Florida Protesters Greet Wisconsin’s Walker
 |
This is a cross-post by Karen Hickey, communications director at the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO.
Working families in southwest Florida are standing in solidarity with Wisconsin workers and protesting Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) visit to Naples. Walker spoke this morning at the Ritz-Carlton resort in Naples, Fla., as part of the James Madison Institute think-tank luncheon.
The protesters in the Sunshine State are shining a light on Walker’s attacks on middle-class families. WZVN, a local news station, is reporting that:
Protesters are lined up to express their disapproval of the embattled governor…at Vanderbilt Beach and Airport Pulling. They say Walker is in town trying to raise money to defeat the recall election he faces in Wisconsin.
The timing is perfect, says Wally Ilczyszyn, president of Florida’s Painters & Allied Trades (IUPAT).
Walker’s at the Ritz-Carlton for a $500-a-plate luncheon because he can’t find enough money in his home state to fight against his recall. So he has to come here. Read the rest of this entry »
Painters Give Women’s Safe Haven Building Needed Makeover
 |
AFL-CIO Community Services Director Will Fischer sends us this report.
Members from the Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT) District Council 2, friends and family came together in South St. Louis in recent days to give the “Women in Transition” organization a much needed makeover.
Union painters, tapers, glaziers, friends and family of District Council 2 put the two apartment buildings in their sights to be re-painted. After being graciously supplied with donations by PaintSmith Companies, CR Painting and More and Sherwin-Williams of Crestwood, they decorated the eight apartments in just one day! Read the rest of this entry »
Check Out Video Clip of Ironworkers, IUPAT Rallying for Bridges, Jobs
The Ironworkers today send us this video of their action at the South Capitol Street Bridge in Washington D. C., with the Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT) during last week’s AFL-CIO’s Infrastructure Investment Day of Action. The actions highlighted dozens of bridges across the nation in desperate need of repair and called on Congress to put millions of Americans back to work rebuilding the nation’s crumbling bridges and roads.
African American Delegation Arriving Now in Alabama
Brenda Loya in AFL-CIO Media Affairs sends us this from Alabama, where she will report on the delegation of African American labor and civil rights leaders as they investigate Alabama’s recently passed anti-immigrant law. Follow the delegation here.
With the passage of H.B. 56, Alabama has taken a huge step backward, into the 1950s. Today, an African American delegation of labor and civil rights leaders traveled to Birmingham, Ala., to help shed a light on what is seen as one of the harshest immigration laws in the country and how it invokes inhumanity reminiscent of the Jim Crow South.
The delegation will investigate first-hand the impact of Alabama’s H.B. 56 on the lives of Latino working families. National, state and local leaders will hear from the families directly impacted by the law, document the impact of the law on Latino communities, acquire a better understanding of the civil rights implications of the legislation and assess the impact of the law on workers and businesses.
1,000 Ohioans Hit Streets to Strike Down Issue 2
 |
||||
|
||||
AFL-CIO Field Communications Coordinator Andrew Richards sends us the latest on efforts to get-out-the-vote to repeal a bill killing collective bargaining rights in Ohio.
There are only 24 days to go until Election Day, Nov. 8, but Ohio’s working families aren’t slowing down. On Saturday, nearly 1,000 union members and community activists across the state participated in walks and phone banks to talk with working families and urge them to vote “NO” on Issue 2 to repeal S.B. 5 on Election Day or through early voting. S.B. 5, which guts the collective bargaining rights of public employees, was pushed through last spring by Republican Gov. John Kasich and the Republican-controlled legislature.
Cleveland Teachers Union/AFT President Dave Quolke joined North Shore AFL-CIO Executive Secretary Harriet Applegate and more than 200 union members to kick off Saturday’s “NO on Issue 2/S.B. 5” walks and phone banks in that city. As Quolke told volunteers:
It will be all of us and our brothers and sisters that will ensure all of Ohio hears our message to vote No on Issue 2 to repeal S.B. 5. We will make certain on Nov. 8, Election Day, no one will ask did I do enough or did I do everything I had to do.
Nearly 100 walked and phone banked in Akron. Garvin Carter, of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT) Local 841 and an active member in the Akron NAACP chapter, participated in the walks on Saturday. Carter said he is concerned about the deliberate attempt by Kasich and his corporate-funded backers to confuse Ohio voters.
If you watch TV ads, they are twisting everybody’s words.
Carter referred to this. He also said the local NAACP is working hard to get the word out to communities of color in the area.
