Workers Defense Project & Univision present, as part of the Cinco de Mayo Celebrations The Expo marks the beginning of WDP’s new plans to create good, safe jobs in Austin. Join us at the Travis County Expo Center May 6th, 2012. There will be live music, games for children, trainings for parents, and much more!

Tims: 11:00AM-3:00PM

Click here to watch video.

Bishop McCarthy has been a long-time supporter of Workers Defense Project. He often mentions WDP in his blog at www.bishopjohnmccarthy.com. We asked him to tell us a little bit about why he supports WDP. Here is what he had to say:

When asked why I support the Workers Defense Project, it is not a difficult question to answer. I have been supporting this organization for many years and I am continuously impressed by WDP’s commitment to grassroots organizing and to real changes being made in people’s lives.

When I first came to WDP about four years ago, I became aware of the widespread abuse in our eonomy of hard-working laborers being defrauded of their just and well-earned pay. This evil has been highlighted by Kim Bobo’s excellent book, Wage Theft in America, where she documents this cruel and widespread inustice where extraordinarily hard working, vulnerable people are defrauded of the fruits of their hard and difficult days of work.

WDP doesn’t just claim to be an advocacy organization – they actually advocate for real people in tangible ways. Recovered wages help WDP members pay their bills and feed their families. The ESL courses and OSHA safety trainings develop self-aware and confident workers. The partnerships and coalitions created with local churches and organizations strengthen support for Austin’s most vulnerable population. The work speaks for itself, and I am proud to be a part of it. Workers Defense Project needs and deserves the strong support of all who are committed to a just society, especially when it comes to justice for workers. May God continue to bless the Workers Defense Project.

Click here to read full story.

Sábado 31 de Marzo y Domingo 1 de Abril, 2012, de 9am to 4pm

Ven y únete a nosotros para jugar un tornero amistoso de fútbol 7 vs 7.Para registrarte necesitas  $25 por jugador ó  $250 por equipo.  Todos los fondos recaudados se destinarán a la compra de computadoras para impartir cursos de computación.  Click here for more details and registration forms.  Para más información favor de contactar a Candace López en candace@workersdefense.org.  No Juegas fútbol?  No importa!  Aún puedes ayudar a los miembros de PDL en sus cursos. simplemente  make a donation y déjanos saber que es para el Torneo de Fútbol.

Sábado 31 de Marzo y Domingo 1 de Abril, 2012, de 9am to 4pm

Ven y únete a nosotros para jugar un tornero amistoso de fútbol 7 vs 7.Para registrarte necesitas  $25 por jugador ó  $250 por equipo.  Todos los fondos recaudados se destinarán a la compra de computadoras para impartir cursos de computación.  Click here for more details and registration forms.  Para más información favor de contactar a Candace López en candace@workersdefense.org.  No Juegas fútbol?  No importa!  Aún puedes ayudar a los miembros de PDL en sus cursos. simplemente  make a donation y déjanos saber que es para el Torneo de Fútbol.

On October 15th, 2011, we held a house party in our home to raise funds and support the work of Proyecto Defensa Laboral/Workers Defense Project. This seems to be becoming somewhat of an annual practice in our home. We held our first party around the same time in 2010 for allgo, a statewide queer people of color organization. Our reasons for doing that are not much different, I’m sure, from the reasons others have for commiting to social justice: to use our space of home and our resources to build, nurture and sustain our community as a political space that feeds by being fed. And considering we live in a society that values individualism, recovering and reclaiming community as a space of knowing is a political struggle that continues and appears to have no end in sight. Yet, this struggle is not new for many of us as we continuously identify, improvise and respond to the challenges and assaults we face.

