September 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.

Our latest example of Corporate Greed at its finest is Rite Aid, who tries to hide behind the corporate slogan, “with us it’s personal.”  BUT, do not be fooled by a silly slogan.  HMMMM….. let’s see,  Rite Aid CEO, John Standley, doubles his salary in one year from $2.3 million to $4.5 million while trying to make health insurance unaffordable for his company’s  low wage workers.  Is that being personal with your employees?  Well I guess you could say it is personal, but probably not in the way Rite Aid would want you to think.

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.

CWA & IBEW's two-week strike in August showed Verizon and Verizon Wireless that it could not keep stonewalling at the bargaining table.  Several concessionary demands have been removed from the table, including their demand to slash MLK Birthday and Veterans Day as holidays and to eliminate the special city allowance.

Now workers are bargaining from CWA’s proposals to save money on health care without premium sharing and preventing unilateral management changes in health care at Verizon Wireless.  And union members are forcing management to focus on our demand to bring thousands of outsourced and off-shored jobs back into the bargaining unit.

There has been progress, but Verizon is still insisting on hundreds of millions in concessions.

It’s time to step up the pressure.

We’re ramping things up with Days of Action next week:

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 the equipment.