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Indybay Feature

6/30: SF Gay Day: Labor Contingent Welcomes All

by Rainbow
San Francisco is all dressed up in its rainbow best, ready for its 1 million strong 32nd Annual Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Transsexual Pride Parade which commences on Sunday, June 30, 2002 at 10:30 a.m. from Beale and Market and goes to 8th and Market, where there will be a huge celebration at the Civic Center. The Labor Contingent welcomes everyone, including straight people, who support labor and gay rights to join us.
San Francisco is all dressed up in its rainbow best, ready for its 1 million strong 32nd Annual Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Transsexual Pride Parade which commences on Sunday, June 30, 2002 at 10:30 a.m. from Beale and Market and goes to 8th and Market, where there will be a huge celebration at the Civic Center. The Labor Contingent welcomes everyone, including straight people, who support labor and gay rights to join us.

Look for us in the lineup before 10:30 a.m. or wait at 77 Beale Street and join us as we pass.

With this society in serious economic trouble, and about to get much worse, and the anti-labor and anti-gay Bush administration promoting a Gestapo, also known as Homeland Security, to terrorize the workingclass into accepting even worse wages and working conditions, it is URGENT that everyone who can join the gay parade, and especially urgent that labor have a good turnout.

The reason the Scandinavian countries have gay marriage is because they have a strong labor movement. Only labor can guarantee economic security, which is necessary to end scapegoating, and thus make possible the full gay liberation agenda. A union contract with a non-discrimination clause that includes sexual orientation puts an end to anti-gay harassment on the job. Thus, it is imperative and urgent that the Labor Contingent be large and loud in support of gay liberation and labor if both are to advance.

We welcome all who support labor and gay rights, regardless of sexual orientation, including but not limited to:

--Tenants, who in San Francisco, are opposing Democrats 'mayor" Willie Brown and Supervisor Tony Hall's rent control repeal measure on the November ballot, masquerading as homeownership. We urge all San Francisco tenants who are eligible to vote to register to vote immediately and be sure to vote this November. To register to vote, go to: http://www.sfgov.org/election/docs.htm
To help with the campaign, see the San Francisco Tenants Union website at http://www.sftu.org Sup. Tony Hall has complained about the "loud-mouthed tenants" of San Francisco. We urge all tenants and their homeowner supporters, especially the loud-mouthed tenants and supporters, to join our Labor Contingent. Labor always supports tenants.

--Hotel workers who are currently on strike at Marriott Courtyard at Fisherman's Wharf. See the website at: http://www.marriottcourtyardstrike.org/

--All who support the Palestinian liberation struggle. Labor marched in the milestone April 20, 2002 peace march in which the Palestinian liberation struggle was at the top of the agenda. As labor says, an injury to one is an injury to all.

-All socialists who are always welcome in the Labor Contingent.

--Longshore workers (ILWU) who are fighting to save their union. We salute the ILWU as the union which made San Francisco a union town with its 1934 General Strike. It was the 1934 General Strikes in San Francisco, Minneapolis and Toledo that brought us the Wagner Act (National Labor Relations Act), guaranteeing our right to form unions, and Social Security, guaranteeing unemployment insurance and old age pensions, in 1935. On July 9, 1934, with 40,000 people as spectators, longshore workers marched up Market Street in memory of 2 workers who were murdered on July 5, 1934 by the police, namely Nick Bordoise, a culinary worker, and Howard Sperry, a longshore worker. As Mike Quinn wrote in his classic history, "The Big Strike,"

"A union band struck up the slow cadence of the Beethoven funeral march. The great composer's music was never applied more fittingly to human suffering. Slowly--barely creeping--the trucks moved out into Market Street. With slow, rhythmic steps, the giant procession followed. Faces were hard and serious. Hats were held proudly across chests. Slow-pouring like thick liquid, the great mass flowed out onto Market Street….
Estimates of the length of the procession varied from a mile and a half to two miles. The people marched eight, and sometimes ten abreast."

Today, for the 9th year, we commemorate the General Strike of 1934 with a month-long Laborfest of videos, music, poetry, drama, art, photography and labor tours. See: http://www.laborfest.net
The gay labor video showing is:
July 11, 2002, Thursday 6:30 PM (Reception 5:30 PM)
$5.00 - 7.00 (Sliding scale)
San Francisco LGBT Community Center - 1800 Market St. at Octavia, SF
Queer Labor on Film
Sponsored by San Francisco Pride At Work
Live Nude Girls Unite! (60 min)
By Julia Query and Vicky Funari
The story of historic union organizing and battles with management over unfair labor practices at the Lusty Lady strip club, now the only union organized club in the U.S. This film personalizes the face of sex workers and dispels common stereotypes.
Out At Work (55 min)
By Kelly Anderson and Tami Gold
This documentary chronicles the dramatic stories of three queer workers in their fight to secure work place safety, job security and employee benefits for gay and lesbian workers.

Bring your banners, leaflets, suntan/sunscreen lotion if needed, water, walking shoes, musical instruments and your loud chanting and singing voices, ready to chant labor's chants, and sing labor's anthem, "Solidarity Forever." Here are a few of the verses:

Solidarity Forever
(To the tune of "John Brown's Body" and "Battle Hymn of the Republic")

When the Union's inspiration through the workers' blood shall run;
There can be no greater power anywhere beneath the sun;
Yet what force on earth is weaker
Than the feeble strength of one?
But the Union makes us strong!

Chorus:

Solidarity Forever (3x)
For the Union makes us strong.

Solidaridad para siempre (3x)
Que viva nuestra union.

They have taken untold millions
That they never toiled to earn,
Yet without our brain and muscle,
Not a single wheel can turn.
We can break their haughty power;
Gain our freedom when we learn,
That the Union makes us strong.

(Chorus)

In our hands is placed a power,
Greater than their hoarded gold,
Greater than the mighty atom,
Magnified a thousandfold.
We can bring to earth a new world,
From the ashes of the old,
For the Union makes us strong.

Websites:

Gay Labor Organization, Pride at Work:
http://www.prideatwork.org

Dyke March of June 29, 2002:
http://www.dykemarch.org

The Parade and Celebration:
http://www.sfpride.org

KBWB-TV, Channel 20 in San Francisco which will have the parade on live on June 30, 2002 from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. See http://www.wb20.com/sfprideparade/
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