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MARCH-April 2007
Student Labor Week of Action Starts March 28
US Social Forum: June 27-July 1st in Atlanta The United States Social Forum (USSF) is expected to draw thousands of community organizers, trade unionists, students and youth, people of faith, NGO representatives, elected officials and US based social movements for a weeklong conference in downtown Atlanta, GA June 27th through July 1, 2007, to “develop leadership, vision and strategy needed to realize another world.” The USSF will provide space to build relationships with other activists and movement building organizations in the U.S., learn from each other's experiences, share our analysis of the problems our communities face, and bring renewed insight and inspiration. It will help develop leadership and develop consciousness, vision, and strategy needed to realize another world. We must declare what we want our world to look like and begin planning the path to get there. A global movement is rising. The USSF is our opportunity to demonstrate to the world that Another World is Possible! Jobs with Justice nationally is helping to organize parts of the USSF; JwJ is on the national planning committee for the forum, we are helping facilitate a labor working group, we are planning a series of workshops, Atlanta JwJ has proposed the major action that everyone will participate in, we are planning a party to take place during the Forum that will celebrate JwJ’s 20th Anniversary, and most importantly, we are organizing a JwJ delegation to “be there”. What will happen during the 5 days? Marches, plenaries, workshops, arts and crafts, a film festival, organizations tabling, cultural performances, art exhibits, poetry slams, programming in the tents, self-organized actions, a soccer tournament, an all night cabaret, parties and more. REGISTRATION: If you are planning to come to the US Social Forum and you are part of a local JwJ coalition, please REGISTER ON OUR WEBSITE. We have made arrangements with the USSF Coordinators to register and pay for our activists as a block. If you're not engaged in a local JwJ coalition, you can register on the US Social Forum website. HOTEL: The main hotel for the USSF is the Westin Peachtree Atlanta. There are a number of housing options available on the USSF website. It will be crucial for you all to book your rooms as soon as possible – the number of rooms available is very limited. We are looking forward to seeing many of you all there! DC Jobs with Justice participated in planning the DC Metro Social Forum, which was held on March 3rd at Catholic University in Washington, DC. The one-day event drew more than 200 people and featured 30 workshops on issues such as gentrification, youth organizing, fighting Wal-Mart, day labor, and DC Voting Rights. Other workshops offered advocacy training or shared resources for developing independent media and building black-brown alliances. Plenary sessions during the day featured music and theater, as well as discussion of the World and US Social Forums. The event raised close to $2,000 to help people from the DC area travel to Atlanta for the US Social Forum this summer. Huge Win for Missouri’s Tipped Employees! Back in November, an overwhelming majority of Missourians voted to raise the state minimum wage to $6.50/hour and index it to inflation. On January 1, hundreds of thousands of Missourians got a raise, but Governor Blunt’s administration advised businesses with tipped employees that the new legislation did not apply to them. In a survey of hundreds of tipped employees including servers, bartenders, and bellhops from more than 30 restaurants across the state, JwJ and ACORN found only two restaurant chains whose wage was increased on January 1. But the groups behind the minimum wage increase fought back. Allies from Give Missourians a Raise, including St Louis JwJ, ACORN, AFL-CIO, AFSCME, Brennan Center for Justice, Missouri Citizen Education Fund, Schuchat, Cook and Werner Law Firm, SEIU, and UNITE HERE, started the “Save Our Tips” campaign to get a reversal from the administration. JwJ members collected signatures on the Save Our Tips petition and signed up servers on Save Our Tips cards to help win the campaign. On Wednesday, March 14 the Blunt administration reversed its earlier position denying the increase in Missouri's minimum wage to tipped employees. More than 62,500 tipped employees in Missouri should see a raise in their next paycheck. What’s more, tipped employees are entitled to back-pay, retroactive to January 1, 2007, the date their raise went into legal effect. The campaign is looking into whether servers are entitled to damages for being underpaid for more than 10 weeks. Jobs with Justice and the Workers’ Rights Board will continue to work with servers that signed on to the Save Our Tips campaign to ensure they actually receive the wages they deserve. To learn more about the Save Our Tips campaign, please visit www.saveourtips.org. Employee Free Choice Act Passes House The Employee Free Choice Act has passed in the House of Representatives! Now the campaign is on to move the Bill through the Senate. We will keep you posted on how you can help keep the pressure on! Report Looks at Garment Manufacturing in India United Students Against Sweatshops, Jobs with Justice, and Society for Labour and Development (in Delhi, India) collaborated on research of top six companies in Delhi who manufacture garments