Making this May Day something to Celebrate!

WHAT IS THE ACTIVITY? On May 1^st (AKA International Workers’ Day) people around the globe honor our accomplishments and ongoing struggles as working people. It is a day to hold up the inherent dignity of all working people and to spur us on in our organizing for a world that offers us equally dignified working conditions, fair compensation, and respect for our labor. This May Day in Oregon there will be marches in Salem, Medford, and Portland and where you can join in, please do. But this day also coincides with a fight at the legislature in Salem that is stirring the hearts of working people and allies across the state. This is the effort to stop REAL ID, a real nightmare piece of legislation that targets some of the most vulnerable workers in the US.

This May we are calling for community action to stop implementation of REAL ID in Oregon. Since many of us can’t make it to Salem on May Day in person, we will be sending faxes and making calls to the legislature beginning Monday, April 23^rd and leading up to May Day on Tuesday, May 1^st and continuing on throughout the month. We will also be collecting postcards at the ROP Caucus in Corvallis on Saturday, April 28^th to deliver to our legislators in person on May Day.

WHY THIS ACTIVITY? REAL ID passed at the federal level in 2005 without funding, guidelines, or even debate as an add-on to appropriations for Iraq and tsunami relief. It would create the first-ever national ID card and require everyone to produce their birth certificate in order to get a drivers license. REAL ID would effectively make it costly, difficult, and even prohibitive for many of us to get valid drivers licenses, especially immigrants, elderly, low-income, and homeless people and others who are unable to access these documents. This will surely result in more unlicensed and uninsured drivers. We are also concerned that REAL ID targets immigrants in the name of “security” while actually making our roads, our communities, and the lives of immigrant workers less safe and secure.

In our global economy, it is working people who are the canaries in the coalmine letting us know when all is not well. From factory workers in rural Oregon laid off in the wake of NAFTA to displaced agricultural workers from Central America whose communities have also been destroyed by these same “free” trade policies, we don’t need to look any farther than our neighbors to know that indeed all is not well. The good news is that these survivors of the global economy are on the front lines of a vibrant movement for global justice. This May will be a time to celebrate our solidarity and take action to push back on REAL ID.

STEPS TO COMPLETE THE ACTIVITY:

Share the REAL ID action alert found at https://rop.org/Leg07.htm#REAL%20ID and below with your email lists. A hearing on REAL ID is scheduled for Wednesday, April 25^th, so start calling!
Print, sign, circulate, solicit, and collect copies of the NO on REAL ID postcards that you can download at https://rop.org/REALIDPostCards
Send your postcards with your group’s delegation to the ROP Caucus on April 28^th or mail them directly to your legislator throughout the month. Find your legislator at www.leg.state.or.us/findlegsltr/
Join May Day 2007 in Salem at the Capitol at 11am. ROP volunteers will be part of the peacekeeper team who will monitor and deescalate any anti-immigrant agitators. Email amy@rop.org if you are interested in helping out.
If you want to do more to advance your local group’s work on immigration and global economic justice, email amy@rop.org. ROP can work with you to organize a local living room conversation on immigration, plan a strategy session, or make sure that your community is part of ROP’s Immigration Fairness Network.
Appreciate our past and future victories for worker solidarity and economic justice!

REAL ID is a REAL NIGHTMARE
Call and fax committee members in the House Transportation Committee today! Hearings are scheduled for Wednesday, April 25th from 3-5pm. If you can make it to Salem to testify, please let me know!

Tell them to vote NO on HB 2270 which would implement REAL ID in Oregon. And vote YES on HB 2827 and HJM 11 which would block implementation of REAL ID in Oregon just as Washington and many other states have done.

It is particularly important to call if you live in one of these districts, but let’s let them all hear from all of rural Oregon! If you are not sure who your legislator is, you can find you legislators at http://www.leg.state.or.us/findlegsltr/ or call the Capitol Switchboard at (800) 332-2313.

Terry Beyer*, Chair (HD 12/Springfield) 503-986-1412
George Gillman*, Vice Chair (HD 55/Crook and Lake Counties, Chiloquin and N. Klamath, and Eagle Point and NE Jackson County) 503-986-1455
Tom Butler (HD 60/Baker, Harney, and Malheur Counties) 503-986-1460
Peter Buckley (HD 5/Ashland and Jacksonville) 503-986-1405
Tobias Read (HD 27/Beaverton) (503) 752-6273
Carolyn Tomei, Vice Chair (HD 41/Milwaukie) 503-986-1441
* Co-Sponsors of HB 2827 and HJM 11

If you take action, please email amy@rop.org so that we know that your legislators have heard from you and what kind of response you received!

Key Talking Points for House Transportation Committee Members
* I oppose HB 2270 which would implement the REAL ID Act in Oregon.
* I support HB 2827 and HJM 11 which would block implementation of REAL ID in Oregon just as Washington, Idaho, and many other states have done.
* REAL ID is an unfunded federal mandate that will cost Oregonians millions of dollars and create a bureaucratic nightmare at Oregon DMV.
* REAL ID claims to make our country more secure, but will expose us to identity theft and invasion of privacy.
* I specifically oppose any legislation that would require proof of legal status to obtain an Oregon driver’s license.
* Showing a birth certificate in order to obtain a license would place substantial burdens on all Oregonians, especially immigrants, elderly, low-income, and homeless people and others who are unable to access these documents.
* Legal presence requirements would undermine public safety by resulting in more unlicensed, uninsured drivers on the road.
* Legal presence requirement would target immigrants in the name of “security” while actually making our roads, our communities, and the lives of undocumented immigrant workers less safe and more insecure.

Visit http://www.causaoregon.org/action-center or www.realnightmare.org for more information on REAL ID.