Image from: OccupyWallSt.Org

Via: OccupyWallSt.org, ALEC Welcoming Committee:

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) will be meeting in Chicago on August 7-9 at the Palmer House Hilton Hotel. ALEC connects corporate lobbyists with legislators behind closed doors to write "model legislation". This Legislation is then put on the floor of state legislatures across the country, without indication that it is an ALEC model bill. Put simply, corporations are writing state laws. That type of concerted effort in favor of profit between business interests and the state is NOT acceptable. ALEC's model bills include Right to Work (for less) laws, "Ag-gag" bills which brand environmental and animal rights activists "terrorists", Arizona's racial profiling law (SB1070), Wisconsin legislature's attack on public-sector collective bargaining, and so many others.

For those three days, we invite people from the city of Chicago and all across the Country to Participate in three days of action against ALEC's member corporations, their summit and the institutions they represent.

On August 8, we will have a noise demo outside of their meeting at the Palmer house Hilton. Details for that action here: https://www.facebook.com/events/381320208639722/

More actions will be forthcoming. See you in Haymarket City.

(Sign up on our mutual aid sheet! http://tinyurl.com/FuckALEC)

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More info via http://www.alecwc.org/:

ALEC is Anti-union:

-ALEC was involved in the passage of a Wisconsin bill effectively ending collective bargaining for public sector unions.

-ALEC has pushed right to work (“for less”) legislation which eliminates protections that prevent employers from discriminating against prospective employees who are unionized.

ALEC promotes incarceration:

-ALEC corporations include private prison companies such as CCA (Corrections Corporation of America), which create a demand for prisoners.

-ALEC has pushed 3-strikes laws which compel courts to incarcerate third-time felons for life even if they have never committed a violent crime.

ALEC is a detriment to public education:

-ALEC Has introduced “voucher programs” in states which divert funding from

public to private schools.

-ALEC Has diverted funding from public schools to charter schools.

ALEC promotes the criminalization of immigrants:

-Arizona state law SB1070 (“show me your papers” law) (an ALEC model bill) makes it a crime for an immigrant to be in Arizona without carrying documentation.

-SB1070 also allows officers to detain people if they “look like an immigrant”.

ALEC pollutes the earth:

-ALEC inserted a provision into the Illinois State Legislature’s “Illinois Hydraulic Fracturing Regulatory Act” which allows fracking firms to withhold information about chemicals used in fracking by claiming them as “trade secrets”.

ALEC exploits Indigenous land:

-ALEC member corporation “Salt River Project” (SRP), was authorized under AZ state law to pump groundwater from native O’odham land into Phoenix, AZ. Literally draining native wells.