May Day: Voices of Working People’s History

Space is limited!  Reserve a seat in advance by simply emailing wmjwj@wmjwj.org.

Celebrate International Workers’ Day

with Western Massachusetts Jobs with Justice

Voices of Working People’s History

 dramatic readings ~ lots of songs ~ from people who make history happen

but are usually left out of history books ~ with emphasis on Western Mass. voices

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

7:00-9:00pm {doors open 6:30}

Holyoke Heritage State Park Visitors Center

221 Appleton St, Holyoke

Heritage Park parking lot across from the Police Station; free garage nearby

http://www.mass.gov/dcr/parks/central/directions/HolyokeMap.pdf

Sponsor the Program/Song Book: $50 per person or $100 per organization.

Donations to the Warren J. Plaut Charitable Trust Jobs with Justice Fund (or WJPCT/JwJ) are tax deductible. Send to Western Mass. Jobs with Justice, PO Box 296, Granby MA 01033.

Western Mass Jobs with Justice
640 Page Blvd #101
Springfield MA 01104
(413) 827-0301

Please support African immigrants working in Central Massachusetts

Workers at Alternatives Unlimited, Inc, a human service agency in central Massachusetts  are coming together to form a union with SEIU Local 509, the Human Service Workers' Union.  Many recent immigrants from African countries work at Alternatives providing service and supports to our neighbors with mental health needs and developmental disabilities.  Unfortunately, Dennis Rice, the Executive Director of Alternatives Unlimited has hired a union busting consultant to interfere with his employees rights to form a union. 

Can you send a letter to Dennis Rice asking him to support workers rights?

http://509.seiu.org/page/speakout/support-workers-at-alternatives-unlimited

By winning a voice at work, they can speak up about problems that impact clients; they can improve their working conditions, which directly impact the conditions in which some of our most vulnerable neighbors live; and they can build greater job skills and long-term careers, improving the human services industry for everyone.

Show them you’ve got their back!

http://509.seiu.org/page/speakout/support-workers-at-alternatives-unlimited

The union busting consultant has already started holding mandatory meetings where they bend the truth and create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation.  We are also concerned they may be engaged in illegal activity like using Medicaid funding to interfere with workers rights to form a union. 

Please send a letter now to Dennis Rice asking him not to interfere with workers rights to form a union.

http://509.seiu.org/page/speakout/support-workers-at-alternatives-unlimited

Peter Witzler, Senior Community Political Organizer
Supporting People, Supporting Communities
http://spsc.seiu.org/, SEIU, Public Services Division
Cell: 202.257.4952, Office: 202.730.7389

Photo from Red Bubble.

Top Ten Labor Day songs

Here's The Nations's list of the top ten Labor Day songs--  Thanks for the tip, John Fitzgerald!

One of my favorites is Tennessee Ernie Ford's version of "Sixteen Tons."  It was the #1 song in 1955, when it was released.  i heard it as a kid and have remembered it all my life.

Stooges for the rich

I've been so tied up with the fall-out and next steps from  Tuesday's biomass air permit hrearing that I've only kept half an ear to the national news. I've had time to glance at the headlines and know that our country is  headed for a government shut-down, but only tonight did I pay attention to some of the riders on policy Republicans are insisting be passed with the budget.

A chief target is the Environmental Protection Agency, which would be forbidden to regulate greenhouse gasses-- costs too many jobs, Republicans say.  Of course this put me in mind of Tuesday night's trade union vocal support support for Palmer Renewable Energy's biomass proposal.  Maybe those guys would agree with the Republicans on this one.

Here we are in the middle of the biggest upward transfer of wealth in eighty years and yet there are people out there thinking that making rich people richer is going to be good for them.  Maybe they haven't thought about it that way; the typical Tea Party member is a sheep who cries out for tax cuts and smaller government and then won't be able to get her aging mother into adult day care and her kids into a decent school.  No problem for the rich, though.

Poor and working class people don't think that way.  That doesn't mean we have all that much class consciousness-- hell, poor people would love to be rich-- but our expectations have gotten very low, as low as our economic ranking.  We got pushed down the ladder back in the 80's and 90's and have never accumulated any wealth to speak of in a lifetime of work..  Many poor people under forty don't know that times have ever been different.  We're so numb from assaults we hardly even feel it anymore.

