Calendar
Oakland General Strike 2011 and the relationships between Occupy Oakland and Labor Struggles
Join organizers and workers of some of the most notable actions to date of the Occupy movement, including the general strike and the coordinated West Coast port shutdown, as well as many actions with workers at American Licorice, Castlewood, Pacific Steel and other sites. Learn about how these events developed. What were the successes, failures, and difficulties? What have we learned? Discuss the ongoing efforts and how we see the fight continuing from here.
This event takes place after the 1946 Oakland General Strike Historical Walk.
The second gathering to Re-imagine the General Assembly will be held on Sunday, July 29, after the General Assembly, at 19th and Telegraph (approximately 3:30/4:00 to 6:00). The goal is to “get down to business” about concrete ways to improve the OOGA.
An ongoing union-busting drive is being waged against the ILWU, one of the most militant unions in the United States, from Bush’s invoking of Taft-Hartley during the 2002 lockout by PMA to Obama’s sending an armed Coast Guard vessel to escort a scab ship to the EGT dock in Longview, Washington.
The Occupy Wall Street movement was instrumental in building solidarity for port truckers and longshore workers during the Longview struggle. Shackled with a concessionary EGT grain contract, the ILWU now faces negotiations for a master grain agreement. The Northwest Grainhandler’s Association has notified the union that it is terminating its agreement. Will employers demand the EGT contract? How will that impact the major container ports in Los Angeles, Oakland, Seattle and Tacoma?
What are the lessons of the recent ILWU struggles as well as the Boron miners Rio Tinto struggle? How will this effect the organized labor movement in this country in the midst of the worst capitalist economic crisis in decades?
Come hear ILWU union activists discuss the class struggle today.
SPEAKERS:
Mike Fuqua, ILWU Local 21 Longview*
Clarence Thomas, ILWU Local 10*
Howard Keylor, ILWU Local 10 retired
Jack Mulcahy, ILWU Local 8 Portland* invited
Jack Heyman, ILWU Local 10 retired
Robbie Donohoe, Occupy Oakland Labor Solidarity Committee and IBEW Local 6*
* for identification only
A meeting designed to address issues related to the organizing of the Occupy Oakland Liberate Everything Conference. If a question or idea comes up in discussion, that question or idea is immediately dealt with, be it through email, phone, or advice through discussion. Geared towards practical results, not necessarily debate over ideas or arguments. Not that that won’t occur, anyways. (this is Occupy Oakland!)
OOCON Meetings: Tuesdays and Thursdays at Oscar Grant Plaza (14th and Broadway) at 5pm – 7pm.
OOCON Working Meetings: Sundays at Farley’s East, off of Grand and Broadway.
LLOC & FTP
Rally and Performances @ 5:00 PM at Oscar Grant Plaza before the now-cancelled Oakland City Council meeting on July 31st.
Just after midnight on Saturday May 6th, Alan Blueford and two of his friends were waiting for some girls to pick them up on 90th Ave., in East Oakland, after the Floyd Mayweather fight. Not long after Alan had phoned his parents to check-in with them, a car slowly pulled up to them with its lights off. Alan ran. One officer gave chase. A few blocks later Alan was shot by OPD officer Miguel Masso. Masso also shot himself in the foot. Over a dozen witnesses all said that Alan had no weapon and posed no threat to the officer.
More info at justice4alanblueford.org
A meeting designed to address issues related to the organizing of the Occupy Oakland Liberate Everything Conference. If a question or idea comes up in discussion, that question or idea is immediately dealt with, be it through email, phone, or advice through discussion. Geared towards practical results, not necessarily debate over ideas or arguments. Not that that won’t occur, anyways. (this is Occupy Oakland!)
OOCON Meetings: Tuesdays and Thursdays at Oscar Grant Plaza (14th and Broadway) at 5pm -78pm.
OOCON Working Meetings: Sundays at Farley’s East, off of Grand and Broadway.
LLOC & FTP
Facilitation Committee Needs Help!
There will be a facilitation meeting Sunday Aug 05th at 1:30pm at 19th and Telegraph.
All are welcome!~ We’re looking for help!
Alex Mahan, a Stockton comrade, was killed in a driveby shooting the same evening. Everyone remembers Alex as very kind, energetic, and totally committed to the struggle we have all been building together. He never missed an opportunity to fight for the world he believed in. We all remember him coming up with the Stockton crew, to join us in Oakland, often with his Anonymous Mask. He and his comrades planned on how to bring the struggle to Stockton, which they did! He was an unwaivering comrade and friend and will be painfully missed. Like Tsega, Alex’s murder was not just the result of a few bad people. It was the result of a society structured on violence, a society where brown and black young men are murdered every day with no notice from society at large. It was the result of a violent economic system which forces whole communities into deprivation, with no options but to fight each other, and a violent political system that leaves us in constant fear of incarceration or death at the hands of the police and the state. These structural forms of violence are the foundation of the violence we experience every day, the violence that took Alex from us.
This Saturday, buses are being organized to take folks out to Stockton, for a rally at Alex’s house followed by a march and speak out in honor of his memory.
The buses will leave at 12:30.
March through the neighborhood departing from Bianchi and Calandria at 2:00.
Come out and celebrate the life of our fallen friend.
more info at:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/08/03/18718827.php
Show up at Justin Herman Plaza at 6:30pm with signs, brightly colored outfits, your Pussy Riot inspired masks and tambourine, harmonica, drums, xylophone, ukulele, triangle or noismaker of your choice and get down to the beats of a revolution.
OO_Conference @oo_conference
#Occupy, come and meet the neighbors tomorrow @ Biblioteca Popular for a BBQ at 2pm. 1449 Miller Ave, Oakland.
