Vernon, CA – At a UPS hub in Vernon, California, members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) union held their weekly Teamster Thursdays on June 29. The workers were loud and militant and demanded better pay and a fair contract.

“I was a new hire here during the pandemic and I saw my coworkers drop left and right. They were calling us heroes; they even have a banner in there that says, ‘Heroes work here’. Our hard work made UPS billions in profit. The least they could do is pay us a living wage,” said Alejandro Orellana, a Teamster and an unloader at UPS Grande Vista.

The scene turned tense when three supervisors walked out of the hub to harass the workers who were making use of their protected right to conduct union activity in a public space, telling them they could not park in the employee parking lot because it’s “company property.” The workers called them out and accused them of union busting. They threatened to file an Unfair Labor Practice charge against them, and the supervisors left.

“From what I saw was that we were doing our thing and they just came up to us saying if we worked there, if we were on the clock while doing this, asked us where we parked, and then told us that we couldn’t do what we were doing because it looked like we’re protesting but we told them it’s practice, even says so on the sign. Then they said they were gonna talk to our shop steward about this then they left. I still kept supporting Teamsters,” said Juan Garribo, another Teamster at Grande Vista.

Teamsters at UPS Grande Vista have their work cut out for them in dealing with harassment, unsanitary work conditions, bad air quality and faulty equipment, among many other grievances posed by the workers.

UPS and the IBT continue contract negotiations as the August 1 deadline draws closer. For UPS things are heating up and they feel the pressure.

#VernonCA #Teamsters #UPS #California

Los Angeles, CA – Thousands of supporters from South LA, along with multiple political forces, continued to denounce the killing of 29-year-old Dijon Kizzee by the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department (LASD) at a protest on September 12. Kizzee was shot 20 times by deputies from LASD’s South LA station for an alleged vehicle code violation that ended in a fatal altercation on August 31. Kizzee’s family called for murder charges against the sheriff deputies responsible for his death.

Organized by Coalition for Community Control of Police, Black Lives Matter-LA and several other organizations, the action started at the site where deputies shot and killed Kizzee. Protesters then marched through the neighborhood until arriving at a nearby intersection next to the sheriff's station. They were met with sheriffs in riot gear who blocked the main road of Imperial Highway with barricades and military vehicles.

Several families who have lost their sons to police killings denounced the LA County Sheriffs and LAPD. The groups called for prosecution of the police, the ousting of LA’s District Attorney Jackie Lacey, and voting Trump out in the 2020 November elections. Carlos Montes with Centro CSO spoke of the unity and solidarity that exists between the Blacks and Chicanos. He called for community control of the police and Black power, saying that once Black people are free, we will all be free!

Since the killing of Dijon Kizzee, actions at the South LA station have ranged from press conferences to protests. The South LA County South LA Sheriff's station has met these organized and spontaneous actions with violent repression and has shot teargas, rubber bullets and flashbangs at participants, including journalists and photographers. Participants have compared deputy repression to a warzone. In a few instances, the sheriffs declared the protests an unlawful assembly within five minutes, which they used as justification to instigate violence and ultimately ambush and arrest protesters for being present or “looking like protesters.” Sheriff press conferences have labeled protesters as “outside agitators'' to further divide and confuse the public on the actions occurring at the station.

#LACA #PoliceBrutality #PeoplesStruggles #Antiracism #BlackLivesMatter #PoliceCrimes #California #BLM #DijonKizzee

Freedom Road Socialist Organization stands with working people on the West Coast who are threatened by the massive wildfires that have taken scores of lives. Dozens more are missing and feared dead and thousands of homes were destroyed. We encourage FRSO members in California, Oregon and Washington to assist in whatever way possible in efforts that ensure the safety of your neighbors and contribute to pro-people recovery efforts. It is important to combat the fear mongering around the fires that is happening in the service of a cynical right-wing political agenda.

There is nothing natural about the disaster that is engulfing the West Coast, it is the product of climate change, which in turn has been created by capitalism. A decade of hotter and drier summers, lower levels of winter precipitation and rapid spring melt outs has created fuel for the fires. Large, extremely hot fires are in turn reshaping the ecosystems that they ravage. In some areas even jack pine seeds, which normally thrive on fire, are being killed by the intensity of the infernos. In some places, what was once a forest is being replaced by grassland. That means that the trees that are so necessary to clean carbon dioxide from the air will not be coming back, leaving more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to fuel warming.

