We have a pretty full house this time, so if you plan to come and have not registered yet, please call ROP at 503-438-8639 to make sure that there will be space for you.  If you have already registered, come prepared to meet new rural justice activists from every corner of the state! Also come prepared with the virtue of adaptability which will be much appreciated as we spent three days and two nights under the same roof together.

Our main event is the Caucus, all day on Saturday, May 12th.  Please plan to arrive at PCUN between 8:00-8:30 am to register and grab a breakfast snack.  Please also consider bringing your own water bottle and/or coffee mug to cut back on waste. We’ll be kicking off the day with our keynote speakers Marcy Westerling and Ramon Ramirez!

For those of you attending activities on Friday or Sunday, please meet us at PCUN’s Union Hall at the following times:

Farmworker Tour with Ramon Ramirez: Friday, 1:45 pm
* we are at capacity for the farmworker tour.  Contact us to be added to the waiting list.
Viernes Comunitario: Friday, 6:00 pm
ROP Caucus and Strategy Session: Saturday, 8:00 am
Dinner and Celebration with PCUN: Saturday, 5:30 pm
* ROP founder Marcy Westerling will be receiving a special award from PCUN, don’t miss it!
Occupy Rural Oregon Breakfast: Sunday, 8:30 am
CAPACES Work Party: Sunday 10:30 am
* Handy people are encouraged to bring pruners, and a skill saw if you have one.

For those staying overnight: most of us will be rolling out a sleeping bag and pad inside the PCUN Union Hall!  There is limited outdoor camping space, so it is best to plan on staying overnight in the union hall. If you’re looking for a hotel, Woodburn is home to a Super 8 (503-981-8881), Best Western (503-982-6515), and La Quinta Inn (503-982-1727).

If you still need to pay for Caucus registration or pay group dues you can do so through via credit card online (please click on the donate button then add a note indicating that you are paying for the Caucus or group dues) or bring your check to the registration table at the Caucus.

Below you will find a Schedule of Events for the weekend and an agenda for Saturday’s Caucus.

Thanks!
See you soon,

The ROP team,
Andy, Jessica, Keyla, Amanda, and Cara

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Directions to PCUN – 300 Young St Woodburn, OR

Traveling on I5-Southbound:
Take exit 271 for OR-214 toward Woodburn/Silverton
Turn left onto OR-214 S/OR-219 S
After 1.1 miles, turn right onto N Settlemier Ave
Drive .3 miles and take a left onto Garfield Street
After going through a business district and crossing train tracks, Garfield Street turns into Young Street
Continue about three blocks past the train tracks.
PCUN will be on your right. There is a large sign, it’s hard to miss.

Traveling on I5-Northbound:
Take exit 271 for OR-214 toward Woodburn
Turn right onto OR-214 S (signs for Woodburn/Mt. Angel)
After 1.1 miles, turn right onto N Settlemier Ave
Drive .3 miles and take a left onto Garfield Street
After going through a business district and crossing train tracks, Garfield Street turns into Young Street
Continue about three blocks past the train tracks.
PCUN will be on your right. There is a large sign, it’s hard to miss.
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Rural Caucus and Strategy Session 2012

Bringing together leaders in the rural human dignity movement
Location: Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (PCUN) Hall, 300 Young St., Woodburn, OR 97071

In addition to our day long Caucus, ROPers are invited to attend an evening celebration, and activities on Friday and Sunday of Caucus weekend.  Make sure to indicate on your registration the days that you’ll join us!

Friday, May 11^th

Farmworker tour with Ramon Ramirez of PCUN (2pm-5pm): Woodburn is rich with movement history. This tour will take you from the PCUN farmworkers hall, to the Radio Movimiento community radio station, to learning about the struggle to obtain farmworker housing with dignity.

Viernes Comunitario (6pm-8:30pm): Every other Friday, PCUN members and community gather at PCUN to discuss a topic relevant to the community. In May, they’ll open their doors to us in this grassroots event.  We’ll start with the film “Chicano! History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement”, a film that “encompasses a broad cross section of issues—from restoration of land grants, to farmworkers’ rights, to enhanced education, to voting and political rights”.   After the film we will engage into an open discussion looking at the links between our struggles of today.

SATURDAY, MAY 12^th – CAUCUS DAY!

Rural Caucus and Strategy Session (8:30am–5pm): Our chance to look back on our last year – what we have accomplished, what has changed in our political climate – and we strategize for the year to come. Join us for strategy sessions on Occupy Rural Oregon, creating Welcoming Communities, saving Rural Post Offices, election planning and more.  There will be time to share strategies across communities and skills to build our organizing impact.  Our Caucus keynote this year will feature a dialogue between ROP Founder Marcy Westerling and PCUN President Ramon Ramirez.

Celebration (5:30pm-bedtime): We have a lot to celebrate from the past year – from the birth of the Occupy Movement, to our local organizing efforts to build relationships and make change in our communities. Join us for a delicious vegetarian Mexican dinner, music, and dancing to Latin rhythms, hosted by our friends at PCUN.  This is a party that you won’t want to miss!

Sunday, May 13^th

Occupy Breakfast (8:30am-10am): Join rural Occupiers from across the state in a conversation surrounding how we can support each other, build rural power, and what unified tactics and strategies could look like.

