97103
Price: donations
katree@pobox.com or tduncan@pacifier.com for more information
Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009 8:00 PM
Sing Out for Single Payer Road Show
Anne Feeney, Jason Luckett, Wickline, Brian QTN and more!
rossr241@aol.com is the contact
Everett, WA
If you'd like to help with hosting this Single Payer Road Show call me at 412-877-6480 or email me at anne@annefeeney.com
Thursday, July 23rd, 2009 8:00 PM
Sing Out for Single Payer Road Show with Adam & Kris, Brian QTN, Anne Feeney, Jason Luckett, Wickline and more!!
gfcox@prodigy.net is the contact
Olympia, WA
Friday, July 24th, 2009 9:00 AM
Union Women's Summer School
Evergreen College
Olympia, WA
lasletts@evergreen.edu is the contact
Friday, July 24th, 2009 7:00 PM
Sing Out for Single Payer Road Show with Adam and Kris, Sharon Abreu, Michael Hurwicz, Anne Feeney, Jason Luckett & more
Peninsula Community College Student Center
Port Angeles, WA
360-683-8407
Price: donations
Carlyn syvanenx@teleport.com is the contact - This event is organized by Reform Health Care Now! and the Green Party of Clallam County
Saturday, July 25th, 2009 8:00 PM
Sing Out for Single Payer Road Show with Anne Feeney, Jason Luckett, the Seattle Labor Chorus, Sheila Liming, Sharon Abreu and Michael Hurwicz, Wickline and Ben Silver!
The Quincy Jones Theater
Seattle, WA
WA State Jobs with Justice and PNHP are involved in organizing this show!
Sunday, July 26th, 2009 7:00 PM
Sing Out for Single Payer Road Show with Rebel Voices, Anne Feeney, Sharon Abreu and Michael Hurwicz, Jason Luckett and Ben Silver!
Tacoma, WA
Price: donations
call me at 412-877-6480 or email me at anne@annefeeney.com to help with this show!!
Monday, July 27th, 2009 8:00 PM
Sing Out for Single Payer Road Show with Ben Silver, Citizens' Band, Sharon Abreu and Michael Hurwicz, Adam & Kris, Jason Luckett and Anne Feeney!
Whatcom Peace and Justice Center
100 E Maple Street
Bellingham, WA 98227
(360) 734-0217
http://www.whatcompjc.org/calendar.html
Price: donations
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Hi Folks:
I really need your help.
I've rounded up over three dozen wonderful professional musicians who have committed to a "Sing Out for Single Payer Road Show" - health care for all. The first show is in Los Angeles on July 2nd, with 20+ concerts along the way, ending in Bellingham on July 27th. Check out http://annefeeney.com/specialevents.html for a list of all the places we'll be visiting on this tour. And what a cast!
This nearly border-to-border road show will engage thousands of audience members in dozens of key congressional districts in three states and generate thousands of letters and phone calls to Congress and to President Obama.
The tour is dramatically energizing single-payer activist organizations in all three states, and the concerts will generate much-needed donations for local organizations.
The tour will also create three dozen + articulate, informed musical ambassadors for this important issue.
I'm about $10,000 short of what I need to make this happen. I want to be able to offer each musician $100/show + gas money. You can tell from the roster of musicians that these are not people who can afford to give up a week's wages or more to come on this tour - but they're doing it anyway, because they trust me and know that this is a unique moment in history. It's important to be able to leave most of the money we raise at these concerts in the communities where the concerts take place so that local organizers can continue their important work.
If you each sent me $10 right now, I'd have enough money to pull this off in a big way.
Please send a check to:
Anne Feeney
2240 Milligan Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15218
as soon as you read this.
If you want to make a tax-deductible contribution of $500 or more, you can send it to:
Universal Health Care for Oregon
PO BOX 11156
Eugene, OR 97440
(Be SURE to note "Sing Out for Single Payer" or put my name in the memo of your check)
If you want to use a credit card, click on this Paypal button on the right hand side of this blog.
Or maybe you can help me with an in-kind contribution or loan:
If you live on the west coast - I need clipboards, stationery, postage stamps, envelopes, the use a digital camera, the use of a digital video camera and tripod, the use of a van from Los Angeles to Seattle
Or maybe you can forward this to a generous friend...
You've never let me down, and I'm sure you won't now, either.
It seems I've always got my hand out for something-or-other when I come to you... You may get tired of it, and believe me, I get tired of it, too. I can't even apologize for it - It's a big and necessary part of my life's work.
But I so appreciate the folks who get it and just step up to the plate. Many thanks to Jerry Tucker, Kay and Walter Tillow, Labor Campaign for Single Payer, Peter Yarrow, Dr. Paul Hochfeld, Neal Eckstein, Karen Newman, Hilary Chiz and Matt Redabaugh for chiming in generously and early!
I want to thank Sign and Display Workers' Local 510 for donating a 10' x 4' banner to our Road Show... and Gary Huck for the fabulous graphic.
Thanks to all the wonderful organizers who are hosting this tour, promoting this tour, housing us and feeding us!
Together, WE CAN make progressively funded comprehensive universal health care available to everyone in this country!
National Health Care NOW!!
My love and thanks to all of you!
