Feature Archives

Over one hundred San Francisco public school teachers, paraprofessionals, and education staff who are members of United Educators of San Francisco (UESF) rallied on April 22 at the San Francisco Unified School District school board building. UESF workers are demanding a living wage after an 8-year wage freeze. The massive speculative housing bubble is driving workers out of San Francisco and forcing them to commute long distances. Many are unable to afford healthcare.

The San Francisco Commonwealth Club hosted an event entitled "LGBT Rights in Israel: 25 Years of Progress and Challenges" on April 25 featuring Arthur Slepian, Executive Director and Founder of A Wider Bridge. Slepian's role is to go around promoting the idea that Israel is a progressive, democratic society because it has LGBT rights for Jewish citizens of Israel. Queer activists and Palestinian queers called it "pinkwashing".

At a rally on April 15, Tax Day, hundreds of SEIU 1021 city workers rallied at City Hall and then marched to the headquarters of Twitter on Market Street. The demonstration was organized to protest the tax subsidies the company receives that are worth tens of millions of dollars a year while city workers have taken pay cuts. San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and City Supervisors give tax subsidies to Twitter and other tech titans.

Since October 2013, DxE has held monthly protests against Chipotle as part of the group’s “It’s not Food, It’s Violence” campaign. On March 29, Chipotle Mexican Grill closed a San Francisco restaurant in response to protests by animal rights activists. Demonstrators with Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) arrived to protest against the restaurant, surprised to find it closed. It remained closed and empty of customers for the duration of DxE’s two-hour protest.

On March 24, the California Department of Corrections, which practices culture jamming by "correcting" commercial advertisements, successfully modified a billboard in San Francisco to read, PAIN ISN'T ALWAYS OBVIOUS. LEARN THE SIGNS AT GUANTANAMO BAY. The ad comes two weeks after a landmark lawsuit, Hassan v. Obama, was brought before U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. to end force-feeding at Guantanamo Bay. Hassan has been on hunger strike since 2005 and has allegedly experienced over 5,000 forced-feedings.

On March 21, 28-year-old Alejandro Nieto was in Bernal Hill Park, before leaving for his night job as a security guard. The job required that Nieto carry a Taser. A jogger who reportedly called the police told 911, “A Latin male in a bright red jacket is pacing near a fence.” When police arrived, they shot Nieto 14 times. After an FTP march that night in SF, a vigil with family and friends on March 24, and an SFPD town hall on March 26, hundreds of people marched to the top of Bernal Hill on March 29 to protest the murder by police of CCSF student Alejandro Nieto.

In a victory for ocean wildlife, federal fishery managers in Sacramento on March 13 decided not to expand driftnet fishing into protected sea turtle habitat along the California coast because it would significantly raise the risk of capture and drowning of endangered whales, sea turtles and dolphins. But the Pacific Fishery Management Council failed to take direct action to remove driftnets from the California coast, though the gear is banned in Oregon and Washington.