For May Day: Mark Bray, 201-820-8230
Rebecca Manski, 773-758-3400
Liesbeth Rapp, 501-772-0272

8 AM–2 PM – Bryant Park, Occupy Wall Street May Day Gathering (42nd & 6th)
OWS will be at Bryant Park with a mobile occupation (popularly known as a “Pop-Up Occupation”); the day will include free food, a free market, skill-shares, workshops, teach-ins, public art and more. Bryant Park is a staging place for the early morning ’99 Pickets’ actions targeting various corporations around midtown. 99picketlines.tumblr.com At 12pm, Tom Morello from the band Rage Against the Machine will arrive at Bryant Park to enlist 1,000 guitarists, string players, and singers to take part in the Occupy Guitarmy. occupyguitarmy.tumblr.com

10 AM-3 PM – Madison Sq. Park, Free University with Occupy University (23rd & 5th)
The Free University offers a public space for the 99% to disengage from an unequal system and imagine a model for alternative education with a day-long event featuring lectures, workshops, skill-shares, and discussions — all open to the public. University professors from around the city will bring their classes to the commons. university.nycga.net

2 PM – Occupy March to Union Square with Guitarmy
Vibrant procession stepping off from Bryant Park, proceeding through midtown to Union Square with the Occupy Guitarmy.

4 PM – Union Square (14th and Broadway), May Day Solidarity Rally
The May Day Solidarity Coalition, where Occupy Wall Street will join labor unions, May 1st Coalition For Worker and Immigrant Rights, students, and faith & community groups for a massive rally at Union Square. Musical performances by Das Racist, Dan Deacon, Tom Morello, Immortal Technique, Bobby Sanabria, Toshi Reagan and other special guests. Large crowds expected.

5:30 PM – Solidarity March to Financial District (2 Broadway @Bowling Green)
A coalition of labor, immigrant, OWS, community, student, and faith organizations will march from Union Square into the heart of corporate corruption on Wall Street, ending at 2 Broadway with a rally featuring a variety of speakers, musical performances and more.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: press@occupywallst.org, 347-292-1444
For this action only: Austin Guest, 831-917-6400

OWS to protest Wall Street greed in heart of Financial District
Arrests anticipated as NYPD blocks 1st Amendment rights of the 99%
Last Spring training before big May Day actions

This week, activists from Occupy Wall Street will bring an outcry about Wall Street greed to the doorstep of the New York Stock Exchange.  In the heart of the New York’s financial district, protesters will lie down and put their bodies on the line for economic justice and aggressively assert their First Amendment rights. The NYPD has continued to trample OWS’s right to protest on Wall Street. Stories of economic injustice suffered by individual protesters will be on cardboard signs.  This event will empower ordinary people to lift up their voices in resistance to the corrupt financial system.  All those participating have never been arrested before.

When/Where: April 27 at 4pm, New York Stock Exchange at Wall St. & Broad St. Continue reading →

Tuesday, May 1st, will be a nationwide emergency outcry in over 100 cities about economic conditions in the US. This is another important step in the growth of the populist resistance movement in the world’s lone superpower. On May Day, the Occupy Movement, the Immigrant Rights Movement, the Labor Movement, and the Student Movement across the country will march and organize in solidarity for economic justice.

We are the 99%.

• Four years after the financial crisis, not a single of the Too Big to Fail banks is smaller — in fact, they all continue to grow in size and risk. Not to mention they are now immune from prosecution for foreclosure fraud.

• Over a million homes are in foreclosure in the US; 3.2 million homes have been foreclosed on since 2008; in total, 18.5 million homes are vacant, while 3.5 million families are homeless.

• The two major political parties are expected to spend nearly a billion dollars each to sell the presidency. Corporate money flooding politics is undermining the very principles of American democracy.

• 1 in 2 college graduates are jobless or underemployed and the national student debt is about to hit $1 trillion.