Anne
PS - If you buy some of my CDs this month, it'll help keep me from going under at home while I'm out on this adventure! http://cdbaby.com/all/unionmaid
-- Anne Feeney
anne@annefeeney.com
http://annefeeney.com/
2240 Milligan Ave.
Pittsburgh, PA 15218
(412)877-6480 (cell)
"Anne Feeney is the best labor singer in North America." -- Utah Phillips
"Anne is a role model for us. She has lived her songs." -- Peter Yarrow
"Congratulations on your fine songwriting!" -- Pete Seeger
Friday, May 22, 2009
JUNE 2009 - Anne Feeney's Fellow Travelers' Advisory - VOLUME 5, #3
SING OUT FOR SINGLE PAYER!!
With your help, I'm organizing a "Sing Out/Speak Out for Single Payer" tour. Imagine a month of high-powered hilarious and informative concerts in CA, OR and WA all designed to promote interest in single payer health care. That's what is happening from July 4th-20th. I modeled this tour on the wildly successful SING OUT THE VOTE OHIO tour that many of us did last October... there's lots of fun video from that on youtube that would give you a taste of what it was like The Oregon Country Fair (July 10-12) attracts wonderful performers and speakers from all over the country. I know many of them well, having performed there for the last eight years, and I have interested some very talented (and perhaps some very well-known people - unconfirmed as of this writing) to essentially donate their talents to be part of this cultural blitz through California, Oregon and Washington for single payer health care. (cool poster by Chris Chandler http://chrischandler.org/ )
I'm expecting that most of the concerts will be free - although some local organizers have decided to suggest a donation. They will all be fun and informative. We will engage our audiences in direct, fun, and community appropriate activity that will move universal health care closer to every American. We will request donations at the free concerts. We will split the donations with the local sponsoring organization. Wewill seek out free venues - churches, college auditoriums, etc. and seek donated sound reinforcement whenever possible.
If you can donate some money to make this happen, you can send a check in any amount, large or small, payable to Anne Feeney, 2240 Milligan Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15218 - or donate via Paypal with a credit card to singout4singlepayer@annefeeney.com. - Any donation is greatly appreciated!
If you are in a position to donate $500 or more, your tax deductible contribution, payable to "Universal Health Care for OR" should also be sent to me, Anne Feeney, 2240 Milligan Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15218 (That way I can send the checks together and keep track of them so that they won't get mixed up with donations they receive for other projects...)
If you have any suggestions or advice for me, send it my way.My cell is 412-877-6480, my email anne@annefeeney.com
I'm expecting that most of the concerts will be free - although some local organizers have decided to suggest a donation. They will all be fun and informative. We will engage our audiences in direct, fun, and community appropriate activity that will move universal health care closer to every American. We will request donations at the free concerts. We will split the donations with the local sponsoring organization. Wewill seek out free venues - churches, college auditoriums, etc. and seek donated sound reinforcement whenever possible.
If you can donate some money to make this happen, you can send a check in any amount, large or small, payable to Anne Feeney, 2240 Milligan Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15218 - or donate via Paypal with a credit card to singout4singlepayer@annefeeney.com. - Any donation is greatly appreciated!
If you are in a position to donate $500 or more, your tax deductible contribution, payable to "Universal Health Care for OR" should also be sent to me, Anne Feeney, 2240 Milligan Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15218 (That way I can send the checks together and keep track of them so that they won't get mixed up with donations they receive for other projects...)
If you have any suggestions or advice for me, send it my way.My cell is 412-877-6480, my email anne@annefeeney.com
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GALWAY, DUBLIN and CLARE - AUGUST 25- SEPTEMBER 3rd
I still have three seats left for the fabulous tour I've organized with my Irish partner, Tom Piggott of Enchanted Way tours. http://enchantedwaytours.ie/ - This is the most fun group of friends I think I've ever assembled for an Ireland tour - and you're welcome to join us on our lovely little luxury coach as we take in the best that Ireland has to offer on this wonderful 9 day adventure.
You arrange your own transportation to Shannon airport. We pick you up, provide all ground transportation, all accommodations, all breakfasts, three dinners and one of the most memorable guided tours you'll ever experience. See Ireland at Ireland's pace -music, culture, history, poetry, politics, scenery, pubs - and the comraderie of a great group of folks! Your cost for the tour is $1950 + transportation. If you'd like to come along, or want more information, drop me a line at anne@annefeeney.com
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SWEDEN IN AUGUST!
I'm so looking forward to August in Sweden. If you'd like to book a concert, contact Fredrik Gleisner, fredrik@goatbridge.com to arrange a performance.
OCTOBER IN THE MIDWEST WITH DAVID ROVICS
My October tour of the midwest with the wonderful David Rovics, http://davidrovics.com/ , is coming together niceley. If you'd like to see us together in your midwestern town, drop me a line and we'll try to work something out.
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22 May 2009
Oklahoma City
Hi Folks
I'm in Oklahoma City where I had a great gig and a wonderful reuinion with old friends here last night - on my way to the Kerrville Folk Festival for another grand reuinion and visit with my daughter Amy. My son Dan and his wife Monique came to DC from Ecuador last weekend so that Dan could attend his graduation (magna cum laude!) from Georgetown School of Law. We got in a terrific, but too-brief visit.
I hope you'll send some $$ to help underwrite the Sing Out for Single Payer Road Show. We've got to fix this disgraceful health care system!
