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May Day 2016 ‘National Day of Mourning’ for victims of police terror

by repost
ILWU Local 10 has again initiated a May Day rally and march which will start at their union hall at 400 Northpoint St. in San Francisco. They have also invited Danny Glover and Bernie Sanders to speak.
ilwu_black-ilwu-worker-sfpd-cop-1934-sf-general-strike-by-ilwu-archives.jpg
Join ILWU Local 10 for May Day 2016 ‘National Day of Mourning’ for victims of police terror: Bernie Sanders, Danny Glover invited to speak
http://sfbayview.com/2016/04/join-ilwu-local-10-for-may-day-2016-national-day-of-mourning-for-victims-of-police-terror-bernie-sanders-danny-glover-invited-to-speak/
April 23, 2016
by Clarence Thomas, past secretary-treasurer for Local 10

Bernie Sanders embraces Danny Glover at a rally in Greenville, S.C., on Feb. 21, 2016. Former NAACP President Ben Jealous is behind them. – Photo: ABC News
For the second consecutive year, the ILWU Local 10 will be withholding its labor for eight hours to commemorate May Day. This May Day, Local 10 is calling for a “National Day of Mourning” for Black and Brown unarmed victims of police killings across the country. In 2015, the May Day theme was to “Stop Police Terror.”

Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders has been invited to speak May Day. While there is no confirmation as yet, the invitation is being strongly considered by his campaign organizers. Local 10 and the ILWU’s International Executive Board have endorsed his candidacy.


Black longshore workers stood up to the police who brutally tried to put down the legendary 1934 general strike in San Francisco. Blacks, then unwelcome in most unions and often used as strikebreakers, were rewarded by Harry Bridges, head of the ILWU, with full membership, thus beginning a long tradition of Black dockworkers in the city.
Danny Glover has been campaigning with Bernie Sanders in various states throughout the country and most recently in New York. Glover, actor and activist, raised in San Francisco, will appear at one of the rallies. As a student leader at San Francisco State University, he led the longest student strike in America history, which established the School of Ethnic Studies, and he was a prominent figure in the anti-apartheid struggle.

Also invited to speak is Mike Farrell, cast member of popular TV series M*A*S*H*, a life-long opponent of the death penalty. Farrell has debated and spoken about this issue on many occasions across the country. Additional speakers will include family members of victims of police violence and community, social justice and labor activists.

This year’s May Day festivities include a pre-rally at the Local 10 union hall located at 400 North Point St. in San Francisco Fisherman’s Wharf to be followed by a march and rally at Harry Bridges Plaza near the Ferry Building. The ILWU was born out of the struggle against protesting police violence against maritime workers in all major West Coast ports in the Big Strike of 1934. The San Francisco Labor Council is supporting ILWU Local 10’s march along the Embarcadero, site of the longshoremen’s battle with police in the Big Strike of 1934.

May Day, International Workers Day, is a holiday “born in the USA” to celebrate labor’s struggle to gain the eight-hour work day. In 1884, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions passed a resolution in Chicago declaring that eight hours would constitute a legal day’s work on May 1, 1886.

Labor’s struggle to achieve the eight-hour work day faced bloody repression as business-controlled government tried to crush the workers’ movement. The workers were determined to end long hours of brutal exploitation and were victorious.


Clarence Thomas – Photo: Delores Lemon Thomas
Local 10 has been in the vanguard of labor in its acts of resistance protesting racial policing. This year’s May Day mobilization is advancing five demands supported by Rev. Clementa Pinkney, South Carolina state senator, church pastor and one of the slain Emanuel 9 of Charleston. Demands include: 1. End to racist policing; 2. Economic justice, a $15 living wage now; 3. Health care for all, Medicaid expansion; 4. Quality education as a basic human right; and 5. Voting rights expansion.

Longshore unions can take the lead in building workers’ solidarity to end racist policing and also achieve economic and social justice for the working class as it did in 1886 to achieve the eight-hour work day. If the working class is to be heard, then labor must shut it down. All out for May Day 2016.

Clarence Thomas, past secretary-treasurer for Local 10, organizer for previous May Day actions, third generation longshoreman and member of Local 10 for 30 years, can be reached at thomas-
by Jonathan Nack
I hope to see you Brother Thomas and to give you an embrace. Solidarity forever. An injury to one is an injury to all!
by Register Peace & Freedom or Green
This vicious slap in the face to the workers of the world and the memory of the Haymarket Martyrs who died in the struggle for the 8 hour day that is the foundation of May Day with a campaign rally for a Democratic Party Sheepdog, Bernie Sanders, in the usual staged-to-the-last-detail Democrat-Republican Party presidential race, has nothing to do with May Day and everything to do with the bankrupt social order in which we live that should be rejected by the entire workingclass, namely capitalism.

