California

Graduate Student Researchers Seek Union Representation

June 23, 2021 Katherine Swartz and Gabe Schneider, Cal Matters. Organize! California, Higher Education, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

In one of the largest public employee organizing drives California has seen in over a decade, some 17,000 graduate student researchers at the University of California may soon become union members. Student Researchers United, a committee of graduate student researchers, filed a petition for union certification with the California Public Employment Relations Board May 24. Organizers say they are seeking better wages and healthcare benefits, written protections against harassment and discrimination and a formal grievance procedure. They’re also calling for more legal and political support for international student workers, and an end to irregular or late pay.

California Reparations Committee Confronts Harms Of Slavery

June 13, 2021 Jackie Botts, Cal Matters. Create! Black America, California, Racism, Reparations

For more than three decades, Black members of Congress have introduced legislation to study the lasting harms of slavery on African Americans, and propose remedies. Year after year, the federal proposal languished. Now, California is going it alone. This month, California’s first-in-the-nation task force to study reparations met for the first time, kicking off a two-year process to study the consequences of slavery and systemic racism against African Americans in California. The reparations committee of nine prominent lawyers, academics, politicians, religious and civil rights leaders — many of whom are descendants of slaves — will make formal recommendations on how the state should make reparations.

Oakland Dockworkers Refuse To Unload Israeli Cargo Ship

June 6, 2021 Nora Barrows-Friedman, Electronic Intifada. Resist! BDS, California, Dock Workers, Israel, Palestine

Hundreds of activists and dockworkers responded to an international call to action and successfully prevented an Israel-owned vessel from unloading its cargo at Oakland in California on Friday. At around 6pm, the Volans, a cargo vessel owned and operated by the ZIM shipping corporation, pulled out of port with its cargo intact. It was apparently bound for Los Angeles, according to an online schedule. Protesters had prevented the ship from docking at Oakland for more than two weeks after its scheduled arrival date. The vessel ostensibly attempted to avoid the picket line. “By refusing to unload Israeli cargo, Oakland workers are throwing a wrench in the Israeli economy and putting pressure on Israeli apartheid,” tweeted Jewish Voice for Peace. “Each day the ZIM ship can’t unload, the largest Israeli shipping company loses millions of [dollars],” the group added. Since then, ZIM ships have not tried to dock at the Oakland port – until this past month. “Rank-and-file members of ILWU Local 10 stand against Israeli apartheid and with our brothers and sisters in Palestine,” union member Jimmy Salameh stated.

Protesters At Port Of Oakland Declare Win In Israeli Cargo Boycott

June 5, 2021 Rick Hurd, East Bay Times. Resist! BDS, Block the Boat, California, Israel

Hundreds of picketers and protesters marched Friday morning in front of the Port of Oakland to keep cargo on an Israeli ship from being delivered. Approximately 1,000 people from the Arab Resource & Organizing Center and the local union for longshoremen spread out across six gates at Berth 30 near the Middle Harbor Shoreline Park in the 2700 block of Middle Harbor Road. “Our goal today is to show the city of Oakland that we do not want them to do business with and allow Israeli apartheid money to come into our city,” group spokesman Wassim Hage said by phone. “It’s part of an international picket movement at port cities around the world that will be going on over the next couple of weeks.”

Scheer Intelligence: Governor Orders Independent Investigation Into Kevin Cooper Case

May 29, 2021 Robert Scheer, ScheerPost.com. Educate! California, Death Row, Podcast, Prisoner rights

Three hours and 42 minutes. That’s how close Kevin Cooper came in 2004 to being murdered by the state, strapped down to a gurney, and poisoned via lethal injection. He had been placed in what he calls a “death chamber waiting room” and stripped of all his clothes before he was granted a stay of execution. Five years later, in an unprecedented dissent, five federal judges on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion that began: “The State of California may be about to execute an innocent man.” A rash of evidence would appear to substantiate their claim. In the opinion, Judge William A. Fletcher details multiple Brady disclosures—key information that had been ignored or actively suppressed that would compromise the case against Cooper.

There Is No ‘Border Crisis’

May 25, 2021 Josue De Luna Navarro and Khury Petersen-Smith, In These Times. Educate! Asylum, California, Customs and Border Patrol, Immigration

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) temporarily closed the San Ysidro border crossing in San Diego on the morning of Nov. 19, 2018. With 100,000 people and 40,000 vehicles crossing each day, San Ysidro is one of the most heavily crossed land borders in the world — and CBP’s actions came during Monday morning rush hour.

California Identifies 600 Communities At Risk Of Water-System Failures

May 18, 2021 Tara Lohan, The Revelator. Educate! California, Climate Change, Environment, Water

A familiar scene has returned to California: drought. Two counties are currently under emergency declarations, and the rest of the state could follow.

A Watershed Ruling On Homelessness

April 25, 2021 Kevin Schofield, South Seattle Emerald. Create! California, Homelessness, Legal System, Skid Row

California -On Tuesday, April 20, U.S. District Court Judge David Carter of the Central District of California issued a ruling that is likely to become a watershed moment in the United States’ response to homelessness. In March of last year, the LA Alliance for Human Rights and several individuals sued the City and County of Los Angeles, alleging that they had not only fundamentally failed to address the homeless emergency in Los Angeles but had in fact contributed to creating it over the course of several decades. The complaint they filed reads more like what we might imagine the authors of the “Seattle is Dying” video would have written about Los Angeles: public health hazards, accumulating trash, rising crime, blocked sidewalks, local government leaders unwilling or unable to rise to the challenge of dealing with it.

