Ron Gochez - mexicanoatucla@aol.com
Social Justice Educator/Community Organizer

In commemoration of the 80th anniversary of

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s Birthday

Los Angeles
LABOR/COMMUNITY
FIGHTBACK CONFERENCE!

The Bail Out the People Movement invites you to come together on Jan. 24th, 2009 in Los Angeles to talk, share and plan to fight back. While our tax dollars could have been used to stop foreclosures and evictions and provide healthcare and jobs during this greatest economic crisis since the 1930’s, the government instead handed over trillions of dollars of our money to the richest banks, financiers and military industrial complex that caused this crisis. If ever there was a time for us to recommit ourselves to Dr. King’s struggle for economic and social justice, there can hardly be any doubt that now, 80 years after his birth, is that time.

Whether you are an antiwar activist; a union organizer; someone who first became excited about politics because of Obama’s campaign; or someone who is losing a job, a home, the ability to go to school, healthcare, a pension and are ready to unite and fight back, let’s come together and determine what we can do during the first 100 days of the new administration and beyond to help give birth to a desperately needed mass struggle to fight for all that people need to survive and thrive.

Where: SEIU Local 721 - 500 S. Virgil Ave. Los Angeles (Near 6th St.)
When: Saturday, January 24th from 1 PM to 7 PM
Contact: (310) 677-6407 - maggiev999@gmail.com

Sponsors And/Or Endorsers:
SEIU Local 721 Latino Committee; Letter Carriers Union Local 214; Labor/Community Coalition to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions; Hermandad Mexicana Nacional; Familia Latina Unida Sin Fronteras, Maravatio, Michoacan, Mexico; BAYAN-USA; ANAKBAYAN; FMLN; Black Workers for Justice, Raleigh, NC; Free Iraq Now, Anaheim; The Hip Hop Citizen - Riverside; Plan of Action in a Changing Era - San Diego; Our Developing World - Saratoga; Puerto Rican Alliance Los Angeles; San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper; International Action Center; Rosie Martinez, Executive Board SEIU Local 721; Clarence Thomas, Executive Board ILWU Local 10; Dave Welsh, San Francisco Labor Council Delegate; Chris Silvera, Secretary Treasurer, Teamster Local 808;  Rosa Clemente, 2008 Green Party Vice Presidential Candidate

What’s it about?

•    Uniting and fighting against the war against working and poor people both here and abroad and for economic and social justice.
•    Bringing together all workers and people affected by this crisis in a militant movement to win our rights, linking up community groups, churches, labor unions, anti-war and social justice activists and more.
•    Uniting communities with union efforts to organize and protect working and poor people.

 
What do we want?
Panels & Workshops On:

• JOBS OR INCOME - the Right to a Job. Extend Unemployment Insurance; No Plant Closings and Runaway Shops; ban slave labor in the prisons; Labor/Community control of banks, auto industry.
• HOUSING FOR ALL - Housing is a human right - Moratorium on foreclosures and evictions.
• EDUCATION FOR ALL – Quality education is a human right. With the budget cuts, many schools in the most oppressed communities are in danger of being shut down. Stop prison construction – fund schools not prisons.
• DEFEND IMMIGRANT WORKERS. Attacks on immigrant labor are attacks against the entire working class and union movement. Stop the raids, deportations & family separations - Full legalization now.
• STOP THE REPRESSION OF COMMUNITIES hardest hit by the crisis, including racist police brutality, and the railroading of youth into the prison system. How do we deal with the lack of public services, community gathering places, and even the lack of any real food stores in many neighborhoods? How do we ensure that any stimulus package also goes to the communities hardest hit by the economic crisis, especially in communities of color?
• UNITE ORGANIZED LABOR AND ALL WORKERS to use their strategic position in the economy to fight for what we need: Awakened to the growing danger to their jobs, wages, benefits and pensions, workers will be looking for a new way out. Class solidarity and struggle offer that way.
• BUILD SOLIDARITY WITH WORKERS IN GAZA, IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN, SOMALIA AND EVERYWHERE: People in the Middle East, the Caribbean, Latin America, Asia and Africa are fighting against the same banks, corporations and military industrial complex that rob and wage war against us here in this country on a daily basis. Unite our struggles to become stronger. Stop the War Machine, Fund People’s Needs Instead.
• FIGHT RACISM, SEXISM, HOMOPHOBIA AND OTHER ATTEMPTS TO DIVIDE OUR CLASS: The spontaneous protests of mainly Black and Latina/o people against the murder in Oakland by transit cops and the nationwide demonstrations against Prop 8 by the LGBT communities prove that people are ready to battle for social justice and equality. How can we further build united actions against oppression that will unify working and poor people?

Bail Out The People Movement - www.bailoutpeople.org
International Action Center - www.iacenterla.org