A Powerful Spring for the 99% - What do you think?
Share your thoughts on 99% Power, the unprecedented wave of protests targeting corporate abusers.
Post a comment below and let us know what you think!
This Spring has been unprecedented.
In April, we launched the 99% Spring, a nationwide effort to train 100,000 people in organizing and direct action. Hundreds of people were trained, and within weeks they were hosting their own trainings for thousands of others.
99% Power turned that training into action. In a wave of protests confronting the worst corporate abusers, we’ve faced off with Wellpoint, Walmart, Sallie Mae, Verizon, Bank of America, and more.
And we weren’t alone. This shareholder season saw a record number of resolutions introduced by the shareholders themselves to cut CEO pay and to disclose lobbying expenditures. Shareholders of Citigroup, one of the largest banks in the U.S., successfully voted to reject a fat CEO compensation package. Meanwhile, dozens of companies have dropped ALEC, the shady organization responsible for creating model legislation such as the Stand Your Ground law that has received national attention in the Trayvon Martin shooting.
More importantly, we’ve begun to name names. We have begun to name the individuals responsible for destroying our economy and widening the gap between the 1% and the rest of us. Many executives were shocked to find their names and faces on signs lining the streets outside of their shareholder meetings.
Now, we’re continuing the fight from every angle.
This week, guest workers at CJ’s Seafood, a supplier to Walmart, went on strike. The workers, who were hired under the federal H-2B temporary worker program, even went to the police to complain of forced labor and being physically threatened for not working fast enough. When manager Michael Leblanc found out, he threatened violence against the workers and their families in Mexico. Terrified, the workers courageously went on strike and filed a U.S. Department of Labor complaint against the company. You can learn more about the CJ’s Seafood guest workers on our blog.
Yesterday, Walmart opened an investigation--acknowledging that something has gone very wrong in their supply chain. While the nature and timeline of the investigation are still unclear, their acknowledgement of potential wrongdoing is a significant step forward in our campaign to change Walmart.
Our online petition, shareholder actions, and direct worker organizing have forced Walmart to acknowledge abuses in their business practices. Now, we must take the struggle forward. It will take a massive movement along every point of the Walmart supply chain to change the largest retailer in the world, but winning will change more than just Walmart, it will transform our economy.
Share your thoughts and reflections! Write a comment and let us know what you thought of 99% Power and our unprecedented shareholder season.
We look forward to reading your comments and strategizing for the future together.
Comments
Hey Ralph, thanks for sharing that concern. I've actually heard it articulated in many ways and venues - and appreciate the spirit and place it comes from. It would be terrible to lose what ground was gained as a result of the occupy movement's work.
I wanted to point you to an article by Mark Engler at Yes! Magazine (@yesmagazine) http://is.gd/dc2aGj where he goes into some background/history on the 99% coalition and takes on this very question.
Solidarity!
"This spring has been unprecedented" your tagline states, yet we just saw the Walker Recall effort defeated and contracted pensions for public workers in San Diego taken away at the ballot box. Millions of people are engaged in various levels of economic and social justice activity yet there is not a unified and coherent movement that can consistently challenge corporate power. Occupy!, building on the massive Wisconsin civil disobedience effort, which in turn was inspired by the Arab Spring, was able to change -- for a time anyway -- the national narrative that blamed our economic malaise on government deficits and public sector unions. The 99%-1% frame, the focus on Wall Street, and the occupation of public (and sometimes private) space went mainstream. But we still lack a strategy or set of strategies for building a movement. Our default strategy is to elect politicians who are not quite as bad as the bad guys. That only works when there are organized forces that can wield enough power to force the slightly better pols to enact reforms.
We need short term and long term strategies. We need inside and outside strategies. We need organizing and mobilizing. We need messaging and education that goes deeper than handing constituents our analysis and expecting them to march to our commands. We need to make the road as we walk, constructing social and economic enterprises that reflect human rather than corporate values. We need to practice democracy, check our privilege, and be open to creativity and difference. Another world is possible; we need to spend time to figure out how to get there.
thank you for sharing that, I really appreciate how you connect the dots and show the trajectory of the global movement for justice we're seeing all across the globe.
Keep up the great work! We look forward to making and walking that road with you.
We need to start putting the heat (newspapers, radio, internet, blogs, etc) on politicians, especially progressive democratic senators and congress people, and let them know that if they don't work with Occupy, and the 99%, that we will do our best to get someone in their office who will work with us. We have got to make the political support of the Occupy, and 99% Movements as important to their political well being and futures as do the lobbyists from the Wall Street corporations that have them cornered right now. We have to create the opportunity for our elected leaders to jump ship on the 1%, and that opportunity better be good!. We can point out all of the issues we want to our elected officials, but if they have no reason to listen to anyone but Wall Street, that is all they will hear. We also need to infiltrate Washington with folks who understand what we are trying to accomplish and who are sympathetic to our cause.
I think we're another step closer. Here's what we need: Many people oppose the idea of govt spending on job creation. Reframe the discussion. Since Reagan, we've redistributed several trillion dollars directly to corporations to "spur job creation." It didn't work. So, invest those same dollars -- the ones slated for ongoing corp tax cuts, etc. -- directly into job creation and training.
