Follow Today’s National Jobs and Justice Symposium Live Here
The AFL-CIO and the King Center’s national symposium on Jobs, Justice and the American Dream will get underway shortly and you can follow it with our live Twitter feed here and on Twitter with the hashtag #jobsjustice.
The first session, Jobs and the American Dream (9-10:45 a.m.), moderated by former New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, will include AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker, Martin Luther King III, Rep. John Lewis, Bruce Western of Harvard’s Weiner Center for Social Policy, Sarita Gupta from Jobs with Justice, Painters and Allied Trades member Davon Lomax and AFT member Kathleen Hofmann.
The second session, Justice and the American Dream (11 a.m.-12:45 p.m.), moderated by Noticiero Univision’s Maria Elena Salinas, will include AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler; former chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Mary Frances Berry, Wisconsin Fire Fighter Mahlon Mitchell, DREAMer student Isabel Castillo, AFL-CIO Young Worker Coordinator Kurston Cook and Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s Rea Carey.
Watch Live Webcast of Historic National Symposium on Jobs, Justice and American Dream
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On Aug. 26, two days before the official dedication of the historic Martin Luther King Jr. memorial in Washington, D.C., the AFL-CIO and The King Center will host a national symposium to explore how far we have come in fulfilling King’s dream of a nation of economic equality and justice for all people.
Watch a live webcast of this important symposium on jobs, justice and the American dream. Click here Friday morning at 9 a.m. to join the webcast. Also, check out the live Twitter feed during the symposium on the AFL-CIO website and follow the events on Twitter with the hashtag #jobsjustice.
Two panels of experts, workers, political leaders and activists will talk about the steps we need to take as a nation to make King’s dream a reality. Martin Luther King III, president of the King Center will make remarks along with AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler and Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker.
The first panel will discuss the threat that a lack of jobs presents to the economic progress for which King fought most of his life. Civil rights legend Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), will highlight the Read the rest of this entry »
Don’t Miss Live Webcast of National Symposium on Jobs and Justice Aug. 26
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You can be a part of the national symposium on jobs, justice and the American dream, hosted by the AFL-CIO and The King Center, on Aug. 26, two days before the official dedication of the historic Martin Luther King Jr. memorial in Washington, D.C.
Just RSVP here for our live webcast of the symposium Friday from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. ET.
Submit a question for our panels of experts, activists and workers here. Panelists will select from among the questions submitted. The first panel, “Jobs and the American Dream,” begins at 9 a.m. The second panel, “Justice and the American Dream,” begins at 11 a.m.
Job Crisis Forum Video Available on C-SPAN
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If you missed Monday’s AFL-CIO forum on “The Jobs Crisis—Moving to Action: A Dialogue Between Workers and Policymakers,” the full event is now viewable on C-SPAN here.
You also can click on the video, at left, for a six-minute excerpt that features unemployed workers Shonda Sneed and Bob Stein, along with comments from moderator Bob Herbert, distinguished fellow at Dēmos and an award-winning journalist, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich.) and Heather Boushey, a senior economist at the Center for American Progress.
The forum drew a sharp contrast between the policies that are currently being advocated as solution—like slash-and-burn deficit reduction—with those needed to spark a real economic recovery.
Jobs Crisis Forum: The Time for Excuses Is Over. Create Jobs Now
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Shonda Sneed of Yellow Springs, Ohio, was laid off in December 2009 and is about to run out of unemployment benefits. Because of state budget cuts, she also could soon lose the health care nurse who helps care for her mother who has dementia. At the last job she applied for, she was told 450 others had also applied for the same position.
Sneed and Bob Stein, a 60-year-old former salesman who has been out of work since May 2010, are two of the 14 million Americans who are unemployed—and their story is not being told in the midst of the debate over the deficit. Sneed and Stein, who are both members of Working America, spoke to a forum on “The Jobs Crisis—Moving to Action: A Dialogue Between Workers and Policymakers” at the AFL-CIO this morning.