I had a BALL at the Pete Seeger 90th birthday celebration at Madison Square Garden. We had little parties before and after the show and it was great to see Pat Humphries & Sandy O(http://emmasrevolution.com/), Colleen Kattau, George and Julius, Charlie and Marilyn Bernhardt, David and Katie Elsila, Phil Fenty and his lovely wife, Trudy Mason and her posse, Margie Rosenkranz, Wanda Fischer and a bunch of Eighth Step Folks, Eleanor Walden, Mary Cliff... oh, I know I'm forgetting some folks - but we sure had fun. And it was such a thrill to see my dear friends Larry Long, Tommy Sands and Pittsburgh's own Bruce Foley up there on the stage at Madison Square Garden with Pete, Bernice Johnson Reagon, Bruce Springsteen, Joan Baez, Dar Williams, Ani di Franco, Emmy Lou Harris, Michael Franti and Kris Kristoffersson! What a night! I'm sure it will be a PBS special soon.
It looks like CDBaby is well stocked with all my CDs... Why not visit http://cdbaby.com/all/unionmaid and get a CD to pop in your car stereo as you head off for summer adventures? It'll make your time on the road (and mine) more pleasurable.
Happy Birthday to my cousin Terry Donovan!
Thanks so much for your interest in my music and my work.
Here's the upcoming schedule!
Love, solidarity and NATIONAL HEALTH CARE NOW!
Anne
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Wednesday, June 3rd- 6th, 2009 1:00 PM
Working Class Studies ConferenceWilliam Pitt Union -
University of PittsburghF
orbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
412-624-6506
Thursday, June 4th, 2009 8:00 PM
Working Class Studies Conference
William Pitt Union - University of Pittsburgh
Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
412-624-6506
8–10pm Cultural Event - A Hammer to Shape Reality,
drama from Out of This Furnace and Buried,
music by Anne Feeney and Friends,
produced by Marci Woodruff
Sunday, June 21st- Tuesday, June 23rd
Great Labor Arts Exchange
National Labor College10000
New Hampshire Ave NW
Silver Spring, MD
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009 6:00 PM
Ontario Federation of Labour Presents Anne Feeney
St Catherines, ON
bruce allen is the contact
SING OUT FOR SINGLE PAYER ROAD SHOW
with Anne Feeney, Citizens' Band, Jan Luby, Michael Lauren,
Ben Silver, Rebel Voices, Adam & Kris, Brian QTN, the Seattle
Labor Chorus and more*
JULY 4 - Santa Cruz
JULY 7 - Ashland, OR
JULY 8 - Bend, OR
JULY 9 - Florence OR
JULY 10-12 - Oregon Country Fair
JULY 13 - Corvallis
JULY 14 - Coos Bay
JULY 15 - Newport
JULY 16 - Yachats
JULY 17 - Eugene
JULY 18 - Salem
JULY 19 - Portland
JULY 20 - Astoria
JULY 21 - Vancouver, WA
JULY 22 - Chehalis, WA
JULY 23- Olympia, WA
JULY 24- Tacoma, WA
JULY 25 - Seattle, WA
JULY 26 - Everett, WA
JULY 27 - Bellingham, WA
*not all dates are confirmed. not all performers will be at all shows. details for these and all shows continuously updating at http://annefeeney.com/calendar.html
Thursday, April 23, 2009
MAY 2009 - Anne Feeney's Fellow Travelers' Advisory - VOLUME 5, #2
IMMEDIATE DESTINATIONS: (see details at the end of this newsletter and continuously updating at http://annefeeney.com/calendar.html)
Pittsburgh, PA
Haledon, NJ
Philadelphia, PA
N Cambria, PA
Winnipeg, MB
Chicago, IL
Oklahoma City, OK
Kerrville Folk Festival
Working Class Studies Conference - Pittsburgh, PA
People's Music Network Summer Gathering - upstate NY
Great Labor Arts Exchange Washington, DC
Sing Out for Single Payer! CA, OR & WA
April 29, 2009
Champaign, IL
I have to pack now and run for my flight back to Pittsburgh where I'll be doing a hometown show for the first time in a while... joined by many dear and talented friends...
I hope you'll take a minute to read about my adventures past and future...
I hope you'll tell your friends to come and see me.
I hope you'll forward this newsletter widely.
I hope you'll buy my cds at http://cdbaby.com/all/unionmaid
I hope you'll drop me a line and tell me what you're up to.
I hope Arlen Specter becomes a better Senator.
Love and Solidarity
Anne
************************************************************************************
WHY DO WE NEED THE EMPLOYEE FREE CHOICE ACT?
I wish the labor movement hadn't risked so much of its prestige and invested so much of its energy in this bill, which so few people understand. It reminds me of the ill-fated anti-scab legislation labor put so much effort into at the start of the Clinton years. While most people have no idea what EFCA means or will do, ALL Americans are struggling with this miserable so-called health care system we have. How I wish labor's first big battle in the Obama years had been for single payer health care...
