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National Strike! August 29th

Posted 10 years ago on Aug. 20, 2013, 9:52 a.m. EST by OccupyWallSt
Tags: labor, strike, fast food workers

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via LowPayIsNotOK.org:

Thousands of workers are going on a national strike on August 29 to demand better pay and better treatment. Low-wage jobs are the fastest growing jobs in the nation and they need to pay more so that workers like us can make ends meet. McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, KFC and other corporations are making billions in profits, but they’re paying poverty wages and keeping the entire economy down. We’ve had enough. And we’re not alone.

If you work in a fast food or retail store anywhere in the country, the most effective thing you can do right now is make plans to take to the streets on August 29. Encourage your friends, family, and neighbors to do the same. The more of us who go on strike that day, the louder our message will be that it is not right for companies making billions in profits to pay their workers pennies.

Email us to let us know you’re in – or if you want to talk with a fellow fast food worker who has already gone out on strike. You can reach us at (347) 974-3944 too.

HOW TO GO ON A ONE-DAY STRIKE
15 steps for $15 an hour and the right to form a union

Before you strike for $15:

1 - Talk to coworkers you trust and ask them to join you.
2 - Set the time to meet outside the store on the day of the strike.
3 - Call everyone you know to support you: friends, family, local social justice organizations, pastors, priests, and politicians and ask them to come to your strike line.
4 - Ask at least one of your supporters to walk back into to work with you at your next regularly scheduled shift after the strike.

Day of the strike for $15:

5 - Make signs that say why you are on strike.
6 - Print out and deliver the “Strike” letter to your manager (everyone who is on strike should sign it).
7 - Start your strike! Stand outside your store with your supporters and let people know you all are standing up for $15 an hour and the right to organize a union because low pay is not ok!
8 - Call the local TV station and newspaper and let them know you are on strike at your store.
9 - Call or text family and friends who aren’t there yet to come and support you.
10 - Chant, march, sing and let everyone who is on strike explain why they are there.
11 - Ask supporters to come with you when you and your coworkers return to work.
12 - Post pictures of your strike on Facebook at Facebook.com/LowPayIsNotOK and tweet them to @lowpayisnotok with the hashtag #strikefor15

After the strike for $15:

13 - Meet up with your supporter who is walking with you to work.
14 - Go back to work at your next regularly scheduled shift with your head held high.
15 - Tell your coworkers how it felt to stand up for $15 an hour and the right to form union with thousands of other workers across the country! Sign them up at LowPayIsNotOK.org.

11 Comments

Wednesday: Direct Action Training and Visioning for #S17 Robin Hood Tax Action

Posted 10 years ago on Aug. 20, 2013, 8:08 a.m. EST by OccupyWallSt
Tags: NYC, S17, Robin Hood Tax

The Robin Hood Tax

via the Occupy Network team and S17 Robin Hood Tax action partners:

Join us August 21 to dream up direct actions to bring attention to the Robin Hood Tax Campaign

The Robin Hood Tax is a galvanizing issue for this historical moment, and it's a winnable fight to boot. It is a financial transaction tax that takes .05% from Wall Street transactions. Just .05% creates $350 Billion dollars a year in new revenue for America. $350 Billion pays for universal healthcare, $350 Billion ends students debt, $350 Billion funds a green jobs program and much much more.

The Robin Hood Tax is movement legislation. It is a long-term fight for a more just world. The National Nurses Union, Transit Workers United, Vocal NY, Act UP and Occupy are throwing our collective weight behind this issue on Sept. 17th to begin to chart a vision forward out of perpetual Environmental and Economic Crisis.

Come together with us for a Direct Action Training and Visioning at the Brooklyn Commons at 388 Atlantic Ave.

Let’s dream about how to best make a tangible impact this S17. We have a rough sketch of plans so far, but in order to create an action of creativity and finesse, we need you!

We hope to see you there for this important brainstorm session where we’ll create a concrete plan for how we should proceed.

