Calendar
The Post Office has put the Berkeley Post Office up for sale!! Come and help plan our next actions in defense of our post office and against privatization.
Four weeks ago we learned that perfidious Post Office Executives, who only the week before had sent a letter to the Berkeley City Council offering to negotiate until at least November 12th, had had CBRE (Richard Blum’s company) list the downtown Berkeley Post Office for sale.
Check out the video of Peter Byrne’s talk at our recent Save the Post Office Rally!
The Oakland City Council will soon consider whether to endorse Richmond’s strategy to use eminent domain as a tool to fight foreclosure and study whether it should do the same. The council will take up the issue at a 4:30 p.m. special meeting on Nov. 5 that was requested by Council members Desley Brooks, Larry Reid and Noel Gallo.
Richmond’s effort to do something constructive about mortgage relief for large numbers of homeowners in Richmond is being supported by Strike Debt Bay Area (Facebook and webpage) and ACCE.
For background check out this article by two Strike Debt Bay Area peeps, Can a Small California City Take on Wall Street—And Survive?.
Come and show your support for a city willing to take on Wall Street and demand that Oakland do the same.
What the new globalized, high-tech imperialism means for the class struggle in the U.S.
http://www.lowwagecapitalism.com/
3rd in series of three classes – if you’d like a copy of the book to read in advance of the class, please message Terri Kay to work out getting a copy to you. We will cover section 3 of 3 this week. If you missed session 1 or 2, no worries, you’ll be able to follow the discussion with no problem.
Snacks will be served – wheelchair accessible
Support the Zoning Overlay
WE MUST AGAIN PACK THE PLANNING COMMISSION PUBLIC HEARING
Zone for the Community, not the Developers
We need you to speak or be a supportive audience member.
SAVE THE BERKELEY POST OFFICE!
Over 75 people came to the last Planning Commission meeting–60 spoke FOR the Zoning Overlay and only 3 spoke for the developers. At this next meeting, the Commission will finalize its recommendation to the City Council.
WE MUST AGAIN BE THERE TO SPEAK FOR THE ZONING OVERLAY!
Berkeley’s Planning Commission and City Council propose to place a Zoning Overlay on Berkeley’s existing Historic District. This area includes Berkeley’s Old City Hall, New City Hall, Berkeley High School, Veteran’s Memorial Hall, and the Berkeley Main Post Office at 2000 Allston Way. The Zoning Overlay would limit the area’s use to community, cultural, and civic purposes. It will make the Post Office less vulnerable to developers and help the USPS realize the value that Berkeley places on its public services.
Berkeley’s historic Civic Center District is our Public Commons. Let’s protect it with appropriate zoning. Although the uses of buildings change, the end result must be a stronger community, not a richer real-estate developer. Let us show that we are a city of caring citizens in community.
Save the Berkeley Post Office Facebook.
Berkeley Post Office Defenders Meets Mondays on the Steps of the Downtown Berkeley Post Office.
As we step up a concerted transition to alternative energy, Big Oil lurches towards its last gasp: exponential development of fossil fuel infrastructure at West Coast ports for transport, storage, refining and shipping to Asian markets.
The WesPac Pittsburg Energy Infrastructure Project would transform Pittsburg (a dormant industrial, residential area in our Northern San Francisco Bay) into a major crude oil receiving, storage and shipping facility. WesPac develops, constructs, owns and operates infrastructure throughout North America for petroleum products handling, and Pittsburg is the next target for modernization and reactivation of its existing marine terminal and oil storage and transfer systems.
Plans are to move Canadian tar sands crude to the Chevron and Shell refineries through pipelines and extended rail systems, load it onto ships and send it to Asia to the tune of 242,000 barrels per day. This is the same dirty crude slated for the Keystone XL pipeline, a project drawing widespread opposition. Even dirtier crude oil would be shipped to the WesPac facility from southern California. Oil would also come from a huge deposit in North Dakota, which, like the California oil, would be extracted by fracking.
This development will include:
— Pipelines: Expand existing pipelines and add new lines from rail cars to tanks;
— New Rail: Build crude-by-rail transload facility; extend tracks, greatly increase rail shipments thru town;
— Storage: Modernize and reactivate the site’s tanks and build new ones;
— Tanker trucks, diesel trucks: Mobilize for construction and transport: (congestion, diesel fumes, road deterioration, traffic hazards);
— Shipping: Dredge and pile drive to deepen the Bay and reopen, expand and modernize Marine Terminal
Spills, leaks, blow-ups, smog, gas, fires (like the one in Richmond), soil contamination, prolonged effects on area air and water quality and health effects such as asthma, birth defects, and cancer, loom. Increased pollution from idling trucks, rail cars and ships — affecting wildlife, marshes and wetlands, the shoreline, polluted water in the delta (water used for drinking and agriculture), and decreased property values — will result. Pittsburg will become a fossil fuel backwater, and critically, greenhouse gas emissions, warming the climate, and threatening the integrity of our global ecosystem, jeopardize us all. Do we want the Bay Area to be the locus of this scheme to expand fossil fuel extraction and use? Do we want the health of Pittsburg and North Bay residents to be undermined by these environmental threats? And can we stand by as life on our planet is under attack?