Still... we desperately need a bill like the Employee Free Choice Act, and I hope you're all doing everything you can to educate your friends and neighbors about how important it is... here are some prime examples of why we MUST reform labor law in this country:
For twenty years I've admired my indefatigable friend and mentor Kay Tillow. Since 1989 she's been sticking by the Nurses' Professional Organization of Kentucky in their quest for union representation. Twice an overwhelming majority of the nurses have signed cards seeking union representation. Twice their arrogant employer has tried to bully them into believing that they don't know what they want. Coercion, lies, intimidation, lawlessness, illegal firings - Employers stop at nothing to keep unions out, and they do so with impunity. Every 23 minutes someone in the US is illegally fired for union activity. These nurses ought to be the poster children for labor law reform - yet they are but one of thousands of strong cases around the country for why we MUST have the Employee Free Choice Act. Their case got the attention of the New York Times:
April 21, 2009
One Struggle for a Nurses’ Union Awaits the Vote on a Labor Bill
Bid to Organize Nurses Faces Setback in Congress
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
The battle has ground on for 20 years. In 1989 and again in 1994, a clear majority of nurses at a Louisville, Ky., hospital signed cards saying they wanted a union. But each time a majority of the nurses later voted down the idea when it was put to a secret ballot.
Organized labor points to the fight at Norton Audubon Hospital as proof that America’s labor laws need to be overhauled: judges ruled that management had prevailed by illegally intimidating and firing nurses.
Nurses who want a union plan to try again, and they had expected a Democratic president and Congress to retool labor laws to make it easier to win. Instead, in Louisville and around the country, organized labor may be facing a major setback in the most contentious fight over labor laws since the 1940s.
Right now, unions seem to lack the 60 votes needed to block a Senate filibuster against the Employee Free Choice Act, the bill that would give workers the right to have their union recognized as soon as a majority signs cards calling for a union. The change would make it easy to bypass secret-ballot elections, which are traditionally harder for unions to win.
With Congress returning Tuesday from a two-week recess during which unions deluged the airwaves with advertisements supporting the bill, labor leaders voice confidence that Congress would still enact some far-reaching legislation this year to make it easier to unionize — and they are discussing making some modest changes in the bill to help firm up support. In recent months, corporate interests have lobbied vigorously against “card check,” as the bill is known, because it would most likely enable unions to add millions of members and increase labor’s clout in Washington and at bargaining tables nationwide
The battle is occurring after years in which organized labor has been on the defensive. Union membership has declined to 7.4 percent of private sector workers from 25 percent three decades ago. Labor leaders say the nation’s laws have unfairly handicapped them. They say management has many advantages, including an ability to campaign against unions the whole workday, while union organizers are barred from company property.
Card check would be fairer, they argue, because workers could organize without the expensive, prolonged campaigns that precede secret-ballot elections in which management often presses workers to vote against the union and sometimes illegally fire pro-union workers.
“The Employee Free Choice Act is critical to building an economy that works for everyone in this country again,” said George Miller, Democrat of California, the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee and the bill’s chief sponsor in the House. “The time has come to no longer coerce and intimidate workers who seek to have a say at work.”
Management says the current process is fairer because workers are able to hear arguments from the union and management. Moreover, business leaders say, secret-ballot elections are more trustworthy than card check because union organizers can bully workers into signing pro-union cards.
“Given the deceitful tactics unions employ when trying to get nurses to sign these cards, this is dangerous legislation that should not be enacted,” Stephen A. Williams, president of the hospital’s parent, the nonprofit corporation Norton Healthcare, wrote to the nurses in March.
In the Louisville fight, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that the nurses had changed their minds about the union in 1994 mainly because management conducted an often illegal campaign against unionization.
An N.L.R.B. judge concluded that management had committed so many serious violations of the law — firing and demoting nurses, threatening to close the hospital if the union prevailed — that it made the possibility of a “free choice by the employees slight to nonexistent.”
Ann Hurst, a pro-union nurse who the board said was illegally demoted, still remembers. “They came after us with a vengeance,” she said. “They created a lot of fear about what would happen if we had a union.”
Ms. Hurst complains that workers have to run a gantlet of threats, firings and bullying to obtain a union. She said that in 1989 such tactics caused the union to lose by 11 votes. After the 1994 effort, when Columbia/HCA owned the hospital, the N.L.R.B. found that management had violated the law in dozens of ways, including telling the nurses that if they unionized they would lose all their benefits and the hospital would be sold and their jobs would disappear.
The N.L.R.B.’s rulings described weeks of psychological warfare. Management put television sets in the nurses’ stations. “They would show these horrible old movies showing miners’ strikes and violence involving unions,” said Betty Schmitt, a nurse who has since retired.
She said management put up signs reading: “Be careful with whom you associate. You can be found guilty by association.” Many nurses were scared to be seen talking to union supporters, she said.
“It didn’t feel like America,” Ms. Schmitt said. “It felt like Nazi Germany.”
In 1994, the nurses voted 366 to 220 against unionizing — a sharp reversal considering that a majority of 348 nurses had originally signed pro-union cards. Management said the nurses in the majority did not want to pay union dues or have an outside party speak for them.
In a 1997 decision about that election, an N.L.R.B. judge ruled that management’s law-breaking was “so serious and substantial” that he ordered the hospital to recognize and bargain with the union, the Nurses Professional Organization, since a majority had initially signed pro-union cards.
read the rest at
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/business/21labor.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=all
OTHER LABOR NEWS
My friends in Elkhart were dealt a terrible blow. The NLRB has upheld the decertification election in which the scabs voted the UAW out. Now Vincent Bach has no reason to bargain with the UAW over the fate of the striking workers - and the UAW no longer has to pay strike benefits. An American tragedy.
