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/

 

After she helped prevent the neo-Nazi rally on the steps of the capitol in Sacramento this summer, and was one of several people who were stabbed by the fascists, terror threats were made against the school if she was not fired. Instead of defending the entire school, including Yvette, the Berkeley Unified School District has since turned on her, docked some of her pay, and last Wednesday abruptly suspended her. A parent of one of her students reported that his son was removed from class that day, and interrogated about her.

Yvette’s grievance to her union (written before her suspension) is attached.

You can watch the video of public comments at last week’s board meeting, including by Yvette Felarca, her students who demonstrated how she helped empower them, parents who praised her teaching style and expressed concern about recent racist activities in the schools, fellow workers who wondered about the implications of the district’s actions for other teachers, and community members who told personal stories about fascism in their own lives, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jg2giLt6Fu4

For more details about what happened in Sacramento, and the neo-Nazis involved, read the accounts on the local Sacramento Antifa site: http://antifasac.weebly.com/

There is also information about the organizers of the neo-Nazi rally from the Southern Poverty Law Center, here: https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2016/06/27/violent-clashes-erupt-sacramento-between-white-nationalists-and-antifascists

To voice your solidarity with Yvette Felarca, and demand that she be reinstated immediately, paid her full wages, and the harassment of her and her students be stopped, contact the Berkeley school board and superintendent at: boardofed@berkeley.net (entire board), Superintendent@berkeley.net (Dr. Donald Evans)

Non-sectarian defense of all anti-fascists!
An injury to one is an injury to all!

..

Come out to the Qilombo Community Center in West Oakland on Wednesday, September 28th at 6pm, to hear a special report and presentation from Stockton organizers and community members about the ongoing battle against police terror and brutality in Stockton, CA. Hear from family and friends of Colby Friday and James Rivera, Jr about their fight for justice and about how people in Stockton are working to build bridges between the bay area and beyond and how you can show solidarity with their ongoing organizing and participate in upcoming actions.

On November 23, 2012, four boys in a red SUV pull into a gas station after spending time at a mall buying sneakers and talking to girls. With music blaring, one boy exits the car and enters the store, a quick stop, for a soda and a pack of gum. A man and a woman pull up next to the boys in the station, making a stop for a bottle of wine. The woman enters the store and an argument breaks out when the driver of the second car asks the boys to turn the music down. 3 1/2 minutes and ten bullets later, one of the boys is dead.

This riveting documentary is one story of the devastating effects of racial bias and the search for justice. Negative portrayals of black men and boys in the media lead to irrational fears; these implicit biases can prove deadly. The film dissects the aftermath of this fatal encounter using powerful footage which shows intimate scenes with the boy’s parents, police interrogation footage, and interviews with others at the scene that night. You are on the edge of your seat during the trial testimonies. We chose this film to bring audiences into the discussion of racial bias and gun violence.

6:30 pm reception
7:00 film
8:30 -9 community discussion
The series is sponsored by the Piedmont Appreciating Diversity Committee, Piedmont League of Women Voters, and Piedmont Unified School District Adult Education.

diversityfilmseries.org

Open as many homes as possible…
Hold them as long as possible…

Our weekly PARTY to get this hackerspace together, to provide a venue for those things that otherwise cannot be worked out through day-to-day practice.

Potluck! – bring your own tasty dish!

Sudo room, located in the southwast corner of the ground floor, is a creative community and hackerspace. We offer tools and project space for a wide range of activities: electronics, sewing/crafting, 3D and 2D manufacturing, coding, and good old-fashioned co-learning!

Hours: The space is open whenever a member is present. Come visit! Best times to drop in are evenings between 7 and 9pm. See the calendar for recurring meetups and upcoming events: https://sudoroom.org/calendar

Hold large banners for freeway traffic to see this is a legal demonstration

Join and support the dedicated Social Workers and Eligibility Workers who provide services to the homeless, victims of child and elder abuse, and families in need of food assistance. They are fighting to make sure they have the safety, resources and staffing to do their jobs.

The County’s failure to recruit and retain staff puts crucial public assistance programs at risk. Workers who have spoken out on have been targeted and threatened by County management.

Contra Costa has one of the lowest salary and benefit packages in the Bay Area, leaving many employees to lean on the very public assistance services they administer.

This strike highlights a major political issue to working families in Richmond. We need your support on the line!

Only 11% of United States workers today are unionized. Unions under our labor law regime and economic system have become smaller for almost a half century. Thus wages have stagnated or declined for the 89% of U.S. workers who are now not in unions and, for the unionized, they have barely kept pace with inflation.

If greater union density improves wages and work life conditions for all workers: (1) how do we grow actually existing unions, and (2) how do we organize workers who are not unionized? The Oakland Livable Wage Assembly (“OLWA”) is an experiment towards some solutions. www.olwa.org https://www.facebook.com/groups/1568668586707336/

With now five years in Oakland of volunteer autonomous organizing experience based on and inspired by the Zapatista and Occupy models, I will both document OLWA’s two year history and situate our collective work in the relevant human sciences, labor economics/history, and community/labor organizing literatures. I welcome help with both recruiting more OLWA participants and a publication agenda. Written scholarly work product is to be determined. As a rank and file SEIU Local 1000 union shop steward, I thank my union for the meeting space for OLWA’s ongoing work.

