Activism

Successful 1-Day Strike Was Only First Step, Activists Say

Hundreds of longshore worker and school activists in a variety of organizations who participated in the one-day strike on Friday, April 29 are developing plans to build their movement by expanding outreach in the community and increasing pressure on the politicians and billionaires who speak with the authority of big money.

Published

3 years ago

May 13, 2022

Oakland Post

Timothy “Akaamka” Killings. Photo courtesy of Mr. Killings.

By Ken Epstein

Following a historic one-day strike of teachers and Port workers at the end of April, a coalition of labor and community activists continues to gather steam against the billionaire takeover of public Port of Oakland property and the giveaway of public school property to corporate interests.

Walter Riley. Photo courtesy of Mr. Riley.

Divya Farias, a special education teacher in Oakland and member of the steering committee of the new coalition, Schools and Labor Against Privatization (S.L.A.P.), says she looks forward to building on the results of the strike.

“It was really successful; we shut all the schools and the Port,” she said. “It was historic to have this united action between teachers, the ILWU, and parents,’’ she added, emphasizing the participation of parents and the “solidarity among different unions that came together at the S.L.A.P. rally against privatization (at City Hall).”

Some activists are hopeful that the Oakland City Council will listen to the outcry from constituents who are demanding that the Council place a measure on the ballot that allows voters to decide whether they want to spend over $1 billion in public money for John Fisher’s new A’s stadium and massive real estate development.

Parents, teachers and school advocates are working with schools that are facing school closures this year and next year to enhance community wide understanding that neighborhood schools, even ones that are not large, are necessary to the survival of working-class Black and Latinx neighborhoods.

Others are focusing on a statewide campaign to pressure political leaders who talk liberal but whose actions instead create a commitment to austerity, the sell-off of public assets and backing the Fiscal Crisis Management and Assistance Team (FCMAT), which is a state-funded unaccountable agency that is going around California closing schools and cutting public school funding.

Farias said she saw amazing examples of solidarity in the strike: school workers in AFSCME and SEIU 1021 joined teachers to picket at schools. “Some principals joined teachers on the picket lines, including the president of the administrators’ union.”

“Longshore workers heading to work respected the (community) picket lines (on Friday evening), and for hours we were able to shut down the Port, the economic engine of the Bay Area,” she said.

“It was (also) exciting that parents supported the strike. We really need to grow that solidarity,” Farias said, adding that more and more students are getting involved.

The strength of the movement is the “public alliance between teachers and longshore workers,” she said.

Next steps are to broaden and deepen the movement: “There has to be a greater understanding that the agenda of privatization is the driving force behind the school closures,” she continued.

Farias also emphasized that the fight ahead will not be easy. Though the movement is stronger and has had some victories, she said, “I don’t think school closures are going to go away anytime soon. We’re trying to slow or stop a train that has been on the tracks for a long time now.”

Timothy “Akaamka” Killings, a school employee and S.L.A.P. steering committee member, also viewed the strike as a major step forward for the anti-privatization movement.

“We’ve connected the two struggles: the longshore workers against privatization of the Port of Oakland and the teachers and community against school closures and consolidations,” he said. “In terms of teachers pushing back against the district, and the community being involved in the struggle and being able to get the word out about what’s going on, it’s been a success.”

Killings said there is still much to be done to educate people to understand pro-corporate talking points that are spread by corporate media, that there are too many schools, that the district is broke, that school closures are the way to support higher quality education for Oakland’s under-served students.

Next steps include more outreach and education, actions to get more people involved and finding school board candidates who will fight against school closures to run in the November election, he said.

“The billionaires and the politicians are learning that this is not going to be as easy as they thought it would be. There is going to be a fight,” Killings said.

Civil rights attorney Walter Riley, a community activist and longtime political leader in Oakland, chaired a S.L.A.P. forum on April 30 where local candidates were interviewed about where they stood on school closings and the stadium/real estate project at the Port of Oakland.

“Our job is outreach. I see it as my job to do more outreach, to get greater community participation, to work with people to mobilize to fight these powerful interests that are operating in Oakland,” said Riley.

He said the focus of the candidate forum was to inform the candidates about the positions of the movement and learn from the candidates what they think. “We put them on notice that there is a movement and that we’re organizing.”

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Activism

Gov. Newsom Approves $170 Million to Fast Track Wildfire Resilience

AB 100 approves major investments in regional conservancies across the state, including over $30 million each for the Sierra Nevada, Santa Monica Mountains, State Coastal, and San Gabriel/Lower LA Rivers and Mountains conservancies. An additional $10 million will support wildfire response and resilience efforts.

Published

1 hour ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Courtesy of California Governor Gavin Newsom’s Facebook page.

By Bo Tefu
California Black Media

With wildfire season approaching, last week Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill (AB) 100, unlocking $170 million to fast-track wildfire prevention and forest management projects — many of which directly protect communities of color, who are often hardest hit by climate-driven disasters.

“With this latest round of funding, we’re continuing to increase the speed and size of forest and vegetation management essential to protecting communities,” said Newsom when he announced the funding on April 14.

“We are leaving no stone unturned — including cutting red tape — in our mission to ensure our neighborhoods are protected from destructive wildfires,” he said.

Newsom also signed an executive order suspending certain regulations to allow urgent work to move forward faster.

This funding builds on California’s broader Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan, a $2.7 billion effort to reduce fuel loads, increase prescribed burning, and harden communities. The state has also launched new dashboards to keep the public informed and hold agencies accountable.

California has also committed to continue investing $200 million annually through 2028 to expand this effort, ensuring long-term resilience, particularly in vulnerable communities.

