Saavy Progressive Alliance Organizes Year Around.
By AaronMate’
Real News (7/5/17)
Richmond, California, is home to one of the largest oil refineries on the West Coast and also a working-class community that has seen many struggles. Chevron, the city’s largest employer, has been responsible for hundreds of industrial accidents in the area, including major fires, spills, explosions, and air contamination. At the same time, for decades, it’s maintained a controlling influence over the city’s electoral politics. However, in recent years, the community at Richmond has fought back, organizing to raise the local minimum wage and demand fair taxation from Big Oil.
Working class minority youth have been key to reform over establishment democrats.
This fight is chronicled in the new book, Refinery Town: Big Oil, Big Money, and the Remaking of an American City. Its author is Steve Early, who, for the past 45 years, has been an organizer, lawyer, and labor activist. I recently sat down with Steve Early in our Baltimore studio. …