Repost: Maine's Women, Work, and Community hosts Totally Trades conferences

Women, Work, and Community (WWC) recently organized two successful Totally Trades conferences – one in Westbrook on October 19 and a second in Calais on October 26.  All in all, nearly 200 girls were in attendance at the conferences.  The Calais conference, hosted by Washington County Community College, featured a new video directed and produced by female students from St. Croix Regional Technology Center (SCRTC).  The video profiles a successful female welding and commercial truck driving student.  The Westbrook conference was hosted by Westbrook Regional Vocational Center (WRVC).  At both conferences, girls in grades 8-12 explored careers in trades and technology by participating in a variety of  hands-on workshops, many taught by female instructors and professionals.  As one girl said, “I think it was really fun and cool.  I wish I could come again.”  Another student in attendance proclaimed, “Us ladies can reach our goals without anyone getting in our way!”

Suzanne Senechal-Jandreau, Regional Manager of the Aroostook center for WWC and conference organizer for Totally Trades in Calais, remarks, “The collective energy and enthusiasm of the girls throughout the day at Totally Trades is infectious.  Whether it be learning a new skill in a construction or auto-body workshop, taking a drive in a 14-wheeler, trying some self-defense moves, or being inspired by girls and women who prove that ‘men’s work’ is a misnomer, Totally Trades has something to offer for any girl considering her career options for the future.”

Read the original article at womenworkandcommunity.org.

Repost: Pioneer tradeswoman to read at Queen Anne Books

Queen Anne-based author Hadiyah Joan Carlyle will read from her memoir Torch in the Dark: One Woman’s Journey at Queen Anne Books, 1811 Queen Anne Ave. N. on Thursday, Oct. 18 at 6:30 p.m.

Carlyle’s book tells the story of how she, as a single mother, was one of the first women since World War II to enter the trades as a union welder. Beginning in a Jewish immigrant neighborhood in New Jersey, the story moves through San Francisco’s colorful Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s to arrive at last at Fairhaven Shipyard in Bellingham. For Carlyle, welding became both a path to self-reliance and economic survival and a metaphor for healing from early childhood trauma. “As one of the first female welders in the West Coast shipyards, Carlyle paved the way for women working in the trades today,” comments Arleen Williams, author of The Thirty-Ninth Victim.

The story of Carlyle’s journey offers inspiration for anyone struggling with issues of abuse and oppression. In addition, the book provides perspective on the culture of the 1960s and 1970s. “No one has even come close to the depth and detail of the sixties that Carlyle reaches,” says Jack Remick, author of The Deification and Blood.

Activist, hiker, grandmother, Carlyle is the mother of Washington State 36th District Legislator Reuven Carlyle.  More information about Torch in the Dark is available at www.torchinthedark.com.

Read the original article at http://queenannenews.com/.

Korean Sit-In atop Crane Defeats Job Cuts

Korean Sit-In atop Crane Defeats Job Cuts

by Kap Su Seol | Thu, 11/10/2011 - 2:30pmRetrieved from: http://labornotes.org/blogs/2011/11/korean-sit-atop-crane-defeats-job-cuts

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After 309 days sitting in on top of a 115-foot shipyard crane, a South Korean welder has won an agreement that her multinational employer will rehire 94 laid-off workers.

Each will get $20,000 in back pay.

Ending her sit-in in triumph over Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction Company, Kim Jin-suk called the action “one last fight to win.”

South Korean unions have not defeated corporations’ job cuts since 1997, when layoff rules were eased during the Asian financial crisis. That move was intended to break the region’s long-held tradition of lifetime employment.

Kim rallied support to her cause via Twitter. Her supporters, calling themselves the Hope Riders, first gathered and discussed online and then occupied the streets of Busan and Seoul, the country’s capital.

Kim survived Hanjin’s attempts to cut off her food, water, and electricity, and also her union leadership’s attempts to isolate her and her co-workers by clandestinely agreeing to a new contract.

Each time she was threatened, the Hope Riders mounted larger and larger street protests, defying the riot police and right-wing thugs who confronted them.

The Hope Riders grew strong enough to push the National Assembly to mediate a deal between Hanjin and the union.

On October 9 at the legislature, Hanjin’s chairman tearfully agreed to pay laid-off workers and reinstate them within a year—if the sit-in ended. Most of the 400 originally laid off had already taken buyouts. Kim and the Hope Riders helped bring back the jobs of 94 of the remaining 98.

On November 9, in one last move to avert the union’s victory, 500 riot police surrounded Crane 85 to arrest Kim and effectively aborted a union vote to approve the deal. After fierce protests, police finally withdrew. A day later, union members unanimously approved the agreement.

When the 52-year-old Kim occupied the control room of Crane 85 nearly a year ago, her co-workers feared the action would end the same way as another crane sit-in, conducted by Kim Ju-ik, who hanged himself after 129 days protesting job cuts in 2002.

Touching the ground for the first time, Kim Jin-suk said, “I wanted to prove that the cause for which I have been fighting half of my life and for which many comrades have died is right.”

She was escorted by supporters to a hospital for medical checks. Plainclothes police officers are now surrounding the hospital, waiting for a chance to arrest her for illegal occupation and trespassing.

Using the same cell phone she employed to motivate tens of thousands of new activists into action in South Korea, Kim addressed the general assembly of Occupy Wall Street in New York on October 8 through an interpreter.

She declared her sit-in part of “a global fight against corporate nastiness.” Kim’s triumph adds to the momentum of the rising global protest against the 1 percent.

Kap Su Seol is a research analyst by day and a freelance writer at night. He is currently at work writing a corporate history of Samsung, South Korea’s multinational conglomerate.