Union Plus Lets You Say It with Flowers for Valentine’s Day

by Mike Hall, Feb 10, 2012

There’s still time to show your love to the special someone who Occupies your heart on Valentine’s Day, and Union Plus and Working America members can get a 20 percent discount on flower arrangements through Teleflora. (Click here to join Working America and get your flower discount.)

Earlier this week, Union Plus posted a few labor-inspired messages on its Facebook wall the union lover in you might want to include with the flowers.

• My love, like a union contract, gives you a feeling of security.
• My heart skipped a beat…I need workers’ comp.
• They might withhold my paycheck, but I’ll never withhold my love.

Click here for more or to add your own.

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A Thousand Letters to Tom Corbett

This is a cross-post from Working America’s Main Street blog.

Working America members, teachers and unemployed Pennsylvanians on both sides of the state delivered more than 1,000 handwritten postcards to Gov. Tom Corbett’s regional offices in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. We wanted Corbett to know the drastic, widespread and ultimately disastrous results of the budget cuts he enacted last year. We wanted him to make good on the rhetoric used in his first year, which called for “shared sacrifice.”

There has been a great deal of sacrifice. But it has not been shared. It has been targeted, acute and painful. And while the brunt has fallen on students, low-income families and public workers, 70 percent of Pennsylvania’s businesses pay nothing in income taxes.

“The budget cuts have added to the pool of unemployed workers by contributing to the elimination of 14,000 jobs in education alone,” says Mary Karscig, an unemployed nurse and Working America member who wrote to Corbett. Some 21,000 Pennsylvanians lost their jobs due to budget cuts alone, many of them due to nearly $900 million slashed from public education. We’ve written about the many school districts in Pennsylvania now facing the fiscal brink, with the bankrupt Chester Upland School District as a sign of things to come. The New York Times reported yesterday that 75 percent of Pennsylvania classrooms now have more kids than they did in 2010.

“I feel worried about the impacts of these cuts on my job search, and I am even more worried about their impacts on my son’s job search,” says Mary.

She adds: “My son will go wherever there is a job, and there is a pretty high chance he’ll have to move out of state.”

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Demand Strong Mortgage Abuse Settlement with Big Banks

by Mike Hall, Jan 10, 2012

Tell your state attorney general to demand real accountability from the Big Banks for the collapse of the housing market by clicking here. The action, sponsored by the AFL-CIO community affiliate, Working America, comes as state and federal officials are negotiating a settlement with the Big Banks for their role in driving the U.S. economy into a ditch and often recklessly defrauding consumers seeking mortgages.

The wreckage in the wake of the banks’ actions includes 7.5 million home foreclosures with another 4.8 million teetering on the brink.

It’s time hold those banks accountable, but news reports say the proposed settlement may amount to nothing more than a slap on the wrist. California’s attorney general withdrew from the negotiations in September because he said the proposed terms failed to provide sufficient relief to the state’s homeowners and released the banks from too many claims.

Any settlement must reflect the harm done to homeowners and provide large-scale relief for homeowners.

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Hey, Fox—Wake UP! Here Are Demands of the 99%

by Mike Hall, Nov 21, 2011

While most of us know what the goal is of the Occupy Wall Street movement—economic justice for the 99 percent and all that it entails—pontificators from Fox News and other right-wingers derisively dismiss it.

Working America has provided what you might call a cheat sheet for those too intellectually lazy or politically disinclined to pay attention to what the Occupiers around the nation have been demanding for more than two months now.

Click here for the “Nine Demands of the 99%.” The first eight are commonsense policies—such as making Wall Street and the wealthy pay their fair share and investing in jobs and supporting education.

The ninth demand is up to you. You can add your own to help get the nation working again. Be sure to share the nine demands on Twitter with the hashtag #9Demands and on Facebook, where already more than 7,000 have given it a thumbs up.

