Calendar
URGENT!!
We need 50 people to commit to collect 100 signatures over the next two weeks.
Our petition drive is reaching the final leg and we need to sprint to the finish. We can do this! Most of our volunteers get about 10 signatures an hour, on average. So, if 50 people can give us just under an hour a day for the next two weeks, we will easily make it!
Can you commit to 5 hours a week for two weeks?
Please look at the schedule, choose your times and locations, and email them to alamedarenterscoalition.com
Call or text us at 510 473-2332. Someone will get back to you as soon as possible.
Sing for an hour on Solano Avenue at the old Oaks Theater, Berkeley.
Last winter, workers at the Holiday Inn Express Oakland Airport told the City of Oakland that their boss was violating their rights under Measure FF, the new minimum wage law. The City investigated and issued a report identifying a number of alleged violations at the hotel – failing to pay the minimum wage for all hours, “rounding off” time-clock records to shave off time worked, requiring employees to give notice before using sick leave, taking away workers’ accrued vacation time, and other alleged violations.
Then, the following month, the City’s Planning and Building Department gave the owners of the Holiday Inn Express permission to develop a new hotel in downtown Oakland – a Hampton Inn on 11th Street in Chinatown.
“The City assessed a penalty of $5,000 against the Holiday Inn Express – then turned around and gave the hotel’s owners a permit to build a brand new hotel where they can make lots of money. So what reason would any boss have to respect our rights?” said downtown Oakland hotel housekeeper Irma Perez.
The Planning and Building Department wants to ignore the issues of job quality and the impacts of poverty-wage jobs in considering hotel development, but we’re not going to let them! Councilmembers Guillen and Kalb have introduced a City Council resolution calling on the Planning and Building Department to take job quality seriously. The resolution would also begin the process of bringing more public accountability to hotel development decisions.
The City Council’s Community and Economic Development Committee will consider this resolution on Tuesday, April 26th, at 1:00pm. Please attend, and call on the members of the Committee to vote YES for the resolution, for GOOD JOBS IN HOTELS and NO POVERTY-WAGE HOTELS IN OAKLAND!
Please let us know if you can be there, and if you plan to speak.
In solidarity,
UNITE HERE Local 2850
Hosted by Berkeley Copwatch.
Know Your Rights trainings are tools for learning how to deal with the police, how to safely assert your rights and how to safely and effectively observe the police in your community.
Join us in this workshop at the Grassroots House at 7:00 PM on April 26! This is a free event; bring your bodies and your buddies, as well as questions, concerns, stories, resources.
And in the meantime, check out the Berkeley Copwatch Know Your Rights Pocket Card.
Tell City Council to adopt a REAL Living Wage
Raise Berkeley’s minimum wage to $15 by Oct. 2017
Raise it each year by 3% + inflation until it’s in sync with Berkeley’s official “Living Wage” (now $16.37)
Bring sick leave up to the standards set by Oakland, Emeryville and San Francisco
There is a crisis in Berkeley and the Bay Area. Rents are out of control and the wage standards are so low families can’t work enough hours to keep their heads above water. Many are being pushed out of our communities.
Working families need relief now. The good news is some is on the way. More than enough signatures were submitted last Monday to insure a progressive Berkeley Minimum Wage measure will be on the Ballot in November.
But relief could come sooner if the city council majority stopped stalling and adopted the initiative now. Their inaction and foot dragging has already extracted a heavy toll on Berkeley’s lowest paid workers costing them over $3,500 to date. Instead of joining with the voters of Oakland, SF and the Emeryville City Council, Bates, Capitelli, Droste, Maio, and Moore chose to prolong allowing poverty wages.
As unconscionable as that is they are now lining up to do it again. Their current proposal will unnecessarily delay getting to $15 several years and will never catch up to Berkeley’s official Living Wage which the city defines as “a wage that can support a family at, or above, the poverty level” currently pegged at $16.37.
SPEAK OUT!
We believe that love is the universal language. We also believe that love is the universal cure to heal what ails societies worldwide. These meditation happy hours are our love offering to the community and are the result of a beautiful new & evolving partnership w/The Art of Living facilitated by Neelam Patil…& the universe ♥
Vandana Shiva is a physicist, world-renowned environmental thinker and activist, and a tireless crusader for e
conomic, food, and gender justice.
