| Occupy Wall Street Movement |
AFT 1493 endorses "Occupy Wall Street" movement AFT 1493ers join Nov. 2 Occupy Oakland day of action
Brief reflections and photos from some of those members who were there on that day are shown below.
AFT 1493ers join big Occupy Oakland day of action on Nov. 2
Numerous AFT 1493 members participated in the large Occupy Oakland day of action on November 2. Below “The Local View” presents a few brief reflections and photos from some of those members who were there on that day. (Photos of occupiers on the big rigs by Katharine Harer) "One of the most meaningful and exhilarating experiences I have had..."
The march to the port stepped off almost as soon as I got there, and I joined a large contingent of teachers, all dressed in bright green Oakland Education Association T-shirts and chanting, “We are the 99 percent; we teach the 99 percent.” I didn’t have a good sense of the size of the crowd until we reached the overpass right before the docks and I was able to see the thousands of people in front and in back of me. Big rigs were pulled to the side of the road that the march had taken over, their drivers alternately pulling their horns, raising their fists, and flashing peace signs. Once we reached the port itself, the crowd broke into sections, forming picket in front of each of the gates and making it impossible for the late shift of longshore workers to come on. Though all of the activities that happened during that day were important, I think the port shutdown was the most significant because it showed that the 99 percent--those who work hard for a living or are denied the ability to work because of the failure of the economic system--can actually shut down that system, peacefully, through sheer force of numbers. I think that this is a lesson that the American labor and progressive movements need to relearn and that we should thank the organizers of Occupy Oakland for providing us the chance to set a good example. - Elizabeth Terzakis, AFT 1493 Cañada Chapter Co-Chair "It stirred up a big silvery bubble of hope" The Occupy Oakland March to the Port of Oakland on November 2 was a great time for me. It raised thoughts and feelings I haven’t had since the early ‘70s. While not as big as some of the marches and rallies of that time, it was in my view better: much more diverse and with strong union participation. It stirred up a big silvery bubble of hope from deep under my dust-filmed surface. One joyful moment came at about 7:30 or 8:00 P.M., when dozens of trucks that had been stopped by marchers not far inside the Port turned around and left without the loads they had come to pick up. One by one, they drove slowly back across the bridge leading into the Port, with most drivers blowing their air horns and waving to the crowd. That was soon after I had run into one of my nephews deeper in the Port. He’s a pleasant, laid-back guy in his early twenties, getting by on low-paying jobs, whose passion is skateboarding. I was surprised to see him there with a few of his skater friends. After we hugged, I said something like, “This is an unexpected pleasure,” and he said, “Yeah, I never paid attention to this stuff, but this is interesting. The 99% and the 1%—that makes sense.” - Doug Sherman, Skyline, AFT 1493 Part-Timer Rep. "What a transformative moment!"
What a transformative moment for Isabella! What a transformative moment for me! Marching next to my daughter and together with my brothers and sisters, all part of the 99%, I no longer felt small. At the crest of the overpass, looking ahead, Isabella and I saw the Port of Oakland. Behind us, the avalanche of protestors surged forward. Alongside the street, young marchers held big-rigs hostage as they danced atop the containers; the drivers honked in support. We slowed our march, eventually coming to a stop and folding up the AFT banner. I felt power in our numbers, in my words and actions. Several thousand? Ten thousand? Twenty or thirty thousand? No matter the final count, I was among the 99%. - Nina L. Floro, AFT 1493 Skyline Chapter Co-Chair "A young woman full of conviction about the movement" On we marched, the blue AFT 1493 banner unfurled and paving a channel of support before us as we went. Being one of the bearers of such a grand banner instilled a sense of strength in me, causing hope and energy to thrill through me. Striding along beside my mom, I felt derisory, but my confidence grew with each step closer to the Port. Never before can I remember having felt as much might. Within the cocoon of the crowd, I metamorphosed from a meek and unsure 16 year-old girl into a young woman full of conviction about the movement. I could hardly absorb all the sights and sounds stirring around us, but the sheer emotional impact of voices joining for a common cause moved me nearly to tears. To see the diversity and unity of the protesters gave me such hope that together we can make a change. In the pivotal moments of participating in the Occupy Movement, I stepped into my shoes as a proud member of the 99%. - Isabella Llamas, daughter of Nina L. Floro
The Occupy Movement: Déjà vu All Over Again?
by Dan Kaplan, AFT 1493 Executive Secretary I participated from early morning to late at night in the November 2 Day of Action in Oakland, which included marching with the AFT Local 1493 contingent to the Port of Oakland. I also was in attendance for the student strike at UC Berkeley on November 15, and took part in the General Assembly of 10,000 students, faculty, and community members. The GA was then immediately followed on the steps of Sproul Hall with the Mario Savio Memorial Address, presented this year by Robert Reich and titled: Class Warfare in America. For some reason the young woman standing next to me turned to me and said: “Is it déjà vu for you all over again?” My wife, standing on my other side said, “Oh, how insulting.” But I immediately said that I didn’t take her remark in that way at all.
