Oakland

Stan Weir's oral history of the 1946 Oakland general strike

Stan Weir in 1990 at time of Oral History Project at CSU Long Beach

This is the transcription of a 1990 interview with Stan Weir for the Virtual Aural/Oral History Archive at California State University Long Beach (the audio is available here interview #3, section "3 of 9 items" ). In this segment Stan talks about his involvement in the 1946 Oakland General Strike.

The Oakland general strike - Richard Boyden

Striking shop clerks in Oakland, 1946

This article by Richard Boyden is the most comprehensive account of the 1946 Oakland General Strike. It relies extensively on first-hand sources, such as Boyden's good friend and comrade Stan Weir. Additionally, it shows the continuity between the San Francisco General Strike in 1934—that shut Oakland down completely too—and the sequel 12 years later. Teamster piecard Dave Beck, in trying to kill the strike, put it best: “I say this damn general strike is nothing but a revolution. It isn’t labor tactics. It’s revolutionary tactics.”

You are not Durutti, but we are uncontrollable: beyond a critique of non-violence

Critical reflections in late 2011 on Occupy Oakland and the debate around non-violence and a critique of the Left.

Occupy Oakland is dead. Long live the Oakland Commune.

An overview on the rise and decline of Occupy Oakland.

Class-conscious machinists: "Stormy petrels of west coast labor"

Machinists on strike at Bethlehem shipyard, San Francisco, October 29, 1945

Sister machinist unions, San Francisco's Lodge 68 of the International Association of Machinists and Oakland's Local 1304 of the CIO's Steel Workers Organizing Committee (which left the IAM over a wildcat strike in 1936), had a national reputation for militancy; Lodge 68 had more strikes during World War II than all other Bay Area unions combined. Along with Local 1304, they accrued this strike record in open defiance of the National War Labor Board, who were backed by the FBI, the Office of Economic Stabilization in the White House, a Navy Vice-Admiral, the War Manpower Commission, the collective bosses, who in turn were supported by the CIO, ILWU, and Communist Party.

Oakland parents and teachers announce plans to sit-in to stop school closures

Protests against Oakland school closures

As 5 elementary schools are set for closure at the end of this school year, displacing around 900 children to schools 10 miles away with no transport provided, parents and teachers announce plans to sit-in to save their schools.

Who is Oakland: anti-oppression activism, the politics of safety, and state co-optation

An extensive criticism of anti-oppression politics, their relation to non-profits, capitalism and the state, as well as how they play out in movements such as Occupy.

A Message to the Partisans, in Advance of the General Strike

A communique to the participants of the attempted general strike in Oakland on November 2, 2011.

Blockading the Port is Only The First of Many Last Resorts

A brief piece examining the relationship between #Occupy encampments and unions, and calling for a re-imagining of what a strike looks like in a largely post-industrial context.

Oakland’s Dirty War

An article on Oakland police tactics in trying to repress and disband Occupy Oakland.