|
|
By jwjnational, on January 30th, 2012
Act now to confront corporate power!
This week, in over one hundred cities and towns, thousands will launch a series of actions building towards the Shareholder Spring, delivering letters to the executives of the corporations in this country mos t responsible for undermining our democracy, crashing our economy, poisoning our environment and widening the gap between rich and poor.
By coming together around a joint strategy to confront corporate power, this effort could shape the 2012 electoral debates. The negative roles unregulated corporate power has on our economy and our elections would be front and center of the national conversation. In races nationwide candidates would have to decide which side they are on: Corporations, the structures of the 1%, or the rest of us.
Committing to such a broad-based effort to further expand the space opened by Occupy will create new possibilities for each of our campaigns. In isolation our campaigns on jobs and worker rights, revenue, banking, health care, immigrant justice, and the environment are not big enough. But together, we have the potential to shift the political landscape that all of us operate in.
We are
Continue reading Joint Effort Launched to Confront Corporate Power
By jwjnational, on November 17th, 2011
Seniors, workers, and others who rely on overwhelmingly effective social programs tell Congress to fight for jobs and the 99%, not for the greed of the wealthiest 1%
Today, frustrated constituents from across the country came to Washington D.C. to represent The 99%’s Everyday Superheros. They urged congress to “wake up” and protect Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security from cuts during the last remaining days of the Super Committee negotiations.
Seniors, people with disabilities and workers started the day early by waking up Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), a member of the Senate minority leadership, in “alarming” fashion at Bistro Bis, a local restaurant. Carrying gold alarm clocks and signs, angry protesters shut down a breakfast fundraiser for Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) when Senator Kyl, keynote speaker at the event, hurried out abruptly after protesters entered the restaurant and chanted, “It’s a new morning, it’s a new day; Wake up Congress and make the 1% pay.” Protesters then followed Sen. Kyl to his vehicle and demanded to know if the Senator plans to protect the 99% of people who depend on these critical services or the 1% richest Americans who don’t want to pay their fair share of taxes.
Ferol
Continue reading Seniors, Workers, Students & Others Urge Super Committee to Focus on Jobs, Not Cuts
By Atlanta Jobs with Justice, on November 4th, 2011 
Statistics released today by the US Department of Labor show the nation’s unemployment rate “little changed” at 9%. Atlanta’s high unemployment rate (10.3% in September) has remained static for a year, and Georgia’s has exceeded the national rate for 50 months in a row. A recent report back the Department of Census found that Atlanta had the greatest gap between rich and poor of any major city. The Congressional Budget Office reports that between 1979-2007, the super-rich–those in the top 1% of wage earners–saw their after-tax incomes nearly quadruple while those in the bottom 20% saw their wages remain relatively flat during that nearly 30-year period.
“This is the real crisis our country and our city are facing,” said Charmaine Davis, organizing director and co-chair of Atlanta Jobs with Justice. “We are indebted to the Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Atlanta movements for raising public awareness of the shocking inequality in our society, greater than at any time since 1928, and the unemployment crisis that is robbing families of their homes, livelihoods and hope for the future.”
“There’s an old Wall Street saying that ‘if you aren’t at the table, you’re on the menu’,” said Occupy Atlanta
Continue reading Atlanta JwJ, Occupy Atlanta Respond to Unemployment
By Denise Diaz, on November 4th, 2011
Central Florida Transit Authority or Lynx CEO John Lewis stated ” there’s money on the table.” He was referring to Transit drivers and mechanics represented by ATU local 1596 who has have been dealing with 3 years of frozen wages, increasing healthcare costs, and no contract. The CEO was not clear that the money on the table was only a cheap attempt to take everything from these drivers.
As ATU 1596 members went into negotiations, they wanted community members to see how outrageous the company was being. Lynx’s proposal included a .5% raise (only 10 cents for your top drivers), a one time lump sum of 200,00 (before taxes), removing the pension for new employees, taking away overtime after 8 hours and decrease in uniform and tool allowance which employees already pay a lot for out of pocket now. That was just some of the company’s proposals.
Community members including transit riders and people from the local Occupy Orlando Movement came to show support for union members and watch how Lynx treats their employees. The tense room was packed with over 50 community and union members standing in solidarity to send a clear message to management : Our
Continue reading ATU 1596 and Occupy Orlando say – Transit will not Run-Over the backs of the Working Class!
By Erica Smiley, on October 11th, 2011 
 There are still over 15 million unemployed Americans, nearly 6 job-seekers for each opening, and about 100,000 workers entering the job market each month. Public services and education are being wiped out. Corporate greed and Wall Street recklessness put the squeeze on working people and have created the worst economic crisis in a generation. Big corporations shipped jobs overseas and Wall Street speculators took more and more of our wealth, getting rich quickly at the expense of workers and families.
But this is not news.
What has developed is the upsurge of workers, youth, and the communities we all live in to Occupy Wall Street, and to be in solidarity with these actions around the country. This momentum came just in time, as workers around the country have begun to fight back in bigger and more coordinated ways—understanding that the fight is over who has control over what happens in our workplaces and our communities — working people or Wall Street corporations.
