Call to Action!! People’s Bail-Out Now!!
National Week of Action: December 7-13

FIND AN ACTION NEAR YOU!

TELL CONGRESS: WE NEED A PEOPLE'S BAILOUT

As many predicted, the Wall Street Bail-out has proven to be the gross give-away to the same financial bigwigs that have been pocketing millions while wrecking the real economy. Little or no benefit has gone to the working people and the real economy, at a time that we face the greatest economic crisis since the 1930s. By the time Obama is sworn in, hundreds of thousands of additional people will lose their jobs, lose their homes and lose their health care.

It’s time for a “People’s Bailout” that fixes the real economy, restores a voice for working people in challenging corporate greed, provides emergency help to the victims of the crisis and begins building a fair economy that works for all, addressing crises in housing, health care, jobs, retirement security and the environment.

Jobs with Justice coalitions and ally organizations around the country will take part in an emergency campaign over the next 2 ½ months to get Congress and the new administration to enact a Peoples Bailout.

Download an Organizing Kit

Immediately we call for:

• Pass a large economic stimulus/recovery package, on the scale of the emergency we face;
• Pass the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA);
• Stop evictions due to foreclosures;
• Emergency action so people losing jobs don’t lose health care.

Lay the groundwork for a long-term recovery program including:

• Green jobs and clean energy;
• Restore worker justice, including EFCA and other reforms;
• Health care for all;
• Retirement security;
• Re-regulate the finance system and make the speculators pay to clean-up their mess
• Fair Trade and Migration policies
• Fair policies on Trade and Migration, including renegotiating NAFTA and other trade agreements, to protect worker rights and the environment, ending ICE raids and supporting the rights of all workers, here and abroad

Jobs with Justice is calling for this national week of action across the country, December 7-13, in coordination with groups such as Institute for Policy Studies, US Action, American Friends Service Committee, National Community Reinvestment Coalition and ACORN.

Here are some ideas for ways to take action:

• Conduct or join a town hall meeting or teach-in on the crisis and what’s needed in a peoples bail-out, including the importance of building worker justice through EFCA (note; several are already being planned by allies, and we encourage participation/coordination where possible)
• Do an action outside a company that’s laying off workers, asking employees and passers-by to wear “peoples bail-out’ stickers and contact Congress
• Do street theater skits like “billionaires for the bail-out” or a “ring-toss rescue” (allowing people to ‘vote’ on what part of the economy deserves to be bailed-out by tossing a rescue ring to the appropriate sector)
• Rally at a bank to demand a moratorium on foreclosures (a bill has been introduced in the Senate along these lines), or block the eviction of someone being foreclosed upon
• Rally for a worker struggle, to highlight the need for Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), health care, etc.
• Get local unions to sponsor workplace sticker actions, supporting a people’s bail-out
• Recruit volunteers for the “Bucket Brigade” that will be needed to fight for a peoples bailout
• December 10, Human Rights Day, connect with allies around the “worker rights are human rights” theme and collect EFCA cards and endorsements
• Expose the face of the other side, doing actions at corporations that either benefit from the wall street bailout or lead the charge against worker rights
• Generate media, op-eds, letters to the editor etc.
• Deliver eviction notices to banks
• Announce/Conduct a training program for the hottest new job: soup kitchen management
• various street theater skits (billionaires for bail-outs, etc.)
• All the plumbers named “Joe’ hold a conference
• Build a house made of bricks/boxes that represent components of economic security