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Activism

California Rideshare Drivers and Supporters Step Up Push to Unionize

Today in California, over 600,000 rideshare drivers want the ability to form or join unions for the sole purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid and protection. It’s a right, and recently at the State Capitol, a large number of people, including some rideshare drivers and others working in the gig economy, reaffirmed that they want to exercise it.

Published

2 hours ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Shutterstock

By Antonio‌ ‌Ray‌ ‌Harvey‌
California‌ ‌Black‌ ‌Media‌

On July 5, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into federal law the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Also known as the “Wagner Act,” the law paved the way for employees to have “the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations,” and “to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, according to the legislation’s language.

On April 8, the rideshare drivers held a rally with lawmakers to garner support for Assembly Bill (AB) 1340, the “Transportation Network Company Drivers (TNC) Labor Relations Act.”

Authored by Assemblymembers Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) and Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park), AB 1340 would allow drivers to create a union and negotiate contracts with industry leaders like Uber and Lyft.

“All work has dignity, and every worker deserves a voice — especially in these uncertain times,” Wicks said at the rally. “AB 1340 empowers drivers with the choice to join a union and negotiate for better wages, benefits, and protections. When workers stand together, they are one of the most powerful forces for justice in California.”

Wicks and Berman were joined by three members of the California Legislative Black Caucus (CLBC): Assemblymembers Tina McKinnor (D-Inglewood), Sade Elhawary (D-Los Angeles), and Isaac Bryan (D-Ladera Heights).

Yvonne Wheeler, president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor; April Verrett, President of Service Employees International Union (SEIU); Tia Orr, Executive Director of SEIU; and a host of others participated in the demonstration on the grounds of the state capitol.

“This is not a gig. This is your life. This is your job,” Bryan said at the rally. “When we organize and fight for our collective needs, it pulls from the people who have so much that they don’t know what to do with it and puts it in the hands of people who are struggling every single day.”

Existing law, the “Protect App-Based Drivers and Services Act,” created by Proposition (Prop) 22, a ballot initiative, categorizes app-based drivers for companies such as Uber and Lyft as independent contractors.

Prop 22 was approved by voters in the November 2020 statewide general election. Since then, Prop 22 has been in court facing challenges from groups trying to overturn it.

However, last July, Prop 22 was upheld by the California Supreme Court last July.

In a 2024, statement after the ruling, Lyft stated that 80% of the rideshare drivers they surveyed acknowledged that Prop 22 “was good for them” and “median hourly earnings of drivers on the Lyft platform in California were 22% higher in 2023 than in 2019.”

Wicks and Berman crafted AB 1340 to circumvent Prop 22.

“With AB 1340, we are putting power in the hands of hundreds of thousands of workers to raise the bar in their industry and create a model for an equitable and innovative partnership in the tech sector,” Berman said.

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Activism

California Holds the Line on DEI as Trump Administration Threatens School Funding

The conflict began on Feb. 14, when Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Education (DOE), issued a “Dear Colleague” letter warning that DEI-related programs in public schools could violate federal civil rights law. The letter, which cited Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the 2023 Supreme Court ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which ended race-conscious admissions, ordered schools to eliminate race-based considerations in areas such as admissions, scholarships, hiring, discipline, and student programming.

Published

2 hours ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

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By Joe W. Bowers Jr
California Black Media

California education leaders are pushing back against the Trump administration’s directive to dismantle diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in its K-12 public schools — despite threats to take away billions in federal funding.

The conflict began on Feb. 14, when Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Education (DOE), issued a “Dear Colleague” letter warning that DEI-related programs in public schools could violate federal civil rights law. The letter, which cited Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the 2023 Supreme Court ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which ended race-conscious admissions, ordered schools to eliminate race-based considerations in areas such as admissions, scholarships, hiring, discipline, and student programming.

According to Trainor, “DEI programs discriminate against one group of Americans to favor another.”

On April 3, the DOE escalated the pressure, sending a follow-up letter to states demanding that every local educational agency (LEA) certify — within 10 business days — that they were not using federal funds to support “illegal DEI.” The certification requirement, tied to continued federal aid, raised the stakes for California, which receives more than $16 billion annually in federal education funding.

So far, California has refused to comply with the DOE order.

“There is nothing in state or federal law that outlaws the broad concepts of ‘diversity,’ ‘equity,’ or ‘inclusion,’” wrote David Schapira, California’s Chief Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction, in an April 4 letter to superintendents and charter school administrators. Schapira noted that all of California’s more than 1,000 traditional public school districts submit Title VI compliance assurances annually and are subject to regular oversight by the state and the federal government.

In a formal response to the DOE on April 11, the California Department of Education, the State Board of Education, and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond collectively rejected the certification demand, calling it vague, legally unsupported, and procedurally improper.

“California and its nearly 2,000 LEAs (including traditional public schools and charter schools) have already provided the requisite guarantee that its programs and services are, and will be, in compliance with Title VI and its implementing regulation,” the letter says.

Thurmond added in a statement, “Today, California affirmed existing and continued compliance with federal laws while we stay the course to move the needle for all students. As our responses to the United States Department of Education state and as the plain text of state and federal laws affirm, there is nothing unlawful about broad core values such as diversity, equity and inclusion. I am proud of our students, educators and school communities who continue to focus on teaching and learning, despite federal actions intended to distract and disrupt.”

California officials say that the federal government cannot change existing civil rights enforcement standards without going through formal rule-making procedures, which require public notice and comment.

Other states are taking a similar approach. In a letter to the DOE, Daniel Morton-Bentley, deputy commissioner and counsel for the New York State Education Department, wrote, “We understand that the current administration seeks to censor anything it deems ‘diversity, equity & inclusion.’ But there are no federal or State laws prohibiting the principles of DEI.”