Calendar

Emergency Picket Line needed TOMORROW Thursday April 3rd 6 AM Campell Hall UC Berkeley!

Tomorrow there will be a militant picket line in solidarity with UC Santa Cruz UAW that were attacked and arrested. Police used tasers while forcefully opening the west entrance to campus. http://www.ksbw.com/news/planned-2day-strike-is-underway-at-uc-santa-cruz-this-morning/25282900

Picket  at the Campbell hall construction site on UC Berkeley where union workers won’t cross @ 6:00 am sharp. We need about 30 to 50 people so please forward to as many people as possible!

 

ATTENTION ALL FAMILIES WHO HAS BEEN A VICTIM OF POLICE TERRORISM join us as we march on State Capital Sacramento during Crime Victim Day April 8, 2014. Please organize your communities and unite with us as we speak out against State Attorney General Kamala Harris for turning a blind eye under the Color of Law. Let’s organized now to address the Peace Officers Bill of Rights, Police Terrorism, and failure to resolve gun violence in our communities. Those families harmed by Gun Violence that are still seeking justice and an investigation into the killing of your Love one, please join us. Lack of forensic labs or non efficient labs must be addressed. Please share this with your network. “We are only as strong as our UNITY”

STOP STAPLES SCABS. STOP THE PRIVATIZATION OF THE POST OFFICE!

Join American Postal Worker Union members protesting against Post Office counters in Staples stores staffed by low wage Staples employees instead of living wage Postal Union members.

The Robin Hood Committee needs your help gathering signatures to place two initiatives on the November ballot. The initiatives will create $4.5 million for affordable housing and other city services in Berkeley by taxing the windfall profits of large landlords. Right now, Berkeley tenants are paying more than $100 million a year in excess rent, wealth that is taken out of our community. We can recapture a fraction of that by putting these measures to a vote of the people.

Join us this Sunday to pick up petitions and a partner for signature gathering.

Cant make it Sunday or want petitions earlier? Call us at 1-510-548-FAH-1. The Robin Hood Committee is supported by the Green Party of Alameda County, Councilmembers Worthington and Arreguin, Rent Board members Stephens, Harr, Soto-Vigil and Townley, the Berkeley Tenants Union and many others.
The Windfall Profits Tax on High Rents Initiative will raise the business license tax on residential rental units by 1.9%, but exempts small live-in and low-income landlords with less than 10 units. It also reduces the tax for units occupied by long-term tenants with moderate rents. In order not to discourage new construction, it allows a 20 year exemption from the increase starting with initial occupancy of the building. This is expected to raise $4.5 million annually for the City’s general fund to start with, rising as units occupied by long-term tenants turn over, as 20 year exemptions expire and as rents continue to rise. The tax cannot be passed on to tenants, since current tenants are protected by the city’s Rent Stabilization Ordinance.
The Affordable Housing Initiative will require the City Council to set aside at least $3 million annually for the Housing Trust Fund, which is used to develop affordable housing for low-income people either through new construction or acquisition and rehabilitation of existing housing by non-profit organizations. Once passed by the voters, Council will have 120 days to do a fiscal analysis and determine whether to accept the measure or to reduce or veto the allocation. The $3 million set-aside is expected to derive from the windfall profits tax revenue described above. Activists consider passage of the tax measure to be the best means of ensuring that the City can invest in affordable housing without reducing other needed services.
Background: Rents in Berkeley are rising to record highs, bringing windfall profits to most landlords while tenant incomes remain stagnant. Rents are going up because Berkeley is a very desirable place to live, not because landlords have so greatly improved the buildings they own. A strong Bay Area economy and public investments in the University, transit, parks and other public services all make Berkeley an attractive place to live. When public activities increase the value of private property it is only fair that the public recapture a small fraction of the value we the people create and use it for public benefit rather than allowing it all to be taken for private profit.
Before 1999 Berkeley had a strong rent control system that only allowed landlords to raise rents enough to provide a constitutionally required fair return on their investment but did not allow windfall profits at the expense of tenants. In 1999 the State legislature imposed �vacancy decontrol�, which now allows landlords to raise rents without limit whenever a new tenant moves in.
As a result, 85% of Berkeley’s older rentals have had vacancy increases. Tenants are now paying more than $100 million annually in additional rent, over and above what is needed to provide landlords with a fair return on their investment. Real, inflation-adjusted rents have gone up by more than 50% yet Berkeley’s landlords are taking out permits for building renovations equal in value to less than 3% of their massive annual rent increases. This transfer of wealth from Berkeley tenants to landlords, the majority of whom live outside of Berkeley, drains money from the community and increases demands for public services of all kinds, from social services to subsidized housing to public safety.

P.S. We only have until May 10 � we need you today!

