Activism

“Whose City? Our City!” – Teachers and Port Workers Strike to Stop Corporate Privatizers

At the heart of the protests were united actions of the Oakland Education Association (OEA) and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10. The strikes, as well as rallies and a march, were proposed by a new coalition, Schools and Labor Against Privatization (S.L.A.P.), composed of rank-and-file educators, members and leaders of the ILWU and community members opposed to the privatization of public assets and the accelerated displacement of Oakland’s Black, Latino and working-class residents.

Published

3 years ago

May 8, 2022

Oakland Post

Port workers, teachers and supporters march down Broadway from City Hall to school district headquarters to oppose school closures and Port of Oakland stadium privatization project, April 29, 2022. Photo by Ken Epstein.

By Ken Epstein

In a show of growing strength, Oakland teachers and longshore workers held simultaneous one-day strikes and rallies together on April 29 to stop billionaires and corporations, backed by elected Democrats, who seek to gentrify the city by closing as many as half of Oakland’s public schools and giving away public funds and public land to build a $12-billion luxury real estate project and baseball stadium at the Port.

The OEA called the one-day Unfair Labor Practices strike to protest the district’s unilateral decision to close schools this year and next year without consulting the affected school communities.

The union says this violates a 2019 strike settlement agreement. Seventy-five percent of voting members voted in favor of the strike, and 94% of union members honored the picket lines. Trying to have the strike declared “illegal,” the school district asked the California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) for an injunction, but the request was denied. The district asked families to keep their children home from school that Friday.

The ILWU shut down the Port of Oakland’s day shift that Friday with a stop-work meeting, which is allowed under the union contract. Later in the afternoon, community members at Port terminals shut down the night shift as longshore workers refused to cross picket lines.

OEA President Keith Brown told the Oakland Post, “The reason why educators were forced to take this action is because the Oakland Unified School District must honor their agreements – there must be engagement with family and community before taking any actions to close schools. The actions of the majority of the school board have been very disrespectful to parents and the community. We are encouraged by the powerful support for the one-day strike. But it’s only the beginning of the movement to fund our schools and save our schools from closure.”

OEA representatives voted at a union meeting this week to “stand in solidarity with ILWU Local 10 and to support their fight to save the Port of Oakland. It’s a continuation of the longtime solidarity between educators of Oakland and longshore workers,” Brown said.

“There’s been tremendous support from parents, community and labor in this fight to save our schools, shown by numbers coming out for rallies,” Brown continued. “We need to continue to build from that momentum, to reach out to the faith community and others to organize and educate. We need to work in the November elections to elect school board members who will work with parents and stakeholders, not run from the community and not hide from the community, not close our neighborhood schools.”

Trent Willis, immediate past president of ILWU Local 10 and a leader of S.L.A.P., said the fight to stop privatization of the Port of Oakland is a survival issue for longshore workers.

“We have no choice but to oppose the stadium. We’re fighting for our lives,” he said. With only $1 billion of the $12 billion Howard Terminal project designated to build the stadium, Willis said, “This is a real estate deal masquerading as a stadium project. It’s a slick gimmick. Just having the stadium there would be a nightmare for cargo, pedestrians, the rails, transportation. The costs (to the public) would be astronomical to make it safe for people to travel through that area.”

He said he liked Councilmember Carroll Fife’s proposal for allowing Oakland voters to decide whether they want to use public funds to build the Port project. People in Oakland “don’t want to spend public money on building the stadium.”

Strike actions began early Friday morning with OEA members picketing at school sites throughout the city. Teachers were joined on the picket lines by students and families as well as community members and school workers in AFSCME and SEIU 1021.

At a mid-day event, hundreds of teachers and supporters held a “Save Our Schools” block party at Lake Merritt with interactive activities and warm solidarity, along with a lot of education on how school closures and privatization negatively impact Black students and other students of color.

A joint rally of teachers, port workers and community members took place at 2:00 p.m. in Oscar Grant Plaza in front of Oakland City Hall, followed by a short march down Broadway to rally in front of the school district headquarters at 1000 Broadway. At 4:30 p.m., members of the community went to the Port to shut down work on the night shift.

An election forum sponsored by S.L.A.P. on Saturday asked candidates for mayor, board of supervisors and county superintendent of schools where they stood on the issues of school closings and privatization of the Port.

Oakland Post

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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

52 minutes 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.

Oakland Post

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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

1 hour 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.

Oakland Post

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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.”