FIGHTBACKFRIDAYS

Photographs & Video From The Occupy Wall Street (Rally & March) - 10/5/11

Photographs

https://picasaweb.google.com/113455396360021548056/OccupyWallStreetRallyMarchOctober52011?authkey=Gv1sRgCP7t4_-Gv7Tz7gE


Video

Rally before the Panel for Education Policy(PEP) vote was held.

Verizon Strikers Rally Before Panel for Ed Policy Vote on Verizon Contract from Grassroots Education Movement on Vimeo.

1.    45,000 Verizon workers are currently on strike, as management has demanded a long list of concessions, cutting their health benefits, pensions, and sick time – givebacks amounting to $20,000 per worker. Meanwhile, the company has $100 billion in revenue, net profits of $6 billion, and Verizon Wireless just paid its parent company a $10 billion dividend. The top five company executives have been paid more than a quarter of a billion dollars over the last four years.  This is yet one more corporate attack on the middle class. Why should the city be contracting with such a greedy and unethical company?

2.    Verizon is seriously implicated in the recent scandal in which the Special Commissioner of Investigation found that a consultant named Ross Lanham in charge of school internet wiring stole $3.6 million dollars from the city  through a false billing scheme, and that Verizon “facilitated this fraud.” Though DOE admits that “Verizon is in discussion with the DOE regarding repaying of the overcharges,” the company has not yet agreed to pay back any of this money, and the case has been referred to the US attorney’s office for possible prosecution.   Why should DOE reward Verizon by paying the company more millions?

3.    In the same document in which the DOE outlines the contract, there are twenty other instances listed of suspicious or illegal behavior on the part of Verizon, triggering numerous investigations.

4.    All NYC public schools are already wired for the internet; but according to the DOE, this second round of wiring is for high-speed internet and hi-definition video  to facilitate the expansion of online learning and computerized testing.  This is occurring at the same time as budgets are being cut to the bone, schools are losing valuable programs, and class sizes are rising to the highest level in over a decade.  A quarter of our elementary schools are so overcrowded they had waiting lists for Kindergarten.  It is outrageous that in the midst of this budget crisis, the DOE should be spending $120 million for unnecessary technological upgrades when children do not have seats in their neighborhood schools.

5.    Finally, this contract with Verizon began on January 1, 2011, and DOE is only now asking for the PEP  to approve it “retroactively.”  But there is no allowance for retroactive contracts in state law, unless the chancellor finds that due to an emergency, it is necessary for “the preservation of student health, safety or general welfare” and provides a written justification.  This was never done in this case.  Thus, this contract with Verizon is likely illegal on the face of it.