Occupy OC, with other South Cal Occupies, to shut down largest Walmart Distribution Center tomorrow!

Wed. Feb. 29 –
SHUTDOWN THE CORPORATIONS CALL TO ACTION:
Occupy Walmart!

Mira Loma, California (in the Inland Empire)

Join Occupy Riverside, Occupy Redlands, Occupy San Bernardino Valley, Occupy Los Angeles, Occupy Long Beach, Occupy Santa Ana, Occupy Fullerton, Occupy Pasadena, and other Occupy groups in the region for the mass participatory direct action targeting Walmart’s largest warehouse and distribution center.

NO BUSINESS AS USUAL!

Occupy Riverside Calls for Action Targeting Wal-Mart on F29, 6am to 6pm.

The current economic system depends on exploitation of workers at every stage: production, distribution, and consumption. Here in the Inland Empire, our dominant industry is logistics–the storing and transporting of products. At warehouses throughout the region, workers are exposed to toxic chemicals and unsafe temperatures, and are often subject to wage theft. They work for giant companies like Wal-Mart, but indirectly. Wal-Mart contracts with warehouses, who contract with temp agencies, which allows Wal-Mart to deny responsibilities for the workers that earn them billions in profits. The workers have no unions to help them protect their rights, and every attempt to organize is squashed by the 1% at the top. Now, workers are being threatened with dismissal for nothing more than fighting for their rights. They must be defended!

We have heard Occupy Portland’s call to “Shut Down the Corporations” on February 29, and we are heeding it in the way that makes the most sense for our area. Many of us work at warehouses–the industry touches our lives in multiple ways, from the worker abuses mentioned to the pollution that the trucks and trains spew into the air we breathe. We are calling for a day of action at the world’s largest Wal-Mart warehouse to show the corporations and the 1% that we are fighting back, not only for the rights of workers, but also for citizens whose rights are infringed upon by legislative networks such as ALEC, of which Wal-Mart is a part.

We call on all area occupy movements and all people of conscience to join us on February 29 to take a stand for the human rights of workers, and against ALEC, Wal-Mart and the rest of the 1%.

www.shutdownthecorporations.org
www.alecexposed.org

Below please find the resolution adopted by the IE General Strike Committee:

Resolution in Support of Non-Union Warehouse Workers at Walmart Contractor Schneider Logistics

Adopted January 27, 2012; amended February 6, 2012

• WHEREAS Walmart is the largest corporation in the world, earning billions in profits from the sweat of workers worldwide, and
• WHEREAS Walmart is one of the primary anti-union forces in the country and the world, and
• WHEREAS Walmart makes use of its immense economic power to enact anti-worker legislation through networks such as the American Legislative Exchange Council, and
• WHEREAS Walmart sets the ever-declining industry standard for treatment of workers, and
• WHEREAS Walmart makes use of contractors, subcontractors, and temporary employment agencies to avoid its responsibility to uphold its own standards of ethics, and
• WHEREAS Walmart refuses to adopt a responsible contractor policy that would benefit workers at the Schneider warehouse at 4100 Hamner Ave in Mira Loma, California, where workers for the temporary employment agency Rogers-Premier have had to wage claims and have suffered retaliation, and
• WHEREAS the disempowerment of workers is an affront to the human dignity that is the cornerstone of all faiths,

BE IT RESOLVED THAT:

In coordination with a 38-city national day of non-violent action directed at the corporations comprising ALEC, the General Assembly of Occupy Riverside calls for a legal, one-day community picket line in support of the just struggle of the warehouse workers. We ask all unions doing business with the Schneider facility on February 29, 2012, and all non-union workers as they are able, to respect the picket line by not crossing it. We request that all union locals and central labor councils endorse the picket line and support the effort as they are able, by encouraging rank-and-file participation in the picket, through in-kind contributions of materials such as water, food, banners, sound system, etc. for the workers and participating community members. We also encourage community groups and faith based groups to similarly join and support as they are best able.

Please write to maydaygeneralstrike@gmail.com to inform us if your organization adopts this resolution or is able to support this effort in any other way.

Tonight in Riverside:  Civil Disobedience Workshop

Hello Occupiers and Allies,

Just wanted to drop a note before our final IE General Strike committee meeting before the February 29 day of action so you can plan your week accordingly.

