For years, American working families have shouldered the burden of an economic crisis they didn’t create, while those who caused it now reap record-high profits. Last Thursday, tens of thousands of us stormed the belly of the beast, Wall Street, to demonstrate that we are no longer willing to tolerate a status quo of tax giveaways for the rich and sacrifice for the rest of us. For a few shining hours, Wall Street wasn’t the territory of the bankers who drove this country to near collapse. It was, undeniably, the people’s territory.
On May 12, twenty thousand New Yorkers of all ages and from all walks of life flooded Wall Street from end to end for three hours. We marched, sang, chanted jubilantly, and led over 100 teach-ins in the middle of the street to protest Mayor Bloomberg’s recently-announced New York City budget, which would eliminate over 6,000 teachers and cut $400 million in funding to vital services to low-income communities, while leaving $1.5 billion in tax breaks to the city’s wealthiest untouched.
Last Friday, NY Jobs with Justice and other members of the Walmart-Free NYC Coalition staged a flash mob in Time Warner Center, headquarters of the Related Companies, the real estate developer currently in talks to lease Walmart space to build its first store in New York City. Nearly one hundred of us sang and danced with brass band accompaniment to the tune of Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab” to let Related know that we don’t want them opening the floodgates for Walmart to take over our city:
Our action might have been fun, but the consequences of Related’s actions are quite serious. If the deal with Walmart goes through, Walmart is believed to have plans to open at least a hundred more stores throughout New York, threatening to kill quality jobs, shut down small businesses, and lower labor standards throughout the city. New Yorkers deserve better, and that’s why we showed up at Related’s headquarters to let them have a little signing and dancing piece of our mind.
But of course, this struggle isn’t isolated to New York. Facing declining sales for the first
On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, TN. He was in Memphis to support sanitation workers, represented by AFSCME Local 1733, who had been on strike since March 12 for higher wages and better treatment on the job. He famously said, “It is a crime to live in this rich nation and receive starvation wages.”
Dr. King’s legacy teaches us that workers’ rights, civil rights and human rights are inexorably linked. On the anniversary of his death over thirty years ago, we are also reminded just how far we are in fulfilling his dream of equality and dignity for all people.
Right now, we’re witnessing an unprecedented attack on public sector workers around the country. Here in New York State, our legislature and new Governor passed a budget of tax breaks for the wealthy and austerity for the rest of us. The budget features across-the-board cuts to vital public services, major concessions from public sector workers, and leaves unanswered many more questions about future concessions and layoffs. At the same time, our elected leaders
On Thursday, February 17, New York City once more showed up in force to turn back Walmart’s plans to build its first stores in the city. Close to 100 community members from all over NYC gathered in front of City Hall to voice their opposition and stayed to listen as witness after witness testified against Walmart’s cut-throat labor practices.
The stars of the day were the WalMart workers who were brave enough to stand up and tell their stories of abuse at the hands of the world’s richest employer. We collected the stories of two workers, Sandra and Kenneth, in this short video:
We hope you’ll check out the video, pass it along to your friends and ask them to sign the petition to keep WalMart out of New York City. WalMart is a threat to the livelihoods of working people across the country that we can’t allow to run roughshod over our communities – in New York City or anywhere else.
In the face of the controversy that has quickly swelled around Walmart’s plans to open its first ever stores in New York City, the Bentonville Behemoth has tried to sell New Yorkers on the promise that the company will solve the city’s most pressing social ills in ways that New Yorkers themselves could never dream of doing.
Citing plans to open megastores selling cheap produce in some of the city’s most underserved neighborhoods, the company would have us believe that it will eradicate poverty, unemployment, and solve the food desert problem to boot. We are in a jam, the story goes, but just trust Walmart, and they’ll swoop in and make all of our problems go away.
The very notion is as insulting as it is untrue.
With our city struggling with persistent unemployment and 3 million New Yorkers lacking access to fresh produce in their neighborhoods, the jobs problem and food desert problem are unquestionably real. But asking Walmart to fix those problems is like asking a fox to fix a henhouse.
Across the country, we’ve seen that when Walmart sets up shop in poor neighborhoods, they do more
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.
In July 2009, 136 Stella D’oro workers, members of the Bakery, Tobacco, Confectionary, and Grain Millers Local 50 returned to work after an 11-month strike to maintain family-supporting wages and health care.
On the day they returned, Brynwood Parters, the private equity firm that currently owns the 78-year-old Stella D’oro brand, announced their intention to shutter the plant in 90 days.
On September 8, Brynwood announced that it had reached a deal to sell Stella D’oro to Lance, Inc., a North Carolina-based food manufacturer that owns numerous other brands such as Archway cookies. The deal will not be finalized until October. Please act now to save good jobs!
More details about the struggle
On August 13, 2008, 136 members of Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union Local 50, employed at the historic Stella D’Oro plant in the Bronx, went on strike to defend their family-supporting wages and benefits.
Stella D’oro’s owner, CT-based private equity firm Brynwood Partners, was demanding wage cuts of
The fact that our government often subsidizes the profits of big corporations instead of investing in our communities isn’t new, but it’s time that we say enough is enough. How are we going to tackle the tough problems facing our country when our state and local governments—often the places where we can make the greatest impact—areunaccountable and unable to implement the change we need?
New York City’s government frequently greenlights massive redevelopment projects that rely on millions of taxpayer dollars. In one of the most expensive cities in the world, projects that reshape entire neighborhoods get approved without considering if they will meet community needs, or deliver good jobs and affordable housing.
New York Jobs with Justice was part of a coalition that fought back during the rezoning of Coney Island to win significant community benefits, including 35% affordable housing units, money to renovate the local hospital’s emergency room, land for a new school, and much more.
Right now, the Kingsbridge Armoryproject in the Bronx will saddle a community desperate for good jobs with a shopping complex that will create 1,200 permanent, primarily poverty-wage, part-time, no-benefit retail jobs unless NYC residents take action. The New York