Big business, in particular the fossil fuel industry, have economic interest in blunting measures that would slow or roll back climate change. Capitalism rewards a greedy few and encourages short-term thinking in order to maximize profits today. The result is a world that is growing hotter, has more extreme weather events, and is posing an existential threat to life as we know it and possibly even to humanity.

In the White House, the main political representative of monopoly capitalism is steadfast in his opposition to science, and blabbers about “raking the forest.” That kind of ridiculous commentary and denial of science is not funny when whole towns are being burned to the ground.

Every progressive person should support government assistance to help the people of the West Coast battle this disaster and rebuild their lives. The wealthy that run this country have plenty of money; they can be taxed and made to pay for this crisis.

Our movements need to insist that the government needs to get serious about addressing climate change. Trump has no intention of doing that and that is one of the many reasons he needs to go. That said, we will need to stay in the streets no matter who is elected to force a serious battle against climate change.

Capitalism is a failed system. It is destroying our planet for the profits of a few. There is no hope to stop climate change in the context of the chaotic market-driven forces of capitalism. The sooner the powerful and privileged are overthrown, and socialism – a system where everything is done to improve people’s lives – replaces it, the better it will be.

#WestCoast #Editorials #PeoplesStruggles #Capitalism #EnvironmentalJustice #Washington #California #Oregon #WildFires

San José, CA – On May 14, Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom laid out his plan to deal with a projected $54 billion budget deficit for the state of California. Included in the plan was to save almost $3 billion by cutting state workers’ pay by 10%.

Eleven years ago, California state workers were furloughed for one to two days a month as part of the effort to cut spending after a large budget deficit developed with the deep recession and financial crisis. While the unions tried to fight this, the courts ultimately sided with the state government. The furloughs continued for five years, even though the recession ended in 2009.

Ultimately, this is another attempt to put the costs of today’s pandemic and economic crisis on the backs of workers. This is being done directly, through pay cuts and/or furloughs of state workers. There are even larger indirect cuts, through cuts in education, health care and other state services. These cuts will fall on teachers and medical workers. They will also fall on the children of working people who rely on public school, and the lower-paid workers, the unemployed, and the poor who rely on public services.

These cuts will have a heavy impact on oppressed nationalities – Chicanos and Latinos, Asian Americans, and African Americans who are both state workers and whose communities will be hit by the cuts in services. Already, as in many states, Chicano, Mexicano, Central Americans and other oppressed nationalities are most heavily hit by the COVID-19 pandemic and economic crisis. Cuts to state workers and education and healthcare just add even more pain to our communities from government austerity.

#SanJoséCA #Labor #OppressedNationalities #PeoplesStruggles #AsianNationalities #ChicanoLatino #SEIU #publicSectorUnions #California #GovernorGavinNewsom

Los Angeles, CA – On March 7, Centro CSO: Community Service Organization hosted a celebration of el Día Internacional de la Mujer (International Women’s Day), filled with poetry, singing and political discussion at the Benjamin Franklin Branch Library in Boyle Heights. This year’s event, the third that Centro CSO has put on, honored the women of Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles who have fought back against the privatization of public education, police terror, sexism and transphobia.

Sol Marquez, a member of Centro CSO and Freedom Road Socialist Organization, opened the event by explaining how International Women’s Day emerged in the 1900s out of the struggles of working-class women in New York City, Germany and the Soviet Union. She then connected International Women’s Day’s origins to current examples of patriarchy, including the election of Trump, recent laws banning abortion in certain parts of the U.S. and the #MeToo movement. Marquez asked the attendees at the event, “How many of you marched when Trump was inaugurated January 2016? We marched in the rain to protest him as U.S. president! And women again stood up in January of 2019 to participate in the UTLA strike.” She finished the introduction by reading from The Duty of Working Women in War-Time by Clara Zetkin, the German Marxist whose proposal led to the first International Women’s Day.

Chicana artist Vibiana Aparicio-Chamberlin read poems and excerpts from her memoir Mi Amor, about growing up on the Eastside of Los Angeles in a Mexican and indigenous family. She also spoke about her experiences at the mass protest against the Vietnam War – the Chicano Moratorium on August 29, 1970 – where she was beaten and sexually abused by two white police officers. Aparicio-Chamberlin then led a creative exercise, asking the crowd to reminisce together about the different spices and herbs their mothers and grandmothers used in their cooking. She closed with a poem about the femicides in Juarez made worse by the opening of maquiladoras along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Lupemar Torres, a Centro CSO and United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) member, moderated a panel that included Marquez, Rosario Bonilla (Centro CSO), Garfield High School senior Sam Garcia (East Los Angeles Women’s Center), Josefina Rizo (Centro CSO and Justice for Jose “Peruzzi” Mendez”), and Eloisa Galindo (Eastside Padres Contra la Privatización). Torres asked the panelists a series of questions: “What organization are you from and what do you do?” “Why is it important for you as a woman to fight back?” “What advice do you have for other women?”