Unless anything changes, here is how things will look:

On Tuesday, February 28, Occupy Riverside will host a non-violence/know your rights/etc. workshop. It will be held at 8:30 PM at Pitzer College‘s multipurpose room. Since navigating a college campus can be difficult, we will meet at 8:30 in the Pitzer College parking lot and we will go together to the room. (To get to the parking lot from the West via car, take the 10 fwy and exit Indian Hill Blvd and make a left. At 6th street turn right, and then a right on Claremont Blvd. There is a turn-in on the right side before Foothill Blvd, and the parking lot will be immediately on your right. It is OK to park on campus at that hour. If you’re taking the train, take the Metrolink San Bernardino line to the Claremont exit. Claremont Blvd is about three blocks east of the station, just take it up to the parking lot entrance. Or better yet, contact one of us and we can likely send a car to pick up groups of people training in.)

For those coming in from out of town for the workshop, a kind supporter in the Ontario area (and fairly near the college) has offered his backyard for the purposes of occupying. It is a fairly large lot so there is enough room to set up tents, and we will have access to the restroom indoors. If you’re wanting to take advantage of this please let us know ASAP so we can get a count going and let him and his family know. The address will not be posted on-line. We will be directed to the residence by following the caravan from the college.

At 6:AM the next morning we will converge at the corner of Riverside Dr. and Hamner Ave. Park on Samantha (1 block S of Riverside Dr) or on Sharp, the street Samantha turns into. Buses coming in from LA and LBC can park there too unless other arrangements are necessary. We will have a brief introduction to the day and then march to the truck entrance to the warehouse on Harvest and set up the picket lines.

We’ll do a program a bit thereafter, doing our best to line it up with the workers’ lunch hour (this company has done sneaky things like changing lunch and break times to frustrate organization efforts, so we need to be a bit nimble). Assuming that the police are more likely to act to ensure the flow of capital than to defend the free speech and assembly rights of protesters, we may need to move the picket line to a secondary area if such police intervention occurs. Contingency plans will be in place in the case of that.

We’ll have a few banners and signs made, but feel free to bring your own. Keeping on message is suggested: Support for workers, against Walmart and ALEC, pro-democracy, etc…

We have food support but cannot guarantee anyone anything so the better-equipped you are with snacks, water, sunscreen, etc. the better off you will be. We will have a medic team and a peacekeeping team in place if people need medical attention or if situations need to be deescalated. We will also be having observers from our legal team and the NLG.

We will have volunteers shuttling people to the nearest restroom–it’s not far, but it’s too far to walk.

I guess we should stress that the warehouse and its parking lot are private property, so setting foot on them will give management cause to have people removed, etc. Also, we need to be considerate of the workers inside. There is no strike so they are not to be treated like scabs. The corporation will find it incredibly difficult to make a profit that day if workers are unable to unload the trucks, and the best way to ensure that that is what happens is by preventing the trucks from docking through our massive presence.

For those unable to be present on the day of the event, there are multiple ways to express solidarity. Here are some suggestions:

• Protest the retail Walmart or Sam’s Club location in your community and take the opportunity to educate others about ALEC

• Boycott Walmart and Sam’s Club on that day (and every day would be good, too)

• Write a letter to the editor to your local paper about Walmart’s abuses in its retail stores and warehouses, and about the threat ALEC poses to democracy (and if you can tie this to local struggles against Walmart, all the better!)

• Donate $ to occupyriverside.org, or donate water or art materials (we are having several banner-making parties in the upcoming days so contributions are greatly appreciated!)

• Promote the event through email, classroom announcements, flyers in the lunch room, on facebook, etc.

• Change your profile pic to the “angry Walmart face” for the week leading up to the action

• Repost the fb image meme “This person is boycotting Walmart on #F29” (It’s gong around–you should see it.)

Feel free to send this email along, or call the Google Voice number we have set up: 951-888-0355. We will be checking it regularly and will get back to you ASAP. You can also write tomaydaygeneralstrike@gmail.com or press@occupyriverside.org.

Thanks So Much for All Your Support!

Inland Empire General Strike Committee
Occupy Riverside