<html>
<body>
<font size=3><br>
International Liaison Committee<br>
P.O. Box 40009, San Francisco, CA 94140.<br>
Tel. (415) 641-8616; fax: (415) 824-1072.<br>
email: <ilcinfo@earthlink.net><br>
website: ILC section of
<a href="http://www.owcinfo.org/" eudora="autourl">www.owcinfo.org<br>
</a>------------------------------------------------<br><br>
[please excuse duplicate postings]<br><br>
<br>
<b>IN THIS MESSAGE<br>
</b>1) Urgent Oakland Action: Defend Public Housing in New Orleans - Dec.
14th<br><br>
2) Join the Fight to Defend Public Housing in New Orleans! -- by the
Coalition to Stop Demolition (New Orleans)<br><br>
3) Resolution of Alameda Central Labor Council (Calif.) in Support of
Gulf Coast Reconstruction Program<br><br>
<b>**************<br><br>
1) URGENT OAKLAND ACTION: DEFEND PUBLIC HOUSING IN NEW ORLEANS!<br><br>
Support public housing residents from New Orleans to the Bay
Area!<br><br>
Housing is a Human Right!<br><br>
WHEN:</b> Friday, December 14th at 12:00 pm<br><br>
<b>WHERE:</b> Entrance to Civic Center Plaza (on Broadway between 12th
and 14th Street) Oakland, CA<br><br>
<b>WHO</b>: Everyone who supports the Human Right to Shelter is welcome
to attend and help organize the protest.<br><br>
In the next few days, the Department of Housing and Urban Development
(HUD) plans to bulldoze more than 5,000 livable public housing units in
New Orleans, Louisiana. This attack specifically targets working class
women of color and their children, who have been working to reclaim these
units since Hurricane Katrina.<br><br>
In response to this crisis, New Orlean's Coalition to Stop the Demolition
has called for national support. The Katrina Solidarity Network (KSN)
invites you to join with us in a solidarity demonstration to say NO to
Ethnic Cleansing from the Gulf Coast to the Bay Area!<br><br>
Everyday more and more Bay Area residents experience first hand the
result of ongoing gentrification policies in San Francisco and Oakland.
KSN views the current housing crisis in New Orleans as part of a larger
attack on the existence of public housing nationally.<br><br>
We hope that you will join with us to send a message to development
corporations and congress: We know that in order to stop the destruction
of our local communities, we must Stop The Bulldozers in New
Orleans!<br>
<b>For more information please email:
<<a href="mailto:Katrinasolidarity@gmail.com" eudora="autourl">
mailto:Katrinasolidarity@gmail.com</a>><br><br>
</b>*******************<br>
<b>2) Join the Fight to Defend Public Housing in New Orleans!<br><br>
</b>Dear Sisters and Brothers,<br><br>
On November 29, the Times-Picayune reported that the Housing Authority of
New Orleans (HANO) voted to approve more than $30 million in contracts
for citywide demolition of vacant brick buildings at five developments,
part of its sweeping plan to transform New Orleans public housing. The
demolition is scheduled to begin December 15, according to HANO spokesman
Adonis Expose.<br><br>
HUD announced in June that the city's four largest developments - St.
Bernard, Lafitte, C.J. Peete and B.W. Cooper - are targeted for
demolition to make way for "mixed income"
neighborhoods.<br><br>
In the past two years, New Orleans has faced a series of social crises
that have struck a blow to our collective vision for a more just and
equitable city, not simply one that is more inviting to elites. Yet none
of these crises has been so uniquely urgent as this. What is at stake
with the demolition of public housing in New Orleans is more than just
the loss of housing units: it destroys any possibility for affordable
housing in New Orleans for the foreseeable future. Without access to
affordable housing, thousands of working class New Orleanians will be
denied their human right to return.<br><br>
Although this situation is unique and urgent in the city of New Orleans,
it does not occur in isolation. The plans for redevelopment here are part
of a national assault on public housing, in which tens of thousands of
homes have been demolished in the past decade.<br><br>
Please come to New Orleans to help us draw this line in the sand. You
will be taking part in a critical piece of the ongoing fight against
neo-liberal incursions into our cities. Here in New Orleans, as the
bulldozers arrive to destroy any hope for the right of return for
thousands of families, you can help us push back this agenda, and stand
fast with us to promote a more people-focused reconstruction: one that is
based on a vision of justice and rights for all people, and not profits
for corporations and the desires of those with power.<br><br>
We stand for a reconstruction that values and preserves services and
infrastructure for poor people who have always lived, worked, and
struggled to survive in New Orleans, and who possess the right to return
to the homes from which they fled or were forcibly removed more than two
years ago.<br><br>
Join us in urging the New Orleans City Council to take a definitive
position against the demolitions. Urge them to demand that the Housing
Conservation District Review Committee refuse to approve the demolition
permits and plans placed before them.<br><br>
Join us to take it the streets and make our presence felt and get ready
to square off against the bulldozers if they begin the demolition, as
scheduled, on December 15.<br><br>
If you cannot travel to New Orleans, take action where you are. Let
