“MIC CHECK!” the crowd shouts back in unison, passing the message to those who can’t hear it like a human microphone. I am standing in a line in the middle of the General Assembly meeting of Occupy Portland, surrounded by tents, tarps, and various protest signs waiting to make an announcement. It is 7:37 pm, and a throng of occupiers gather around a statue situated in between two parks in downtown Portland where they have set up camp. Outfitted in rain gear, mylar blankets, and sporting the occasional umbrella—though normally Portlanders scoff at such a thing—the group listens intently to each of the speakers, reacting with simple hand signals to indicate their approval, disapproval, or need for clarification.
Four days ago, this all started when 7,000 people marched through the streets of downtown Portland to stand in solidarity with New York’s Occupy Wall Street protests and send a strong message: we will no longer allow Wall Street and large corporations to destroy the American Dream and squeeze out working families. Chants of “This is what democracy looks like!” and “Whose streets? Our streets!” echoed off the towering white-columned Wells Fargo Bank building. The energy in the crowd was palpable; it was clear everyone was ready to have their voices heard. Since then, hundreds of protesters have been occupying an encampment in Chapman and Lownsdale Parks in downtown Portland.
As I walk through the encampment, I am struck by the positivity and general organization of it all, despite the rain, mud, and maze of tents and tarps. I am greeted by a man who wants to explain the mission of the occupation, and when I tell him I am there with Working America and want to help, he smiles broadly and leads me through the camp to an orange tent of organizers. It is not long before I am sporting an armband of orange duct tape to indicate that I have been recruited by the media team and I’m asked to make an announcement at the general assembly explaining Working America and asking how we can best help the group. A woman named Lena excitedly tells me that the general assembly meetings are rapidly becoming more and more efficient and organized, and directs me towards the middle of camp. We chat about how Working America talks about the very same issues that they are fighting for on a daily basis to our members, and while we might not all be able to put a tent up in the park, working families all over the country are cheering them on and standing up for real change. She offers me a meal, thanks me for coming, and I begin to sense the community that has developed in just a few days. Everyone here is bound by the common threads of their belief in the idea that we all deserve employment, to be able to go to the doctor when we are sick, have access to education, and retire with dignity. They took to the streets in New York, and now we are repeating that message here in Portland and all around the country.
Last month, the Pennsylvania Program Team took to the phones to urge Working America members to call their Congressmen in support of the U.S. Postal Service and the letter-carriers who work for this important institution. It is hard to imagine our country without our army of blue-clad men and women out in the neighborhoods delivering the mail, but that is exactly where we are headed.
The U.S. Postal Service is in a fiscal crisis, but not for the reason you might think. Sure, with the advent of email and mobile banking, the amount of mail that the average American sends each year is falling. Birthday wishes are posted on Facebook, and even Netflix has switched to a “streaming only” model. But that is not the reason the U.S. Postal Service is broke.
The U.S. Postal Service is out of money because in 2006, Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act. This law requires the Postal Service to prefund its future health care benefits for retirees for the next 75 years in the next ten years. Under this law, the Postal Service is required to pay an astonishing $103.7 billion into this fund by 2016. This is a huge burden on the industry. Besides paying for existing retirees benefits, they are also prefunding the benefits for employees who don’t even work there yet. They are prefunding the benefits for employees who might not even be born yet. This is something that no other government or private business is required to do.
If this law is not reformed, the Postal Service will be forced to lay off 30,000 workers, end Saturday delivery, and close post offices in many rural areas.
Working America members were outraged. In our couple weeks of calling our members on this issue, we heard almost unanimous support for the Postal Service and too many anecdotes about letter carriers to count.
First there was the elderly woman who lived alone. Her mailman checked in on her every day to make sure she was okay. Next, there was the woman whose son recently passed away. Her mailman sent the most beautiful card about watching him grow up over the years. Last, there was our longtime activist Bob MacHaler who said, “Five-day delivery will kill the Postal Service.” Working America members understand that letter-carriers don’t just provide a service, they are members of our communities.