CAPACES work party (10:30am-1pm): The CAPACES Leadership Institute (CLI) is scheduled to open in the summer of this year. CLI is an enormous achievement of our friends in the mid-Valley farmworkers movement. We’ll spend the morning getting our hands dirty, and helping bring the Institute one step closer to Inauguration Day. Learn more about the CLI here: http://www.pcun.org/gallery/87


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Rural Caucus & Strategy Session 2012
Saturday, May 12^th

9-9:15:                         Opening: Welcome to the 19^th Annual Rural Caucus & Strategy Session! by ROP                               Director, Cara Shufelt

9:15-10am:                  Keynote: Where We’ve Been, Where We Are and Where We’re Going:                               A Conversation between Marcy  Westerling and Ramon Ramirez

10-11am:                     Struggle and Hope: Faces of the Movement in Rural Oregon
                                     A talk show format highlighting struggle and organizing across rural Oregon,

11:10-12:10pm:           Cross- Community Small Group Conversations

12:10- 1:15pm:            Lunch & Carnival of activities to take action.

1:20- 2pm:                   Skill Clinics: What we need to get it done

• Using Media: Lessons from Occupy the Gorge
• Consensus Decision Making
• Democracy Grid for Community Conversations
• Organizing 101
• The Movement Recruits
• Know Your Rights

2:15-4:30pm:               Reclaiming Rural Oregon: 2 tracks
We’ll break into two tracks to share strategies for this next year on strengthening our movement in rural Oregon and building more resilient, welcoming and democratic communities.

Welcoming Communities
Lincoln County’s Immigration Information Response Team shares an overview on Welcoming work.  Large group conversation on strategies and then pick a break out topic that interests you!

• Building Power for Racial Justice: Civic Engagement & Elections 2012
• Passing Welcoming Resolutions
• Keeping our People Safe: Deportations, Know your Rights, and police/ICE collaboration
• Why Welcoming Communities: First-hand perspectives from rural Oregon

Democratic Economy/ Occupy Rural Oregon
Large group discussion on our moment and strategies, breakouts, and then reconvene to share results.

• Strategies for Preserving the Commons
• Challenging Debt & Foreclosures
• Inserting Ourselves (and values!) in the Election
• Occupy a Congressional District
• Taking Action on Citizens United

4:35-5pm:                    Close out and Report back from Tracks

5:30-late!:                    Party and Celebration!
                                      Bring your dancin’ shoes and empty bellies for an evening of good food, good music                                      and good fun! 

In recent years we have gotten to see masses.  With these masses we have seen some victories (short-term?) and many, many losses.  And throughout we have been asked, and asked others, to phone another list and door knock some more houses.  This is not the door knocking that tells people how to think or what to do, but the door knocking and phone calling that actually seeks to start a relationship – that combines information sharing with listening.  (As I write this my sweetie just arrived home from work early so that he could door knock a list of neighborhood houses in foreclosure with information on how to stay in their homes with the support of organized resistance.)

The times we live in demand persistence because we have a tough corporate state to unravel.  No quick series of victories will change that.  Persistence might, especially if we constantly expand the base that identifies and participates with us.  We need an organizing culture that values our own tenacity.

The times change, the stage of the movement varies and the story lines introduce new concerns. What tends not to change is the basic work.  Quality organizing always depends on building new relationships, that we then excite and inform to create the most effective resistance we can for the times.  Tactics that are strategic to the moment are not always clear. Who are we trying to communicate to?  And for what outcome?  Those answers should drive the tactics.  And what better place then some form of general assembly/living room conversation/town hall to work through the options.  We need consensus.  We need buy-in.  We need the humility that comes from listening well to others’ ideas.  Facilitating such process is an art we need to train ourselves in.

In this past year, I suspect (and hope) that every one of us found a way to participate.  I was re-entering active treatment for my ovarian cancer when the Occupy camps started.  The unprecedented shortage of intravenous drugs was something I was already organizing around since I knew that not only was it wrong, it also meant that the top pick drug for me would not be available when my cancer returned.  And so I showed up at the local Occupy protests with a sign that stated that I was “wait-listed for chemo” and “big pharma + wall street = no chemo for me.”  (In fact, the drug shortage meant I endured 5 months of second choice chemo which ravaged my body while my cancer grew.)

Everyone benefits when we can find our stories of the moment. We share them not to switch the focus to us but, in fact, to give  permission to the 99% to find their own stories and to find the courage to insert themselves in our demands.  I am committed to immigrant justice work because it is right but as I moved into that work back in the mid nineties I started figuring out my own story in regards to immigration issues.  Of course I had one – we always have one but we don’t always have a process to figure it out.  Claiming our stories and then moving them into the organizing of the day is part of the work we all do with ROP – it’s why we need an organization and movement relationships.  Who can figure it out on their own?

Last year I missed my first ever Rural Caucus and Strategy Session.  This year I won’t.  I am tucking the myriad of obligations we all face around the reserved date – Saturday, May 12th.  My first dose on this new chemotherapy starts today, I had surgery last week.  My brain struggles after 20 doses of chemo and hugs are no longer safe with my weary immune system but none of these realities impacts my ability to be in this movement, tithing my time and resources in whatever ways I can.  We always still can.  And that, my dear friends, is why grassroots organizers go door to door, person to person to show that each of us can always share something for justice.  The what is for skilled organizers like you to work out with new recruits.  And that is a truly exciting process!

See you soon and until then I share the 8 stages of movements below for your local cadre to ponder.

much love, marcy

Bill Moyer’s Doing Democracy: The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements

*The Eight Stages of Social Movement Success:
1. Normal times
2. Prove the failure of official institutions
3. Ripening conditions
4. Take-Off
5. Perception of failure
6. Majority public opinion
7. Success
8. Continuing the struggle

This year, our Caucus is a three-day event at the PCUN Farmworker Union Hall in Woodburn. The registration fees we charge do not quite cover the costs of three days of meals, music, workshops and celebrations.

Can you help us raise the additional $1500 we need to continue to offer Caucus Scholarships, and keep our volunteer human dignity organizers fed, our workshops safe from the rain, and our 19th annual Caucus a success? Every dollar counts – donate here or send your check to PO Box 1350, Scappoose, OR, 97056.