Wednesday, August 21st
The Brooklyn Commons
388 Atlantic Ave. BK, NYC
7PM

15 Comments

Aug 7-9: Three Days of Action to Shut Down ALEC in Chicago #noALEC

Posted 10 years ago on Aug. 7, 2013, 1:50 p.m. EST by OccupyWallSt
Tags: Chicago, ALEC, #noALEC

Shut Down ALEC!

via ALEC Welcoming Committee:

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) will be meeting in Chicago on August 7-9 at the Palmer House Hilton Hotel. ALEC connects corporate lobbyists with legislators behind closed doors to write "model legislation". This Legislation is then put on the floor of state legislatures across the country, without indication that it is an ALEC model bill. Put simply, corporations are writing state laws. That type of concerted effort in favor of profit between business interests and the state is NOT acceptable. ALEC's model bills include Right to Work (for less) laws, "Ag-gag" bills which brand environmental and animal rights activists "terrorists", Arizona's racial profiling law (SB1070), Wisconsin legislature's attack on public-sector collective bargaining, and so many others.

For those three days, we invite people from the city of Chicago and all across the Country to Participate in three days of action against ALEC's member corporations, their summit and the institutions they represent.

On August 8, we will have a noise demo outside of their meeting at the Palmer house Hilton. Details for that action here: https://www.facebook.com/events/381320208639722/

More actions will be forthcoming. See you in Haymarket City.

(Sign up on our mutual aid sheet! http://tinyurl.com/FuckALEC)


more info via http://www.alecwc.org/:

ALEC is Anti-union:

-ALEC was involved in the passage of a Wisconsin bill effectively ending collective bargaining for public sector unions.
-ALEC has pushed right to work (“for less”) legislation which eliminates protections that prevent employers from discriminating against prospective employees who are unionized.

ALEC promotes incarceration:

-ALEC corporations include private prison companies such as CCA (Corrections Corporation of America), which create a demand for prisoners.
-ALEC has pushed 3-strikes laws which compel courts to incarcerate third-time felons for life even if they have never committed a violent crime.

ALEC is a detriment to public education:

-ALEC Has introduced “voucher programs” in states which divert funding from
public to private schools. -ALEC Has diverted funding from public schools to charter schools.

ALEC promotes the criminalization of immigrants:

-Arizona state law SB1070 (“show me your papers” law) (an ALEC model bill) makes it a crime for an immigrant to be in Arizona without carrying documentation.
-SB1070 also allows officers to detain people if they “look like an immigrant”.

ALEC pollutes the earth:

-ALEC inserted a provision into the Illinois State Legislature’s “Illinois Hydraulic Fracturing Regulatory Act” which allows fracking firms to withhold information about chemicals used in fracking by claiming them as “trade secrets”.

ALEC exploits Indigenous land:

-ALEC member corporation “Salt River Project” (SRP), was authorized under AZ state law to pump groundwater from native O’odham land into Phoenix, AZ. Literally draining native wells.

ALEC is where our struggles merge

Full Schedule

Wednesday, August 7th

March on the Palmer House against ALEC
10am - Michigan & Congress
We will march from Grant Park to various ALEC related businesses and eventually to the Palmer House.
https://www.facebook.com/events/381320208639722/

"United States of ALEC" FREE Film Screening and Panel
6pm - University Center Chicago, 525 S. State Street
Please RSVP: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/7650311287/efblike

Thursday, August 8th

ALEC Exposed in Chicago Rally - via Chicago Federation of Labor
12pm - Palmer House Hilton, 17 E. Monroe
https://www.facebook.com/events/398759776900781

Protest ALEC with Overpass Light Brigade Chicago and the Northern Illinois Light Brigade
8:30pm - Palmer House Hilton, 17 E. Monroe
https://www.facebook.com/events/391056121016593

For updates and more info, see:

3 days of action to shut down ALEC in Chicago: https://www.facebook.com/events/201838206636608

Occupy ALEC 2013: https://www.facebook.com/OccupyALEC

Activist Toolkit for Taking on ALEC in Chicago: http://www.pfaw.org/ALEC2013

noALEC #ALECgtfo

Video of Chicago #MoralMonday Action against ALEC, 8.5.14

36 Comments

Sunday, Aug 4th: Rally Against Surveillance #1984Day

Posted 10 years ago on Aug. 3, 2013, 5:04 p.m. EST by OccupyWallSt
Tags: nyc, stop and frisk, restore the fourth, rt4

