Missouri

Housing Justice Group Puts Power Back In Tenants’ Hands

March 10, 2021 Bryce Covert, The Appeal. Create! Evictions, Housing, Missouri, Tenant Rights

Brandy Granados’s road to activism began in November 2018 when the heater in her Kansas City, Missouri, apartment exploded. She went without heat for two months during a winter that included multiple blizzards. She continued to pay rent, she said, but in response her landlord didn’t fix the heater; instead he tried to evict her and her children. Desperate for help, she was connected with Tara Raghuveer, an area native who had returned after graduating from college with the goal of solving residents’ housing insecurity. “I figured I could either just sit there and be mad about my situation, or I could do something about it,” Granados said. She was able to fight off the first eviction attempt in court, but the landlord removed her to retake possession of the house. She ended up in a homeless shelter for three months. The loss of her home has left her son suffering from anxiety and trauma.

KC Tenants’ Month Of Activism Broke The System

March 9, 2021 Emily Cox, The Pitch. Resist! Evictions, Housing, Legal System, Missouri

Daniel Halferty was behind on rent. “When I made a partial payment in October, [my landlord] texted me, berating me.” Halferty had been hunting for a job since April, but with a history of cancer and traumatic brain injury, he was cautious about finding a job that would be fairly safe from COVID-19. Halferty started his new job at the end of November, and made a payment plan to catch up on past-due rent. That was fine with his landlord, Ellis Real Estate, until Halferty asked to delay just 2 weeks, so he could prevent his utilities from being shut off. Then his landlord stopped communicating. “They just cut out all communication to me, and then Christmas Eve, we had the notice from the lawyer on our door that we were going to be sued for $2,925. They had 30 days to collect the payment and get the apartment back.”

St. Louis Inmates Take Over Units After Weeks Of Complaints

February 7, 2021 Doyle Murphy, River Front Times. Resist! Civil Disobedience, COVID-19, Missouri, Prisoner rights

More than 100 inmates at the St. Louis City Justice Center took over two units of the jail early this morning, shattering fourth-floor windows and setting small fires as they called out jubilantly to a crowd of supporters who gathered on the street below. The uprising began around 2:30 a.m., and detainees held control of the units for more than six hours before teams of city sheriff's deputies and police regained custody. For weeks, tensions have been high at the downtown jail. Inmates staged two protests in late December and early January to complain about COVID-19 protocols and other conditions in the facility, where the majority of the city's detainees are now housed.

Black Inmates Begin 2021 With Uprising In Saint Louis Justice Center

January 4, 2021 Huey Dessalines, Peoples Voice. Resist! COVID-19, health, Missouri, Prisoner rights

Saint Louis, MO - It is a custom in the City of Saint Louis and other predominantly New Afrikan cities to welcome a new year by firing into the air. The coming of the New Year 2021 saw the most oppressed of our people improve on this popular custom by initiating a struggle against atrocious conditions at the Saint Louis “Justice” Center. This justice center downtown is directly across from the hideous faux-gothic, soot stained monstrosity of City Hall, and it is not lost on many who enter the doors of either building that one feeds the other. The City needs Black people incarcerated because, as Huey P. Newton and other revolutionary theoreticians pointed out, New Afrikan people after slavery technically ended became a surplus population.

Missourians Did An End-Around Their Legislature To Expand Medicaid

October 24, 2020 By JP Keenan, Cristina Corujo, Jason Potere, and Meredith Deliso, ABC News. Organize! Health Care, Medicaid, Missouri, State Government

For almost a decade, advocates in Missouri have been lobbying their legislators to expand Medicaid coverage in the red state. Since the Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act was optional, 36 states plus Washington, D.C., have adopted and implemented the expansion. In those states where coverage has not been expanded, the decision has come at a devastating cost to Americans who fall into the "coverage gap," advocates said. "When the Affordable Care Act was originally passed, folks who were making up to 138% of the federal poverty level were supposed to be on Medicaid.

Protest Over Arrest Of Pregnant Woman Enters Seventh Day

October 9, 2020 Justine Coleman, The Hill. Resist! Legal System, Missouri, Police violence

A protest in front of City Hall in Kansas City over the arrest of a pregnant Black woman entered its seventh day on Thursday. Demonstrators have camped out in front of City Hall after videos circulated showing a white Kansas City police officer kneeling on the back of a Black pregnant woman during her arrest last week. The protesters are demanding Police Chief Richard Smith resign and want the officer involved to be fired. They are also calling for the city to redistribute 50 percent of the department’s budget to social services to help the Black community, according to The Associated Press.

Grand Jury Indicts Couple Who Pointed Guns At Protesters

October 7, 2020 Celine Castronuovo, The Hill. Educate! Grand Jury, Missouri, Rebellion2020, Violence

A grand jury in St. Louis on Tuesday indicted Mark and Patricia McCloskey on counts of exhibiting a weapon and tampering with evidence four months after footage circulated showing the couple pointing guns at Black Lives Matter protesters outside their home. The couple's attorney, Joel Schwartz, said the grand jury reached the decision after the McCloskeys appeared before a judge earlier in the day, NBC affiliate KSDK reported. St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner had issued felony charges against the couple in June for unlawful use of a weapon.

Officer Indicted After Beating Man On Dash Cam Video

March 10, 2020 By Andrew Emett, Nationofchange.org Educate! Missouri, Police

Caught on a police dash cam video repeatedly kicking a suspect who had already surrendered, a Missouri police officer was recently charged with one count of deprivation of rights under color of law. After an internal investigation was launched at his department, the officer resigned and immediately joined another police department.

