City of Oakland

Oakland Community-Labor meeting packs house, punch

Nearly 200 SEIU 1021 members and other union workers, community activists, Occupy Oakland members and clergy packed a dinner meeting in downtown Oakland on Thursday, Feb. 2. They enjoyed insightful and inciting presentations made better by mouthwatering barbeque ribs and chicken, potato salad, BBQ beans, cornbread, salad and lemonade donated by the host, Everett and Jones BBQ.

Purple and yellow balloons and SEIU picket signs decorated the banquet hall. Organized by SEIU 1021’s Oakland chapter officers -- President Dwight McElroy, Vice President Al Marshall and Second Vice President Cheryl Dunaway -- the evening’s theme was the need for community-labor coalitions to stand together for economic and social justice.

City of Oakland chapter President Dwight McElroy (at mic) and Vice President Al Marshall before the Oakland City Council.

Oakland city workers take on Redevelopment losses

Oakland SEIU 1021 members descended on City Hall in force Wednesday, January 25, filling the council chambers, overflowing the galleries, rockin’ the house and bringing out the fire marshalls and their codes. They came to tell the City Council they were none too pleased with the city administrator’s proposal to balance the Redevelopment Agency’s disappearing funds with layoffs, service cuts and a reorganization of city government with no union or community input.

And they cheered when their chapter president Dwight McElroy publicly filed their complaints at the mic.

“There has been virtually no community input.  There has been very little notice to unions. There has not been time for City Officials to obtain enough information to make sure that you can make the best decisions,” McElroy said.  “The Council needs to take the time to ascertain that the reorganization makes sense, that the cuts are absolutely necessary, and that the personnel rules on layoffs are followed.”

The Passing of Assembly Bill ABx1 26 Affects SEIU 1021 Members

The recent passing of Assembly Bill ABx1 26 as year 2011 came to an end brings great concerns to our members, and several others throughout the State of California. The approved bill eliminates Redevelopment Agencies statewide, and left no mechanism in place for its reinstatement.

We Are the 99% Too: SEIU 1021 joins Occupy Oakland for Peaceful Day of Action

Hundreds of SEIU 1021 members took to the streets of Oakland on Wednesday, joining thousands more in a city-wide general strike that caught the entire world's attention after a peaceful "Occupy Oakland" encampment was brutally smashed by police in the dark hours before dawn a week earlier. Indeed, signs in support of Oakland could be seen on TV throughout the Middle East.

The day's actions were widely reported in the press and don't need much repeating here. Three major marches took off from 14th and Broadway, in front of City Hall and the epicenter of the strike, Frank Ogawa Plaza (renamed Oscar Grant Plaza after a young African American man shot by a transit cop in Oakland a few years ago).

At the first two, protesters surrounded nearby branches of Chase, Citi and Bank of America to demand an end to the rampant foreclosures that have ravaged families and communities across the nation; in the evening, thousands more marched a mile to the Port of Oakland to shut down operations.

All the while, thousands more stayed put at the plaza, site of the now-rebuilt encampment: listening to speeches and music and spoken word poets, hanging with the returned occupiers, visiting booths and memorials, and generally keeping up the buoyant attitude that made the general strike as upbeat as an outdoor music festival.

SEIU 1021 members and community allies picket Goldman Sachs and the Banker's Heart.

Oaklanders demand end to swap ripoff

Several dozen SEIU 1021 members and community allies braved threatening rain to come out to Goldman Sachs headquarters in San Francisco Thursday, June 3 and demand the federally bailed-out investment firm quit soaking the deficit-ridden City of Oakland for its obscene profit.