LOCALMOTIV

I know, we haven't been active lately. More on that later.

However, please read this story from ILSR about how Walmart and other monopolies have wreaked havoc on our cities, towns, and neighborhoods.

If you don't think that this is an important issue, then you are probably unaware of how dangerous this is to all of us -- including you.

How Walmart Gutted Communities Stacy Mitchell joins Pitchfork Economics to explain how policies drove the rise of Walmart and Amazon, and the urgency of the antitrust movement.

Hi there Localists,

Something to ponder on a Friday morning. We believe that the best jobs are local jobs. And the best way to generate local jobs is to live and shop local.

When we give our business to e-commerce behemoths we are telling them it is okay to create unsafe environments and pay low wages with minimal benefits.

Amazon warehouse injuries '80% higher' than competitors, report claims A union-led group says Amazon's injury rate is twice that of its closest competitor.

Support Amazon workers in their quest to become unionized.

Make Amazon Pay We are warehouse workers, climate activists, and citizens around the world, taking on the world's richest man and the multinational corporation behind him.

Hi there Localists,

This story from The New York Times demonstrates one more reason that we all ought to care about what happens at ecommerce behemoths and why we should seriously consider breaking our addition to receiving packages from them.

As one of the subjects of the story speculates, “I guarantee you, if their child had to work there, they’d think twice before purchasing things.”

But his wife had a different POV "The customers don’t care about unions. They don’t care about the workers. They just want their packages.”

What do you think???

BEGIN READING.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/16/technology/amazon-unions-virginia.html

In a secret settlement in Virginia, Amazon swore off threatening and intimidating workers. As the company confronts increased labor unrest, its tactics are under scrutiny.

Amazon’s warehouse in Chester, Va., where a union effort tried to organize about 30 facilities technicians in 2014 and 2015.Credit...Carlos Bernate for The New York Times

David Streitfeld
By David Streitfeld
March 16, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ET
RICHMOND, Va. — Five years ago, Amazon was compelled to post a “notice to employees” on the break-room walls of a warehouse in east-central Virginia.

The notice was printed simply, in just two colors, and crammed with words. But for any worker who bothered to look closely, it was a remarkable declaration. Amazon listed 22 forms of behavior it said it would disavow, each beginning in capital letters: “WE WILL NOT.”

“We will not threaten you with the loss of your job” if you are a union supporter, Amazon wrote, according to a photo of the notice reviewed by The New York Times. “We will not interrogate you” about the union or “engage in surveillance of you” while you participate in union activities. “We will not threaten you with unspecified reprisals” because you are a union supporter. We will not threaten to “get” union supporters.

Amazon posted the list after the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers accused it of doing those very things during a two-year-long push to unionize 30 facilities technicians at the warehouse in Chester, just south of Richmond. While Amazon did not admit to violations of labor laws, the company promised in a settlement with federal regulators to tell workers that it would rigorously obey the rules in the future.

The employee notice and failed union effort, which have not previously been reported, are suddenly relevant as Amazon confronts increasing labor unrest in the United States. Over two decades, as the internet retailer mushroomed from a virtual bookstore into a $1.5 trillion behemoth, it forcefully — and successfully — resisted employee efforts to organize. Some workers in recent years agitated for change in Staten Island, Chicago, Sacramento and Minnesota, but the impact was negligible.

The arrival of the coronavirus last year changed that. It turned Amazon into an essential resource for millions stuck at home and redefined the company’s relationship with its warehouse workers. Like many service industry employees, they were vulnerable to the virus. As society locked down, they were also less able to simply move on if they had issues with the job.

Now Amazon faces a union vote at a warehouse in Bessemer, Ala. — the largest and most viable U.S. labor challenge in its history. Nearly 6,000 workers have until March 29 to decide whether to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. A labor victory could energize workers in other U.S. communities, where Amazon has more than 800 warehouses employing more than 500,000 people.

“This is happening in the toughest state, with the toughest company, at the toughest moment,” said Janice Fine, a professor of labor studies at Rutgers University. “If the union can prevail given those three facts, it will send a message that Amazon is organizable everywhere.”

Even if the union does not prevail, “the history of unions is always about failing forward,” she said. “Workers trying, workers losing, workers trying again.”

