San Francisco Labor Council votes to uphold SF8 Resolution-SF POA Beaten Back

April 14, 2009

San Francisco Labor Council votes to uphold SF8 Resolution

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

Last night the Delegates Assembly of the San Francisco Labor Council voted NO on a motion to rescind or repeal the council's resolution on the San Francisco 8. Our resolution stands as written! The attack has been beaten back.

The vote was 45 to 40 to UPHOLD our resolution urging that charges against the San Francisco 8 be dropped.

This victory - against all odds - could not have been possible without the hard work of every one of you -- the many delegates who voted and spoke eloquently on February 9th and at last night's meeting ... unionists and community members who signed our letter (see below) ... the Social & Economic Justice Committee ... members of the San Francisco 8 and their support committee ... and those who worked quietly in their unions to persuade their delegates to come to the meeting and stand up for justice.

Please take the time, also, to read the attachments to this email - and continue to spread the word about the San Francisco 8 and their righteous fight. (If you can't open the attachments, let me know and I'll send it to you another way.)

With a warm embrace as we savor this small but significant victory,

Thank you.

Dave Welsh


To Our Brothers and Sisters in the San Francisco Labor Council



We, the undersigned union activists, delegates and concerned community members, urge you to uphold the San Francisco Labor Council resolution opposing the unjust prosecution of the San Francisco 8.



As the Labor Council Resolution states, “Therefore be it Resolved, that in the name of fairness, justice and human rights – and to express our outrage that this prosecution based on coercion and tortured ‘confessions’ in this 36-year-old case would be allowed to proceed – that the San Francisco Labor Council calls on California Attorney General Jerry Brown to drop all charges against the San Francisco 8 defendants.”



The resolution was originally passed on February 9th as part of an open and democratic process:



1. Social & Economic Justice Committee discussed the SF 8 case at its Nov.'08, and Jan. and Feb. '09 meetings, and voted unanimously to bring the resolution to the Council.



2. At the February 9th council meeting the Social & Economic Justice Committee introduced one of the SF8 defendants, Richard Brown, who spoke to the delegates, receiving a warm welcome. Under new business, after extensive discussion, the SF8 resolution was amended and then passed resoundingly, with no dissenting votes. No officer or delegate raised any objection to the resolution.



3. The resolution was then posted on the SF Labor Council website, signed by the executive director.



4. At the Feb. 23rd council meeting, delegates approved, without objection, the minutes of the Feb. 9 meeting, signed by the executive director. These minutes reported on the adoption of the SF8 resolution. No officer or delegate present at the Feb. 23rd meeting raised any objection to the resolution.



It was only after a public attack on the resolution by Gary Delagnes, head of the San Francisco Police Officers Association, that five members of the Executive Committee backtracked on the resolution and called for it to be rescinded. The statement by Mr. Delagnes is classic McCarthyism, filled with half-truths and unfounded charges.



The Labor Council has a proud history of standing up for social justice in the face of controversy and intimidation. This is not the time to take a step backwards.



The following labor and community members and more than 30 SFLC delegates urge the San Francisco Labor Council to uphold the resolution opposing the unjust prosecution of the San Francisco 8 defendants:

