Toilet Paper Drive Collects 115,000+ Rolls for Sacramento Area Nonprofits
AFL-CIO Community Services Director Will Fischer describes union volunteer efforts to stretch the limited dollars of Sacramento area nonprofit organizations.
Every year local nonprofit agencies spend thousands of dollars on toilet paper for families in need. That’s money they could be spending on much-needed services that benefit the community. Since 2009, the Sacramento Central Labor Council and the local United Way have partnered to create Toilet Paper Drives to help local nonprofit partners offset costs and redirect the money saved into vital programs.
This year the partners collected 77,227 rolls of toilet paper (compared with 50,000 rolls last year) that were matched by a local company, bringing the total to an impressive 115,000 rolls.
Labor Day Wrap: It’s Time for Jobs
While AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka was in Milwaukee Labor Day with President Obama and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler traveled throughout California, taking part in three Labor Day celebrations. In Los Angeles, she told an enthusiastic crowd at the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor ’s Labor Day breakfast:
There’s nothing wrong with good jobs in America. There’s nothing wrong with trade that creates jobs—instead of killing them.
At Detroit’s massive Labor Day parade and rally, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker told the more than 50,000 participants we must use our votes to ensure that jobs are created:
For the next 57 days [until the election], the labor movement is going to be hard core about politics—the politics of change and not the politics of “No.” What we’re working for is jobs—jobs and the future.
Workers Say Obama/Trumka Labor Day Visit Will Energize Voters
Milwaukee AFT Local 2169 member Ashleigh Lund says she hopes that President Obama’s Labor Day appearance with AFL-CIO President AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka at the annual Laborfest
can spur people to get to the voting booths in support of worker friendly candidates this November…I am excited because this shows me that the rights of workers are still important to Obama.
Labor Secretary Hilda Solis will Join Obama and Trumka the Milwaukee Area Labor Council’s Laborfest that draws thousands of working families. Fellow AFT Local 2169 member Sagar Tolani says that
Obama spending his Labor Day with people from the community really lets me know that he understands the issues workers are currently facing.
Milwaukee is just one stop on a busy Labor Day weekend schedule for Trumka and AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler and Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker will travel to Ohio, Michigan, Florida and California calling for good jobs and a strong, middle class economy and boosting Labor 2010’s get-out-the-vote efforts for November’s midterm elections. Read the rest of this entry »
California Students Rise Up Against Massive Education Cuts
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Californians by the tens of thousands spoke as one yesterday demanding the primacy of public education in the state’s budget. Up and down the state, students held scores of demonstrations, rallies, marches and teach-ins at governmental centers, universities, community colleges, high schools and elementary schools.
The actions come as the 2010-2011 budget process looms and Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, after promising in January to increase education funding, instead cut $2.5 billion from education in his budget proposal.
In Sacramento, several thousand students, teachers and workers rallied on the steps of the Capitol building, spilling out over the grassy mall. They demanded state legislators and the governor fully fund public education and make it affordable and accessible to all.
State Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D) and Assembly Speaker Manuel Perez (D), as well as several other legislators, pledged support for funding education. Assembly member Alberto Torrico (D) made a pitch for support of his bill that would create a 12.5 percent tax on oil extracted in the state to raise $2 billion a year for public education. He noted that California is the only state in the nation that doesn’t charge such a fee and that oil companies shouldn’t be getting off the hook while education suffers.
