IWW Rally Marks Bitter Anniversary
Submitted on Tue, 08/12/2008 - 6:02pm
From The Providence JournalBy David Scharfenberg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — A year after a confrontation with police officers in North Providence left her with severe leg injuries, union organizer Alexandra Svoboda arrived at a rally yesterday with a cane, a knee brace and a message of defiance.
“This is the true spirit of resistance,” she said. “This is people saying, ‘no.’ ”
Svoboda, secretary of the Providence branch of the Industrial Workers of the World, was among a group of protesters who clashed with the police Aug. 11, 2007, while marching on Jacky’s Galaxie, a pan-Asian restaurant on Mineral Spring Avenue.
Union members were targeting Jacky’s because the eatery purchased rice and takeout containers from Dragon Land Trading, a restaurant supply company in Queens, N.Y., with a reputation for treating its employees poorly.
As the protesters marched toward the restaurant, a group of North Providence officers approached and directed them to move to the side of the road because they were obstructing traffic.
The police said Svoboda was combative, swinging at police officers with a set of drumsticks she had used to bang on a bucket hanging around her neck.
The union said officers “tackled and brutalized” the protester without provocation.
Whatever the sequence of events, Svoboda wound up with severe injuries –– a torn artery in the left knee, a fractured tibia and fibia, and torn ligaments and nerve damage from the knee down, according to a union statement.
Svoboda, then 22, underwent four surgeries in the weeks immediately following the clash. She said yesterday that she will meet with her doctor in the coming days to discuss a fifth surgery.
But surgery is not the only concern for Svoboda.
She also faces two misdemeanor charges of simple assault, a charge of resisting arrest and a charge of disorderly conduct.
Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch has appointed a special prosecutor to handle the Svoboda case while his office looks into allegations that the North Providence police used excessive force.
Jason Friedmutter, an IWW organizer, also faces a misdemeanor charge of obstructing a police officer.
Kin Wah “Jacky” Ko, owner of Jacky’s Galaxie restaurants in North Providence, Bristol and Cumberland, has long maintained that the IWW protest was not justified.
He said he stopped purchasing supplies from Dragon Land weeks before the protest, when he became aware of the distributor’s alleged penchant for low wages.
IWW organizers countered that Ko failed to show adequate proof that he had cut ties with Dragon Land in the run-up to the march.
Friedmutter said yesterday that the restaurant owner did provide appropriate documentation after the protest.
John Cronan Jr., a New York City-based IWW organizer, said pressure on Jacky’s and other East Coast restaurants that once bought supplies from Dragon Land put the distributor, formerly known as HWH, out of business.
Cronan said the union is still pursuing the owners of Dragon Land for payment of back wages to former employees.
But he said the IWW is having trouble identifying the company’s assets.
New York State corporation records list a Queens-based Dragon Land Realty.
But it was unclear yesterday if the company had any ties to the food distributor.
The rally yesterday at Lonigan Memorial Park, off Atwells Avenue, attracted about 50 people dressed in red and black.
A series of union organizers spoke alongside a blown-up photograph of Svoboda –– lying on the ground with a mangled leg on the day of the protest.
Speakers tore into the police for engaging in “brutality.”
The North Providence police did not return calls for comment yesterday.
But town officials have defended the Police Department’s approach in the past.
They have maintained that protesters, who outnumbered police, repeatedly declined to follow police directives that day.
And they have claimed Svoboda pushed one officer and swung the drumsticks at others when they tried to arrest her.
They said police took her down out of concern for their own safety.
Ko, for his part, said yesterday that the union had been “unfair” in targeting his chain of restaurants.
But he added that he has stopped pursuing a defamation lawsuit against the IWW. And he said he hoped to put last year’s events behind him.
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