I say all of this merely to note that my observations of and experiences in the Occupy movement come from a certain background of prior experiences in social movements. That said, the Occupy movement is quite extraordinary and different from other movement experiences I have had. In prior movements there were several organizations in place doing political work prior to the movement assuming mass dimensions. The Occupy movement has become a mass movement almost overnight with no previous organizational expression. But the premonition of this movement to come was clearly revealed in the struggles of public worker unions in Madison, Wisconsin, not long ago. In fact, I think Madison should be considered the first Occupation, at that time of the Wisconsin State Capital building. The Occupy movement also appears to be a spontaneous movement that on principle wants to remain leaderless, also different from previous American social movements. There was a press conference held just before the opening rally of what was called the Oakland General Strike on November 2. It wasn’t really a general strike of labor, but I liked putting a focus on a discussion of what the Oakland general strike of 1946 was really all about and what it looked like, as it was the last general strike in U.S. labor history. At the press conference a young woman spoke quite eloquently about what the Oakland General Strike/Day of Action was about, and what the politics of the protest meant. She gave her name as Louise Michels. Reporters then asked her to spell her name, and she did. I was delighted with the historical reference, but I was sorry that none of the press people understood the reference this spokeswoman for the Occupy Oakland movement was making. Louise Michels was the outstanding woman leader of the Paris Commune of 1871. This movement just happens to be putting on the political agenda various subjects that I have taught in my political science classes at several community colleges in the Bay Area since 1986. In my class on the American political system, I start with a discussion of the structure and distribution of income and wealth. This is the very subject that the Occupy movement has been able to put center stage in U.S. political discourse since its emergence on September 17, just a few months ago. I also have taught political philosophy over the years, and the politics of the Occupy movement very much reminds me of the debate between John Locke, advocate of the theory of representative democracy, and Jean Jacques Rousseau, advocate of radical or direct democracy. The Occupy movement has found representative democracy to have failed, functioning in the interests of corporate power, the 1%. The Occupy movement, instead, is practicing the kind of direct democracy that Rousseau called for in the form of the General Assemblies that meet on a regular basis every few days. In the General Assemblies politics are discussed and debated. And then decisions are made on the basis of a consensus process. It truly does appear to be democracy in action. At the time of writing, a student strike at UC Davis has been called for next Monday, November 28, in response to the horrific repression of the Occupy student movement at UC Davis, much like what happened earlier at UC Berkeley. This repression is even more severe than what happened to the student movement of the 60’s, which I was a part of. I can only conclude that this is a reflection of the serious nature of the economic crisis that we are now in. The Occupy movement has called for a West Coast wide shut down of the Ports on December 12. This is, I think, the most important and serious social movement to have emerged in the last 40 years. And this Occupy movement is now becoming an international movement. The last time something like this happened, around the world and at the same time, was in 1968. I remember that time well. Yes, that young woman had it just right: It is for me déjà vu all over again.
Resolution in support of Occupy Wall StreetWhereas, the Occupy Wall Street protest and its Oakland counterpart is an action opposed to the income inequality, the unfair tax structure, the bank bailouts, and the undue corporate influence and greed that has created America’s current economic malaise, undermined its social contract, and laid to waste its ideals, and; Whereas, the negative effects of this elemental economic injustice are borne by middle class working families and the poor, while the financial racketeers most responsible for it are not only not held accountable but are allowed to continue to extract outrageous profits from it, and; Whereas, in a nation where 25 million people are out of work, where 50 million people have no access to health care, and where 1 in 5 children grow up in poverty without adequate access to food, clothing and shelter, where funding for public education is gutted, where infrastructure is left to decay, and where millions of Americans have lost their homes due to a flawed and sometimes fraudulent process of foreclosure, causing misery and hardship and lost tax revenue, and; Whereas, the salaries and bonuses of corporate executives continue to skyrocket while real wages for most workers have stagnated for the last 30 years during which period the gains in the economy have accrued almost entirely to the top 1% who now control at least 40% of the nation’s wealth, and where the top 400 Americans control more wealth than the bottom 180 million, and; Whereas, in a nation where corporations are treated as people and money as speech, exacerbated by the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in Citizen’s United v. Federal Election Commission to allow unlimited spending on elections to vault corporate influence to a new extreme and gaining further advantage over an already tilted political system, a system which now threatens to reduce the voice of the people to irrelevance, and; Whereas, the rights of working people have been routinely attacked by the same unfair corporate power structure that led to new era of robber baron income inequality. Such attacks include illegal interference with right to form or join a union and have used the economic crisis in both the public and private sectors as a pretext for rolling back benefits, cutting wages, and limiting the rights of unions, and; Whereas, AFT Local 1493, the San Mateo Community College