She has just compiled and edited a new book – Seed Sovereignty, Food Security; Women in the Vanguard of the Fight Against GMO’s and Corporate Agriculture – that is an extensive anthology of essays by women from around the globe. They write about the vital struggle to preserve small-scale farming, seed sharing, and local and indigenous knowledge. Seed keepers and community organizers, scientists and activists, mothers and scholars, the women in this collection are dedicated to speaking out against the GMO takeover and advocating for a food system that would truly support the health of our eco-systems, communities, and children.
With contributions by such notable women as Winona LaDuke, Frances Moore Lappe, and Marion Nestle, among others – this anthology dismantles the myths propagated by the GMO industry to reveal the widespread and devastating repercussions of genetic engineering. Highlighting the nightmarish effects of industrial agriculture on both the ecology and the human body, Seed Sovereignty, Food Security is a clear explication, an eloquent protest, and a cry for change.
“Women are not just sowing the seeds of resistance against an agriculture based on monocultures and corporate monopolies, they are sowing the seeds of alternative paradigms of science and alternative agricultural practice.”
“Her fierce intellect and her disarmingly friendly, accessible manner have made her a valuable advocate for people all over the developing world” -Ms. magazine
Hosted by Jeannine Etter
advance tickets: $15 : http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2513607 :: T: 800-838-3006 or Books Inc, Pegasus (3 sites), Moe’s, Walden Pond Bookstore, Diesel a Bookstore, Mrs. Dalloway’s S.F. – Modern Times. $18 door, Benefits KPFA & Navdanya Institute,
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Oakland Janitors March demanding a tech economy that works for all!
- Contracted janitors are an integral part of daily operations at tech company offices, but the majority of janitors working at tech campuses across California are earning poverty wages. Our wages consistently trail behind the cost of living, especially in Oakland with the rising rents. In fact, there are more janitors living in poverty today in the Bay Area than there were in 1990.
- Janitors are working in a toxic environment where exploitation and abuses including rape, sexual assault, and harassment, as seen in the PBS Frontline documentary Rape on the Night Shift, can occur. That’s why workers across California are coming together to say Enough! ¡Ya Basta!
- Our contract expires next week. Janitors will decide shortly if there is a reason to go on strike throughout California to protest these unfair labor practices. While we don’t want to go on a STATEWIDE STRIKE, we are ready and willing to fight.
- This is the last action in Oakland before our contract expires. Will you stand with us?
- RSVP by replying to the email or on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/139380603130846/
Discussion to start at 7pm, potluck precedes. All are welcome.
Representatives [from] … East Bay Housing Organizations, the Oakland Tenants’ Union, the Richmond Progressive Alliance, The Berkeley Progressive Alliance, The Alameda Renters’ Coalition and the Oakland Alliance[will] brief the club and all interested parties on their efforts-how to join, support each other, learn from each other, and to organize region-wide towards long term, state solutions.
Please plan to attend, bring your friends, your organization, if not represented here, such as-small business and artist advocates who currently have few protections against the corporate gentrification of the neighborhoods they have invested in-and get ready to organize with the power of the not-so-silent majority in your cities, towns, counties and at the state house with us.
The Omni Commons Fair is an all day event showcasing the power within interdisciplinary collaboration and grassroots community organizing. We will highlight the experimental and educational nature of social justice endeavors. The all day event will include a panel discussion about cooperatively organized arts groups featuring arts and cultural leaders in the Bay Area, an array of interactive booths which showcase Omni’s interdisciplinary, creative, and practical endeavors, and guided tours of the space. Light refreshments will be served.
Hey Folks, This contingent is being organized/ called by the Anti-Police Terrorism Project, Black Lives Matter Bay Area and the BlackOUT Collective. Our groups are led by Black folks and People of Color, who have long connections to our communities in the Bay area, specifically SF and communities in the East. We have strong allies like Asians 4 Black Lives, Occupy Oakland, SURJ, Rising Tide, BASAT. We will operate as Affinity groups meaning: because there is a large mass of folks ready to hit the streets (on this page and on other pages) we do not approach this mass protest with the idea that one group will lead the direction or tone. And we do not expect for us to all use the same tactics or participate in the same program. But all of us agree that people of color/ the most impacted should always be centered. It’s a core shared value. People are going self organize. This is both a general call to action and an opportunity to coordinate some of the on the ground logistics. Our offering is messaging, coordinating roles, tactics, and a place to build community so we have each other’s backs in streets. #Autonomy #SharedValues
“Today, Casey and I had court for our arrests at Liberty City. Trial begins April 29, 9 am, room 112.
