Miami Taxi Drivers Struggle Against the Sun Pass

Tuesday Miami-Dade taxi drivers organized with New Vision Taxi Association picketed outside of Government Center, where the county commissioners were meeting. The taxi drivers are engaged in a campaign to stop the passage of a law giving the county power to ticket any driver who drive without a functioning Sun Pass in their car. The drivers are demanding that the Sun Pass, a private commodity, be optional rather than state mandated. The county has been ticketing drivers for years without ever having passed into law an ordinance that would given them the power to do so. The new initiative by county commissioners to pass such an ordinance has been delayed twice before amidst protests by cab drivers. Drivers argue that they are being discriminated against as no other drivers (such as limo or shuttle van drivers) are being targeted for the law. The proposed ordinance falls upon individuals rather than companies, which creates paradoxes. A driver who rents different vehicles daily is unable to obtain a Sun Pass for each vehicle, which requires registering your personal license plate, and therefore would be ticketed for the owner not having obtained a Sun Pass for the vehicle they rent. New Vision says that such tickets are common.

Teachers of Miami-Dade County Call:

Take a personal day or sick day, Monday April 12th to oppose Florida Senate Bill 6/ HB 7189
Meet 3:30pm at: Tropical Park, 7900 SW 40th Street, Miami, Florida

We need to show our power and force Governor Crist to veto the bill!
We need to meet and organize ourselves autonomously as teachers from the bottom up!

Why we should oppose Florida Senate Bill 6/ HB 7189:

• It’s a Tallahassee takeover of education at the expense of local collective bargaining
• It will destroy education by forcing it to focus on test taking tips, strategies and memorization techniques; rather than critical thinking, learning and understanding which can’t be measured in standardized tests
• It will increase inequalities by incentivizing teachers to abandon students with less parental support, financial tutoring means and family educational background in favor of schools with students with these background supports
• It’s an unfunded mandate that will take more money from public schools and put it in the hands of standardized testing companies
• It will take more time away from our students education in requiring class time for the administration of these new standardized tests in every subject
• It eliminates salary funding from areas with proven indicators of quality teaching: years of experience and higher education degrees
• It eliminates incentives for involvement in the National Board Certification program
• It makes teachers financial planning unstable by cutting their salaries in half and then basing the other half of their pay on varying student test scores on one high stakes standardized test at the end of the year
• It opens the door for greater nepotism and unstable and biased working environments by granting administrators excessive and arbitrary firing power

Please forward this information as widely as possible to all teachers, parents, community members and everyone you know to spread the word and support the struggle of the teachers against this attack on teachers and public education!

Note: This is a spontaneous call by teachers to take matters into their own hands. Miami Autonomy and Solidarity is posting the teachers’ call in a show of support for their struggle!

Teachers and Public Education are Under Attack in Florida

By Pablo- Miami Autonomy & Solidarity (MAS)

Education reform seems to be the buzzword coming out of all the politicians’ mouths these days, and these words have taken on a menacing form in the case of Florida.  In Florida, education reform is supposedly at the bottom of legislation such as HB7189 and SB 6.  These companion bills, emerging from the Florida House of Representative and the Senate respectively, claim to have education reform in mind, but are little more than thinly veiled attacks on the teaching profession, and in particularly its unions.  While I think there is much to be desired from our public education system, make no mistake about it these bills simply don’t address any of the fundamental problems plaguing our current system. 

Imperialist domination and the popular masses

by Jan- Miami Autonomy & Solidarity (MAS)

In consolidating the Haitian dominant classes and their state apparatus, imperialism plays a direct and indirect role in maintaining the dictatorship of the dominant classes on the masses. Imperialism intervenes directly on class struggles in the Haitian social formation.