STOP STAPLES SCABS. STOP THE PRIVATIZATION OF THE POST OFFICE!

Join American Postal Worker Union members protesting against Post Office counters in Staples stores staffed by low wage Staples employees instead of living wage Postal Union members.

SATURDAY, April 19, 10 am-1pm: SAVE THIS DATE for our big Friends of Knowland Park Earth Day Rally at the Oakland Zoo entrance!

SPECIAL GUESTS: COUNTRY JOE MCDONALD and the duo of Hali Hammer and Randy Berge! If you can only come out to help with one thing, this is it! Our goal is to turn out even more people than our last successful rally, so please come and bring your friends!

SHOWING UP MATTERS. Homemade signs are great—we will have a bunch, but bring your own if you can (or organize your own sign-making party and we’ll contribute materials!) We’ll have music, fun, some surprises and inspiration! The great places that have been saved, from Yosemite down to small bayside parcels, have been saved because lots of ordinary people took a stand and fought to protect them. This is ours – time to take to the street and stand up for what you believe in! Watch our new video!

Oakland Zoo is at the intersection of Golf Links Road and Mountain Blvd. Allow time for parking on nearby streets and walking to zoo entrance; please carpool, if possible. Let us know if you have something special you could contribute to make it a fun and fruitful rally. Bring water, sunscreen, lunch and plan a picnic in Knowland Park after the rally! Please RSVP to info@friendsofknowlandpark.org so we have a rough head count for planning purposes.

National website.

Local actions:

SAN FRANCISCO
Time: 10:00 AM
Address: 1700 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94109

SAN LEANDRO
Time: 1:00 PM
Address: 15555 East 14th Street #200, San Leandro, CA 94578

Berkeley Post Office Defenders and Save the Berkeley Post Office will be supporting these actions.

 Staples attacks good jobs and public post offices.

Staples and the U.S. Postal Service have cut a deal that jeopardizes your mail service and your local post office. In fact, post offices across the country are at risk – along with thousands of good jobs.

The Staples deal will replace full-service U.S. Post Offices with knock-off post offices in Staples stores that are not staffed with U.S. Postal Service employees.

A bad deal for workers and consumers.

You have a right to post offices staffed by workers who are accountable to you and the American people. You have a right to postal services provided by highly trained, uniformed Postal Service employees, who are sworn to safeguard your mail – whether it’s at the Post Office or Staples.

The Staples deal is bad for consumers like you who will pay the same for less service. And if Staples and the USPS move forward with this deal, it could lead to the end of the Postal Service as we know it.

Undermining good jobs.

In the meantime, the Staples deal is replacing good-paying jobs that our community depends on with low-wage jobs that hurt our economy.

March with community members from across the Bay Area in the streets of Oakland!

3:30PM: Fruitvale Bart Plaza Opening Rally
4 pm: March Starts
5:30: Return to Fruitvale Bart Plaza for Closing Rally and Celebration!

Hosted by Oakland Sin Frontera (OSF) and Partners

WHY ARE WE MARCHING?
Oakland Sin Frontera

· LEGALIZATION FOR ALL UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS
· STOP THE DEPORTATION OF ALL IMMIGRANTS & SHUT DOWN DETENTION CENTERS
· UPHOLD WORKERS RIGHTS
· STOP FEDERAL AND LOCAL POLICE VIOLENCE, AND BRING OUR LOVED ONES HOME FROM PRISONS AND JAILS
· BUILD AND DEFEND STRONG AND HEALTHY COMMUNITIES
· END U.S. MILITARY AGGRESSION & POLICIES THAT FORCE MIGRATION

Facebook Event & RSVP.

As the April 12th construction groundbreaking ceremony for the controversial UCB Jacobs Hall site at Ridge and Le Roy, community outrage grew about the planned destruction of a beautiful redwood grove, the damage inflicted to the neighborhood’s historical character, and major concerns about the privatized funding in general and Qualcomm’s untrustworthiness in particular. Instead of addressing the concerns of the community transparently, the University cowardly transferred the ceremony to a location that was undisclosed to protestors, intentionally suppressing their first-amendment right to express legitimate grievances publicly. Over the past several weeks, they have utilized typical tactics such as protestor intimidation, massive police presence, and lying about the project timetable. After the ceremony they moved quickly to level the site, leaving a heartbreakingly desolate scene. Caring activists returned several days later to honor the fallen trees and plant new ones in their place, expressing a renewed commitment to preserving this as forested open public space for student and community use. Now it is time to ramp up the efforts to educate one another about the many problems surrounding this project, and mobilize the community in order to prevent the University from moving any further forward with this contentious development. Please join us this Monday May 5th from 12-5pm for a day of teach-outs, organizing discussions, planting, volleyball, and picnicking. Below you will find more information about the issues that have been raised with this project.

