Feature Archives

Strikers on the picket lines at Marriott hotels in San Francisco, San José and Oakland are determined to fight poverty level wages and increased medical costs as they struggle to live in one of the most expensive areas in America. Bay Area laborers who have walked are joined by workers in Boston, Detroit, and the Hawaiian islands who are striking against the world’s most profitable hotel chain. On October 20, over 3,000 workers and supporters marched in San Francisco. Of 300 who protested in San José that day, a contingent stayed to drum and chant through the night, keeping awake the few hotel guests who crossed picket lines.

The country was transfixed when Christine Blasey Ford testified against Supreme Court Nominee Brett Kavanaugh on September 27. On the same day in Palo Alto, neighbors, friends, and colleagues of Dr. Ford rallied to her support. Actions in Berkeley, San Francisco, Mountain View, and San Mateo demonstrated the Bay Area's commitment to supporting victims of sexual assault and protested what they called Republican rape culture. A major demonstration in the nation's capital will be held with a sister rally in San Mateo on October 6.

The National Democratic Independent Farm Workers Union (SINDJA) is calling upon all sister organizations to participate in the International Global Action against the transnational corporation Driscoll's — one of the most exploitive agricultural companies in the San Quintín Valley, Baja California. Workers are demanding: freedom to unionize, a collective contract with SINDJA, no more sexual harassment, daycare centers, and fair wages.

The Trump administration will close the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) office in D.C. This follows a State Department promise to cut more than $300 million in funding for humanitarian assistance. These moves appear intended to force Palestinians into a "peace deal" that would deny them a state, as well as denying the right of return for Palestinian refugees. Meanwhile, Israeli settlers storm the courtyards of the Al-Aqsa Mosque on a daily basis to push forward their plans to build the so-called “Third Temple.”

A five-month grassroots campaign led by human rights groups and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Missouri celebrated a win on May 18, when the Missouri legislative session ended, failing to pass legislation that would have denied state contracts worth over $10,000 to businesses and organizations boycotting Israel over its subjugation and dispossession of the Palestinian people.

At the March 27 Alameda County Board of Supervisors meeting, five-plus hours of discussion ended with a decision that Urban Shield as currently constituted would end after the 2018 war games and exposition. The vote left open-ended what Alameda County’s regional disaster preparedness activities would be in future years, but the Supervisors were decisive that it would not be the Urban Shield event, which began in 2007.

On April 13, the United States, together with its British and French allies, launched one hundred and five cruise missiles from sea and air striking three alleged chemical weapons facilities in Syria.  Anti-war protesters CodePink Women for Peace responded immediately with actions the following day in front of the Pacific Heights homes of Senator Dianne Feinstein and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Later in the afternoon of April 14, an emergency demonstration at Market and Powell in San Francisco demanded an end to the bombings.