Saturday, January 26, 2019 at 1 PM – 2:30 PM
McKeldin Square, Light & Pratt Streets, downtown Baltimore

SHUT DOWN TRUMP NOT WORKERS
RALLY & PROTEST – 1 PM @ McKeldin Square,

The real emergency is not at the border but with the over 800,000 + government workers who are endangered by Trump’s shut down. It’s poor and working class communities, not just in Baltimore, Maryland and D.C. but everywhere who could lose life and death assistance — from food stamps to housing. It’s with the refugee families and children forced to flee their homes because of imperialism who are living a real emergency — not the banks and businesses who benefit from Trump’s policies.

State and local officials need to enact immediate legislation that can protect impacted workers, seniors and the poor:

*Stop all evictions, mortgage foreclosures, utility shut offs and repossessions during the government lock out.
*Take action to open up all food banks and begin food distributions.
*Working without pay, is a violation of human rights – we say no pay, no work.
*No reprisals to workers who refuse to work without pay or who cannot keep up with work loads or are forced to call out sick due to unbearable stress.
*Back pay and relief for contract workers.

It’s time we begin a “yellow vest” movement in the U.S. Join us for Solidarity Saturday’s!

If you have a vest please bring it with you on Saturday, January 26. Volunteer to get out information to workers and communities who are impacted.

Initiated by: Peoples Power Assembly for more information call 410-218-4835 . If you would like to endorse please text us at 410-218-4835.

Saturday, January 26, 2019 at 6 PM – 8:30 PM
2011 N Charles St, Baltimore, MD 21218-5927, United States

EYEWITNESS REPORT BACK FROM THE REFUGEE CARAVAN
Incredibly important discussion — get the facts about the real emergency at the border

HEAR: Alina Duarte — Journalist, Telesur Correspondent She spent several months in Tijuana with the refugee caravan.

Lucy Pagoada-Quesada — She is a teacher and representative of the National Popular Resistance Front of Honduras and can speak directly on the conditions that led to the refugee caravan

Greg Butterfield and Sharon Black — Participated in a caravan from Los Angeles to Tijuana that delivered aide to the refugee’s. Butterfield is a NYC writer and correspondent with Struggle – La Lucha for Socialism and Sharon Black is an organizer with the Peoples Power Assembly

Sponsored by: Peoples Power Assembly and Struggle La Lucha for Socialism Call: 410-218-4835

Monday, January 21, 2019 at 12 PM – 2 PM CST
51st Street and S. MLK Dr

From the murder of Laquan, to the cover-up, to politician’s disregard of the demands of Black Chicagoans, to the assassination of Laquan’s character in the courts, to the outrageous and unjust sentencing, the system has proven itself unwilling and unable to meet the needs and demands of Black people and all those vulnerable to the violence of the state.

Join us on MLK day – Monday, January 21st at 51st and S. MLK Drive at noon. We will rally and march in solidarity with victims and survivors of police violence. We refuse to back down! People, Rise UP! Justice for Laquan! Justice for Them All!

Endorsers:

Black Lives Matter Chicago (BLMCHI)
Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR)
Black Youth Project 100 (BYP100)
Millennials Addressing Rights to Change Humanity (Project M.A.R.C.H)
Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation (SOUL)
Arab American Action Network (AAAN)
Take On Hate (TOH)
U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN)
Chicago Boricua Resistance
Chicago Committee for Human Rights In the Philippines (CHRP)
International Socialist Organization (ISO)
Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO)
Answer! Chicago

On Wednesday, the third day of the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) strike, picket lines remained strong — while more cracks showed in the armor of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) bosses headed by Superintendent Austin Beutner. You could almost feel the city’s rich and powerful quaking at this week’s massive show of working-class solidarity.

Despite on and off torrential rain, following the morning pickets at every school, UTLA members held successful rallies at seven locations spread out over the entirety of Los Angeles, including offices of LAUSD and selected schools. Numerous sympathy strikes are happening and 1,000 charter school workers represented by UTLA, but not employed by LAUSD, struck against their own private employer.

Significantly, the number of students attending scab-run classrooms fell dramatically, down from 159,000 on Tuesday to 132,000 on Wednesday. That means only 27 percent of enrolled students showed up for classes.

One reason for the decline is that union members and supporters are succeeding in breaking through lies and rumors spread by LAUSD through the media that students might face penalties for being absent during the strike.

