The final stand for Wood Street Commons
By David Bacon on After years of pushing homeless Oakland residents to the site during other encampment closures, Oakland is clearing out what was once the city’s largest unhoused community.
David Bacon
Santa Monica Students Pepper-Sprayed for Protesting Fee Hikes
“It really creates segregation between the haves and the have-nots,” says Board of Trustees member Margaret Quiñones-Perez. “If you can pay, you’ll get your classes. That’s guaranteed if you have money. But if you don’t have money, you may get classes, and you may not. Community colleges were not created for this.”
How Mississippi Beat the South’s Anti-Immigrant Wave
When Republicans championed HB 488, an attempt to drive immigrants from Mississippi, many black legislators and labor unions spoke against it. Some objected to the term “illegal alien,” while others said it justified breaking up families and "ethnic cleansing.” Even many white legislators were inspired to speak against it.
Domestic Workers and Their Children March for Rights
The Domestic Workers Bill of Rights would affect the 200,000 people who work in California domestic service, who are almost entirely women, and immigrants or people of color. Domestic workers face substandard conditions and low pay, even though many are the sole source of income for their families.
From Occupy Wall Street to Occupy the Neighborhoods
It is a victory that the occupations have led the media to even briefly question America’s economic divisions. Now we need to find creative ways to take the issues of the Occupy movement to every neighborhood, workplace and campus, even those that don’t seem natural hotbeds of change.
Los Angeles Janitors Fight for Their Jobs
Firings because of immigration status do irreparable harm to workers and to their communities. Immigrant workers didn’t cause the unemployment that plagues millions. They didn’t close a single plant. Big corporations did. They didn’t cause the economic recession or foreclose on anyone’s home. Big banks did.
South of Silicon Valley, Hunger Haunts Hollister
In a terrible contradiction in U.S. poverty, the farm workers who spend their working lives producing the food consumed by millions in cities all over the country often don’t have enough to eat themselves. Hunger haunts agricultural workers in Hollister, in the very shadow of Silicon Valley’s unparalleled affluence.