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Working America Offers Political ‘Turkey Talk Tips’ for a Smooth Thanksgiving

by Mike Hall, Nov 18, 2011

Conventional wisdom says don’t talk politics at big family gatherings, especially with Uncle Earl. But our friends at Working America are offering a unique guide on how to talk about today’s biggest political topic, the Occupy Wall Street/99 Percent movement, without sending Uncle Earl into one of his legendary fits.

Working America’s Turkey Talk Guide is designed to help you continue the national dialogue on economic fairness sparked by the Occupy movement and help you draw out the real issues behind the massive protests against inequality and injustice taking place in Ohio, Wisconsin and across the country.

It offer tips, facts and responses to myths and spin, as well as online resources to people at their homes and online. Says Working America Executive Director Karen Nussbaum:

We want to help ordinary Americans have productive conversations, and avoid picking fights with the uncle who thinks the Department of Education should be abolished. So many people are not able or willing to occupy parks to protest the vast inequality in this country, but they want to do something. We’re bridging the gap between the tent cities where the protesters are, and the neighborhoods where people might have family members who aren’t normally receptive to these ideas.

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Thousands of Ohioans Mobilize to Urge ‘NO’ Vote on Issue 2

AFL-CIO Field Communications Coordinator Andrew Richards sends us the latest from Ohio.

Thousands of Ohio working families went door to door canvassing across the state over the weekend to get out the vote against Issue 2/S.B. 5. With a little more than two weeks left until Election Day, Nov. 8, Ohioans are working furiously to talk with as many Ohioans about how Issue 2/S.B. 5 is unsafe, unfair and has hurt our communities because it takes away the ability of public employees to collectively bargain for a middle-class life. In Cincinnati, Ohio Federation of Teachers/AFT President Sue Taylor joined workers and community members to kick off a get-out-the-vote event before working families fanned out across the area to knock on doors.

(If you’re in Ohio, pledge to vote “NO” on Issue 2 and vote early. Click here.)

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With a Few Clicks, Help Fight Labor Law Abuses

Seth Michaels, a writer at Working America, sends us this.

Working America’s Job Tracker is an online tool you can use to find out about mass layoffs, outsourcing and labor law violations going on right in your neighborhood.

Now, with a few clicks, you help spread the word about what’s really going on in the American workplace. Working America has entered the Job Tracker into the Department of Labor’s informACTION App Challenge—and the voting is open to the public.

Here’s what you do:

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America Wants to Work, But Political Games Block Action

by Mike Hall, Oct 5, 2011

Like millions of jobless and underemployed Americans, Tom Rutherford wants to work.  The jobless, 22-year veteran licensed electrician and Electrical Workers (IBEW) member has a college degree, has continually improved his skills with special training and is currently taking another upgrading course.

I’m doing my part to get back on the job. But sadly, Congress is not making the same amount effort to help create jobs.  They would rather play political games than find sensible solutions to the jobs crisis, like rebuilding the infrastructure. They need to stop playing these games with the lives of millions of American families like mine.

Today, Rutherford joined AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Minnesota Working America member Kim Watkins in a press conference call outlining the AFL-CIO’s upcoming America Wants to Work mobilization and the union movement’s backing of the growing Occupy Wall Street protests.

Trumka says the spreading Wall Street protests show the growing anger and outrage over an economy with 25 million people out of work or underemployed—with a brutal impact on the communities  of color—millions of families losing their homes and health care. Read the rest of this entry »

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Join Twitter Action Asking Boehner: Where are the Jobs?

by Tula Connell, Sep 30, 2011

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Are Companies in Your Area Breaking the Law? Find Out

by James Parks, Sep 22, 2011

Are companies in your area violating laws on the minimum wage, overtime pay and child labor? You can find out on Working America’s updated and improved Job Tracker.

In addition to tracking outsourcing, mass layoffs and health and safety violations, Job Tracker now tracks Fair Labor Standards Act violations, including wage and child labor law violations.

With Job Tracker, you can find out if companies in your area are breaking the law or destroying jobs. Armed with that information, you can help hold companies accountable.

Just type in your ZIP code and the Job Tracker does the rest. Come check out the new features of Job Tracker here today.

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