NAACP Image Awards to Showcase Support for Workers Under Attack
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Attendees and participants at the 42nd NAACP Image Awards this weekend will showcase their support of American workers and families. NAACP officials will wear red, white and blue ribbons to show that they stand in solidarity with workers struggling to maintain collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio and dozens of other states.
NAACP Chairman Roslyn Brock said:
“As we celebrate the contributions of people of color in film, literature, music and television, we will be wearing ribbons to show our support for the workers and families protesting in statehouses across the nation. The NAACP remains committed to helping public employees keep their collective bargaining rights, fair pay and appropriate benefits.”
The Image Awards will be broadcast Friday, March 4, live on Fox TV at 8 p.m. EST. Actress Holly Robinson Peete and comedian Wayne Brady will host.
Progressives Set for America’s Future Now Conference, June 7–9
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More than a year into the Obama administration and with November elections just ahead, progressive activists will gather June 7–9 in Washington, D.C., to forge a strategy to build a majority for real change in America.
The America’s Future Now conference, sponsored by the Campaign for America’s Future (CAF), traditionally is the largest gathering of progressives in the country. There’s still time to register for the conference. Register now here or click on the America’s Future Now icon above.
Grassroots activists and policy-wonk analysts have gathered at the campaign’s conferences each year for six years to forge an economic agenda for change—and the organizing strategies for taking that agenda to the country.
Opposition Growing Against Arizona Anti-Immigrant Law
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From the courtroom to the basketball court, opposition to Arizona’s anti-immigrant law is growing rapidly across a broad cross-section of Americans. Meanwhile, many of the arguments the law’s supporters are using are beginning to crumble.
First, most economists and those who have researched the issue, say undocumented workers are not taking away jobs from U.S. citizens, a major claim of those who oppose immigration. In a May 13, 2010 article, FactCheck.org cited several experts like Madeline Sumption, policy analyst at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, who says workers “create almost as many” jobs as they occupy, “and maybe more.” In addition, “they buy things, and they make the economy bigger,” she said..
The argument that the law isn’t racist was challenged not only by civil rights groups, but another unlikely group-the conservative Americans for Legal Immigration (ALIPAC). The group pulled out of a planned June 5 rally supporting the law. ALIPAC says it discovered that two of the organizers were knowingly working with racist skin-head neo-Nazi organizations on the rally
31,000 Deliver Message to Wall Street: Fix The Mess You Made
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| AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka (center), Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker and NYC Central Labor Council President Jack Ahern join TWU members and 30,000 other on-the-ground and virtual marchers to Make Wall Street Pay. | |
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Some 15,000 union members and other progressives on the ground and another 16,000 virtual marchers got Main Street’s message to Wall Street today: Good Jobs Now! Wall Street Must Pay! Marchers in New York carried the names of virtual marchers on stickers as they marched toward the statue of the Wall Street bull.
Led by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, union members and activists from National People’s Action (NPA), NAACP, Move On and others took over Wall Street during the afternoon rush hour for a march and rally. When the marchers got to Wall Street, there were so many that they filled up two streets.
At the rally, Trumka told the cheering crowd:
We’re here today for the folks who were played for suckers in the casino economy and will be silent no more. And the message we bring is this: Wall Street, fix the mess you made.
America lost 8.5 million jobs because of the financial crisis created by Wall Street, Trumka said, and now is 11 million jobs in the hole.
We need to go back to basics, where good jobs, not bad debts, drive our growth. An economy where Wall Street is the servant, and not the master of Main Street.
Workers in the public sector and education talked about how deep budget cuts are strangling schools and public services.
NAACP President Benjamin Jealous told the massive crowd that this is the time to take back America from the Big Banks. He said while money can buy votes, money can’t vote and all the newly registered voters in the 2008 election will make a difference in 2010.
Trumka laid out three simple steps the Big Banks can take to start paying back for the damage caused by their risky actions
- Stop fighting Wall Street reform. Stop acting like what happened to our economy was some kind of accident, like a meteor fell on us. Take some responsibility for what you did. Call off the lobbyists.
- Second-Stop speculating and start lending. We bailed you out, it’s far past time you started lending to Main Street.
- Third-Take responsibility for the clean-up of the mess you made. Pay your fair share of the cost of creating the jobs you destroyed.
During the rally and march, hundreds of participants joined a text messaging action and called Goldman Sachs, telling the Wall Street giant to stop opposing meaningful financial reform. In addition to the mass of people taking part, hundreds watched the event in a live webcast (see clips at www.aflcio.org/wallstreet) and commented live throughout the march and rally, many showing the deep hunger across the country for action to create jobs and restore our economy.
Some of the comments included:Kevin Hansel/IN: WALLSTREET- IT’S OUR MONEY AND WE NEED IT NOW!!!!!
Rita: After living through a lay-off lasting 11 months, I’m working 3 part time jobs for less pay! Stop the destruction of the working class! Solidarity Now!!!
Donna:TRUMKA CAN LEAD US INTO THE FUTURE! GOD BLESS HIM!
Liz: TAKE THIS MARCH NATIONWIDE!!!!!!!
CWA 7019: Shame on you Wall Street!
Today’s march and rally followed a week of actions spearheaded by unions and the community affiliate Working America at shareholder meetings across the country.
Obama to Address AFL-CIO Convention
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President Barack Obama will address our AFL-CIO Convention in Pittsburgh on Sept. 15, marking a major shift in the relationship between the union movement and the White House. For the past eight years, the Bush administration waged war on America’s workers, and union members took a big step toward taking back America by playing a major role in electing Obama and a Democrat-controlled Congress.
Obama will address a convention that will make history by electing a new leadership team. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney is retiring after 14 years at the helm.
Along with Obama, the Sept. 13-17 convention will hear from many prominent political and union leaders, including Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Caroline Kennedy and NAACP President Benjamin Jealous.
New Coalition Set to Push Immigration Reform Now
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| AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker joins members of trade, faith and labor organizations to launch the Reform Immigration for America campaign. |
More than 200 organizations today launched a national coalition to push for comprehensive immigration reform. The election of a new president and Congress with strong immigrant support, coupled with solid public backing for reform, have created a new political landscape for immigration legislation, the group’s leaders said at a news conference in Washington, D.C.
Reform Immigration for America includes the AFL-CIO, Change to Win, the National Council of La Raza, the NAACP and the Asian American Justice Center. The campaign was launched to coincide with a three-day meeting of more than 700 progressive advocates and allies this week and an upcoming White House meeting on immigration June 15.
Civil Rights Leaders Urge Passage of Employee Free Choice
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Martin Luther King Jr. often drew the parallels and connections between the civil rights and union movements. Today, on the eve of the anniversary of King’s assassination, national civil rights leaders called for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would give workers the choice of how to form a union.
During a telephone press conference, Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), a coalition of some 200 organizations, pointed out that unions have been one of the main vehicles for African Americans to move into the middle class.
The Employee Free Choice Act has been largely written about as a labor bill but those of us in the civil rights community know it is so much more…workers’ rights are civil rights; and that the right to organize is a civil and human rights issue of the first magnitude.
