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Union Members Keep Marching for California’s Future and Economic Justice
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On March 5, Irene Gonzalez, a Los Angeles juvenile probation officer and AFSCME Local 685 member, set out with a diverse group of other union members for 250-mile, 48-day March for California’s Future.
Sponsored by the California Federation of Teachers (CFT), AFSCME and a coalition of labor, education and faith groups, the march is drawing attention to the state’s budget crisis and the devastating impact of budget cuts on Californians now and into the future.
Last week, Gonzalez writes on the California Progress Report, that as the march entered Fresno
we came upon a 10-block long area of homeless people sleeping in the middle of the sidewalk flanked by rows and rows of tents, their only possessions being their sleeping bags and the clothes on their backs.
They are surrounded on all sides by boarded up homes. The empty, unoccupied houses, the foreclosed properties that many of these men and women once occupied, look down on them daily and seem to taunt them.
They have nowhere to go; no jobs, no prospects, and apparently no help of any kind. Where are the public services that could give these men and women a fresh start and a helping hand? The retraining and rehab centers? The medical clinics? The supportive services?
Click here to read her entire report.
Seven marchers, including five current or retired CFT members, are making the entire march. Along the way, hundreds of firefighters, nurses, in-home care workers, students and police officers have joined and will join the marchers for parts of their 250-mile trek to the state capitol in Sacramento.
Many are filing reports on the march’s website. Jenn Laskin, a Watsonville teacher and one of the core seven writes:
For me, one of the beautiful aspects of this march is the collaboration between labor groups, community groups and individuals, religious institutions and pets — literally…we have been visited by many dogs on the march. While our philosophies and tactics may be challenging at times, we all want the same thing: basic needs to be met for everyone, a fair and just distribution of wealth and an end to budget gridlock and non-human priorities in Sacramento
In Merced, Jim Miller, a teacher from San Diego, along with some Los Angeles City College students who were spending part of their spring break on the march, spoke to a group of students at Merced College about why they were on the road for economic justice.
I told them that we were choosing what kind of future would be out there for their children. I told them that it was time to choose between prisons and schools, time to raise revenue rather than fire teachers, raise fees, and shut the doors to opportunity in California.
Then the students and I told them that we came to the Central Valley to start a discussion with our forgotten neighbors, those people the big cities on the coast tend to ignore or disdain. Afterwards they thanked us for coming to Merced, for thinking of coming to the valley in the first place, for marching for them.
Click here to read all the updates.
Says CFT President Mary Hittelman:
Democracy is no longer in charge of Sacramento; instead, ideology is in control, benefiting the richest and most powerful while dismantling the California Dream for the rest of us.
We don’t have to let California go down that drain. March with us to restore the promise of the golden state.
The march ends April 21 with a huge rally at the state capitol in Sacramento.
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2 Comments
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“While our philosophies and tactics may be challenging at times, we all want the same thing: basic needs to be met for everyone, a fair and just distribution of wealth and an end to budget gridlock and non-human priorities in Sacramento”
The economic needs of working people in California are not represented by either the Democratic or Republican parties. But the AFL-CIO and organized labor movements continue their simple trade unionism and refuse to organize all working people in a new socialist political party that runs working people for office at every level of government.
In California, the Peace and Freedom Party is the only socialist party on the ballot. The Peace and Freedom Party will be running several candidates this fall. Organized labor continues to fund and support the corporate controlled Democratic Party, despite the unending attack upon working people by both Democratic and Republican Parties.
In California, without any labor party being called for by the AFL-CIO, working people should register to the Peace and Freedom Party. Change your registration and “dump” the Democrats. The time to make a stand is now!
Find out more here: http://www.peaceandfreedom.org
Also check out the Peace and Freedom Party blog:
http://peaceandfreedom.org/blog/
Which has articles nearly every day of special interest to working people in California.
Yes, Labor should support the Peace and Freedom Party candidates in California and work to build a Labor Party nationally. Several of the PFP candidates are current or retired union members who come from the rank and file and don’t just pay lip service to labor like the Democrats who take advantage of labor’s people power to win elections, then offer us weak reforms or betray us.
Unfortunately for the for small, independent parties, our candidates are excluded from debates by the incumbent parties, ignored by the media, and have no access to the millions of dollars spent by corporations and unions on election campaigns.
I believe that if the union movement had taken up the call for Labor Party in 1990 and had begun to support labor-oriented candidates and parties, we’d have elected several strong labor party people by now and would be living in a much better state.