Students Back Workers' General Strike

UK Students begin wave of occupations to back public sector strikes

David Willetts abandons Cambridge University speech as protesters take over lecture hall to oppose £9,000 tuition fees. Occupied lecture halls and buildings would act as bases for students to plan further action backing strikes by about 3 million public sector workers – expected to be the biggest day of industrial action since the winter of discontent in 1979.

Police at the student protest over university tuition fees and public sector cuts in London on 9 November, when the Met warned baton rounds could be used.

Students are planning a wave of campus occupations and protests in the run-up to nationwide strikes next week, the Guardian has learned.

Occupations called by the student group National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC) ahead of the trade union day of action on 30 November have already happened at Birmingham and Cambridge universities.

Higher education minister David Willetts had to abandon a speech on the Idea of University on Tuesday night after students heckled him from the stage and began occupying Cambridge's largest lecture hall.

The occupations, in opposition to the government's white paper on education reform, which would formalise the £9,000 rise in tuition fees, are expected to break out across the country.

NCAFC said that occupied lecture halls and buildings would act as bases for students to plan further action backing strikes by about 3 million public sector workers – expected to be the biggest day of industrial action since the winter of discontent in 1979.

The group's co-founder, Michael Chessum, said: "It's all terribly unpredictable. We may well see actions and occupations popping up all other the country today and in the coming week."

In front of an audience of more than a hundred, Willetts was forced to sit in a corner of the stage of Lady Mitchell Hall, as students read out a prepared statement.

Student James Jackson said activists from Cambridge Defend Education read out a prepared statement which was repeated sentence by sentence by other demonstrators in the audience – a technique used by Occupy activists.

Making reference to recent student protests in which the Metropolitan police said baton rounds could be used to prevent disorder, the statement said: "You can threaten to shoot us with rubber bullets; you can arrest us; you can imprison us; you can criminalise our dissent; you can blight a hundred thousand lives … but you cannot break us because we are more resolute, more numerous, and more determined than you … Go home, David."

After sitting on the stage, they eventually forced the minister's departure.
"At first Willetts seemed to want to carry on," Jackson said. "After the second minute he sat in a corner then [the organisers] closed the blinds on him, still waiting for us to stop and leave. When we didn't, I think he decided it was time for him to go and so he just left."

Jackson, 21, who is reading art history, said that after Willetts' departure the group occupied the hall and were now receiving support from academics who were bringing them food and supplies.

Silkie Carlo, 22, studying psychology, who was also part of the action said : "Cambridge is serious about defending education. Particularly from an institution that is seen as upper middle class, the most privileged students, it's important that we understand that the rise in fees affect us and the progress of the university. We don't want to study in that kind of place."
In the early hours of Wedenesday, Birmingham students occupied an abandoned gatehouse on the northern edge of their campus, where they plan to hold a series of lectures.

by Shiv Malik
Guardian (London)

Partial History of General Strikes

Shutting It All Down:

The Power of General Strikes in U.S. History

BY ERIK LOOMIS

A flyer advertises Occupy Oakland's call for a general strike. (Photo by Flickr userallaboutgeorge, Creative Commons license)

Incredibly threatening to those in power, they rarely succeed. But they do build solidarity.

As protesters gather Wednesday for the general strike called by Occupy Oakland, it's worth looking at the history of this tactic. General strikes are rare in American social movements, because they are difficult to coordinate. On the other hand, few actions offer a more direct challenge to those in power. What can Occupy Oakland learn from their activist ancestors to help its participants draw strength? How have general strikes affected long-term labor and social movements?

The two major general strikes in American history are the Seattle General Strike of 1919 and the Oakland General Strike of 1946. In 1919, the workers of Seattle engaged in a three-day mass action calling all city workers onto the streets. This was the first citywide collective action in American history known as a general strike.

The Pacific Northwest in the early 20th century was a center of radicalism. Horrible working conditions in the timber industry, already radicalized immigrants from Scandinavia, activist dockworkers and the popularity of the Industrial Workers of the World among the region’s thousands of transient workers made Seattle a fertile center of radical thought that even influenced labor organizations affiliated with the traditionally moderate American Federation of Labor (AFL).

The strike began with shipyard workers but was quickly joined by workers around the city. By February 6, over 60,000 workers were on the streets where they remained for four days. In an atmosphere fearful of radicalism after the Bolshevik Revolution, conservatives around the nation declared the strike the first step toward revolution.

Seattle mayor Ole Hanson took the lead in crushing the strike ordering the National Guard to take control of the city’s light company. Fearing long-term fallout, national AFL leaders denounced the strike and it quickly fell apart. After its defeat, the labor movement in Seattle fell apart, a victim of both internal fighting and the vicious Red Scare that followed World War I.

