California Teamsters campaign against the union-busting Proposition 32

WHEN CALIFORNIA residents head to the polls on Election Day, they will vote on a ballot measure aimed at silencing the political voice of organized labor. If passed, Proposition 32 would prohibit unions from using payroll-deducted funds for political purposes.

Big business and wealthy Republican big shots have poured millions into the campaign to pass Proposition 32, but they've also been careful to dress up this nakedly anti-worker legislation with populist rhetoric in order to conceal the motivations of its chief backers.

Proposition 32 is known as the "Stop Special Interest Money Now Act," as if the aim of the law is some form of campaign finance reform--which is why Los Angeles Times columnist Michael Hiltzick has attacked the measure as "the fraud to end all frauds."

Needless to say, labor leaders have been sounding the alarm about the threat posed by Proposition 32. "Everything we've won by standing together, Prop 32 threatens to take away," wrote California Labor Federation leader Art Pulaski. "They've written Prop 32 to restrict unions while including every special exemption you can imagine for corporations, Wall Street, insurance companies, real estate developers and other corporate special interests."

California's organized labor movement has a proud tradition of taking political action. From the San Francisco general strike of 1934 to strikes by longshore workers against the Iraq war, against capital punishment and in support of the Occupy movement, workers are strengthened when their workplace struggles are backed up by political demands.

In the San Joaquin Valley, where Filipino and Mexican farmworkers first formed the United Farm Workers to strike table grape growers in 1965, the labor movement followed up with a national campaign of grape boycotts. And in 1946, a strike by downtown Oakland department store clerks, most of them women, sparked the last citywide general strike in the U.S.

State legislation enacted in the late 1970s conceded collective-bargaining rights to public-sector workers--a big reason why union density in California remains at 17 percent, higher than the national average.

Attorneys Walter Riley (left) and Dan Siegel join activists at a press conference demanding justice for Alan Blueford (IndyBay)

"OFFICER MASSO came up to Alan while he was flat on his back, took his gun, aimed it at him and fired three shots into Alan's body at a time when Alan posed absolutely no threat to anyone."

Those were the words of Dan Siegel, an attorney representing the family of Alan Blueford, an African American teenager killed by police in May, as Siegel spoke at a press conference at City Hall.

After months of pressure from Alan's family members and supporters, Oakland City Council President Larry Reid relinquished a redacted police report to Alan's father during an October 2 meeting.

But only days later, as this article was being written, Oakland Senior Deputy District Attorney Kenneth Mifsud announced that the cop who killed Alan, Miguel Masso, would be cleared and no charges would be filed. "Officer Masso actually and reasonably believed that his life was in danger after he had made eye contact with Mr. Blueford and that if he did not shoot, he would be killed," Mifsud wrote, adding that the officer went into "survival mode."

That's no answer at all for Alan Blueford's family and friends, who are left to wonder why his life is being judged unworthy of protection from an out-of-control cop. They are vowing to continue their fight for justice.

Alan Blueford's family speaks out inside Oakland City Council chambers

A WEEK after family members and supporters of Alan Blueford organized a protest at Oakland City Hall to demand answers about the police killing of the African American teenager in May, city officials announced plans to prevent future demonstrations.

On September 18, the family of Alan Blueford and more than 100 supporters flooded City Council chambers. After they grilled the council members for 30 minutes, Council President Larry Reid announced that Police Chief Howard Jordan would deliver a police report on Blueford's killing to the family that night.

Forty-five minutes later, neither Chief Jordan nor the report arrived. When the council tried to resume city business without addressing the family's demands, the audience responded with an outburst of protest that effectively shut down the meeting.

To prevent demonstrations in the future, council members told the press that they would take measures to clamp down. Oakland City Administrator Deanna Santana proposed eliminating nearly half of the 214 seats in the council's City Hall chambers by prohibiting people from sitting in the upstairs galleries.

The plan would also bar people from standing in the chambers or congregating in the hallway outside. Both have been common practice for years, allowing scores of additional people to attend the council's meetings.