From Beyond Chron, Jul. 30‚ 2008

Alarmed at a rising anti-immigrant hysteria in the Chronicle and other media sources, an impressive coalition of 27 organizations rallied in front of City Hall yesterday to defend San Francisco’s Sanctuary Ordinance – and to demand that the feds not deport immigrant youth who are charged with crimes. The Sanctuary Ordinance does not hurt – but rather improves – public safety in San Francisco, as it encourages immigrant communities to report crimes to the police.

As Mayor Gavin Newsom flip-flopped on how the City responded to Honduran teenagers charged with drug dealing, San Francisco has been front and center in the war on immigrant families – with the right-wing Minutemen planning to hold a rally today in front of City Hall. Yesterday’s message was clear: don’t separate families, don’t deport kids who have spent most of their lives in this country, and preserve San Francisco’s status as a Sanctuary City.

From BeyonChron:

A coalition of groups, including Pride at Work, And Castro 4 All, and the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club, called a boycott and managed to get not only local politicians, but also the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) dinner’s keynote speaker to cancel at the last moment. In the end, HRC, the national gay group that last Fall dropped transgenders from coverage in the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), learned

the power of the queer and transgender communities in San Francisco.Protesters called their action a “left out party.” They gave out awards to people they feel have helped push transgender rights, including City Attorney Dennis Herrera, State Assemblymember Mark Leno and Police Commission President Theresa Sparks (a transgender woman). They listened to entertainers and speakers, and danced when it was all over.

From the New York Times:

POSTVILLE, Iowa — About 1,000 people, including Hispanic immigrants, Catholic clergy members, rabbis and activists, marched through the center of this farm town on Sunday and held a rally at the entrance to a kosher meatpacking plant that was raided in May by immigration authorities. The march was called to protest working conditions in the plant, owned by Agriprocessors Inc., and to call for Congressional legislation to give legal status to illegal immigrants.

The four rabbis, from Minnesota and Wisconsin, attended the march to publicize proposals to revise kosher food certification to include standards of corporate ethics and treatment of workers. . . The debate over kosher standards has intensified since the May 12 raid at the plant, in which 389 illegal immigrants, the majority from Guatemala, were detained. Reports by many of those workers of widespread labor violations in the plant have been prominent news in the Jewish media, provoking discussion of whether Jews should buy meat and poultry products made there.

From New York Times,

The first National Domestic Workers Congress; four days of workshops, meetings and a rally to demand rights for a work force. The conference drew about 100 women, most of them representatives from domestic workers’ groups in about 10 cities. Nearly all of them were immigrants, from Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean, the Philippines and India.

They came together to build alliances and hone strategies to demand benefits that many of their employers almost assuredly take for granted: paid vacations and holidays, cost-of-living wage increases, health benefits and advance notice of termination. The workers threw their support behind a proposed New York State Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights, which, if passed, would be the first in the nation

From New York Times, June 7, 2008

Tens of thousands of L.A. teachers formed picket lines outside nearly 900 schools between 7:30 and 8:30 a.m. to protest the plan to cut $340 million from LA schools to close a projected $17 billion state budget gap.

School district officials said they opposed the budget cuts, but denounced the protest as a disruption of the school day.[!!] The district failed to win a court injunction in early May to prevent teachers from leaving their classes to take part in the protest.

FromBeyondChron, June 2, 2008

Interfaith Coalition demands that the city budget be compassionate. Coalition sponsor: Religious Witness with Homeless People, Sister Bernie Galvin

City Budget deficit:
          $338 million
There are 150,000 San Franciscans living at or near the poverty line and 50,000 multi-millionaires according to San Francisco Magazine's current issue.

No on 98 rally May 21 in front of San Francisco's City Hall to prevent the impoverishing of the city into a monochromatic gilded ghetto. Support from Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center, SRO Families United, Sierra Club, Community Housing Partnership, Tenants Together, Poor Magazine and even Gavin Newsom.