On September 27, letter-carriers held a rally in every Congressional District calling on our Representatives to support them in their fight for fair funding. In Philadelphia, there were horns honking and flags waving. They still need all the help they can get. The fight for the Postal Service is not over. If you haven’t already, please call your Congressman and ask them to support the Postal Service. America cannot afford to lose this important institution.
Last night members of Working America gathered in Downtown Denver for a happy hour to address the jobs crisis and its disproportionate harm to young people.
Alex Jones, a local college student came to the Young Workers Community Action Club meeting because he’s nervous about finding a job when he gets out of school. “These days it seems like even with an advanced degree there’s no guarantee.” The sad part is, he’s right. Young people have been hit harder than their parents by this economic recession. Wages earned by young people have declined by 10 percent over the last 30 years. Over one third of young workers don’t have health insurance and more than half have no retirement plans at work.
Karen Nussbaum, Executive Director of Working America, traveled from DC to meet with these workers as part of a multi-state tour to talk with some of Working America’s 3 million members. There are over 90,000 members in Colorado alone, with more signing up every day. As Karen told the group last night, “There is great strength in numbers. At Working America we knock on people’s doors every night to talk to them about the issues they’re facing; we follow-up with our members and engage them in new and fun ways, like this Young Worker Community Action Team meeting tonight; we’re a part of something big and we are standing together to change the direction of our country.”
The Young Worker Community Action Team meet up was the third of its kind in Denver and comes just in advance of a young workers’ summit in Minnesota next week. “Groups of young people are coming together across the country, meeting just like this group is tonight,” Kevin Pape, Colorado State Director of Working America, told the crowd.
A member of the Young Workers Community Action Team, Romina Halabi, was recently published in the Denver Post asking “where are the jobs for educated young workers in Colorado?” She told others about her letter to the editor and how we need to make sure the media and our elected officials are paying attention to this devastating issue, “the easiest way for us to do that, is to tell our stories, and tell them often.”
Studies have shown that young workers are the first to get laid off, compete with more experienced workers for the same jobs, and often get paid less because they are younger. It’s time to shine a spotlight on this issue. It’s time for our voices to be heard.
If you’d like to get more involved with the Young Workers Community Action Team or Working America, please contact Ali Cochran at 303-935-9300 for information about our next happy hour.
Since August, Working America has been talking to working class folks in Colorado about the issue of earned sick days, and we are finding overwhelming support for it. We’ve found that two out of three people that we talk to are signing up as members of Working America, in part because they support the ability to earn paid sick days. Coloradans understand that having access to sick days is needed to protect the health of families, workers and the community. Nearly 1 million Colorado workers–43 percent of the workforce–do not have any earned sick days. Most of these are lower-wage workers who are forced to go into work sick rather than risk not being able to make ends meet at the end of the month–or even losing their job.
When Working America knocked on Kristin D.’s door last week, we learned that she works at a children’s hospital in Denver. Her child became sick with a serious illness and she took time off to care for him. She was given two paid sick days by her employer but needed six days to fully care for her son. When she took the extra days she was fired from her job.
All Coloradans are put at risk when lower-wage workers in restaurants, childcare centers and medical caregiving are forced to go to work sick because they work for businesses that do not provide earned sick days to their employees.
Businesses benefit from earned sick leave policies because the resulting increase in productivity and reduced turnover saves nearly $600 a year for each full-time worker with earned sick time. This is even more important in a down economy when businesses are less able to absorb these costs. When sick workers are able to stay home, the spread of disease slows and workplaces are both healthier and more productive. Plus, workers recover faster from illness and obtain timely medical care — enabling them to get back to work sooner.
“Real-life experience tells us businesses are not going to have to close or relocate due to this modest measure,” said Dr. Cynthia Fukami, a professor of business management at D.U. “The data and experience in San Francisco and other places simply don’t support this fear.”
