By PAUL LAVERACK
EL NUEVO SOL
Bernard Hyland, a software analyst and progressive activist, visits the Occupy Los Angeles encampment, and shares his thoughts on how the Occupy movement could leverage its power with elected officials to reform the existing system, even as it seeks to make deeper, more revolutionary changes to the economic and political order.
By PAUL LAVERACK
EL NUEVO SOL
Jason, a cameraman on the Occupy LA media team, discusses the excitement and the obstacles he encountered while documenting the social movement against corporate greed, as he and hundreds of others camped on the lawn at Los Angeles City Hall for two months in the autumn of 2011.
By PAUL LAVERACK
EL NUEVO SOL
Occupy Los Angeles protestor Lucas provides a guided tour of the encampment at the City Hall lawn in downtown LA, and an introduction to several participants in the two-month-long protest against corporate greed. The tour was conducted on November 19, 2011 – eleven days before police forcibly removed the camp, arresting hundreds of protestors.
By KESS KESSLER
Guest Writer
Longtime San Fernando Valley resident and political activist Kess Kessler considers the significance of the Occupy Los Angeles for the conversation of democracy, and what it means that protestors were expelled from City Hall Park in the early morning hours of November 30, 2011.
By PAUL LAVERACK
POLITICAL MUSCLE
During this in-depth interview with Arman Hardwick and Jason Ackerman, two undergraduate student activists at Occupy CSUN on October 13, 2011, discussion ranges across the causes of the current economic downturn, FDR and his response to the Great Depression, the excesses of capitalism, solutions offered by socialism, and the need to get corporate money out of politics.
By PAUL LAVERACK
POLITICAL MUSCLE
A tiny contingent of student activists takes up a small patch of grass on the main lawn at Cal State University Northridge for “Occupy CSUN,” on October 13, 2011. The organizers claim peak attendance of 100 students at the encampment, though as the day wears on, the number dwindles to approximately a dozen. Though CSUN is one of the fifty largest universities in the entire country, the Occupy movement is unable to gain traction here, and the encampment vanishes that same night.
By PAUL LAVERACK
POLITICAL MUSCLE
Hotel housekeepers for the Hyatt Corporation, and an official of their union, speak at a protest in front of the luxurious Hyatt Andaz hotel in West Hollywood, CA on July 21, 2011. They paint a picture of abnormally high injury rates, chronic overwork, and management that is deaf to the workers’ entreaties.
By PAUL LAVERACK
POLITICAL MUSCLE
A massive crowd took to the streets of downtown Los Angeles on Saturday, October 15, 2011 as the Occupy Los Angeles movement gained momentum going into its third week. The day’s events were part of a Global Day of Action against corporate greed. Occupy events took place over 1,000 cities worldwide, involving hundreds of thousands of citizens who are tired of the political and economic system favoring the super-rich, at the cost of everyone else.
By PAUL LAVERACK
POLITICAL MUSCLE
Housekeepers and their allies at the luxurious Hyatt Andaz hotel in West Hollywood, CA take part in a week-long strike, in four cities throughout the US. Elected officials from the local, state, and national levels march alongside the workers, as the labor action stretches down the block and around the clock.
By PAUL LAVERACK
POLITICAL MUSCLE
Unite Here International President John Wilhelm discusses Hyatt’s dismal record of workplace safety, the difficult conditions under which the housekeepers struggle every day, as well as what the union would like to see in terms of legislation regarding the use of fitted sheets and long-handled mops. Wilhelm draws a parallel between the farmworker struggles of the 1960s and the hotel housekeepers of today.
By PAUL LAVERACK
POLITICAL MUSCLE
At the Disney Community Forum for struggling hotelworkers in Anaheim, California on September 27, 2011, Maria Elena Durazo – the Secretary-Treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor – shares an anecdote about a simple thing a utility executive once told her, which goes a long way to explaining why corporate executives are so greedy.
By PAUL LAVERACK
POLITICAL MUSCLE
Workers from the three Disneyland Resort hotels hold a community forum in Anaheim, CA on Sept 27, 2011 to share developments in their three-year-plus fight with Disney over a new contract, and fair working conditions. The workers say that Disney has moved to price the health insurance plan so high that no workers can afford it, and that management is shifting full-time positions to part-time, in an effort to erode further the benefits earned by the hotel workers.
By PAUL LAVERACK
POLITICAL MUSCLE
Hundreds of protestors gather in City Hall Park in downtown Los Angeles for the first night of “Occupy Los Angeles,” an anti-greed protest begun in solidarity with “Occupy Wall Street,” which began two weeks before. Participants say they are willing to stay “as long as it takes” to change a political and economic system which serves the ultra-wealthy at the expense of everyone else.