Stand with Pittsburg and the Bay Area to Say “NO” to
Expansion of Fossil Fuel Infrastructure on our Bay
Come to the Berkeley Ecology Center to meet the groups forming to fight this and get involved in the upcoming actions and campaigns. We’ll hear the background and plan the backlash.
Coalition to fight massive tar sands export from our Bay: Pittsburg Defense Council, Idle No More, Baykeeper, Communities for a Better Environment, 350Bay Area, National Resource Defense Council, Sierra Club, Groups from North Bay refinery towns, OccupySF Environmental Justice, Forest Ethics, Richmond Progressive Alliance, Refinery Action Collaborative, Sunflower Alliance, No Tar Sands, Steelworkers, Occupy Action Council, and more joining every minute!!!
In light of other actions this day in Oakland and in Santa Rosa for Andy Lopez, the monthly Justice 4 Alan Blueford Coalition meeting has been postponed for a week.
Hope to see you all next week!
Our weekly open meeting for members and supporters to discuss the weeks tasks and projects. Come get plugged into ongoing housing defense work! We have abundant and varied work for all folks in any number of meaningful projects.
Rain location: SF Pizza, 1500 Broadway, Oakland
Our weekly open meeting for members and supporters to discuss the week’s tasks and projects. Come get plugged into ongoing housing defense work! We have abundant and varied work for all folks in any number of meaningful projects.
Rain location: SF Pizza, 1500 Broadway, Oakland
***PLEASE NOTE CHANGE OF VENUE BELOW!
The Bay Area Battle in Transport: Workers Face Employer Onslaught
No More Defeats Like Wisconsin!
Business Unionism vs.
Class Struggle Unionism
Meeting:
November 10 (Sunday) 2:00 PM
At: Black Repertory Theater
3201 Adeline Street, Berkeley
Although BART workers marched through downtown Oakland in August and October chanting “Strike, strike, strike!”, union officials shackled them with a concessionary contract.
Why did BART workers settle for a concessionary contract after fighting for four months — striking twice, staging militant mass rallies in downtown Oakland, and inspiring AC Transit bus drivers and mechanics to twice vote down concessionary contracts — each time overwhelmingly?
Why did BART workers vote so resoundingly to approve the concessionary contract (more than 85% of those voting voted “Yes”)? Was this the best they could do? How could they have won a better contract?
Why didn’t BART union leaders mobilize the rank and file (for example, through democratically elected strike committees?) Why wasn’t there a joint strike committee of the BART unions (ATU 1555, SEIU 1021, and AFSCME 3993) and the AC Transit union (ATU 192)? Why did ATU 192 president Yvonne Williams denounce a joint strike of AC Transit workers and BART workers as “Armageddon”?
Why did BART and AC Transit union officials put their faith in Democratic politicians rather than reaching out aggressively to labor and the community? Why did ATU 1555 leaders call on Jerry Brown to invoke a 60-day cooling-off period to suspend the right to strike? How can we defend the right to strike for transit workers, when Democratic state politicians are drafting legislation to make such strikes illegal?
Why did ILWU officials turn their backs on their union’s militant history and direct their members to cross a picket line of port truckers and community supporters? How can ILWU members reclaim the solidarity their union badly needs. Longshoremen are locked out at two northwest ports. Scabs are doing their work. And negotiations for the ILWU’s master contract for all West Coast ports is just around the bend.
Has the labor movement lost its class struggle moorings? In its heyday unions fought for the unemployed and underemployed, for immigrant workers and youth, against racism and home foreclosures. What can be done to ignite such struggle today, forge real solidarity, and beat the bosses’ barrage of union busting?
Come hear speakers involved in these worker struggles:
George Figueroa– Strike Coordinator of the successful July BART strike for ATULocal 1555*, now being victimized by BART.
Clarence Thomas– Co-Chair of the Million Worker March, Executive Board member of ILWU 10*
A Member ATU Local 192* (AC Transit worker)
Yemane Seium, Frank Adams– Organziers, Oakland Port Truckers’ Association*
Jack Heyman– Chair of TWSC and an organizer of the 1984 longshore anti-apartheid ship boycott, the May Day 2008 anti-war West Coast port shutdown and the 2010 Bay Area ports protest for justice for Oscar Grant
(*for identification purposes only)
This forum is organized by the Transport Workers Solidarity Comittee (www.transportworkers.org)
The Post Office has put the Berkeley Post Office up for sale!!
Five weeks ago we learned that perfidious Post Office Executives, who only the week before had sent a letter to the Berkeley City Council offering to negotiate until at least November 12th, had had CBRE (Richard Blum’s company) list the downtown Berkeley Post Office for sale.
