Occupy Seattle Stands With Port Truck Drivers

Contact: Ian Finkenbinder, Occupy Seattle Media
216.236.4680; email: ianfinkenbinder@gmail.com

Occupy Seattle Stands With Port Truck Drivers

3/22/2012 Occupy Seattle, in solidarity with the port truck drivers of Seattle, demands that the Washington state bills HB 2527 and 2395 be passed into law by the anniversary of Ceasar Chavez's birth, March 31st, 2012, or we shall take further direct action in consultation and solidarity with the port drivers.  

If necessary we shall call on other Occupys, especially those located in major transportation corridors,  to take solidarity actions that they deem appropriate.



Additional history and information on these issues:

Since the passage of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which gave collective bargaining rights to some workers and legalized part of the labor movement in the United States, large populations of workers, such as farmworkers, domestic laborers, and port truck drivers (currently classified as "independent contractors") have been left in the cold.

Roosevelt, in working for the passage of New Deal legislation, had to capitulate to the white supremacist Southern Senators and Congressmen who were the right wing of the Depression-era Democratic Party coalition. So the labor legislation found a way to exclude Southern Black workers, not by name, but by occupation, so that Southern white
landowners could continue to superexploit cheap Black labor at will.

This was at the same time that life under Jim Crow in the South was all but unbearable for Black people, and lynching was endemic and treated as a sporting event by Southern elites. This legacy of white supremacy and inequality of human rights for workers is what we are still fighting to undo in 2012. The US imperialist state put these obstacles to equality of labor rights in place, and we are demanding that it remove them immediately. We also demand that law enforcement officers cease and desist from selectively harassing and ticketing these drivers in retaliation for their support of the independent truckers association.

These workers are bereft of the rights given to "employees" as defined by law. This separation, exploited by the 1% and targeting migrant workers and economic refugees, must end.

This legislative session has the potential to become a landmark session for port truck drivers in the State of Washington. Two bills addressing these problems have been proposed: HB 2527, which would place the responsibility for legal fines levied by law enforcement against unsafe intermodal chassis on the companies which own those
chassis rather than on the drivers who are directed to haul them and must work as directed, and HB 2395, which would re-classify port drayage drivers in Tacoma and Seattle from the legal category of independent contractors" to that of "employees", finally recognizing
their rights.

Occupy Seattle expects Washington State to act on these bills before the end of this legislative session. These bills not only set the stage to redress the inequalities affecting port truck drivers, but could set a precedent for sweeping change in how government views the right to union organizing. Occupy Seattle stands in solidarity with port truck drivers, as it has stood in solidarity with organized laborers in past months.

We also call upon the other Occupy movements, especially those located in port cities and major transportation corridors, to inform the state governments under which they live that they fully expect passage of the same legislation enabling port truckers to unionize in all coastal states by the end of 2012.

Occupy Seattle eagerly awaits the passage of these bills . If they are not passed, signed, and enacted by March 31st, 2012 (the birthday of Cesar Chavez), Occupy Seattle will have no choice but to engage in direct action in solidarity with the workers of Washington State, and and to call upon Occupy nationwide to join with us in this action. Direct action has notably won victories for the working class and will again, should state legislators fail to address these issues appropriately. Occupy is ready.

--
In Unity and Struggle,

Kali 

Visit:

http://www.mxgm.org

http://www.ushrnetwork.org

http://navigatingthestorm.blogspot.com

http://www.youtube.com/user/kaliakuno

http://www.facebook.com/kali.akuno

Tues., Jan. 3: Day of Action against (NDAA) National Defense Authorization Act

     Tues., Jan. 3:  Day of Action against NDAA

     When:  Tuesday, Jan. 3
     Time:  12 p.m. 
     Where:  New York Public Library at 5th Ave and 42nd

Description:  A call has been put out by Occupy Wall Street to let our government know the 
people will not tolerate any more attacks on our rights!

January 3rd will be a spontaneous show of people power in reaction to 
Obama's treasonous signing of the National Defense Authorization Act. 
Not only does this act violate our first, third, fourth, fifth and sixth 
amendments, as well as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, but this Act was 
signed quietly this past New Years Eve violating what little trust 
remained between the people and their established government. We see 
what's happening here, and we will not stand for it.

TENTATIVE SCHEDULE FOR DAY OF ACTION:
12 pm - Press Conference at NYPL at Bryant Park.
2 pm - Office demo at Senator Gillibrand's office at 780 3rd Ave.
3 pm - Office demo at Senator Schumer's office at 757 3rd Ave.
4 pm - Rally up at Rockefeller Plaza
5 pm - flash check about NDAA in Grand Central for commuters.

**above subject to change at on short notice, stay tuned!

Please Help Spread the Word and Please Help Fight Back.
Participate in the Media Bomb As Well:
http://www.facebook.com/events/103244609796837/

#j3 #occupyjustice #opblackout




As posted on TheBlackList eList

A Call for a National Dialog on Black Left Participation in the OWS Movement

The Black Left Unity Network and USHRN Labor Working Group

A Call for a National Dialog on Black Left Participation in the OWS Movement

on

Thursday, October 20, 2011, 3 pm EST

Over the last two years, the Black left unity network (BLUN) has engaged in a process that focused on reaching out to Black worker activists in the labor movement, and other core social movements that organize and mobilize the Black working class.  We have looked for opportunities such as building support for the Hurricane Katrina survivors and organizing and promoting a Reconstruction movement as a strategic flank of the U.S. anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist struggle, using Survivor Assemblies as popular democratic forums; promoting a Thank You Cuba campaign to  challenge attempts to isolate Cuba and socialism as a racist regime; and participating in the Human Rights movement to help ground it in mass bases of resistance to help shape and influence its demands and anti-imperialist political character.

While there is much more needed in developing the BLUN as a unity process; a major aspect of the process must be that of forging Black left unity within the context of trying to unify and give a working class and internationalist perspective based in concrete demands to the struggles and upsurges that originate from or may have an impact on the Black masses. Therefore, with the emergence of the OWS as an national phenomenon with developing organizational expressions in various cities across the country, members of BLUN have taken the position that it is important to develop a process for addressing the questions that have quickly surfaced related to the political character of this movement and the role and participation of Black, Latino and Native forces.

BLUN along with the Labor working group of US Human Rights Network, will host a call on Thursday, October 20, at 3pm EST. Some of the questions that will be discussed include:  

1.      While our  communities are weakly organized, disconnected from the occupation motion, how might the occupy wall street be used to organize our communities  for fundamental social change in the interests of  the Black masses?  Or can it? 

2.      How can the Black left help to build alliances between the Black and Latino working classes in particular and with workers of color in general to begin forging Black and Brown working class unity as key to driving a popular agenda and mandate for radical social transformation in this period?
3.      How can Black left forces direct this anti-capitalist sentiment and energy of the OWS to increase the existing fight backs in the labor movement and the Black communities?

4.       Since labor is an important social force in the capitalist system, how can Black workers influence and help to mobilize the character and content of labors involvement in the OWS?

5.      How can the Black left become a force in helping to promote U.S. accountability to the UN Human Rights Conventions as a transitional program toward internationalizing the OWS movement?

To register for the call: https://www.accuconference.com/customer/Registration/index.aspx?pkR...

For More Information Contact:
Saladin Muhammad at saladin62@aol.com.
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