The Oakland General Strike came out of the massive changes to the Bay Area during World War II. Hundreds of thousands of Americans moved to San Francisco, Oakland, Richmond, and other cities to work in wartime industries. The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) had achieved major successes in organizing American workers during the late 1930s. Often using communist organizers, the CIO built on the militancy of American labor to become a powerful force in opposition to both the more traditional AFL and conservative business interests.

During World War II, the AFL and CIO turned their energies toward defeating the fascist menace of Germany and Japan. The administration of Franklin Roosevelt, wanting to avoid strikes that would undermine wartime production, brought both the AFL and CIO into wartime planning. But while consumer prices rose during the war, wages did not. The motivated and radicalized workers wanted to strike, but their leaders and the federal government urged them to work through it.

When the war ended however, the country was overtaken by a wave of strikes. In 1946, 4.5 million workers went on strike throughout the United States, the greatest number of strikers in one year in American history. Wages did not keep up with rapidly rising prices and higher wages were the core demand of almost all the strikers.

The situation in Oakland was especially volatile because of the city’s Retail Merchants Association, a powerful and deeply anti-union business organization. These department stores owners employed mostly women, who they believed would accept low wages. The Department and Specialty Store Employees Union Local 1265 organized workers at these downtown stores. Early in 1946, they won victories at smaller stores and decided to take on the biggest retailers, Kahn’s and Hastings. A month-long strike ensued in the late fall of 1946. Beginning mere blocks from Occupy Oakland’s encampment, this turned into one of the biggest challenges to corporate America in the postwar years.

Although the CIO had the more radical agenda, it was actually the AFL who decided to call for a general strike on December 2, 1946 in support of the striking department store workers. AFL workers around Oakland walked off their jobs—bus drivers, teamsters, sailors, machinists, cannery workers, railroad porters, waiters, waitresses, cooks. For over two days, Oakland shut down. Over 100,000 workers participated in the strike.

The strikers controlled Oakland. All businesses except for pharmacies and food markets shut down. Bars could stay open but could only serve beer and had to put their juke boxes outside and allow for their free use. Couples literally danced in the streets. Recently returned war veterans created squadrons to prepare for battle. Union leadership took a back seat to rank and file actions.

Although it is often spun in Oakland legend that the General Strike was a successful action, it really wasn’t. A majority of workers wanted to continue striking and CIO unions considered joining in support, but the strike fell apart because of a single corrupt labor leader. Dave Beck, the head of the Teamsters and Jimmy Hoffa’s mentor, forced a compromise when he pulled his powerful union off the lines and endorsed a moderate settlement that accomplished almost nothing and quite literally did not address the department store workers concerns at all. While the still agitated workers managed to elect several labor representatives to the city council, the entire apparatus of the city used the General Strike to attack all labor. The police, the city government, and the Oakland Tribune combined to resist not only the Unionization of the department stores, but all Labor in Oakland.

While Oakland remained a strong Union city after this, the strikes of 1946 around the nation and especially the Oakland General Strike led to the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. Taft-Hartley was an open attack on the labor movement, limiting labor’s ability to strike, banning sympathy strikes (which could make it legally difficult for today’s unions to support Occupy Oakland’s General Strike), and allow individual states to pass so-called “right to work” laws, meaning that just because there is a Union at your workplace doesn’t mean you have to join it.

Soon after, the McCarthy era began and radical Unionism of any kind became suspicious, with the CIO kicking the Communist organizers and entire Communist-led unions out of the Federation, turning its back on its radical history.

If there is one lesson to take from these general strikes, it’s that they are extremely threatening to those in power. If successful, they show that the 1% have lost the control they so ardently seek. They will react with ferocity against the organizers, laying bare structural and legal inequalities in this nation. Neither strike was successful, but we remember them as moments of incredible worker solidarity when it seemed massive changes were about to happen. They need to be seen as part of the larger struggles of working people to achieve basic rights, decent wages, and safe living conditions in this country.

The Occupy Wall Street movement is picking up this torch and providing a strong voice for those who have become disempowered in the unregulated capitalism of the early 21st century. Whether the new general strike succeeds or not is less important than the public stand it takes against the exploitation of working-class people. The general strike is not the end of the road but rather one step on the path to taking back our country.

Finally, I want to encourage everyone involved in the Occupy movement, as well as anyone who identifies as progressive, to deeply read labor history and the history of social movements. Knowing about your ancestors is great, but the past offers a more direct lesson: understanding how various tactics and strategies have worked in the past, and how they can work in the present.

Financial Tax Protest by Unions

Unions, Occupy Wall Street to protest outside Treasury for ‘Robin Hood’ tax-Push For Franchise Tax (F.T.T.)

Pivoting off the Occupy Wall Street movement, unions are planning coordinated protests Thursday for a financial transactions tax (F.T.T.).

Organizers estimate more than 1,500 union members from more than 20 Labor groups, including the AFL-CIO, the American Federation of County, State and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the Communications Workers of America (CWA), will be outside the Treasury Department Thursday to call for what has become known as the “Robin Hood Tax.”

