Labor
Taking the podium at Oakland City Hall during the Bike-to-Work Day celebration on Thursday morning, city councilmember Libby Schaaf of District 4 started a chant. “When I say ‘bike,’ you say ‘Oakland,’” say announced. “Bike!” she yelled. “Oakland!” the crowd chanted back. It was Oakland’s 18th annual Bike-to-Work Day and record numbers of people hopped on their bikes and commuted to work.
On a hot spring afternoon, Javier Delgado Jimenez kneels on the grass in Mountain View Cemetery. He is poised over a flat gravestone wearing a gas mask, knee guards, long work gloves and a white hood with a clear plastic visor. With intense concentration, he aims a rod attached to a round metal canister at the face of the gravestone and plumes of red dust billow into the air.
Over a loudspeaker in front of City Hall, a couple of Oakland librarians had something else to share with the young readers they had gathered for an impromptu story hour. But this story did not end with a happily ever after.
The Alameda County Community Food Bank and local letter carriers will work together to collect food donations for the Stamp Out Hunger program. Summer is a time when many low-income families need food assistance, because fewer kids have access to free lunches at school.
Sitting in front of the stage at Yoshi’s, musician Roger Glenn looked up at the portraits of famous players that lined the walls of the legendary downtown Oakland jazz club and was overcome with disappointment. A tear rolled down his cheek as he spoke. “I felt like my whole life, what I was doing, the history of all the people I’ve known, is meaningless,” said Glenn, as he looked out at 50 musicians, reporters and jazz aficionados assembled before him….
Children’s Hospital Oakland’s nurses headed back to work today after five days on the picket line with no new contract agreements. Bargaining talks with hospital administrators are expected to resume although no dates have been set yet.
On Thursday hundreds of Oakland police officers and ninety family members honored the 51 Oakland police officers who have died in the line of duty since 1867.
Children’s Hospital nurses went on strike today after year-long contract negotiations broke down over health benefits. On the first day of a five-day strike, nurses on the picket line say spirits are high and representatives from a half-dozen other unions were on site to show support. Approximately forty nurses stood in clumps in front of the hospital on the corner of Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue and 52nd Street, waving signs at passing cars. Dozens of cars and even a passing BART train honked to show support for the nurses
A dozen students from Marbella Rios’ fourth grade class lined up in front of the microphone on Wednesday night to ask the school board to allow their teacher to stay in her classroom.