Domino's Pizza Boycott Launched - Join it!

City-wide Boycott of Domino's Pizza Launched

On Wednesday, November 16, Democracy for NYC joined the Sweatshop Free Campaign, Occupy Wall Street organizers, and the community in a rally launching New York City-wide boycott of Domino's Pizza. Some of the conditions Domino's Pizza employees report and which led to the boycott include:

• Work up to 102 hours a week at $4.40/hr often without full pay
• Risk their lives in hazardous weather & road conditions
• Receive insulting treatment, with no time to rest or eat
• Pay out of pocket for bicycles and uniforms

Since 2009, hundreds of workers have come together from various Domino's franchises to sue their bosses while organizing for better conditions. Franchise owner Dave Melton has responded by firing workers, cutting hours, and refusing to pay back the workers.

DFNYC which has long supported the fight against sweatshop conditions and unfair, illegal working condidtions in all work places, was represented by Sally Swisher, Bruce Markens, Susan Andrews, and Bernadette Evangelist. Photos below were taken by Bernadette at the rally and subsequent march to a local Domino's Pizza outlet.

Please join the boycott and call Domino's headquarters, 734-930-3030, to voice your support for the workers.

 

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DFNYC Condemns Lowe's for Bowing to Anti-Muslim Florida Family Assoc.

Democracy For NYC strongly condemns the action of Lowe's Home Improvement, Inc., in pulling their advertising from the The Learning Channel's program "All American Muslim" due to the complaints of the "Florida Family Association" and their leader, David Caton, who called the program "propaganda that riskily hides the Islamic agenda's clear and present danger to American liberties and traditional values."

"All American Muslim" is a program that is educating the public on the lives of Muslims in Dearborn, Michigan, and is no better or worse than any other put on the air by The Learning Channel to educate the public on the many different lifestyles of Americans across the country.

 

Democracy For NYC urges all followers and friends to contact Lowe's Home Improvment, Inc.. at Lowes.com and its CEO, Robert A. Niblock, and let them know how much you disagree with their actions. You can also submit handwritten letters with the following address:

 

1000 Lowe's Boulevard
Mooresville, NC 28117

DFNYC Endorsement Voting Process

DFNYC Endorsement Voting - Rules

Ballot: Click here.

2014 Eligibility: You are eligible to vote in our 2014 endorsements if you have been to at least two DFNYC events between Nov. 17th, 2011 and our most recent event, the August 12th 10 year celebration on West 17th Street. If you are not sure if you've been to two events, please vote. We will determine your eligibility later.

DFNYC Endorsement Voting - The Election Process

In elections before July 2012, we used paper ballots. We found this process to be difficult to organize and overly cumbersome for voters.  After getting member feedback, we decided to switch to online voting, and maintain the principle of anonymity by having DFAers in other states count the ballots.  Here is the step-by-step process for how we conduct elections.

1. DFNYC leaders create a ballot in our Survey Monkey account, the "Survey Monkey Ballot Account".  This is a completely separate account from our account where we sometimes have candidates entering their questionnaire responses.

2. DFNYC Leaders design the ballot. There is discussion among DFNYC leadership about what races to put on the ballot, what candidates should be listed in each race, the ability to have write-in candidates, and the threshold for endorsement. Final decisions are made after asking DFNYC members for their feedback in our newsletter as to races that should be included for endorsement voting, endorsement threshold, and other factors.

3. Several DFNYC leaders "test" the ballot by entering a vote that would not count. After this testing, we make any necessary changes. After the testing, we delete all the test ballots.

4. When the ballot is finalized, DFNYC Leaders give the username and password to the Survey Monkey Ballot Account to our out-of-state vote counters.  One of them promptly changes the password, so that DFNYC leaders will not have access to the account during the voting period, and gives the password to the other vote counter.

5. The announcement that voting is open goes out in a DFNYC email newsletter. We also promote it on Facebook and Twitter. Members of the leadership also make good faith efforts to promote individually to active members. 

6. Determination of Eligibility & Anonymous Voting:

At the end of the voting period, the vote counters download all of the ballots (survey responses) to a spreadsheet and give us just the voter identity information (only those spreadsheet columns) so that we can determine eligibility. In other words, the vote counters delete all the columns with the actual votes, and just give us the columns with the identity info such as name and contact info, similar to the envelop that holds an absentee ballot in NY election law.

7. We check event sign-in sheets and then tell the vote counters what voters are not eligible. The vote counters delete those rows (Ballots and voter info) from the spreadsheet. Each of the two vote counters will have the raw file and each will make the deletions independently from each other. 

In some elections, DFNYC leadership may request - about 24-48 hours before the end of voting, a preliminary list of people who have voted so that we can begin checking eligibility and do GOTV for eligible members that have not voted. 

8. The day after voting ends, the vote counters separately calculate the number of votes for each candidate. 

9. The vote counters compare numbers and must each figure out how to get to the correct total for each race.  Then they inform DFNYC leadership. 

10. Then the vote counters go into the Survey Monkey Ballot Account and deleted all of the ballots (survey responses).  When that is completed, they give control of the account (password) back to DFNYC leadership. A review of Survey Monkey policy indicates that it is not possible to retrieve deleted survey responses. 

Updates on N.Y.P.D. Mosque Surveillance Program

 

In the fall of 2013, after an AP article  that reported that the N.Y.P.D. was designating entire mosques as terrorist organizations in order to conduct widespread surveillance, we started a joint petition with DFA against this violation of basic civil liberties.

At this page here at the DFNYC website, we will post updates on the Muslim surveillance issue, as a human right violation of this nature can often be a one-day news story that later loses attention. We endorsed Mayor de Blasio in 2013 in part because of his principled stance on improving police community relations, and we intend to work with other advocacy groups to help make this happen.

There is some good news! The N.Y.P.D. is disbanding that particular unit. Also, there are federal civil rights law suit in both New York and New Jersey. 

NY Times article: NYPD Disbands Muslim-focused Surveillance Unit

NJ Lawsuit:

Law 360 article re earlier 2012 surveillance issue: NJ Muslims Tell Third Circuit (Federal Appeals Court) that NYPD Spying Caused Real Harm

WNYC article about dismissal of suit by the federal district court in Newark: http://www.wnyc.org/story/fed-judge-throws-out-nypd-spying-lawsuit/

 

 

New York Lawsuits:

A federal judge in NYC dismissed a 2012 civil rights suits against N.Y.P.D. targeting of Muslims. But a suit filed in 2013, Raza v. City of New York is still active.

http://amsterdamnews.com/news/2014/feb/27/federal-judge-throws-out-lawsuit-challenging-nypd-/