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On Friday, June 19, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaff announced she would not implement cuts to jobs and services. After a long-fought campaign, our members beat back the Mayor’s attack. 

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the City of Oakland administration claimed that their budget was broken, and the only way they could fix it was by slashing services to public, cutting the hours of the city’s so-called ‘temporary, part-time’ workforce, and possible mass layoffs of permanent workers. 

On Juneteenth, over 38,000 union dockyard workers shut down ports across the Pacific Coast ports in protest of the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and countless others. SEIU 1021 members were proud to participate in one the largest actions seen so far in solidarity with the nationwide protests against police brutality. 

Dear Mayor Schaaf, Council Member Thao, and Council Member Kaplan: I am a resident of District 4 and a City of Oakland employee. I am writing to you as a concerned Oakland resident. For the past 13 years, I have had the honor of working for the Oakland Public Library.

In the wake of the recent murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbrey, SEIU 1021 members hosted a powerful Racial Justice Roundtable discussion on June 9. This deeply personal conversation was intended to create space for us to process, provide support, and discuss what’s happening in our communities and what we can do in this moment.

You can watch a full recording of the event on the SEIU 1021 Facebook Page or on Vimeo.

The recent murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbrey are painful reminders of why our union committed in 2016 to becoming an antiracist organization and tackling anti-Black racism. There can be no justice without racial justice.

As Oakland’s strength is being tested by the COVID-19 pandemic, Mayor Libby Schaaf has attacked city workers. First, she issued pre-emptive layoff notices to a thousand so-called “temporary, part-time” workers, many of whom have worked for Oakland for years. Then, she proposed weeks of furlough days and postponing wage increases. At the same time, she was busy appointing her cronies to high-paid positions in the City Administrator’s office.