I sat in a meeting today that is trying to promote a campaign to increase state revenue by returning to a higher previous income tax rate with substantial personal exemptions for the bottom 60%.  We spent a good bit of time talking about messaging and finding the right way to convey to the public that essential services are at risk-- firefighters, teachers, nurses, et cetera.

Meanwhile I'm wondering why we aren't out there telling the truth to people: the rich are stealing our lives!  They don't care that they ruin our environment, consign our children to mediocrity, shorten our days.

And they don't even need the money.

Martin Luther King stood up for workers-- how about us?

On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis.

In his last days, he stood with striking sanitation workers and faced down the armed forces of a city and state to demand dignity and the right to bargain collectively for a voice at work and a better life.  Forty-three
years later in Madison, Gov. Scott Walker threatened peaceful demonstrators with the force of the state, threatening to bring in the National Guard and illegally barring the doors of the Statehouse to its citizens.

Join us in solidarity with working people in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, and dozens of other states where well-funded, right-wing corporate politicians are trying to take away the rights Dr. King gave his life for:  the freedom to bargain, to vote, to afford a college education, a home, and justice for all workers, immigrant and native-born.

In Springfield, we will honor Dr. King's legacy and answer the AFL-CIO's <http://www.we-r-1.org/> "We Are One" call for nationwide actions with a March for Economic Justice. We will call upon elected officials to rebuild our economy through taxing the rich and reinvesting in our communities.  The idea that a balanced budget requires slashing our public services or taking away workers' rights is a lie!  We will march to Bank of America to demand that they stop bankrupting our tax base and destroying our neighborhoods, end post-foreclosure evictions, and reduce the principal balance on millions of home mortgages.  Homeowners are underwater and workers are unemployed because of the economic crisis that Bank of America and the other Wall Street Banks created!

Stand Up! Fight Back! on April 4:  click the links below for info and to RSVP

Honoring Dr. King's Legacy: A March for Economic Justice in Springfield
<http://local.we-r-1.org/weareone/events/show/39>

3:30pm: Gather at City Hall.  4:00pm: March to Bank of America to picket against the economic crisis that the Wall Street banks created.  Then rally on City Hall steps, 5:00-5:30pm, to call upon elected officials to stop evictions, tax the rich, and reinvest in our communities.

Labor holds strong, but color is missing

Arise member Ruben Santiago

When I was a kid, I happened across a copy of Irving Stone's Clarence Darrow for the Defense, and I was fascinated and inspired.  I learned about the Pullman strikes, Pinkerton thugs, Big Bill Haywood, the Haymarket Square bombing and Eugene V. Debs.  It was not hard for me, given my family's history, to identify as working class and to become a supporter of organized labor.  I know I idealized unions, much as I did other fighters and movements for freedom and justice, and had to temper that idealism later with the more complex realities of building a movement out of flesh and blood people struggling within large political and economic structures.  But still-- I have a lot of heroes, and I'm saddened by knowing that most people under 40 don't know their names and their stories.

Central Labor Council President Rick Brown

Myself, I've never been in a union.  The factory, clerical and agricultural jobs I've held were unorganized by labor.  But I remain a union supporter.  I understand that the line unions draw in the sand protects the wages even of the non-unionized.

Yesterday's Springfield rally in solidarity with the Wisconsin workers was big by our city's standards-- I'd estimate more than 400 people.  I stood at the steps of City Hall with other Arise members as speaker after speaker explained why the Wisconsin fight was also our fight.

Friend and Arise member Holly Patterson couldn't get to the rally until about quarter after four.  She stood behind me for a while, and then asked me a question.

Bank Tenant Association member Candia Pink

"Have all the speakers so far been white men?"
"No, there's been a woman."
"A white woman?"
"Yes."

And sure enough, as the rally progressed, every single speaker was white, and only two women among more than a dozen men.  The only speaker of color was City Council President Jose Tosado, who is running for mayor this year.  (Mayor Sarno spoke later in the rally.) I left a little after 5 pm., when the speakers got repetitive and I felt the rally was close to winding down, so I can't tell you for sure that no people of color spoke after that-- but if they did, they were certainly not given top billing.

