Feature Archives

On January 16th, 60 University of California (UC) service workers and at least ten UC student supporters from at least five UC campuses stormed the San Francisco offices of UC Board of Regents Chairman Richard Blum at his company, Blum Capital, on Montgomery St. Chanting, singing and posting images and words of impoverished UC service workers on the walls, they occupied Blum's office to ask that he and UC President Mark Yudof "agree to end poverty wages at UC."

Photographs from Palestine taken by Emily Jacir were recently on display at SFMOMA as part of an exhibit about passages and memory. The title of the photo display was where we come from” and it’s a representation of interviews the artist did with Palestinians in the Diaspora and Palestine. Jacir asked her interviewers to answer the question “if I could do anything for you, anywhere in Palestine, what would it be?” Jacir's works was acquired last year by SFMOMA and will likely be shown again in the near future.

On January 24th, the "March For Life" took place in San Francisco. Tens of thousands of people who oppose abortion and gay rights converged on San Francisco for a march down the Embarcadero. Several hundred counter-protesters showed up to denounce the right-wing message of the marchers. The Bay Area Coalition for Reproductive Rights (BACORR) had called on supporters of human rights to protest the “Walk for Life," which was led by religious conservatives.

On January 15th, about 45 Palestinian, Jewish, immigrant rights and prison abolitionists chained themselves to the Israeli consulate in San Francisco to protest Israeli apartheid and its current attacks on Gaza. The protesters called for an immediate ceasefire; the opening of land, sea, and air borders to allow in emergency supplies; and an end to US financial and political support for Israel.

Sunday, January 11, a rally protesting U.S. torture at Guantanamo and around the world took place at Market and Powell Streets in San Francisco. A march through the surrounding Union Square shopping district with a line of orange-clad "prisoners" dramatized the plight of people caught in the U.S. detention system, and was followed by concluding remarks at the Powell Street cable car turnaround. The rally was part of a National Day of Protest: Close Guantanamo and End U.S. Torture Policies Everywhere.

On Saturday, January 10th there were nationwide protests against the atrocities and occupation perpetrated by the Israeli government in Gaza. The San Francisco protest started in Civic Center at 11am and then thousands of protesters marched through the downtown. More then 850 people have died and thousands have been wounded in Israel's attacks on Gaza. 1.6 million Gazans are living without access to basic services and face constant Israeli attacks in one of the most densely populated areas of the world. On January 8th, the UN accused Israel of purposefully killing its aid workers. The UN has also reported that Israeli troops ordered Palestinian civilians into a house in Gaza City, and then shelled the building 24 hours later. The ICRC has also accused Israel of restricting access to thousands of wounded civilians, including several young children who the Red Cross found living for several days among the corpses of over a dozen dead relatives.

United Brotherhood of Carpenters UBC San Francisco Local 22 rank and file members are protesting discrimination and the lack of enforcement of residency hiring agreements. Rank and file carpenters are charging that Bobby Alvarado the head of the Northern California District Council of Carpenters is hiring business agents who have never worked as carpenters and also that these business agents are not enforcing existing contracts and allowing discrimination. Problems facing carpenters have increased as a result of the growing mass unemployment in the construction industry.