McDonald’s walkout in Oakland. Photos by David M’Oto.
Oakland
Prison privatization is a crime
February 13, 2014On Dec. 1, Aramark Correctional Services will begin running Food Service for the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC), creating another sector of low-wage workers in Michigan. In a state struggling with a high unemployment rate and flooded with low-wage dead-end jobs, 60,000 in the fast-food sector in the metro Detroit area alone, why would the state government choose to add to these statistics?
Let RNs give care
February 11, 2014On Jan. 6, RNs from the California Nurses Association (CNA) picketed a new state-of-the-art facility at Kaiser Oakland to protest increasing restrictions on access to care while decreasing frontline care staff. The opening was timed to coincide with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
BART workers forced to strike
December 2, 2013Oakland, Cal.—“One day longer, one day stronger!” shouted a transit worker to kick off a noon rally on Oct. 18 at Oakland’s Lake Merritt BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) station. SEIU (Service Employees Int’l Union) Local 1021 and ATU (Amalgamated Transit Union) Local 1555 had shut down the trains shortly after midnight.
Photo by [=>]
Oakland Frackdown
November 29, 2013About 90 members of environmental and community groups gathered at Frank Ogawa Plaza for “Oakland Frackdown” to protest passage of State Senate Bill 4 authorizing hydraulic fracturing in California.
BART workers face strike-breaking tactics
September 28, 2013Several hundred rallied in support of Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) workers trying to negotiate a contract with a modest raise and no more takeaways.
Outrage at Trayvon Martin injustice
September 24, 2013Participant reports from Trayvon Martin demonstrations in Los Angeles, Oakland, Chicago, Raleigh, and New York.
Some cuts don’t heal
March 20, 2013Workshop Talks
by Htun Lin
As Congress’s latest self-imposed sequestration crisis makes clear, not all cuts are the same. A campaign slogan of California Nurses’ Association (CNA) goes: “Some Cuts Don’t Heal.”
The looming full launch date of Obamacare in 2014 has the HMO industry imposing cuts, patient care be damned, in a race to the bottom to [=>]
Oscar Grant remembered
February 23, 2013On New Year’s Day 2013 Oscar Grant’s mother, Wanda Johnson, spoke to about eighty people gathered for a vigil at Fruitvale BART station in Oakland, Calif., site of his murder by a BART cop on the same day in 2009. While disappointed by the low turnout, Johnson told us that the race does not go [=>]
Solidarity with South Africa’s miners
October 2, 2012Photo by David M’Oto for News & Letters
Oakland, Calif.—On Aug. 24, 100 activists converged on Oscar Grant Plaza to express solidarity with the South African miners’ struggle in Marikana and outrage over the police slaughter of 34 striking workers at Lonmin Platinum Mine there. Signs read: “This Was Not An Aberration” and “Capitalism [=>]
Study/discussion series: Global Crises, Global Rebellion, and the Needed Philosophy of Revolution
September 27, 2012You’re invited to a nationwide series of five Marxist-Humanist discussions on:
Global Crises, Global Rebellion, and the Needed Philosophy of Revolution
Central to today’s reality is the worldwide capitalist economic crisis, the deepest since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and the context for occupations and revolutions across the globe. We will explore the meaning of this [=>]
Occupy the school—keep Lakeview open!
August 1, 2012Photo by Urszula Wislanka for News & Letters
Parents, students and teachers have occupied Lakeview Elementary School in Oakland, Calif., since June 15 to keep it open, just one of five schools slated for closure. Under threat from police and the Oakland Unified School District, the protesters, including Occupy Oakland, nevertheless have created social [=>]
A voice from Occupy
July 31, 2012Oakland, Calif.—I am an anarchist and believe in acting according to my principles, most recently in Stockton on May 31 in a general strike protesting the murders of three Black men—James Rivera, Jr., Luther “Champ” Brown, Jr., and James Cooke—killed by police. The demonstration showed the community, masked up, willing to defend themselves from the [=>]
Sutter nurses strike!
July 28, 2012Photo by David M’Oto
Oakland, Calif.—Sutter Health nurses throughout Northern California walked off the job for one day on June 13. Hundreds of nurses and some doctors marched and rallied in front of Oakland’s Summit Medical Center and Berkeley’s Alta Bates Hospital.
Summit will not even renew the previous contract because they insist on a [=>]
Immigrant workers ‘March for Dignity’
April 11, 2012Berkeley, Calif.—On Feb. 17 over 500 people joined a “March for Dignity,” endorsed by Occupy Oakland, in support of the over 200 mostly Latino workers fired the previous month, despite Berkeley being a “sanctuary” city (meaning the city pledged to not cooperate with discrimination based on legal status). An I-9 (Employment Eligibility Verification Form, for [=>]
Flint’s emergency manager targets labor
February 29, 2012Flint, Mich.—In November, Flint was placed under the control of an emergency manager for the second time. This time is different, because under a law passed in March of last year the financial manager can end collective bargaining agreements (with state approval), run up debt, increase property taxes and sell property.