for primarily US brands and retails companies including big boxes like Wal-mart. This corporate study is a first of its kind, in India, to take a close look at top garment manufacturing companies that deal directly with US companies. The report can be accessed here. WA JwJ Helps Win Big-Box Ordinance in Bellingham On Monday February 12th, Bellingham residents won a huge victory when the Bellingham City Council voted 4-2 to pass an ordinance banning big-box retail stores of more than 90,000 square feet. Representatives from the Bellis Fair Mall, the Bellingham/Whatcom Chamber of Commerce, Costco and Wal-Mart attended the meeting to show their opposition to the big-box ordinance. In recent days, the City of Ferndale and Whatcom County have both passed temporary moratoriums on big-box retail stores, similar to what Bellingham passed back in September, in order to give the communities in both municipalities time to consider how best to address the consequences of big-box retailers like damage to local businesses, elimination of living wage jobs, increase in traffic, and urban sprawl. Jobs with Justice members in Whatcom County have been working on the issue since last September when Wal-Mart announced plans to expand their existing Bellingham store into a super-center. "This fight was not about Wal-Mart -- their announcement was only a wake-up call. The fight was about the kind of community we want to live in" said Don Houtchens, Jobs with Justice member and President of Steelworkers 12-590. "If we don't stop sprawl now, we'll never do it." Bellingham has grown rapidly in the past 20 years. Many residents are concerned about losing the quality of life they now enjoy because it is potentially endangered by this predatory growth. For example, in 1988 community members saw downtown Bellingham destroyed when Bellis Fair Mall was built. After nearly 20 years, the downtown still has many vacant stores including two big-box stores that stand empty. Meanwhile, big-box stores have proliferated on some of the city's arterials. In June 2006, Bellingham City Council approved a Comprehensive Plan for the City that laid out a vision for Bellingham. The Comprehensive Plan supported residents working, living, and shopping in their own neighborhoods, growth that will be accommodated primarily in urban villages, the ability for residents to rely more on bicycles and walking than on cars, a diversified economy that creates living wage jobs, and land use patterns that promote efficient land use and reduce sprawl. Jobs with Justice members realized that big-box stores are not consistent with the vision of Bellingham articulated in the Comprehensive Plan. So they set to work--talking with Council members, writing letters, attending and speaking out at several public hearings before City Council and the Planning Commission. Victory for Bend Area Transit Workers Despite a strong anti-union fear campaign by Paratransit management, the majority of workers at Bend Area Transit stood united together and voted to join ATU Local 757. Central Oregon JwJ supported the workers’ campaign throughout their struggle. JwJ collected messages of support from their members and handed them out at the union meeting prior to the vote. Many workers were clearly moved and bolstered by the solidarity messages. This is a great organizing victory for BAT workers who want the opportunity to bargain for wages, benefits, working conditions, a grievance procedure, scheduling, and many more issues that all add up to more dignity and respect in the workplace. They now have the same union protections that Bend police, firefighters and other city employees have. On December 18, 2006, the 15-member Common Council of the City of Albany, NY voted unanimously to adopt a sweatfree apparel and textile purchasing policy that will take effect on March 18, 2007. The Labor-Religion Coalition of Albany / Jobs with Justice promoted this legislation over the last few months. The Albany law recognizes the establishment of the new national sweatfree consortium. Albany becomes the third local government in New York to successfully adopt sweatfree purchasing. Vermont Workers’ Center / JwJ Delivers Anti-Free Trade Valentines
Finally, the delegation was cordially received at the office of Senator Bernie Sanders, where his local chief-of-staff said that Bernie would lead the fight against this and any other unfair trade agreements in the Senate, and that he felt good about taking on that fight in the Senate as several strong fair-trade advocates had been elected in November. Missouri Workers “Living in the Red” from Health Care Costs Missouri workers are taking a beating from the rising costs of health care. A recent study of working families in St. Louis, detailed in a new report “Living in the Red” showed that more than half of these families had medical debt from unpaid bills to hospitals, pharmacies, doctors or ambulances. Health insurance doesn’t even protect working families like it used to. In “Living in the Red” we learn that more than half of those families struggling to pay medical bills (52%) were insured at the time the medical debt was incurred. That’s why St Louis Jobs with Justice is committed to the “First Things First” campaign, which calls on our Governor and state legislators to enact comprehensive Health Care reform that: Guarantees quality, affordable health coverage for every Missourian whether they are privately insured or covered by a public program.
