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By Allison Fletcher Acosta, on August 31st, 2010
 This morning, New York Governor Patterson signed into law the first-ever U.S. law that upholds domestic workers’ rights. 200,000 nannies, housekeepers, and elder caregivers in New York will be covered under a law that provides guaranteed sick days, overtime pay, a day of rest, protection from discrimination, and notice before termination. This groundbreaking victory is a result of a six-year campaign led by Domestic Workers United and supported by a broad coalition of labor and community organizations, including JwJ coalitions in NY State.
“Today we correct an historic injustice by granting those who care for the elderly, raise our children and clean our homes the same essential rights to which all workers should be entitled,” Governor Paterson said. “I am grateful to the sponsors for their extraordinary efforts to enact this landmark bill, and most of all to those domestic workers who dreamed, planned, organized and then fought for many years, until they were able to see an injustice undone.”
The victory in
Continue reading First-Ever Law Protecting Domestic Workers’ Rights Signed in New York
By MaryBe McMillan, on August 30th, 2010
 Forty-seven years after the 1963 March on Washington, the union movement and our allies are preparing for our own march in October. Under the banner of One Nation Working Together, union members, civil rights activists and other concerned citizens will rally in support of good jobs, a quality education for every child, immigration reform and workers’ freedom to form a union. Our rallying cry is that we must reverse the dangerous trend toward greater income inequality and finally create an economy that works for all.
To achieve that goal and to become a truly united nation working together, leaders of the One Nation coalition partners—particularly our nation’s labor leaders—could learn a valuable lesson from that earlier march on Washington: The road to justice and equality must go through the South.
During the 1963 march, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. eloquently illustrated this point when he said:
“Let freedom ring from the mountains of New York… Pennsylvania…. Colorado…. California. But not only that: Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia…. from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee….f rom every hill and molehill of Mississippi….let freedom ring.”
Civil rights leaders knew the only
Continue reading Opinion: Workers Who Win the South Change the Nation
By Jacob Carton, on August 30th, 2010
Hundreds of statewide labor activists joined with community leaders and local residents to call on Hollander-Marriott and all Greater Tacoma low-paying, taxpayer-money-taking companies to fuel an economic recovery with good jobs. Washington State JwJ is a leading force calling for responsible development, which led to this event as the largest local worker rights action in recent memory. Radio and corporate print media more than noticed.
 Hollander-Marriott purchased their downtown Courtyard site at a “deep discount” from taxpayers, snatched waterfront-mountain views from the taxpayer’s Convention Center, and “brutalized” the architecture of Tacoma taxpayer-financed luxury renaissance, according to the press. The City Council agreed to this in the name of jobs as Hollander-Marriott made promises to the Mayor, Council, and residents and their unions.
But Hollander-Marriott “went back on their word” to pay living wages, hire locally, and abide by a labor harmony agreement, according to former Mayor Baarsma. Hollander built the downtown Marriott using Canadian workers earning poverty-wages. The hotel continues to operate without providing affordable family health care and living wages to Tacoma workers. The
Continue reading Hollander-Marriott Takes Tax Money, Fails to Provide Good Jobs
By Allison Fletcher Acosta, on August 27th, 2010
 Dozens of protests planned for September 15
Reviving a core demand from the August 28, 1963 “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom” Jobs with Justice is declaring a national “jobs emergency” and calling for Full and Fair Employment. Protests are expected in dozens of cities across the country on September 15.
“It’s time for corporate apologists in the Senate, who are blocking a recovery for the rest of us, to recognize what workers already know: we are in a jobs emergency that requires a bold, emergency response,” said Sarita Gupta, Jobs with Justice Executive Director. “With record long-term unemployment and communities losing vital public services, it is time to put Full and Fair Employment and a massive federal works program, core demands from the 1963 March for Jobs and Freedom that Glenn Beck wants us to forget, back on the national agenda.”
The demands of the September 15 protests are full and fair employment – including passage of legislation like Local Jobs for America Act which would save or create 1 million jobs, extension of the emergency Temporary
Continue reading 47 Years After King’s March, JwJ Revives Call for Full & Fair Employment
By Fran Tobin, on August 23rd, 2010
 The economic news continues to demonstrate that workers are facing a jobs state of emergency. Some pundits call it the “horror show” and many economists predict a ‘double dip’ recession.
Corporate America calls it a “jobless recovery,” – and likes it. Wall Street bailout bandits are making bumper earnings, and corporations are sitting on so much reserve cash that only 20% of that money could hire 5 million Americans at $70,000/year … for 5 years! But the private sector cannot and will not put America back to work without government intervention.
For the past year, JwJ has brought together community, religious, student and labor organizations to challenge bank greed and foreclosures, fight plant closings and layoffs, oppose outsourcing and call on congress to act on the jobs emergency with the same urgency as the financial crisis. JwJ coalitions and our allies won financial reform and a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, saved jobs at Hugo Boss and Hartmarx, won several extensions of emergency unemployment benefits, and federal funding for needed medical aid and keeping 140,000 teachers in the classroom.
But the crisis is far from over.
Continue reading Who Will Build the Base to Fight for Jobs with Justice?
