Feature Archives

In the early evening of December 20th, LGBT activists lit up the night for marriage rights in gatherings throughout the greater San Francisco Bay Area. In San Francisco, protesters demonstrated with a candlelight vigil in Union Square crowded with holiday shoppers, while in the South Bay city of San Jose activists chose CineArts theater as the location for a protest. CineArts theater is owned by Cinemark, whose CEO donated to the Yes on 8 campaign.

On November 27th, Darlene Wallach, a San Jose, California resident, was deported from Israel, departing Tel Aviv for New York on an El Al flight. She had been arrested, along with two other human rights observers and 15 Palestinians, by Israeli authorities while on a fishing boat in Gaza waters on November 18th.

On November 18th, US citizen and activist Darlene Wallach, along with a British citizen and an Italian, was detained with 15 Palestinian fisherman by the Israeli Navy. The group was fishing seven miles off the coast of Deir Al Balah. The US and European citizens, who are human rights observers, were kidnapped with the Palestinians by the Israeli Navy, despite the fact that they were clearly in Gaza fishing waters and well within the fishing limit detailed in the Oslo Accords of 1994.

On October 30th, a Halloween-themed rally drew a large crowd of employees to the front doors of the Santa Clara Hyatt hotel where they demonstrated for a fair process to choose a union.  Despite intermittent rain, protestors and their supporters chanted and carried placards in Spanish, English and Tagalog. Some wore masks and doled out tiny Halloween candy treats, mocking management’s attitude toward employees. Hyatt management has continually rejected its workers’ request for the company to stay neutral while workers decide for themselves whether or not to have a union.

On September 4th, nearly 300 hotel workers of the labor union Unite Here! Local 19 rallied in front of the San Jose McEnery Convention Center to draw public attention to the daily struggles of hotel service employees. They then marched to three downtown hotels that are currently undergoing contract negotiations - the Marriott, the Hilton and Towers, and the Crowne Plaza.

On Saturday, September 6, thousands of members of United Healthcare Workers and allies marched through the streets of San Jose to maintain a strong, member-controlled union and a labor movement accountable to the rank-and-file. The march, held after UHW's annual Leadership Conference, denounced the threatened trusteeship of UHW by SEIU International President Andy Stern and Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger.

Activists, in coordination with the group In Defense of Animals, protested Ringling Bros. Circus August 20th - 24th. In a tradition of greeting circus-goers with information about Ringling's operation every year when Ringling brings their animal acts to the Bay Area, a group of about 15 activists wore signs and leafleted outside of the HP Pavilion in San Jose.