 

Neighborhood preservation groups and community members have cried out that this project further damages the historic character of this north-side region, both due to the increased exposure of Soda hall’s north face after the tree removal, as well as the addition of Jacob’s Hall. The volleyball court served as an important community building resource for Computer Scientists and others, and its removal represents a loss of valuable outdoor public common space. The redwood trees provided an excellent shady space for students to congregate for study and discussion, and the sturdy well-spaced branches could afford an exhilarating and safe climbing experience. This redwood grove destruction echoes the callousness shown by the University when they removed the Memorial Oak Grove in 2008 despite passionate and convincing please about the importance of saving this unique and sacred large-tree grove, and in spite of the Berkeley laws which prohibit the removal of large Oak trees within city limits. The University has the nerve to offer an offensive token concession that they will use the tree’s body to manufacture some of the building’s furniture, which only serves as a greenwashing measure while addressing none of the real concerns.

 

Paul Jacobs is providing $20 million for the Design Institute from his family’s Qualcomm money, which is problematic due to a number of serious ethical and legal concerns. UC Regent Sherry Lansing is suspected of serious conflict of interest violations due to involvement with brokering UC investment deals with Qualcomm while simultaneously serving on their corporate board. The San Diego based company is potentially untrustworthy as a partner because they are under scrutiny for allegedly colluding with the NSA to design illegal and dangerous backdoors in their mobile phone wireless chips, and they are also the focus of a major anti-monopoly probe by the Chinese government. Even without definitively proving the criminality of Qualcomm, one should be quite concerned about the erosive effect that corporate privatized funding arrangements have on the University’s integrity and culture, and also suspicious that our public funding has been intentionally slashed over the decades in order to justify the encroachment of corporate entities into our precious public sphere.
You are encouraged to express your condemnation of the Jacobs Hall tree removal and privatized funding arrangement in as many venues and formats as possible. It is crucial that we succeed in reaching out to more students, faculty and community members in order to educate people, inspire deep discussion, and mobilize around the possibility of preserving this space for both trees and people to enjoy without the intrusion of a contentious building. Feel free to join us this Monday May 5th from 12-5pm for a day of education and action, and stay tuned for more events throughout the week and month. We wish those lovely old trees were still with us, but we look forward coming together in their honor and moving forward with love and creativity.

 

Sincerely, The Open University www.CalOpenU.org

 

The Open University is a working group that was born out of Occupy Cal in November 2011, that has continued to use diverse tactics to address the crucial issues identified by this populist activist coalition. We believe in integrative big-picture activism, and are passionate about helping create more community, transparency, wisdom, sustainability, and balance in the world. We stand firmly against inequality, exploitation, discrimination, brainwashing, oppression, torture, militarism, privatization, corporatization, surveillance, colonialism, ecocide and genocide. We coordinate research about historical and current critical struggles which implicate our University, and arrange teach-outs by students, faculty and community members about repressed radical topics in outdoor spaces on campus. We reclaim public common spaces in service of coalition building, discussion facilitation, and as venues for direct action in the name of positive change. We also perform hard-hitting political guerrilla theatre in high-impact environments, which viscerally inspires the public to ask tough questions, and challenges the acceptability of the administration’s behavior in high profile spaces that they are accustomed to dominating. We are an open group of trust-worthy, dedicated, and experienced activists who welcome collaboration with anyone who genuinely cares about saving the world.

Did you know Governor Brown will release his revised 2014-15 budget proposal tomorrow?

In recent years we’ve seen $15 billion dollars of cuts to social safety net programs, and we know to build a stronger healthier California for everyone we need invest in programs not prisons.

Folks across California are furious that the the Governor has proposed more prison spending including $500 million to build new jails.

On Wednesday, we’ll be joining up with the California Partnership organizing rallies and press conferences across the state.

Can you can join us and help get the word out?

Statewide Day of Action – Wednesday May 14th

San Francisco
Time: 1:30pm
Location: State Building 350 McAllister Street

Cyclists from around the Bay Area will meet outside Richmond BART at 10am to bike the math of climate change to Chevron and tell the company to stop fueling climate chaos and become a renewable energy company. For more info: tubernation@sbcglobal.net

Chevron Corporation’s victims around the world have come together in a joint Statement to reject the transnational’s substandard operations and corporate practices. The affected communities extend an invitation to actively participate in the International Anti Chevron Day, on May 21st, 2014. The Statement is also signed by the organizations that support the victim’s worldwide plight, and demand that Chevron acknowledges its responsibility for all the damage it has procured to the environment and human rights. Any organization that wishes to collaborate with this global action can sign the Declaration in support and contribute through social media and publics events that will be held on May 21st. All requests should be sent to: info@antichevron.com