Marquez detailed her activism as a member of FRSO in Tampa, Florida, which included campaigns against deportations and around the murder of Trayvon Martin. Since moving to Los Angeles, she’s fought for public education and organized families who’ve lost loved ones at the hands of LAPD and LA County Sheriffs. She also emphasized how FRSO places women in positions of leadership and highlighted the role of socialism in historically improving conditions for women, particularly in Venezuela and Cuba.

Rosario Bonilla, a Centro CSO and Eastside Padres Contra la Privatización member, talked about how she joined the struggle against charters after KIPP Promesa charter school attempted to open a new large school close to her son’s school in Boyle Heights. Centro CSO and other allied organizations fought back and won, as protests and Centro CSO’s lawsuit forced the KIPP corporation to cancel its plans. Bonilla told the crowd, “We are the voices of our children. We have to fight for the rights of our children.”

Sam Garcia described how their work as a youth organizer with ELAWC helped them regain their voice as a survivor of sexual assault. Josefina Rizo, whose 16-year-old son Jose Méndez was killed by LAPD in 2016, discussed how she went from attending Centro CSO meetings because of its support for her family’s case to now enjoying being an active member of the organization. Eloisa Galindo summarized the history of the Eastside Padres Contra la Privatización, explained her own process of learning about the impact of charters, and recognized the many parent activists involved with her group’s work.

Torres closed the event by highlighting the role of primarily women teachers in the UTLA strike on LAUSD in January 2019 and saying that all women, regardless of their personality and capacities, have a role to play in the movement.

#LosAngelesCA #InternationalWomensDay #BoyleHeights #California #LA #IWD

Los Angeles, CA – The evening of February 22, a group of fiery protestors gathered at Mariachi Plaza in Boyle Heights, protesting Trump’s deceleration of a National Emergency for his wall. The Boyle Heights action was organized by Centro CSO and was one of the protests in response to a call to action made by the Legalization for All Network.

On the campaign trail, candidate Trump said that Mexico would pay for his wall. President Trump could not get funding for his wall on the U.S.-Mexico border even when his Republican Party controlled the House, the Senate and the White House. Then he shut down parts of the federal government for over a month in an attempt to get the funding for his racist wall. Trump then took it a step further by declaring a national emergency. With thousands of U.S. troops already mobilized to the border, a national emergency will heighten the tension, given that armed troops and border agents have unleashed tear gas on refugees.

Chanting, “Up, up with legalization! Down, down with deportations!” and “Trump, el burro! No! Al muro,” (Trump, the jackass! No! To his wall) the group received countless honks of support. Many passersby even joined the protesters in chanting as they drove by.

To sign onto the Legalization for All call go here: https://www.facebook.com/notes/legalization-for-all/no-trump-wall-no-state-of-emergency/2336613779684475/

#LosAngelesCA #PeoplesStruggles #BoyleHeights #California #Trump #wall #stateOfEmergency

Los Angeles, CA – This morning, January 22, LA Mayor Garcetti, the Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent (and former Wall Street banker) Austin Beutner, along with United Teachers of Los Angeles President Alex Caputo-Pearl announced a deal. On day six of the UTLA strike, LAUSD and UTLA came to a tentative agreement, which includes reducing class sizes, wage increases, hiring more support staff like librarians, psychologists and nurses, increasing spending on special education, putting a moratorium on charter schools, and investing more in community schools.

“Chapter chairs at 2 p.m. are meeting at Roosevelt High School to vote and bring back the information to all of our schools,” says UTLA chair and teacher Carlos Cerdan.

“We made history in the struggle for quality, public education,” says longtime Chicano revolutionary Carlos Montes. “The Brown and Black community of Los Angeles overwhelmingly supported the teachers. We will continue fighting back with them every step of the way.”

Currently, the Boyle Heights neighborhood is engaged in a fight against gentrification and with KIPP Charter attempts to open a new school. Centro CSO has sued KIPP and you may donate to the efforts here: http://gofundme.com/HelpCentroCSO

#LACalifornia #PeoplesStruggles #teachers #Strikes #California #UTLA #TeachersUnions #UTLAStrike