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<font face="Arial"><b>in this email:<br>
<br>
1) 10/8 - Eyewitness Report from the G20<br>
2) Struggle for jobs comes to G-20<br>
<br>
</b></font>
<hr size="2" width="100%"><font face="Arial"><b>1)</b></font><br>
<span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 180%;"><span
style="font-family: arial;">Thurs., Oct. 8 - 6:30 pm</span></span><br>
<br>
<div style="text-align: center;"><span
style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-size: 180%;"><span
style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;">Eyewitness Report from
the G20:</span></span><br>
<span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-size: 180%;"><span
style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;">The Economic Crisis -
Racism & the Struggle for Jobs, Housing, Education & Healthcare</span></span><br>
</div>
<span style="font-size: 130%;"><span
style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;"><br>
</span></span><a style="font-family: arial;"
onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"
href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_DuiJVRYxnzI/SsunY51hf6I/AAAAAAAAAB8/FFjrocB-TXw/s1600-h/7017_1217329362915_1519306126_30574532_4334159_n.jpg"><img
style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;"
src="cid:part1.08090907.02030701@gmail.com" alt=""
id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5389585425362943906" border="0"></a><span
style="font-size: 130%;"><span
style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;"><br>
<br>
<br>
<span style="font-size: 180%;">USW L. 8751</span></span></span><br>
<span style="font-size: 130%;"><span
style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;">Boston School Bus
Drivers</span><br>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;">Union Hall</span></span><br>
<span style="font-family: arial;">25 Colgate Rd., Roslindale</span><br>
<span style="font-size: 85%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">(a few
blocks south of Forrest Hills T, off Wash. St.)</span></span><br>
<br>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><br>
<br>
Lessons from Pittsburgh..and next steps <br>
We'll have footage of the March for Jobs, the Tent City and the
activities. <br>
Pittsburgh was another step on the way to a new and powerful people's
movement. The struggle continues.<br>
<br>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Speakers &
topics will include:</span></span><br>
<br>
<span style="font-family: arial;">Members
of BOPM and USW L. 8751 who participated in the Sept. 20th March for
Jobs as well as other actions during the G20 in Pittsburgh.</span><br>
<br>
<span style="font-family: arial;">Updates and discussion on the
struggle for equal, quality education in the Boston Public Schools</span><br>
<br>
<span style="font-family: arial;">Racism & the attacks on
healthcare reform</span><br>
<br>
<span style="font-family: arial;">The struggle for justice by workers
at the Hyatt and Harvard</span><br>
<br>
<span style="font-family: arial;">The continuing struggle against
foreclosures</span><br>
<hr size="2" width="100%"><font face="Arial"><b>2) <big><big><font
color="#990000">Struggle for jobs comes to G-20</font></big></big></b><br>
<br>
by Brenda Sandburg<br>
Pittsburgh<br>
<br>
More than 1,000 protesters marched through the streets of Pittsburgh on
Sept. 20 demanding a real jobs program, like the public works program
the Roosevelt administration enacted during the Great Depression of the
1930s.<br>
<br>
It was the first demonstration related to the G-20 summit, a gathering
of Treasury officials and central bankers from 20 countries that will
take place in Pittsburgh Sept 24-25. The goal of the G-20 is to protect
bank profits. The goal of the March for Jobs is to revive Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr.’s call for the right of all to a job. The march was
organized by the Bail Out the People Movement and the Rev. Thomas E.
Smith, pastor of the Monumental Baptist Church, and endorsed by the
United Steelworkers union and the United Electrical Workers.<br>
<br>
The march garnered coverage and interest from major big-business media,
both nationally and locally, including the Associated Press, Reuters,
the Wall Street Journal, the French Press Agency and others. Organizers
of the march attributed the media interest to the fact that the march
addressed the crisis of joblessness and its devastating impact on the
Black community.<br>
<br>
People came from cities throughout the country to join a significant
number of Pittsburgh area residents for the march. The cities
represented included Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit, Cleveland,
Akron, Minneapolis, Baltimore, Miami, New York, Buffalo, Philadelphia,
Providence, the North Carolina Triangle area and Boston. Many have been
laid off or lost their homes to foreclosures. Despite the crisis,
people were spirited, drawing strength from being together and from
building a movement.<br>
<br>
“In honor of Martin Luther King we are continuing what he started in
uniting people together in a poor people’s campaign,” the Rev. Tom
Smith, pastor of Monumental Baptist Church and one of the organizers of
the march, told the rally. “The G-20 is structuring deals to protect
the corporations and not the workers. It’s time for the workers to come
together and make a difference.”<br>
<br>
People gathered in the morning at Monumental Baptist Church located in
the historic African-American Hill district of Pittsburgh. A tent city
dedicated to the unemployed had been set up next to the church the day
before. Many of the protesters will stay at the tent city throughout
the week with more people expected to join as the G-20 summit opens.<br>
<br>
An opening rally was held before the march stepped off at about 2:30.
