Author Archives: jillian

A Fight for Jobs is Part of the Road to an Economic Recovery for the Working Class!

The policies, programs and priorities of the US government in dealing with the economy have always favored the rich over the needs of the masses of working class and poor people. Corporate deregulation, free trade agreements, anti-labor, anti-immigrant and racist, sexist and homophobic laws, along with massive spending on unjust wars, have helped to bring about the current crisis in the US and global economy.

The massive unemployment is a major aspect of the crisis facing the US working class. Some estimate the real unemployment at 25 million and growing. Youth unemployment, especially among African Americans is over 40 percent.

The big corporations that closed profitable companies in the US over the past 30 years, to relocate to other countries to exploit cheap labor for greater profits, affecting worker’s pensions and healthcare coverage; and the banks that financed these corporate runaways and overpriced mortgages on refinanced homes for workers, are receiving hundreds of billions of dollars from the federal government to “stimulate” the economy, while the conditions of the working class get worse.

The funding for the education that is suppose to allow workers to “compete” in the global economy, is being cut in order to bail out the rich. Working class young people are told to join the military and fight and die in unjust wars as the way to get an education.

A federally funded and corporate taxed jobs program must be part of the answer in addressing the crisis facing the working class. A jobs program must have as its first priority, addressing the social problems facing the working class: the construction of affordable housing, universal healthcare and the construction of more hospitals and clinics; the construction of schools; the conversion of plants to serve the needs of the communities, especially the most oppressed; and cleaning up the environment. Such a jobs program can create millions of family supporting and socially developing and productive jobs.

However, history shows that it takes a massive movement among the people, especially the working class, and led by the most oppressed sectors, to bring about the changes that benefit the masses of people. This was true in the struggle to end slavery; and during the civil rights period in the 1950s and 60s under the leadership of Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. and the many young activists that worked tirelessly to organize and empower people.

We cannot allow our deserved pride of electing a Black president, to silence our historical struggle for justice, democracy, power and liberation. There is too much at state not to hold everyone accountable for using their positions of power in government, and in organizing and mobilizing the power of the people, to help address the needs of the masses in finding solutions to the economic crisis, and to the capitalist system that continuously causes these crisis.

The fight for jobs must be organized in every city and community. The trade unions must take up the fight for jobs, both in defense against the attacks on their members who are becoming increasing unemployed, and to help to build and support coalitions and unemployed councils that give the millions of workers, employed and unemployed and their allies, the organizations and a broad framework to fight for jobs, unionization and worker empowerment.

Peoples Assemblies should hold unemployed worker speak outs and rallies in communities and at unemployment offices to form unemployed councils, that develop the demands for jobs and income, and to build a powerful local, statewide and national movement for jobs.

Join or Form Peoples Assemblies and Help Build the Fight for Jobs.

Healthcare Should Be A Human Right For ALL People!

The US national debate around healthcare reform is really a debate about human rights and whether the US government will place human rights for ALL over private profits.

As one of the most developed and wealthiest countries in the world, the US has an obligation to use the wealth created by the labor of its former slaves, and its workers and consumers, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation or ethnicity, to provide healthcare for ALL. The poor health conditions of many people in the US are a direct result of injuries and illnesses from their working conditions and the impacts on the environment in their communities.

Healthcare for ALL was one of the promises of progressive change of the Obama campaign that got him elected as US President. The opponents of any change that places human rights over profits are using the issue of healthcare reform to create of climate of racial polarization, division and fear.

Instead of offering a real alternative to the Obama plan or ways to improve upon it, the opponents use the issue as an opportunity to promote anger against immigrants and to make Obama look like he is trying to take rights away from white America.

Core democratic and human rights are always challenged by the forces that place profits over the needs of the people. This was true for those defending slavery over freedom, segregation over civil rights and political disenfranchisement over Black voting rights.

Very much like the struggle for Black voting rights, it took a movement mobilizing masses of Black people and allies to win the Voting Rights Act as a progressive reform. The struggle for Black voting rights was not centered around or decided by a debate in the US Congress. It was also not discouraged by efforts to racially polarize society, as there were some whites who united with Blacks in the struggle for change.

There are many white workers today who support healthcare reform. Many have lost their jobs and health insurance along with Black and workers of Color, like at the Cummins Rocky Mount Engine Plant and have been demanding recall rights for workers.

The Black Community must be a powerful force that fight for public healthcare for ALL, including making proposals that strengthen the Obama plan which is being greatly weakened by political compromises. Without the organized and active demand by Black and working class communities for a strong public healthcare system for ALL based on the single payer model, the opponents will further weaken the Obama plan and divide the people in order to force through other compromises that place profits over human rights.

The turnout and participation by the Black Community in the Rocky Mount Town Hall meeting on healthcare reform held by Congressman G.K. Butterfield, shows the importance of mobilizing and organizing. Our involvement around this issue must continue!

We must build strong healthcare for ALL coalition as part of a Peoples Assembly movement that help to connect grassroots organizations, faith based institutions, elected officials, labor organizations and students and youth in this struggle for human rights, and use this struggle to rebuild hope and new priorities that can constructively channel the energies of young people as was done during the 1950s and 1960s.

Real Democracy Involves People’s Power & Places Human Needs Over Profits!

North Carolina Black Community and Progressives Fight for Health Care Reform

Rocky Mt. Health Care Town Hall Meeting from Ajamu Dillahunt on Vimeo.

Charleston sanitation workers continue fight for union recognition

Janie Campbell is Acting President of the Charleston Sanitation Workers Union, Local 1199B, Charleston, South Carolina. City workers there have been waging a 6-year battle to win collective bargaining in order to improve pay and working conditions, especially health and safety, for the 120 sanitation, street, sidewalk and stormwater workers in the the city of Charleston, South Carolina.

