Oak Creek, WI – On Friday, February 2, the Milwaukee Anti-war Committee (MAC) and around 30 supporters gathered at Drexel Town Square in the Milwaukee suburb of Oak Creek, and marched through the town center to the headquarters of Astronautics Corporation of America.

Astronautic, founded in Milwaukee in 1959, is a defense corporation contracted with the U.S. military and has direct ties to the Israeli Defense Force (IDF). Protesters’ voices ringing out in the street and echoing off of apartment buildings, the passionate crowd chanted, “Astronautics you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!”

This was the third protest that MAC held against Astronautics, a corporation with a long history of war profiteering, specifically making computers and systems for weapons and fighter jets used all around the world. After stopping at Astronautics headquarters, the crowd heard speeches from MAC and two other local organizations, Students for a Democratic Society at UW-Milwaukee (SDS-UWM) and Freedom Road Socialist Organization – Wisconsin (FRSO-WI).

Each speaker highlighted the local ties of Astronautics and the U.S. war machine more broadly to people’s everyday lives in Milwaukee.

“Astronautics partners with other global defense industry giants such as: Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, The Israeli Aircraft Industries, and many more. But they are also heavily embedded in our own community,” said Sara Onitsuka, chair of MAC. “They sponsor the Milwaukee Air and Water Show every summer, which is marketed as a family-friendly event despite being a huge recruiting and propaganda fest for the U.S. military. They attend career fairs at colleges and offer internships to young people to entice them into joining the Astronautics team.”

Onitsuka continued, describing why the company’s involvement in the community is so problematic: “Kids and youth here, locally, are being taught the narrative that we need these kinds of corporations to stimulate the economy. That they’re beneficial and good and have our personal interests in mind – never mind the death and destruction they are dealing abroad. And never mind that at home many people also don’t have access to what we need – healthcare, safe and affordable housing, even a basic living wage.”

Audari Tamayo, member of SDS-UWM, drew connections between Astronautics and the names of buildings at the UW-Milwaukee campus, stating, “Just like this innocuous-looking building houses genocide abettors, our university houses the name of a genocide perpetrator, Golda Meir, and the last name of the co-founder of this shameless company, Nathaniel Zelazo. In an attempt to wash the blood off their hands, Nathaniel Zelazo funded the construction of the Helene Zelazo Center for Performing Arts,” he said, to boos from the crowd. Tamayo explained that Nathaniel Zelazo “named it after his wife, but who cares about the love story of a war criminal? Astronautics is shameless. UWM is shameless. We must call these executives what they are: war criminals.”

Finally, Lo Cross, a member of FRSO, described the connections across movements for liberation. “When Astronautics manufactures weapons to murder innocent Palestinians abroad, weapons manufacturers, under the same orders from the military here, manufacture weapons to massacre and bomb the oppressed here, in Tulsa, in Philly. In both instances the goal being to further dispossess and massacre Black, brown and Indigenous communities.”

Cross described how organizing in FRSO helps them continue to fight for the liberation of all people. “But being a part of a revolutionary organization means you realize that as long as freedom is a power that can be taken away it’s something that you will always have to fight for. And the struggle that will really create lasting change is the struggle for liberation – the struggle for the liberation of the nationally oppressed and the struggle for the liberation of the working class!”

Many cars and trucks passing by honked in support of the march. MAC will continue putting the pressure on the Milwaukee born-and-bred Astronautics, making it known city and metro wide that the corporation profits off of genocide and that the people will not stand for it.

#OakCreekWI #MilwaukeeWI #AntiWarMovement #International #MiddleEast #Palestine #FRSO #MKEAWC #SDS #SDSUWM #Aeronautics #MilitaryIndustrialComplex

Oak Creek, WI – On Friday, December 15, the Milwaukee Anti-war Committee (MAC) and community members went to Astronautics Corporation of America in Oak Creek to continue their campaign against the company’s role in the genocide of Palestinians.

The rally marked the second time MAC has protested Astronautics over the last few weeks, as members made it clear that they will not be quiet while a company so close to home gets away with profiting from murder.

Astronautics supplies integrated systems, flat-panel displays, and digital avionics equipment for military aircrafts used by both the United States and Israel. This technology has been used in Iraq, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Libya, Lebanon, Vietnam, Somalia, Bosnia and Palestine – many times throughout the last decade.

“From the Vietnam War to Operation Desert Storm, Astronautics has been supplying atrocities committed by the United States for decades, as Astronautics Corporation was founded right here in Milwaukee in 1959,” said Evelyn Schumann of MAC. “The genocide of Palestinians isn’t just a global issue but a domestic one directly supplied by our government, and with weapon manufacturers like Astronatics here in Milwaukee, it’s a local issue too.”

The Milwaukee Anti-war Committee was joined by Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) and Wisconsin Labor for Palestine.