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via Restore the Fourth NYC:

Sunday, August 4th is 1984 Day. A broad coalition of resistance, including Restore the Fourth, will be gathering in cities across the US to oppose the global surveillance apparatus. In NYC, we're meeting at 3:00pm in Bryant Park to march on locations that have aided the surveillance state. Some of us will be clad in gear inspired by George Orwell's 1984.

From the NSA to the NYPD, the 99% are monitored by a system designed to target anyone perceived as a threat to the 1%. Because occupiers know first hand how surveillance functions to quash dissent, we are calling on Occupy Wall Street to join us in solidarity.

crucial info:

Restore the Fourth NYC Facebook Rally/March Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/508963769175983/
Restore the Fourth Facebook Rally/March Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/585565111483298/
1984 Day Website (for further information about other local events): http://www.1984day.com

some background:

Recent local and international events have exposed chilling parallels to the dystopian world of Orwell's novel:

Over a month ago, leaks of top-secret governmental files revealed that the US is spying on its own people and the people of the world, and that multinational corporations like AT&T, Verizon, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, and Google are complicit in varying degrees. We have since learned that countries including the UK, France, Germany, and the Netherlands are engaged in similar programs.

Just yesterday, it was revealed that the surveillance apparatus is even broader than we'd been told. In addition to metadata and telephone records, the NSA routinely intercepts the contents of personal communications, including e-mails and telephone calls, and collects “nearly everything a user does on the Internet," using a tool called ‘XKeyscore’.

And the problem is bigger than just electronic spying. Racist policies like NYPD's "Stop and Frisk" subject people --especially people of color-- to invasive physical searches and police intimidation. On June 28th, Mayor Bloomberg stated that the NYPD "disproportionately stop[s] whites too much and minorities too little" when talking about the Stop and Frisk program. On July 23rd, after vetoing the Community Safety Act, he stated that the bill, which would severely restrict the use of Stop and Frisk, "would make New Yorkers less safe."

Let's get real. Such constant appeals to "safety" and "security" are fear tactics that exploit public apprehension over crime and terrorism. They mask the surveillance state's true intent -- to protect the interests of the 1% through the monitoring and intimidation of anyone they perceive as a threat to their power: people of color, political activists, immigrants, and ultimately, everyone -- in other words, the 99%.

Enough is enough. It's time to fight back against a future without freedom. Sunday, August 4th, is 1984 day.

See you in the streets!

more about Restore the Fourth NYC:

https://www.facebook.com/restorethe4thnyc
http://restorethefourthnyc.org/
restorethe4thnyc@gmail.com
@Restorethe4thNY

1984dayNYC

more about Restore the Fourth:

http://www.1984day.com
http://www.restorethefourth.net/
https://www.facebook.com/RestoreTheFourth
@Restore_the4th

1984day

10 Comments

Occupy Money: Revolutionary

Posted 10 years ago on Aug. 2, 2013, 2:28 p.m. EST by OccupyWallSt
Tags: Occupy Card, New Economy, Carne Ross, occupy money cooperative

We all know how broken the for-profit banking system is, and how badly we all desire an alternative.

Due to the high level of demand for information and background on the upcoming Occupy Card, the Occupy Money Cooperative will be hosting an AMA ("Ask Me Anything") on Reddit, this Sunday, August 4th, at 9PM Eastern. (You can also tweet questions at us at @OccupyMoneyCoop.)

We invite you to join us for this event, and to come prepared with your best questions. Before asking a question, don't forget that our standard FAQ can be found here: http://www.occupycooperative.com/faq

Keep the support and enthusiasm coming to help us ensure a successful fundraising effort, leading into the launch of our first product offering: The Occupy Card.

Lastly, don't forget to participate in our Thunderclap campaign, and be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

via - The Occupy Money Cooperative

31 Comments

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