Vermont Workers' Center / JwJ Holds WRB Hearing on the "Race to the Bottom" Senator Bernie Sanders hosted a Workers’ Rights Board hearing on the Race to the Bottom in Vermont. Panelists heard from tipped workers seeking an increase in the tipped minimum wage; public workers and others struggling to move wages towards a livable wage in the Burlington school system, at UVM, and at other local businesses and employers; COTS (Committee on Temporary Shelter) workers testified about their struggle for a union; former employees from Specialty Filaments and Capital City Press spoke on the impact of the loss of higher paying manufacturing jobs on VT workers; and local tradesworkers testified on the need for responsible contractor policies on a local and state level in order to guarantee that local contractors are following good labor practices and labor laws. WA Janitors Win Card-Check Agreement After striking for more than nine weeks, janitors won a major victory last month when the largest non-union janitorial contractor in King County, WA Cascadian Building Maintenance (CBM), agreed to a union recognition process called "card-check neutrality" that avoids the nasty boss retaliation rampant in Bush labor board elections. After a majority of the Cascadian Janitors sign up to join the janitors union, Service Employees Int’l Union Local (SEIU) 6, the workers will be able to negotiate for affordable healthcare, job security and respect on the job. This victory comes after years of JwJ-style creative actions on building owners and tenants who pad their pockets by using janitors who have no access to affordable healthcare. Significant JwJ led victories included: Holland America switching from CBM to a janitorial contractor that provides affordable healthcare after actions at the Sea-Tac Airport, Holland America’s Corporate Headquarters, and on the eve of more actions as the cruise ship season was about to start again
This past summer, JwJ conducted a series of independent actions at the Seattle Design Center including leafleting outside while inflating the giant fat cat balloon, disrupting educational seminars for design students by asking tough questions about janitors access to healthcare, and crashing the Design Center's Black Tie Gala in September. Although the Design Center never made the responsible decision that dozens of other building operators did in King County by switching to a janitorial contractor that provided affordable healthcare and a voice on the job, Design Center CEO and 2006 "Grinch of the Year" candidate Tim Treadway felt the heat and appealed to community leaders to "make them stop". In addition to these independent actions, JwJ mobilized for over a dozen actions at the request of SEIU in support of Cascadian Janitors at Cingular's headquarters in Redmond, the Civica Building in Bellevue, the PI and Blue Flame buildings in Seattle. The final nail in the coffin for CBM’s exploitative ways came when janitors went on strike for over nine weeks starting in November of 2006 and in the final week of the strike setup an encampment outside of the largest Cascadian cleaned building and the site of numerous JwJ supported actions, Bellevue’s Civica Building. Stay tuned for upcoming actions as SEIU Local 6 works to spread similar workplace standards to King County's security officers. |
MEDIA LINKS Students learn about their rights Even the insured must deal with medical debt Jobs with Justice honors Ford hunger marcher Demonstrations could significantly delay traffic About 1000 rally against the war in Iraq War protests to tangle downtown this afternoon — "leave early ... Thousands expected for protest marches downtown War protests could snarl Seattle traffic UA women's center wants more active role Activists plan peace marches Sunday and Monday Tipped employees to receive higher wages Wal-Mart protest takes global slant COTS hires law firm New Wal-Mart Opens Today in Sandy Tipped employees in Missouri get raises Some tipped workers underpaid Minimum-wage backers claim food servers getting short-changed Workers shortchanged, some say Raids on illegal immigrants draw student protest UT march for tenure Protestors speak out against decision to deny White tenure SHOWING SOLIDARITY: Unions rally at Stop & Shop HQ Anti-IIRA rally to be held Sun. House revives mine safety bill Letter to the Editor: War slashes living standards Workers Speak Out Workers forum held at City Hall Workers' Rights Board to hold hearing tonight My Turn: Stopping the race to the bottom Wal-Mart workers speak out Concerning the Alleged Racism of the Second Vermont Republic ... States Largest Grocery Workers Union, Community Groups, Elected ... Bellingham, Washington, Bans Big Boxes Custodians, supporters brave cold to speak out against budget cuts 'Living wage' jobs hard to find, study says Anti War Rally |
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Missouri's Code of State Regulations clearly spells out the obligation of employers to pay tipped employees $3.25, fifty percent (50%) of the Missouri state minimum wage. Despite this issue being clearly spelled out in Missouri state law, the Missouri State Department of Labor continued to advise employers incorrectly that they are only liable to pay employees the Federal minimum, $2.13/hour. 
A delegation of activists from the Vermont Workers' Center and Students for Peace & Global Justice at UVM braved a snowstorm to deliver a Valentine's Day message to Vermont's Congressional Delegation: "Don't Break My Heart with the US-Korea Free Trade Agreement!" The action was in solidarity with the week of action organized by Korean-Americans Against War and Neoliberalism. The US Trade Representative's office is in a 7th and possibly final round of negotiations with South Korea in order to create the largest free trade agreement since NAFTA (
In a joint campaign with the Student Labor Action Project (SLAP) of WA JwJ, janitors at UW School of Medicine off-campus labs made progress toward achieving affordable healthcare. UW Administrators committed to requiring leases to include the statement "janitorial service providers should receive fair wages and health care benefits when performing services at the facility." 