Despite Climate Commitments, Health Concerns, States Approve Fuel Tanks

April 21, 2021 Ingrid Lobet, Capital and Main. Educate! California, Environmental racism, Oil and Gas, pollution

Magali Sanchez-Hall, usually in motion, pauses for a moment on the sidewalk to gaze through a chain-link fence at the massive new construction project: tanks shaped like giant tuna fish cans that will store crude oil. The Los Angeles refinery has been her troublesome neighbor for a quarter of a century, but she finds this latest turn particularly perplexing. “Right now, we are supposed to be moving to clean energy,” she says. Sanchez-Hall, 50, raised her children here before getting a master’s degree in public policy. When Tesoro, now Marathon Petroleum Corp., first proposed the new tanks in 2016, she opposed them, citing sickening fumes from the ones already there.

Truck Drivers And Workers Strike At Southern California Ports

April 14, 2021 Kim Biggar, Splash 247. Resist! California, Port, Strike, Truckers

Truck drivers at Los Angeles and Long Beach ports, represented by the Teamsters union, started strike action against Universal Logistics Holdings (ULH) this week, adding further to extraordinary congestion woes at America’s principle west coast maritime gateways. According to the Teamsters website, ULH-affiliated companies at the ports “illegally fired truck drivers, denied them back pay, and refused to recognize and bargain with the union [the drivers] legally won.” The drivers have formed a picket line outside the ULH Southern Counties Express trucking yard in Compton, California.

Tribal Nations Fight Proposed Gold Mine Near Death Valley

March 16, 2021 Louis Sahagun, Los Angeles Times. Resist! California, Environment, Indigenous Sovereignty, Mining

Lone Pine, CA - Perched high in the craggy Inyo Mountains, between the dusty Owens Valley floor and Death Valley National Park, looms a rugged, nearly roadless chunk of desert terrain teeming with wildlife and scarred by mining operations. Conglomerate Mesa’s charcoal smelters helped give birth 150 years ago to the nearby rip-roaring silver town of Cerro Gordo, where ingots were produced and shipped off to the small pueblo of Los Angeles by steamboat and a 20-mule team. Now, the 22,500-acre tableau of Joshua trees, piñon pines and limestone boulders bristling with fossil shells is turning to mining again. Spurred by the rising price of gold, K2 Gold Corp., of Vancouver, Canada, is drilling and trenching in hopes of selling its findings or partnering with a bigger company that would, perhaps, transform the public lands into an open pit cyanide heap leach mine, just a few miles from Death Valley.

San Diego Protesters In Solidarity With Migrant Caravan

March 15, 2021 Huitzilopochtli Marron, Liberation News. Resist! California, ICE, Immigrant Rights, Migrant Caravan

On March 13, the Party for Socialism and Liberation hosted a march and banner drop beginning at Larsen Field, in the San Ysidro neighborhood of San Diego, next to the Tijuana-San Diego border. Other organizations in attendance included Socialist Alternative, Immigrant Justice League, San Diego Sunrise Movement, ANSWER San Diego, and other supporters in the community. The demonstration was held in solidarity with the migrant caravan making its way to the border through Mexico. Thousands of migrants are currently fleeing violence and persecution that are a direct result of U.S. intervention in Central America. Just miles from San Ysidro is the Otay Mesa Detention Center. The OMDC is the site where the first Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainee died from COVID-19.

Will 2021 Be Public Banking’s Watershed Moment?

March 5, 2021 Ellen Brown, The Web of Debt Blog. Create! California, Public Bank, Recession, State Government

Just over two months into the new year, 2021 has already seen a flurry of public banking activity. Sixteen new bills to form publicly-owned banks or facilitate their formation were introduced in eight U.S. states in January and February. Two bills for a state-owned bank were introduced in New Mexico, two in Massachusetts, two in New York, one each in Oregon and Hawaii, and Washington State’s Public Bank Bill was re-introduced as a “Substitution.” Bills for city-owned banks were introduced in Philadelphia and San Francisco, and bills facilitating the formation of public banks or for a feasibility study were introduced in New York, Oregon (three bills), and Hawaii. In addition, California is expected to introduce a bill for a state-owned bank later this year, and New Jersey is moving forward with a strong commitment from its governor to implement one.

The Carceral Force Of Prosecutor Associations, Explained

March 1, 2021 Angela J. Davis, The Appeal. Educate! California, Criminal justice abuse, District Attorney, Legal System

The California District Attorneys Association (CDAA), a statewide advocacy group, misappropriated almost $3 million that was earmarked to support public interest advocacy, and instead used it for general expenses including lobbying, according to a recent audit. The state attorney general’s office is currently reviewing the audit, but whether the CDAA’s misappropriation of funds results in criminal charges or other state action, the findings are remarkable and especially newsworthy because the CDAA is an organization of prosecutors—the chief county law enforcement officers in the state, and those primarily responsible for the day-to-day functions of the state’s criminal legal system.

Silicon Valley Bus Drivers Restored Community Rides For Free

February 24, 2021 Richard Marcantonio, Labor Notes. Create! California, COVID-19, Labor Unions, Public transportation

With Covid cases surging in their ranks, bus drivers in Santa Clara, California, demanded to resume rear-door boarding, which is proven to reduce the risk of infection. Management of the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) balked, even blaming the workers for getting sick. Pressure mounted from the leadership of Transit (ATU) Local 265, and from rider and community groups. But it was rank-and-file bus drivers who forced management’s hand when they started planning to stop boarding at the front door whether the agency agreed or not. Bosses prefer anything to allowing workers to run the company. On February 3, the agency announced that it would resume rear-door boarding.

«1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 »

assetto corsa mods

Daily movement news and resources