My locked out sisters and brothers of AFSCME 3494 in Effingham, IL sponsored a lovely concert for me last night. http://www.effinghamdailynews.com/local/local_story_119130512.html - I presented them with the $1035 I collected for them at the UALE conference last weekend in Washington, DC. They were very touched.
*************************************************************************************
STOP BLACKWATER!
(photo courtesy of Laura Flynn Enders)
Approximately 100 people registered for the STOP BLACKWATER! conference organized by Clearwater http://www.noprivatearmies.org/ and the Catholic Workers http://www.catholicworker.org/ in Stockton, IL. The conference featured keynotes by the fabulous Kathy Kelly, Jeremy Scahill and Ann Wright. Blackwater's many crimes were considered, as well as the increasing danger to democracy posed by a privatized army. On Monday, April 27th, 22 of the conference participants were arrested in a non-violent direct action against Blackwater. While attempting to serve NOTICE OF FORECLOSURE for moral bankruptcy on Blackwater, the 22 Catholic workers and other peacemakers were taken into custody by state police and put in custody in Galena, IL.
It was a most inspiring four days of action. I had a heavy case of arrest fever, but restrained myself to make sure I didn't miss my concert for the locked out workers in Effingham. To learn more about Blackwater, read Jeremy Scahill's fabulous book: http://blackwaterbook.com/
BLACKWATER: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army
*************************************************************************************
SING OUT FOR SINGLE PAYER!!
I'm putting together a cultural workers' ensemble - SING OUT FOR SINGLE PAYER! - to sing all over northern California and Oregon and Washington Sate July 4-28th. If you would like to welcome a talented group of musicians singing out for single payer health care into your community, contact me. If you are an artist, musician, juggler, magician or acrobat interested in single payer health care and you'd like to be part of this, contact me. If you'd like to help underwrite this tour, contact me. anne@annefeeney.com or 412-877-6480
*************************************************************************************
PETE SEEGER IS 90!
I'll be celebrating Pete Seeger's 90th birthday along with a few thousand of his friends at Madison Square Garden on May 3 - see http://seeger90.com If you're going and want to get together somewhere ahead of time, call me at 412-877-6480 - If you can't go, but would like to honor Pete and his work, please consider a donation to Clearwater http://www.clearwater.org/
*************************************************************************************
MAY BIRTHDAYS
Jim Tremmel, May 2nd – Kathleen Feeney, Pete Seeger, Antonito Blanco, May 3rd - Bill Deegan and Paul Eric Grefenstette, May 10th - Tony Mumphrey and Kevin McCahill, May 15th – Terry Donovan, May 23rd
*************************************************************************************
Thursday, April 30th, 2009 8:30 PM
Anne Feeney in Concert
Allegheny Unitarian Universalist Church
416 W North Ave
Pittsburgh, PA 15212
412-877-6480
Price: $15 suggested
Friday, May 1st, 2009 7:00 PM
Mayday!!!
Botto House American Labor Museum
83 Norwood St
Haledon, NJ 07508
http://www.geocities.com/labormuseum/
Price: FREE
refreshments are served at this Mayday gala featuring Chris Chandler with Danny Dolinger, Julius Margolin & George Mann, The NJ Solidarity Singers and more!
Saturday, May 2nd, 2009 7:30 PM
Temple's Student Center South
13th St. between Cecil B. Moore and Montgomery
Philadelphia, PA
215-763-2287
http://taup.org
Price: $5 at the door
Presented by: TAUP (Temple Association of University Professionals, AFT Local 4531), along with CLUW (Coalition of Labor Union Women, Philadelphia Chapter), Jobs with Justice, Temple AFSCME (District Council 47, Local 1723), Temple Student Labor Action Project (SLAP), and TUGSA (Temple University Graduate Students Association, AFT Local 6290).
The concert is made possible in part by a grant from the Pennsylvania Labor Education Center, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, of the PA State System of Higher Education (http://www.iup.edu/laborcenter).
Sunday, May 3rd, 2009 8:00 PM
Pete Seeger's 90th Birthday Party
Madison Square Garden
New York, NY
http://seeger90.com
Price: $19.19-$1250
Ahhh, I would be thrilled to be performing at this show, but I'll be celebrating my sister Kathleen's mutual birthday with Pete from the upper balconies.... cheering on my companeros Larry Long, the NYC Labor Chorus and Tommy Sands as they join a legendary cast paying tribute to a great mentor and wonderful human being - Pete Seeger. All proceeds benefit Clearwater!
Wednesday, May 6th, 2009 7:00 PM
Labor Chautauqua Concert with Anne Feeney
Coal Country Hangout
1102 Maple Ave
N Cambria, PA 15714
724-397-2696
Price: FREE
Coal Country Hangout Youth Center is coordinating a workshop with Northern Cambria High School on the history of Labor
The concert is made possible in part by a grant from the Pennsylvania Labor Education Center, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, of the PA State System of Higher Education (http://www.iup.edu/laborcenter).