If you are financially poor but solidarity rich this year, there are a few other ways you can help us make the caucus a success.

• Do you have a van or bus that we can borrow for a tour of the farmworker movement on Friday afternoon?
• If you live nearby Woodburn, can you offer a spare bedroom or couch to a traveler?
• Are you a cook? We have a need for breakfast this items and snacks that can be chilled (fruit salads, vegetables and it), put out as is (baked goods), or easily heated up in an oven (quiche). Contact us to arrange a delivery plan. If you won’t be attending the caucus, it’s likely that somebody from your town will.
• Volunteer for the Caucus! We can still use volunteer hosts to set up, cleanup, and help with registration.

Thank you all for making this 19th annual Caucus come together.  Don’t forget to make your one-time donation towards the Caucus here.  $5, $10, $20 – every dollar helps.

We hope to see you there!
Amanda

Why This Activity A recent study of low-wage workers in the US found that more than two thirds of these workers had suffered wage theft in the previous work week. Every year, corporations steal an estimated $19 billion out of workers’ paychecks just in unpaid overtime.  Follow this link to read personal stories of what wage theft looks like in Oregon’s construction industry.

What do we mean by wage theft? Wage theft happens when employers pay less than the minimum wage, don’t pay time and a half for overtime, steal tips, force employees to work “off the clock” or “under the table,” issue paychecks that bounce, deny legally required meals and rest breaks, misclassifying employees as independent contractors, or don’t pay workers at all.

What is the Activity ROP is part of the Oregon Coalition to Stop Wage Theft, a coalition of faith, labor, and community groups that are working to end wage theft in our state. We are fighting for stronger laws to protect workers, pushing for better enforcement of existing labor laws, and supporting community-based and worker-led strategies to help workers recover stolen wages.

Your efforts to support this campaign in rural and small-town Oregon are especially important right now, since most of the key legislators we need to pass worker protection bills represent your communities. Raising awareness about this issue can help protect your neighbors, the people who harvest food, wait tables, build homes, and maintain landscapes in your community.

Steps to Complete This Activity: So what can you do? Get together with your group and choose one or more of these steps:

1. Sign the pledge to stop wage theft and add your voice to the effort. We’ll include your name and/or organization to the public list of campaign supporters.  (Here is the link to forward and put on facebook: http://nwjp.org/oregon-coalition-to-stop-wage-theft/pledge/)

2. Forward this message with an encouragement to sign the pledge to your groups list or personal contacts. Download copies of the pledge card and share it with members of your book group, your human dignity group, friends and coworkers.

3. One of the most powerful things we can do to stop wage theft is share our own stories.  If you work in social services or any arena where you interact with low-wage workers, we’re talking to you! Wage theft is so common, but courageous people who are willing to speak out are less so. Contact us to tell your story, or refer your clients or members to us.  Or, you can document stories yourself by using this guide.

4. Host a community forum to educate people about the problem of wage theft and how to protect ourselves against it. ROP and our partners can send organizers to do customized workshops in English or Spanish, using a presentation or popular education format.

5. Are you more of a local direct action kind of activist? We can work with your group to identify victims and perpetrators of wage theft in your community. Organize a community canvass to connect with people impacted, or target the bad employer who has unpaid wage claims outstanding. There are lots of ways local activists can make a big difference in recovering unpaid wages.

To talk more about these strategies and make a plan, contact Amanda at ROP. We’re looking forward to hearing about how your group will get involved!

Workers of the World Unite!
Amanda

Check out the 5 things you should not miss at the 2012 Rural Caucus & Strategy Session!

1. ROP’s Founder Marcy Westerling and PCUN Union President Ramon Ramirez will keynote!  Come see Marcy and Ramon interview each other about this exciting organizing moment, the work that built up to this explosion of organizing, and on where rural Oregon is going next!

2. Responding to Assaults on Rural Democracy Talk Show: come hear rural leaders from across the state discuss the assaults they are facing in their communities and how they are fighting back.  Hear from leaders from around the state on queer and gender justice, immigrant rights, economic justice, post offices, and much more!  ROP Director Cara Shufelt and ROP Founder Marcy Westerling will facilitate.

3. Skills Clinics: learn new skills to bring home and use in your community organizing!  Clinics will include consensus decision making, recruitment and building a base of supporters, a Know Your Rights training from our allies with the Civil Liberties Defense Center, media skills, and more!

4. Occupy Rural Oregon Breakfast convening: On Sunday morning, Occupiers from across the state will discuss how we can support each other, how we can build rural power, and what unified tactics and strategies could look like!  Then we will do some literal building at the CAPACES Leadership Institute.

5. Viernes Comunitario: Every other Friday, PCUN members and community gather at PCUN to discuss a topic relevant to the community.  In May, they’ll open their doors to us in this grassroots event.   We’ll start with the film “Chicano! History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement”, a film that “encompasses a broad cross section of issues—from restoration of land grants, to farmworkers’ rights, to enhanced education, to voting and political rights”.   After the film we will engage into an open discussion looking at the links between our struggles of today.

We will be doing a lot of strategic thinking, connecting with each other, and shaking our tail feathers together on Saturday evening at the PCUN-organized party!  We will be camping together in the PCUN Union Hall or staying overnight with local hosts.

Do not miss out on this full weekend of relationship building!  Check out the full schedule of events for the Caucus weekend here!

We need to get our final count in by Tuesday, May 1st, so register now for this incredible Caucus!

See you soon!