Vitter, the Senate Banking Committee, HUD, and the profiteering
developers know, "No Justice, No Peace!'<br><br>
In Unity and Struggle,<br>
<b>The Coalition to Stop Demolition<br>
</b>New Orleans<br>
(For more information, contact Kali Akuno at
<kaliakuno@gmail.com><br><br>
********************<br><br>
<b>3) Resolution of Alameda Central Labor Council (Calif.) in Support of
Gulf Coast Reconstruction Program<br>
</b>[<b><i>Note</b>: The following resolution was adopted by the
delegates' meeting of the Central Labor Council of Alameda on Monday,
November 5, 2007. It was submitted by Clarence Thomas, delegate to the
Council from ILWU Local 10. Two amendments submitted by teacher delegates
and voted by the delegates on the role played by teachers in the
post-Katrina period and the fight to defend public schools in New Orleans
have yet to be incorporated into the final text.</i>]<br><br>
<b>WHEREAS</b>:<br><br>
During the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina the world watched the United
States government stand by and let thousands of African Americans and
poor people in New Orleans and throughout the Gulf Coast suffer and
hundreds die a most tragic and unnecessary death;<br><br>
Robert "Tiger" Hammond, president of the Greater New Orleans
AFL-CIO, says, "Parts of this town look like a nuclear bomb hit two
days ago, not like it was two years ago";<br><br>
The AFL-CIO Housing Trust (HIT) is participating in the $1 billion Gulf
Coast Revitalization Program for New Orleans and other communities
ravaged by Hurricane Katrina;<br><br>
The AFL-CIO will be investing in the building of modular housing and will
coordinate union sponsored worker training programs;<br><br>
The AFL-CIO community fund and affiliated unions have raised millions of
dollars to assist Katrina survivors;<br><br>
ILWU Locals 10, 19, 52, and the International in conjunction with the
African American Longshore Coalition sent several 40 foot containers of
humanitarian and construction supplies, and vehicles along with financial
support;<br><br>
Members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters volunteered to
drive trucks filled with supplies to the Gulf for Survivors;<br><br>
Almost immediately after Katrina, President George W. Bush issued an
executive order suspending prevailing wage requirements on federally
funded projects. Bush and the Republican-controlled /Congress
suspended affirmative action requirements, relaxed environmental
regulations, and started handing out privatized, no-bid contracts like
they were bottled water;<br><br>
In the weeks after Katrina and Rita, New Orleans witnessed an influx of
more than 150,000 workers from outside the region, many of them recruited
from Mexico and Central America by Temp agencies;<br><br>
Fifty percent of migrant day laborers were never paid for their work, the
New Orleans Workers Center has countless stories of transient workers who
showed up at a certain location to get paid, and instead were met by ICE
agents and deported;<br><br>
Katrina brought about the largest displacement of African Americans in
the U.S. South since the post-Reconstruction period at the end of the
19th century;<br><br>
The ACLU has released a report revealing continuing incidents of racial
injustice and human rights abuses in the aftermath of Hurricane
Katrina;<br><br>
These violations include reports of heighten racially motivated police
activity, housing discrimination, and prisoner abuse;<br><br>
On August 29th thru September 2, 2007, an International Tribunal on
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita held in New Orleans made up an international
panel of judges from 7 countries, a prosecution team of leading attorneys
from across the country, experts and witnesses (survivors) who provided
testimony regarding human rights abuses and crimes by the government at
all levels (federal, state an local);<br><br>
Both Katrina survivors (witnesses) and prosecutors at the International
Tribunal on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita called for a reconstruction
program to rebuild the Gulf;<br><br>
<b>THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT</b>:<br><br>
The Central Labor Council of Alameda County, AFL-CIO support the call for
the implementation of a federally funded Gulf Coast Reconstruction
Program which shall include prevailing wages for workers, and the
right to organize; and<br><br>
The Gulf Coast Reconstruction Program include the right to return to the
Gulf, a Gulf Coast Public Works Program (similar to the WPA of the
1930's), an end to state repression via police brutality and racial
profiling, and building solidarity committees nationally to continue the
struggle for a just reconstruction and an end to ethnic cleansing in the
Gulf Coast; and<br><br>
This Resolution be sent to our affiliates and forwarded to the democratic
leadership of the House, the Senate, and the Congressional Black
Caucus.<b> <br><br>
<br>
</b></font><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<font size=3 color="#FF0000">Freedom Archives<br>
522 Valencia Street<br>
San Francisco, CA 94110<br><br>
</font><font size=3 color="#008000">415 863-9977<br><br>
</font><font size=3 color="#0000FF">
<a href="http://www.freedomarchives.org/" eudora="autourl">
www.Freedomarchives.org</a></font><font size=3> </font></body>
</html>