California

Vallejo, California: Unions help city with lay-offs

The city of Vallejo in the San Francisco Bay Area may be the first city in California history to declare bankruptcy. However several unions are helping the city to cut jobs in an effort to ward off bankruptcy.

This cash-strapped city reached a tentative deal with its police and firefighters unions Thursday, just before city leaders convened to decide if the city would seek bankruptcy protection from a swell of economic uncertainty.

That question remains unresolved, however, as details of the deal will be made public today before the council revisits the issue Monday.

Oakland dockers honour anti-war picket lines

Antiwar pickets shut down terminal of war cargo shipper in port of Oakland. Photo: Barucha Calamity Peller

Oakland Port anti-war and labor protesters close SSA terminal for the day. ILWU 10 & ILWU 34 members refuse to cross lines.

Dozens of anti-war protesters including the leadership and many members of the Oakland Education Association (OEA) joined the picket lines this morning and in the evening of the SSA (Stevedoring Services of America) shipping terminal in Oakland, California to protest the war and the lack of funding for schools in Oakland.

Fare strike - San Francisco 2005

Pamphlet with first-hand accounts and analysis of the self-organised 2005 fare strike, in PDF and text format.

Fare strike in PDF format (2.14Mb)

Fare strike!
San Francisco 2005
First-Hand Accounts

INTRODUCTION

Post mortem on the San Francisco fare strike, 2005 - Tom Wetzel

Tom Wetzel analyses the fare strike of San Francisco public transport riders in 2005. He examines what ways of organising can be used to win struggles and form the basis of a new society.

In September, 2005 several thousand riders of Muni - San Francisco's city-owned transit system - participated in a mass fare strike, to fight service cuts, layoffs, and the second fare hike in two years. More than five dozen people were actively involved in the organizing. The last action connected with the fare strike was a November 10th protest march, initiated by the organized day laborers.

Sailors end strike and win back pay

Eighteen Filipino sailors striking over $360,000 in unpaid back pay ended their strike yesterday in Long Beach, California.

An inspection by union officials on Labor Day showed that the sailors had only been paid half what they were owed. Longshoremen at the port refused to load the Endless, a 760-foot cargo ship with petroleum coke during the period of the strike, refusing to cross the picket line.

2003-2004: Los Angeles supermarket strike

The history of a huge five-month strike and lockout of 70,000 supermarket workers in California, which ended in defeat.

The walkout was against cuts in benefits, and run almost entirely by union leaderships. While the supermarkets lost $2.5bn in profits, they succeeded in beating the strike and imposing the cuts.

Notes on Another Defeat for Workers in the US

US: Shattuck Cinema workers are going union

Landmark Shattuck Cinema workers are fed up. Years of bad hours, poor pay, a hostile work environment and the demoralsing treatment from theatre management has led the Cinema workers of Berkeley, CA, to push for a union; for the One Big Union of the Industrial Workers of the World.

At 4pm on May 12, 2006, approximately 80 Wobblies and supporters gathered in what some hailed as one of the largest IWW gatherings in recent Bay Area history, next to the May Day contingent earlier this month.

1996: Classrooms First! - A History of the 1996 Oakland Teacher's Strike

The history of the 1996 strike of teachers in Oakland, California for smaller class sizes and higher wages, which took up the slogan: "Classrooms First!"

LA '92: The Context of a Proletarian Uprising

Distorted by the bourgeois press, reduced to a mere 'race riot' by many on the left, the L.A. rebellion was the most serious urban uprising this century. This article seeks to grasp the full significance of these events by relating them to their context of class re-composition and capitalist restructuring.

1946: The Oakland General Strike, by Stan Weir

Public meeting at the fountain in Latham Square

An account of the General Strike in Oakland, California.

By nightfall the strikers had instructed all stores except pharmacies and food markets to shut down, Bars were allowed to stay open, but they could serve only beer and had to put their juke boxes out on the sidewalk to play at full volume and no charge. 'Pistol Packin' Mama, Lay That Pistol Down', the number one hit, echoed off all the buildings.

Fighting the fare hike in San Francisco

A report on organising that is going on here in San Francisco against the rise in fares for buses and trams.

Back in April the MTA Board, which runs Muni (the bus and streetcar system in San Francisco) voted to increase the transit fare from $1.25 to $1.50, to cut service on many bus lines, and to lay off about 200 drivers. This Thursday, Sept 1, is when the fare hike is supposed to go into effect. This is the second fare hike in two years. Since 2003 the fare has gone up 50 percent.

Review: Bad: The Autobiography of James Carr

Carr, a gang-member and jail-bird in 1960's California, became deeply politicized while inside but also developed a powerful critique of the nature of prisoners' struggles.

"I've been struggling all my life to get beyond the choice of living on my knees or dying on my feet. It's time we lived on our feet."