There will be an array of events in NYC, where the Occupy movement began, and other major cities including: LA, DC, Chicago, Minneapolis, Miami, Detroit, Atlanta, Austin and many more. We call upon people to refrain from shopping, walk out of class, take the day off of work, and other creative forms of resistance disrupting the status quo of the 1%.

Stay tuned. For NYC plans visit www.maydaynyc.org for a list of May Day actions planned nationwide www.occupywallst.org/article/may-day

For Immediate Release: 4-26-12

“Rage against the Machines” Tom Morello to perform on May 1st in Union Square

Press Conference to be followed by a “Know Your Rights” Training for Immigrant Workers at 6:30pm at 1199SEIU


Continue reading →

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 25, 2012
CONTACT: press@occupywallst.org, 347-292-1444
For this action only: 99picketlines@gmail.com

Workers across New York City are organizing “99 Picket Lines” building up to (and through) May 1st (May Day, International Workers Day). On May 1st New Yorkers will join a broad coalition of unions, immigrants rights groups, community- and faith-based organizations, worker centers, and the Occupy Wall Street movement in a mass mobilization against the economic, social, and political injustice wrought by the one percent.

KEY PICKETS INCLUDE:

Wednesday, April 25, 6-7 PM, Restaurant Opportunities Center at Capital Grille
(155 42nd Street, b/w 3rd Ave and Lexington)
Workers are protesting against Darden Corporation, the owner of Capital Grille restaurant, which has committed egregious wage and hour violations, sexual and racial discrimination, and has retaliated against workers who organize.

Thursday, April 26, 3:30 PM, New York Taxi Workers Alliance March & Protest
March from Queens Medallion Leasing (21-03 44th Ave in Long Island City) to SLS Jet then Midtown Garage (in Long Island City)
Taxi drivers are leading a sweatshop march and protest, demanding an end to rampant lease overcharges, and calling for the first fare raise in eight years to ensure taxi workers can earn a living wage and to create a Health and Wellness Fund for workers.

Wednesday May 2, 7 PM, Teamsters Local 814 
Sotheby’s Auction House (72nd and York)
Sotheby’s has kept its art handlers locked out of their jobs for over 8 months demanding wage and benefit cuts and the gradual elimination of their union.

The purpose of the 99 Picket Lines is to draw attention to the common struggles of workers across the city. Moises Cerezo, a line cook at the Capital Grille Chrysler Center, said that at his workplace “There is racial discrimination, wage theft, an abusive environment, retaliation for organizing, and more, and that’s why we fight; but we know that many other workers have a similar struggle against their bosses, against the 1%. That is why we not only have our campaign, but we will stand in solidarity with all workers on May Day.”

On May 1st, many more pickets will start from a convergence point at Bryant Park at 8am and target Chase Bank, Standard and Poor’s, The New York Times, ABC, Wells Fargo, Blackrock, Fidelity, and Lazard, among others.

The pickets began on April 18 led by the Laundry Workers Center at Hot and Crusty Pizza in the Upper East Side and April 20 when UAW Legal Services workers picketed the office of the wealthy chair of NYC Legal Services, Joe Genova who is spearheading the attacks on unionized workers.

For more on the 99 picket lines, including participating organizations, visit www.facebook.com/99PicketLines 
For more on May Day in NYC visit www.maydaynyc.org

***Press Advisory***

Date: April 21st, 2012
Contact: Peter Rugh 419-905-3114

owseswg@gmail.com

Occupy Earth Day Actions to Highlight the Corporate Led Destruction of the Planet

On Earth Day weekend, April 21st and 22nd, Occupy Wall Street activists will hold a series of vibrant rallies and creative acts of non-violent civil disobedience to demand an immediate end to the corporate-led destruction of the planet.

Saturday, April 21 – Melt-In @ Grand Central Terminal, Main Concourse, 3pm

Activists and bystanders will participate in a melt-in to highlight the need to end our dependence nuclear power. The melt-in will take place amidst an Earth Day event, where companies like ConEdison will boast their “green” credentials as they continue to supply NYers with energy from the dangerous and contested Indian Point nuclear plant. Greenwashing alert!

