Another Black Family Evicted?

I made this video in solidarity with POOR Magazine–revolutionary poverty scholars, media-makers, and organizers based in San Francisco and Oakland.

Sabrina Carter and her two boys are going to being evicted from her home in the Plaza East Apartments in the Fillmore because she “failed to control the movement of her 19 year old adult son” (after she was forced to sign a restraining order against him when he was shot and subsequently criminalized).

Could this have something to do with the fact all of San Francisco’s public housing, including Plaza East, is currently being privatized under the RAD program? Or that McCormack and Baron, the developer in charge of Sabrina Carter’s home, is Goldman Sach’s “urban investment partner?”

Please call Karl Nicita at the SF mayors office (415) 665-6141 and ask them to stop the eviction of Sabrina Carter.

Wells Fargo: The 99% Takeover

For a piece I wrote with Salima Hamirani about the event, see “The Spring Offensive: Dignity and Resistance in Bay Area Streets.”

Photos: The Well Fargo shareholder meeting 99% Takeover.  April 24, 2012.

Locked Out of Work for Two Years

“We work at a playground for millionaires.”  That’s how UNITE HERE! Local 2850 began the Facebook invite for their march on Saturday (Feb 25).  They are referencing the Castlewood Country Club in Pleasanton, which was ranked the wealthiest mid-sized city in the U.S. in 2007.  “Two years ago, they threw us out on the street because we wouldn’t give up affordable health insurance for our families.”

Saturday morning, Castlewood Country Club workers led hundreds of their allies in a march that marked two years of being locked out of their jobs.   From being confined to sidewalks in downtown Pleasanton, to taking over the middle lane on busy thoroughfare, to the empty gulf courses where the country club had locked out it’s own members, workers made themselves loud and clear.  It was also the first time Occupy Oakland got involved, bolstering the fight with numbers, media attention, and a mock counter protest by the 1%.

According to the “End The Lockout” chronological timeline, in August 2009 the country club attempted to deny their staff healthcare by asking the workers to pay unaffordable monthly contributions–$367/month for single people and $739 for families–for what had otherwise been free.  The union provided a counter-proposal that they say would save the country club $9,000 more per month, but management refused.

On February 25, 2010, the country club locked out its own janitors and food service workers, and proceeded to tell the workers that they could return to work only if they dissolved their union.  General Manager Jerry Olson told us,” the union writes, “that the Club is ‘philosophically opposed’ to paying for family health benefits, even if workers make up the cost by giving up wages and other benefits.”

The workers have been picketing every day ever since.

Workers say that they and their families have gone short on food and “a lot of things,” but this has not stopped them in their fight to reclaim their job security and healthcare in this crisis economy.  And their tenacity is paying off.  They’ve called and convinced many organizations, including the Oakland A’s, to cancel their golf tournaments at the club.  And it has been hitting the country club in their pocketbook.  In 2010 alone, the union says, the club reported it’s operating revenue $550,000 below budget, $300,000 paid in legal expenses relating to the lockout, and $57,000 paid to “persuade workers to decertify their union.”

In the most recent contract offers, the union made an offer that they said would cost only $8.70 more per club member per month, and commented that many members are already paying $600 per month in dues, on top of a $25,000 membership fee.  Management again refused.

The National Labor Relations Board held it’s final hearing on the case yesterday, and it expected to give a ruling within the next several months.

The union workers of Local 2850 and their struggle agains the Castlewood Country Club has been an inspiration for the rest of the 99%.  Here is how they ended their Facebook invite to the protest Saturday:

‘We’re fighting for health care for our children.
We’re fighting for work with dignity.
We’re fighting to show the 1% that we are human beings.
We’re fighting for you.
JOIN US.”

If you would like to contribute to their strike fund, please donate HERE.

End Oakland’s Toxic Deal with Wall Street

Occupy the Hood, Decolonize Oakland, SEIU Local 1021, Oakland Community Organizations (OCO) and Oakland clergy packed the city council’s chambers on Tuesday evening (Feb 21) to demand an end to the city’s “toxic deal” with Goldman Sachs.  They are referring to debt payments that the city of Oakland makes to the speculative banking corporation every year, which have totaled $26 million since the late nineties and potentially over $2 million more per year until 2021.  Coincidentally, that is the exact same amount that would be required to keep open the 5 schools slated for closure.

Goldman Sachs’ colossal gambling addiction played a central role in crashing the global economy in 2008, but rather than receiving any type of retribution, they have instead received multiBILLION dollar bailouts of public money.   This government welfare subsized the $4+ billion in private profit they made last year, and the $40+ million they paid their CEO alone.  Meanwhile, the city of Oakland and municipalities across the country received no bailouts and have been passing worse and worse austerity budgets each year.

As Goldman Sachs receives free support in the form of taxpayer money (TARP) and an essentially open spigot of no-interest loans from the Federal Reserve, Oakland has been paying a fixed 5.6% interest to them for debt in which the principal has already been paid, activists say.  The East Bay Express breaks it down:

“The toxic rate-swap agreement in question dates to 1997 when Goldman Sachs convinced Oakland officials that it would protect taxpayers against the possibility that interest rates would rise on variable rate bonds that the city planned to issue the next year. Rate swaps — essentially contracts between two parties — allow governments to transform variable-rate debt payments into fixed-rate debt. Oakland’s deal with Goldman Sachs converted floating rates on $187 million of bond debt into a fixed 5.6 percent.”