Last week the Planning Commission passed on to the Berkeley City a proposed Zoning Ordinance that would make the Post Office property less desirable to potential purchasers of the capitalist variety.
Come and help plan our next actions in defense of our post office and against privatization.
Check out the video of Peter Byrne’s talk at our recent Save the Post Office Rally!
Less than 2 months ago, Occupy Wall Street’s Alternative Banking Group published a brand new 100-page book entitled, “Occupy Finance”! The entire book is available free online.
Strike Debt Bay Area’s “Politics of Debt” book discussion group will get together in downtown Oakland next Wednesday evening, November 13th, to discuss the first half of the book, including the following chapters:
Introduction: Fighting Our Way Out of the Financial Maze
Section 1. The Real Life Impact of Financialization on the 99%
Chapter 1. Heads They Win, Tails We Lose
Chapter 2. The Bailout: It Didn’t Work, It’s Still Going On, and It’s Making Things Worse
Section 2. How We Got Here
Chapter 3. How Banks Create Money … and Keep Itt
Chapter 4. A Little History to Explain a Lot of Tragedy
Chapter 5. The Dirty Dozen Legal Outrages
Join us for lively and informative discussion of this important Occupy achievement!
All are welcome!
#WalmartStrikers are #HellaOURWalmart and we are here to tell Walmart we’re here to stay and not backing down. Join us for a community planning meeting this Saturday for Black Friday 2013 in the Bay.
Near 12th St BART in downtown Oakland.
Northern California Our Walmart Facebook.
And Twitter @ForRespectNoCal and @HellaOURWalmart
Fighting the proposed curfew in Oakland. Protesting in Sacramento on O22. Demanding that Kamala Harris investigate the death of Alan Blueford and all other victims of police violence here in California. Speaking out against the militarization of police.
Join as as we review our recent actions and plan future ones!
The DAC is being debated at the City Council meeting this Tuesday. Come help organize for the meeting, for the rally, and in general against Orwell’s nightmare.
THE ENTRANCE TO THE SUDO ROOM IS ON 22ND ST!!!
Our weekly open meeting for members and supporters to discuss the weeks tasks and projects. Come get plugged into ongoing housing defense work! We have abundant and varied work for all folks in any number of meaningful projects.
Rain location: SF Pizza, 1500 Broadway, Oakland
Our weekly open meeting for members and supporters to discuss the week’s tasks and projects. Come get plugged into ongoing housing defense work! We have abundant and varied work for all folks in any number of meaningful projects.
Rain location: SF Pizza, 1500 Broadway, Oakland
The Post Office has put the Berkeley Post Office up for sale!!
Six weeks ago we learned that perfidious Post Office Executives, who only the week before had sent a letter to the Berkeley City Council offering to negotiate until at least November 12th, had had CBRE (Richard Blum’s company) list the downtown Berkeley Post Office for sale.
Last week the Planning Commission passed on to the Berkeley City a proposed Zoning Ordinance that would make the Post Office property less desirable to potential purchasers of the capitalist variety. We are still waiting for action on this from the City Council.
Come and help plan our next actions in defense of our post office and against privatization. We want to send a message to CBRE, the Post Office and Berkeley politicians that the sale will not be tolerated!
Check out the video of Peter Byrne’s talk at our latest Save the Post Office Rally!
We’ll meet at Albany City Hall for a rally and then a march. After the march we will all meet to strategize and plan. This is our chance to take the organizing to the next level.
(Also, see the court hearing listing for earlier on this date)
We held our Town Hall meeting to discuss the need to get rid of the Alameda County Sheriff and District Attorney on Tuesday, November 5th.
Now it’s time to talk about the nuts and bolts of such a campaign.
Bring your organizing hat, your ideas, and your friends!
Let’s replace Ahern and O’Malley with real progressives, dedicated to the welfare of all Alameda County residents.
Purpose:
To brainstorm how to implement the principles and practices of Restorative Justice throughout the City of Oakland that will facilitate Oakland becoming a restorative city. To develop a plan of action designed to empower citizens, eradicate violence, and build community and relationships by introducing, utilizing, implementing, and maintaining ongoing restorative justice circle processes in neighborhoods, schools, families, churches, synagogues, government, justice system, hospitals, unions, and workplaces citywide until it becomes a way of life. To have restorative conversations become the cornerstone for addressing conflict and harms, promoting understanding and collaboration, celebrating Oakland’s rich diversity, and changing the culture throughout the City of Oakland and beyond.
Please join us at this initial meeting to indicate your interest, lend your voice and ideas, suggest who else needs to be a part of the discussion, and to strategize about next steps in the development of a plan of action. We will discuss a proposal that this project become a collaborative effort of the Alameda County Restorative Juvenile Justice Task Force.
Judge Gail Brewster Bereola
Alameda County Superior Court of California