Macy's Engineers Strike! Local 39 facilities engineers are walking the picket line

Everyone who can should join the picket line of Operating Engineers Local 39, the stationary engineers at Macy's who keep the lights, heat and other fixtures operating. Let us all do what we can to get to Macy's Union Square at noon on Friday, November 24 and tell everyone who shops at the Union Square Shopping Mall that PICKET LINES MEAN DON'T CROSS and SAN FRANCISCO IS A UNION TOWN. If you cannot get to the San Francisco Union Square Macy's, go to the one nearest you. There is also one in Stonestown. The Chronicle states they are picketing all 52 Macy's in Northern California and Reno. BRING YOUR UNION BANNERS if you can. You do not have to be a union member to walk any picket line, and most of us are not union members as labor is only 13% organized in this country. That is why, according to the leaflet, Macy's offered less than HALF of the COST OF LIVING increase while it has sales of $17.813 BILLION, a 39% INCREASE over last year. Labor organizing must increase to 100% of labor being organized so that no wage is less than $20 per hour and everyone has healthcare free of charge, paid for with our tax dollars, guaranteeing excellent medical and dental care from cradle to grave to everyone who lives in the US, as exists in the rest of the industrialized world, which is why the rest of the industrialized world has higher life expectancy and lower infant mortality than in the US.

LABOR IS UNDER ATTACK EVERYWHERE as the capitalist class becomes more desparate to maintain their profits. The attack takes the form not only of cutting our wages but also of increasing the cost of healthcare to be paid by the worker. Kaiser just increased its rates 20% while nobody's wages go up 20%. Our tax dollars should be paying for medical and dental care instead of war, prisons and the death penalty.

We should call Friday, November 24, 2006, the Josh Wolf Labor Picket Day, in honor of the journalist who is threatened with life imprisonment for refusing to be a government fink as he is refusing to turn over a videotape he made that the government wants to use to frame its political opposition. When the grand jury's term expires next July, another grand jury could immediately be convened and the government could renew its fascist demand. He sits in federal prison, now for some 3 months so far, with no charge and with the explicit statement from the government that it wants to terrorize him to comply with their fascist goals. They did the same thing to the Rosenbergs and Morton Sobell in 1950-1953, and neither the Rosenbergs nor Sobell ever cooperated with the government frame-up. By refusing to cooperate, which cost the Rosenbergs their lives on June 19, 1953 and Sobell 19.5 years of his life in prison, they literally broke the back of the Cold War. WE MUST HAVE MASS PICKET LINES TO SUPPORT LABOR IF WE ARE TO STOP THE WAR AND FASCISM BEING PERPETRATED BY NAZI USA.

If you are still addicted to the Money Season, now is a good time to kick the habit. We would not hear about Christmas if it were not for the profit motive. You should teach your children that it is the united action of labor both on the job as workers delivering goods and services and in fighting for economic and civil rights that is their Santa Claus. Bring your children to the picket line; that is how I was raised and that is the kind of education that one values and remembers. A family that walks the picketline together becomes stronger as a family and we become better as a community.

DO NOT SHOP MACY'S! SOLIDARITY FOREVER!