Next Up: Young People Take Action to Address Economic Inequality
 |
|
| Rally in front of City Hall, Minneapolis | |
 |
|
Emmelle Israel, AFL-CIO Media Outreach fellow, is in Minneapolis for the Next Up Young Workers Summit and sends us this report.
Along with 800 young workers, students, and activists, I marched down the streets of downtown Minneapolis, calling for “Good Jobs Now!” during the 2011 AFL-CIO Next Up Young Workers Summit.
The march from the summit to the City Government Plaza Light Rail Station was nearly a mile long. Next Up attendees chanted and raised signs to make their demand of “Good Jobs Now!” known the whole way.
Several taxi drivers, postal delivery workers and bus drivers honked their horns in support as the group marched to the light rail station.
Once at the City Government Plaza Light Rail Station, Jessica Hayssen of the AFL-CIO Young Workers Advisory Committee and the Minnesota AFL-CIO MCed the rally. First up was Mike O’Brian a.k.a. OB, from Steelworkers (USW) Local 6500, who performed his original rap, “One Day Longer.” The song was about a strike his union went through and encourages those on the picket line, telling them that “One day longer” makes them “One day stronger.”
Next, Mike Stenberg, a Metro Transit Operator from ATU Local 1005 in Minneapolis, spoke about how the union job he has now improved the lives of him, his wife and their two young children. He said:
I worked jobs before that were non-union. I wasn’t able to support my family… But now with Metro Transit I’m able to supply my family with a better livelihood. My American dream can come true where before I couldn’t see that happening.
King’s Dream of Economic Justice Still Far From Reality
 |
| Rep. John Lewis called for working people to “make some noise.” |
Devon Lomax, a member of the Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT) District Council 9 in New York, hasn’t worked for more than a year. One of his colleagues lost his home and ended up panhandling in the subways.
Katie Hofmann, a teacher in Cincinnati, Ohio, says more and more of her students are homeless. Teachers who have not had a pay raise for five years regularly go into their pockets to buy lunch for children who are hungry and whose families have no money.
Lomax and Hofmann were two of the panelists who spoke at the AFL-CIO and The King Center symposium on “Jobs, Justice and the American Dream” this morning. Participants in the first panel, Jobs and the American Dream, agreed that 48 years after Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I have a dream” speech at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the nation is still far from achieving his vision of a nation where everyone who wants to work has a good job and the freedom to achieve to the best of his or her abilities.
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
 |
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 »
Pulte Got Taxpayer $$ to Create Jobs–But Didn’t
 |
Ben Horowitz from Painter and Allied Trades (IUPAT) District Council 15, sends us this report.
In Romulus, Mich., seven community members linked arms and refused to leave the street outside the Detroit Airport Marriott, blocking a bus they believed was carrying PulteGroup’s board of directors. Minutes later, while the Romulus 7 were taken away in handcuffs, the PulteGroup board sat inside, still not held accountable for the $880M tax refund they ostensibly received for job creation.
The money came to Pulte thanks to the Worker, Homeownership and Business Assistance Act of 2009. This Act was intended to create jobs and extend benefits to the unemployed. Instead, PulteGroup is spending the cash on debt buy-downs and land, while increasing the ranks of the unemployed by laying off employees.
The Rev. Charles Williams II, who was arrested by Romulus police, summed it up this way:
I believe Pulte’s acceptance of $880 million taxpayer dollars is unethical and should be illegal. And if it takes me getting in their way of business as usual to make the Board of Directors do the right thing, then I’m willing to do that. We’re calling on Pulte shareholders and our federal legislators to make Pulte do the right thing — use the money to create jobs, or give it back.
Some 200 more union members, community activists and other allies remained outside, holding signs demanding answers and chanting:
Where are the jobs? Where is the money?
As states across the country grapple with deficits and contemplate tax cuts of their own, the Building Justice campaign by the Sheet Metal Workers (SMWIA) and IUPAT District Council 15 with the support of the AFL-CIO has followed PulteGroup executives across the country to remind taxpaying Americans that money for job creation needs to come with accountability. In January of 2011, activists interrupted a conference of mortgage executives being led by Debra Still, Pulte Mortgage’s director.
Metropolitan Detroit AFL-CIO President Saundra Williams said:
We have shown up at virtually every public event attended by Pulte executives to ask one simple question. Where did the money go that Pulte got from the federal government to create the jobs? There needs to be accountability here.
