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By jwjnational, on October 11th, 2011
This week, the Labor Movement and allies are calling for a week of action October 10-16 to create and keep good jobs. To learn more about the America Wants to Work campaign demands, check out the 6 pillars to create & keep good jobs.
Many Jobs with Justice coalitions are organizing actions this week at Verizon Wireless and Apple stores to support CWA & IBEW members bargaining with Verizon. The Student Labor Action Project is leading a National Day of Action October 14 in the fight for full and fair employment as students take action to support workers at Verizon. Others are coordinating efforts with local “occupy” protests, and putting pressure on members of the so-called “super-committee” to let them know we can’t balance the budget on the backs of working people.
Click here to find an America Wants to Work action near you next week and here for information on the Oct. 12 National Teach-In. Follow the action on Twitter with the hashtag #want2work.
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 Huy Ong, on September 14th, 2011
 Today, in cities across the U.S., communities are coming together to educate and take collective action to stop H.R. 2164, legislation presented by Texas Congressman Lamar Smith. H.R. 2164 will make the use of E-Verify mandatory for nearly every employer in the United States. This legislation is expected to be taken up by the House Judiciary committee for markup at the end of this week.
Mandatory E-Verify is a jobs killer. It is bad for working people, bad for business and bad for the economy. That is why community leaders, small business owners, and workers are speaking out today against the E-Verify program.
In Portland, Portland Jobs with Justice will join community leaders in a press conference telling Congress that forcing employers to use the flawed E-Verify system will harm U.S. workers and employers and undercut the country’s economic recovery.
A mandatory E-Verify system would require employers to perform a computer check for every job applicant against an error-prone government database, before any American worker could start a new job. If a worker’s
Continue reading Communities United as Part of National Day of Action Against E-Verify
By Huy Ong, on April 28th, 2011
 One year ago, what was long known to be a laboratory for the Right also became recognized as an epicenter for human rights efforts today. On April 23, 2010 Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed SB1070 into law, elevating the state of Arizona into the national spotlight as both the capitol of prejudice and the heart of a vibrant migrant and human rights movement. While Russell Pearce, Sheriff Arpaio, and Jan Brewer entered the courts to defend their unconstitutional and inhumane work, families, neighbors, workers, people of faith, and students mobilized in the tens of thousands to send the clear message that “we will not comply” with the criminalization of our communities.
One year later, with the exception of a few states like Georgia and Florida, the country has turned away from the wrong direction of Arizona and its 1070 copy cats. Yet, while the Obama administration has sued Arizona for its law, its also bragged about deporting one million people while in office via the expansion of police-ICE collaborations. The organizers of Arizona always told visitors, “the best way to support us is to confront ICE in
Continue reading National Summit to Turn the Tide on Anti-Immigrant Enforcement
By Fran Tobin, on April 6th, 2011
To read mainstream media’s celebration of official unemployment rate dropping from 8.9% to 8.8%, you wouldn’t know that the jobs deficit remains dire for millions of Americans (not coincidentally, corporate profits are going through the roof).
Let’s look through the hoopla:
Even if the number of jobs available continues to increase at the March pace of 215,000 per month, it will take at least six years to return to the pre-recession rate of joblessness – and many of those new jobs will pay far less than the jobs that were eliminated.
The official jobless rate for African-Americans actually increased to 15.5%,
The percent of underemployed rose slightly to 20.3% of all wokers.
Long-term unemployment is still a major problem, with almost half of all unemployed having been out of work for more than 27 weeks, and record numbers have exhausted all unemployment benefits.
Official unemployment statistics dramatically undercount the jobless numbers. For example the 2.4 million persons that have been looking for work, but not actively in the past 4 weeks, are not counted as unemployed.
Compared to other ‘post-recession’ periods, current job growth numbers are Continue reading Don’t be Fooled by April 1 News Celebration; Joblessness Remains Crisis
By Fran Tobin, on March 16th, 2011
 Nearly 10,000 people rallied in 14 cities across Ohio, standing up for Good Jobs and Strong Communities. Jobs with Justice coalitions were lead organizers of rallies outside of Cleveland and Columbus, and mobilized to actions near Toledo, Dayton, Mansfield, Akron and Cincinnati.
In Cleveland, more than 1,500 persons withstood the rain to hear JwJ Religious co-chair Rev. Bob Strommen denounce the greed of “Big Money” and call us to live by shared values. Teachers, firefighters and a small businessman and local Catholic priest also spoke against the threats of Governor Kasich’s slash and burn budget and elimination of collective bargaining rights.