 Council President Jose Tosado, JwJ Coordinator Jon Weissman, SEA President Tim Collins

So: if I were to inquire (which I will) as to why color was so lacking among the rally's speakers, I imagine it would go pretty much like the discussion about why there are no actors, directors or screenplay writers of color among any of the Academy Award nominations this year.  You can't draw speakers of color from the union leadership if they're not in leadership positions in the first place. Keep asking "Why?" to that answer, and the next series of answers, and you get to the unpleasant current situation.   Still, one would think that the organizers might have been aware of the lack of representation of people of color among leadership, and would have made some effort to compensate.  But you have to be aware of the lack to compensate for it, and if the organizers are entirely white (my assumption), it's easier not to even notice. 

What the organized labor movement is likely to look like in the coming years, I don't know.  I can only hope it finds a way to embrace the rest of us.  Solidarity has to be a two-way street to flourish.

Tea Party, go away! TWO important protests today

Just got the word that the Tea Party plans to meet and rally a few feet away (and half an hour before)  the Jobs with Justice rally for jobs at 4pm on the steps of Springfield City Hall.  Word is, Don't engage them (the Tea Party) in any way.  

 If these folks read The Grapes of Wrath in high school, guess they've forgotten the lessons of what happens when you drive wages down.

 Come rally and show support for the Wisconsin public employees-- and for all people fighting for a decent wage and the right to bargain collectively. 

But before the rally this afternoon, there's another important rally at 10:30.
WILLIAMS FAMILY FORECLOSURE AUCTION PROTEST

TUESDAY FEBRUARY 22ND, 2011 

10:30 AM (auction at 11 AM)

1179 Saint James Avenue, Springfield, MA

Ms. Williams bought their home in 2000 with her husband for $81,000. Her husband passed away 6 months later. Since then she has worked diligently to keep her home, along with the help of her children &; grandchildren. Now 70 years old, last year, following a year-long bout with breast cancer, Ms. Williams signed a modification with the bank, only to find her principal balance over $100,000. Now, MidFirst bank is moving to foreclose on Ms. Williams instead of working with her on a modification that would reduce the principal balance and make her home affordable. 

Here’s a little known fact of the mortgage/foreclosure crisis.  Many homeowners who cannot pay the inflated mortgages of the housing bubble CAN afford to pay a mortgage at the current real value.  When a bank like MidFirst forecloses and evicts the homeowner, that bank will then sell the home for the current real value (often after a long delay) or sit on the home as a vacant property.  But, if they are going to do that, why not sell it back to the former owner at that value?  Even better, before foreclosure, they could sell at a short sale to the owner or do a loan modification with a principal reduction.  They could even attach conditions preventing a big profit if values go up again. But the banks are refusing to do this despite billions in taxpayer bailouts and recent profits! 

We are protesting to do something very specific - send a message to any potential investor, and to MidFirst Bank, that we will resist any attempted eviction of this family.  If your business plan involves eviction, you might as well go home!

• Stop this foreclosure and work with Ms. Williams on a solution that would reduce the principal amount owed, keep
• If the home is foreclosed, DON'T EVICT! Accept reasonable rent from the Williams family or sell them the home back at the current market value! 

For more information see www.springfieldnooneleaves.org or call Bank Tenant Organizer, Malcolm at 718-666-6872

Milton Rogovin

From JoAnn Wypijewski at The Nation: Two days after Milton Rogovin died at his home in Buffalo on January 18, the Gage Gallery in Chicago opened an exhibition of his photographs called “The Working-Class Eye of Milton Rogovin.” Class was not merely Milton’s subject, it was the optic through which he saw the world, something that distinguished his work from what the culture had expected of social documentary photography since the 1930s.

His steelworkers and miners, prostitutes and hustlers, the retired and the unemployed, do not want our pity. They look into his camera from among the tools of their trade, on the streets where they work, at home among their treasures or alone against a bare wall. “Who built the seven gates of Thebes?” Milton used to quote Brecht. Who made the world we know? Where did they live? What did they love? And who is left behind? Milton read history and saw some of the people who made it in perspective. Like aristocrats and astronauts, they posed for their portraits, without, as he said, any “monkey business” from him. Read more at The Nation.