The Bio:

John Hayakawa Torok is a participant in the Oakland Livable Wage Assembly and is an SEIU Local 1000 rank and file worksite shop steward at his State of California day job in San Francisco. After receiving a 1991 JD from the CUNY Law School he was a Rockefeller Humanities Fellow and then participated in the Critical Race Theory workshops. His 2008 Berkeley Ethnic Studies PhD dissertation sounds in immigration, legal and civil liberties history focusing on immigration policy enforcement in Cold War New York Chinatown. As an ISSI/CRSC Visiting Scholar, he will situate five years of labor and community organizing in Occupy Oakland, his union, and the Oakland Livable Wage Assembly in the relevant literatures.

Join Haiti Action Committee to commemorate the 25th anniversary of a coup that continues to inform the present struggle of the Haitian people for democracy and justice.

SEPTEMBER 30th – 4:30 PM DEMONSTRATION meets at 14th & Broadway in Oakland

OCTOBER 2nd – 3PM EVENT at Eastside Arts, 2277 International Blvd, Oakland

Why is it important to remember September 30, 1991?

It is a battle of memory against forgetfulness, because we think that we cannot build the democracy we want for this country if we continue to erase what happened. It is impossible. – Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine

September 30, 2016 marks the 25th anniversary of the coup that overthrew Haiti’s first democratically-elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide who was the candidate of Haiti’s popular movement Lavalas in the 1990 presidential election; he won with 67% of the vote.

Aristide’s Feb. 7, 1991 inauguration marked a huge victory for Haiti’s poor majority after decades living under the Duvalier family dictatorship and military rule. The inauguration signaled the participation of the poor in a new social order. This radical change was represented by Aristide’s first act as President when he invited several hundred street children and homeless to join him for the inaugural breakfast at the National Palace.

A brave young democracy set out to reverse centuries of exclusion of Haiti’s poor majority in the country’s political, economic and social life against the backdrop of right wing death squads and a corrupt Haitian military tied to former dictators and Haiti’s wealthy elite. Just four days before the inauguration, an orphanage founded by Aristide – Lafanmi Selavi – was torched, killing four street children.

The new administration began to implement programs in adult literacy, health care, and land redistribution; lobbied for a minimum wage hike; proposed new roads and infrastructure to create jobs. Aristide renounced his $10,000 a month salary. He enforced taxes on the wealthy and dissolved the rural section chief infrastructure that empowered the Ton Ton Macoute. He denounced the treatment (akin to slavery) of Haitian sugar cane workers in the Dominican Republic, and called for improved working conditions.

After the September 30th coup, Lavalas supporters turned out by the hundreds of thousands to defend the constitutional government. They were brutally suppressed, starting on the eve of Sept. 30th when National Police chief Lt. Col. Michel Francois led busloads of soldiers to the Champs de Mars where they machine gunned hundreds of protesters gathered in front of the National Palace.  Francois would later be convicted in absentia for the 1993 murder of Antoine Izmery, a prominent businessman and supporter of Aristide who was dragged from a church in broad daylight and executed. Aristide’s Justice Minister Guy Malary was murdered one month later.

Between the years 1991-1994, during the military regime headed by General Raoul Cedras, four to seven thousand supporters and activists of Lavalaswould be killed; others savagely tortured; rape as a political weapon was widespread; thousands fled or were driven into hiding. Poor neighborhoods were particularly targeted, as was the Ti Legliz (little church) – an important sector of the grassroots movement. Anti-coup journalists and radio stations were attacked. Haitian elites and the coup regime, with the support of US intelligence agencies, backed the formation of a violent paramilitary organization known as FRAPH, which emerged in August 1993. FRAPH operated as a death squad, and was responsible for thousands of deaths and human rights violations. Its leaders like Louis-Jodel Chamblain, associate of Guy Philippe, still operate freely in Haiti.

No commemoration of September 30th would be complete without remembering Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, a psychologist and leading spokesperson for Lavalas, who was kidnapped and disappeared in Port-au-Prince in 2007. Lovinsky founded the Fondasyon Trant Septanm organization dedicated to justice for the victims of the September 30th coup and the release of political prisoners. He remains forever present at the forefront of Haiti’s struggle for justice and democracy.

Sources:

THIS EVENT IS MOST LIKELY CANCELLED BECAUSE THE BUILDING IT WAS BEING HELD IN CAUGHT FIRE ON 9/30 AND IS STILL BURNING!

Tracy Kidder, master of the nonfiction narrative and author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning classic The Soul of the New Machine and the bestselling Mountains Beyond Mountains, presents the inspiring story of Kayak.com founder Paul English, a kinetic, unconventional inventor and entrepreneur.

