CVO TALK -- for a revolutionary workers movement!

I had trouble copying this entire article from People's World, but the point of it is that Labor is endorsing and mobilizing for No Kings Day III. The nation's four largest unions are supporting it -- Unite HERE, SEIU, NEA, and AFSCME. Also AFT and at least some of NEA (this is somewhat unclear from the article). Also the AFL-CIO federation. They also mention a bunch of smaller unions.

What they don't mention is that the major industrial unions are missing from the list -- no UAW, Steel Workers, or Machinists. Apparently the leaders of those union are still enthralled by Trump's tariffs and think that his policies will eventually work.

Labor pushing hard for No Kings Day III on March 28

By Mark Gruenberg

WASHINGTON—In a mass conference call that was part planning and all pep rally, sponsors of No Kings Day III, scheduled for March 28, urged listeners to increase their activism and recruit even more people for what they hope will be the largest demonstration in U.S. history.

Their objective with the protest, again, is to show the leader of the corporate-backed ruling class, President Donald Trump, that the U.S. people are unafraid of him and that they mean to take the country back. The AFL-CIO and the nation’s four largest unions agree, and the federation has scheduled another Zoom conference call for activists at 7 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, March 24.

A major objective this time around, organizers said, is to recruit those who until now have just been standing on the sidelines, uninvolved. They are even getting positive responses from people who say they have voted for Trump as many as three times.

“The president thinks his rule is absolute. But in America, we don’t have kings—and we won’t back down against chaos, corruption, and cruelty,” NoKings.org says.

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“Each No Kings has gotten bigger and spread to more communities in rural and deeply conservative parts of the country,” Dr. Maria Steffens, an academic who studies mass movements in the U.S., told the March 19 mass conference call. “That includes those who voted for the present president.”

“This is not about red versus blue. It’s about need versus greed and about freedom versus authoritarianism,” she added.

Organizers also mean to show the power of the people by emulating the Jan. 23 city-wide anti-ICE protest in Minneapolis-St. Paul, which literally shut the Twin Cities down. Some 75,000 people flooded the streets in sub-zero temperatures after ICE and Border Patrol agents killed Renee Nicole Good. Another person, Alex F. Pretti, was killed by agents the day after the march.

So, the Twin Cities will host the flagship rallies for the national protest. Three marches will converge on the state capitol building in St. Paul at 2 p.m. Central Time. Veteran activists Bruce Springsteen, Joan Baez, and Jane Fonda, plus Sen. Bernie Sanders, Ind.-Vt., will speak.

The No Kings protests have been escalating in numbers and the last one, in the fall, got seven million. Organizers want even more this time, with many expecting as many as ten million. For example, one activist in Des Moines, Iowa, predicts at least 10,000 people will converge in that city alone.

As of March 24, NoKings.org counted more than 3,000 rallies planned in the U.S. plus events in London; Paris; Berlin and Frankfurt, Germany; Tokyo and Okinawa, Japan; Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and Ottawa in Canada; Mexico City; and other world cities.

Labor pushes turnout

The AFL-CIO and the nation’s four largest unions—the National Education Association, the Service Employees, the American Federation of Teachers, and AFSCME—plus Unite HERE, all actively endorsed No Kings Day, signing up as sponsors. Workers Circle, originally established a century ago to help Jewish refugees from European state-sponsored violence, has also joined.

“Since Inauguration Day, the radical pages of Project 2025 and the fever dreams of America’s corporate billionaires have come to life with a relentless assault on America’s workers,” said AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler ahead of labor’s conference call.

“The Trump administration has committed the single biggest act of union-busting in history, attacked good jobs across the country, launched a brutal assault on immigrants, ripped health care from millions, jeopardized the essential services that working families rely on, and threatened our fundamental freedoms.

“Unions have been leading in our courts, on Capitol Hill, and in our streets to fight back—and our movement will be there on No Kings Day to peacefully and powerfully say our government doesn’t answer to a king. It answers to working people.”

“We have a leader who acts like an unbridled king, as opposed to a president who abides by a legal and moral responsibility to the people of our country,” AFT President Randi Weingarten, a New York City civics teacher with a law degree, said.

“Americans are fighting back, peacefully, with signs, whistles, and cameras—from thousands in the bitter cold in Minnesota to millions across the country,” she said. “We are at an inflection point. That’s why the AFT will take to the streets again for No Kings. Our communities are hurting. People are afraid, and they can’t afford basic necessities. It’s time for the federal government to listen to the people.”

NEA President Becky Pringle, a Philadelphia science teacher, said her union’s members will be out there for their students. “All students, regardless of race, background, or ZIP code, deserve safe, welcoming schools where they can learn and thrive. Schools should be places of belonging, not fear,” she said. Absences are rising, mental health needs are spiking, and trauma is being injected into classrooms nationwide,


Download now: People’s World flyer for distribution at No Kings protests


Print it, take copies to your local event, hand them out!

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No Kings Day III in Detroit, at Clark Park in southwest Detroit: Compared to No Kings Day I in Clark Park, this was a flop, with much fewer numbers, hundreds instead of thousands. The line of tables was still there, and the people manning them seemed anxious to talk. It was difficult, though, because of the sound system blasting some weird music. Joseph and I stayed for an hour and then left. The sign I was carrying attracted quite a bit of attention, and a number of people approached me and wanted to talk. The sign said: "UAW, IAM, USW, Teamsters: M.I.A." People wanted to talk about the stand of the labor bureaucrats and how to change things in their union. As usual, there were a number of petitioners (this time not getting many signatures) for ballot proposals.