Warmly,
Jessica

But what does May 1st really mean to us nowadays?  Here in the United States we have the freedom to rally and celebrate workers on May 1st – but working conditions here, at home, have deteriorated very rapidly.  For  the past few decades the laws have changed in ways that make workers more vulnerable to injustices to the point that jobs are looking now more like “modern day slavery.”  Wages are so low that even a working family has to get government assistance to make ends meet at the end of the month, and still that’s not enough.

Wage theft is rampant, with more than two thirds of low-wage and contingent workers experiencing illegal underpayment.  The working poor need to hold 2-3 jobs in order to cover the basics, making the 8-hour workday seem like a far dream.  This situation creates feelings frustration and guilt for honest, hard working individuals and families. It makes us feel that we are not valuable as humans; we are only seen as profit makers for the government and their best buddies, the big corporations and the 1%.

In recent years, May Day in the US has been when we demonstrate solidarity for immigrant workers, and highlight the injustices that treat immigrants as second-class.  We push against wedges that blame immigrants for the lack of jobs, and we show that it’s the corporations, their bailouts, the wars abroad and at home, the government’s tax breaks for the 1% that are keeping us in this sad situation.

This is the time to take action, to get involved and make change happen. It’s time to celebrate the workers that keep our country running and to support each other on demanding better working conditions and the right to a livable wage.

Want to demand your rights? Do you really want to support those who are breaking their backs to put food on the table for their families?  Here are few activities that you and/or your family can take part on and join millions of people around the world on the day that it truly means “justice for all”.

Have your pick and enjoy!
Keyla

CAUSA – SALEM, OR
May Day 2012:  The Light of Hope March & Rally
with an announcement about Driver’s License Access Restoration
Guest Speaker: Governor John Kitzhaber

A Celebration of Working Families, regardless of immigration status:
• Jobs with living wages for ALL Oregon residents
• Educational opportunities from pre-k to college for ALL Oregon residents
• Access to health care services for ALL Oregon residents
• Access to driver licenses for ALL Oregon residents
• A path towards legalization for all immigrants
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Rally: 6 p.m.
March: 7 p.m.
Place: State Capitol, Salem
For more information, please call: 503-488-0263
http://oregonmayday.com/

OCCUPY THE GORGE – HOOD RIVER, OR
OTG – Community Ed, Celebrating May Day 2012
International day of workers’ rights, with Maria Toña Sanchez, a Social Justice Organizer
Thu, April 26, 6:30pm – 9:00pm
Hood River Library lower level conference room,
502 State St, Hood River, OR
http://occupythegorge.org/?page_id=328

RECURSOS PARA DERECHOS HUMANOS – MADRAS, OR
For the first time in our community, Latinos are uniting to fight for freedom and justice.
On this day in Salem Governor Kitzhaber will speak on the drivers license issue we expect him to speak on a solution to the issue of undocumented people and the loss of their drivers license the speech will be Skyped live at 6pm

May Day Rally
Madras City Hall 71 se D St.,
Madras, Or 97741
May 01 at 2pm

Greg Delgado
Latino Community Organizer
CAUSA Oregon
541-390-6213
greg@causaoregon.org

MAY DAY SOLIDARITY FAIR – CORVALLIS, OR
The May Day Solidarity Fair celebrates the labor movement and all struggles for economic and social justice, past & present, local & global. We seek to promote public awareness about labor’s history and celebrate the many contributions of the movement to equality of work and life, including the extension of democracy on the workplace. We hope to encourage conversation on the current issues that confront working people, their families and communities
Sunday, April 29th, 2012
1:00 – 5:00pm
Central Park, Corvallis
Monroe & 8th St.
ALTERNATIVE RAINY DAY LOCATION: COMMUNITY CENTER BEHIND METHODIST CHURCH, 12th St & MONROE St.
FAMILY FRIENDLY, BRING A PICNIC AND LAWN CHAIRS

MAY DAY in PORTLAND
May 1st, 2012
2pm: Activities begin
3:30pm: Rally with speakers & music
4:30pm: March through downtown Portland
Location: Shemanski Park in the South Park Blocks at SW Park & SW Salmon
All are welcome and invited!
Family friendly, permitted through the City of Portland.
______________________________

_________________________________
2012 May Day demands

• 6 hour day, no cut in pay!
• Free contraception & childcare
• Halt all foreclosures & evictions
• End surveillance and repression
• No cuts to public services
• Full citizenship rights for all
• No collaboration between ICE & local police

Racial profiling is a problem in rural Oregon. We’ve heard countless stories: in the Willamette Valley, a state trooper posted up outside of a berry farm for days in a row, pulling over immigrant workers as they drove home at the end of the day.  In Eastern Oregon, racial profiling was so bad that the Umatilla Morrow Alternatives collected surveys (call ROP for a copy) asking participants questions about their feelings towards law-enforcement, and then linking that with demographic information.  The results were clear.  Tragically, Anglos and people of color often seem to live in two separate worlds in rural Oregons, especially on our highways and roads: one is friendly and safe.  The other is full of stress and everyday fears and dangers – because of racial profiling.

This week, we want to take a moment to appreciate all of the efforts to end racial profiling happening in rural Oregon. We also want to invite you to take one small action in support of the End Racial Profiling Act.  ROP is part of a national effort to pass this bill in DC, and our Congresspeople here in Oregon need to hear from us on this issue.  Pick up the phone and let Senators Wyden and Merkley know that you support the bill, and let ROP know what response you get.

If you would like to join a delegation to Merkley’s Portland office this Friday afternoon, organized by our friends at CAUSA, or want to organize your own, contact amanda@rop.org.

Read below for more information from the Rights Working Group - a national group of which ROP is a partner.  They have a magnificent toolkit that you can use to take action on your own.