Sunday, May 10th, 2009 7:30 PM
An Evening of Labour Songs: Joe Jencks and Anne Feeney in Concert
Winnipeg Art Gallery Auditorium
300 Memorial Blvd.
Winnipeg, MB
Canada
http://mayworks.org/?m=20090510&cat=4
Price: $20 advance
mitchpodolak(@)shaw.ca or drblack(@)mts.net have more info
Tickets $20 in advance at Organic Planet, Sled Dog Music, Sonus Musica, Folk Festival Music Store, Walnut Street Music - cash only
May 14th - May 17th, 2009
Regina Polk Conference
Pheasant Run Resort
St Charles, IL
Sunday, May 17th, 2009 2:00 PM
Dan's Graduation!
Georgetown University School of Law
Washington, DC
June 3rd - June 6th, 2009
Working Class Studies Conference
William Pitt Union - Univ of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA
http://www.workingclassstudies.pitt.edu
412-624-6506
I will be doing a show on the evening of June 4
June 21st-June 23, 2009
Great Labor Arts Exchange/
Conference on Creative Organizing
National Labor College
10000 New Hampshire Ave NW
Silver Spring, MD
http://laborheritage.org/glaereg.html
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009 - 7PM
Great Labor Arts Exchange Public Concert
National Labor College
10000 New Hampshire Ave NW
Silver Spring, MD
http://laborheritage.org
Price: free
not to be missed!
Saturday, July 4th, 2009
SING OUT FOR SINGLE PAYER
Concert in Santa Cruz, CA
details tba
Sunday, July 5th, 2009 8:00 PM
Labor Fest (tentative)
ILWU (tentative)
San Francisco, CA
details as they become available
July 10th-July 12th, 2009
Oregon Country Fair
Veneta, OR
http://oregoncountryfair.org
Looking for work anywhere between Coos Bay and Seattle
Friday, July 24th, 2009 9:00 AM
Union Women's Summer School
Evergreen College
Olympia, WA
lasletts@evergreen.edu is the contact
Thanks for reading this! Now, please forward it to your friends!
Pittsburgh, PA
Haledon, NJ
Philadelphia, PA
N Cambria, PA
Winnipeg, MB
Chicago, IL
Oklahoma City, OK
Kerrville Folk Festival
Working Class Studies Conference - Pittsburgh, PA
People's Music Network Summer Gathering - upstate NY
Great Labor Arts Exchange Washington, DC
Sing Out for Single Payer! CA, OR & WA
April 29, 2009
Champaign, IL
I have to pack now and run for my flight back to Pittsburgh where I'll be doing a hometown show for the first time in a while... joined by many dear and talented friends...
I hope you'll take a minute to read about my adventures past and future...
I hope you'll tell your friends to come and see me.
I hope you'll forward this newsletter widely.
I hope you'll buy my cds at http://cdbaby.com/all/unionmaid
I hope you'll drop me a line and tell me what you're up to.
I hope Arlen Specter becomes a better Senator.
Love and Solidarity
Anne
************************************************************************************
WHY DO WE NEED THE EMPLOYEE FREE CHOICE ACT?
I wish the labor movement hadn't risked so much of its prestige and invested so much of its energy in this bill, which so few people understand. It reminds me of the ill-fated anti-scab legislation labor put so much effort into at the start of the Clinton years. While most people have no idea what EFCA means or will do, ALL Americans are struggling with this miserable so-called health care system we have. How I wish labor's first big battle in the Obama years had been for single payer health care...
Still... we desperately need a bill like the Employee Free Choice Act, and I hope you're all doing everything you can to educate your friends and neighbors about how important it is... here are some prime examples of why we MUST reform labor law in this country:
For twenty years I've admired my indefatigable friend and mentor Kay Tillow. Since 1989 she's been sticking by the Nurses' Professional Organization of Kentucky in their quest for union representation. Twice an overwhelming majority of the nurses have signed cards seeking union representation. Twice their arrogant employer has tried to bully them into believing that they don't know what they want. Coercion, lies, intimidation, lawlessness, illegal firings - Employers stop at nothing to keep unions out, and they do so with impunity. Every 23 minutes someone in the US is illegally fired for union activity. These nurses ought to be the poster children for labor law reform - yet they are but one of thousands of strong cases around the country for why we MUST have the Employee Free Choice Act. Their case got the attention of the New York Times:
April 21, 2009
One Struggle for a Nurses’ Union Awaits the Vote on a Labor Bill
Bid to Organize Nurses Faces Setback in Congress
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
The battle has ground on for 20 years. In 1989 and again in 1994, a clear majority of nurses at a Louisville, Ky., hospital signed cards saying they wanted a union. But each time a majority of the nurses later voted down the idea when it was put to a secret ballot.
Organized labor points to the fight at Norton Audubon Hospital as proof that America’s labor laws need to be overhauled: judges ruled that management had prevailed by illegally intimidating and firing nurses.
Nurses who want a union plan to try again, and they had expected a Democratic president and Congress to retool labor laws to make it easier to win. Instead, in Louisville and around the country, organized labor may be facing a major setback in the most contentious fight over labor laws since the 1940s.
Right now, unions seem to lack the 60 votes needed to block a Senate filibuster against the Employee Free Choice Act, the bill that would give workers the right to have their union recognized as soon as a majority signs cards calling for a union. The change would make it easy to bypass secret-ballot elections, which are traditionally harder for unions to win.
