As you know, I have been involved with the Religion and Labor Network of Austin for the past year. The Religion and Labor Network of Austin is a coalition of faith communities, labor unions, and workers' rights advocates seeking to secure justice and dignity for all working people. The Religion and Labor Network is currently supporting Austin's Pepsi employees as they seek to negotiate a contract with the Pepsi Bottling Company.
In the summer of 2002, Pepsi changed the pay scale for Bay Drivers working at Austin's Pepsi Bottling Group facility, resulting in a $7,000 to $8,000 decrease in drivers' wages, and triggering widespread dissatisfaction among all departments in Austin's Pepsi facility. In November 2002, workers in Austin's Pepsi Bottling Group exercised their legal right to organize by voting to join Teamsters Local Union 657.
Since then, Pepsi has resisted its workers' efforts to collectively bargain a fair contract. The Federal Government has cited Pepsi seven times for violating the National Labor Relations Act. Using classic union-busting techniques, Pepsi illegally withheld annual wage increases to workers involved in union activities, attempted to deny employees promotions because of their union membership, and repeatedly failed to bargain in "good faith" by canceling scheduled bargaining sessions without good reason and without offering alternative dates.
Teamsters Local Union 657 has asked the Religion and Labor Network of Austin to support the workers in Austin's Pepsi facility. The Religion and Labor Network of Austin is calling on all Austin faith communities to Challenge Pepsi to respect its workers' legal rights and to bargain in "good faith."
As people of faith, we believe in a God who seeks justice and dignity for all working people. Pepsi's actions are not only illegal, they are unjust and they violate the dignity of Pepsi workers. The Religion and Labor Network of Austin is calling on all Austin faith communities to Challenge Pepsi by asking their members to sign a petition that calls on Pepsi to:
- Respect the legal rights of Austin's Pepsi workers and bargain with Teamsters Local 567 in "good faith."
- Treat all employees with respect and stop discriminating against workers engaged in union activity.
- Show up for all scheduled negotiations with workers and their union, and discontinue all stalling techniques.
- Come to the table with fair and reasonable contract language similar to what Pepsi has agreed to in contracts across the nation in many other plants.
I will place copies of this petition in our church's fellowship hall. If you agree with the stand the Religion and Labor Network is taking, then please sign the petition.
Thank you.
New Church T-Shirts Design Contest!
The tremendous success of the fair trade coffee and chocolate sales (~$500 in profits so far!) has encouraged the Board of Christian outreach to extend the program to purchase and sell church T-shirts. We will purchase organic T-shirts (grown pesticide-free) manufactured by the Nueva Vida Women's Sewing Cooperative of Nicaragua, the world's first worker-owned free trade zone (for more information, visit www.fairtradezone.jhc-cdca.org). The shirts will come with a stylish "Sweat Free Tee" logo on the sleeve that the Presbyterian Church puts on as a distributor for the cooperative. The senior youth, under the expert tutelage of Reuel Nash, will silk screen a design for the Congregational Church onto the T-shirts, and we will sell them to members for a nominal mark-up (again with profits dedicated to our border ministries projects). But we need a design! If you have an idea for a T-shirt design appropriate to our church, please send it to John Goff, and the Outreach Board will decide on the best. The winner will receive a free T-shirt. Designs need to be fairly simple - no more than 2 colors and no fine detail. Designs may be hand drawn or generated on a computer. Please prepare a design by July 1.
At an unusually light business meeting, Trustees approved getting a new knob, lock and key for the door leading into the children's area since this one has been giving headaches. If your key no longer works, please go in through the fellowship room door. We have had a generous member purchase and arrange for installation of two brand new stoves for the downstairs kitchen. They are in and ready to go! Thank you to the donor! We have an excellent repair/maintenance person now named Victor Cardenas, so please let Reuel Nash know if there are any items that need attention. He can let Victor know what needs to be done. Have you seen scaffolding on the alley side of the church? Work has begun on the restoration of the rotting wood on the stained glass windows. Finally, trustees discussed the great need we have for storage area. Since we are leasing out areas where we used to store things, we have very limited space. We are planning a clean out day on May 25th of the small room to the north of the basement kitchen in order to organize the stuff we want to keep and discard the rest.
