Thousands gathered today outside City Hall in Los Angeles for a rally capping one week of over 30,000 public school teachers striking for smaller class sizes, more support staff, higher wages, and against charter expansion. The strike follows months of failed negotiations with the Los Angeles Unified School District and has seen picket lines and marches on campuses across the city. In a show of solidarity with the union, several musicians attended today’s downtown rally, including Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave, who performed labor anthems and original music with a high school band to the crowd of red-shirted educators and allies.
Morello told those in attendance that he’s been a member of the Los Angeles Local 47 musicians union for 29 years and remembers his mother, a high school teacher in Illinois, striking when he was a child. “It’s an honor to be with you in the streets of Los Angeles today,” he said. “Somebody asked me earlier, why are you going downtown to play for the teachers? I said, because the teachers are making history downtown today.”
Below we have Morello performing Rage’s “Killing in the Name,” righteously queued up by the marching band’s brass section.
Over 60,000 people converged in DT Los Angeles to mark the end of the first week of our strike. Bargaining continues through the weekend. Our picket lines remain strong. #UTLAstrong #LAUSDstrike #WeAreLA pic.twitter.com/BxM58SGONz
— United Teachers Los Angeles (@UTLAnow) January 18, 2019
#TomMorello & High school band lead @UTLAnow teachers in “Killing in the Name” chant outside city hall #UTLAstrong pic.twitter.com/Ya9EdNiZRl
— CA Immigrant Youth (@CIYJA) January 18, 2019
Here’s Morello leading the crowd in Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land,” introduced in the clip with, “One more time for the corporations.” Morello grabs the microphone to toss in a “Shut the fuck up Trump” in between refrains and closes by shouting, “See you all on the picket lines.”
UTLA Strike – Day 5: Tom Morello, Wayne Kramer (MC5), Perry Farrell @ Grand Park, Los Angeles pic.twitter.com/JhVr3a3VTb
— Carlos Gordillo (@cxg1501) January 18, 2019
Aloe Blacc and Jane Addiction’s Perry Farrell were also there! (Farrell joined Morello for an Audioslave reunion Wednesday night at Chris Cornell’s tribute concert.) View more photos and clips from the rally below.
Over 60,000 people converged in DT Los Angeles to mark the end of the first week of our strike. Bargaining continues through the weekend. Our picket lines remain strong. #UTLAstrong #LAUSDstrike #WeAreLA pic.twitter.com/npM6srGgKb
— United Teachers Los Angeles (@UTLAnow) January 18, 2019
Aloe Blacc told me he’s here to support teachers, and to signal to others in Los Angeles that they should show their support too #LAUSDstrike pic.twitter.com/zGrE2Tkw9m
— Sonali Kohli ?? (@Sonali_Kohli) January 18, 2019
https://www.instagram.com/p/BsynmPrlqmw/