The effort in Chester, which The Times reconstructed with documents from regulators and the machinists’ union, as well as interviews with former facilities technicians at the warehouse and union officials, offers one of the fullest pictures of what encourages Amazon workers to open the door to a union — and what techniques the company uses to slam the door and nail it shut.

The employee notice was a hollow victory for workers. The National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency that negotiated the settlement with Amazon, has no power to impose monetary penalties. Its enforcement remedies are few and weak, which means its ability to restrain anti-union employers from breaking the law is limited. The settlement was not publicized, so there were not even any public relations benefits.

Amazon was the real winner. There have been no further attempts at a union in Chester.

The tactics that Amazon used in Chester are surfacing elsewhere. The retail workers union said Amazon was trying to surveil employees in Bessemer and even changed a traffic signal to prevent organizers from approaching warehouse workers as they left the site. Last month, the New York attorney general said in a lawsuit that Amazon had retaliated against employees who tried to protest its pandemic safety measures as inadequate.

Amazon declined to say whether it had complied with labor laws during the union drive in Chester in 2014 and 2015. In a statement, it said it was “compliant with the National Labor Relations Act in 2016” when it issued the employee notice, and “we continue to be compliant today.” It added in a different statement that it didn’t believe the union push in Alabama “represents the majority of our employees’ views.”

The labor board declined to comment.

The Chester settlement notice mentions one worker by name: Bill Hough Jr., a machinist who led the union drive. The notice said Amazon had issued a warning to Mr. Hough that he was on the verge of being fired. Amazon said it would rescind the warning.

Six months later, in August 2016, Amazon fired him anyway.

Mr. Hough (pronounced Huff) was in a hospital having knee surgery when Amazon called and said he had used up his medical leave. Since he couldn’t do his job, he said he was told, this was the end of the line.

“There was no mercy, even after what they had done to me,” Mr. Hough, now 56, said. “That’s Amazon. If you can’t give 110 percent, you’re done.”

Amazon declined to comment on Mr. Hough.

No Constraints

Amazon was founded on notions of speed, efficiency and hard work — lots of hard work. Placing his first help wanted ad in 1994, Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, said he wanted engineers who could do their job “in about one-third the time that most competent people think possible.”

Amazon managers openly warned recruits that if they liked things comfortable, this would be a difficult, perhaps impossible, job. For customer service representatives, it was difficult to keep up, according to media accounts and labor organizers. Overtime was mandatory. Supervisors sent emails with subject headings like “YOU CAN SLEEP WHEN YOU’RE DEAD.”

In 1999, the reps, who numbered about 400, were targeted by a grass-roots group affiliated with the Communications Workers of America. Amazon mounted an all-out defense.

If workers became anything less than docile, managers were told, it was a sign there could be union activity. Tipoffs included “hushed conversations” and “small group huddles breaking up in silence on the approach of the supervisor,” as well as increased complaints, growing aggressiveness and dawdling in the bathroom.

Amazon was in sync with the larger culture. Unions were considered relics of the industrial past. Disruption was a virtue.

“Twenty years ago, if you asked whether the government or workers should be able to put any constraints on companies, the answer always was ‘No constraints,’” said Marcus Courtney, a labor organizer on the 1999 Amazon campaign. “If companies wanted to push people 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, hats off to them.”

When the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, Amazon lost some of its glow. For a time, its very existence was in question.

This caused problems for the activists as well. The company reorganized and closed the customer service center, though Amazon said there was no connection with the union drive. The United Food and Commercial Workers Union and the Prewitt Organizing Fund, an independent group, made no inroads organizing Amazon’s 5,000 warehouse workers.

A decade later, in 2011, came a low point in Amazon’s labor history. The Morning Call newspaper in Allentown, Pa., revealed that Amazon was hiring paramedics and ambulances during summer heat waves at a local warehouse. Workers who collapsed were removed with stretchers and wheelchairs and taken to hospitals.

Amazon installed air conditioning but otherwise was undaunted. After the Great Recession in 2008, there was no lack of demand for its jobs — and no united protest about working conditions. In Europe, where unions are stronger, there were sporadic strikes. In the United States, isolated warehouse walkouts drew no more than a handful of workers.

The Machinist

Mr. Hough worked as an industrial machinist at a Reynolds aluminum mill in Richmond for 24 years. He once saw a worker lose four fingers when a steel roller fell unexpectedly. Incidents like that made a deep impression on him: Never approach equipment casually.