Senior Action Network (SAN)…School Bus Drivers UTU 1741 delegate Shane Hoff… American Postal Workers delegates Jean Taylor, Alice Lindstrom Davis, Vernelle Hawkins, Richard Stone…APWU delegate & SFLC Exec Ccl member Rosa Faye Marshall…SFLC Vice Pres & Pride at Work delegate Howard Wallace…LCLAA Pres., SFLC delegate & Exec Ccl member Frank Martin del Campo…Carpenters delegate Jim Salinas…SEIU 1021 delegates Maria Guillen, Jonathan Meade, Francesca Rosa, David Williams…AFT 2121 delegates Pablo Rodriguez, Allan Fisher, Warren Mar, Rodger Scott…IAM 1781 delegate and retired President Carl Finamore…SEIU 1000 delegate Tami Bryant…OPEIU 3 delegate & SFLC Exec Ccl member Alan Benjamin…Council of Community Housing Organizations & SF Housing Justice Network organizer Rene Cazenave…Letter Carriers 214 delegates Carl Bryant, Dave Welsh…Media Workers Pres. & delegate Gloria La Riva…Ironworkers 377 delegate Mike Daly…Arab American Union Members Council Pres. Monadel Herzallah… ILWU 10 delegate & Alameda Labor Council Exec Bd member Clarence Thomas…SF Day Labor Program director & La Raza Centro Legal organizer Renee Saucedo…Just Cause Oakland & Black Alliance for Just Immigration organizer Phil Hutchings…Poet and UPTE/ CWA 9119 delegate Nellie Wong…Inland Boatmen’s Union (ILWU) delegate Robert Irminger and member Samantha Levens…ANSWER Coalition…Pride at Work member Wendy Lee…SFLC delegate Denise D’Anne…SF Gray Panthers…Sign Display 510 member David Grace…SEIU 1021 member Linda Ray…US Labor Against the War coordinator Michael Eisenscher…AFT 2121 member Bill Carpenter…Former AFT 2121 president & SFLC Exec ccl member Allan Fisher…ILWU 10 Exec Bd memberJack Heyman… Radio host Kiilu Nyasha…SEIU delegate Kathy Lipscomb… Plumbers 393 Exec Bd member & So. Bay Labor Ccl delegate Fred Hirsch…CUE #3 former president Michael-David Sasson…Retired AFSCME, SEIU & IFPTE union rep Linda “Spike” Kahn…Haiti Action Committee and its co-founder Pierre Labossiere… Retired unionist and California Alliance for Retired Americans (CARA) activist Mary Magill… ATU 1555 member Gene Pepi…Teamsters member Art Persyko…Health Care for All organizer & union activist Don Bechler…People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER) Exec Director Steve Williams…Education not Incarceration organizer mesha Monge-Irizarry…SF senior activist Michael Lyon.



For individual signers, organizations listed for ID only



In addition to the above, the following have passed a resolution or signed an Open Letter urging that charges against the San Francisco 8 be dropped:



Center for Constitutional Rights…Archbishop Desmond Tutu and four other Nobel Peace Prize laureates… Actor Danny Glover…San Francisco Labor Council…Union organizer and civil rights activist Aileen Hernandez…Veteran SF and Bayview grassroots activist Jim Queen…Former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney…Metropolitan Community Church of SF senior minister Rev. Lea Brown…SF School Board president Kim-Shree Maufas, vice-presidentJane Kim and former president Mark Sanchez…UAW Southeast Region VP & Local 2320 Jeffrey Segal, Esq…SEIU District 1199 officer Bruce Richards… UCSF Clinical Professor of Psychiatry Jess Ghannam…Global Exchange board & radio host Walter Turner…San Francisco Bay View Newspaper publisher Willie Ratcliff… Author and journalist Ron Jacobs…SF Elections Commissioner & NAACP VP Rev. Arnold Townsend… Co-director Legal Services for Prisoners with Children Dorsey Nunn… International Assn of Jurists attorney Lennox Hinds, Esq…Bay Area radio jazz DJ Art Sato… Black Flight Attendants-Detroit chapter member Shaakira Edison…UC-Santa Cruz professor emeritus Angela Davis…Maranatha Christian Center (San Jose) Associate Minister Rev. Steven Pinkston...Ecumenical Peace Institute coordinator Carolyn Scarr…CSU-East Bay Prof. emeritus Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz…Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility director Gary Brouse…Attorneys Anne Butterfield Weills (Oakland), Nadia Yakoob (SF), Mark Merin (Sacramento), Melinda Power (Chicago), Allison Brown, Annette Ensley, Barry Beroset, Bernida Reagan, Carol Smith, Carol Watson, Chris Ford, Colleen Flynn, Collins Pettaway Jr.,David Addams, Florence Morgan, George Lewis, Gilda Sherrod-Ali, Judith L. Bourne, Kafahni Nkrumah, Kaleema Hadera Al-Nur (JD), Lee Goldstein, Marc Fancher, Marlene Archer, Mimi Ghirmay, Regina Jemison, Roger Wareham, Ron Scott, Roslyn Morrison, Sam Feneque (JD), Sarida Scott, Tara Curtis, Terry A. Price, Thomas Ruffin Jr, Helen P. Arnold and Standish E. Willis(Nat’l Conference of Black Lawyers, Chicago), Ivy Thomas Riley and Jeffrey L. Edison (Nat’l Conference of Black Lawyers, Michigan), Rev. Khalfani Drummer and Ronald Isaac (Nat’l Conference of Black Lawyers, DC Metro)…Professors Sam Green (USF and SF Art Institute), William Crossman (Berkeley City College), Kathleen Densmore (San Jose State), Adjoa Aiyetoro (U of Arkansas-Law), Bernedene Allen (College of Marin), Jose Palafox (UC-Berkeley),Julia Sudbury (Mills College), Leslie Fleming (Merritt College), Ana Lopez (Hostos Community College, Bronx, NY), Lisa Brock (Columbia College, Chicago)…National Lawyers Guild President Marjorie Cohn…Cornell University African Studies & Research Center associate Dr. James Turner… Therapist Beverly A. Jones (specializing in prison-related trauma, Berkeley, CA)…Westchester County Peace Action Coalition Exec Director Connie Hogarth… and hundreds more.