Federation of Teachers, supports the rights of workers and protesters to peaceably assemble and engage in non-violent demonstrations to expose economic and social injustice and attempt to adjust inequality and discrimination in any form, now; Therefore be it resolved, that AFT Local 1493, the San Mateo Community College Federation of Teachers, shares the outrage, frustration and resolve of the protesters, commits to the fight, and goes on record in support of the Occupy Oakland and the entire Occupy Wall Street movement, and; Therefore be it further resolved, that AFT Local 1493 supports the right of the protesters to peaceably assemble and opposes any effort to unreasonably evict protesters, and, in light of the recent police action against Occupy Oakland calls on the City of Oakland to release the arrested and drop the charges, and; Therefore be it further resolved, that the San Mateo Community College Federation of Teachers stands with Occupy Wall Street and the 99% of Americans just trying to level the massively unequal playing field. Therefore be it finally resolved that AFT Local 1493 supports the non-violent efforts of the protesters to seek a more democratic and equitable society and repeats the demand for an economy that works for all Americans. CFT members join big Occupy Oakland day
Dana Blanchard, 32, has taught in Berkeley Unified for five years. After teaching fifth grade until this year, Blanchard now works as an intervention specialist with at risk kids. She took a personal leave day to attend the events that began in Frank Ogawa/Oscar Grant Square in front of City Hall. In the morning she marched on a major bank, known for its discriminatory lending practices and refusal to pay its fair share of taxes. It closed. Then she went to a rally at Laney College, where she joined hundreds of faculty, staff, students and friends, their ranks increased by a steady influx of teachers from Oakland Unified, in a fiery rally on behalf the 99% who have been shut out of their future by the 1% who pay less than half the tax rates that they did in 1960, but who now take home double their former share of the national income at our expense. Blanchard left with the swelling crowd to join another rally in progress in front of the Oakland Unified School District offices. Following that, the march—taking over the streets as it moved, and picking up marchers every step of the way—moved on the banks. Wells Fargo, Citibank, B of A—one after another, branches of these giant institutions were shut down. The crowd unkindly pointed out to each bank that "You got bailed out, we got sold out." By the time the march left Bank of America, it was accompanied by the sounds of the Liberation Orchestra, and led by a pair of gigantic blue and red balloons holding up a banner that read, "Defend human dignity; challenge corporate power." And the march was still getting bigger, gaining nurses, technicians, communications workers. It poured onto Broadway, back toward Ogawa/Grant Square, and rolled past the Rotunda building (formerly Kahn's Department store, the epicenter of the 1946 General Strike). And here the crowd stopped, occupying a half dozen blocks of downtown city boulevard, in what one young participant called "a protest carnival." Many businesses sported signs in their windows, "Closed in solidarity with the General Strike." Others put tables with water out on the sidewalks. Old friends met and embraced. New ones were made, chanting "We are the 99 per cent" together. The multiracial crowd danced to blasting music in front of the stores and even more loudly, by the square. Unlike the events of last week that sparked this demonstration, the march was peaceful, and the city of Oakland, having learned a hard lesson about police overreaction captured on video splashed across the planet, ordered the city's cops to keep a low profile. The strategy worked almost perfectly. The large roving march behaved completely peacefully, policing itself. (The one exception during the day occurred when an anarchist contingent held its own separate march, and smashed the windows out of a Wells Fargo bank. After midnight, after almost everybody had gone home, a small band of people attempted to occupy a building, started vandalizing and set a dumpster fire, drawing a predictable police response.) After a quick lunch and breather, there were more marches, more dances, singing, more demonstrations, including a picket line by machinists outside a Mercedes Benz showroom protesting nasty bargaining by the company, an event which the IAM dubbed "Occupy Mercedes Benz." But the most spectacular moment of a spectacular day began at 4 pm. Hundreds of teachers arrived by BART from Berkeley and hundreds more from Oakland, joining Blanchard a few blocks away from the Square. CFT and CTA members from San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley Unified districts assembled alongside community college faculty and students from both sides of the Bay. People left all types of work early from across the East Bay to mass for the big show: shutting down the Oakland docks. A solid mass of people streamed out of the Occupy Oakland encampment for the entire two miles to the port. It was easily fifteen or twenty thousand, row after row, banners and chants, and everywhere the numbers: 1% and 99%. A second wave left at 5 o'clock, almost as continuous, almost as large as the first. The people flowed across the bridge over the train yards, large tractor trailers stranded like islands in the ocean of protesters. The word spread: we need a couple thousand people at each gate for the shift change at the docks, so that the longshore workers would have to call in an arbitrator to declare the docks "unsafe." The people distributed themselves. The docks were closed. I saw Dana Blanchard in one of those picket lines. At the end of the evening, back at Ogawa/Grant Square, the Alameda Central Labor Council organized dinner for thousands of people. Volunteer firefighters, teamsters, United Food and Commercial Workers members, Unite Here, SEIU members and more: they stood for hours behind the grills, flipping burgers and hot dogs, handing out bottles of water, and ladling rice and beans onto the plates of union members, non-union members, Occupiers, and everyone else who had come out to demonstrate their determination that this country has to change.