“In all, the district says it has lost $69.1 million in state funding based on attendance” since the start of the strike, reported the Los Angeles Times. “Subtract the $10 million a day in wages it hasn’t had to pay its striking workforce, and that’s a net loss of $39.1 million.”

The head of the school administrators union, Juan Flecha, suggested that campuses may need to close entirely because of “dire and unsafe working conditions.” And School Board member Scott Schmerelson broke ranks with Beutner, declaring, “I believe that there are resources available to end this strike.”

Meanwhile, School Board President Monica Garcia, a staunch supporter of Beutner’s anti-union hard line, found herself confronted by more than 100 protesting students, parents and teachers who held a rally outside her home, chanting “Monica, come out!” Instead of responding to the protesters’ demand to meet with them, Garcia called the cops.

Late in the day, the UTLA announced that there would be another attempt at bargaining on Thursday, Jan. 17. Negotiations broke off last Friday after LAUSD came forward with a new proposal that addressed the lack of school nurses and overcrowded classes, but for only one year, and limited to certain grades. After one year, a clause included in previous contracts would allow the district to again increase class sizes and eliminate nurses and other important staff.

The newly announced negotiations will include Mayor Eric Garcetti, who claims to be playing the role of mediator. However, it’s been reported that Garcetti referred to Beutner’s “strategic plan” to divide the district into 32 small units as a possible vehicle to resolution, if the union would collaborate with him.

Beutner once admitted to a group of businesspeople that this strategic plan could mean that there would be no public education system in Los Angeles by 2021. His plan to make all education, education for profit has been clearly and forcefully rejected by the people of Los Angeles this week.

This is an important fight for union rights, for sure. But it is also a huge labor and community battle to fight for and defend quality public education, at a time when school workers from Oakland to Chicago to the state of Virginia have drawn the line. UTLA and Los Angeles parents and students will win.

Day 3 Valley West rally

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No to NATO, War & Racism – March on Wash., DC – March 30

UNAC

A Call for National Mobilization to Oppose NATO, War, and Racism

April 4, 2019, will mark the 51st anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the internationally revered leader in struggles against racism, poverty and war.

And yet, in a grotesque desecration of Rev. King’s lifelong dedication to peace, this is the date that the military leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have chosen to celebrate NATO’s 70th anniversary by holding its annual summit meeting in Washington, D.C. This is a deliberate insult to Rev. King and a clear message that Black lives and the lives of non-European humanity, and indeed the lives of the vast majority, really do not matter.

Since its founding, the U.S.-led NATO has been the world’s deadliest military alliance, causing untold suffering and devastation throughout Northern Africa, the Middle East and beyond. Hundreds of thousands have died in U.S./NATO wars in Iraq, Libya, Somalia and Yugoslavia. Millions of refugees are now risking their lives trying to escape the carnage that these wars have brought to their homelands, while workers in the 29 NATO member-countries are told they must abandon hard-won social programs in order to meet U.S. demands for even more military spending.

Dr. King’s words linking the three evils of American society: Militarism, Racism and Poverty, and his deeply profound remark that every bomb that falls on other countries is a bomb dropped on our inner cities, reveal the deep-rooted relationship between militarism and the social, racial, economic and environmental injustices that now impoverish whole cities and rural communities and have plagued our society and the world for a long time. It was exactly one year before he was murdered that Rev. King gave his famous speech opposing the U.S. war in Vietnam, calling the U.S. government “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world” and declaring that he could not be silent.

We cannot be silent either. As Rev. King taught us, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
Every year NATO has held its summits, people around the world have organized massive protests against it: in Chicago (2012), Wales (2014), Warsaw (2016), Brussels (2017 & 2018) — and 2019 will be no exception.

We are calling for a peaceful mass mobilization against this year’s NATO Summit in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, March 30. Additional actions will take place at the opening of the NATO meeting on April 4. We ask you to make every effort to join with us in Washington DC, or, if not possible, organize a rally or demonstration in your area. We need to show, in the strongest possible way, our opposition to NATO’s destructive wars and its racist military policies around the world.

We also invite you to add your, and/or your organization’s name to the list of supports of the anti-NATO, Anti-War and Anti-Racism mass actions in Washington DC. Please go to the web site at http://no2nato2019.org to add your organizational or individual endorsement of the action or to make a donation to build the action.

You can also contact us by email: Contact@No2NATO2019.org.

Thank You.