With Congress returning Tuesday from a two-week recess during which unions deluged the airwaves with advertisements supporting the bill, labor leaders voice confidence that Congress would still enact some far-reaching legislation this year to make it easier to unionize — and they are discussing making some modest changes in the bill to help firm up support. In recent months, corporate interests have lobbied vigorously against “card check,” as the bill is known, because it would most likely enable unions to add millions of members and increase labor’s clout in Washington and at bargaining tables nationwide
The battle is occurring after years in which organized labor has been on the defensive. Union membership has declined to 7.4 percent of private sector workers from 25 percent three decades ago. Labor leaders say the nation’s laws have unfairly handicapped them. They say management has many advantages, including an ability to campaign against unions the whole workday, while union organizers are barred from company property.
Card check would be fairer, they argue, because workers could organize without the expensive, prolonged campaigns that precede secret-ballot elections in which management often presses workers to vote against the union and sometimes illegally fire pro-union workers.
“The Employee Free Choice Act is critical to building an economy that works for everyone in this country again,” said George Miller, Democrat of California, the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee and the bill’s chief sponsor in the House. “The time has come to no longer coerce and intimidate workers who seek to have a say at work.”
Management says the current process is fairer because workers are able to hear arguments from the union and management. Moreover, business leaders say, secret-ballot elections are more trustworthy than card check because union organizers can bully workers into signing pro-union cards.
“Given the deceitful tactics unions employ when trying to get nurses to sign these cards, this is dangerous legislation that should not be enacted,” Stephen A. Williams, president of the hospital’s parent, the nonprofit corporation Norton Healthcare, wrote to the nurses in March.
In the Louisville fight, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that the nurses had changed their minds about the union in 1994 mainly because management conducted an often illegal campaign against unionization.
An N.L.R.B. judge concluded that management had committed so many serious violations of the law — firing and demoting nurses, threatening to close the hospital if the union prevailed — that it made the possibility of a “free choice by the employees slight to nonexistent.”
Ann Hurst, a pro-union nurse who the board said was illegally demoted, still remembers. “They came after us with a vengeance,” she said. “They created a lot of fear about what would happen if we had a union.”
Ms. Hurst complains that workers have to run a gantlet of threats, firings and bullying to obtain a union. She said that in 1989 such tactics caused the union to lose by 11 votes. After the 1994 effort, when Columbia/HCA owned the hospital, the N.L.R.B. found that management had violated the law in dozens of ways, including telling the nurses that if they unionized they would lose all their benefits and the hospital would be sold and their jobs would disappear.
The N.L.R.B.’s rulings described weeks of psychological warfare. Management put television sets in the nurses’ stations. “They would show these horrible old movies showing miners’ strikes and violence involving unions,” said Betty Schmitt, a nurse who has since retired.
She said management put up signs reading: “Be careful with whom you associate. You can be found guilty by association.” Many nurses were scared to be seen talking to union supporters, she said.
“It didn’t feel like America,” Ms. Schmitt said. “It felt like Nazi Germany.”
In 1994, the nurses voted 366 to 220 against unionizing — a sharp reversal considering that a majority of 348 nurses had originally signed pro-union cards. Management said the nurses in the majority did not want to pay union dues or have an outside party speak for them.
In a 1997 decision about that election, an N.L.R.B. judge ruled that management’s law-breaking was “so serious and substantial” that he ordered the hospital to recognize and bargain with the union, the Nurses Professional Organization, since a majority had initially signed pro-union cards.
read the rest at
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/business/21labor.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=all
OTHER LABOR NEWS
My friends in Elkhart were dealt a terrible blow. The NLRB has upheld the decertification election in which the scabs voted the UAW out. Now Vincent Bach has no reason to bargain with the UAW over the fate of the striking workers - and the UAW no longer has to pay strike benefits. An American tragedy.
My locked out sisters and brothers of AFSCME 3494 in Effingham, IL sponsored a lovely concert for me last night. http://www.effinghamdailynews.com/local/local_story_119130512.html - I presented them with the $1035 I collected for them at the UALE conference last weekend in Washington, DC. They were very touched.
*************************************************************************************
STOP BLACKWATER!
(photo courtesy of Laura Flynn Enders)
Approximately 100 people registered for the STOP BLACKWATER! conference organized by Clearwater http://www.noprivatearmies.org/ and the Catholic Workers http://www.catholicworker.org/ in Stockton, IL. The conference featured keynotes by the fabulous Kathy Kelly, Jeremy Scahill and Ann Wright. Blackwater's many crimes were considered, as well as the increasing danger to democracy posed by a privatized army. On Monday, April 27th, 22 of the conference participants were arrested in a non-violent direct action against Blackwater. While attempting to serve NOTICE OF FORECLOSURE for moral bankruptcy on Blackwater, the 22 Catholic workers and other peacemakers were taken into custody by state police and put in custody in Galena, IL.
It was a most inspiring four days of action. I had a heavy case of arrest fever, but restrained myself to make sure I didn't miss my concert for the locked out workers in Effingham. To learn more about Blackwater, read Jeremy Scahill's fabulous book: http://blackwaterbook.com/
BLACKWATER: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army
*************************************************************************************
SING OUT FOR SINGLE PAYER!!
I'm putting together a cultural workers' ensemble - SING OUT FOR SINGLE PAYER! - to sing all over northern California and Oregon and Washington Sate July 4-28th. If you would like to welcome a talented group of musicians singing out for single payer health care into your community, contact me. If you are an artist, musician, juggler, magician or acrobat interested in single payer health care and you'd like to be part of this, contact me. If you'd like to help underwrite this tour, contact me. anne@annefeeney.com or 412-877-6480
*************************************************************************************
PETE SEEGER IS 90!