The first time around Flint [=>]
Dockers, Occupy close Western ports
February 4, 2012Oakland, Calif.–Following a shutdown of the Oakland Port on Nov. 2, whose success took the port and city authorities by surprise, Occupy Oakland called another shutdown for Dec. 12.
This time, Occupy Oakland linked the shutdown to demands for which port workers have been fighting: in support of the Los Angeles non-unionized truck drivers who were [=>]
Occupy defies attacks
February 3, 2012Editorial
As 2012 opened, governments from federal to local grabbed more powers of repression, reflecting the failure of their attempts to crush the Occupy Movement with brute force, despite their success in clearing many occupations. The National Defense Authorization Act, signed on New Year’s Eve by President Obama, allows indefinite military detention of citizens and non-citizens [=>]
Absolute Negativity, Occupy and Situationists
February 2, 2012Essay
by Ron Kelch
[Absolute negativity] is the simple point of the negative relation to self, the innermost source of all activity, of all animate and spiritual self-movement, the dialectical soul that everything true possesses and through which alone it is true; for on this subjectivity alone rests the sublating of the opposition between concept and reality. –Hegel on second negation in [=>]
Remember Oscar Grant
December 22, 2011Remember Oscar Grant
Oakland, Calif.—The Oscar Grant Committee held its first public forum on Sept. 13 at the main hall of Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library to a packed audience of activists and family members-turned-activists. The following is a summary of statements made there.
Organizers Gerald and Lesley said: Oscar Grant was shot in the back while he was [=>]
Sutter nurses strike
December 14, 2011Sutter nurses strike; photo and article for News & Letters by David M'Oto
Oakland, Calif.—Sutter Healthcare nurses were joined by sympathizing Kaiser nurses for a rally outside Summit Medical Center on Sept. 22. Sutter nurses called the one-day strike because of proposed cuts in patient staffing, sick pay and other benefits. The Summit administration [=>]
‘You can’t evict an idea whose time has come!’: The Occupy movement defies police state attacks
November 21, 2011A statement from News and Letters Committees:
‘You can’t evict an idea whose time has come!’
The Occupy movement defies police state attacks
City governments have carried out police raids on occupations across the U.S. in a vain attempt to crush the movement with brute force. A new level of violence was achieved in mid-November, as raids from [=>]
Occupy everywhere, the whole world is watching!
November 9, 2011Occupy Oakland
Oakland, Calif.–As part of the autonomous but connected “Occupy Wall Street” movement, we organized here on Oct. 10, a rainy Monday evening. About 500 people, the great majority under 30 years old and a very diverse group (race, gender, age, etc.), met in a general assembly and collectively decided to occupy and camp out [=>]
Occupy Wall Street strikes deep chord, challenges rulers
November 8, 2011by Gerry Emmett and Susan Van Gelder
The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement, since beginning in New York City’s Zuccotti Park–renamed Liberty Plaza–on Sept. 17, has spread to hundreds of cities and towns across the U.S. and linked with the occupation movements in Europe. On Oct. 15, Occupy demonstrations took place in 951 cities in 82 [=>]
Justice for Oscar Grant!
August 31, 2011Oakland, Calif.–On June 12 over 150 demonstrators marched to downtown Oakland from Fruitvale BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) station, dubbed “Oscar Grant Station” by community activists. We were protesting the mild charge and minimal sentence handed down to Grant’s killer, former BART cop Johannes Mehserle. Mehserle was released from a Los Angeles County jail the [=>]
‘We are one’ campaign
May 21, 2011Oakland, Calif.–Dozens of labor groups rallied at Frank Ogawa Plaza on April 4th as part of the nationwide We Are One campaign in support of public sector employees in Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana. It was the 43rd anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination. King had gone to Memphis, Tenn., to join Black sanitation workers’ struggle [=>]
In Memoriam: John Alan/Allen Willis
March 19, 2011Allen Willis/John Alan–who would have been 95 on June 10 this year–died quietly on Feb. 23 in Oakland, California. The near-century of his life was filled with thoughts and experiences of Black life in America. One of his earliest recollections was as a three-year-old witnessing the 1919 race riots, seeing Black men being attacked and [=>]
Workshop Talks: Who lost to SEIU?
November 23, 2010From the Nov.-Dec. 2010 issue of News & Letters:
Workshop Talks: Who lost to SEIU?
by Htun Lin
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) announced the results of the recent union election at Kaiser Permanente in California. The media declared that the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) had won a “decisive victory” to continue to represent some 45,000 [=>]
California nurses strike for healthcare
November 14, 2010From the Nov.-Dec. 2010 issue of News & Letters:
California nurses strike for healthcare
California nurses strike for healthcare
Oakland, Cal.–On Oct. 12-14, nurses at Oakland’s Children’s Hospital staged a three-day strike over the proposed takebacks in their healthcare benefits. Practically all the nurses (95%) walked out. Here is what some said:
Martha: I’ve worked at Children’s Hospital, [=>]