Last winter in Wisconsin and in nearly every state, we saw a breathtaking show of militant resistance to attacks on
Continue reading Building a United Movement to Make Wall Street Pay
By Maria Ward, on September 28th, 2011 
 Jobs with Justice coalitions around the country came out in full force yesterday to save our postal service at representatives’ offices nation-wide. Along with postal workers and community organizations, JwJ activists pressured representatives to support H.R. 1351, a bill which would end the manufactured crisis and help correct the accounting problem that makes the postal service appear broke. With the passage of this bill, the post office will be able to access its surplus funds rather than cut over 100,000 jobs, shutter over 3,000 post offices, and reduce services.
In Boston, roughly 500 members of 6 postal unions and supporters, including Jobs with Justice, rallied to demand that post offices remain open and that no one is laid off. Reverend Terry Burke of the First Unitarian Church in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston spoke about how this would hurt his parishioners as well as erode the standard of living in our community. He was joined by postal workers who talked about the fact that the loss of good middle class jobs would further hurt our economy. One worker said,
Continue reading Jobs with Justice to Congress, “We Support Postal Workers”
By Maria Ward, on September 23rd, 2011
On September 27th postal workers, supervisors, and community allies will come together for the Save America’s Postal Service Day of Action. Faced with a manufactured crisis that could result in massive layoffs, the National Association of Letter Carriers, American Postal Workers Union, National Postal Mailhandlers Union, and the National Rural Letter Carriers Association have organized rallies across the country at every congressional representative’s office.
Jobs with Justice local coalitions are supporting the postal unions by rallying with the workers at congressional offices across the country. On September 27, the Central Florida, North Carolina Triad, South Bend, Northern Illinois, Portland, Colorado, and Southern Oregon Jobs with Justice coalitions will all join postal workers in taking action to save our postal service.
The postal “crisis” is the result of an accounting problem caused by the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006. If not for this bill, the American Postal Workers Union president says, the Postal Service would be operating in the black. The law requires the USPS to overpay into employees’ retirement funds, pre-funding their pensions for the next 75 years, a mandate which both postal workers’ unions and management find unreasonable. Recently, the USPS announced that it won’t
Continue reading JwJ Joins Postal Workers in Rallying to Save our Postal Service
By Fran Ansley, on September 16th, 2011
Knoxville, home of JwJ of East Tennessee (JwJET), is also presently home to a major public works project. The main bridge that runs from our downtown, across the Tennessee River, and out toward the Great Smoky Mountains is in the midst of a top-to-bottom repair and reconstruction effort that will close the bridge for two years. Except for the temporary traffic headaches, and except for the fact that union contractors had pretty much been locked out of doing the work, a project of this kind would normally be a cause for celebration: through this investment of public funds we are strengthening our infrastructure, helping individuals and businesses that rely on free movement across the river, increasing safety for pedestrians, bicyclists and motorists who use the bridge, and creating jobs for construction workers hard hit by the recession.
In this case, however, the bridge project has become a cause for mourning and outrage. On January 25, 2011, less than a month after work on the project began, a worker named John Womac was killed when he was struck by the arm of a track hoe operated by an operator who had not been provided with adequate training on how to use
Continue reading JwJ of East Tennessee Responds to Worker Deaths on Bridge Project
By Sarita Gupta, on September 1st, 2011
 From August 5-7, 2011, Jobs with Justice held our National Conference in Washington, DC. The Conference, which was attended by nearly 700 activists from across the country, was intended to re-energize and recommit workers’ rights activists and advocates to working together in solidarity to address the rights of workers everywhere and to collectively engage in strategy discussions around the economy, corporate accountability, and strengthening grassroots organizing base around a variety of issues.
Most importantly the event allowed Jobs with Justice, our network, partners, and supporters to reflect on two critical questions: how do we protect and expand the right to organize and collectively bargain in this critical moment in our labor movement; and what is the role of Jobs with Justice in mobilizing the network, its allies, partners, and everyday workers around workers justice issues during this period.
In the period since our last national conference in 2008, we have regrettably lost a series of legislative strategies—including most potently the struggle for the Employee Free Choice Act. In the period since that defeat we have had
Continue reading JwJ Conference: Building a Transformative Vision to Expand Workers’ Rights
By Fran Tobin, on August 25th, 2011
 Wall Street recklessness and corporate greed have pushed millions of Americans out of jobs and homes, while concentrating record profits and bonuses for the very top – megawealth that gives them a stranglehold on both our economy and democracy. They want to redefine “normal” as a permanent “jobless recovery” with high profits for them and high unemployment and insecurity for the rest of us. One US Senator went so far as to say the banks “own” Congress. Breaking the grip of Wall Street is a necessary part of the fight for Full and Fair Employment and a New Economy.
Tax Wall Street to Heal Main Street
 As a national network, JwJ has been pushing for a Financial Speculation Tax (FST, aka financial transactions tax or ‘sales tax on Wall Street’) ever since our “peoples bailout” agenda in late 2008. It has been part of efforts to make Wall Street pay for wrecking the economy, pass bank reform and end the jobs crisis, supported by multiple coalition partners. An FST not only can generate substantial revenue for creating the good jobs, green
Continue reading Tax Wall Street to Heal Main Street
|
|