After the formal program ended, hundreds of people stuck around in the pouring rain lining Strongsville’s Royalton and Pearl Roads, waving signs and chanting as cars honked horns in support.
Columbus JwJ organized a rally in Gov. Kasich’s home suburb of Westerville. More than 1,500 persons learned more about the causes of the OH budget shortfall (hint: it was not workers) and marched to Kasich’s home.
 JwJ coalitions in other states also held rallies, in
Continue reading Ohio Stands for Good Jobs, Strong Communities
By Martin J. Bennett, on March 5th, 2011
A recent article in the Economist magazine titled “Tough Times for Everyone – Except Public Sector Workers” states that taxpayers are now learning about “the banquet public sector workers have been having at the expense of everyone else” and that many public employees can “retire in their mid-50s on close to full pay.”
These unsubstantiated claims–repeated endlessly in media–stand reality on its head. Such accusations are part of a systematic campaign by corporate America to mislead taxpayers and scapegoat public employees.
California public sector workers, such as teachers, public health nurses, firefighters, librarians, maintenance, park, transit, and social workers are not responsible for the economic crisis that makes drastic cuts to state and local governments necessary. These public employees earn modest, middle-class pay and benefits.
Rather, it was big business and the wealthy who gamed the deregulated financial system to make huge profits. Their speculation in the home mortgage markets triggered the Great Recession; then they proceeded to take billions in bailouts from the government; and last year, Wall Street’s leading investment and financial services firms paid out a record $144 billion in compensation and benefits.
These same corporate interests adamantly refuse to pay their fair share for vital public
Continue reading Don’t Blame California Public Employees!
By Fran Tobin, on January 11th, 2011
Winning the Dodd-Frank Bank Reform bill was an important victory for JwJ groups and our allies, but far from the end of the struggle between working communities and Wall Street.
The nation’s biggest banks, the ones that enriched themselves while driving our economy into ruin, have been foreclosing on homes and evicting families without even filing the proper paperwork. In a ruling that could shake the very foundation of these bailout bandits, the Massachusetts Supreme Court recently said the banks have to show they have the legal right to foreclose before doing so.
That such a common sense question (should banks follow the law when kicking people out of homes?) went to a state supreme court is a sign of how monumentally out of whack our system has become and how much the big banks have been getting away with recklessness.
Across the country, community groups have been challenging foreclosures and abusive bank practices, including the infamous ‘robo-signing’ of documents. Some union and community groups have launched a “Where’s the Note” campaign to help families challenge improper foreclosure procedures.
As groups build efforts for a moratorium on foreclosures, a tax on Wall Street
Continue reading Wall Street vs. Workers: The Struggle Continues
By Erica Smiley, on December 3rd, 2010
Right-wingers have historically cried about the deficit when it is convenient to them, and most potently when they are aiming to put more money into the pockets of their wealthy, corporate buddies—all of course while increasing the burden on working people (i.e. “cutting spending”).
So the report coming from the “deficit commission” should come as no surprise, proposing trillions of dollars in cuts and even slicing jobs, including 200,000 government workers. Meanwhile there was no mention of any tax on the corporate fat cats who got our economy into this mess when it is widely understood that a modest fee on Wall Street’s daily financial transactions would bring in more than enough to say existing jobs, provide new jobs and, yes, get rid of the deficit. In fact, Republicans are now pitting the extension of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans against unemployment benefits for the rest of us.
In all of its attempts to “solve the deficit”, the Commission—which did not even get the full 14 votes required to make it an official report to Congress—answered the wrong question.
The real question is how are we going to re-build our economy after decades of deregulation, privatization, outsourcing, and the
Continue reading “Deficit Report” Answers Wrong Question
By Naomi Demsas, on December 3rd, 2010
President Obama created the bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility identify policies to improve the fiscal situation in the medium term and to achieve fiscal sustainability over the long run. Specifically, the Commission attempted to propose recommendations designed to balance the budget, excluding interest payments on the debt, by 2015. Today, the Commission approved the report but failed to reach consensus that would have pressured congressional leaders to vote on the proposal.
The proposals that the Commission has drafted fail to address the causes of either the current or projected budget deficits. What’s more, they fail to recognize that a healthy government budget depends on a healthy economy, and a healthy economy depends on jobs.
During the Great Depression, this nation was in a similar situation to the what we’re experiencing now. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal reduced unemployment from 25 percent to 10 percent in three years, but he was then pressured to reduce spending before the economy was fully stabilized, just as President Obama is being pressured to reduce spending now. The result was another sharp increase in unemployment and a weakened economy that only improved when the nation entered World War II.
Then, as now,
Continue reading Opinion: Cutting Spending is A Means to a Grim End
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