Join us May 19th to Picket War Profiteers at the Port of Oakland!
Port Money for Schools & Social Services!
Picket at APL Terminal at Port of Oakland, 1579 Middle Harbor Road

<http://www.indybay.org/uploads/2007/05/05/portactionposter.pdf> Map of
picket location <http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2007/05/1733992.php>]

We will call on ILWU Local 10 to honor our picket line and not to
cross.  If Local 10 honors our picket line, as it did for similar
pickets in 2003 and 2004, then work will be shut down.  Local 10 has a
long history of supporting community pickets and struggles, and is in
the forefront of labor opposition to the war.

How can you and your group help?  There are a number of ways:

Publicize the May 19 picket posting this message to your email list, web
site, or sending it to personal contacts;

Distribute print and digital literature (PDF of poster
<http://www.indybay.org/uploads/2007/05/05/portactionposter.pdf> Map of
picket location <http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2007/05/1733992.php>);

Come to our final organizing meetings on Monday nigh at 7pm at NPML (see
below);

Give a group or individual endorsement for May 19th and/or contribute
funds; and most of all,

Join the picketing on May 19th.

Every act of support and solidarity is important.  When we unite and
work in concert we have power. To be successful on May 19, we need to
turn out a large number of pickets.

There are a number of critical issues which intersect at the port.  It
is a major hub for the war machine; little of the huge revenues
generated at the Port fund human needs; the Port pollutes West Oakland;
independent truckers are organizing for justice and a union; and ILWU
Local 10 is there fighting for longshore workers.  The Port offers a
chance for building alliances  between community-based organizations and
campaigns.  Thus the port, with its military shipments, is not just an
anti-war  issue.  It is also an education and budget issue - an
economic  powerhouse that is not making a fair contribution to sustain
Oakland and the region.

  There are also governance issues, with a Port Commission that is
allocating land as political patronage and not being  accountable to
community needs.  It is a labor issue, with the  commission leasing city
property to labor-unfriendly businesses. It is a housing issue, with
land being sold to developers who are  building housing that is not
affordable to residents of that area.

On April 7th, the Port Action Committee organized a rally in front of
the Port of Oakland offices at Jack London Square which highlighted
these issues.  The rally, which also commemorated April 7, 2003 when
police fired on anti-war protesters at the Port, was covered by major
television, radio, and print media (Trib article
<http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/04/09/18393018.php> Chron article
<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/04/07/
BAGJOP4RNO11.DTL&hw=Port+protest&sn=004&sc=389>).

Representatives of teachers, labor, veterans, anti-war movement, youth,
and the community spoke at the rally.  Now we've calling on all these
forces to unite to picket war profiteers on May 19th.

The call for the Port picket has received endorsements from: Oakland
Education Association; Bay Area Labor Committee for Peace & Justice;
United for Peace & Justice, Bay Area; Oakland Green Party; Veterans for
Peace; Vietnam Veterans Against the War; Lake Merritt Neighbors
Organized for Peace (LMNOP); Northern California Committees of
Correspondence for Democracy & Socialism; Ella Baker Center; Idriss
Stelley Foundation; and Cindy Sheehan.

Join us May 19th to Picket War Profiteers at the Port of Oakland!
Port Money for Schools & Social Services!
Picket at APL Terminal at Port of Oakland, 1579 Middle Harbor Road
(beginning at 7 am)
[PDF of poster
<http://www.indybay.org/uploads/2007/05/05/portactionposter.pdf> Map of
picket location <http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2007/05/1733992.php>]

For more info, or to arrange to get print literature, contact Port
Action Committee at portaction@riseup.net <mailto:portaction@riseup.net&gt;

You're invited to attend our final planning meeting Monday night, at the
Niebyl-Proctor Library, 6501 Telegraph Ave., Oakland (near Alcatraz and
within walking distance of Ashby BART).