“The American government’s tendency to repeatedly support occupation around the world is no coincidence, it happens because it is economically and politically beneficial – this is the result of imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism,” said Sam Charnon, the security chair of MAC and a member of FRSO.

Picketing of the employee parking exit occurred in between speeches, where, instead of facing protesters, many Astronautics employees chose to instead use the truck entrance/exit. Increased police presence and “No trespassing” signs posted all over the property show that the corporation is feeling the pressure. After speeches and picketing, chalking of the sidewalk and driveway of the employee parking entrance occurred, where things like “Shame on Astronautics!” “Free Palestine!” and “Get a new job!” were written.

The Milwaukee Anti-war Committee says that as long as Astronautics is supplying weapons technology used in genocide, they will be back and in ever larger numbers.

#OakCreekWI #International #Palestine #AntiWar #MAC #FRSO

Oak Creek, WI – On February 17, over 50 people gathered in front of Starbucks in Oak Creek, a suburb of Milwaukee, for an announcement that the workers at that location filed for a union election. Shortly after, it was announced that an additional Wisconsin Starbucks filed for a union election, this one in the tiny community of Plover. The election filing is one of at least 100 across the country where Starbucks workers demanded a union at their workplace. Except for the first few weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, Starbucks workers have worked through it all.

The workers at Starbucks are beset on all sides. While the company offers some fringe benefits – which are rare, such as tuition reimbursement – pay still remains low, working hours are unpredictable, and workers are regularly exposed to contagion, often by obstinate, hostile people refusing to wear masks. While the workers at Starbucks are faced with these threats to their health and safety, Howard Schultz, the company’s chairman emeritus, remains one of the wealthiest people on the planet.

Members of the organizing committee, all young women, spoke before the crowd, with committee member Hannah Fogarty saying, “We are here today because we are standing up for what we deserve. What we are looking for is our safety, both physical and financial,” adding their call for, “improved COVID policies, improved sick pay, and financially also with sick pay and being paid a livable wage. None of us make enough to build a savings account; we can’t afford any accidents.”

The Starbucks workers in Oak Creek were not alone. Leaders from unions across Milwaukee and State Senator Chris Larson stood in solidarity with the Starbucks workers in the arctic cold. AFSCME Local 526 vice-president Jacob Flom cheered on the Starbucks workers with some comments during the rally.

“We are really thrilled to see the Starbucks workers organizing all across the country. This wave is just kicking off and this big upsurge is bringing new life to the labor movement that we really need,” Flom said.

Carlos Ginard, an organizer with Workers United, the union organizing Starbucks workers across the country, said that 85% of the workers at the Oak Creek store had signed union cards. Even with such an overwhelming amount of support, Ginard expects Starbucks to fight organizing efforts like the company has at each of the other 100-plus stores where Workers United has filed for union elections. Workers United continues undaunted. Two Buffalo, New York-area Starbucks locations have won union elections and in Mesa, Arizona, where a judge had previously issued an injunction to temporarily block the counting of ballots, Starbucks Workers United won a union election 25-3.

If successful, the union election at the Starbucks in Oak Creek would be the third worker victory at a Milwaukee-area coffee shop, joining Likewise Coffee and Colectivo Coffee with the Teamsters and IBEW, respectively. A victory in Plover would be a statement that it’s not just bigger cities where workers can organize and win. These two organizing efforts are sure to be the first of many across the state. For a long time it was conventional wisdom of gutless trade union bureaucrats that organizing in the service industry was not possible, but baristas in the Milwaukee area are proving that fortune favors the bold.

#OakCreekWI #PeoplesStruggles #AFSCME #Starbucks

White supremacist Michael Page opened fire on the temple August 5, killing five men and one woman and injuring two more.

The memorial had the caskets of the Sikh victims, which included Ranjit Singh and Sita Singh, two brothers in their 40s; 84-year old Suvig Singh, a former farmer from India; Praskash Singh, a priest; and Paramjit Kaur, a 41-year old mother who worked over 60 hours a week to provide for her family.

Nikki Rehal is a young member of the Sikh temple and spoke to Fight Back!.

She said her parents immigrated from India to the U.S. in 1972.

Rehal spoke about the discrimination her family faced after 9/11 and said all she and her family wanted was a safe community

“We believe in equality and are against discrimination,” she said. “People must get to know other people before they make a decision about who people really are.”

“This tragedy still has not hit me. I'm staying busy attending memorials and helping clean the temple,” she said.

Rehal then spoke of the two brave Sikh children, a brother and sister, who were outside playing when they saw Page open fire. They rushed inside the temple and were able to warn people, saving many lives.

#OakCreekWI #WhiteSupremacy #Sikh #MichaelPage #SikhTempleOfWisconsin #SikhTempleMassacre