Reynolds closed the plant in the Great Recession, when Mr. Hough was in his mid-40s. Being in the machinists guild cushioned the blow, but he needed another job. After a long spell of unemployment, he joined Amazon in 2013.

The Chester warehouse, the size of several aircraft carriers, had opened a year earlier, part of Amazon’s multibillion-dollar push to put fulfillment centers everywhere. Mr. Hough worked on the conveyor belts bringing in the goods.

At first, he received generally good marks. “He has a great attitude and does not participate in negative comments or situations,” Amazon said in a March 2014 performance review. “He gets along with all the other technicians.”

But Mr. Hough said he had felt pressured to cut corners to keep the belts running. Amazon prided itself on getting purchases to customers quickly, and when conveyor belts were down that mission was in jeopardy. He once protested restarting a belt while he was still working on it.

“Quit your bitching,” Mr. Hough said his manager, Bryon Frye, had told him, twice.

“That sent me down the wrong road,” Mr. Hough said.

Mr. Frye, who declined to comment, no longer works for Amazon. On Twitter last month, he responded to a news story that said Amazon was hiring former F.B.I. agents to deal with worker activism, counterfeiting and antitrust issues.

“This doesn’t shock me,” he wrote. “They do some wild things.”

The Union Drive

In 2014, Mr. Hough and five other technicians approached the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. A unionization effort was already taking place with the technicians at an Amazon warehouse in Middletown, Del. If either succeeded, it would be the first for Amazon.

The elections for a union would be conducted by the National Labor Relations Board. The first step was to measure interest. At least 18 of the 30 technicians in Chester returned cards indicating their willingness to be represented by the union.

“It was not too difficult to sign people up,” said Russell Wade, a union organizer there. “But once the word leaked out to Amazon, they put the afterburners on, as employers do. Then the workers started losing interest. Amazon spent oodles of money to scare the hell out of employees.”

The board scheduled an election for March 4, 2015. A simple majority of votes cast would establish union representation.

Amazon brought in an Employee Resource Center team — basically, its human resources department — to reverse any momentum. A former technician at the warehouse, who declined to be named for fear of retaliation, said the reps on the team followed workers around, pretending to be friendly but only seeking to know their position on the union drive.

Continue reading the main story
If safety was the biggest issue for the technicians, there were also concerns over pay equity — machinists said they were paid different amounts for doing the same job — and about their lack of control over their fate. Part of Mr. Hough’s pitch was that a union would make management less arbitrary.

“One guy, all I remember is his name was Bob,” he said. “They paged Bob to the control room, and the next thing I saw was Bob coming down the steps. He had taken off his work vest. I said, ‘Bob, where are you going?’ He said, ‘They terminated me.’ I didn’t ask why. That’s the way it was.”

Several technicians said they recalled being told at a meeting, “You vote for a union, every one of you will be looking for a job tomorrow.” At another, the most outspoken union supporters were described as “a cancer and a disease to Amazon and the facility,” according to Mr. Hough and a union memo. (In a filing to the labor board, Amazon said it had investigated the incident and “concluded that it could not be substantiated.”)

Mr. Hough, a cancer survivor, said the reference had offended him. He declined to attend another meeting run by that manager. He said he had known in any case what she was going to say: that the union was canceling the election because it thought it would lose. Amazon had triumphed.

On March 30, 2015, Mr. Hough received a written warning from Mr. Frye, his manager.

“Your behavior has been called out by peers/leaders as having a negative impact,” it said. Included under “insubordination” was a refusal to attend the Amazon victory announcement. Another incident, Amazon said, could result in termination.

The machinists union filed a complaint with the labor board in July 2015 alleging unfair labor practices by Amazon, including surveilling, threatening and “informing employees that it would be futile to vote for union representation.” Mr. Hough spent eight hours that summer giving his testimony. While labor activists and unions generally consider the board to be heavily tilted in favor of employers, union officials said a formal protest would at least show Chester technicians that someone was fighting for them.

In early 2016, Amazon settled with the board. The main thrust of the two-page settlement was that Amazon would post an employee notice promising good behavior while admitting nothing.