DHFabian, thanks for sharing! We definitely need more jobs, but not just more, we need good jobs. As we say, good jobs aren't just jobs, they're jobs with justice.
Who needs "trickle down" when jobs will "trickle up"?...or something like that. I love it!
Yo tengo orgullo ser uno de los 99%
bien dicho!
"No Somos Uno, Ni Somos Cien! Somos Billones, Cuéntenos Bien! "
It takes courage and determination to do whatever workers had accomplished in their fight for fairness.
I see nothing but successful ending to their strugle.
Sophia, thanks for the words of hope!
I live in Richardson, Texas. Our Target management has all the workers there unhappy and nervous about their jobs. They play mind games with the workers and no matter what I say to corporation Target--they won't answer and don't care.
What company do you feel the screw from?
Corporations do not like unions yet have one of their own, ALEC. Whats good for the goose is good for the gander yet their buying elections at a rapid pace making elections no less than a bribed effort. Representatives are there to represent the people, the citizen, not the corporation. Corporations are a GROUP of people and do not not represent citizens rights. Not to mention their very traitorous act of outsourcing. Talk about abandonment of America. I would say thats quite UN-patriotic.
OWSt. DEM beginning With BARACK.
Corporate Extorsion Operators are paying themselves at record setting rates. Company shareholder rights have been quashed . The Robber Barons are back we need a new age Teddy Roosevelt to break up concentrated corporate power.
Charlie - "robber barons" is right! We have to take back our democracy from corporate control, which may ultimately mean breaking up these concentrations of wealth and power. Thanks for sharing!
You need to give more thought and energy to solving the problem--i.e., to creating full employment and boosting the minimum wage to a living wage.
It's okay to fight the corporations but what we NEED is to create 15 million jobs and raise the minimum wage to $12 per hour.
No amount of punishing WalMart and so forth will move us a single inch towards this goal.
If you only have limited resources and time, you need to devote them towards fighting for the changes that will improve the world, not just punish the guilty.
The broad outline of what we need is to tax the rich to create jobs. The taxes needed will be massive, because we need to BOTH vastly increase government spending AND balance the budget unless you want to go the way of Greece. Namely, we need to impose a $2 trillion a year tax on the rich and corporations--which they can easily afford to pay. Of this, $300 billion a year will be needed to create full employment.
We will need to get millions of people in the streets demonstrating for jobs in order to achieve this, obviously this will take a year or two or three but we do need to get started working towards it.
This is what I am trying to do, but I am only one person. I hope you--JWJ or many of you individually--will join me because this is the only hope for America, the world, and the future.
Roger Skutt---Coalition For Progress
The old saying: "The squeaky wheel gets the greese" is so true. The more of us who write, protest, occupy and share, the more we will be heard. In the long run this will result in the betterment for workers and their families.
John - This is a long-run fight, but we're not giving up. As others have said, this is a beginning, but the end will mean workers are treated with respect, families have time together, and children grow up with opportunity. Thanks for writing, protesting, occupying, and sharing!
The training was great. We would like to add a campaign to this website. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers Campaign for Fair Food, which has been ongoing since 2001, has achieved 10 major victories and is ending slavery, abuse, and exploitation of Florida's farmworkers through the Fair Food Program. Corporate buyers of produce are paying one penny a pound more for tomatoes and supporting a code of conduct that protects workers. JWJ joined with the CIW years ago. Today, we invite all social justice advocates to join us in campaigns in Ohio (Kroger), Florida (Publix), and elsewhere (Chipotles and Ahold). On June 21, at 10:30, we'll be hosting a rally at the Kroger annual meeting in Cincinnati. Join us!
Susan, thanks for sharing! We have a lot of love and respect for CIW and the Campaign for Fair Food. Y'all have been a personal source of inspiration for years. I was saddened to hear that Publix refused to come to the table this Spring, but I have no doubt they will! Thanks again and let's keep the lines of communication open.
"Unprecedented" is one thing to say about the 99% Spring. "Of necessity, just the beginning" is also true. That those who wrecked the global economy, caused death and untold misery to others-- and are accelerating planetary ecocide with their huge carbon footprints-- are being named is good. The next step is jail time. All in all, this has been a G R E A T beginning.
Claudia - absolutely, this is just the beginning! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks JWJ! Keep up the fight!
There is great strength in numbers.
I support your efforts to make corporations socially responsible.
Keep up the good work!
I think you guys are fantastic, your energy and spirit and tenacity. It continues, didn't end with the winter, and I think this is showing the higher ups that the American public is revolution-angry and isn't going to take it anymore. A big thank you.
Keep up the progress!
We should also try to use the organizational boycott. I participated in the UFW boycott of the supermarket
chain that carried nonunion lettuce decades ago - and it was successful! With social media network, this
can be very successful today as well. Threaten calling a national boycott of Walmart today and see what
happens.
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adamBATTAGLIA Posted on whit, your pictures are uaibleevnble. sure, i'm really jealous but also REALLY JEALOUS. congrats on what seems to be a successful trip so far. can't wait to see the show.
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