Calendar

The Occupy Oakland General Assembly meets every Sunday at 4 PM at Oscar Grant Plaza amphitheater at 14th Street & Broadway near the steps of City Hall. If it is raining (as in RAINING, not just misting) at 4:00 PM we meet in the basement of the Omni Collective, 4799 Shattuck Ave., Oakland.  On every last Sunday we meet a little earlier at 3 PM to have a community potluck to which all are welcome.

OO General Assembly has met on a continuous basis for over four years! Our General Assembly is a participatory gathering of Oakland community members and beyond, where everyone who shows up is treated equally . Our Assembly and the process we have collectively cultivated strives to reach agreement while building community.

At the GA committees, caucuses, and loosely associated groups whose representatives come voluntarily report on past and future actions, with discussion. We encourage everyone participating in the Occupy Oakland GA to be part of at least one associated group, but it is by no means a requirement. If you like, just come and hear all the organizing being done! Occupy Oakland encourages political activity that is decentralized and welcomes diverse voices and actions into the movement.

General Assembly Standard Agenda

1. Welcome & Introductions
2. Reports from Committees, Caucuses, & Independent Organizations
3. Announcements
4. (Optional) Discussion Topic

Occupy Oakland activities and contact info for some Bay Area Groups with past or present Occupy Oakland members.

Occupy Oakland Web Committee: (web@occupyoakland.org)
Strike Debt Bay Area : strikedebtbayarea.tumblr.com
Berkeley Post Office Defenders:http://berkeleypostofficedefenders.wordpress.com/
Alan Blueford Center 4 Justice:https://www.facebook.com/ABC4JUSTICE
Oakland Privacy Working Group:https://oaklandprivacy.wordpress.com
Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity: prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/
Bay Area AntiRepression: antirepression@occupyoakland.org
Biblioteca Popular: http://tinyurl.com/mdlzshy
Interfaith Tent: www.facebook.com/InterfaithTent
Port Truckers Solidarity: oaklandporttruckers.wordpress.com
Bay Area Intifada: bayareaintifada.wordpress.com
Transport Workers Solidarity: www.transportworkers.org
Fresh Juice Party (aka Chalkupy) freshjuiceparty.com/chalkupy-gallery
Sudo Room: https://sudoroom.org
Omni Collective: https://omnicommons.org/
First They Came for the Homeless: https://www.facebook.com/pages/First-they-came-for-the-homeless/253882908111999
Sunflower Alliance: http://www.sunflower-alliance.org/
Bay Area Public School: http://thepublicschool.org/bay-area

San Francisco based groups:
Occupy Bay Area United: www.obau.org
Occupy Forum: (see OBAU above)
San Francisco Projection Department: http://tinyurl.com/kpvb3rv

The Community Democracy Project is your connection to direct democracy in Oakland! Convened out of Occupy Oakland in Fall 2011, we’re gathering steam on a campaign to bring the people back in touch with the city’s resources through participatory budgeting.

Picture this: Across Oakland, Neighborhood Assemblies are regularly
held in every community. People come together to tackle the important issues of their neighborhoods and of the city. At these assemblies, people don’t just have discussions–they learn from one another, from city staff, and they make fundamental decisions about how the city should run. They decide the city budget.

Democratic, community budgeting is a powerful step toward building strong communities, real democracy, and economic justice–and it’s being done all over the world.

The budget of the City Oakland totals more than $1 billion per year. Although part of the budget must be used for specific purposes, still over half of the budget–over $500 billion per year–consists of general purpose funds paid by the taxes, fees, and fines of the people of Oakland. The Mayor and the City Council decide the city budget, with minimal input from the community.

Working together, we will not only get a seat at the table–we will REBUILD the table itself. Participatory democracy is real democracy–join us to say: Local People, Local Resources, Local Power!

Liberated Lens is a digital filmmaking collective dedicated to social change, based in Oakland, California. We share resources, skills and knowledge to help each other tell stories that might otherwise remain untold. We make films in a spirit of collaboration and solidarity, share a lending library of film equipment for creative projects, and organize free, at cost or donation-based workshops.

Join us for our weekly meeting and a workshop!

We usually meet in our editing suite (2nd floor in the ballroom, to the left of the stage) and then work on projects. It’s open to all!

Prince dance party at SFPD mission hunger strike at 8pm. #hunger4justicesf #FireChiefSuhr #BlackNBrownUnity#Justice4Luis

— Anti Police-Terror (@APTPaction) April 24, 2016

 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.

Berkeley Copwatch meets weekly.

Also check out their “mass copwatching” events.

RSVP here!

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

Find out why police are killing more residents. Please pack the community meeting and ask questions of the captain,

Captain Daniel Perea

The Mission Station Commanding Officer holds a district related community meeting on the last Tuesday of each month at 6PM in the community room of the station. 

Join us to fight for a livable wage for all Bay Area workers! We collaborate in principled reflection and action on what the Bay Area livable wage would be and where we are at on the right to a livable wage.

The Oakland Livable Wage Assembly builds Community and Power among those who seek higher wages and better work life conditions for area workers.

Our work together encompasses:

(1) The concerns of precarious, care and contingent workers,
(2) Campaigns to improve wages for low wage workers, and
(3) Efforts by unionized workers and unions to improve wages and quality of work life.

We share stories and information in an egalitarian and participatory way to build relationships and build the movement.

Oakland Livable Wage Assembly meets every 2nd and 4th Wednesday of the month, 6:30-8:00 PM at the SEIU Local 1000 Union Hall, 436 14th Street #200, Oakland, CA

Please love and support one another ~ We have a duty to fight ~ We have a duty to win!

olwa.org

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1568668586707336/

 

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!

Homes Not Jails is a consensus-based collective of squatters and squat supporters who believe housing is a human right. Our goal is to open as much vacant housing as possible and to keep it open as long as possible. HNJ is a place to organize mutual aid among squatters and squat supporters and housing rights advocates in the bay. We actively fight to make our space inclusive and safe for everybody and combat oppression in all forms.

Vandana Shiva is a physicist, world-renowned environmental thinker and activist, and a tireless crusader for economic, 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,

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.