For individual signers, organizations listed for ID only

http://www.sflaborcouncil.org/ViewUpload/395


Resolution Calling for Attorney General Jerry Brown to Dismiss All
Charges against the San Francisco 8 Defendants

Whereas, Herman Bell, Ray Boudreaux, Richard Brown, Henry (Hank) Jones, Jalil
Muntaquim (Anthony Bottom), Harold Taylor and Francisco Torres, seven men
collectively known as the San Francisco 8 defendants [charges having been dropped
against Richard O’Neal], are a group of community activists who have devoted their
lives to serving their communities and making a difference, and are fathers,
grandfathers; and

Whereas, all of these men were members or associates of the Black Panther Party for
Self-Defense (BPP), a primary target of the FBI’s unconstitutional COINTELPRO
program in the late 1960s and early ‘70s, a program designed to disrupt and destroy a
number of progressive organizations in many United States cities; and

Whereas, in 1973, three Black activists – including one of the defendants – were
arrested in New Orleans and tortured by local police, and interrogated by two San
Francisco police detectives at intervals between the torture, which lasted several days,
during which the three men were separated from each other, stripped naked, covered
with wool blankets soaked in boiling water, beaten with slapjacks, suffocated with
plastic bags tied over their heads, sleep deprived, kicked, beaten, shocked with
electric cattle prods on their genitals, anus and under the neck; and

Whereas, statements resulting from the New Orleans torture were used to bring
charges in the mid-1970s in several jurisdictions (including charges for the 1971
killing of a San Francisco police officer); all of these charges were dismissed when
the judges learned that these ‘confessions’ had been coerced under torture; and

Whereas, in 2007, after 36 years, the prosecution re-filed the charges against the San
Francisco 8 based on the same tortured ‘confessions’ illegally obtained in 1973. By
September 2007, six of the eight who were eligible for bail were released thanks to
the support of their families and supporters, who saw the case as a continuation of the
COINTELPRO attack on the Black liberation movement; and

Whereas, this case was reopened based on questionable claims of "new" evidence;
and

Whereas, the San Francisco District Attorney’s office declined to renew the
prosecution of these community activists, but the California Attorney General
imposed the current prosecution of this case, and the jail and court costs of potentially
millions of tax dollars to be incurred by the City of San Francisco,

Therefore be it Resolved, that in the name of fairness, justice and human rights – and
to express our outrage that this prosecution based on coercion and tortured
‘confessions’ in this 36-year-old case would be allowed to proceed – the San
Francisco Labor Council calls on California Attorney General Jerry Brown to drop all
charges against the San Francisco 8 defendants and

Be it Finally Resolved that this resolution be forwarded to affiliates for concurrence and action.

Submitted by Davis Welsh, NALC 214, and adopted by the San Francisco Labor Council on
February 9, 2009.

Respectfully,

Tim Paulson
Executive Director

OPEIU3 AFL-CIO 11