Sis. Campbell has worked for the city for 13 years as a driver of a sanitation truck. She is one of 14 women, all Black, in the department – a department in most cities dominated by men.

Justice Speaks: What were the issues that made you feel you needed to organize your own union?

Janie Campbell: Our working conditions and health and safety issues consisted of water coolers placed on the truck floors and underneath the trucks where the cooler is easily exposed to roadkill and raw garbage from the the landfill. Most of our trucks do not have air conditioning.. W need better wages and better benefits.

JS: Tell us about the water coolers.

JC: They are on the truck floor inside the cab but the floor is so filthy and the spout is floor level and its very unsanitary. Underneath the truck [the coolers] are in holders but they’re still exposed to raw garbage. The racks they put in now are closed but we had been complaining about this for years.

My supervisor was walking around the yard checking trucks one day andi I called him over; as he approached , i offered him a drink from my truck. He said, “I’m not going to drink from that dirty water.” I was only showing him how filthy it was.

One day, in a meeting, I brought a [nasty] old cooler in. The superintendent kept looking at it but wouldn’t say an thing and they sure ended that meeting fast. it was after the supervisor refused the water that we finally got them put the coolers in the sanitary cages.

JS: What is the starting pay for a Charleston sanitation worker?

JC: The starting pay for a collector [also called a] striker starts at $9.10/hour depending on the worker’s experience.

JS IT could be less?

JC: Oh yeah! Latino workers make $7.00; they work through temp services..

JS: How long do they usually work through the temp agency?

JC: Some have worked almost a year or better; they work on an “as needed basis.”

JS: Do they ever get hired?

JC: Yes, they do. then their salary increases to $9.10 an hour.

JS: Are they part of the union drive?

JC: we’re approaching them now

JS: What’s the pay ranges for the other positions?

JC: Senior drivers start at $13.80/hour; a driver starts at about $12 an hour.

JS: What do collectors make?

JC: A city collector makes the $9.80 but a temp makes $6.80.

JS: Does the city only hire Latino workers through the temporary agencies?

JC: No, they hire U.S. workers there as well.

JS: You mentioned street and stormwater workers….

JC: They are totally different. I’m not sure what they make; we’re still investigating that.

JS: Are they part of the union drive? What is their participation rate like?

JC: When the campaign ran in 2003, there was no problem; but now it’s iffy.

JS: Why?

JC: They were disappointed [the last time around]; when you put in so much and the city didn’t bargain with us, they lost interest. And now that we’ve started again, they’ve got the attitude of wait and see.

JS: What other working condition issues are y’all raising?

JC: The gloves [that we are are issued] because they are so thin that glass, nails or any sharp object can go through them. And inorder to get a new pair, workers have to bring in the old pair.

Most of the trucks do not have air conditioning. After working in the sun all day, workers [who bring their lunch need a cool place to take their lunch.

JS: Everybody eats their lunch in the truck?

JC: Some do; some don’t.

JS: By the way, what the average temperature during the summer?

JC: 100 degrees, with a 110 to 115 degree heat index.

The horses have the privilege of being [brought in] at 99 degrees and human employees have to continue working to get the route out. Charleston is a tourist town with horses and buggies; so if the temperature is too high, the buggies do not operate until the heat goes down.

JS: Does management allow you to stop and take breaks?

JC: Oh yeah; But it should be that you either come in and work early, like at 4:30 or 5 o’clock in the morning. They tell us to come in at 6am but what is a little half hour going to do? But we have asked for the earlier time [to be able to clock in.]

JS: What is the most recent action that y’all been carrying out in the campaign?

JC: We presented a resolution and memorandum to the mayor and the city council [with 4,000 city residents’ signatures] saying that we would like them to accept it so we can collectively bargain. i just got the news that our resolution was denied.

Eastern North Carolina Workers Organize Campaign for Recall Rights

Workers in North Carolina have been hit hard by the US eco-nomic crisis. More than 41,000 workers across the state lost their jobs in March, driving unemployment to 10.8 percent. North Carolina’s jobless rate is among the country’s most severe, surpassed only by Michigan, which is at 12.6 percent. Harry Davis, Appalachian State University banking professor and chief economist for the North Carolina Bankers Associa-tion, said he expects North Carolina’s unemployment to rise to 12 percent by summer and for layoffs to continue until this time next year.

Workers in the eastern North Carolina counties where trade unions are the least organized, and in a state where only slightly more than 3 percent of the workers belong to unions, have few organizations helping to combat the employer abuses that are part of the crisis.

The Carolina Auto, Aerospace and Machine Workers Union is a non-majority union and private sector chapter of the North Carolina Public Service Workers Union-UE Local 150. The chapter organized at a Cummins Diesel Engine Plant outside of Rocky Mount and has launched a campaign in four eastern NC counties for worker recall rights. The campaign calls on area employers to establish a 30-month period of recall rights for workers laid-off during this crisis that will enable them to return to work when the economic downturn is over.

The campaign includes a petition and a model resolution call-ing on the city and county governments in Edgecombe, Nash, Wilson and Halifax counties to pass ordinances for employers to commit to recall rights for their workers. A public hearing will mobilize workers from the four counties to testify about the impact of unemployment on their families and communi-ties.

This campaign and its demands on area governments is an expression of developing consciousness about the need for workers to have representation and power in government, to help them fight for changes that improve their conditions.
It encourages workers to discuss Obama Administration’s Stimulus Package and the need for it to create jobs with fam-ily-supporting wages, to guarantee worker rights to organize, and to mandate employer accountability to workers and to the communities where they are located.

This campaign is also helping to raise awareness about the need to organize unions, and the importance of passage of the Employee Free Choice Act.