Wilma Liebman, a member of the labor board from 1997 to 2011, examined the employee notice at the request of The Times. “What is unusual to my eye is how extensive Amazon’s pledges were, and how specific,” she said. “While the company did not have to admit guilt, this list offers a picture of what likely was going on.”

Amazon was required to post the notice “in all places where notices to employees are customarily posted” in Chester for 60 days, the labor board said.

From the machinists union’s point of view, it wasn’t much of a punishment.

“This posting was basically a slap on the wrist for the violations that Amazon committed, which included lies, coercion, threats and intimidation,” said Vinny Addeo, the union’s director of organizing.

Another reason for filing an unfair labor practices claim was that the union hoped to restart its efforts with a potentially chastened company. But most of the employees who supported the Chester drive quit.

“They were intimidated,” Mr. Wade, the union organizer, said.

Mr. Hough was beset by ill health during his years at Amazon. Radiation treatment for his cancer prompted several strokes. His wife, Susan, had health problems, too. Mr. Hough said he wondered how much the unionization struggle contributed to their problems. He added that he didn’t know whom to trust.

After leaving Amazon, Mr. Hough began driving trucks, at first long haul and later a dump truck. It paid less, but he said he was at peace.

Maximum Green Times

When Amazon vanquished the 2014 union drive in Delaware, the retailer said it was a victory for “open lines of direct communication between managers and associates.”

One place Amazon developed that direct communication was in its warehouse bathrooms under what it called its “inSTALLments” program. The inSTALLments were informational sheets that offered, for instance, factoids about Mr. Bezos, the timing of meetings and random warnings, such as this one about unpaid time off: “If you go negative, your employment status will be reviewed for termination.”

As the union drive heated up in Bessemer, the direct communication naturally was about that. “Where will your dues go?” Amazon asked in one stall posting, which circulated on social media. Another proclaimed: “Unions can’t. We can.”

Amazon also set up a website to tell workers that they would have to skip dinner and school supplies to pay their union dues.

In December, a pro-union group discovered, Amazon asked county officials to increase “maximum green times” on the warehouse stoplight to clear the parking lot faster. This made it difficult for union canvassers to approach potential voters as they left work. Amazon declined to comment.

Last month, President Biden weighed in.

“There should be no intimidation, no coercion, no threats, no anti-union propaganda,” he said in a video that never mentioned Amazon but referred to “workers in Alabama” deciding whether to organize a union. “You know, every worker should have a free and fair choice to join a union. The law guarantees that choice.”

Owning 25 Hats
Mr. Hough, in an interview before the pandemic, said part of him wanted to forget what had happened at Amazon. Why dwell on defeat? He threw away all the papers from the union drive. He never saw the employee notice because he was recovering from a stroke.

But he has not forgiven the retailer.

“You’re only going to step on me one time,” he said, sitting in his home in the outskirts of Richmond.

Amazon’s customers just don’t know how miserable a job there can be, he suggested.

“I guarantee you, if their child had to work there, they’d think twice before purchasing things,” he said.

Ms. Hough, sitting next to him, had a bleaker view.

“The customers don’t care about unions. They don’t care about the workers. They just want their packages,” she said.

As if on cue, their son, Brody, came in. He was 20, an appliance technician. His mother told him there was a package for him on his bed. It was from Amazon, a fishing hat. It cost $25, Brody said, half the price on the manufacturer’s website.

“I order from Amazon anything I can find that is cheaper,” Brody said. That adds up to a lot of hats, about 25. “I’ve never worked for Amazon. I can’t hate them,” he said.

Continue reading the main story
Ms. Hough looked at her husband. “If your own son doesn’t care,” she asked, not unkindly, “how are you going to get the American public to care?”

The pandemic helped change that, bringing safety issues at Amazon to the forefront. In a Feb. 16 suit against Amazon, the New York attorney general, Letitia James, said the company continued last year to track and discipline employees based on their productivity rates. That meant workers had limited time to protect themselves from the virus. The suit said Amazon retaliated against those who complained, sending a “chilling message” to all its workers. Amazon has denied the allegations.

Last week, regional Canadian authorities also ordered thousands of workers at an Amazon warehouse near Toronto to quarantine themselves, effectively closing the facility. Some 240 workers recently tested positive for the virus there, a government spokeswoman said, even as the rate of infection in the area fell. Amazon said it was appealing the decision.

