Wal-Mart’s Rob Walton Wins JWJ’s Scrooge of the Year
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He beat out some tough competition, but Rob Walton, chairman of Wal-Mart’s board of directors, is the top vote getter in the 11th annual Jobs with Justice (JWJ) Scrooge of the Year election.
Walton deemed a “billionaire bully” by Brave New Films, has an estimated net worth around $21 billion, JWJ reports. As a family, the Waltons control 49 percent of Wal-Mart and are, says JWJ, the richest family in the United States, with a combined net worth is $93 billion. The Walton Family has as much wealth as the bottom 30 percent of American families combined—more than 35 million families.
The family’s dividends from their Wal-Mart stock alone are more than $2 billion a year. Just using their dividends, they could ensure that a million Wal-Mart employees make at least $12 an hour instead of the current average of $8.81 an hour.
Just last month Wal-Mart, under Rob’s leadership, slashed health care coverage for hundreds of thousands of Wal-Mart employees and their families—right before the holidays. What a scrooge! Read the rest of this entry »
Who’s Your ‘Scrooge of the Year’?
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The holiday season’s here and that means it’s time for the always-fun Jobs with Justice (JwJ) Scrooge of the Year contest. JwJ is now accepting nominations for the greediest, most cold-hearted company, CEO, or politician of 2011 in the 11th annual “Scrooge of the Year” contest. Click here to nominate your candidate.
Last year’s Scrooge of the Year was Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for leading the Senate in aggressively blocking almost all legislation from passing, especially laws that would help working people. Other past winners of this dubious honor include: Wal-Mart, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Wall Street executives who broke our economy.
We’ll let you know as soon as the top nominees are announced later this month and then you can cast your vote for the Scrooge of the Year.
Getting Back to School and Back to Work
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In this excerpt of a cross-post from the Student Labor Action Project (SLAP), Jeremy Hedlund and Isaiah Toney, SLAP members at the University of Oregon and George Washington University, respectively, explain that students have real power.
As summer winds down and schools across the nation start back up, students are being forced to ask themselves many tough questions. “How will I pay for my school? Will I be able to get a job when I graduate? And will that job be a good paying, family wage job, or will I have to work weekends just to make ends meet?”
Join Jobs With Justice’s National Conference and Fight Back Against Corporate Agenda
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There’s still time to register online to join hundreds of activists from Jobs with Justice (JwJ) and stand together to “Build Power and Fight Back” against the attacks on America’s working people by corporate executives and politicians.
At JwJ’s national conference Aug. 5–7 in Washington, D.C., workers, students, religious leaders, community activists and many others will plan strategies to build a powerful movement of working people to defeat the corporate agenda. Register for the conference online here.
In the spirited, creative JwJ style, they will carry their fight to one of the world’s largest corporations with a march Friday on Wal-Mart’s corporate offices in Washington. They will join with members of the Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) to let the giant retailer know that its workers deserve a decent living and a voice on the job.
Mitch McConnell Found His Calling: Scrooge of the Year
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Senate Minority Leader Mitch “No, No, a thousand times No!” McConnell (R-Ky.) today won the role of the 2010 Scrooge of the Year. Voters selected McConnell in Jobs with Justice’s (JwJ) 11th annual contest to find the politician, CEO, corporation or politician who has done the most to “scrooge” workers in the spirit of Ebenezer.
It was a crowded field with half a dozen other candidates, but McConnell won handily with 42 percent of the vote. After all, he spent the year leading filibusters against unemployment insurance, job creation, health care reform, Wall Street reform, health care for 9/11 first responders, the DREAM Act, Social Security cost of living adjustments, collective bargaining rights for public safety officers and just about anything that might benefit working families.
Old Ebenezer—before he had the greed and nasty scared out of him by some otherworldly visitors—would be quite proud of McConnell’s victory. Says JwJ Executive Director Sarita Gupta:
We hope that by being elected national Scrooge of the Year, Sen. McConnell will see the “Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come” and understand the dire consequences that his actions will have for generations of Americans. Read the rest of this entry »
Nominate Your Choice for ‘Scrooge of the Year’
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It’s the holiday season and time once again to say “bah humbug” to the most cold-hearted and greedy CEOs, corporations and politicians who exemplify the spirit of Ebenezer Scrooge.
This is the 11th year that Jobs with Justice (JwJ) will “honor” the person or group that has done the most to “scrooge” workers. And the floor is open for nominations. Beginning today, you can nominate your candidate for Scrooge of the Year, along with a brief description of why he or she deserves the award by clicking here.
The winner will join an infamous group. Last year’s winner was the Chamber of Commerce. Voters singled out the Chamber for its narrow, radical agenda advocating anti-worker, profit-focused solutions to the broken health care, labor and environmental systems.
In 2008, voters picked the entire lot of Wall Street executives whose unchecked corporate greed led to our nation’s economic disaster.
Declare a ‘Jobs Emergency’ Sept. 15
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On Sept. 15, workers, students and community and religious groups in dozens of cities across the country will revive one of the key demands of the 1963 “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom” by calling for full and fair employment and demanding the government declare a national “jobs emergency.”
Protestors will demand that Congress pass the Local Jobs for America Act, which would save or create 1 million jobs, extend emergency Temporary Assistance to Needy Families subsidized jobs program, extend emergency unemployment compensation and pass a financial speculation tax that would rein in the more destabilizing aspects of Wall Street and generate $200 billion to $500 billion annually.
Jobs with Justice (JwJ) is the main organizer of the protests. Activists are planning 120 very diverse actions across the country on Wednesday. You can join with JwJ and other activists to let our leaders know we will not be silent and that we demand good jobs now. You can see a complete list of actions and contacts by clicking here.
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.