Steering Committee for the March 30th Anti-NATO Mobilization:
• Bahman Azad, Coalition Against U.S. Foreign Military Bases • Ajamu Baraka, Black Alliance for Peace • Leah Bolger, World Beyond War • Alison Bodine, Mobilization Against War and Occupation • Gerry Condon, Veterans For Peace • Miguel Figueroa, Canadian Peace Congress • Sara Flounders, International Action Center • Margaret Flowers, Popular Resistance • Rev. Graylan Scott Hagler, Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ • Madelyn Hoffman, U.S. Peace Council • Tarak Kauff, Coalition Against U.S. Foreign Military Bases, Veterans For Peace • Marilyn Levin, UNAC • Joe Lombardo, UNAC • Tamara Lorincz, Canadian Voice of Women for Peace • Jeff Mackler, West Coast UNAC • Alfred L. Marder, U.S. Peace Council • Sarah Martin, Women Against Military Madness • Nancy Price, WILPF-US Section • Paul Pumphrey, Friends of the Congo • Cindy Sheehan, Gold Star Families for Peace • Paki Wieland, CODEPINK • Phil Wilayto, Virginia Defenders • Ann Wright, Veterans For Peace, CODEPINK • Kevin Zeese, Popular Resistance

Press Conference: Friday, Jan. 18th, 6:30AM at Maya Angelou High School. 300 E. 53rd St. LA 90011. Parents and students will speak in support of the teacher strike and they will explain to other parents that students will NOT get in trouble for absences during the strike. Please spread the word! Thank you for your continued support for the strike! This press conference is being organized by Union del Barrio in conjunction w UTLA chapters and other community organizations.

Conferencia de prensa: viernes 18 de enero, 6:30 a.m. en la escuela Maya Angelou High. 300 E. 53rd St. LA 90011. Los padres y los estudiantes hablarán en apoyo de la huelga de maestros y les explicarán a otros padres que los estudiantes NO tendrán problemas por las ausencias durante la huelga. ¡Pasa la voz! ¡Gracias por su apoyo a la huelga! Esta conferencia de prensa está siendo organizada por Union del Barrio en conjunto con miembros de UTLA y otras organizaciones comunitarias.

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If the first day of the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) strike was dramatic, then the second truly showed the strength of the union and its supporters.

UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl, speaking to union members, reported that 100 percent strike participation by schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the country’s second largest, continued on Jan. 15.

Some 30,000 members were out on strike, he said, joined by thousands of parents, and community and labor allies. “Our picket lines grew on the second day,” Caputo-Pearl explained.

Also, for the second day in a row, more than 50,000 people rallied in downtown Los Angeles. This time their target was the headquarters of the California Charter Schools Association, which UTLA calls “a corporate lobby group powered by millions in donations from wealthy privatizers like Eli Broad so they can buy school boards and push the corporate takeover of schools.”

A new front opened in the struggle against school privatization on Tuesday as teachers and school workers went on strike at Accelerated Charter School in Los Angeles. It’s the first strike at a charter school in California, and only the second ever in the U.S. Workers there are “fighting for basic rights,” said Caputo-Pearl, adding, “We are reshaping the charter school debate.”

He also reported that a Loyola Marymount University poll found that nearly 80 percent of people living in Los Angeles County support the teachers — a phenomenal amount.

Scott Scheffer of Struggle-La Lucha gave an example of the widespread support. “When I was leaving from the morning picketing yesterday to go to my job, I was traveling north on the 110 Freeway. As I was approaching an overpass, I saw that there were a number of people, each holding up a sign on the overpass so that commuters could read them. Each one had one letter on it and it just said one word: TEACHERS.

“As I got closer, I could hear what must have been every single horn honking in all the northbound lanes, and when I looked in my rearview mirror, I saw people flashing their headlights,” Scheffer reported. “I can’t remember ever seeing this kind of public support for a strike, and it made me realize that this is more than a strike by the union. This is the communities defending their children’s education.”

LAUSD Superintendent “Austin Beutner is scrambling,” said Caputo-Pearl. “He did not expect the strength of the strike, of the community and the labor movement.” Beutner held a press conference where he had some parents make the ridiculous claim that union teachers don’t care about their students because they all send their own children to private schools.

Beutner and those behind him have also been spreading lies in the corporate media, claiming that the union refuses to negotiate, and spreading rumors that students who are absent during the strike will be penalized. Neither of these claims is true.