Occupy Wall Street protesters also are being bused in from New York by National Nurses United (NNU) — yet another example of the evolving relationship between Labor and the protesters that have targeted the financial sector.

Karen Higgins, co-president of the NNU, told The Hill that instituting a financial transactions tax could help fund social programs that are under threat.

“This is actually the first step to do something concrete and beneficial and not harm others by taking money out of social programs that help people survive,” Higgins said. “It is only reasonable that Wall Street contributes its fair share.”

The protest outside Treasury will be one of many planned for Thursday.

Union members, including AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, will be in Cannes, France, to call for the tax at the opening of the G-20 Summit that will be attended by President Obama and other world leaders.

There are also protests planned for Los Angeles (November 5th) and San Francisco.

Labor leaders have adopted the rhetoric of the protest movement, citing how the 99 percent of the country have suffered at the hands of the wealthiest 1 percent. Unions have provided logistical support for the protesters as well.

NNU members have set up first aid stations in several cities, including at Wall Street, to help the protesters. CWA members marched with protesters to a Verizon wireless store in New York last month. And one of AFSCME’s local Wisconsin unions helped provide pizzas for the protesters.

The protests come as Labor has grown frustrated with a proposal by Democratic members of the Super Committee — the panel tasked with reducing the federal deficit by at least $1.2 trillion. The Democrats’ plan would reduce the deficit by $3 trillion — partly through $500 billion in cuts to entitlement programs — and would include $1.3 trillion in tax hikes and Obama’s $447 billion jobs bill.

Higgins and others in Labor have long been calling for a financial transactions tax (F.T.T.) to help provide government funds for social programs. In September, the AFL-CIO drafted a memo that said a financial transactions tax could bring in $1 trillion in new government revenue over the 10 years.

Higgins said Lawmakers are targeting the wrong things to bring down the debt.

“Again, it is still going back to programs that we should not touch during a time of crisis, and this is a time of crisis,” Higgins said. “We need to be very disturbed about what suggestions are being made.”

Source:

By Kevin Bogardus - 11/02/11 02:12 PM ET

http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/191383-unions-occupy-wall-street-to-protest-for-robin-hood-tax

GENERAL STRIKE OAKLAND

Occupy Oakland General Strike

Shuts Down Port of Oakland

November 2, 2011 11:52 PM

OAKLAND (CBS SF) — Many Occupy Oakland protesters Wednesday evening
returned to Frank Ogawa Plaza after demonstrating at the Port of Oakland,
forcing the Port to shut down operations.

Port officials said Wednesday night’s protest was peaceful and no injuries or property damage were reported.

Port Executive Director Omar Benjamin said maritime operations will only

resume “when it is safe and secure to do so.”

Ben Bruso, 23, a direct service provider for developmentally disabled individuals, was one of hundreds who blocked the Port’s Gate One, where the demonstration has a party-like feel, complete with a brass band.

Bruso said he was there because he wants to get rid of lobbying in government.

“Our government is being bought by corporations,” said Bruso, a Service Employees International Union member, who came to the march of his own accord.

“The middle class and lower class are being subjugated,” he said.

Related Coverage:
Banks Targeted In Marches, Rallies In General Strike
Photo Gallery: Occupy Oakland General Strike

On the closure of the Port, Bruso said, “Obviously it sends a message to the corporate world that we’re not going to sit by and take it anymore.”

Colin Holtzinger, 24, a mental health counselor, said he was at the Port because he believes “we need to tax the rich and get rid of the barriers of entry to small businesses.”

Holtzinger also said, “I feel great. This is the largest movement I’ve seen in my lifetime.”

A group of several hundred demonstrators gathered to block entrances to the Port at Maritime and Seventh streets.

KCBS Team Coverage Of Occupy Oakland General Strike:

Occupy Oakland Protest Continues At Port

“I support the Occupy movement and the 99 percent. The priorities of this country need to be re-examined and re-ordered,” said Marti Mogensen, 63, a teacher at Berkeley High School.

Mogensen was formerly a teacher in the small town of Onalaska, Wis., the town where Scott Olsen, is from—Olsen is a former marine who was injured in last week’s demonstration.

“I think his case is interesting because it’s done a lot to move Occupy Oakland into international attention. I really think it’s tragic,” she said.

She said some of the teachers at Berkeley High School did “teach-ins” Wednesday to support the general strike.

On closing the Port, Mogrensen said, “I think it really shows that people want change and they want to organize and these tactics do work.”

Jessica Hendricks, 27, a chair of the Berkeley chapter of the ACLU, said, “I’m here exercising my freedom of speech and making sure the rest can do so peacefully.”

On closing the Port she said, “I think it shows the strength and power of the people.”

The group at Maritime and Seventh streets had blocked trucks from entering and exiting the Port all night and the numbers appear to be growing.

Trucks that tried to exit with cargo were forced to turn around. However, drivers who attempted to leave without cargo are allowed to pass.