By Kristi Barnes, on August 23rd, 2010
Our country is long past desperate for jobs, and the tools we’ve got for creating them aren’t working. With nearly one in ten Americans out of work and Congress floundering to pass a jobs bill, it has fallen to cash-strapped states to pick up the slack. Unfortunately, many states’ job creation programs are nothing more than a shadowy network of corporate ATMs that hand out hundreds of millions in subsidies each year without bothering to ensure that the money goes toward creating jobs, let alone quality jobs.
A new report from New York Jobs with Justice, Urban Agenda and the Coalition for Economic Justice demonstrates how New York’s main job creation entities, Industrial Development Agencies (IDAs) have taken advantage of a lack of public scrutiny to spend more and more money while creating fewer and fewer jobs. According to the report, entitled No Return on Our Investment: The Failure of New York’s Industrial Development Agencies, IDAs waste $135 million a year on subsidies to businesses that cut jobs or fail to create them, and over 80% of IDA spending results in net revenue loss to local government.
At
Continue reading New Report Catches Job Creation Programs Asleep on the Job
By Treston Davis-Faulkner, on August 20th, 2010
 On May 23, 2010, the owner of Mott’s, a subsidiary of the highly profitable Dr Pepper Snapple (DPS), forced 300 workers and members of RWDSU Local 220 on strike at the Mott’s plant in Williamson, NY. Though the company is seeing tremendous success and has turned a profit the past 5 years, Mott’s insists on wage and benefit cuts from workers, saying workers should think of themselves as a “commodity” like “soybeans or oil.”
Basic Facts: Mott’s/DPS is demanding: $1.50 per hour wage cut for all employees, pension elimination for future employees, pension freeze for current employees, 20 percent decrease in employer contributions to the 401K, increased employee contributions toward health care premiums and co-pays. Most workers at the Williamson plant make around $19/hr. Mott’s was acquired by DPS in May of 2008, after which workers report a shift in attitude from management.
Mott’s is looking to exploit the economic climate to maximize their profits at the expense of their workers.
While the three highest paid executives at DPS, including CEO Larry Young, doubled their pay between 2007 and 2009, the company is now proposing to cut wages and
Continue reading Mott’s Workers Stand Up to Corporate Greed
By Fran Tobin, on August 20th, 2010
A core practice of progressive organizing is to build power by bringing together people directly affected by a problem, developing solutions and taking action together to demand change.
With jobless Americans currently numbering 15 million and (official) unemployment rates projected to be as high as 13% by 2020, Jobs with Justice coalitions are developing models for organizing the unemployed, empowering these voices and faces of the crisis to be a visible and powerful component of winning Full and Fair Employment and a New Economy.
The JwJ approach weaves together unions, community agencies and religious congregations into a project that no group could do on its own. Though on-line approaches can be very useful (e.g. see here, here, here, here and here), JwJ member groups reach out to laid-off workers for in-the-flesh, “jobless potlucks,” workshops on “surviving unemployment” or moving “From Anger to Action.” Some cities do weekly canvasses of unemployment offices or food banks and other recruitment activities, collecting surveys or “I’ll Be There” pledges. Unemployed workers councils identify obstacles to good jobs and help plan local organizing to demand new programs at the city, state
Continue reading Jobless, Not Voiceless: Labor and Community Unite to Organize Unemployed
By jwjnational, on August 20th, 2010
Federal Stimulus Funds & Tennessee Tax Dollars Pay for Human Trafficking, Forced Labor: Call on the Obama Administration to hold employer accountable
Late in the night on August 10, Mexican guestworker Hilario Jimenez escaped from company housing to expose his employers. Hilario and other guestworkers were recruited from Mexico and brought to the U.S. on H-2B visas by Vanderbilt Landscaping LLC.
This morning Hilario blew the whistle on a Tennessee scandal: Vanderbilt Landscaping, LLC is receiving millions in federal stimulus money and state contracts put together. And the company is importing guestworkers – cheap, captive labor – into public jobs even as local communities are suffering from record unemployment rates.
Now we ask you to stand with Hilario Middle Tennessee Jobs with Justice and members of the Alliance of Guestworkers of Dignity to fight human trafficking, forced labor, and a company that gets millions in state and stimulus money.
TELL THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE TO INVESTIGATE VANDERBILT. Call 202 353 1555 and tell Attorney General Eric Holder, “The Department of Justice should investigate and prosecute the employers for criminal conduct including but not limited to labor trafficking, forced labor, unlawful conduct with respect to documents, and other crimes in coordination
Continue reading Stop Tax Dollars From Paying for Forced Labor!
By jwjnational, on August 4th, 2010
 The big banks thought they killed financial reform last year, but through the efforts and activism of JwJ members and allies across the country, we were able to overcome $1.5 million a day of bank lobbying and we won the first round of the fight to take back our economy from Wall Street and the corporate agenda.
Now these same big money interests want to undo that victory by blocking appointment of Elizabeth Warren as head of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Elizabeth Warren has served as the chair of the Congressional Oversight panel created to investigate the bank bailout, acting as an advocate for accountability and transparency. Warren was also one of the original advocates for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
TELL OBAMA TO APPOINT WARREN!
Why do the banks want to block her appointment? Because they are afraid she might actually protect consumers at the expense of bank and corporate profits.
There is certainly more to do in democratizing our banking system and making Wall Street Pay for causing the economic crisis, but if the banksters and
Continue reading Don’t Let the Big Banks Steal Our Victory
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