|
|
|
News :: Labor : Organizing : Police and Prisons |
|
Rally for Workers Rights and Against Police Brutality! |
|
|
by Boston IWW |
15 Nov 2013
|
|
Tomorrow, Saturday November 16th, Rally in Harvard Square at 3:30pm, march on Insomnia Cookies. |
Tonight, Friday November 15th, close to 50 union members and supporters marched in Harvard Square to protest a violent attack by police on a peaceful picket line at Insomnia Cookies last night.
On Thursday, the Cambridge Police attacked a legal picket of Insomnia Cookies in Cambridge, where workers have struck and initiated an Industrial Workers of the World union drive. The police assault was apparently based on a false report by Insomnia that picketers were blocking the sidewalk in front of the store. The cops demanded we shut down our PA, which we did, then tried to force us off the sidewalk, and subsequently punched IWW member Jason Freedman in the face, threw him on the trunk of a car and then on the ground, pinning him partially under a parked car and on the curb as they piled on top of him. Jason's face was covered in blood and he sustained injuries to his back and arm. You can see pictures of the attack here.
Predictably, Jason has been charged with multiple offenses including assault on a police officer. At the company's bidding, Cambridge Police had previously failed to shut down our legal pickets but last night they unfortunately succeeded. This incident has to be seen in the context of increasing criminalization of dissent and official efforts to tear away our remnants of civil liberties, labor rights and any protections against brutality by the police.
The IWW refuses to be silenced. The day after the attack, 50 IWW members and supporters marched through Harvard Square and rallied in front of the Insomnia Store. We plan to return again tomorrow in even bigger numbers!
Please join IWW's and allies in an emergency rally and march, tomorrow (Saturday, November 16) at 3:30 pm in Harvard Square Cambridge. Demonstrators will gather at "the Pit," next to the main entrance of the MBTA in Harvard Square and next to Out of Town News. Feel free to register your protests over the police attack with Cambridge Mayor Henrietta Davis at mayor (at) cambridgema.gov or by calling 617-349-4321. Please consider a donation to the Insomnia Cookies Workers' Strike Fund . To reach Insomnia Cookies' CEO Seth Berkowitz, and let him know how you feel about his company's apparent complicity in police violence and attacks on free speech, please call 877 632-6654.
For more information about the Insomnia Cookies campaign, find us Online: https://www.facebook.com/insomniaunion http://iwwboston.org/ |
This work is in the public domain. |
RSS Feed