NYC: PEOPLE'S ASSEMBLY ABOUT SPREADING THE OCCUPY WALL STREET MOVEMENT
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Dear sisters and brothers,
You are invited to a
People’s Assembly on Sat., November
5 at Hostos Community College in the South
Bronx.
The Assembly will take place
from 12 noon - 4pm at the College’s Savoy
Manor, located at 149th Street and Walton Ave., one block west of the 149th St.
& Grand Concourse subway station. (# 2, 4, 5, subway)
The November
5th Assembly will serve as a counter-meeting to the G-20 Summit in
France in the first week of November. The G-20 will be dominated by leaders
representing the super-rich of the world, including President Obama, as well as
the most powerful central bankers and financial officials in the world. The
main agenda item for the G-20 Summit will be agreeing on what new, horrific
austerity measures are to be taken to bail out the big banks of Europe, and
shore up the global capitalist financial system on the backs of the poor and
working-class people of the planet.
The Assembly will also be a timely
opportunity for trade unionist, community and student activists, as well as
veteran activists who have been in the trenches, fighting racism; or for the
rights of immigrant workers; or workers rights; or the rights of the homeless;
or against budget cuts and for jobs for the unemployed, to come together to
assess the Occupy Wall Street movement, and plan how it can be built on by the
many who may not have been involved at its beginning.
To be sure, as the OWS movement has
grown, its weaknesses have come into sharper focus. Is OWS capable of evolving
from a social base dominated by whites, to a broader social base that genuinely
encompasses the Black, Latina/o, Asian, Arab and Indigenous
communities?
Will it develop a strong and
independent, working class-centered orientation with an understanding that
inequality based on race, religion, gender, sexual orientation and class are
realities that must be confronted as part of the process of forging real
solidarity amongst the 99%?
At the same time, all of us have been
inspired by the occupations; indeed, many of us have already been working to
spread them, and to defend them against police repression.
Moreover, the impact that OWS has had
on the labor movement is a clear sign that the occupations have opened up
political space for larger sections of the working class and the poor to take
initiative. Imagine the workers who are now thinking about the possibility of
occupying their work place to fight layoffs and cutbacks. Imagine the students
who are now thinking about occupying their campuses to fight austerity. Are the
unemployed workers now wondering what could be occupied to dramatize the need
for a real jobs?
It is with all of this in mind that we
welcome all to participate in the People’s Assembly. A new front in the
struggle has been opened. Will there be a second or third front? It may very
well be up to you.
The People’s Assembly is
co-sponsored by: Bail Out The People Movement • South Bronx
Community Congress • Labor-Community Forum • Peoples Organization
For Progress • Haiti Liberte’ • BAYAN USA • May 1
Workers & Immigrant Rights Coalition
Endorsed
by: Wilfredo Pagan, President, District
12 PA Presidents’ Council • Ramon Jimenez, Bronx Freedom Party
• Charles Jenkins, Executive Bd of TWU Local 100 and VP NY-CBTU •
Ed Figueroa, Co-Chair of Latino Caucus, SEIU Local 32BJ • Teresa
Gutierrez, Deputy Sec General of International Migrants Alliance • Larry
Hales, New Yorkers Against the Budget Cuts • Sara Flounders, United
National Antiwar Coalition • Charlie Twist, Ass’t Shop Steward,
NALC Branch 36 • Fred Fret, Shop Steward, DC37 Local 374* – NY
Botanical Gardens • Brenda Stokely, Million Worker March Movement-East
Coast… and many, many others
