OAKLAND, November 16 — The Occupy movement continues to explode here. After, the November 2 General Strike briefly closed the Port of Oakland, protests continue and are focused more sharply on the devastation that capitalism brings to the working class. Front and center are the issues of economic inequality, institutional racism, and the need for international unity to link our struggles with those of workers around the world.
The intensification of Occupy Oakland was sparked by the general strike, which was a great step forward from earlier events. It aimed, if still symbolically, at shutting down the whole capitalist economy. A march that started under a “Death to Capitalism” banner temporarily closed several downtown Oakland banks. Teachers, the most visible group of unionized workers at the strike, brought students to the protest. Some schools also shut down, and hundreds of students marched at Laney Community College to challenge racist inequalities and corporate control of education.
Medical workers, particularly in the California Nurses Association, had already mobilized to support the first-aid needs of the encampment in what is now called Oscar Grant Plaza. The multiracial participants were young and old, students and workers, marching together in social groups of families or friends. Conspicuously absent from the general strike were contingents organized by unions or mainstream churches and community groups. While the rank and file of these groups turned out, participation by the Alameda Central Labor Council was limited to serving food.
The general strike ended in a march of 15,000 to shut down the Port of Oakland, with the sympathy of many in the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), a union with militant communist roots, and the trucker sub-contractors who haul the cargo. The ILWU has led job actions against apartheid, and in April it marched in solidarity with state workers in Wisconsin to protest union-busting there. Three years ago, the mostly immigrant and non-unionized truckers helped shut down all California ports on May Day over the issue of immigrant rights. (One trucker took our poster and CHALLENGE during the general strike, and asked why we had not come at 6 a.m. to really shut the Port down.) This collective history was a big reason that Occupy Oakland focused on Oakland’s economic center, the Port.
A Step Toward Waking the Sleeping Giant
PL’ers spent the weeks before and after the General Strike bringing the Occupy movement to our jobs, especially at transit. Alameda-Contra Costa Transit (AC) and MUNI workers joined us at the noontime activities on the day of the general strike. The absentee rate doubled at one garage in Oakland. During the rally, we talked with coworkers about the strategic importance of mass transit workers. As one worker put it, “Transit workers move the Bay Area economy just like the ILWU in the Port.” Several spoke on an open mike. One ended his speech: “When I say workers, you say power!” The chant of “workers’ power” echoed throughout the crowd.
As we marched to the Port, we had a long discussion about communist economic and social relations. One Municipal Transportation Agency (MUNI) coworker asked us, “what do you mean, abolish wages? How can we live without money to buy things?” Wages represent our enslavement by the capitalists; they distort our relationships with other workers and the working class as a whole. Under communism, we won’t need money to fulfill our needs. We will produce and share according to need and commitment.
At a monthly Union meeting of Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), PLP members made a motion to donate money to Occupy Oakland. We argued that workers have the Occupy movement to thank for refocusing anger away from public worker pensions and toward the 1%, the finance capitalists who are attacking all of us. The motion failed because the union is broke from paying lawyers (instead of organizing workers’ action) to fight the financial capitalists. We did, however, raise $340 from individual workers. It was an example of the class-conscious platform we are advancing in the union elections.
We Teach and We Learn
On the day of the General Strike, PLP members and friends marched as a contingent with flags, posters and chants. We distributed hundreds of CHALLENGEs.
The call for communism leads to talk about what it takes to make a revolution, and what we need to do next. A typical response came from one young black man: “You can’t get more upfront than that.” He took the CHALLENGE and gave us contact information. Another said, “That’s right, capitalism has to be overthrown, we need a different society.” Similar responses followed from many younger workers and students.
We also learned from others. For example, we modified one of our chants to make it more international and militant:
‘Black, Latino, Arab, Asian & White,
United for Equality We Must Fight!’
Even more so than the budget cuts, Occupy Oakland has opened doors for political struggle at a local high school. One teacher helped a younger teacher conduct a teach-in on unemployment and distribution of wealth. After the General Strike and arch, a student told others at the school that she liked the poster her teacher was carrying. As a result, another teacher asked about the poster (see front page).
As this struggle advances, we will continue to bring lessons and experiences from the Occupy movement to jobs and community organizations.J
Recent California Developments:
• Racist police terror remains in the spotlight, with marches for justice for Oscar Grant, the unarmed young black man who was executed two years ago by a transit cop, and to protest the military operations planned for shutting down the camps of demonstrators. Mayor Jean Quan and the Oakland City Council manipulated last week’s fatal shooting of a young man near the downtown Oakland encampment in an attempt to justify their cops’ clearing the Occupation from Oscar Grant Park (with dozens of arrests) early on Monday, November 14. But other encampments fed marches back to the Plaza, where new General Assemblies were held.
• On Veterans Day, vets marched to the police station to protest the attacks on two Iraq War veterans: Scott Olson, whose skull was fractured by a projectile shot by the police, and Kayvan Sabehgi, who suffered a lacerated spleen after the cops beat him while he was walking alone in central Oakland. The vets linked this brutality to racist unemployment and the long history of racist and criminal police actions against black, Latino and immigrant youth in Oakland. As one vet who spoke at the demonstration put it, “I did not serve and protect you, the 99%. I protected corporate America’s profits around the world.”
• The general strike inspired and escalated existing battles on California campuses to protest the banks, budget cuts, and racist inequality. Police attacked protesters at the University of California-Berkeley, brutally dismantling a tent camp there. In response, Berkeley faculty and students called a campus-wide strike on November 15, with a march (joined by Occupy Oakland) of 2,000 through the city and a rally at Berkeley High School. In solidarity, students at several Cal State campuses have staged walkouts. Cal State faculty voted to strike two campuses that serve the black and Latino communities in the East Bay and Los Angeles. The UC regents canceled their November 16 meeting for fear of being confronted by the Occupy movement.
• A march on Wells Fargo Bank protested profiteering by private-sector immigrant detention centers around the country. Bilingual chants emphasized the racist attacks on immigrant and black workers.
• Other marches have focused on the devastation of public services. These actions dovetail with a confrontation between the Okland Board of Education and a group of parents, teachers and students who oppose the closing of five public schools.
• Workers and community groups are continuing to organize to challenge evictions and prevent bank foreclosures. In Stockton, California, the Occupy movement has shut down several banks.