Youth Activism

Walkouts Underway In Virginia Against Attack On Trans Students

September 28, 2022 Brett Wilkins, Common Dreams. Resist! Education, Transgender Rights, Virginia, Youth Activism

Chanting "trans rights are human rights," "DOE, let us be," and other slogans, students at scores of schools took part in demonstrations calling for the rejection of model Virginia Department of Education policies proposed earlier this month by Youngkin that, if approved, would force schools to categorize pupils according to scientifically dubious notions of "biological sex." The proposed changes would reverse existing trans-affirming guidelines that some students have credited with saving their lives. In what some opponents have called another attempt to erase trans people, the proposal limits the definition of "transgender student" to someone "whose parent has requested in writing, due to their child's persistent and sincere belief that his or her gender differs with his or her sex, that their child be so identified while at school."

Young Workers Are Bridging The Climate And Labor Movements

July 27, 2022 Leanna First-Arai, Truthout. Organize! Climate Justice, Labor Movements, Unions, Youth Activism

New momentum is buzzing through the North American labor movement, driven by the same age group which, across party affiliations and the urban-rural divide, has expressed majority-to-outsize support for advancing a climate policy overhaul with economic justice at its core. After ticking up slightly in 2020, the overall union membership rate in the United States fell back to where it’s been hovering the past few years, in 2021. But in spite of the stagnancy of other age groups, union membership among workers between 25 and 34 years old was on the rise, climbing from 8.8 percent in 2019 to a still-modest 9.4 percent in 2021. That bump does not account for the surge in union drives over the past eight months — including in the midst of this writing — many of which have been led by young workers.

At March For Our Lives, A Call For A Nationwide Strike Of Schools

June 12, 2022 Common Dreams. Resist! Mass Shootings, National Strike, Public schools, Youth Activism

Hundreds of thousands took to the streets in over 450 protests across the country Saturday demanding lawmakers take action on gun control laws in the wake of recent mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York. March for Our Lives, the youth-led organization created by students who survived the mass shooting at Parkland's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018, organized Saturday's rallies. Patricia and Manuel Oliver, whose son, Joaquin, was among those killed in Parkland, addressed the Washington, DC crowd announcing a new campaign called I Will Avoid. “Our elected officials have betrayed us and avoid the responsibility to end gun violence…Today we announce a new call to action, because I think it's time to bring a consequence to their inaction."

Chicago Students Want Police Out Of Their Schools

June 6, 2022 Joe Iosbaker, Fight Back News. Resist! Chicago, Education, Illinois, Police, Youth Activism

Chicago, Illinois - On June 2, 250 students at Little Village Lawndale High School (LVLHS) in Chicago walked out of school to demand “Police out!” They marched through Little Village, which is the largest Latino neighborhood in Chicago, to the North Lawndale neighborhood, which is a Black community. The protest was organized by the LVLHS FightBack student group, which called for “Black and Brown Unity.” Other demands raised by the students included equitable funding for all four schools. They explained there are four separate schools within one building. The school which has a predominantly Black student body receives less funding per student than the other three. They also want an end to punitive policies on students. They explained that they want outreach workers and community violence prevention specialists in their schools.

US Students Walk Out To Protest Gun Violence

May 27, 2022 Jacob Crosse, WSWS. Resist! Education, Gun violence, Mass Shootings, Youth Activism

In response to Tuesday’s massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, which left at least 17 people injured, 19 elementary students and two teachers dead, students and teachers across the United States walked out of school Thursday to protest gun violence. Several walkouts occurred at schools where memories are still fresh from their own tragic experience with mass homicidal violence, a routine phenomenon in capitalist America. At Oxford High School, located on the outskirts of the Detroit, Michigan metro region, where a school shooting last December left four students dead, hundreds of students walked out of school and amassed on the football field, where they formed a “U” in support of Uvalde.

The New Labor Movement Is Young, Worker-Led And Winning

May 17, 2022 Katie Barrows and Ethan Miller, In These Times. Organize! Labor Movement, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs, Youth Activism

This year, May Day was celebrated during a historic moment for the American labor movement. Nearly every day, news reports announce another example of workers exercising their rights as nonprofit professionals, Starbucks workers, and employees at corporations like Amazon, REI and Conde Nast announce their union drives. The approval rating for labor unions has reached its highest point in over 50 years, standing at 68 percent, and petitions for new union elections at the National Labor Relations Board increased 57 percent during the first half of fiscal year 2021. Three years ago, we wrote an op-ed about how young workers in historically unorganized occupations — such as digital journalism, higher education and nonprofit organizations — were beginning to rebuild the labor movement.