Democrat Bernie Sanders, along with the rest of his fascist war mongering party, support the encirclement of Russia, including the illegal installation of a Nazi regime in Ukraine with $5 billion of our tax dollars by Democrat Obama, supported by the entire Democrat-Republican Party. The massacre of 300 people at the Odessa House of Trade Unions on May 2, 2014 by Nazi Ukraine supporters was a direct result of Democrat Sanders and the rest of his Democrat-Republican Party's plan to encircle Russia. For more on those story, see
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/05/03/18755256.php?show_comments=1#18755364
and
http://ersieesist.livejournal.com/813.html

https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/05/10/18755611.php

https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/05/08/18755507.php
http://www.globalresearch.ca/search?q=Ukraine&x=0&y=0

http://www.ukrainewar.info/

http://iacenter.org/804/french-documentary-exposes-neo-nazi-role-in-ukraine-2/

https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/05/25/18756278.php

https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/05/19/18755962.php

https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/05/10/18755612.php

The Sanders people need to learn to read the printed word, INCLUDING HIS VOTING RECORD, on their pro-war sheepdog candidate and his contrived campaign which he has stated is to make sure people vote Democrat in every election, instead of socialist or Green. The following articles are a must read for Danny Glover and everyone else who supports Sanders:

Cindy Sheehan, a Peace & Freedom Party candidate in the past, has compiled the reactionary voting record of Sanders on 2/17/16, "Confessions of a Real Socialist" with lots of links at:
http://cindysheehanssoapbox.blogspot.com/2016/02/confessions-of-real-socialist-by-cindy.html

Barry Bush has his own listing of reactionary Sanders votes at:
http://www.facebook.com/BernieBarryBush/posts/1507933992860321

See photos & article at Bernie Sanders Loves This $1 Trillion War Machine by Tim Mak, 2/8/16 at http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/02/09/bernie-sanders-loves-this-1-trillion-war-machine.html.

The Myth of Bernie Sanders
by Thomas H. Naylor in Counterpunch 9/30/11 at
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/09/30/the-myth-of-bernie-sanders/
and
Bernie Sanders Is a Russia-Bashing, Pro-Israel, Militarist Tool at
http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/bernie-sanders-anti-russian-propaganda-and-vermont-socialism/ri8857
He also called Hugo Chavez, the late leader of Venezuela murdered by the CIA, a communist dictator, standard US capitalist war machine hatemongering. See
US Presidential Candidates Demean Muslims and Hugo Chavez by Steve Lendman, 9/19/15 at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2015/09/19/18777841.php

His support of US imperialism is outrageous and unconscionable. See
Does Bernie Sanders’ Imperialism Matter? by Shamus Cooke, 1/5/16
http://www.globalresearch.ca/does-bernie-sanders-imperialism-matter/5499541

The Black Agenda Report of May 6, 2015 has a good description of all of the Democrats' sheepdogs at http://www.blackagendareport.com/bernie-sanders-sheepdog-4-hillary

Also a must read for all Sanders' fans is basic arithmetic showing that the pre-arranged SANDERS CAMPAIGN HAS ENDED as he does not and will not have sufficient delegates to win the nomination, which he had no intention of winning in any event. See http://www.politico.com/2016-election/results/delegate-count-tracker

We have a busy week for labor with a milestone, long overdue first City College workers strike on April 27, 2016 and Workers' Memorial Day on April 28, 2016.
For the San Francisco City College Workers Strike, see
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2016/04/22/18785475.php

For Workers' Memorial Day, see
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2016/04/08/18785012.php

By Sunday, May 1, 2016, when most of us have a day off, expected to be an infrequent 80 degrees in our 60 degree city, we will be resting in the sun, swimming in the Bay, and renewing our strength for the struggles ahead which include MUCH MORE LABOR ORGANIZING and OPPOSITION TO ENCIRCLEMENT OF RUSSIA which could easily result in World War 3. If you support labor and peace and oppose Nazi Ukraine and the encirclement of Russia, register for the parties that have the same positions, namely Peace & Freedom Party and the Green Party. Vote by mail starts May 9, 2016, so the sooner you register for one of these parties, the better. The presidential election is closed, meaning you have to register in the party whose presidential candidate you support for the June 7, 2016 primary. At this point, it is probably faster to go to your County Registrar to register, and at the same time, sign up to be a permanent vote-by-mail (absentee) voter so you never forget to vote and can vote in the comfort of your home the 30 days before election day, which is June 7, 2016. If you are not sure if you are registered to vote at your current address and in the party that your presidential candidate is in, see the California Secretary of State’s website at http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/registration-status/ or call your County Registrar found at http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/voting-resources/county-elections-offices/
You can also register online at https://covr.sos.ca.gov/?language=en-US
For more information, see
http://www.peaceandfreedom.org/home
http://www.votepsl.org/ (Gloria LaRiva for President) (Be sure to read her serious socialist program.)
and
http://www.cagreens.org/
http://www.gp.org/
http://www.jill2016.com/ (Jill Stein for President)

ALL ABOARD THE PEACE & FREEDOM-GREEN PARTY FREEDOM TRAIN!




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