FROM THE RIGHTS WORKING GROUP:

Pass the End Racial Profiling Act of 2011
The End Racial Profiling Act of 2011 (ERPA) is federal legislation that would ban racial profiling across the United States. ERPA was introduced in the House by Representative John Conyers (D-MI) and in the Senate by Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) in 2011.

ERPA takes these steps to ban racial profiling:

• Makes it unlawful for federal, state, local, or Indian tribal law enforcement to profile based on race, religion, ethnicity or national origin;
• Creates a private right of action for victims of profiling, which would allow individuals who believe they have been subject to racial profiling to sue the agent or agency they believe to have violated ERPA;
• Allows the U.S. Attorney General to withhold grants from state law enforcement agencies that are not complying with ERPA;
• Requires training on racial profiling for law enforcement agents;
• Requires data collection and monitoring mechanisms such as complaint processes; and
• For the first time, ERPA prohibits racial profiling in the context of law enforcement surveillance activities.

This week is the National End Racial Profiling Advocacy Week! Organizations from around the country will be meeting with more than 75 Congressional offices in D.C. and many more will be taking action locally. On April 17, the Senate will host its first hearing in 10 years on racial profiling. Momentum is growing and we need you to join the chorus demanding federal action to ban racial profiling.

Contact your Senators and Representatives to urge them to co-sponsor and pass the End Racial Profiling Act (ERPA) and to pressure the Department of Justice (DOJ) to strengthen its 2003 Guidance on racial profiling.

Forward this alert to your friends and listservs. Together we can end racial profiling!  Take your own action.

Problem

Racial and religious profiling affect people in every area of their lives, yet there is little accountability for federal, state or local law enforcement when individuals are profiled.

All of us have experienced or heard stories of those who have been denied justice when profiled by law enforcement. Communities across the country are continuing to fight back not just for Trayvon Martin and the countless individuals who have been targeted by the NYPD or Border Patrol but for our friends and family members.

Racial profiling is hurting communities across this country, and we need a federal law and stronger Guidance from the DOJ to hold law enforcement agencies accountable.  Take your own action.

Solution

Members of Congress have the power to hold law enforcement accountable by co-sponsoring and passing the End Racial Profiling Act and signing on to Senator Durbin and Representative Conyers’ letter encouraging DOJ to reform their guidance on racial profiling. We must demand that they act to end racial profiling and protect our communities.

On February 22, over 1,600 petition collected by Occupy Our Post Offices were delivered by delegations of rural human dignity group leaders, postal workers, and retired postmasters to each of Oregon’s federal legislators.  Tiller’s retired postmaster Diana Farris delivered those petition signatures along her own letter describing the dire economic conditions in her community and emphasizing the lack of accessibility to communication services like internet and cell service.  Diana’s letter, and our petitions, were passed from DeFazio’s Roseburg office to Sen. Merkley who read parts of the letter on the Senate floor.  Read more of Diana’s stories and what it means to be a rural postmaster below.  Also included below is the front-page Oregonian story featuring Diana and the community of Tiller!

The cover letter that joined every petition delivery concluded with: “We call on you to fix the USPS’ manufactured financial crisis and to publicly represent the dozens of rural communities and thousands of rural Oregonians who are at risk of losing their identity.”

Our victories bear repeating: we started with 41 rural Oregon post offices up for closure in mid-December.  On December 19, 23 communities Occupied their Post Offices, rallying in support of rural community infrastructure and the employment the postal service provides.  All 41 post offices are still open. 21 post offices have been taken off of the closure list.  The 20 communities still at risk of losing their post offices are united despite partisan, economic, and social divides.  The entire state is rallied around saving these rural post offices and the four mail processing plants also up for closure.

Our message from the hearts of rural towns across Oregon was heard, and not just by Merkley.  Senator Wyden just introduced legislation that extends the moratorium on post office and mail processing plant closures until after the election. The closure of rural post offices and the four mail processing centers compels us to ask how the democratic process, vote-by-mail, will be impacted for many of Oregon’s smallest communities?  We are glad to hear that Wyden is as concerned as rural post office patrons are by this.

Let’s keep the pressure on now that we know they are listening to us!  We want Congress to fix the USPS’ financial crisis they created in 2006, we want a moratorium extension until the crisis is fixed, and we want every rural post office to stay open!  Call your Senators and Representative today!  Learn more about this manufactured financial crisis here.

Want to help shape statewide strategy around rural post offices?  Join leaders, organizers, and activists from across the state at the Rural Caucus & Strategy Session on May 12^th!  It is not too late to sign up.  Register now!

Warmly,

Jessica

Diana Farris, Retired Tiller Postmaster

One of the retired Postmasters that led a petition delivery delegation was a 71 year old great-grandmother of 13, dedicated member of the community service group at her church, and retired Postmaster for the Tiller Post Office.  ROP first talked with Diana in December when we coordinated Occupy Our Post Offices.  She was organizing a rally in Tiller before ROP contacted her and she was thrilled to hear that we were connecting the dots to Occupy.  She felt it was natural to organize her community to fight the closure of their post office – she knows firsthand how vital the post office is to community health.

Diana told story after story about how important her role as a Postmaster was to the community of Tiller.  She helped residents balance their checkbooks, file their taxes, and fill out money orders to pay their bills.  When folks had questions about what was happening in town, they would call her at the post office.  One man called her, sounding disoriented.  Diana closed the post office and drove to his house to find that he had fallen and was bleeding to death.  She drove him to the hospital because the ambulance would take 2.5 hours to get to Tiller.  Diana saved his life.

This is just one of the many lives Diana saved thanks to her role in Tiller.  If she noticed mail piling up, she would visit homes to make sure everything was okay.  It is this consideration and care that led Diana to save several lives of Tiller residents who lived alone and had suffered strokes and aneurisms.

