San Francisco public school teachers are making national headlines as they head into day three of a historic strike, with talks between union and district representatives slowly progressing and other districts across the state considering similar action. As SFist reported Tuesday, classes have been cancelled Wednesday at San Francisco Unified School District as contract negotiations continued into Tuesday evening. SFist took part in Tuesday's march, which began at Dolores Park and ended at City Hall by way of SFUSD's headquarters on Franklin Street.
A drum circle pulsed through the crowd - with maracas shaking and a cowbell clanging - as teens waved signs bearing cheeky slogans like, "We are skipping our lessons to teach you one," "End the ICE age," and "Sex is good but have you ever tried f--ing the system?" Cars passing the park honked in support while chants of "Minnesota to the Bay ICE
The strike is a response to the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minnesota. In the days since, calls for a nationwide shutdown have spread rapidly across social media, shared by activists, nonprofits, and everyday people urging a halt to economic activity. Celebrities including Pedro Pascal, Edward Norton, and Jamie Lee Curtis have amplified the message to their followers.
The vote passed with a 76% margin, with 542 votes in favor, 172 votes against, and 100 ballots that remain sealed because the museum objected to inclusion of these staff in the union, according to a Jan. 16 announcement from the union. We won because we were able to convince our colleagues that they don't have to accept whatever is offered to them, that their experience and hard work has earned them a seat at the table,
The truth about this money: It is invested with some of the worst actors engineering the current takeover. That includes private equity firms, venture capitalists, and asset managers-the most powerful corporations in the world and the billionaires that run them. Many of these people are actively supporting the Trump administration; most are doing little to nothing to oppose it. And all oversee millions, if not billions, of dollars in worker and community capital.
The San Francisco Poster Syndicate originated in 2014, when adjunct instructors at San Francisco Art Institute were forming a union. Art Hazelwood, one of the syndicate's founding members, taught screen-printing there and was part of the bargaining team. He and his students started printing posters using salvaged "slop ink" - everything leftover from a day of art classes, mixed together in a bucket - and put them all over campus. The posters of that era were all gray, Hazelwood, now 64, recalls.
"I'm going to lay out a hypothesis about why Trump's suddenly backing away from a crackdown in San Francisco (and possibly the rest of the Bay Area): 1) this place is organized, and 2) the wealthy, powerful people Trump listens to are especially vulnerable to organizing-driven-polarization. Two weeks ago, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff publicly mused that sending the National Guard to SF was a good idea. Now he's privately talking Trump out of it."
Of course, forming unions at small banks and credit unions is one thing. It's quite another to attempt it at Wells Fargo, a bank with $1.9 trillion in assets and an estimated 217,000 workers. The union effort at Wells Fargo remains small, but workers at a growing number of branches are voting in favor of unionization, early signs of a possible sea change in labor relations in the banking industry.
Since the assasination of Charlie Kirk, Trump asked the Attorney General to investigate individuals who protested him at dinner, instructing her to "look into that in terms of RICO." Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche backed him up, saying such protesters are "part of an organized effort to inflict harm and terror and damage to the United States," which justifies Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) investigations.
The Guild has transformed itself in recent years, thanks to rising rank-and-file militancy and innovative organizing tactics. Since 2020, the Guild has organized 210 workplaces, including some of the largest media organizations in the U.S. That includes 600 tech workers at the New York Times (the largest unionized tech unit in the country), 226 workers at Politico, and 180 workers at The Atlantic magazine, as well as smaller operations like 20 workers at the Anchorage Daily News.