Trustees: Pam Tucker
Deacons: Liz Nash
Christian Education: Marilyn Vaché
Christian Outreach: John Goff
Teachers are needed for summer Sunday School Lite! We have a great group of kids that make teaching Sunday School a fun, rewarding and often enlightening experience. Teaching materials are provided that include lesson plan, activities and craft ideas. There are sign up sheets in the Fellowship Hall, so please lend us your teaching talents for a Sunday or two this summer.
Our church family suffered a grievous loss with the death of Jim Tomasek on April 28th. Jim had been living with Parkinson's disease for more than eleven years and it finally took its toll. Jim was the conference minister for the South Central Conference of the UCC for twenty years. Prior to their arrival in Austin 33 years ago, Jim and Mary were in the D.C. area where Jim was on the staff of the Central Atlantic Conference. A memorial service was held at the church on Saturday, May 14. Jim was particularly partial to cake, so the reception after the service continued the celebration of his life with cake and ice cream. We will all miss his dynamic personality and his amazing smile.
We all missed Becca Zwerling's smiling face and lovely voice in the choir in April. She spent two wonderful weeks visiting her four host families in distinct regions of Costa Rica. It was an intense and meaningful vacation! Two of the families have been part of her life for five years, and the other two families for a year and a half. Becca feels it is an honor to know them, to stay in contact, and to see them whenever she can! The delights of her trip included giving each family member a big hug, watching beautiful, iridescent blue Morpho butterflies in their natural environment, milking cows in Monteverde, and reading bedtime stories with her host brother, Ricardo. In many respects, her time in Costa Rica was joyful. The violence that invades modern life, however, touched one of her host fathers during her time there. Mariano was assaulted on his way home from work. Two young men robbed him and beat his head, neck, and shoulders. He received care at a local hospital on the evening of the assault, and with utmost integrity, he returned to work the following day. Becca give thanks to God for Mariano's recovery and the amazing faith of each of her host families. They are ever present in her heart and daily prayers.
Liz and Bill Spencer recently returned from a trip to Vienna, Virginia. They enjoyed a wonderful week visiting Bill's mom, sister, brother and sister-in-law. After sightseeing in D.C. and Georgetown, visiting the National Zoo, marveling in the U.S. Botanic Garden and attending numerous family gatherings, Liz and Bill needed a vacation from their vacation!
Rizer Everett is still enjoying the great variety of the talks at the meetings of the L.A.M.P. organization. Two that were of particular interest were the discussion of the quality of control of subsurface water in the area of Austin by David Johns, and the useful purpose served by insects and other bugs in Texas by George Abbott. Rizer recommends a fine book entitled, "The World Is Flat" by Thomas Friedman. The author has interviewed many influential people to learn how their behaviors and ideas have made important changes in ways countries manufacture equipment and products that are now exchanged between countries on a world-wide basis. Friedman has prepared an index that is easy to use to find pages in the book where the new products and ideas are fully explained. One certainly has the feeling that the old world really is getting flatter and flatter with the use of fiber optics and improved methods of communication between the people of different countries. Rizer was also impressed with excellent television reviews of the life of John Paul II during the 26 years of his position in the Roman Catholic Church. On the 29th of April he attended the Longhorn Village reception on the patio of the Longhorn Golf Club on the Steiner Ranch near Lakeway where about 150 people were shown the plans for the future establishment of a retirement facility for people over the age of 62.
Long ago members Steven and Jeanine Neuse are leaving Arkansas on May 5th for their visit in Germany with Micah, Kara, Bryce, and Jayce. After growing up in the German community of New Braunfels, at last they are going to visit Germany!! ( Micah's wife Kara will arrive back from three weeks in San Angelo after they get there.) She is being deployed to Italy for four months. The guys should be able to go see her while she is there. Steve and Jeanine come home June 6th and plan to come to Texas sometime in June to see her mother. Stop by and say hello, Neuses!!
Marilyn Gaddis flew to California April 28th to celebrate her 55th Class Reunion Weekend at Pomona College (founded by the Congregational Church). Only 30 or so of her classmates were able to attend. "Younger" classes were well represented! The weekend featured an Alumni Symposium titled "Headlines and Deadlines" by 12 alumni journalists including Bill Keller, executive editor of The New York Times.