For many years I have worked in different roles with different organizations and with different missions, but quite often, similar visions. I witnessed how the practices and politics of these organizations came to be dictated and transformed by the financial support being chased to maintain the organizations above water and their doors open for the communities they served. It was not easy and the skills of hustling were daily invoked to do the work in the way we felt it had to be done within the parameters we had been given by state funders. Despite the hustling and endless improvising that was mustered up on a daily basis, it did not guarantee that funding would not eventually come to an end. What it did seem to guarantee, however, were subtle compromises that would eventually lead to an end of the missions and visions on which these organizations were conceived. We learned that there was no political autonomy without financial independence and relying on state funding compromised our political agenda. It is not easy to navigate, without consequences, through the daily threats of ceased funding within the urgency in which many of our communities struggle to survive and thrive. At the same time, to build a politically autonomous organization, also calls for (re)claiming and (re)imagining holistic creative ways of surviving and thriving. With all the attacks and impositions made on our homes, our communities, our bodies, our spirits, our minds–our histories, we are told our homes don’t matter. We are told that we can’t rely on our neighbors, our families and friends, our memories, or ourselves. We are taught to leave our communities and seek remedies elsewhere—that what we know with our own flesh has no significance. Me niego a tragarme estas mentiras, and opening our home to not only support PDL, but to recognize and honor the history that brought about its existence, was a deliberate act of refusal. It is an act of going home, coming home, being at home, (re)claiming home, and haciendo hogar. And in the name of keeping it real, I recognize that home is often fraught with struggles, tensions and violations that closed doors and windows cannot keep out. Home is not always a place of safety and the things we fight against outside of our homes find a way of seeping into our homes and into our desires. It is in recognizing and naming the volatile origins of these unsafe spaces and divesting ourselves of them that becomes all the more crucial.

Looking through the pictures we took the night of the party made me think of the sense of solidarity and political commitment we shared. There were people laughing wholeheartedly, sharing food, sharing thoughts, dancing, and silently thinking. There were pictures of the food catered by Café Rebelde that left many salivating and contributed to making the event a memorable one. People not only shared food and drink; they shared memories, desires, and visions. Many asked questions about PDL as some felt compelled to share their experiences as immigrants or children of immigrants. At times it felt as if knowing more about PDL was somehow a way of understanding and affirming their histories of migration as well. While the party was a success, some people did not come, and I wondered why and if something could have been done differently to have them. The struggle is critical and we can’t afford to leave anyone behind. Perhaps there were conversations that needed to happen; perhaps we needed to think of other strategies to spread the word. The event itself was a force of nature–from the phone call it took to spark it; to Café Rebelde feeding us; to Jaime Cano weaving music for us; to the trabajadores giving purpose to the event, to the gathering of people in the space of home, so that even if just for a moment in a series of many, cada quien ponga su granito de arena.

Sponsored by Discount Electronics

Saturday, March 31st and Sunday April 1st, 2012 * Saturday, March 31st and Sunday April 1st 9am to 4pm

Come join us for a friendly co-ed, 7 v. 7 soccer tournament.  Registration is $25 for individual players or $250 per team.  All proceeds will go towards the purchase of computers for our Computer Literacy Courses.  Click here for more details and registration forms.  For more information please contact candace@workersdefense.org.  Don’t play soccer?  Thats ok!  You can still support WDP members in these courses.  Simply make a donation and let us know its for the Soccer Tournament.

Come and work with us looking how the world change before your eyes while obtaining:

* Life-long experience and skills,
* Referrals for future employment,
* Possible class credit,
* A monthly stipend, and
* an amazing work environment!

We are looking for different interns with different skills, interests and characteristics in general:

* Research Assistant in Austin, TX

* Green Building Intern

* Community Garden Intern

* Sustainable Employment Practices Researcher

* Youth Empowerment Program Intern

Follow the links above to look for details or contact Workers Defense Project at the number 512-391-2305.

And Remember: In Unity, There Is Strength!

To that end, we invite you to join us January 14th from 7-10 PM for a family friendly game night! We will be playing chess, checkers, dominoes, Chutes & Ladders, Scrabble, Sorry, and a whole lot more, drinking hot chocolate and sharing some snacks and some laughs. Since the night is all about sharing, please feel free to bring some snacks yourself or even your favorite board game, and be ready to have some fun with the Workers Defense Project family!

Sincerely,
The Workers Defense Project Team

What: Game Night!

Where: 5604 Manor Rd

When: January 14th 7-10PM

How: $4 for non-members, $2 for members, children free

Who: You!