Marking Workers’ Day In Dispiriting Times

May 4, 2022 New Frame, Black Agenda Report. Strategize! May Day, South Africa, Worker Rights and Jobs, Youth Activism

Most young people in South Africa do not have a job and are, under current circumstances, unlikely to ever have one. For years, deindustrialization and the collapse of mining laid waste to unionized jobs. Now state austerity is hacking away at the public sector. Many of the few new jobs that are being created are poorly paid, precarious and not well unionized. Some of this can be ascribed to powerful global forces that are difficult for any state to resist. And the deep structural features of our society were built by colonialism and are so entrenched that they cannot easily be changed. But there is no doubt that the ANC’s poor economic policy choices have also been a significant part of the failure to build a viable economy. This has been compounded by the appalling state of public education, the collapse of a significant part of the ANC into a violent kleptocracy, the decay of infrastructure and a series of damaging events such as the brutally enforced hard Covid lockdowns, the winter riots and the recent floods in KwaZulu-Natal.

Students Launch Campaign For Fresher Food, More Options, Better Pay

April 2, 2022 Rory Linnane, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Create! Education, Food and Agriculture, Worker Rights and Jobs, Youth Activism

Calling attention to the lack of fresh food in their lunches at Milwaukee Public Schools, student leaders have launched a "school lunch justice" campaign outside the district's central offices. The students are part of Youth Empowered in the Struggle (YES), the multiracial youth arm of Voces de La Frontera, an advocacy organization for the rights of immigrants and workers. "Our lunches are cooked in a central location and distributed to the schools to be reheated, resulting in undercooked food and of substandard quality," said YES leader Katherine Villanueva, a senior at Milwaukee School of Languages. "This is not acceptable." Villanueva said YES surveyed more than 1,000 MPS students and found that the quality of school lunch was the "most pressing issue" with the school environment.

Students Organize Occupation In Solidarity With Striking Teachers

March 24, 2022 Tatiana Cozzarelli, Left Voice. Resist! Education, Minneapolis, Strike, Worker Rights and Jobs, Youth Activism

Temperatures are below freezing in Minneapolis with rain and snow falling as teachers enter their third week on strike. Negotiations are occurring at the Davis Center, where Minneapolis Public School District has refused to provide a living wage to Educational Support Staff or accept other demands. Outside, hundreds of teachers are dancing, chanting and picketing. “We have decided to organize an occupation of the Davis Center. We are going to have students here 24-7. We are going to be here all the time. And this is to increase awareness of the strike,” said one of the students. Inside, dozens of students announced that they are occupying the building. “As much media as we are getting, we haven’t been making big enough waves, or not enough waves to change MPS’ [Minneapolis Public Schools] mind.”

Three Years After The First Global School Strike, Signs Of Success

March 19, 2022 Nick Engelfried, Waging Nonviolence. Resist! climate crisis, Climate Justice, Environment, Youth Activism

Three years ago this week — on March 15, 2019 — an estimated 1.4 million young people and supporters in 128 countries skipped school or work for what was then the largest youth-led day of climate protests in history. That record was soon eclipsed by even larger demonstrations later that year, with 1.8 million joining a May 24 day of action, and 7.6 million protesting for the climate over the course of Sept. 20 and the week that followed. The school strikes for climate movement, launched by 15-year-old Greta Thunberg of Sweden in late 2018, had reinvigorated the global climate movement and brought public participation to levels never seen before. By early 2019, thousands of young people were already skipping school to protest for the climate each week in Europe, but the school strikes had only just begun to catch on in the United States.

