008. Banners, posters, and displayed communications

When the University of California at Santa Cruz (UCSC) hired Chancellor Denice Denton in 2004 the transition entailed her earning a salary of $282,000 a year and $600,000 of renovations made on her future house of residence, including a controversial $30,000 dog run.   This became a topic of debate; students as well as media critics quickly brought these details to light and demanded accountability for the choices of spending at the University.  Under these circumstances, employees at the University began to call attention to the fact that they earned a less than living wage

The
Georgetown Solidarity Committee (GSC) formed at Georgetown University in 1996
to support workers' rights.  In the fall
of 2001, a group of students, headed by the GSC, formed the Living Wage
Coalition (LWC) in order to guarantee University workers an income to meet their
subsistence needs. The students held meetings on how to take action and organized
breakfast events with workers to hear their grievances and concerns.  By 2002, the administration agreed to raise
the minimum wage of workers directly employed by the university to $10.25 per

When Oregonians received notice in 1968 that the Portland General Electric Company (PGE) planned to install a nuclear power plant in Rainier Oregon, concerned citizens began to work within the political structure to prevent the plant from entering the community.  Based on the anti-nuclear sentiment in the US at the time, many Oregonians were wary of the environmental repercussions of a nuclear power plant.  Many also considered the construction and upkeep of the plant an unwise allocation of state money.  

In the early 2000s Citigroup was the world's largest project finance bank, with customers in over 100 countries and territories. Citigroup provided the finances for thousands of projects; some of these projects were deeply damaging to the environment. Citigroup was indirectly related to the Camisea pipeline in Peru as a financial advisor, as well as the Chad-Cameroon pipeline under construction by Exxon, Chevron and numerous central African oil companies. 

Indonesia's people, orangutans, and rainforest are threatened by the widespread planting of trees that produce palm oil for making processed food by giant corporations such as General Foods. 

In October of 1998, environmental groups organized protests against Home Depot, the world’s largest do-it-yourself hardware and supply store. The protests were in response to the purchasing and selling of old-growth wood (OGW), or wood from endangered, never before forested regions. In part the impetus for this campaign was that Home Depot had not fulfilled a promise made to Rainforest Action Network (RAN) and other environmentalist groups one year prior to stop the selling of OGW.

On 6 April 2006, a group of people dressed as large chickens entered McDonald’s fast food restaurants in seven cities around the United Kingdom. These chickens were a part of Greenpeace’s campaign against McDonald’s use of soya, a soybean plant, to feed its chickens.

Along the Whanganui River, which flows through the North Island of New Zealand, lies a contested piece of land that indigenous Māori call Pakaitore. The government calls this same land Moutoa Gardens, a public park they created in memorial to those who died in the Battle of Moutoa Island in 1864. 

On 6 August 1996, Argentinean General Fuel Company, also known as Compañía General de Combustibles (CGC), signed a contract with the Ministry of Energy and Mines in Ecuador without consultation of Kichwa natives of Sarayaku. The contract allowed CGC to exploit and explore 200,000 hectares of Block 23. 

On 1 June 1961, Isaac Coggs, the only African American Member of the Wisconsin legislature, introduced a Humans Rights bill with two civil rights provisions: a fair housing law and a plan to reorganize the Fair Employment Practices Commission. Though Governor Gaylord Nelson supported the bill, it was met with resistance in committee, facing amendments to kill or cripple it. Opponents of the bill argued that real estate
brokers and home sellers should have the right to decide to whom they should sell homes.

In 2006 Richard Gillman gained control of Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago, Illinois, as he assumed the position of Chief Executive Officer. The company produced windows and doors for building homes and offices. Soon after, there were a series of layoffs and Gillman reduced the number of workers in the factory from 500 to nearly 240. 

On 17 September 2000, the Ukrainian government under President Leonid Kuchma kidnapped a journalist, Georgiy Gongadze. Gongadze was known for speaking out openly against the government, using his popular radio show and website to expose the widespread corruption in Kuchma’s cabinet. His decapitated body was found two weeks later. In November, Socialist Party leader Oleksander Moroz released recordings of conversations between members of Kuchma’s party planning the execution.