In response to the scare campaign, Unión del Barrio-Los Angeles has called a press conference for Friday, Jan. 18, at 6:30 a.m. at Maya Angelou High School, 300 E. 53 St. in South Central Los Angeles. There, parents and students will speak out in support of the teachers’ strike and explain to other parents and students that they will not get in trouble for being absent during the strike. Everyone is encouraged to attend and show their support.

Video en español: Ruben Tapia (KPFK) sobre huelga de maestros

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MLK Day March to Reclaim the City
Hosted by Youth Against Displacement and Coalition to Protect Chinatown & LES

Monday, January 21, 2019 at 12 PM – 2 PM
229 Cherry St, New York, NY 10002

From the illegal megatowers the City wants to build in Two Bridges in Lower East Side, to the East Harlem and Inwood rezonings, to privatization of NYCHA and public land, to the Amazon headquarters in LIC subsidized by our tax dollars, it is clear Mayor de Blasio wants to turn our city into a banking account for the 1% at the expense of the people who live and work here. Everywhere across the city, people are standing up against the gentrifier-in-chief Mayor.

This Martin Luther King Day, we will gather at the 80-story Extell luxury tower, which has a “poor door” to separate low- and middle-income families from the rich. This is de Blasio’s legacy of segregation and economic racism. Dr. King would be so aghast to hear that this Mayor even shamelessly brands himself the “progressive leader” of the city. From Extell, we will march to City Hall to tell the Mayor: WE WILL NOT BE MOVED!

Are you ready to take up the fight to save your lives and your neighborhoods? join our march to reclaim the City that’s supposed to work for the people, not the richest 1%. We demand the Mayor:
1. Stop City agencies from evicting tenants on behalf of landlords to deny the tenants’ rights of due process
2. Stop selling public land (including NYCHA) and end 421-a tax exemption
3. End the City’s pro-developer rezonings. Pass community-led rezoning plans that put people first and protect workers, tenants, small businesses and schools, like the Chinatown Working Group plan.

When: MLK Day, January 21, 2019, @ 12 noon
Where: Cherry and Pike Streets, Lower East Side (F train to East Broadway)

Jan. 14 — Today, some 27,000 members and supporters of United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) picketed school sites on the rainy first morning of the Los Angeles teachers’ strike, then gathered for a huge rally at Grand Park downtown.

Students walked out of many schools to join the rally. Some traveled on a union-supplied bus to show support for their teachers, school nurses, counselors and librarians.

Thousands of union signs showed that these education workers are fighting, on behalf of their students, to turn back years of defunding and neglect by the national drive to privatize public schools.

Struggle-La Lucha activists joined the morning picket line at Maya Angelou High School in South Central Los Angeles, followed by the mass rally downtown. (See videos from the picket line below.)

Bargaining had broken off on Friday, Jan. 11. In response to the announcement of a new state budget that includes more money for education, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) came forward with a new contract proposal. But the new offer was more publicity stunt than bargaining, and negotiators for the teachers and school workers rejected it immediately.

Instead, union organizers spent the weekend preparing for the strike on Monday and the days ahead.

On Tuesday, after the morning picketing at school sites, UTLA members will rally at the office of the California Charter Schools Association. Seven more rallies are scheduled for Wednesday after the morning picketing, including at LAUSD headquarters and two LAUSD district offices.

Details of all strike activities can be found on the calendar on UTLA’s website.  

Union power! Go UTLA!

Photos: SLL, John Parker

Videos: John Parker

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Saturday, January 19

Hosted by Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network

At Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Sq, New York, New York 10007

Palestinian parliamentarian, feminist and leftist leader Khalida Jarrar is imprisoned without charge or trial by the Israeli occupation. Her “administrative detention” order was renewed for the fourth time on Thursday, October 25. Jarrar had already been jailed without charge or trial for 16 months. The new detention order once again renewed her imprisonment for four more.

Approximately 480 Palestinian prisoners are held under “administrative detention,” out of nearly 5,500 total Palestinian political prisoners. “Administrative detention” orders are indefinitely renewable. Palestinian prisoners have spent years at a time jailed through orders renewed repeatedly on the basis of so-called “secret files” to which both the detainees and their lawyers are denied access.

As the end of her latest detention order nears, stand with Jarrar to demand that Israel release her, other “administrative detainees” and all Palestinian prisoners.

Support the Palestinian national and prisoners’ movements, the Palestinian Resistance, and the liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.

Meet on the steps of the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse at 9:30 am, then cross Centre Street to Foley Square at 10:00.