Growing up in working-class Boston, Paul English discovers the perfect medium for his talents the first time he sees a computer. Despite suffering from what is later diagnosed as bipolar disorder, he begins his pilgrim journey through the surreal ups and downs of our brave new world. Relating to the Internet as if it was an extension of his own mind, English discovers that he has a gift for building creative teams of individuals. His innovative management style, rapid success, and innate sense of fair play inspires intense loyalty. When English does make a fortune – as co-founder of the travel website Kayak.com (which sold for almost two billion dollars) – his first concern is how to give it away.

With the power of a consummate storyteller, Tracy Kidder casts a fresh, critical and often humorous eye on the way new inventions and new money are reshaping our Culture. A Truck Full of Money is a unique portrait of an irresistibly endearing man who is indefatigable, utterly original, and wonderfully unpredictable.

Presented by KPFA Radio 94.1 FM

Hosted by Mitch Jeserich, Host and Producer of KPFA’s Letters and Politics, is a veteran broadcast journalist. He got his start as KPFA’s California State Political Reporter in Sacramento before going to Washington DC to cover the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court between 2003 and 2006. In 2009 Mitch launched a pilot program called Letters from Washington, chronicling the first 100 days of the Obama administration, which became Letters & Politics.

KPFA benefit http://www.kpfa.org

$12 advance, $15 door.

COLORSTRUCK! Written and performed by Donald E. Lacy Jr.,

On Her Own tells the story of Nancy Prebilich and her family as they struggle to save their 5th-generation farm during the Great Recession. When both of Nancy’s parents suddenly pass away, Nancy, her sister, niece, and nephews fight to stay afloat in the face of loss and financial instability. On Her Own represents what is happening all across the U.S. as houses are foreclosed, families are forced to move for purely economic reasons, and small farms face ruthless competition from larger factory farms and land developers. Chronicling Nancy’s personal journey over a 5-year span, this extraordinary story explores the roles that history and ancestry play in our present-day lives, asking: what happens when the cost of preserving family heritage is the family itself? Learn more about the film at https://onherownfilm.com.     

Bio
Morgan Schmidt-Feng, the founder of Filmsight Productions, is an award-winning director, producer and cinematographer for TV, documentaries, and independent feature films. His feature documentary, On Her Own, premiered at the 2015 Slamdance Film Festival and had its international premiere at Hot Docs in Toronto. Morgan won the 2011 regional Emmy® for Best Documentary for The Next Frontier, a TV documentary about solutions for climate change. Morgan’s feature film experience began as an actor and associate producer on Morgan’s Cake, collaboration with his father and the film’s director, Rick Schmidt. Morgan lives in his hometown of Berkeley, California and graduated from CCA in Oakland.      

Support the Moore family as they go to court to hold Berkeley police accountable for Kayla’s death. The event will feature a dramatic play performance, a vigil for Kayla and for all Black, Brown and Poor women killed by state-sanctioned violence, and will be followed by a transformational celebration of Black life and resilience.

– 8 p.m. (doors at 7:30 p.m.) ~ Tasha
Tasha is Cat Brooks’ one-woman play based on the 2015 murder of Natasha McKenna by Virginia police.

-9:30 p.m. ~ A vigil for Kayla and all Black, Brown, trans, disabled and poor women killed by state-sanctioned violence.

-10 p.m. ~ A Transformational Poetry & Dance Party
with Po’ Poets, Kaila Love, Maria Moore and more musicians, activists and allies

The event is sponsored by Justice 4 Kayla Moore, Berkeley Copwatch,Anti Police-Terror Project, Black Trans Women’s Lives Matter.

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Website: JusticeForKaylaMoore.wordpress.com
For more info email: Justice4KaylaMoore@gmail.com or call (510) 548-0425

COLORSTRUCK! Written and performed by Donald E. Lacy Jr.,

Day One (Saturday, 10/1) Here

Sun. 10/2

10:30am -12:30 pm

How Capitalism Shreds Our Personal Lives

Harriet Fraad, Harriet Fraad  is a licensed mental health counselor and hypnotherapist in private practice in New York City. She has been an activist in the feminist movement and the journal Rethinking Marxism. For 40  years, she has been a radical committed to transforming US personal and political life.

1:30-3:30 pm

Crisis: It’s How Capitalism Works 

Richard Wolff, Marxist professor of economics, Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst where he taught economics from 1973 to 2008. He is currently a Visiting Professor at the New School University, New York City. He is the author of numerous books and articles and host of the weekly radio show, Economic Update, and Co-founder of the projectDemocracy at Work

4:00-6:00 pm

Our Role In Transforming The World

Activists in Speak Out Now, will present a revolutionary socialist perspective on the challenges and choices we all confront today

Followed by time to discuss and socialize – refreshments provided

7:30-8:30

The Artist as Activist 

Emel Mathlouthi, Tunisian singer, songwriter, social commentator and participant in the Arab Spring – will take us through her musical and political journey. He song Kelmti Horra (my word is free) became well-known throughout Tunisia during the struggles against the rule of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali