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 Families across the state of Oregon will be gathering over this holiday season to share updates, latest news, gossip and whose side are you on in the upcoming greatest civil war football game between the Oregon Ducks and the Oregon State Beavers. (For full disclosure, Go DUCKS!) On many people’s minds, but less talked about, are our worries. Jobs security, health care cost, and our family’s future. In January, in a special election, Oregonians will decide on two very important ballot initiatives, measures 66 and 67 which would fund vital services, preserve jobs, and safeguard working families from this recession. Measures 66 and 67 would increase the corporate minimum tax from $10 – which has not been changed since 1931 – to $150. Two out of three corporations pay just $10 a year in income tax. Just $10! Oregon’s five Jobs with Justice Coalitions recognized the importance of the upcoming election for working families and the communities and collectively worked on a statement for the upcoming voter guide. JwJ encourage Oregonians to talk to family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers about the need for to pass measures 66 and 67 in January. So, get a second or third helping and Continue reading Oregonians Need Measures 66 and 67 – Vote in January Over 1,700 Long Island bus workers won union representation last Friday after the workers launched a strong organizing drive with Teamsters Local 1205. The victory is the result of a hard fight by the workers, the union, and their allies. The employer, Baumann Bus, was in strong opposition to the union. The workers—drivers, driver assistants, and mechanics—began organizing in the spring of 2009 and formed organizing committees in their nine different yards. The workers’ reasons for wanting a union were strong: they were not paid for the hours worked, were spending a large portion of their personal paychecks on health care, and experienced degrading workplace conditions. When the employers got word that the workers were organizing, they started attaching anti-union letters to their paychecks, boldly stating, “Don’t sign up with the Teamsters—tell them we don’t want them around here!” The workers filed ten unfair labor practices with the National Labor Relations Board before November 1st, 2009. The charges include: spying on workers who are speaking to one another about the union; telling Latino and Haitian workers that they must be U.S. citizens to vote in the union; and scaring the workers into believing that if a union is voted in, the company will Continue reading 1,700 Long Island Bus Workers Win Union Representation! Thanksgiving is a time to gather family and friends to appreciate and enjoy the bounty of the harvest. And it’s been a really great year — if you happen to work on Wall Street, where CEOs are expecting record bonuses. But the rest of us are in the trough of the worst economic crisis in a generation. Millions more Americans are suffering hunger, joblessness and the loss of our homes. November brought bleak reports on the state or our economic health. This month unemployment officially topped 10%, and while job loss has slowed, the economy continues to lose about 200,000 jobs per month. Meanwhile, nearly 1 in 10 homeowners is delinquent on their mortgage, while home values have dropped an average of 7.1 percent. Americans are not only struggling to stay in their houses, but they are also struggling to put food on the table. A USDA report issued this month shows that 49 million people (14.6 percent of the population), cannot consistently get enough to eat. Another recent study found that nearly half of all children and 90% of African-American children in the U.S. will receive food stamps at some point during their childhoods. In times of crisis, the labor Continue reading Giving Thanks in Tough Times
At the age of 33, Sutton attempted to build a union at the JP Stevens plant in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina. She was making $2.65/hour folding towels at the time, in the early 1970s. Most Americans were exposed to her struggle via the movie “Norma Rae” where Sally Field played a character based in large part on Sutton’s efforts. Crystal Lee Sutton passed away earlier this year on September 11, 2009 in Burlington, North Carolina from a long-standing fight with cancer. She had been engaged in a struggle with her insurance company who had delayed her treatment. Through testimonials from family and friends, cultural performances, old videos and pictures, activists will pay tribute to this hero of the working class. For more information, please contact NC Triad Continue reading Southern Labor Leaders to Celebrate Life of the Real Norma Rae In a big policy shift, the Tacoma, WA City Council questioned subsidies for a