October, 18 2011, 02:11pm EDT
Black Is Back Coalition Announces National March on Philadelphia
On Wednesday, October 19, at 11:00 a.m., Uhuru Movement founder Omali Yeshitela, Black Agenda Report editor Glen Ford, MOVE member Pam Africa and other leaders of the Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations will gather at Independence Hall to discuss the upcoming National March and Conference to "Stop the Wars and Build the Resistance," set for November 5 in Philadelphia.
PHILADELPHIA
On Wednesday, October 19, at 11:00 a.m., Uhuru Movement founder Omali Yeshitela, Black Agenda Report editor Glen Ford, MOVE member Pam Africa and other leaders of the Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations will gather at Independence Hall to discuss the upcoming National March and Conference to "Stop the Wars and Build the Resistance," set for November 5 in Philadelphia.
Organizer of the first black-led march in Washington, D.C. to criticize President Barack Obama's foreign and domestic policies, the Black is Back Coalition is comprised of long-time black activists from the civil rights, Black Power, reparations and tenants' rights movements.
November's march will express opposition to Obama's military aggression in Libya and throughout Africa, the Middle East and the Americas. Organizers are calling for an end to AFRICOM. They will also denounce Philadelphia Mayor Nutter's campaign of police containment of the black community, including the youth curfew and "Stop and Frisk" policies.
At Wednesday's press conference Yeshitela, Ford and others will announce their plans for mass action to achieve these demands and will discuss the significance of the Occupy Wall Street movement and the upcoming Philadelphia mayoral elections.
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The "Make Amazon Pay" strikes and rallies coincided with Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year and one of Amazon's most profitable. Amazon workers across the globe—in ever-larger numbers—have been walking off the job on Black Friday for years to demand better treatment from the $1.5 trillion company.
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"From the warehouses in Coventry to the factories of Dhaka, this global day of action is more than a protest," Varsha Gandikota-Nellutla, co-general coordinator of Progressive International, said in a statement. "It is a worldwide declaration that this age of abuse must end."
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The strikes come amid an intensifying fight between Amazon and workers at its warehouse in Coventry, England, where around 1,000 employees have joined GMB, one of the U.K.'s largest trade unions.
Amazon, which is hostile to organized labor, has expressed opposition to the union's push for formal recognition and provided Coventry workers with measly pay raises amid elevated inflation. Increasingly outraged by their treatment at the hands of one of the world's most powerful companies, the Coventry workers have held 28 days of strikes this year.
Amazon also recently beat back union drives at U.S. warehouses in Alabama and upstate New York, efforts that followed the landmark union victory at a facility in Staten Island.
Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union—which led the Alabama organizing push—said Friday that the global day of action "underscores the urgent need for Amazon to address its egregious labor practices and engage in fair bargaining with its workers."
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A first-of-its-kind international survey of Amazon workers released by UNI Global Union earlier this year found that the company's intrusive productivity monitoring systems are harming many employees' physical and mental health, compounding the stress caused by low pay and other mistreatment.
"I feel like I'm drowning all day, causing me to drive in unsafe ways to meet the unreasonable expectation[s]," a U.S. Amazon driver told the union federation.
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