[Peace-discuss] 'Bailout' fight not over 'til it's over

Mon Oct 20 10:44:37 CDT 2008

Growing call for a non-Wall St. "bailout", this one from Jobs With Justice. 

Also, the movement to improve worker rights to a union (Canada & many others already have this), a new way to block sweatshops at the state level, Indian "guest workers" and more ...

AWARE is a member organization of the local JWJ coalition.  Jobs With Justice was instrumental in starting US Labor Against the War.

 -Ricky
"Only those who do nothing make no mistakes." - Peter Kropotkin

>From Jobs With Justice:

Jobs with Justice Demands an Economic Recovery Plan for the Rest
of Us

The Wall-Street blank check bail-out, driven by corporate greed
moved through Congress without the enforceable commitments that
JwJ and allies have insisted are needed. Several national groups
and economists agree that we can and must push for a better deal
for Main Street.

On Thursday, September 25, JwJ and allies took to the streets to
demand a better bailout. On October 1 st, JwJ coalitions in
seventeen cities across the country organized actions to demand:

- Solve the housing and foreclosure crisis 
- Commit to fast-tracking a true recovery plan that addresses
jobs, infrastructure, pensions, etc. 
- Make the people that got rich while creating the crisis pay
for the clean-up 
- Restructure the banking system Short-term: public ownership
for public assistance (i.e. equity stake for public cash) 
- Long-term: re-regulate private finance and expand public and
community-owned alternatives 

Click here to see more video, photos, and press clips from the
day of action.

Jobs with Justice members know that Congress needs to act
strongly (but not in a panic) to address the immediate financial
crisis, but we also need a deeper, long-term restructuring of
our economy so it works for everyone. Stay tuned: JwJ is
developing plans now for more actions, forums, and more for
November and beyond! 

------------------------------------------------------

Jobs with Justice Builds Broad Support for the Employee Free
Choice Act! 

This is a very challenging moment in our history, but also a
moment filled with opportunities, including the chance to take a
big step forward in our fight for worker justice. In 2009, we
can win back the right to form a union and bargain collectively
in the United States. Jobs with Justice is reaching out to our
allies outside of the union movement to demonstrate broad
support for the Employee Free Choice Act. We need your active
support in this struggle! 

Our commitment to winning the Employee Free Choice Act has been
amplified by the worsening economic crisis. Access to collective
bargaining rights, freely chosen by workers is the best way to
guarantee better benefits and wages for working families. The
Employee Free Choice Act would ensure that when a majority of
employees in a workplace decide to form a union, they can do so
without the debilitating obstacles employers now use to block
their free choice. 

Specifically, the Employee Free Choice Act would strengthen
protections for workers' freedom to form unions by requiring
employers to recognize a union once a majority of workers signed
cards authorizing union representation. It also would provide
for mediation and arbitration of first-contract disputes and
authorize stronger penalties for employers that violate the
legal rights of workers seeking to form unions or negotiate
first contracts. 

Nationally, Jobs with Justice's goal is to demonstrate broad
support for the Employee Free Choice Act by contributing
thousands of cards supporting the Employee Free Choice Act to
the One Million Strong for the Employee Free Choice Act
Mobilization, getting hundreds of grassroots organizations
signed on to endorse the Employee Free Choice Act, and
generating a letter from at least 150 Workers' Rights Board
members. These demonstrations of support from thousands of
people outside of the union movement will be delivered to the
next President and Congress in early 2009.

For more information on how you can help win the Employee Free
Choice Act click here.
http://www.unionvoice.org/ct/y1agxr61YcHS/

------------------------------------------------------------

Pennsylvania Governor Makes History with First-in-the-Nation
Resolution to Combat Sweatshops 

Over the summer, after pressure from Philadelphia Jobs with
Justice and Sweatfree Communities, Governor Edward G. Rendell
signed a landmark, first-in-the-nation resolution to end tax
dollar support for sweatshops. The resolution commits the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to participate in the State and
Local Government Sweatfree Consortium. The Sweatfree Consortium
will help state and local governments enforce their commitments
to end public purchasing from sweatshops by investigating
factories and engaging in cooperative purchasing from vendors
and factories that meet Consortium standards for labor and human
rights. 