Missouri Unions Add 47,000 Members, Putting Total At A 15-Year High

January 25, 2020 David Nicklaus, Stltoday.com Educate! Class Struggle, Labor Unions, Missouri, Workers Rights and Jobs

The defeat of a right-to-work law in 2018 seems to have given Missouri's unions a boost. Their membership grew by 46,000 last year, bucking a downward national trend. The increase boosted the state's union membership to 297,000 people, the highest number since 2004. Union members now make up 11.1% of the state's workforce, the highest percentage since 2008.

Radioactive Waste Could Be Killing Residents In Missouri Community

November 4, 2019 By Austin Price, Truthout.org Educate! Missouri, Poison, Radioactive Waste, Toxic Chemicals

In Bridgeton, on the northern edge of St. Louis County, Missouri, a fire burns underground in a vast landfill, creeping closer and closer to a pile of radioactive waste from the World War II era that was dumped there back in the 1970s. This “subsurface smoldering event,” as these odorous, high-temperature chemical reactions are called, at the West Lake Landfill has burned continuously for almost a decade now, keeping nearby residents all too aware of the Superfund site in their backyard.

Artists Call For Kemper Museum Of Contemporary Art To Drop Trustee Tied To $130 Million Lawsuit Over ICE Detainees

September 6, 2019 By Staff, Artforum.com Resist! Banks, Lawsuit, Missouri, Protests

Mariner Kemper, the CEO and chairman of the UMB Financial Corp (UMB Bank) and a trustee of the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, Missouri—which was founded by his parents, R. Crosby Kemper Jr. and Mary “Bebe” Hunt, in 1994—is under fire for his connections to President Trump’s controversial immigration policies. Artists began calling for his removal from the museum board after learning that UMB Bank represents the bondholders for the publicly owned and privately operated Wyatt Detention Center in Central Falls, Rhode Island...

How Missouri Beat “Right to Work”

August 22, 2018 By Nelson Lichtenstein, Dissentmagazine.org Resist! Class Struggle, Labor, Missouri, Workers Rights and Jobs

The most remarkable thing about last week’s rejection by Missouri voters of a right-to-work law enacted by the Republican-run state legislature was its magnitude. Not only did opponents crush the law by a margin of more than two to one, the total vote on the issue—nearly 1.4 million—exceeded by more than a 100,000 the number of statewide ballots cast on behalf of all candidates in both party primaries that same day. Labor won because its leadership reached deep into the rank and file to mobilize an army of activists who first collected more than 300,000 signatures to put a repeal referendum on the ballot and then door-knocked throughout the state on its behalf.

Republican Anti-Union Bill Goes Down In Flames In Missouri

August 11, 2018 By Matthew Chapman, AlterNet.org Create! Electoral Politics, Legislation, Missouri, Repression, Unions

On Tuesday night, voters in Missouri defeated Proposition A, a referendum which would have allowed a "right to work" law to go into effect in the state. This marked the first time a right to work law has ever been defeated by popular vote. It is an enormous setback for Missouri Republicans, who had made imposing this law a signature policy goal after winning full control of the state government in 2016. Right to work laws, which currently exist in 27 states, ban labor unions and businesses from negotiating a "security agreement" in bargaining, in which a union may collect "agency fees" from workers who are not a member of the union. Since unions generally represent all workers in a workplace, not simply their own members, these fees cover the cost of bargaining for nonmembers and prevent free ridership — and lead to wage increases.

Black Drivers 85% More Likely To Be Stopped By Police In Missouri Than White Drivers

June 5, 2018 By Lowenna Waters, Indy100.com Educate! Missouri, Racial Profiling, Racism

Data released by the Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley on Friday showed that the disparity is at its worst since records began 18 years ago. Despite being less likely to be searched than black, Hispanic or American Indian drivers, white drivers were more likely to be caught with contraband. The data, which analysed the rate of vehicle stops in Missouri in 2017, also showed that 7.1 per cent of Hispanics and 6.6 per cent of blacks were arrested after stops, however only 4.2 per cent of whites were. Reacting to the report, John Gaskin, spokesperson for the St Louis chapter of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), said: Quite frankly, it's really deplorable. It's why we've ended up in a situation where people are talking about travel advisories and African-American groups are less likely to come and do business in our state.

310,567 Signatures Block ‘Right To Work’ In Missouri

September 23, 2017 Judy Ancel, www.labornotes.org Organize! Labor, Missouri, Workers Rights and Jobs

By Judy Ancel for Labor Notes - The results astounded everyone who thought they knew the Missouri labor movement: more than 300,000 signatures to repeal “right to work.” Thousands of union members and allies marched through the streets of the state capital August 18 to deliver 163 boxes of petitions signed by 310,567 Missourians. The signers called for a referendum to repeal the right-to-work law passed by the legislature earlier this year. The signatures gathered were more than three times the number needed. Although signatures were needed in only six of the state’s eight Congressional districts, there were enough to qualify from all eight, and they came from all 114 Missouri counties. The state was forced to postpone the August 28 implementation of right to work till November 2018, when voters will determine its future. The petition drive was coordinated by We Are Missouri, a coalition of unions both in and out of the state AFL-CIO. Volunteers from Missouri Jobs with Justice and the Sierra Club stepped up, too. Most of the money for the campaign came from Missouri unions, with contributions as low as $100 and as high as $83,000. Much bigger donations came from labor PACs representing the state AFL-CIO, Teamsters, and Carpenters. As of August 31, the labor side had raised $1.36 million and spent almost half of it.

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