Great Lakes Community Gathering

Fri., July 30, 1-9pm: KBOCC, Baraga

Workshop on the National Historic Preservation Act

Community Potluck Dinner

Featured Guests: Joanne Shenandoah & Winona LaDuke

Film Screening of Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action

Sat., July 31, 8:30am-5pm: Ojibwe Powwow Grounds, Baraga

Four Thunders Drum

Keynote speech by~ Winona LaDuke

Speakers on Environmental Issues & Mining

Evening Events, 5-10pm: KBOCC

Traditional Feast

~Protect the Earth Concert~

Featuring Joanne Shenandoah, Skip Jones & E

Sun., Aug. 1, 10:30-2pm: Clowry Trail, Yellow Dog Plains

Picnic by the Yellow Dog River

Annual Walk to Eagle Rock with Speakers & Music

Agenda & directions available at~

http://standfortheland.com

Contact new.earth.warriors@gmail.com or 715.550.0124

Hosted by Oshkinawe Ogichidaag Akiing “New Warriors for the Earth”

Sponsored by the Western Mining Action Network, Indigenous Environmental Network,

Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, Save the Wild UP, Keepers of the Water, NMU Center for

Native Studies, Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve, Yellow Dog Summer & the Stand for the Land

A small handful of participants turned out Monday night in Marquette for an event supporting the cause of about 560 U.S. Borax workers locked out of their jobs in southern California by Rio Tinto, the parent company of the Kennecott Eagle Minerals Company.

The event was organized by Yellow Dog Summer, an environmental group that opposes Kennecott’s proposed nickel and copper mine in northern Marquette County.

The Borax workers, represented by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 30, have been locked out since Jan. 31 after labor negotiations broke down with Rio Tinto.

The International Mining and Maritime Unions called for “worldwide solidarity actions” to take place Monday.  The Yellow Dog Summer event was held at the Messiah Lutheran Church in Marquette.

Organizer Gabriel Caplett said he was hoping some members of local mine workers unions would have attended the meeting.  None did.  But the irony of the Kennecott opponents holding the miner support event was not lost on Caplett or the group’s other organizers.

“Some people can definitely see it as being ironic,” Caplett said.  ”I didn’t think that it was a bad thing to show support for them (the Borax miners).  It’s a very human story.”

Caplett said the groups opposing Rio Tinto and Kennecott’s mining efforts are not against local mine workers.

Caplett said he hoped the church as a meeting place would work to level differences on both sides, providing a starting place for more substantive discussions in the future.  The church broadens the debate and is more inclusive of people on both sides, Caplett said.

“The faith community bridges that issue and makes it more of a neutral ground,” Caplett said.  ”I think we have to have more of that kind of dialogue.”

Caplett said good points have been made in the discussions on Kennecott’s mine from both sides.  He said those in favor of the mine speaking at local hearings and meetings seem to be reasonable people and he can understand how anti-Rio Tinto events organized by environmental groups might seem polarizing.

Caplett said that he, like some other opponents, want the best circumstances to come out of the situation if the Eagle Mine is dug into the ground by Kennecott.

“If it does open up there, there should be as many workers as possible with good pay and benefits and the county should get more revenue our of this than it has,” Caplett said.  ”We should get the most out of it that we can.”

The small gathering of less than 10 people at the church Monday listened briefly to remarks by Caplett and local reverend and environmentalist Jon Magnuson.  The 1976 documentary “Harlan County U.S.A.” was then shown.  The film chronicles the 1973 struggle of nearly 200 Kentucky coal miners in their unionization efforts against the Duke Power Company.

Yellow Dog Summer organizer Teresa Bertossi said, “With Rio Tinto trying to slip through the back door in our community, we must stand in solidarity with the Borax workers and demand that Rio Tinto finally make good on their claims to respect worker rights and labor laws wherever the company operates.”

Caplett said he hopes for a larger turnout at the group’s next event.

“Hopefully, the next one can have more people from both sides, Caplett said.  ”Maybe not yelling, but debating fiercely.”

The event will feature informal speakers, a film showing and refreshments.

“With Rio Tinto trying to slip through the backdoor in our community, we must stand in solidarity with the Borax workers and demand that Rio Tinto finally make good on their claims to respect worker rights and labor laws wherever the company operates,” said Yellow Dog Summer organizer Teresa Bertossi.

The International Mining and Maritime Unions have called for “worldwide solidarity actions” to take place on February 15.  The ILWU Local 30 is supported by the more than 20 million member International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM), the Maritime Union of Australia, the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union – Mining and Energy division (CFMEU) and a number of other miners’ unions around the world.

In an October 15 support letter the Maritime Union and CFMEU said:

“While our Unions have had a long and bitter experience with Rio Tinto and their anti-union, anti-workforce tactics and policies here in Australia, we continue to be amazed at the way in which multi national corporations like Rio Tinto, demand and expect working men and women to sacrifice hard won conditions of employment in order to prop up already bloated corporate profits.”

Yellow Dog Summer is a citizen-based group focused on protecting the environmental and economic health and vitality of the upper Great Lakes region.

For further information please contact Gabriel Caplett at gcaplett@gmail.com or (906) 226-6649

Marquette County, Michigan - The Walk to Eagle Rock, a sacred Native American site on the Yellow Dog Plains, on Sunday, Aug.2, 2009, was a

community event, bringing together people of at least three, if not more, generations — Native and non-Native — from Michigan, neighboring Great Lakes states and even from the far West.

To read the rest of this article, by Michele Bourdieu, please visit Keweenaw Now.

Marquette, Michigan — Last weekend, Aug. 1-2, “Protect the Earth 2009,” the second annual Great Lakes Community Gathering of people opposed to metallic sulfide and uranium mining in the

Upper Peninsula and nearby Great Lakes states, offered workshops with expert speakers; musical entertainment; Native American dance, drumming and spiritual ceremonies; and a two-mile walk to Eagle Rock. This Native American sacred site is a proposed target of the “Eagle” Project, Kennecott-Rio Tinto’s potential metallic sulfide mine on the Yellow Dog Plains near Marquette.

For the complete article by Michele Bourdieu, please visit Keweenaw Now.

See below for an excellent speech given by Susan LaFernier, Vice Chair of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, at Eagle Rock on August 2.

Hope to see you there!