Sunday, April 22nd (Earth Day) -
Jazz Funeral March for the Earth, BP Gas Station, corner of Lafayette and Houston, 12pm

Occupy Earth Day will begin with a New Orleans-style jazz funeral march for the Gulf Coast, commemorating the 2 year anniversary of the BP Deep Water Horizon oil spill and the unprecedented death and destruction it unleashed on marine life and communities along the Gulf. The march will be lead by a marching band and will head toward Union Square.

Union Square Rally to Reclaim Earth Day, 1pm

A dynamic rally will take place on the South side of Union Square (14th St. and Union Square West) to reclaim Earth Day from corporate greenwashers and return it to it’s roots as a movement seeking genuine environmental solutions.
Speakers include: Helen Caldicott (co-founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility), Sean Sweeney (Director and founder of the Global Labor Institute at Cornell University), David Braun (co-founder of United for Action), Clare Donahue (co-founder of Sane Energy Project) and more. Step off and march to The Highline in the West Village, GaseVoort and West Street at 2pm.  ,

Protest the West Village Spectra Pipeline! The Highline @ Gansevoort & West Street, 2:30pm

The march continues from Union Square and ends at the Highline Park, the very spot of the proposed Spectra Pipeline, a fracked gas pipeline that the Spectra    Energy is proposing to build–ultimately pumping in the destructive fracked gas drilled in Pennsylvania into the homes of NYC residents.

More info:
http://www.nycga.net/groups/environmentalist-solidarity/
http://www.facebook.com/OWSEnvironmentalSolidarity

Occupy Wall Street is part of an international people powered movement fighting for economic justice in the face of disastrous neoliberal economic practices, the crimes of Wall Street, and a government controlled by monied interests. #OWS is the 99% organizing to end the tyranny of the 1%. For more info occupywallst.org and nycga.net

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: press@occupywallst.org
For this action only: Shane Patrick 917-727-8231

What: Occupy Wall Street and its allies in the organized labor and immigrant rights movements are excited to announce that on May 1st, Tom Morello, Dan Deacon, Immortal Technique, Das Racist, Bobby Sanabria and other special guests yet to be announced will be performing on stage at the May Day rally in Union Square, Manhattan.

When: Tuesday, May 1st, 12pm – 5:30pm (see specific timing details below)

Where: Bryant Park & Union Square, Manhattan, NYC

At 12pm, Tom Morello will arrive at Bryant Park to enlist 1,000 guitarists, string players, and singers to take part in the Occupy Guitarmy. After a rehearsal of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land,” Sergio Ortega’s “El Pueblo Unido,” Willie Nile’s “One Guitar,” The Nightwatchman’s “World Wild Rebel Song,” and the traditional spiritual “We Shall Not Be Moved,” the Occupy Guitarmy will depart from Bryant Park at 2pm, march through midtown Manhattan and arrive at Union Square at 4pm, culminating in their performance on stage with Tom Morello. Dan Deacon, Immortal Technique, Das Racist, Bobby Sanabria and other special guests yet to be announced will take the stage after Tom Morello’s set.

On May Day, International Workers’ Day, the 99% will take to the streets and reclaim our communities. We’ll demand economic justice from the major institutions of government and industry who refuse to step forward and deliver a just society. No Work, No School, No Shopping, No Housework, No Compliance. May Day will be another important step forward in the growth of a resistance movement which has captured international headlines and countless imaginations since the occupation of Liberty Square on September 17th, 2011.