In April 2009, Vestas Wind Systems announced the planned closure of two of its factories, which together employed 625 people.  The larger of the two, located in Newport, Isle of White, was the UK’s only major wind turbine production site.  Despite the UK environment secretary Ed Miliband’s discourse about green energy, the company claimed that there was not sufficient demand in the UK for wind turbines.  Vestas relocated these facilities to Colorado, where the market was better.

Reforms to the Canadian Criminal Code legalized abortion in 1969. Under the direction of Pierre Trudeau’s government, a constitutional amendment was made to Section 251 of the Code. The alteration limited legal abortions to be performed only when the mother’s health was at risk. In addition, abortions could only be performed in credible hospitals with licensed physicians and needed to be approved by a panel of doctors called Therapeutic Abortion Committees, which often consisted of all males.

The Frontenac Ventures Development Corporation received from the Ontario government in Canada a permit to begin exploratory drilling for uranium on 30,000 acres of Canadian Crown land in its eastern region of Sharbot Lake. In June 2007, the company began surveying.  The company planned to dig trenches, log the forest, and remove core mineral samples. 

On 16 May 1996, Governor Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania signed Senate Bill 1441 into law. This bill contained a series of welfare reforms, including cuts to medical assistance, a requirement that childless people between ages 21 and 58 work 100 hours a month to receive medical assistance benefits, and a condition that anyone making more than $5100 a year did not qualify for medical assistance. When implemented this legislation would cut 250,000 people off of medical assistance.

In the 1980’s, gay activists made their stand against sexual orientation discrimination in Manitoba. At this point in time, the members of the LGBTQ* were asking the Manitoba NDP government to prohibit sexual orientation discrimination under the existing Manitoba Human Rights Act.

In 1960 South Africa was under the rule of the National Party, which was imposing harsh, demeaning laws on black South Africans. The party was made up entirely of white people, mostly the descendants of Dutch immigrants. The party was devoted to apartheid and white supremacy, maintained through a collection of policies, including the pass laws. 

The Toronto’s Printer’s Strike was part of the Nine-Hour movement. The Nine-Hour movement was an international worker’s movement striving for shorter workdays in the 1870s. 

In January 1872 in Hamilton, Ontario, railroad workers as well as other craft workers formed Nine Hour Leagues.  Nine hours was normally a reduction of two to three hours off a regular shift. The workers explained that society as a whole would benefit from shorter workdays because individuals would have more time for family and community. 

During the Great Depression, Detroit, Michigan, and its auto-industry suffered an exceptional amount. After the stock market crash of 1929, around 80 percent of the industry was no longer producing and by 1932 large numbers of Detroit's citizens were dying of starvation. The Ford Motor Company, one of the richest employers, had laid off two-thirds of its employees. The Unemployed Councils, United Auto Workers, and communist union-organizing groups decided to organize a march against the Ford Motor Company and its employment policies.

The North and Central Coast, or Great Bear Rainforest as it would later be known, is an area of 6.4 million hectares that extends from the BC-Yukon border all the way down the BC coastline and ending before Bute Inlet. It is the largest temperate rainforest on the planet and the rich ecosystem is home to wolves, salmon, different species of bears, including the rare white kermode bear as well as many types of unique flora and fauna.

In the early 2000s, many residents of rural India did not own the land on which they lived and worked.  Without land rights, peasant farmers were often economically insecure.  

The exportation of live animals had been a subject of great debate in Britain during the early 1990’s. Britain’s harbors were being utilized to transport live sheep, cattle, and veal calves across Europe, but there were few laws protecting the rights of these animals as they were being exported. Animals were forced into cramped living quarters and could be without food or water for up to 24 hours while in cargo ships. 

In Dagenham, East London, 54,813 men, and only 187 women worked in Ford’s flagship factory. The women there were classified as “unskilled workers,” though male employees performing the same or similar jobs were classified as “skilled workers.” As a result the men were on a higher pay scale than the women. Female employees of the factory were deeply upset when they learned this fact, and even more enraged when they discovered that teenage boy floor-sweepers were paid higher wages than they were.

The Karura forest is an urban 2500 acre forest in Nairobi.
The Kenyan government had a common practice of land grabbing or secretly
selling public lands to private companies and political allies. Wangari
Maathai, who later was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, mobilized the
Green Belt Movement to action when developers began to clear sections of the
Karura forest to build luxury homes and offices for political allies of the
government in 1998.