Jobs with Justice Week of Action: Demanding Real Economic Recovery
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This week marks the one-year anniversary of the Wall Street bailout, and Jobs with Justice (JwJ) is launching a Week of Action to demand that the banks use our taxpayer dollars to finance the recovery and not their own corporate agenda.
During the Sept. 24-Oct. 1 week of action, working people will join with students, activists, community leaders and others across the country to highlight Big Banks’ misuse of tax dollars. So far, few of the billions in taxpayer money that went to Big Banks have reached Main Street. Instead, executives of banks that were bailed out with taxpayer dollars have lined their pockets with stock options that guarantee them huge windfalls for years. While they get richer, they have laid off more than 160,000 employees since Jan. 1, 2008.
To top it all off, Bank of America, which received $45 billion in taxpayer-funded bailout support, has spent more than $1.5 million lobbying on Capitol Hill against the reforms that would protect consumers from a future financial crisis, such as restrictions on executive compensation, home mortgage lending and credit card fees. The bank also is lobbying on a consumer rights bill, on student lending issues, on a bill that would’ve allowed bankruptcy judges to alter mortgages and on a proposed federal regulatory oversight agency.
Jobs with Justice Launches New Blog
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Our activist friends at Jobs with Justice (JwJ) have joined us in the blogosphere.
The just-launched Jobs with Justice Blog—www.jwjblog.org—highlights the group‘s actions and campaigns around the country. JwJ says it hopes the blog will help build a strong progressive labor movement
“by providing a space for Jobs with Justice staff, leaders, and allies who are building the movement for workers’ rights and economic justice to write about and discuss the campaigns and issues we are working on locally, nationally, and globally. We hope this blog creates space to explore new ideas and strategies for JwJ.”
This past week’s line up included JwJ health care reform actions in Florida, Indiana, Massachusetts, Utah, Vermont and elsewhere; an update on the battle community groups in Chicago are waging against Wal-Mart and; and a look at a Coney Island New York coalition’s work to ensure that a massive redevelopment plan there includes affordable housing, local preference for jobs, prevailing wages, improvements to sewer infrastructure, the local school, and more.
It’s a great resource and a way to keep up to date on grassroots, boots-on-the-ground, activism. Check it out here.
Cast Your Vote for Grinch of the Year
And the nominees are—no, it’s not the Grammies. It’s Jobs with Justice’s (JwJ’s) Grinch of the Year contest, which for the past nine years has “honored” the CEO, corporation or politician whose greed and meanness demonstrate a heart that is at least “two sizes too small.”
This year’s nominees fit that description well. First, there’s the notorious anti-worker lobbyist Richard Berman, a hired gun for the alcohol, tobacco and the fast-food industry. Berman has mounted campaigns to relax drunken driving laws, downplay the public health impact of obesity and indoor tanning and prevent an increase in the minimum wage.
But he’s reserved his greatest venom for attacks on unions and working people. Berman most recently has spent his time—and millions in corporate cash—on a deceptive and outright false ad campaign to defeat the Employee Free Choice Act. During the recent elections, his PR blitzes smeared candidates who supported the bill in a multimillion-dollar campaign paid for by corporate special interests who want to deny their employees a fair wage, health care benefits and safety on the job. According to the Union Busting Network at the non-profit American Rights at Work, Berman runs several campaigns out of his offices in Washington, D.C., with corporate backers paying huge fees to his lobbying firm.