We want to pack the courtroom. What is at stake is the freedom to protest without government being able to say “that’s not a protest.” We want to challenge the ability of the state to use 647e, illegal lodging, in the commons. The law plainly states “without the permission of the owner” in it. Yet, this law has been used on public property to prevent homeless people from sheltering themselves. This law is used by cities to steal people’s possessions as “evidence of lodging” and once confiscated, are destroyed.”
Trump announced Wednesday that he will deliver the kickoff address for the California Republican Party convention on April 29. Cruz and Ohio governor John Kasich are also addressing the convention.” – Breitbart article
Building a mass action wall to keep him out! Donald CHUMP thinks he’s going to give a speech in the bay. The republicans are meeting to build more facist power. The people will rise and shut it all down. California has the most prisons in the US and rates amoungst the lowest in education. We need systemic change and TRUMP isn’t it. This is a call for all affinity groups and community members to turn out and turn up!
Birdhouse Art Collective, in conjunction with Open Engagement, will be hosting an interactive, all-day art fair celebrating a variety of arts collectives and other collectively organized, non hierarchical organizations within the Omni Commons and in the Bay Area.
Presentations from within the Omni will include ferrofluid demonstrations from Counter Culture Labs’ monthly event The Art of Science/The Science of Art, a film screening and lens dissection by Liberated Lens, a multimedia installation about the Zapantera Embroidery Project by the Chiapas Support Committee, medicine making demonstrations by Buried Seeds, a demonstration open wireless internet systems by Sudo Room, and a poetry table by small press Timeless Infinite Light. There will also be presentations from the student-run alternative art education program DIY MFA and the art center for artists with disabilities The New Space Studio.
The panel discussion will feature members from local arts collectives including 924 Gilman, Birdhouse Art Collective, Black Salt Collective, Design Action Collective and Qulture Collective. Panel participants will discuss the impact they make in their communities and the ins and outs of starting, running and maintaining an arts collective in our extremely expensive time and place.
The fair will run from 10am to 5pm, with fair booths active from 10am to 3pm and the panel discussion beginning at 3:30pm.
Birdhouse Art Collective is the art collective of the Omni Commons. For more information visit: http://
The Omni Commons is a volunteer-run, horizontally-organized community space comprised of a number of different horizontally organized collectives. For more information about the Omni Commons visit:https://omnicommons.org/
Open Engagement is an annual, three day, artist-led conference dedicated to expanding the dialogue around and creating a site of care for the field of socially engaged art. For more information about Open Engagement visit: http://
Donald Trump is coming to the Bay Area – let’s show him a real Bay Area welcome by protesting outside.
Tomorrow evening, San Francisco Vision will be holding a public forum on police violence against the community. Afterwards, they will march to the Mission Police Station to hold a rally in support of the #Frisco5.
People of San Francisco…enough is enough. Come to a public forum on police violence and how we can bring the SFPD under community control.
Speakers include Sana Saleem, who recently covered the Alex Nieto trial and is following the #HungerforJusticeSF hunger strike for 48 Hills; Father Richard Smith, who will discuss the Amilcar Perez Lopez case, Yayne Abeba from the Mario Woods Coalition, Lisa Marie Alatorre, Human Rights Coordinator at the SF Coalition on Homelessness, and others.