As Sneed said:
All I want is a decent job. I want to work. I love to work. I’m scared. I don’t know what’s going to happen to my mother. I have a home to pay off.
The forum, moderated by Bob Herbert, distinguished fellow at Dēmos and an award-winning journalist, drew a sharp contrast between the policies that got our country in this economic crisis and are currently being advocated to get it out, and what is needed in order to spark a real economic recovery.
Trumka: Working-Class Anger Fueled by Right’s ‘Deeply Dishonest’ Message
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With the economy continuing to stagger and job creation not moving quickly, “working people are justifiably angry and frustrated” as they approach the Nov. 2 elections, says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.
Trumka and Working America Executive Director Karen Nussbaum, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, Eric Alterman, journalist and senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, and moderator Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of the Nation, led a panel discussion—Which Way for the Working Class? Elections 2010 and Beyond—Friday afternoon in New York City.
More than 400 people attended the event at the Great Hall at Cooper Union.
Trumka said it is vital to channel working-class anger away from Fox News and Tea Party extremists who are delivering
a cynical, deeply dishonest and incoherent message—that big government is somehow to blame for the current crisis that the budget deficit will eat our children, and that illegal immigrants took all the good jobs.
Trumka, Progressive Panelists Will Explore Worker Anger and the Elections
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The anger that American voters feel, especially working-class voters, is well documented. But the unknown is how they will express that anger on Election Day.
This Friday in New York City, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Working America Executive Director Karen Nussbaum will take part in a panel discussion on “Which Way for the Working Class? Elections 2010 and Beyond.”
They will be joined by New York Times columnist Bob Herbert; Eric Alterman, journalist and senior fellow at the Center for American Progress; and moderator Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of the Nation.
Sponsored by Working America and the AFL-CIO, the discussion will center on the issues and viewpoints of working men and women at the tipping point and what can be done to shift the balance in the November elections and beyond.
Jobs, Jobs, Jobs Made in America
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* For months, we in the union movment have been calling for Congress to do more—much more—to create jobs. Now, the long-term jobless rate for workers is the worst since the 1930s Depression—some 45 percent of unemployed workers have been without jobs for more than six months—and calls for federal action on jobs are coming from across the nation. Check out New York Times columnist Bob Herbert here and here who blasts congressional inaction, as does his employer, here. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich puts it bluntly: We have a jobs emergency.
As Herbert says in his devasting portrait of a Congress out of touch with the suffering of America’s workers:
Bold Action Needed to End Unemployment Crisis
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America’s economy is not working for everybody and progressives must demand our elected leaders fight for economic justice—and economic justice begins with good jobs, said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. This afternoon, Trumka spoke at a press conference and later on a panel at the America’s Future Now conference here in Washington, D.C.
Americans of all political persuasions are angry, and rightly so. We need political leaders to speak to that anger, to harness it to attack the plutocracy that has run our country into the ground, to build an economy that works for all. But instead our politics seems to be about a choice between apostles of hate masquerading as populists, and voices of complacency masquerading as progressivism.
In an emotional presentation, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert said he was “infuriated at the attitude” of the media and political leaders that the unemployed are suffering, “but that’s just too bad.” The nation is wasting its most valuable resource—its people, he said.
There is no real sense of urgency. The media and the government are clueless as to the scope of the problem.
America’s Future Now Conference Sets Progressive Vision
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The America’s Future Now conference kicks off this morning. During the next three days, the largest gathering of progressive activists, leaders and lawmakers will map out an economic and political agenda for change—and the organizing strategies for taking that agenda to the country.
Those strategies will focus on fighting the corporate lobbies that stand in the way of economic justice and reform; energizing and building a movement for jobs now; and creating a progressive majority that challenges both obstructionist Republicans and timid Democrats.
We’ll bring you reports from several of the sessions, panels and break out groups.
