Stop
Veolia
Seattle
Zine Project
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Stop Veolia Seattle
stopveoliaseattle.wordpress.com
This Zine is a collecon of texts and images, a compiling of research and conversaons, wrings and imagined futures with the dening and redening of solidarity at its center. It is also a biography—if, as we are told, corporaons are people too—of French-based mulnaonal corporaon, Veolia. Stop Veolia Seale (SVS) is humbled to be stepping into a conversaon with a much more established movement targeng Veolia, and a much longer history of resistance to inequality in the form of neoliberal corporazaon and older forms of colonialism, imperialism, militarism, apartheid, and occupaon. This Zine is one way to write and draw our evolving understanding of how our work in Seale is part of a larger, longer conversaon. When we began SVS we asked: How can a campaign targeng Veolia help us and others ask larger quesons about solidarity organizing and the roots of our current struggles? How does Veolia’s parcular history and aliaons help us build or reinforce an understanding, an analysis, that allows us to work across many dierent communies of resistance in mutually generave ways? We understand Veolia as a microcosm for tracing the intersecons of our struggles locally and globally, for the potenal and the need for solidarity and for what that community of joint-struggle might look like. Veolia also provides a case study for mapping other genealogies and connuies. Veolia, a company that can be traced back to Napoleon, helps us to trace the roots of today’s neoliberalism in earlier manifestaons of Western imperialism and exploitaon.We hope this Zine reads both as a meline for the evoluon of systems of exploitaon and as a non-linear mapping of potenal and real solidaries, for arculang and hopefully building historically rooted forms of resistance.
“Solidarity is not an act of charity but an act of unity between allies fighting on different terrains towards the same objectives.” –Samora machel
art by maia brown
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What’s inside?
page 18 despite veolia’s political interference, communities around the world protect human right to water, by katherine sawyerpage 21 the corporate stranglehold over the united nations, by richard gerardpage 27 veolia & transportation: thinking about corporatization & freedom of movement, by maia brownpage 30 why governments are on the hook to ensure clean, safe water for everyone, by maude barlow
page 34 the rising water in bolivia and latin america, by marcela oliverapage 37 turning the tides: new approaches and alternatives, by mary ann manahan
page 42 asia-pacific: a primer (5 reasons why you should challenge veolia), by mary ann manahanpage 47 india: veolia favors profits and abuse over right to water, by friends of earth francepage 48 South durban, south africa: activists occupy veolia plant, by sarah khanpage 49 privatization’s human cost: the crisis of bus drivers in santiago, by anson stewartpage 56 boston school bus drivers vs. veolia, by linda averill
page 60 People’s water board statement on creation of regional water authoritypage 62 detroit’s water: behind the bankruptcy crisis, by khaled a beydounpage 64 moving beyond solidarity, by tawana petty
page 68 BDS marks another victory as Veolia sells off all Israeli operationspage 70 letter to the united nations, by richard falkpage 72 overview of current activities in europe, by adri nieuwhofpage 74 veolia & it’s history of contract lossespage 77 resistance from within: veolia employee stops cutting off the water,
page 80 dorian taylor on access and solidarity in our movementspage 84 pressure mounts on executive constantine to take action on veolia, by susan koppelmanpage 89 stop veolia seattle call to king county councilpage 90 transit riders union and bayan-nw solidarity letterspage 92 solid ground, access driver & member of atu local 587 on veoliapage 94 hearing from access users, by lonnie nelsonpage 96 interview with jacqueline sorgenpage 98 mlk county labor council resolution against veoliapage 99 veolia/transdev attempts to divide our coalition
Stop Veolia Seale is a coalion of groups and community members from the disability jusce community, the labor community, Palesne Solidarity, an-corporazaon and environmental movements, among others, who have come together to form a working group to get Veolia out of King County and to bring the Access paratransit service in-house with good labor pracces and benets for workers and respecul, caring, mely, aordable service for folks with disabilies and the elderly. We are urging King County, not to connue their contract with Veolia rst and foremost because our community deserves beer. We stand rooted in solidarity with Palesnians, global workers and global water and transportaon users who are impacted by Veolia’s reckless and criminal pracces that violate workers rights and human rights, including the right to water, the right to self-determinaon and freedom of movement.Responding to the Palesnian Civil Society call for Boyco, Divestment and Sancons of Israel (BDS), we support the nonviolent methods of BDS unl Israel meets its obligaon to the Palesnian people and internaonal law by:1. Ending its occupaon and colonizaon of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall;2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of Arab-Palesnian cizens of Israel to full equality; and3. Respecng, protecng and promong the rights of Palesnian refugees to return to their homes and properes as spulated in UN Resoluon 194.We are lucky to be doing this work in the context of great momentum--there are things to celebrate! BDS aliated campaigns have ended contracts or prevented contracts with Veolia in the USA, UK, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Scotland, Ireland, Australia, Iran, & Spain; and water jusce advocates have also ended contracts with Veolia around the world including in India and Veolia’s nave France. SVS members understand the struggle for Palesnian equal rights as inmately ed to global struggles for economic, social, and cultural jusce, including the struggles of other indigenous peoples around the world and at home, and the structural race and class inequality we face in our local communies. For us, Veolia is a compelling example of how BDS as a strategy and a lens allows us to map these global intersecons—BDS is beginning to give us a new way to think and talk about how Palesne solidarity work is entangled in our social jusce struggles locally and with those in the rest of the Global South. BDS must lead us back to a very old queson: If we dene Solidarity as acng out of the knowledge that our own liberaon is ed up in the liberaon of others, and that the oppressed must lead the struggle, how do we pracce working together in ways that are reparave and restructure how we share power and resources? How do we build global solidaries that don’t mean ignoring what happens in our own communies, that don’t sap our energies away from the resistance movements of our neighborhoods, but make us all stronger?
About SVS and Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions
see also p. 99
History and policy analysis is not everyone’s thing, jump to p. 79 for Seale tesmonies.