I'll be celebrating Pete Seeger's 90th birthday along with a few thousand of his friends at Madison Square Garden on May 3 - see http://seeger90.com If you're going and want to get together somewhere ahead of time, call me at 412-877-6480 - If you can't go, but would like to honor Pete and his work, please consider a donation to Clearwater http://www.clearwater.org/
*************************************************************************************
MAY BIRTHDAYS
Jim Tremmel, May 2nd – Kathleen Feeney, Pete Seeger, Antonito Blanco, May 3rd - Bill Deegan and Paul Eric Grefenstette, May 10th - Tony Mumphrey and Kevin McCahill, May 15th – Terry Donovan, May 23rd
*************************************************************************************
Thursday, April 30th, 2009 8:30 PM
Anne Feeney in Concert
Allegheny Unitarian Universalist Church
416 W North Ave
Pittsburgh, PA 15212
412-877-6480
Price: $15 suggested
Friday, May 1st, 2009 7:00 PM
Mayday!!!
Botto House American Labor Museum
83 Norwood St
Haledon, NJ 07508
http://www.geocities.com/labormuseum/
Price: FREE
refreshments are served at this Mayday gala featuring Chris Chandler with Danny Dolinger, Julius Margolin & George Mann, The NJ Solidarity Singers and more!
Saturday, May 2nd, 2009 7:30 PM
Temple's Student Center South
13th St. between Cecil B. Moore and Montgomery
Philadelphia, PA
215-763-2287
http://taup.org
Price: $5 at the door
Presented by: TAUP (Temple Association of University Professionals, AFT Local 4531), along with CLUW (Coalition of Labor Union Women, Philadelphia Chapter), Jobs with Justice, Temple AFSCME (District Council 47, Local 1723), Temple Student Labor Action Project (SLAP), and TUGSA (Temple University Graduate Students Association, AFT Local 6290).
The concert is made possible in part by a grant from the Pennsylvania Labor Education Center, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, of the PA State System of Higher Education (http://www.iup.edu/laborcenter).
Sunday, May 3rd, 2009 8:00 PM
Pete Seeger's 90th Birthday Party
Madison Square Garden
New York, NY
http://seeger90.com
Price: $19.19-$1250
Ahhh, I would be thrilled to be performing at this show, but I'll be celebrating my sister Kathleen's mutual birthday with Pete from the upper balconies.... cheering on my companeros Larry Long, the NYC Labor Chorus and Tommy Sands as they join a legendary cast paying tribute to a great mentor and wonderful human being - Pete Seeger. All proceeds benefit Clearwater!
Wednesday, May 6th, 2009 7:00 PM
Labor Chautauqua Concert with Anne Feeney
Coal Country Hangout
1102 Maple Ave
N Cambria, PA 15714
724-397-2696
Price: FREE
Coal Country Hangout Youth Center is coordinating a workshop with Northern Cambria High School on the history of Labor
The concert is made possible in part by a grant from the Pennsylvania Labor Education Center, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, of the PA State System of Higher Education (http://www.iup.edu/laborcenter).
Sunday, May 10th, 2009 7:30 PM
An Evening of Labour Songs: Joe Jencks and Anne Feeney in Concert
Winnipeg Art Gallery Auditorium
300 Memorial Blvd.
Winnipeg, MB
Canada
http://mayworks.org/?m=20090510&cat=4
Price: $20 advance
mitchpodolak(@)shaw.ca or drblack(@)mts.net have more info
Tickets $20 in advance at Organic Planet, Sled Dog Music, Sonus Musica, Folk Festival Music Store, Walnut Street Music - cash only
May 14th - May 17th, 2009
Regina Polk Conference
Pheasant Run Resort
St Charles, IL
Sunday, May 17th, 2009 2:00 PM
Dan's Graduation!
Georgetown University School of Law
Washington, DC
June 3rd - June 6th, 2009
Working Class Studies Conference
William Pitt Union - Univ of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA
http://www.workingclassstudies.pitt.edu
412-624-6506
I will be doing a show on the evening of June 4
June 21st-June 23, 2009
Great Labor Arts Exchange/
Conference on Creative Organizing
National Labor College
10000 New Hampshire Ave NW
Silver Spring, MD
http://laborheritage.org/glaereg.html
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009 - 7PM
Great Labor Arts Exchange Public Concert
National Labor College
10000 New Hampshire Ave NW
Silver Spring, MD
http://laborheritage.org
Price: free
not to be missed!
Saturday, July 4th, 2009
SING OUT FOR SINGLE PAYER
Concert in Santa Cruz, CA
details tba
Sunday, July 5th, 2009 8:00 PM
Labor Fest (tentative)
ILWU (tentative)
San Francisco, CA
details as they become available
July 10th-July 12th, 2009
Oregon Country Fair
Veneta, OR
http://oregoncountryfair.org
Looking for work anywhere between Coos Bay and Seattle
Friday, July 24th, 2009 9:00 AM
Union Women's Summer School
Evergreen College
Olympia, WA
lasletts@evergreen.edu is the contact
Thanks for reading this! Now, please forward it to your friends!
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