On the way home, I drove past the No Kings event in Ferndale. It looked very lively, with lots of people on both sides of Woodward Ave. for blocks. Many people had signs, and people in cars were honking a lot. Traffic slowed almost to a stop at 9 Mile Rd. But I'll let Tim report on that.

Remarkable size of rallies, such as Phily and Boston, retirees in Florida

https://aaronparnas.substack.com/p/brea ... dium=email

No Kings Day in Ferndale, MI, a close suburb of Detroit

I spent two hours there today and sat on the side of Woodward, the main drag n and s just north of the city. Over 2-3000 people gathered, I think. There was no march, no rally, no speeches. I saw no leftist groups, but I was stationary, on a chair, so that might not be definite. There was no evident participation of any other union. But this was a definitely a consciously anti-fascist crowd, The signs were home-made and many were very biting and humorous ("No Faux-King Way!" and many others, directed at Trump and ICE.) Only a few signs mentioned the war and did so secondarily. When I remarked to an activist co-worker (below) about this, she said, well ,the Democrats something. I replied these kids are not here primarily because of the Democrats nor mobilized by them; they are clearly anti-fascist.

Myself and another Postal activist had advocated in the last APWU union meeting that the local come to the rally as a public unit. However, only a couple of members aside from a few officials of the union were present., The president, Chis Ullmer, arrived over halfway through the two hours with the Sec Treasurer and some signs and a few were held up. So the mobilization of the union was quite small and the impact on the membership will be small, too. Still, I think it gives leverage to press for involvement in the May Day rally to come.

Going to Ferndale instead of Detroit (decided by Ullmer, the Legislative director and the aforementioned activist) was also, I believe a mistake. What you have in Ferndale is a general rejection on a popular basis of the fascism of Trump but it has little conscious class basis. Downtown there is more of a class basis and attitude. Here is a video supposedly from downtown today: https://www.facebook.com/reel/816891438121040 . This is considerably more organized than Ferndale today and more so than any previous No Kings event. Do we know who led this more-organized march? It does not look like Clark Park; can it be the downtown event at 3 p.m.?

Eric and I were at the Seattle event, where I enjoyed the people and all of their original signs, as well enjoyed talking with a musician whom I've grown to be friends with. But for different reasons, we both had to leave fairly early. I left before the march was scheduled to start, and I was guessing there were about 20,000 people then at the park, with more arriving all the time. Seattle Indivisible's initial estimate of the day's crowd size was 90,000 to 100,000.

Something peculiar happened on No Kings Day in Detroit. There was a vigorous rally along the main drag Woodward in Ferndale that I attended. At the same time, comrades who went to the downtown location at Clark Park reported very low attendance, where last year it was quite crowded. Those two events were at noon. There was another downtown event, at 3 p.m. at Grand Circus Park. The one video I saw attributed to it was like a smaller version of Ferndale. At the same time a video emerged credited to Detroit that showed a militant crowd with leadership and organization.

Here is the militant one: https://www.facebook.com/reel/816891438121040

Where was this? I ought to be able to tell by the buildings but I cannot. It is clearly downtown -- in some city. Who organized it? Did it emerge from the later, downtown rally?

https://www.freep.com/picture-gallery/n ... 366450007/

Tim: Photos in this Free Press article about the march identify it as taking place on Woodward Ave. It seems the people who gathered at Grand Circus Park marched north from there.

The article also mentions a march in SW Detroit; it seems a couple hundred people left Clark Park and marched through some neighborhoods.

The main article on No Kings in the Free Press talks about events all around the city and complains that this snarled traffic and held up people from important things like attending rock concerts.

Frank: I saw some photos of the march in Seattle which make me believe Indivisible's estimate of 80-100,000. It looks huge. Well, maybe half that number. But still, way beyond anything in Detroit.

Indivisible's leaders say the next No Kings event will be on May Day and will be a one-day general strike similar to the one-day general strike that took place in Minneapolis.

Yesterday I saw that the police estimated that 75,000 turned out in Seattle. So Indivisible's initial estimate may not have been far off. I think there have been 2 or 3 larger Seattle demonstrations though: the giant demonstration on the eve of the first Gulf War; the demonstration that marched from the Seattle Center all the way to King Street Station during the second Gulf war; the first Women's March.

There were lots of NoKings rallies all over Oahu, including a large one at the state capitol in downtown Honolulu. There was also a brief bomb scare at that event, but it didn't have much effect on the rally. There was a nice street-side rally at the regional park in Kapolei near where I live, and other local rallies in many places. There were also large rallies on Hawaii island. It was more widespread than the last time.

Indivisible's leaders say the next No Kings event will be on May Day and will be a one-day general strike similar to the one-day general strike that took place in Minneapolis.

I've seen posters here in Seattle to that effect, they went up around March 28 and the No Kings demo here.

And:

Here is the militant one: https://www.facebook.com/reel/816891438121040

Where was this? I ought to be able to tell by the buildings but I cannot. It is clearly downtown -- in some city. Who organized it? Did it emerge from the later, downtown rally?

I see in the right hand side of the image, a building on the corner with the sign Union Assembly, which when I look for it, says it is in Detroit, for whatever that is worth.