For more info on the Occupy Guitarmy, please visit: occupyguitarmy.tumblr.com

For more info, including the schedule of the days events, please visit: Maydaynyc.org & Maydaysolidarity2012.org

Occupy Wall Street is part of an international people powered movement fighting for economic justice in the face of neoliberal economic practices, the crimes of Wall Street, and a government controlled by monied interests. #OWS is the 99% organizing to end the tyranny of the 1%.
For more info www.occupywallst.org and www.nycga.net

WHO: The Tax Dodgers will be celebrating yet another record-breaking season at the headquarters of their sponsors, GE, Verizon, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America.  The team will be joined by their hula-hooping cheerleading squad, The Loopholes, and together, they will be personally thanking everyday New Yorkers for paying their taxes for them. The team will even pay a special visit to Trump Tower with their official mascot, ‘Mitt’ in order to  help Donald Trump throw a birthday party for Anne Romney, where Mitt himself is expected to show. The team’s house band, the Occuponics, will help them sing  joyous renditions of ‘Take Me Out To The Tax Game.’ Continue reading →

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: press@occupywallst.org, 347-292-1444
Individual borough contacts available upon request

In support of homeowners facing foreclosure and eviction in NYC, members of Occupy Wall Street (OWS) and other community groups will conduct vibrant singing protests and raise the people’s voices at foreclosure auctions in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx next week, with the aim to: disrupt the sale of people’s homes and the eviction of their occupants; call for a moratorium on all foreclosures; demand justice for all New Yorkers struggling for affordable housing; confront Wall Street’s unchecked power to put profits over people’s right to housing. Watch the October 13th rendition of “Listen Auctioneer” at the Brooklyn foreclosure auction blockade http://bit.ly/IBucZA

MONDAY, April 16th, Bronx—see WNET Thirteen’s coverage of the blockade here.

THURSDAY, April 19th, 3pm, Contact: Nathaniel Mahlberg, 608-469-1406
Kings County Supreme Court, 360 Adams St, Brooklyn
Who: Occupy Faith, Catholic Worker, Jews for Racial & Economic Justice (JFREJ)
Pre-action meeting at 2-4 Nevins Street, 1pm. Interviews will be available and great photo opps of the group rehearsing.

FRIDAY, April 20th, 11am
Queens Supreme Court, 8811 Sutphin Boulevard, Queens
Who: Occupy Queens, Columbia Univ students, Occupy the New School

Everyone has the right to live freely, securely, peacefully and with dignity in his or her
home. In the US there are over three times as many “people-less” homes as home-less people. Financial institutions have stripped individuals and communities of their savings and property while receiving $7.7 Trillion in taxpayer bail-outs.

“At the same time that banks are getting bailed out, rental assistance programs are being reduced–even completely eliminated,” says housing rights activist and organizer Blair Ellis. “Empty buildings fill New York City boroughs, while those in need of housing are forgotten by our economic and political system. Those lucky enough to remain in their homes are increasingly burdened with the escalating cost of rent and mortgage loans. This American Dream is becoming a nightmare for millions of the middle class and poor people.”

There are over 100,000 homes in foreclosure in New York State due to subprime and predatory loans; now New Yorkers with “fair” (or “prime”) loans are also missing payments and falling into foreclosure because of unemployment, under-employment and mounting healthcare costs among other issues.

“We can create meaningful, community based solutions to keep people in their homes and return land in our communities back to the people who live in them,” says Heath Madom, a local housing rights advocate. “We look forward to the day when all bank-owned property—occupied and vacant—is returned to community control and made permanently affordable.”

Where the system has failed the people and upheld the bank’s rights to profit:

• The big banks were bailed out first under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and again in the recent settlement brokered by NY Attorney General Schneiderman. TARP gave the big banks the money they needed to stay afloat and, in return, left to the banks’ discretion whether to foreclose on families’ homes or sell the homes at auction. Schneiderman’s settlement is a slap on the wrist that gives the banks blanket immunity for widespread fraud in exchange for providing some, but not all, ailing homeowners no more than $2,000 in assistance.

• New York’s “Settlement Conferences” are a massive failure because banks won’t agree to affordable loan modifications and the federal Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) gives the same banks we bailed out with our tax dollars the discretion to modify loans or auction off homes. They would rather auction them off.

Occupy Wall Street is part of an international people powered movement fighting for economic justice in the face of neoliberal economic practices, the crimes of Wall Street, and a government controlled by monied interests. #OWS is the 99% organizing to end the tyranny of the 1%. 
For more info www.occupywallst.org and www.nycga.net
# # #