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By Treston Davis-Faulkner, on December 6th, 2011
Durban, South Africa–
As governments of the world gather in Durban, South Africa for the 17th Conference of Parties (COP 17) as part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to supposedly negotiate viable solutions to the devastating increase in climate change world-wide, so are peoples’ movements from around the world. Trade-unions, including rank and file members, shop stewards, union officials and staff from among other places South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Mozambique, Senegal, Ethiopia, Europe and the US organized a series of seminars, workshops and discussions in the World of Work Pavilion (WoW) as part of the civil society space around the COP 17 at the University of KwaZulu Natal in Durban (UKZN).
This program was designed to educate, agitate and foment dialogue around the key areas of economic activity related to the escalating emission of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG’s) causing climate change and its devastating impacts including: extreme energy extraction (oil, coal, tar sands) and renewable alternative forms of energy (namely solar and wind), transportation (of materials and people). WoW was organized by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), Congress of South African Trade Unions
Continue reading Trade-Unionists from Africa and the World Converge in Durban around COP 17 in Search of Solutions to the World’s Economic and Climate Crises
By Treston Davis-Faulkner, on November 29th, 2011
Jobs with Justice is joining with its strategic ally, the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance (GGJ), in taking part in an important delegation of 16 people to attend the 17th Conference of Parties (COP 17) in Durban, South Africa, which GGJ is coordinating. The COP 17 is part of the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations. As part of GGJ’s ongoing work for global well-being, the delegation will be participating in both inside negotiations and outside civil society activities to advance climate justice solutions that are real alternatives to the false solutions of REDDs, soil carbon, blue carbon and other carbon offset mechanisms that perpetuate the crisis of pollution.
The GGJ delegation is unique in that it is one of the only North American delegations made up of people from communities directly impacted by environmental racism and climate disruption. These delegates also represent communities at the frontlines of transformative change: they have been successfully organizing for decades to find solutions to the climate crisis — through pollution reduction, clean energy policies, food sovereignty initiatives, mass transit investment, and more.
A cartoon from the last international climate
Continue reading Jobs with Justice Joins Delegates from Affected Communities in the U.S. and Canada to be a Strong Voice for Alternatives at COP17
By Treston Davis-Faulkner, on October 13th, 2011
This week, as Walmart hosted Wall Street analysts and investors for a week of discussion regarding the company’s financial health and outlook, nearly 100 members of the Organization United for Respect at Walmart (OUR Walmart), part of the 99%, returned to Walmart’s “Home Office” in Bentonville, AR to demand an “open door” meeting, per the company’s policy, with CEO Mike Duke. In June of this year, OUR Walmart made its first visit to the corporate headquarters seeking a meeting with the CEO in order to deliver the organization’s Declaration for Respect, which members developed in order to identify priority concerns including: a desire for more respect and dignity on the job, more flexibility in scheduling, addressing rampant understaffing and excessive workloads at Walmart among others.
Support this effort:
Support OUR Walmart’s declaration
Post supportive messages for OUR Walmart members in Arkansas now by writing on the Making Change at Walmart Facebook page wall
 As a groundswell of occupations and demonstrations challenging corporate and Wall Street greed continue to gain momentum across the US, the OUR Walmart members
Continue reading OUR Walmart Associates, the 99%, Strive to Change Walmart and Change the Economy!
By Treston Davis-Faulkner, on September 29th, 2011
This is the rallying cry and framework affirmed for and by the first Grassroots Global Justice Membership Congress held in Raleigh, North Carolina September 16-18, 2011. The GGJ Congress was graciously hosted by member organization Black Workers for Justice.
Jobs with Justice is a proud founding and current member of GGJ and was represented by JwJ National Field Director Treston Davis-Faulkner and a delegation from the Vermont Workers’ Center/JwJ including Kate Kanelstein, Mercedes Mack, James Haslem, and Cindy Perron among a few others.. GGJ is a national alliance of grassroots organizations building a popular movement for peace, democracy and a sustainable world. Members of the Alliance support each other’s local struggles and collaborate with international allies who share our vision and commitment to building a transformative social justice movement beyond borders.
Key Outcomes of the Congress include: Moving forward our New Initiative
Affirmation of the “No War, No Warming, Build an Economy for the People and the Planet” framework as the basis for GGJ’s analysis and areas of work for the next period. This document identifies the analysis and work
Continue reading No War, No Warming! Build an Economy for the People and the Planet.
By Treston Davis-Faulkner, on December 9th, 2010
 (GGJ) has joined a delegation of over 65 indigenous people, people of color, and youth from organizations including the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN), Youth 4 Climate Justice (Y4CJ), GGJ and others to converge in Cancun, Mexico where the 16th United Nations Conference on Climate Change or COP 16 is hosting governmental and non-governmental organizational representatives from all over the world will to negotiate solutions to the global climate crisis.
Our delegation from the U.S. is joining with tens of thousands of concerned people from around the world in Cancun to demonstrate that there is another way forward to reducing green house gas (GHG) emissions and global warming through real solutions based on principals of ecological and social justice by including the rights of indigenous communities and the rights of Mother Earth and all people’s right to live in harmony with her, as articulated in the Cochabamba People’s Agreement. Market-based false solutions to climate change such as REDD represent a mechanism which will privatize and commodify forests, land, life, and water while everyday people from forest-dwellers
Continue reading JwJ Joins Allies at UN Climate Change Conference in Cancun
By Treston Davis-Faulkner, on October 20th, 2010
Naomi Klein, the author of “The Shock Doctrine: the Rise of Disaster Capitalism”, described the idea in an interview:
[The Shock Doctrine] is a philosophy that holds that the best way, the best time, to push through radical free-market ideas is in the aftermath of a major shock. Now, that shock could be an economic meltdown. It could be a natural disaster… these crises, these disasters, these shocks soften up whole societies. They discombobulate them… in that window, you can push through what economists call “economic shock therapy.”
Today, with unemployment continuing to hover around 10% nationally and some cities experiencing joblessness at rates higher than 25% (even as the government and the mass media suggest the economic recovery is well underway), corporate interests are using the heightened insecurity of working people to push through their own “economic shock therapy”: lowering labor costs in order to maximize profit. Central to this agenda is undermining, at every opportunity, workers’ right to organize unions and collectively bargain for wages, benefits and working conditions.
A few weeks ago, members of the International Longshore Association shut down the largest port on the East Coast in protest of the fruit company
Continue reading Danger! “Shock Doctrine” Union-Busting on the Rise
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 Treston Davis-Faulkner, on April 1st, 2010
Jobs with Justice coalitions in several major airport locations across the country, including: Seattle, Portland, Denver, St. Louis, Orlando, Washington DC, and Boston are actively supporting the nationwide campaign to organize 40,000 airport security screeners. This campaign, considered to be the largest union organizing effort in the U.S., includes workers at airports across the country, where union activists and allies are demonstrating support for the women and men who help keep air travel as safe as possible.
Background:
Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, AFGE successfully urged the U.S. government to take charge of airport screening from a collection of private employers and make all airport screeners federal employees. But the legislation that federalized airport screeners, creating the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), also stripped the newly federalized workers of their rights. The law gave the new TSA sole discretion to decide the terms of employment of the security workforce, including their collective bargaining rights.
President George W. Bush successfully used the fear created by the terrorist attacks to move his anti-union agenda in creating the TSA. Bush administration officials claimed that union representation of workers would deny TSA the “flexibility” required to wage the war against terrorism.
AFGE strongly
Continue reading JwJ Continues Support for Airport Security Screener Organizing
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