Jamie and Lauren Adams were set to close on a house in Round Rock in early May. They had finals the week before that. Michael's mother, now living again in Atlanta, TX, fell and broke her other hip, not the one that was still under warranty. She was to be transferred from the hospital to a nursing home later that week. Julia was finally happy with the color of her room, and she and Kerry have started to do curtains and such, projects to be continued or expanded when school is out. A young man Jamie met when he was working at Goodwill is buying the last of their yard-art cars, repairing it while it still sits in our driveway. When Jamie gets moved, the Mercedes goes to Round Rock with him. Soon they'll be able to park both cars in the driveway. Next, they'll work on the garage, says Michael--and he continues, "Oh, get real!"
In Lisa Kirch's quest to find work, she has been to five states and taken rides on 20 different planes. She's had dinner with a musicologist who was born in the same hospital in Mississippi that she was, and she's spent the night in a bed-and-breakfast on the same street as her great-grandmother's house in Alabama, and she's lunched with the son of one of Mel Oakes' former students. The world is smaller than it seems, says Lisa. She is still waiting to hear whether she has a job teaching art history somewhere. We are all pulling for you Lisa! Her third grader Sarah was getting ready to give an oral presentation (in costume) on Laura Ingalls Wilder in May at school. She also used her brand-new Brownies first-aid kit to bandage the scraped knee of a toddler at school. However, she is still surprised that Texas isn't its own country. Lisa is very proud of her.
Late breaking news! Congratulations, Lisa!! She will be an assistant professor of art history at the University of North Alabama in Florence. Florence is on the border with Tennessee just across from Tuscumbia where Helen Keller was born.
As of early May, Clark Hubbs was still waiting on word for when he would have surgery to get everything reconnected again. He is doing well and working hard on healing.
The Howicz family had an unexpected "high point" at their family reunion at Disneyworld where they celebrated Jim's parent's 40th anniversary. They had lots of fun and even some adventure - they all got stuck at the top of Epcot's Spaceship Earthride (the signature silver ball), and finally had to walk down after being up there for about thirty minutes! According to Jim and Jennifer and the kids, Mickey and everyone send their best.
Pat Oakes had a good visit with her dad in North Carolina and even overlapped a day with her brother Robert (from Los Angeles) who came for a visit, too.
JUNE BIRTHDAYS
2 Ches Towery
4 Stephanie Phillips
6 Debbie Appel-Knowlton
8 Katy Phillips
Maggie Towery
9 Rizer Everett
Tania String
11 Cheryl Appel
Jonathan Briggs
14 Whitney Barrett
16 Nodie Murphy
17 Karl Putz
20 Emily Howicz
21 David Ashton
22 Dennis Tingle
26 Garry Cole
27 Marilyn Gaddis
28 Pat Oakes
Vic Appel
30 Eric Mubiriki
BACK BAY MISSION TRIP
JUNE 26 to JULY 2
We need to begin thinking more seriously about our Back Bay Mission trip at the end of June. Here's some information that may be helpful. We can bring anywhere from 12 to 24 people. The mission work is housing rehab with a lot of scraping and painting. There is also some recreational time scheduled. We stay in dorms, and the cost is $50.00 per person for the week. Our group must purchase and prepare its own food. Our church must pay a $150 registration fee. The camp experience is geared toward High School youth and their adult chaperones. However, Junior High youth may participate as long as they are mature, willing to work, and do not consist of more than 25% of the total group. Please keep your eyes and ears open for our next information and planning meeting.
Peddlin' for a Purpose
Thank You For Your Support!
After a rainy and windy start, Rev. Alan Coe, Dennis Murphy, and I made it to Back Bay Mission six days later, where we met up with the other cyclists Ed and Peter Olsen. It was quite a trip, one that brought us through beautiful rolling hills from Bastrop to Navasota, Piney Woods and Big Thicket forest land, Louisiana rice fields, and the Gulf's salty air. Some days were harder than others, and parts of each day were pretty difficult. But we made it in one piece, we were still talking to each other when we arrived, and we managed to raise about $5,000 for Back Bay. It was especially rewarding to see Rambie and Fran Briggs at Back Bay when we arrived.
Thanks to all of you! This was a real team effort, and everyone played an important part. The Coordinating Council was extremely supportive, and a number of you pledged and contributed money to cover meals, motels, and Dennis' gas. Dennis was invaluable with his encouragement, logistical support, and in-depth knowledge of the voting practices and cultural habits of every county and parish we cycled through. It was a great experience, and I will forever be grateful for everyone who helped make it possible.
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