Matching the loss of 3,859 jobs is the slashing of the city’s education budget that will force schools to open in the fall without funding for paper, new books, athletics, arts, music, counselors and more. Since 2011, the school district has eliminated 34.3 percent of school workers. Hundreds of students, parents and teachers protested June [...]
The Metropolitan Labor Committee, a coalition of trade unions representing 350,000 workers employed by New York City, held an after-work protest June 12 at City Hall. More than 10,000 angry workers came to express strong solidarity with all the struggles currently engaging workers. Johnnie Stevens, an organizer with Parents to Improve School Transportation, told Workers [...]
Strong Legal Services strike continues The 270 members of the Legal Services Staff Association, United Auto Workers Local 2320, who work at Legal Services NYC, have been on strike since May 15. Management has refused to budge from making severe cuts in health care coverage and retirement benefits, even though LSSA has offered some concessions. [...]
The 99 Pickets and the Rude Mechanical Orchestra held a strong, militant protest inside Target’s main Brooklyn, N.Y., store on June 13. Some 35 people participated in the protest. The 99 Pickets is an Occupy Wall Street collective that has recently been focusing on supporting Bangladeshi workers. While protesters gathered one by one on the [...]
Detroit — A new restructuring plan has been issued for Detroit with no real input by the people of the city. Kevyn Orr, the state-appointed emergency manager, held a closed meeting on June 14 with creditors and some labor leaders at the Westin Hotel in the main terminal at Wayne County’s Detroit Metropolitan Airport. Orr’s meeting [...]
Solidarity with Turkish protesters at Zuccotti Park in New York City, June 8.
Progressive activists joined Turkish immigrants in Philadelphia’s Love Park on June 17 to express solidarity with the ongoing rebellion in Taksim Square in Istanbul.
Syracuse, N.Y — CNY Solidarity marched loud and proud at Central New York Pride on June 15. Youth activists organized and led the contingent. The number of marchers participating in the group doubled from the 2012 march. They held signs high that argued the need to link anti-racist struggle and the fight against lesbian, gay, bisexual, [...]
The top echelons of the Washington establishment have been stunned by the release of documents which show that the U.S. government has been involved in a program of massive spying not only on foreign governments and their citizens, but on its own citizens as well. Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old technical worker employed by Booz Allen [...]
The continuing campaign to gain compassionate release for Lynne Stewart — the grievously ill, imprisoned human rights attorney — is headed to Washington, D.C. Despite being approved for compassionate release, Stewart continues to be held in Carswell Federal Prison in seriously deteriorating health. Stewart’s spouse, social justice activist Ralph Poynter, will lead a continuing vigil [...]