On July 14th, coinciding with the National Governor's
Association (NGA) 100th meeting in Philadelphia, Jobs with
Justice and Sweatfree Communities held a Workers Rights Board
Hearing on Sweatshops and State Purchasing. Sweatshop workers
and allies testified about the abuses in the production of
uniforms and other state-purchased products. 

------------------------------------------------------

Indian "Guest Workers" Continue Struggle for Dignity and Justice

This summer Jobs with Justice activists around the country
supported the Indian guestworkers' struggle for dignity and
justice, mobilizing pressure on representatives of the
Department of Justice locally, organizing call-in days, and even
fasting in solidarity with the workers. Together with the New
Orleans Workers Center and many other national allies, the
campaign of the Indian Workers' Congress (IWC) has gained
national attention. In India, the families of workers have
organized themselves and with allied organizations have helped
the struggle to gain media and political attention (For
background on the Indian Guestworkers' struggle, click here.) 

When the workers suspended their 29-day hunger strike in June
they had gained the support of 18 members of Congress, the House
Judiciary Committee, the House Labor Committee, the Senate
Judiciary Committee, several Members of Parliament in India, and
labor and religious leaders in the US and in India.

In Kerala, India, the state where the majority of the workers
come from, the Chief Minister of the State initiated a police
investigation after meeting with the workers' family members.
The families' organizing has also succeeded in pushing Minister
for Overseas Indian Affairs, Mr. Vayalar Ravi to make a
statement asserting that the Ministry has suspended the license
of the Indian recruiting agent that worked with Signal
International. 

Even with these remarkable gains, the campaign is far from over.
Refusing to recognize what these guestworkers have suffered as
human trafficking, the Department of Justice continues to deny
them basic safety and protection during its investigation. The
workers continue to live like fugitives, in legal limbo, and
their families are still burdened by extraordinary debt and
painful separation. Meanwhile Signal International continues to
run a profitable business while lawmakers design an expansion of
the U.S. guestworker program.

The workers in the U.S. and their families in India continue
pushing for criminal investigations for human trafficking in
both countries, and they are working toward getting a hearing on
the abuses of the guestworker program in Congress. This summer
in India, the workers' families formed an IWC Families Network
to support each other and to work to get their stories heard in
India and around the world. The workers and their families want
to change policy in India and the U.S. regulating international
labor recruiters so that no more families face the deception and
hardship they have gone through. On November 14, during India's
Parliament Session, some of the families will speak in Delhi at
a major public forum, alongside prominent lawyers, academics,
journalists and elected officials on policy implications that
this campaign has raised and will highlight on the Signal
workers' struggle.

The stories of the families have been launched on a new web
page, http://www.unionvoice.org/ct/9pagxr61YcHI/. 

--------------------------------------

Remembering Stephanie Tubbs Jones

Stephanie Tubbs Jones, the first African-American woman elected
to the House of Representatives from Ohio, passed away suddenly
on August 20. She was in her 5th term as representative of the
11th District covering most of the east side of Cleveland.

Ms. Tubbs Jones was a co-sponsor of legislative efforts to
broaden health care coverage for low- and middle-income people
and of programs supporting the re-entry of convicts into their
communities. She was also the author of legislation requiring
certification for mortgage brokers and stiffer penalties for
predatory loans.

Ms. Tubbs Jones was a champion for social justice in the
Cleveland area and was an active member of the Cleveland Jobs
with Justice Workers' Rights Board. She took her role on the WRB
very seriously, and would personally go out and do the leg work
and research needed to ensure the success of the Workers' Rights
Board. She will be missed.
--------------------------------------------------

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