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The California Apartment Association (CAA) has been meddling in the affairs of city after city in Northern California in an effort to stop any and all renter protections being promoted by renters, tenant activists, and their supporters. The same day that Oakland tenant activists filed a ballot initiative to strengthen renter protections called the Renters Upgrade, the CAA announced that they were keeping an eye on things, and are coming up with their own plan to counter the tenants' movement efforts.
Super Bowl City, a corporate playground for tourists, was set up in San Francisco in late January. Before it opened, SFPD began pushing homeless people out of the area. Several protests focused on the taxpayer-financed "city". On January 30, hundreds marched for justice for Mario Woods. On February 3, hundreds of homeless advocates held another protest. On February 6, hundreds more marched to the site to protest unrelenting economic displacements. SFPD repressed all of these protests with at least one hundred cops each time.
Over 2000 protesters from many different Indian American communities joined together outside the SAP Center in San Jose on September 27 to counter Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of "Digital India" and Hindutva. They raised many issues with Modi's leadership, ranging from forced conversions to Hinduism, Internet surveillance, arrest of political bloggers, harassment of human rights activists, blind eye to rapes, dispossession of small farmers, rewriting of Indian history, and the 2002 Gujarat massacre.
The Indian American community is sharply split on Modi's performance during his first year in office, and that was obvious in the huge crowds of protesters filling up the designated protest zones and sidewalks in front of the SAP Center. In addition to the Alliance for Justice and Accountability (AJA), a large progressive umbrella group, other groups also gathered in front of the SAP Center—most notably the Sikh community that showed up in large numbers.
“We were pleasantly surprised by the turnout, which was much higher than we anticipated,” said Bhajan Singh, a community leader with the AJA. People came from cities as far away as Los Angeles. The numbers are a testament to the strong feelings that Modi evokes because of his poor record on religious rights, women's rights, caste, digital freedom, LGBTQ equality, and environmental justice.”
 Read More with Photos | See Also: Indian Prime Minister Modi to Face Mounting Protests in Silicon Valley Visit
September 22nd was the Pope's first day of a historic visit to the United States. Placards calling upon the religious leader to "stand with us for workers' rights" were amongst those carried by protesters at the Hyatt Santa Clara, which is adjacent to Tech Mart. Hyatt's aggressive use of subcontractors allows it to pay poverty wages to workers.
While their direct employees are often well compensated, large companies in Silicon Valley contract out many of their jobs to workers who are poorly paid and don't receive even the most basic benefits. Hyatt and other companies use underpaid Black, Latino and immigrant contract labor as landscaping workers, janitors, cooks and security guards. Silicon Valley’s "invisible" workers do not share in the success of the tech industry.
Pro-labor groups protested Hyatt's lack of corporate responsibility. A joint effort between Silicon Valley Rising and SEIU-United Service Workers West brought together workers and their supporters in the demonstration in front of the Hyatt Santa Clara. The group then marched to one of the contractors that the Hyatt uses, Universal Protection Services, where they renewed their protest.
Silicon Valley Low Wage Workers Rise Up! |
Hyatt Outsources Jobs: The People Protest
The United States Social Forum 2015 was held June 24-28 in San José. A thousand activists from hundreds of organizations worked on strategies for necessary alternatives and system change. Food Sovereignty, Living on the Edge of Silicon Valley, Taking our Health Back, Crisis of the California Water Commons, No More Deaths: Resisting Border Militarization, Cooperative Economics, and Movements Making Media were just some of the more than a hundred topics discussed.
Featuring some 150 workshops, assemblies, film festivals, cultural events, exhibits, tours, and community gardening events, the U.S. Social Forum not only informed attendees about social issues, but engaged participants in collective discussion about solutions and organizing to create alternatives. The larger People's Movement Assemblies (PMAs) were collaborations among several different grassroots organizations seeking to build alliances across traditional boundaries of community, geography, and issues. A thousand participants came from throughout California and nearly every western state of the United States.
Recognizing that human rights, social justice, and climate justice are connected on a global scale the movement for the World Social Forum was born in Brasil to provide a people's alternative to the World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland. The first World Social Forum was held in Porte Alegre, Brasil in January 2001 because of the initiative and mass support of the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Terra (MST or Landless Workers' Movement). A total of 14 World Social Forums have been held in different cities in South America, Asia, and Africa.
Read More with Photos
The farm worker movement mourns the passing on June 7, 2015, of Rev. Deacon Sal Alvarez, who played a key role with Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta in the farm worker movement and on behalf of many other worthy causes over seven decades. Sal was motivated by deep faith in a movement grounded in the Catholic Church’s social justice teachings and dedication to Our Lady of Guadalupe.
All around the world May Day has been a day for labor solidarity, immigrant rights, direct action, reclaiming the streets, and speaking out against injustice. May Day 2015 in the Northern California was a busy day for actions from San Francisco and Oakland to San Jose and Mountain View to Santa Cruz and Fresno. Call-outs went out for rallies, marches, flying pickets, the shutdown of the Port of Oakland, a tech commute blockade, and an anti-capitalist/Baltimore solidarity march.