Ray McGovern, Joanna Macy
“Active Hope: Going Forward”
6pm Potluck dinner; music
6:30 Program
Codepink Women for Peace Golden Gate Chapter, BFUU Social Justice Committee, Peaceworkers present:
Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst and one of the most respected progressive activists in the United States, talking about the “Panama Papers”, drone warfare, the surveillance state, the CIA, and war criminal/ UC Berkeley Law Professor John Yoo. http://raymcgovern.com/
Keynote: Joanna Macy, beloved author of Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re In Without Going Crazy. http://joannamacy.net/
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2016/04/19/18785372.php
Also (so far; more to come!): Cecile Pineda, Codepink Women for Peace; Pierre Laboissier, Haiti Action Committee; Tracy Rosenberg, Media Alliance; Berkeley Progressive Alliance; Mike Rufo, Bill of Rights Defense Committee; Linda Seeley, San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace/Shut Diablo Canyon; David Hartsough, Peaceworkers and World Beyond War; Berkeley Peace and Justice Commission; SF Occupy Forum; Standing Up for Racial Justice; Sunflower Alliance; Cynthia Papermaster, No More Guantanamos; Christopher Macy, Stealth Geoengineering (“Chemtrails”); Jimminywinks and Friends, Barkers Agitating for Reactor Closures; musicians Gwen Winter, Mike Rufo, Francis Collins
This is our second 2016 “Active Hope” event bringing together groups/issues to discuss, strategize, collaborate and celebrate social and environmental justice activism.
Our January 10 event gathered over 100 activists to “get out of our silos and find common cause” to end drone warfare, shut Diablo Canyon and Guantanamo Prison, save our East Bay Forests, elect a progressive Berkeley City Council, demand Police Accountability, stop Crude Oil Trains and Fracking– and this event continues the momentum. Join us for a potluck dinner, great presentations, music, video clips and active hope! You’ll leave energized, inspired and re-committed to activism.
Please forward to your lists, friends, colleagues. Let’s give Ray McGovern a huge welcome!
Contact (information, volunteer, make a presentation/perform): Cynthia Papermaster, Codepink Golden Gate, 510-365-1500; cynthia_papermaster@yahoo.com
Starting in April, Berkeley Copwatch is kicking off our ongoing *weekly* copwatching shifts! We’ll be out in the streets most Fridays and Saturdays witnessing and documenting police activity and doing outreach. Please join us!
No experience required — any experience welcome. We’ll train you in the essentials for documenting police activity and staying safe in the process.
If you are able to bring a car and be a shift driver, that would be GREAT! Please let us know in the “discussion” section or by sending Berkeley Copwatch a message.
APRIL COPWATCH DATES AND TIMES
(Check this page for updates)
Friday 4/1 – 8pm
Saturday 4/2 – 8pm
Friday 4/8 – 8pm
Sat 4/9 – 8pm
Friday 4/15 – 8pm
Saturday 4/16 – 8pm
Friday 4/22 – 8pm
Saturday 4/23 – 8pm
Friday 4/29 – 8pm
Saturday 4/30 – 8pm
ABOUT OUR MASS COPWATCH SHIFTS
Since October 2015, Berkeley Copwatch has been holding “mass copwatch” events. It’s been fun and very empowering to have up to five cars full of copwatchers patrolling our city and on the scene when police stop people.
Bay Area – this Saturday 12-3PM #HungerForJusticeSF RALLY – @mayoredlee @jasiri_x @OccupyOakland @ajplus @cnnbrk pic.twitter.com/wA0O1b7Rac
— Raw-G (Gina Madrid) (@RawwG) April 29, 2016
Join us to gather signatures for our three endorsed ballot initiatives! We’ll do a short training on how to get signatures and then hit the streets. Bring a car if you are able!
We’re working to get these three measures on the ballot:
From the Coalition for Police Accountability: Measure X turns the current Citizens’ Police Review Board into a Police Commission that has power to approve police policies and discipline officers who are found guilty of misconduct.
From the Oakland Tenants Union: Oakland’s “Renters Upgrade” would expand Oakland’s current “Just Cause for Eviction” law and provide greater ability for the city to enforce existing laws amidst a wave of unfair evictions and widespread harassment as demand for housing in Oakland grows.
From Oakland Livable Wage Assembly: A Minimum Wage/Fair Scheduling ordinance that will raise Oakland’s minimum wage to $14/hr in 2016 and $20/hr by 2020, as well as implement fair scheduling similar to San Francisco’s recent ordinance and mandate enforcement of both.
These three measures represent a people’s legislative agenda, enacted through direct democracy at the ballot box. The Oakland Justice Coalition invites anyone who is concerned about Oakland’s housing crisis, police repression of communities of color and rampant income inequality to join us in building a grassroots movement for social, racial, economic and environmental justice.