This is just one of many stories we are hearing from retired postmasters.  An Eastern Oregon retired postmaster shared that four times in his career as postmaster people came in with snakebites and he got them a helicopter air lift out to hospitals.   Another time he was asked to do the honors and spread the ashes of a resident into the river since he was one of the few people that knew him very well in life.  In his own words, “the role of a postmaster is so much more than what is in your job description.”
 

Plan to close Oregon post offices triggers ‘return to sender’ response in Congress

Monday, March 26, 2012, 9:09 PM

WASHINGTON — Tiller, an unincorporated Oregon community pressed against the western boundary of the Umpqua National Forest, is not the first place that comes to mind when discussing an impending throw-down in Congress.

Nor for that matter is Cascadia, Juntura or Helix, or any of 16 other difficult to find and easy-to-overlook Oregon towns.

Yet those communities and thousands like them across the nation have emerged as the battleground over the future of the U.S. Postal Service. In a last-gasp effort to head off annual losses that could hit $18.5 billion by 2015, the Postal Service has proposed closing post offices in all those communities and 3,700 more nationwide as a way to save money, consolidate services and respond to competitive pressures from private rivals. It also would close 252 mail processing centers, including four in Oregon.

The drastic step is necessary, postal managers say, to correct a flawed business model that no longer works in the digital age and threatens to bankrupt the nation’s far-flung mail service.

So doors must close, jobs must be lost and people must drive further to conduct business with the U.S. mail. In Oregon, the plan calls for 20 rural post offices to close as well as processing centers in Salem, Bend, Eugene and Pendleton.

To say it’s unpopular in Congress is an understatement.

“They have absolutely no economic analysis. It’s just about their budget, not about what’s smart for the economy,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., noting like other critics that rural communities would be especially hard hit and that having a local post office is essential for a healthy local economy.

Postal officials concede there are no easy choices. But, they say, survival is at stake.

“The plan we have developed requires a combination of aggressive cost reduction, rethinking the way we manage our health care costs and comprehensive legislation to reform the business model of the Postal Service,” Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said in February. “If provided the flexibility to quickly implement this plan, we can return to profitability and better serve the American public. If not, we risk becoming a significant burden to the American taxpayer.”

That’s how Tiller and the other Oregon facilities ended up on a list nobody outside the U.S. Postal Service wants to be on. It’s easy to see why. Tiller is a community of perhaps 300 people (nobody knows for sure) which means its post office has neither a lot of mail volume nor revenue.

The other offices are also small, serving mostly rural areas. The processing centers are underutilized, officials say, and

consolidating them will save money without affecting service. Merkley disagrees. “It would essentially mean the end of overnight delivery of first class mail,” Merkley’s spokeswoman Julie Edwards said.

U.S. postal officials originally planned to move early this year but pulled back in the face of blistering criticism in Congress and beyond.

“When they’re sitting in Washington, D.C., they have no idea what rural America looks like,” said Diana Farris, a 73-year-old retiree who was postmaster at the Tiller facility for 20 years. “Cut operating hours, she says. Reduce salaries and bonuses for senior officials or even eliminate Saturday service, Farris says. Anything short of closing.

“In Tiller there are a lot of people who don’t have electricity. Cellphone service can be nonexistent and getting a fast

Internet connection is hard if you can get one at all,” she says, batting down suggestions that old-fashioned mail can be replaced with modern technology.

Lost too, she says, will be a community anchor. “They come to the post office and when they see each other it’s like old home week,” Farris said. “The post office has always been a big deal in rural communities.”

Postal officials have felt the pressure. And in response, they have promised to delay any action until May 15 to give time for Congress to consider legislation. That could happen as early as this week.

There are multiple bills, including one from Merkley that would prohibit the closing of any post office that is more than 10 miles from the next closest facility.

“If you take the number of hours of wasted economic potential, it’s far more logical to have the post office open,” Merkley said in an interview.

“Realize folks may drive now to get to their current post office; they may drive 10 or 15 miles. Then to drive another 30 or 40 miles to get to the next post office is just a complete waste of gasoline and time and resources,” he said.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., is prepared to offer an amendment to delay any closings until after the presidential election in November out of concerns that closures could affect Oregon’s all-mail balloting. In the House, Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., has introduced the companion to
Merkley’s bill as well as a second measure that he says would stabilize the service’s finances without widespread closures.

Merkley says his bill would allow the Postal Service to stabilize it’s finances without widespread closures. That would preserve an important social and cultural anchor for small towns.

“In these small towns people depend upon them to get their medicines, they depend on them to get their orders for their small businesses, ship their orders and for communication among the town itself. It’s a hub,” Merkley said. “It’s going to devastate these small towns when you eliminate the post office. And it will do greater damage to the economy.

Merkley says there are savings that can be found without serious disruptions to service. Beyond that, he says reliable and universal postal service is a crucial government function that must be protected even if the economics don’t always add up.

“This is an example of something we do collectively because it is smart to do it together,” he said. “… This network provides an overall benefit to creating an integrated economy. Just as it was essential to our communities when the Constitution was written, it’s still essential today,” he said.

DeFazio shares that assessment but goes further, charging the Postal Service with essentially cooking the books to justify closing facilities.

“These closures are based on questionable data that the USPS admits doesn’t address long-term solvency,” DeFazio said. “Time and again the postmaster general has failed to listen to the concerns of hundreds of thousands of individuals and small businesses that rely on USPS. He has also ignored alternative solutions offered by Congress to avoid such drastic measures.”

Read on to find out more about our 3 Cathy/ Kathys, who’s traveled to DC to meet with Rep. Walden’s office and who’s helped fill Rep. Walden’s office with occupiers back here in Oregon.