Activists in Oakland came out in the hundreds to rally and march for a $15 minimum wage on April 15, tax day. They started their protests by shutting down all of the McDonald's restaurants in Oakland with chanting, flash mobs and and banners. The San Pablo McDonald's was greeted by activists handing out over 200 free "burritos for justice" made with vegetables from the UC Gill Tract Community Farm. Protesters also received a surprise visit by former United States Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich. About mid morning, participants from all of the thirteen McDonald's restaurants marched and congregated at the 45th Avenue fast food branch. At the end of the day all gathered at UC Berkeley for a final rally and march.
The action in Berkeley began with a rally at Sproul Plaza. Participants came from actions all over the San Francisco Bay area earlier in the day, including San Jose and surrounding South Bay communities, San Francisco, and Marin County, many of which targeted McDonald's outlets. Mayor Ruth Atkins of Emeryville drew cheers from the rally crowd as she announced that on July 1, the city's minimum wage would rise to $14.42 an hour. Other area communities including Oakland, San Francisco and Berkeley have raised or are in the process of increasing their minimum wage, while State Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, has introduced a bill to raise the state's minimum. After the rally, over one thousand protesters marched through the heart of Berkeley, stopping at the downtown McDonald's, and temporarily snarling traffic.
The fight for $15 takes Oakland by Storm |
Berkeley demonstration for $15 at site of 60’s Free Speech Movement |
3 #FightFor15 Protests in 1 Day, Featuring Robert Reich |
"No Justice No Peace" Bay Area Workers & Unions Rally for $15 & A Union On April 15, 2015 |
Week of Success! Fight for Fifteen, Boycott Sprouts, and EIR Lawsuit! |
 Fight for $15 on 4/15 March, Oakland to Berkeley
Family, friends, and community supporters came together on February 14 for a candlelight vigil to honor 23-year-old Phillip Watkins, who was shot and killed by two officers with the San Jose Police Department on February 11. About one hundred people attended the vigil, and many spoke about what a positive person Phillip was, and how he changed their lives.
Phillip was the father of a young girl, who was at the vigil with her mother, Phillip's life-partner. Also in attendance was Phillip's mother and sisters, and his partner's mother. Phillip attended San José High School and De Anza College, playing on the football teams of both schools. Fitness and exercise was his passion.
One of Phillip's sisters who spoke at the vigil described her brother as "always giving what he had for others," and she recalled that whenever the ice cream man would come around their neighborhood during their childhood, Phillip would always share his money with her so that she was sure to get what she wanted. "Now is the time to live through Phillip," she said. "That's what keeps me ok."
Read More with Photos
In Mexico and Central America, a tianguis is traditionally thought of as an open-air market where merchandise is sold. The word tianguis is derived from the Aztec language, and the cultural tradition has been practiced by Indigenous peoples since before colonial contact. To create a space where community organizing skills can be shared, the concept of a "community action" tianguis was created by individuals in the Mayfair community of San José. The first such tianguis was held at Lee Mathson Middle School (MIT) on November 15, and featured participation from a wide range of organizations working in the areas of health, education, labor, food safety, immigration, and legal defense.
Visually, the Community Action Tianguis held at MIT resembled a traditional tianguis, however no merchandise was sold. Instead, individuals representing community organizations spoke, tabled and shared information, and a variety of goods and services were available at no cost. Hair stylists offered young people free haircuts. Community members cooked hot dogs which were distributed for free, and fresh produce was given out by Good. To Go., which displayed a box full of huge, organic pomegranates in front of a neatly arranged produce cart.
Read More with Photos
As expected, the grand jury tasked with determining if there was enough evidence for charging Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson for the murder of Mike Brown determined that there wasn’t probable cause. That night, on November 24, people in Ferguson and across the country began to rise up for Mike Brown and blocked freeways, city streets, and more. Fires were set, merchandise taken from stores, and, on Black Friday, BART was disrupted in West Oakland and shopping centers shut down in San Francisco. Protests continued throughout the week, culminating on the annual Black Friday shopping day and continuing into the weekend.
UPDATE 11/14: New CA Ebola Mandate Inspired by NNU Appeal to Gov. Brown, Sets National Model
On November 11, two-day strikes started that effect nearly 20,000 registered nurses at 86 Kaiser Permanente hospitals and clinics, a Sutter hospital in Tracy, and Watsonville Community Hospital kicking off a wave of protests in 15 states and the District of Columbia over eroding patient care conditions symbolized by inadequate Ebola safeguards at most U.S. hospitals. Large noon rallies were held at Kaiser Oakland and Kaiser South Sacramento.
On the evening of September 23, the airwaves were filled with reports of strikes by the United States and its allies against targets in Syria. Rapid response in Palo Alto by the Peninsula Peace and Justice Center brought out Peninsula residents in protest.
Demonstrators in San Francisco and San José took the streets as well. The real objective of this war, said protesters, is to locate permanent Pentagon military bases in Iraq, Syria and the entire resource rich region of the Middle East. Endless war in the Middle East with the US leading the pack is to gain permanent imperial power and domination in a region that contains much of the world's oil reserves.
Palo Alto:
Photos
San Francisco:
Emergency Protest "Stop the U.S. bombing of Syria!"
Rallies and marches in solidarity with the people of Ferguson, Mo. were held across the world following the events of August 9 when Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown in broad daylight in front of numerous witnesses. Michael was reportedly unarmed and holding his hands up while attempting to surrender when he was gunned down. Protests in the Bay Area were held in San Francisco, San Jose, and Santa Cruz.
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