Here's what the Prospect Heights Greens are doing --from the minutes of their meeting on 2/23/01. Domino Sugar Strike- The strike that began with 300 workers in the Domino Sugar refinery in Brooklyn has been going on for 18 months now. The strike has been out of the mainstream news for a long time and most people thought the strike was over long ago. But a recent article in the Brooklyn paper The Phoenix alerted a member of our local to the continuing strike. We promptly went to the strike trailer outside the refinery and talked to the strikers. Then we began a campaign of letter writing to the company and handing out leaflets informing people to boycott Domino sugar. One of our members went to the Park Slope Coop and got the matter of the boycott added to the agenda at their general meeting. Two of the strikers and the vice president of the Union addressed the meeting and an article appeared in the Coop newspaper. The Food Coop then voted to support the boycott and removed Domino sugar from the shelves. Members of our local went several times to join the picket line in front of the refinery, even blocking traffic one afternoon to trucks attempting to enter, causing a traffic jam and the police to be called to move us from the driveway. We also involved the larger Green Party community. The strikers and the Union vice president came to the New York State Green Assembly in January 2001 and spoke about the strike. Following their presentation, another Green local in Brooklyn invited them to their meeting and began to help in the strike also. Money was also immediately raised for the strike fund. The strikers returned to the Assembly the next day to participate in a workshop where they talked about the strike in more detail. At the Prospect Heights meeting in February 2001 it was reported that the 100 remaining strikers were in the process of meeting and voting if they should end the strike and accept the contract offered by the company. It was reported that the strikers were not getting support from the AFL-CIO because other workers in the company's plants in New Orleans and Baltimore were covered by another Union and had a different contract and were not supporting the workers in the refinery in Brooklyn. It seemed that an injury to one, was Not an injury to all. The strikers in Brooklyn were hurt and disappointed . There are scab workers in the refinery and they are non-union workers. It was not known what would happen to the strikers, if they would get their jobs back or not. An update will be presented at our next meeting; for now the strikers are asking us to continue to boycott Domino sugar. Electoral Politics-- Members of our local are helping in the campaign of Gloria Mattera for the City Council in the 39th district. Our local endorses this candidate; she is an Independent, a Labor Party activist, and her campaign is an anti-corporate one in the Nader tradition.( "People's needs, not corporate greed") We are working with the Kings County Greens to have her speak at the candidates forum to be held in a few months. We are also involved with the newly formed Kings County Greens in discussion about their by-laws and we will be participating in this county organization. A report about how registered Greens can join the Kings County Greens will be made at our next meeting. This organization will be involved in identifying Green Party candidates for elected offices in Brooklyn. We are also involved with the New York City Greens; we attend the general meetings as a participating local, and members are active in the Campaign Committee and the Search Panel for candidates to run on the Green Party line for city-wide offices ( Mayor, Public Advocate, Comptroller). Our local then discussed the City Council race in the 35th district ( Mary Pinkett's district, she can't run again due to term limits). We talked about some Democrats that are interested in running but we cannot identify a Green yet ( Kings County organization will be exploring this ). One of our members suggested that we have a house party to open the discussion about this City Council race, and another member suggested we also discuss the Green Party and it's platform at this meeting as well. We would have an open meeting for people interested in these issues. We would have it in Prospect Heights and hope to bring in new people. This may occur in late May or early June when petitioning is to begin. This will be discussed more at our next meeting. Up-coming forum on genetic engineering of food--One of our members has been working very hard on making this forum a reality. It will be co-sponsored by our local, the Park Slope Food Coop, and Save Our Standards (a group concerned with organic non-genetically changed food). It will be held in a public school in Prospect Heights, and will involve school children presenting an original play about this topic. There will be other entertainment and some short speeches about this issue, with information and literature for people to take home. It is hoped that the event will attract mostly the children and parents from the school, but we will also do outreach to the larger community. We formed a committee to meet separately and plan for this event in early May. Pesticide spraying--It was announced that the city is already planning for more spraying of pesticides (back to malathion again) in the spring and bidding for the contract for trucks and helicopters will be held in March. We should be prepared as a local to support the demonstration in front of the office where this bidding will occur. It was noted that the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens does pesticide spraying on Mondays, and the free admission day is Tuesday, so that the people who go to the Gardens on that day really breath in a lot of pesticides. This could be a campaign for our local, and other Green groups in Brooklyn in the spring--to protest the discriminatory admission fee and the spraying in the Botanical Gardens. We will have an update report at our next meeting. Our next meeting will be on Sunday March 25th 11A.M. in the apartment of Jimmy Kaplowitz, 50 Plaza Street, Brooklyn. Everyone is invited to come to this meeting. We are still a small group but we are very active in many issues. Please come and join us.