The unions of Alameda County stand in solidarity with Occupy Oakland and the 99%, and the Alameda County Labor Council fully supports the November 2nd Day of Action called by the General Assembly of Occupy Oakland. Unions and members are encouraged to participate and draw attention to the need for good jobs, ethical banking practices, quality public services, and a system where everyone, including the rich and the corporations, pays their fair share. Click here for more information. Photo at left: Rebecca Hensler (right), counselor at Denman Middle School, during an Occupy San Francisco event on Oct. 12 (Matthew Hardy photo.) CFT endorses "Occupy Wall Street" movementThe California Federation of Teachers (CFT) issued the following statement on Oct. 14 formally endorsing the "Occupy Wall Street" movement: “The California Federation of Teachers endorses the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement. Occupy Wall Street, and its local variations, represent the legitimate response of the 99% of us adversely affected by growing wealth and income inequality in America. One percent of the population now owns close to 40% of the country’s wealth. Each year, the richest one percent of the population takes in a quarter of the nation’s income, representing a doubling of the one percent’s share over the past twenty years. During this time the wealthy received massive tax cuts, both in California and at the federal level, a major cause of public budget shortfalls that hurt students, make our streets less safe, and harm the health of children and seniors. “Instead of investing its newfound wealth in productive enterprises in the United States, the top 1% moved it offshore or into financial speculation, which ultimately crashed the economy. The 1% also took large amounts of this money and poured it into a public relations effort to blame teachers and other public servants for the economic problems the 1% created.“Occupy Wall Street redirects the attention of the public to the actual causes of the economic crash and recession and to the parties responsible. The California Federation of Teachers embraces the call of Occupy Wall Street to raise taxes on the rich, to reregulate the banks, and to enact a financial speculation tax. We encourage our members to participate in the OWS actions in their cities. These actions will help restore public budgets for schools and other vital services, and set our state and our country back on a road to democracy and prosperity.” In addition, CFT president Joshua Pechthalt noted that “The women and men who are participating in Occupy Wall Street have given voice to the suffering and economic uncertainty felt by millions of Americans. One of the main messages of Occupy Wall Street is the need to restore tax levels on the rich and corporations to support public education at all levels. Another is to redirect investment to benefit the 99% of us who aren’t the 1% wealthiest Americans. Educators are proud to stand in solidarity with these principles and this important movement.”
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Marching from the occupied Oscar Grant (formerly Frank Ogawa) Plaza to the Port of Oakland and shutting it down was one of the most meaningful and exhilarating experiences I have had in twenty years as an activist. I came up out of the BART at 14th Street and walked into what could best be described as a festival of the oppressed--a tightly packed, multiracial crowd exchanging information, political opinions, artwork, and smiles. Despite mainstream press claims to the contrary, the occupied space was orderly, clean, and beautiful. I have never seen so many happy people in downtown Oakland before.
When the large AFT 1493 banner was unfolded, we took our places for the 2 mile march, grasped our section of the banner, and stepped towards what we hoped would be an historic event, at least in terms of Oakland history, at least as part of the Occupy Oakland movement. I felt small holding the banner and surrounded by people taller than I, including my 16 year-old daughter, Isabella. I couldn’t tell if she thought marching with her mom and holding the AFT banner was silly or cool, but as we moved closer to our destination, her fingers tightened around the edge of the banner, her steps surged with energy, and her eyes looked forward, searching for signs of the prize—the Port of Oakland.
For it is true that the Occupy movement is not the first social movement that I have participated in. When Martin Luther King brought the civil rights movement to Chicago when I was a young boy of 14, I immediately became involved in this movement for social change. Two years later I became an activist in the anti-war movement, and then I joined SDS.
November 2, 2011—Several hundred students and faculty (pictured at left) rallied and marched from Laney College through downtown to Occupy Oakland in the city center. Along the way the marchers were joined by others engaged in the Alameda Central Labor Council-sanctioned "Day of Action" activities, including shutting down several banks, dancing in the streets, and giving and listening to speeches about the need for the top 1% of income earners to pay their fair share so that the other 99% can have decent schools, services, jobs, and a future. By the time the marchers got to Broadway, chanting "We are the 99%,", there were more than 5,000 of them, and more coming all day long. 