People marched carrying hundreds of placards with the image of Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. and chanting, “We got the right! We got the
right to a job!” The march ended at Freedom Corner, where in 1963
people got on buses to go to the historic civil rights march in
Washington, D.C.<br>
<br>
Larry Holmes, an organizer of the Bail Out the People Movement, said
the government claims a jobless recovery is on the horizon. He
emphasized that this is unacceptable. “A jobless recovery is like a
dead patient after a successful operation,” he said.<br>
<br>
Monica Moorehead of the organization Millions for Mumia recognized the
more than two million people in prison who couldn’t be at the
demonstration. She introduced a taped message from political prisoner
Mumia Abu-Jamal.<br>
<br>
At the closing rally, Fred Redmond, United Steelworkers vice president,
noted the need for universal health care and affordable education as
well as jobs for all. “Enough of our kids are going to school where the
rats outnumber the computers,” he said. “We have to assure that every
child receives an education to equip them for the 21st century.”<br>
<br>
Other speakers at the two rallies included Oscar Hernandez, a
participant in the 11-month Stella D’Oro bakery strike in New York
City; Clarence Thomas, International Longshore and Warehouse Union
Local 10 and Million Worker March Movement; Brenda Stokely and Jennifer
Jones, NYC Coalition in Solidarity with Katrina/Rita Survivors; Rob
Robinson, Picture the Homeless; Rosemary Williams, Poor Peoples
Economic Human Rights Campaign; Mick Kelly, Coalition for a Peoples
Bailout; Nellie Bailey, Harlem Tenants Council; John Parker, Bail Out
the People Movement organizer in Los Angeles; Sandra Hines, Michigan
Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions and Utility
Shutoffs; Rokhee Devastali, Feminist Students United, University of
North Carolina-Chapel Hill; civil rights attorney Lynne Stewart; Larry
Hales, FIST (Fight Imperialism Stand Together); Larry Adams, People’s
Organization for Progress; Pam Africa, International Concerned Family
and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal; Victor Toro, an immigrant facing
deportation and member of the May 1st Coalition for Worker &
Immigrant Rights; Berna Ellorin, BAYAN-USA; Father Luis Barrios,
Pastors for Peace; Kali Akuno, U.S. Human Rights Network; and
Pennsylvania state Sen. Jim Ferlo.<br>
<br>
<b>Why people came to Pittsburgh</b><br>
<br>
The march was a powerful draw for people, many of whom traveled long
distances to be part of the event. Strikers from TRW Automotive, a
seatbelt-making plant in Mexico, had been in Detroit speaking out about
their struggle when they heard about the protest in Pittsburgh and
joined the bus from Detroit. One member of the TRW group, Israel
Mouroig of the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras, said it was
necessary to forge alliances at the international level. “Corporations
that generate billions of dollars a year produced the crisis in our
country,” he said. “There is a lack of jobs because they see the
working class as robots, as numbers. We have to appropriate the means
of production and be the actors of our own history.”<br>
<br>
Several people drove from Los Angeles, including Guy Anthony, who lost
his job as an organizer with the Service Employees union in June. Now
living in his car, he has traveled around the country writing a blog
about his experiences (thedistantdrummer.com). “You can’t talk about
joblessness without talking about homelessness,” Anthony said. He met
people in Seattle who had set up “a fabulous tent city” on church
property. He also stayed with people who set up a homeless community at
a roadside stop off of Route 280 south of San Francisco. “You couldn’t
want better neighbors,” he said. “Nobody went hungry. It was a
beautiful socialist community.” The county recently shut the group down.<br>
<br>
A large contingent from the Boston School Bus Drivers union, USW Local
8751, including Gary Murchison, former three-term president of the
local, and Frantz Mendes, current president, showed up three days
before the march to help organize and build the tent city.<br>
<br>
Detroit activists, who organized a hugely successful tent city in June,
brought a busload of people to Pittsburgh. “We had to be here,” said
Sandra Hines of the Moratorium NOW! Coalition. “We have to mobilize,
organize before they take every right we have away from us.” Latonya
Lloyd, who was part of the Detroit delegation, recently battled the
shut-off of utilities at the Highland Towers apartment building.<br>
<br>
Mary Kay Harris came with about 40 other people on a bus from Rhode
Island. A member of DARE (Direct Action for Rights and Equality),
Harris said that as soon as they heard about the March for Jobs they
decided they had to be there. Rhode Island, which has one of the
highest unemployment rates in the country, has a tent city of the
homeless. “We feel that solidarity is the most important thing,” she
said.<br>
<br>
Activists in Cleveland also brought a busload of people, including a
large contingent from the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign.
And a group of 18 youth came from North Carolina, including Tracy Gill,
a member of FIST who said this was the first big protest she had ever
been to.<br>
<br>
Members of the Minnesota People’s Bailout Coalition also came to the
march. Angel Buechner said the organization had fought for legislation
last year that would have provided immediate jobs or income and a
moratorium on foreclosures and on the state’s five-year limit on
receiving welfare. But Gov. Tim Pawlenty defeated the measure. Despite
the setback, Buechner is ready to continue the battle.<br>
<br>
At the ending rally at Freedom Corner, Holmes announced—to the approval
of the crowd—that the next step is to build a national march for jobs
in Washington next April to continue Dr. King’s dream. </font><br>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
<hr><font face="arial" size="2"><br>
<b>Bail Out The People Movement<br>
Boston</b><br>
617-522-6626<br>
<a href="mailto:bopmboston@gmail.com">bopmboston@gmail.com</a><br>
<a href="http://bopm-boston.blogspot.com">http://bopm-boston.blogspot.com</a><br>
</font>
<p><font face="arial" size="2"><b>National Office</b><br>
212-633-6646<br>
<a href="mailto:bailoutpeople@safewebmail.com">bailoutpeople@safewebmail.com</a>
<br>
<a href="http://www.BailOutPeople.org">http://www.BailOutPeople.org</a>
</font></p>
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