TONIGHT: Sunday, August 19 – 7:30pm
Gather to bring in the sunset for our sister Tsega.
Join us as we gather at the site of Tsega’s murder for a candlight vigil and open mic.
Lake Merritt (on Grand Avenue between Harrison and Bay, near Fairy Land)
“I didn’t come to die. I came to sunshine.”
REST in POWER TSEGA!
“From the folks who brought you the West Coast Port Shutdown.”
The OO Labor Solidarity Committee meets weekly, with every other meeting being held at Oscar Grant Plaza weather permitting. This week’s meeting will be at Francesco’s Restaurant, 8520 Pardee Dr, off Hegenberger near the Airport, across from the ILWU hall.
At 6:30 we will be listening to a presentation by someone from the Chicago Teachers’ Union. Here is the blurb:
This Thursday, August 23rd, you will have the opportunity to hear a skype presentation from Jim Cavallero of the Chicago Teachers Union. Jim is a high school teacher in Chicago, who is a union district supervisor working with a group of CTU delegates, a member of the 30 person rank&file bargaining team, and an activist in CORE (the grassroots caucus which has provided much of the current militant union leadership and is active with community mobilizations). He will discuss the CTU organizing model linked to rank&file activati including the involvement of the rank & file in the contract struggle.
The key questions around membership involvement in the union, the fights against school closures and mayoral control, resisting the Rahm/Arnie/Barack deforms and building labor-community unity are issues all too familiar to the struggles in Oakland and the Bay Area. The Chicago contract fight is one with national implications.
We invite all OEA members, other union and labor solidarity activists, and anyone involved in the battle to preserve and expand public education to come on Thursday. It is all part of ONE BIG STRUGGLE. Please be there to show solidarity with the CTU and learnfrom their experiences.
After the presentation the Labor Solidarity Committee will have an abbreviated meeting.
Topics may include discussion about the OOLSC’s next actions, the OO Occupy Everywhere Conference, support for organizing efforts by UNITE HERE at the Oakland Airport, the OO General Assembly, and other topics as they may arise.
I am Einar Stensson, a sociologist at the Stockholm university and activist in the Occupy Stockholm movement during the fall of 2011. After studying the Occupy Oakland movement during my two months in the Bay Area, I will share my conclusions about the occupy movement based on the interviews (no identities will be revealed, only perspectives) I have conducted with various activists in the Occupy Oakland movement.
Why did the movement start and spread so quickly around the globe?
How is Occupy organized? Who matters in the movement and why?
What is the future of Occupy?
I will first talk for around 40 minutes and then open up for questions/discussion. Please buy something at the cafe when you arrive 🙂
Einar Stensson’s web site: http://people.su.se/~eist7232/index.html
Check out the Poster for more info.
Check out a writeup of the event.
A Documentary Release Screening and Party.
Performances by SuperNatural, Jabari Shaw, Shareef Ali and the Radical Folksonomy.
OO’s Nomads are hosting a potluck BBQ at Snow Park at 2 PM on Labor Day, September 3rd. Bring a dish to share with your comrades & cronies.
OK, Labor Day is the establishment’s alternative to May 1st, International Workers’ Day, celebrated by progressives all over the world. May Day started as a commemoration of 7 anarchists unjustly sentenced to execution after being railroaded after an incident at a workers’ demonstration in Chicago in 1866. But even that attempted cooptation of workers’ own celebration of their solidarity had to be rung out of the ruling class after 13 workers had been shot down by US Marshals & about 12,000 army troops sent to crush the Pullman Strike in 1882.
But I guess Americans have to be grateful that their corporate masters give them any time off at all, the US government does not mandate it, and indeed, a quarter of American workers get no paid vacation time, not even the miserly number of often-paid national holidays. At least 24 industrialized nations mandate a minimum of 4 weeks of paid vacation, in addition to more generous allocations of national holidays. Brazil, France & Finland guarantee 6 weeks of paid vacation. But in this ‘No-Vacation Nation’ many workers are afraid to even take off the 2 weeks of vacation time their companies might offer them because so few legal protections are in place to prevent them from being laid off. Besides, with the ever-increasing pace of work many employees are afraid they wouldn’t be able to cope with the backlog of work awaiting them when they returned from holiday. And with the increasing prevalence of electronic gizmos tying Americans to their jobs 24/7 taking time off often just means working from somewhere other than the office. Americans have less vacation time than citizens of any other advanced economy, working an extra 350 hours a year more than Europeans (the equivalent of 9 full working weeks). Even in Japan, where they have a special word for working yourself to death (Karōshi), the government mandates 25 days of paid time off of work each year.
Anywho, it should be more fun than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. Why not attend the Chevron march
at Point Richmond and make a day of it?
Support SEIU 1021 Port Workers. Tell The Port of Oakland and Goldman Sachs: Stop the Greed!
— Goldman Sachs owns a major stake in one of the terminals at the Port of Oakland, and rakes in huge profits while paying no taxes and ripping off the City of Oakland over bond indebtedness.
–Goldman Sachs got bailed out while libraries, schools and parks crumble.
— The Port of Oakland generates a $35,000,000 surplus each year.
— Yet the Port of Oakland wants to cut real wages by 15%. More money for Goldman Sachs, less money for the rest of us.
The Coalition to Stop Goldman Sachs says:
“It’s time for a series of escalating actions.”
FREE FOOD
In the wake of the Marikana mine workers massacre, leftist groups of all stripes are calling resistance inevitable.
Come see former Black Panther Gerald Smith and Berkeley PhD student Zach Levenson and recent visitor to South Africa discuss the country’s history and what’s happening now.