“The problem for Oakland, however, was that floating interest rates only briefly exceeded 5.6 percent in the past fifteen years; first between 1998 and 2001, and again at the height of the housing bubble between 2006 and 2008. During the economic recession that followed 9/11, interest rates plummeted below 2 percent, forcing Oakland to make much higher payments to Goldman Sachs than it would have had it never signed the deal. Then, with the collapse of the economy in 2008, the US Federal Reserve reduced its lending rates to virtually zero, with variable rates in markets trailing close behind. Yet Oakland was still stuck paying more than 5 percent.”

Decolonizers brought the heat to the council during a lengthy open comment session, each speaker’s words multiplied by the signs and cheering behind them.  Luz Calvo, an ethnic studies professor at Cal State East Bay, quoted a famous saying, “‘Give a man a gun and he can rob a bank.  Give him a bank and he can rob the world.’ That is exactly what is happening,” she said.  “Every politician always says they’re tough on crime.  Now it’s time to go after the REAL criminals.”  Another speaker pointed out that Los Angeles and San Francisco have already set precedents for nullifying some of their debt payments.

Councilmember Libby Schaff responded by saying that this issue will be “agendaized” at a future meeting.  “We’ve already asked for the termination fee to be waived,” she said.  To that someone shouted, “Don’t ask, demand it!”  And she corrected herself to “demand.”

This would be an important victory because 1) it would recuperate millions of taxpayer dollars per year for the people of Oakland, and 2) it would free the city from the snare of megabank debt servitude.  Thirdly, the victory itself would show that the 99% can win, giving the movement momentum toward bigger goals, such as addressing the structural crisis of Oakland’s budget, which soon leads us to the structural crises of our whole economy and the need for re-imagining our economic systems.

We need to see this policy demand to end debt repayments as part of a larger arc in decolonization, which means both autonomy from the 1% and creating a system beyond our current one that provides for the basic human needs of all people.

“Today, We March for Dignity”

On the Friday morning (February 17th), hundreds of people rallied and marched with workers recently fired from Pacific Steel in Berkeley after a federal immigrations crackdown on their workplace.  Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents audited their factory in December and demanded the firing of all workers without social security numbers.  The company terminated the livelihoods of 200 workers for no other reason than that they are undocumented, in a country where it is virtually impossible to get residency or citizenship for most immigrants.

The rally began at Berkeley City Hall at 10am, full of chants, colorful signs, dancing, and megaphone-amplified speeches.  Some signs made specific policy demands: “STOP THE SILENT RAIDS” referring to ICE raids and “END E-VERIFY.”  Others appealed to a deeper part of our humanity: “THE WORLD HAS SO MUCH WEALTH, THERE SHOULD NOT BE MISERY,”  and “WE ARE NOT CRIMINALS, WE ARE WORKERS.”  All in spanish.  One girl held a sign declaring, “MUERTE AL CAPITALISMO” (“Death to Capitalism.”)

Speakers zeroed in on the Obama administration’s dehumanizing, anti-immigrant policies that have resulted in a record number of people deported and families torn apart.  In fiscal year 2011 alone, 397,000 uncles, fathers, mothers, and cousins were deported from neighborhoods in cities and towns all over this country.  Because Obama’s Orwellian-titled “Secure Communities” program (S-comm) integrates local police records with ICE, the vast majority or deportees are originally arrested for non-violent crimes, and many for something as simple as a traffic violation.

“Today,” one of the speakers declared, “We march for dignity.”

Before noon, the march took over University Ave parading west through the sunshine.  A huge banner at the front declaring “MARCHA POR LA DIGNIDAD” kept everyone organized into a solid mass of jubilant protest.   At the front, a fierce young girl and a couple of adults held down the chants: “Obama! Escucha! Estamos en la lucha!” (“Obama! Listen! We are in struggle!”), or “No cruzamos la frontera! La frontera nos cruzo!” (We didn’t cross the border! The border crossed us!).  Farther back, the Brass Liberation Orchestra gave the march a vibrant soundtrack. 67 suenos, an organization of migrant youth, went particularly hard, a one point getting the front of the march so hyped everyone was jumping up and down in unison.

The long march ended at the Pacific Steel and Castings Factory in Northwest Berkeley near the 80 freeway, where a huge banner proclaimed, “Local Union Labor at Work, Products Made in America.” A rally was held once more, complete with guitar-led sing-alongs, religious leaders, and countless red construction paper hearts to be sent to Janet Napolitano, the head of Homeland Security, which controls ICE.

Workers expressed their appreciation for the solidarity and turnout at the rally, saying that it gave them great hope in their struggle moving forward.  At the very least, they are demanding access to retribution of the pensions they paid into, which are held by their former union, GNP Local 164B, which has cut off all contact.

While many felt invigorated by the action, not everyone was.  A friend told me she’d been at a rally last year with the same workers after they’d been striking for just wages and working conditions.  Two-hundred and fifty people, all workers and their families, had attended.  “How many worker’s are there today?” she said.  “A dozen?”

Oakland City Council Member Ignacio De La Fuente, who is Vice President of the Glass, Molders, Pottery, Plastics, and Allied Workers International Union, supposedly cut a deal with ICE wherein workers would be fired and deported in small waves, in order to neutralize protest.  And it was clear that many of the 200 workers were not in attendance on Friday.

That is still the reality.