ROP member groups will vote on this year’s board slate at the Rural Caucus and Strategy Session on May 12th. If you haven’t gotten your registration form in for our weekend of activities in Woodburn, download a form and do it today!  Please join us at the annual caucus.

2012-2013 ROP Board Slate
In even number years, even number seats are up for vote. 
 


Regional Seats
Region 1: Rennie Ferris – Newport
Region 2: Yesenia Sanchez – St. Helens
Region 3: Steve Milligan – Monmouth

Region 4: Cathy Rion- Hood River
Region 5: Frank Roa- Umatilla & Morrow Counties
Region 6: Kathy Paterno – Powell Butte & Central Oregon

Region 7: Patrick Vroman – Klamath County and SE Oregon


At-Large Seats

Position 8: Rosalie Pedroza – Turner

Position 9: Cathy Howell- Salem

Position 10: Margret Ball- Prineville

Position 11: Bill Whitaker- La Grande
Position 12: Arlene Amaya- Klamath County
Position 13:

Arlene Amaya- Klamath County
Arlene Amaya got involved with ROP at an Occupy Klamath Falls meeting in the fall of 2011.  She then represented ROP on a labor delegation to Washington DC Occupy, then joined the Latino Advisory Committee and helped to plan ROP’s 2nd annual Rural Latino Leadership Retreat.  Her smarts and passion for social change shine through.  She says about small-town organizing “I appreciate Klamath Falls because we tackle things that can be accomplished locally. To me it’s more realistic – we probably can’t overhaul the entire system at once, but we can make changes by being effective and strategic.”  She is currently pursuing a teaching degree and hopes to go back to rural El Salvador one day, where her parents came from, to give the opportunity of education to those who seek it.

Bill Whitaker- La Grande

Our very own Mad as Hell Doctor, of Social Work, that is, Bill has been a champion of social justice for over 50 years. As a welfare rights organizer in Ohio to co-founding the Wyoming Coalition for WIC, the Maine Coalition For Food Security, and the Idaho Interfaith Coalition on Hunger, Bill’s belief in a better world has led him from the university classroom to the community where he inspires students and fellow organizers alike to put their passion into action. Bill currently represents Oregon Rural Action on the board of Rural Organizing Project and resides with his wife Cheryl in La Grande, Oregon.

Cathy Howell- Salem
Cathy Howell just retired from the AFL-CIO where she has been a field organizer and leadership development coordinator since 1997.  Before joining the AFL-CIO she spent over 20 years as a community and issue organizer in Oregon and in the southern USA.  She grew up in a small Quaker State Refinery town in western Pennsylvania, and now lives in Salem in Marion County.  She is passionate about social and economic justice and organizing people to fight for fairness and is looking forward to spending time post-retirement building and strengthening the human dignity organizing in Marion County.

Cathy Rion- Hood River
Cathy Rion combines her passion for justice with her faith.  She serves as half-time Consulting Minister to the Mid-Columbia UU Fellowship in Hood River, OR, and lives in Bend, OR with her partner, the Rev. Heather Starr.  She was the Young Adult Chaplain and Worship Coordinator at General Assembly in Charlotte in 2011.  Cathy’s background is in community organizing for racial justice with youth in California. Cathy brings a passion for justice, relationship-building, and anti-racism to her ministry, as well as a love of music, chocolate, and laughter. 

Frank Roa- Morrow & Umatilla Counties

Frank decided to return to his rural roots and family in the small Eastern Oregon town of Irrigon (population 1,702) as he faced disability at a young age. It was a good time to go home. As an HIV positive Latino, gay male in poor and rural America, he knew that if he wanted services, he was going to need to set them up. This became the start of Umatilla Morrow Alternatives – a vision turned organization that was soon featured in the front page of the areas largest paper.

Kathy Paterno- Powell Butte

Kathy has lived in Powell Butte, Crook County for the last three decades with her husband of 42 years, Phil. They work together for justice and peace in Central Oregon and are among the founding leadership for the Human Dignity Advocates, Crook County’s revitalized human dignity group. Kathy’s political awakening happened after 9/11 when “GW asked us to cheer up and go shopping, and then went on to manipulate our nation’s sorrow into a cause for war. He turned me into an activist – a raging granny!” Kathy was a member of the Central Oregon Seven, arrested for refusing to leave Congressman Greg Walden’s office until he listened to the testimony of his constituents following the People’s Co$t of War Townhall.  Kathy has continued this accountability over the years and this past year she helped coordinate “Occupy Congressional District 2.”

Margret Ball- Prineville

Margret Ball brings her heart and humor to every thing she does. She is a longtime resident of Prineville, Oregon. While she might claim to you that she doesn’t like talking to people, Margret actually spearheaded her local group’s “Welcome Wagon” effort- tirelessly contacting and visiting every single member of the group in early 2010 to find out what issues they cared about, how they are doing in this economic crisis and re-connecting them to their local human dignity group. If you are new to the room at a meeting or event, Margret is right there welcoming you and inviting you in. This is true not only for people, but her collection of 13 cats represents her desire to make sure everyone has a home- whether for organizing and community building or just a place to lay your furry head.

Patrick Vroman- Klamath Falls
The ROP first met Patrick when he was just getting his activist feet wet with the Klamath Basin Peace Forum, challenging the war in Iraq. Since then Patrick has made a name for himself in his home county, helping to launch the Klamath Basin Lambdas and the Klamath PFLAG (Parents, Friends & Family of Lesbian and Gays), and always seeking opportunities to build relationships across the community to strengthen their local organizing for justice.