Alabama is now the big test. Mr. Hough worries the union supporters will be crushed.

“They will fall to threats or think, ‘I won’t have a job, Amazon will replace me,’” he said by phone this month. “When a company can do things to you in secret, it’s real hard to withstand.”

Still, he added, “I’m hoping for the best. More power to them.”

How Amazon Crushes Unions In a secret settlement in Virginia, Amazon swore off threatening and intimidating workers. As the company confronts increased labor unrest, its tactics are under scrutiny.

Well, we've been in activist mode this morning so there's so much to say.

But let's do it in small bites for a change.

Have you ORDERED this book yet? The release date is 3/9/2021.

We are ordering it right now.

It looks like a must read for everyone. Maybe you can send a copy to a friend who says “I want to more but just don’t have time and Amazon makes it so easy.”

Contrary to popular belief, we don’t need e-commerce behemoths. We know hundreds of localist heroes who’ve given up using the giant.

If we all resisted Amazon and made efforts to just a little more often, we could change our lives for the better.

Please comment: Are you making changes in your purchase habits.



Please comment!
https://bookshop.org/books/how-to-resist-amazon-and-why-9781621065265/9781621067061

How to Resist Amazon and Why When a company's workers are literally dying on the job, when their business model relies on preying on local businesses and even their own vendors, when their CEO is literally the richest person in the world while their workers make low wages with impossible quotas... wouldn't you want to resist? D...

Hi there Localists everywhere...

We've not been posting very much lately -- especially on Facebook. The exercise feels rather futile knowing that Facebook's algorithm sends our posts to about 2 people. Yes, they want us to pay for growth... but that is another subject entirely.

Sometimes though, we have something important that we want to share -- particularly when it involves helping small, independent businesses.

To that end...

We dedicate this post to all our friends in & beyond.

You’re key to the vibe. You give us beautiful reasons to .

Through our adventures, we’ve learned that is the indie fashion center to Milan’s high fashion mecca. We have an embarrassment of riches in the when it comes to quality, comfort, sustainability, and style+. It’s all because of your talent, creativity, and endeavor.

We love you! And although we have a shop local indies focus, we’ve got to find ways to support you too. Now, we have a chance to do just a little something…

We want to introduce you to a new friend of LOCALMOTIV and her company. This is Amita Goyal from .ai. She’s a beautiful, smart, altruistic, optimistic, warm, energetic . We can’t say enough about her. She’s going to be a HUGE success because she wants to make people and brands like you successful. She’s on a mission to empower small brands and indie retailers to grow their business. WE LOVE HER.

About Playback Community: It’s an innovative livestreaming wholesale marketplace that allows emerging independent brands to connect with, and sell products to, independent shops across the USA. WE LOVE THAT IDEA TOO.

Because, friends, you need to get your amazing brands out there so shopping local can be a beautiful thing all over the USA!
So, if you’d like to partner with someone who wants to change the world for the better and get on an ingenious wholesale platform, please reach out to her.

You know who you are! Many of you own -- or have owned -- your own in , . We’ve seen your brands at Taylor Jay Shoes On Solano Rockridge lesley evers or KOSA ARTS Dandelion Post and Field Day & Friends Field Day and more…

Or your brand is selling at Alyce on Grand Mischief Shop, Resurrect or Bella Vita...

Do you sell at indie markets like Head West Marketplace and want to get into retail?

Go for it!

We believe that we have to have real local news to live informed and enriching local lives.

Chip in for independent Oakland news. Outstanding independent news in Oakland.

Hi there small businesses and every small business in CA.

Are you aware that you can apply for a ? The deadline is coming up quickly on January 13th.

Please share this information with anybody you know who owns a small business and may need a grant!

https://careliefgrant.com/

For anybody else who might read this post, please as much as you can!

With all our love!

LOCALMOTIV

California Small Business COVID-19 Relief Grant Program THIS DESCRIPTION HERE - 135-300 Characters

Hi Localists in Oakland and everywhere!

We've all fed the beast and this very short video explains exactly what the monster that it has become.

Now it's time to nurture our souls. Shop local when you can.

