SUPPORT OAKLAND TEACHERS!

Media Announcement

What:   Rally, Picket, Teach-In, Guerilla Theater

Bucket Brigade to Pass Out “Bailout Money” for Distribution
at Oakland Schools

Why:    Banks Got Bailed Out, Schools Got
Sold Out! Demand Money for Public Schools
and Services! Stop Foreclosures!

Where:  Broadway & 12th St., Oakland

When:   Thursday, May 12 – 4:30 to 6:00 PM

Who:     Oakland Education Association and
Supporters

OAKLAND-The
Oakland Education Association (OEA) resumes its campaign to put education and
other human needs before bankers’ profit and greed on Thursday (May 12), when we assemble in front of
Wells Fargo Bank’s branch at
12th Street and Broadway, Oakland.

Harsh austerity cuts have been
devastating everywhere, and Oakland has been hit especially hard. The banks
continue to foreclose, especially in the West Oakland and East Oakland working
class communities. Oakland teachers, the lowest paid in Alameda County, have
been without a contract for nearly than three years. The Early Childhood and
Adult Education programs the community depends on have been shredded.  Class size is increasing and schools
programs have been sharply curtailed.

Bankers, billionaires, and
politicians claim that these cuts are unavoidable.  “There’s just no alternative. Do more with less,” they
insist. But there are alternatives.
The banks are booming. In 2009 they gave their executives more than $140
billion in pay and bonuses – as much as the total debt of all 50 states.  That money came from working people’s
taxes. The federal government gave
the banks $4.7 trillion and guaranteed
another $9 trillion.  OEA Executive
Board member Craig Gordon says: “The banks have converted their private debt to
public debt.  Now they insist that
public workers, jobs and services caused this debt and that workers and poor
people must suffer austerity layoffs and cutbacks to pay it off. We’re here to
set things right.”

We’ve come to deliver a message to
Wells Fargo:  "You say you’re
'good citizens.'  Prove it in
Oakland by repaying the school debt, and locally agreeing to pay for the upkeep
of their vacant and blighted properties."  We delivered this message in a letter faxed to Wells Fargo
CEO John Stumpf in January and February, and then read aloud to him by OEA
President Betty Olson-Jones at last week’s Wells Fargo shareholders meeting. We
have received no reply.  As
Martin Luther King warned more than 40 years ago, "We can't solve our
problems until there is a radical redistribution of economic and political
power" that will require taking on "the captains of industry".  We're here today to act on Dr. King's
advice.

Media Contacts

Craig Gordon            510-847-2014            cbgord@aol.com

Kelly Jacobs            510-295-3656            izakayaboy@hotmail.com

OEA
website:  http://oaklandea.org