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Indybay Feature

United Labor Rally for BART Workers, August 1

by Richard Chen
On August 1, more than 1,200 unionists from four unions - ATU, AFSCME, ILWU and SEIU - along with community supporters organized a United Labor Rally to defend BART workers and their communities as a BART strike approaches.

Following the rally at Frank Ogawa (Oscar Grant) Plaza, participants marched to BART headquarters where a spontaneous action started up in front of the main entrance. A strike is scheduled for midnight on Monday, August 5th. ATU Local 1555 has called for a mass labor/community mobilization at 14th and Broadway in Oakland at 5pm that same day.

Higher resolution video available at http://www.transportworkers.org and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHKeqCn4pzg&feature=youtu.be
Copy the code below to embed this movie into a web page:
On August 1, more than 1,200 unionists from four unions - ATU, AFSCME, ILWU and SEIU - along with community supporters organized a United Labor Rally to defend BART workers and their communities as a BART strike approaches.

Following the rally at Frank Ogawa (Oscar Grant) Plaza, participants marched to BART headquarters where a spontaneous action started up in front of the main entrance.

A strike is scheduled for midnight on Monday, August 5th. ATU Local 1555 has called for a mass labor/community mobilization at 14th and Broadway in Oakland at 5pm that same day.

For more information:

http://www.transportworkers.org
http://www.wemakebartwork.com

Higher resolution video available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHKeqCn4pzg&feature=youtu.be
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by Solidarity
One woman interviewed on KPFA stated she is relying on friends and family to help her pay the bills as she "does not get paid," presumably meaning there is no strike fund. THERE MUST BE STRIKE FUND TO PAY THE STRIKING WORKERS' BILLS TO WIN THIS STRIKE. The weekend of August 10-11, 2013, there must be a fundraiser, such as at the ILWU hall at Fisherman's Wharf, where we can make financial contributions as well as in kind, in terms of food, personal hygiene necessities, children's clothes and the like. (For those of you who have no children, they outgrow their clothes and shoes in a few months, sometimes in just 1 month! Diapers are always needed.) There also needs to be a means of making financial contributions to the strike fund online.

A union victory in this strike means not only that labor has finally taken the offensive after over 60 years of regression, it also means that we are on the road to winning socialized medicine. As a result of the 1934 general strikes in San Francisco, Minneapolis and Toledo, in 1935, we won Social Security, unemployment insurance and the right to organize labor unions. Shutting down BART is effectively a general strike in the immediate Bay Area, not including Santa Clara, Marin and Sonoma Counties. There is simply no other way to move 400,000 people to their jobs than BART. The handful of buses BART provides, the inadequate AC Transit and boat ferries and the car pools which face congestion on the Bay Bridge simply cannot replace BART at all. The San Francisco Financial District was a ghost town July 1-5, 2013. Granted the July 4 Thursday holiday effectively made Friday July 5 a holiday for many people who took Friday off, but Monday-Wednesday July 1-3 were also dead days in the SF Financial District, where the capitalist class has its banks, insurance companies and law offices to promote its bankrupt social order. There are some good things in the SF Financial District, but they are a sideshow.

We, the workingclass, are with the BART workers. Do not let the capitalist press fool you. Put that strike fund pitch online, and tell us where it is. Tell us where and when the fundraiser will be the weekend of August 10-11 and we will be there. At all of these rallies, PASS THE HAT FOR CONTRIBUTIONS TO A STRIKE FUND and ask people to provide non-perishable food, personal hygiene necessities and children's clothes to striking workers. IT IS THE PERSON TO PERSON CONNECTION THAT WINS SOLIDARITY!

Solidarity Forever
For the Union always makes us strong!
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