What do you think?

https://makeamazonpay.com/

Make Amazon Pay We are warehouse workers, climate activists, and citizens around the world, taking on the world's richest man and the multinational corporation behind him.

https://localmotiv.social/blog/why-i-shop-local-for-the-holidays/

That's right, I didn't always shop local for the Holidays. It was a journey. And this photo of Cynthia of Urban Indigo reminded me about my evolving shopping attitudes.

Visit the link and read my blog?

Will you shop local for the Holidays?

Why I Shop Local For the Holidays – LOCALMOTIV How I transformed from the worst gift giver to someone who loves Holiday Shopping. And a couple of Shop Local resources for inspiration.

A PERSONAL TRUE STORY

Once upon a time, in the 80s, 90, and some of the 2000s, I used to go to shop at malls for Holiday gifts. That's what everyone did. Here's what would happen:

I would spend half an hour -- give or take -- trying to find parking. Inevitably, I'd see the "Holiday Spirit" turn evil as drivers fought for parking spaces. Then, I'd hike up to the mall entrance and open the doors into the crowded, hectic space. I'd immediately feel my stomach turn and start to doubt my decision to make the trip. I would wander through the mall bouncing off other mallrats as they scurried by.

Finally, I'd arrive at some ubiquitous national chain or other and mistakenly think they'd have something I could buy for someone -- anyone-- on my gift list. I would survey the tornado of merchandise thrown about the store. Maybe I'd find a half decent sweater for dad that he might or might now wear. Or, out of desperation, pick up an undistinguished home decoration for Mom. But nothing more exciting than that.

The expedition would get exceedingly more difficult as I struggled through the mall to find gifts for friends, relatives, bosses, etc. And it wasn't possible to chat with one of the harried employees to seek gift-giving advice. Often, I'd leave after 2 or 3 hours of very unsatisfactory shopping. I thought with dread "OMG, I am going to have to go back and try again."

Then the online shopping came along and, voila, the internet behemoth made shopping even more loathsome but, at least, more convenient.

It isn't an understatement to say that I dreaded Holiday shopping. I attributed my failed shopping expeditions to my own lack of talent. I believed wholeheartedly that I was the worst shopper on the planet -- and everyone surely knew it.

But I also enjoyed shopping locally -- when I could. I used to go to the local stereo shops to peruse stereo equipment and happily chat about music, speakers, and other equipment pros and cons with experienced employees. I could listen to any piece of equipment with my own records or CDs (remember those?). I had my favorite boutique where the owner and employees knew me, my family, friends, girlfriends, and more. They knew how to pick my wardrobe out and would help me as quickly or slowly as I needed. And I found a local wine store that had an unmatched selection of wines -- great values at every price range. And not the usual suspects of conglomerate wineries that you find at chain stores. Of course, I had my favorite bookstore where real people used to recommend books based upon vibrant conversations and not soulless algorithms.

So, one day, something clicked -- and it wasn't a one click shopping click. I was not an unskilled, bad shopper. And even more importantly, I didn't really hate shopping. The ecommerce behemoth, big box and national retailers were the real problem. The proof was in the successful hauls -- and happy experiences -- from my shop local endeavors. I'd always go home, excited to open and share the bags of treasures I'd discovered.

And now that the Holidays are upon us, I'd like to share a couple of resources that may inspire your shop local holiday spirit. !

First, an Article from New York Magazine (https://nymag.com/strategist/article/best-holiday-gifts-from-small-businesses.html) about local merchants who regularly help their customers find unique and meaningful gifts. They've got some recommendations. Of course, these shops are in the New York Area but you'd be able to visit them online or find similar gifts elsewhere.

The second is our own labor of local love: Our Shop Oakland Indies Listing (https://localmotiv.social/shopping-guides/shopping-in-oakland-indie-sales-events-markets-more/shop-oakland-weekly-listing/).

It’s all about how to , and love local art during the COVID-19 crisis! You can easily explore 150+ shops and art galleries and find: Holiday events, SALES announcements; new product news; events and classes; exhibitions; other local events; hours of operation; online shopping capes; shop by appt deets; epic HOLIDAY SEASON shopping tips; and, all the necessary links to in . It's a one-stop shop local resource for Oakland.

Shop Oakland Indies Listing – LOCALMOTIV Shop Oakland Indies. See our comprehensive Listing for Weekly Sales, Events, and other Happenings. Then have some shop local fun in Oakland. Learn more.