Hollander-Marriott luxury project that may not benefit the community, bucking developer lobbyists and the City Manager. For weeks, City Council-members led by Connie Ladenburg held off indemnifying Hollander and sticking taxpayers with toxic liability at the privately owned site. The hotel is sited for the Thea Foss Waterway next to the bankrupted and nearly empty luxury Esplanade condos, also government subsidized and built on the backs of low-wage workers. The shift occurred while Urban Grace Church organized for a recent candidate forum on Responsible Development and amidst a now three-year JwJ free speech campaign to press the City Council to embrace justice values linked to the City’s luxury subsidy policy. Now six candidates are referring to “sustainable development” in two Tacoma Weekly articles although not all seemed to include economic justice in the term. Some candidates prefer Bush trickle-down welfare that doesn’t address poverty-wage jobs, a root cause of environmental unsustainability. In their minds, low-wage downtown hotel workers should just commute to homes in affordable places like Sumner. By taking time to publicly evaluate the Hollander-Marriott project, Council-members catapulted the Responsible Development
Continue reading Tacoma Council Challenges Marriott-Hollander to Benefit the Community From huge victories in the anti-sweatshop movement to the continued struggle for funding in public education, students and workers are coming together to challenge the existing power structure and fight for a just society. We first want to congratulate our friends at United Students Against Sweatshops for their victory against Russell Athletics! Russell Athletics which closed their factory in Honduras after workers there tried to for a union nearly one year ago. Students at 96 universities persuaded their schools to suspend or sever ties with Russell Athletic, a major supplier of college logo t-shirts and sweatshirts. This week, Russell announced that they plan to re-open the factory and re-hire all 1200 workers. More details about the campaign here.
Continue reading Big Week for the Student-Labor Movement An estimated three thousand people rallied for health care reform in Austin, TX on November 14. The Texas AFL-CIO formed a very progressive coalition for health care reform under the slogan, “Health Care Can’t Wait!” A great many organizations, including North Texas Jobs with Justice, joined in. JwJ’s role was to organize transportation to the rally at the Capitol. We were extremely fortunate to be able to partner with the Texas Progressive Center, Organizing for America, and especially with Jacqueline Ban of MoveOn. By combining our efforts we transported 39 people in a chartered bus, and helped fill the buses from the Tarrant County AFL-CIO and another bus from the Dallas AFL-CIO and UAW. Dr. David Brockman did the research on other forms of transportation, which added to the crowd in Austin. Our publicity efforts resulted in pre-action ink in the Ft Worth and Houston newspapers. Univision covered our bus launch from Oak Cliff. Our statewide publicity may have helped get major coverage in the state’s news agencies. The featured speaker at the rally was Congressman Lloyd Doggett of Austin. He reviewed the fight Continue reading Labor Leads Texas Statewide Coalition for Health Care Reform
Our friends at CREDO mobile phone company have figured out a way to put all those crazy things the right-wing nuts say to work for progressive causes like us. They put together a quiz to test you on the latest conservative nonsense – it’s called OMG GOP WTF?! Every time you answer a question correctly, Jobs with Justice gets 10 cents. There are five questions, so that means that if we get 1,000 people to take the quiz and you score okay… we get $500 dollars. But, you’ll want to act fast. The quiz only benefits Jobs with Justice from November 16 to November 22. Next week, it will be a new quiz and a new organization, so please don’t wait!
Sen. Chris Dodd and Rep. Rosa DeLauro are leading the charge to pass the Healthy Families Act first introduced by Sen. Edward Kennedy last spring. The Healthy Families Act would provide 7 paid sick days to all workers at companies with at least 15 employees, and would prevent employers from retaliating against workers who get sick. The bill has 113 sponsors in the House and 21 sponsors in the Senate, and has been endorsed by the Obama administration. Passing this bill is an important step in fighting the spread of seasonal and H1N1 flu. Three quarters of workers without paid sick days work in food and service industries where they come into contact with both co-workers and the public. The Healthy Families Act is an alternative to the Continue reading Do your co-workers make you sick? |
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