Rennie Ferris- Newport

What motivates a landscaper, rushing from job to job in Lincoln County, to put customers on hold so that he can drive 6 hours round trip to participate in hearings for the Oregon State Bank or hand deliver a Cost of War Town Hall dvd to his representative?  Passion – Rennie leads with his heart. A brawny man, with the huge hands of a laborer, it is a rare meeting where he doesn’t make his point through tears and his points always connect the dots between issues and hold up the person furthest removed from justice.  Rennie truly does live up to his signature as the “overcommitted volunteer from Lincoln County”!

Rosalie Pedroza- Turner

When you meet Rosalie, odds are that she’ll be proudly wearing the purple and yellow of her union, SEIU 503, where she serves on the board and has been a bargaining delegate in every contract since 1990. Rosalie brings her passion for democracy into the workplace where she organizes with her fellow workers and out into the public through her strong support for immigration fairness and global justice which has led her from rural home in Turner to Venezuela and Columbia as a fair trade delegate. In her own words, Rosalie has “found ways to reach out to her neighbors as never before, and organize around issues, not just parties, so we can begin to open people’s eyes to the extremes we are facing.”

Steve Milligan- Monmouth

Steve came to Oregon nearly 20 years ago by way of Texas and California seeking opportunities all along the way to organize for democracy and justice.  Steve currently makes his home in the City of Monmouth, where he served as a City Councilor from 2003 through 2010 and is presently running for County Commissioner. Steve has worked in database management and in the printing industry, owned a natural food store, and manufactured herbal remedies. Steve is now going back to school to get an accounting certificate.  He is dedicated to finding common ground among diverse community members, and looking for opportunities to build a stronger local economy. He is active with ROP human dignity group Polk Café Commons.

Yesenia Sanchez- Columbia County
Yesenia has two loves of her life: singing and organizing, but hasn’t put them in practice together yet. She is the daughter of Mexican immigrants who got involved with local organizing when she heard that measure 5-190 had passed in Columbia County in 2009 and became President of Latinos Unidos Unidos para un Futuro Mejor. With LUFM and the March for Dignity she learned about ROP’s work and decided that working with and organizing with Latino communities was her passion. She’s been involved ever since. Organizing at the University of Oregon in el Movimiento Estudiantil Chican@ de Aztlan (MEChA) a Chicano/Latino student organization, working with youth and her major in Ethnic Studies definitely set the background for her vision of social justice. She believes there is a link between organizing for social justice and caring for your community and that it is synonymous to caring for others and doing good in the world.

As you may have already heard, this year’s Caucus is being held at PCUN in Woodburn, the heart of the farm worker movement in Oregon.   It will be a fantastic opportunity to reflect on all that’s happened over the past year and plan for the future. A lot has happened since we Foreclosed on Greg Walden’s office in Bend at last year’s Caucus, and you won’t want to miss this year’s featured keynote: an interview between ROP Founder Marcy Westerling and PCUN President Ramon Ramirez!

This year, ROP will offer our Rural Caucus & Strategy Session on Saturday, May 12th from 8:30-5pm.  In addition we are organizing a series of activities before and after.  See the schedule and download a copy below.

Register for the Caucus and events today. Housing is available for those planning to stay in Woodburn Friday or Saturday night. Some of the events (like the tour with PCUN) will have limited space, so think about which events you would like to attend and register soon! To register, click the link below to download ROP’s 2012 Caucus registration form and mail it back to us. We will follow up with a registration packet and logistics details in the next few weeks.

Hope to see you there! Don’t forget to get your registration in by the early bird deadline of April 13th!

2012 Caucus Flyer
ROP’s 2012 Caucus Registration Form: Word Doc Version, PDF Version

Rural Caucus and Strategy Session 2012

Schedule of events for the weekend of May 11-13th

Friday, May 11^th
Farmworker tour with Ramon Ramirez of PCUN (2pm-5pm): Woodburn is rich with movement history. This tour will take you from the PCUN farmworkers hall, to the Radio Movimiento community radio station, to learning about the struggle to obtain farmworker housing with dignity.

Viernes Comunitario (6pm-8:30pm): Every other Friday, PCUN members gather at PCUN to discuss a topic relevant to the community. On May PCUN, they’ll open their doors to us to join them in in this grassroots event.  We’ll start with a short film about one of the earliest civil rights movements in the country, and then move into an open discussion looking at the links between our struggles of today.

SATURDAY, MAY 12^th – CAUCUS DAY!
Rural Caucus and Strategy Session (8:30am–5pm): Our chance to look back on our last year – what we have accomplished, what has changed in our political climate – and we strategize for the year to come. Join us for strategy sessions on Occupy Rural Oregon, creating Welcoming Communities, saving Rural Post Offices, election planning and more.  There will be time to share strategies across communities and skills to build our organizing impact.  Our Caucus keynote this year will feature a dialogue between ROP Founder Marcy Westerling and PCUN President Ramon Ramirez.

Celebration (5:30pm-bedtime): We have a lot to celebrate from the past year – from the birth of the Occupy Movement, to our local organizing efforts to build relationships and make change in our communities. Join us for a delicious vegetarian Mexican dinner, music, and dancing to Latin rhythms, hosted by our friends at PCUN.  This is a party that you won’t want to miss!

Sunday, May 13^th
Occupy Rural Oregon Breakfast (8:30am-10am): Join rural Occupiers from across the state in a conversation surrounding how we can support each other, build rural power, and what unified tactics and strategies could look like.

CAPACES work party (10:30am-1pm): The CAPACES Leadership Institute (CLI) is scheduled to open in the summer of this year. CLI is an enormous achievement of our friends in the mid-Valley farmworkers movement. We’ll spend the morning getting our hands dirty, and helping bring the Institute one step closer to Inauguration Day. Learn more about the CLI here: http://www.pcun.org/gallery/87