Just Stop Oil Supporter Locks To Goalpost During Football Game

March 19, 2022 Just Stop Oil. Resist! Oil and Gas, Sports, United Kingdom (UK), Youth Activism

At 8:50 PM today, a young supporter of Just Stop Oil ran onto the pitch during the Everton vs Newcastle United game to draw attention to the group’s demand that the Government ends all new fossil fuel supply projects. Louis, 21, locked on to the goalpost at Goodison Park wearing a Just Stop Oil t-shirt, causing the referee to stop play or nearly 10 minutes. The shirt featured a link – bit.ly/WeHaveNoFuture – which leads to a short video message. Louis said: “It’s 2022 and it’s time to look up, time to step up and not stand by. It’s time to act like it’s an emergency. “Report after report is telling me that my future is going to be dire, and my government is telling me not to worry and pay into a pension. “My generation is being shafted — we face a cost of living crisis, a housing crisis, a fuel crisis and an unlivable planet — but we have a choice. We can choose to highlight that our climate is breaking down, we can choose to resist this government that is betraying us, we can choose to step up and not stand by.”

‘Mothers And Fathers March’ Stands Behind Youth Resisting Coup

February 27, 2022 Pavan Kulkarni, People's Dispatch. Resist! coup, Sudan, Youth Activism

On Saturday, February 26, thousands of elderly people in Sudan took part in the ‘Mothers and Fathers march’ to voice their support for the youth who, organized under the neighborhood Resistance Committees (RCs), continue resisting the military junta daily on the streets. The security forces attacked this demonstration, injuring at least 34 people, said the Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors (CCSD). At least 83 pro-democracy protesters have been killed by security forces, and more than 3,000 have been injured in the four months since the coup by army chief Abdel Fattah al Burhan on October 25, 2021. Over 450 of the injured protesters remain hospitalized as of Sunday, February 27, according to data compiled by Hadreen Organization. 26 have lost limbs or other organs and seven are paralyzed.

High School Students Organized Thousands To Walk Out For Amir Locke

February 17, 2022 Paige Oamek and Maggie Duffy , In These Times. Resist! Amir Locke, Black America, Minnesota, police brutality, Youth Activism

More than 3,000 high school students from across the Twin Cities metro area in Minnesota walked out of class February 8 to march to the governor’s mansion and demand justice following the death of Amir Locke. Locke, a 22-year-old Black man, was shot and killed February 2 by a Minneapolis Police Department SWAT officer during a no-knock apartment raid. Locke was neither named in the no-knock warrant nor a resident of the apartment. In an area beset by the police killings of Black residents — including 46-year-old George Floyd in May 2020 — Locke’s death sparked marches and car caravans across the Twin Cities. Twin Cities high school students organized quickly through social media to demand the demilitarization of the Minneapolis Police Department, the resignation of those culpable in the killing of Amir Locke, and a ban on no-knock warrants.

A ‘Gen U’ Of Starbucks Baristas Is Powering A Growing Push To Unionize

February 2, 2022 Kate Rogers And Amelia Lucas, CNBC. Organize! Starbucks, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs, Youth Activism

After notching a first win late last year, two Starbucks company-owned stores have formally organized after a December vote and hearing before the National Labor Relations Board. To date, more than 30 company-owned stores from Massachusetts to Tennessee and Arizona have filed for union elections at Starbucks, according to a CNBC analysis of NLRB filings. An industry-wide labor crunch and the high-profile union push from Starbucks workers could mean more chains see their employees follow suit. “I do think, right now, this is the canary in the coal mine for the union and for the industry,” said MKM Partners analyst Brett Levy. The petitions to organize have come faster than even those involved first believed possible, according to Richard Bensinger, union organizer with Starbucks Workers United and a former organizing director of the AFL-CIO.

Occupy Biden Activists Will Rally On January 1

December 30, 2021 Occupy Biden, Popular Resistance. Resist! climate crisis, Delaware, Occupy Biden, Youth Activism

This week, environmental advocates addressed intensifying fossil fuel pollution, climate injustices, and the Biden administration’s failure to take the lead on climate crisis solutions during the Occupy Biden protests near Joe Biden’s Wilmington, DE home. Their goal remains to increase the pressure on the President to declare a climate emergency and end new fossil fuel projects. The actions are being led by local community leaders and supported by dozens of environmental and social justice groups from around the country, and have resulted in hundreds of people taking action. The Occupy Biden actions began on Christmas Day, December 25, and will culminate in a rally and march at 1 pm. New Year's Day, January 1.

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