A lack of earned sick leave is a huge public health issue. The workers without the chance to earn paid sick days typically have significant interaction with the public. For example, you could be getting more than you ordered with your lunch. That’s because over 85 percent of the restaurant industry – servers and cooks – do not get a single earned sick day.
“We exchange cash with you, make your latte, hand you your pastry and yes, we sneeze,” explained Laura, a barista at a popular coffee shop in Denver. “So if an employee had to come to work with the flu because she couldn’t afford to miss work, you might be walking out of the store with your double latte and the flu.”
Children’s health depends on earned sick days, too. Childcare center and preschool workers frequently don’t have earned sick days, putting the children in their care (and their families) at risk for illness. And when parents have no paid sick days, many have no choice but to send sick children to school where the health of their classmates, teachers and child care providers are put at risk. The result is increased illnesses and higher rates of infection for all. Earned sick days policies are good for working families.
Believe it or not, home health nurses, Certified Nurse Assistants (CNAs) and nursing home staff frequently don’t have earned sick leave, either. Patients in hospitals, long-term facilities, rehab centers and at home – already vulnerable to infection – are put at risk when these lower-wage workers have to choose between economic survival and patient safety.
“The people who work at nursing facilities should have paid sick days to protect their patients,” said Myra Crenshaw, a Denver woman who helps her mother care for her World War II veteran father. “My father caught a life-threatening respiratory illness at a rehab facility following a hospitalization for a leg injury. That just shouldn’t happen.”
Earned sick leave laws have benefited workers and businesses in cities where they have been enacted. 85 percent of employers surveyed in San Francisco, where an earned sick days law has been in effect since 2007, say that earned sick days have had no negative effect on profitability, and nearly 70 percent of employers in that city support the law. Employees have not abused the policy, using an average of 3 days annually. Not only are workers healthier and more productive; they don’t expose customers, clients and patients to illness.
We’ve found from our members that they agree that earned sick days are good for business, families, workers and the community.
Labor Day marks the unofficial end of summer, and I could make endless jokes about Cleveland weather and how cold it already is here on Lake Erie. But that would overshadow one of the great things about Cleveland: our resolve. Just look at the throngs of fans piling into Cleveland Browns stadium on Sunday afternoons no matter how cold it gets or how dismal our record, and you will understand this city’s passion and fighting spirit.
When talking to folks in the community about the efforts to repeal SB 5 – the bill that restricts the collective bargaining rights of Ohio’s public employees, I sense the same determination, grit, and willingness to be in it for the long haul. This Cleveland spirit was clear once again over the holiday weekend at three awesome events: the North Shore AFL-CIO parade, the Lorain County Labor Day Family Celebration and the Cleveland Peace Show.
The parade, organized by the North Shore AFL-CIO, was very well-attended, with many different locals marching together for the working people of Ohio. In addition, our Field Director, Dan O’Malley, represented the Cleveland office of Working America and educated people about the work we are doing around the campaign to repeal SB 5.
The Lorain County event was chock full of union members who were thrilled to see Working America there! Indeed, despite the spurt of heavy rain we experienced midway through the afternoon, the crowd was large and enthusiastic. Three Working America members were on hand to talk to the attendees, and many people we spoke with unequivocally called for SB 5 to be repealed and repeatedly expressed that they are ready to stand up for working families across all sectors of the economy. Even Ohio AFL-CIO President Tim Burga voiced his appreciation for Working America’s presence at the event and for our efforts.
On Monday, the Cleveland Working America team attended the Cleveland Peace Show, an event with more non-union than union workers. We did our share of education around SB 5, which included urging people to Vote No on Issue 2 in order to repeal this bill. Yet, plenty of non-union attendees made it clear that they are already aware of – and against – this assault on Ohio’s middle class. Some of these folks even volunteered to phone bank with Working America!
Just as fans of the Cleveland Browns follow the team with a sometimes-frustrated eye on the distant future (there’s always next year!), standing up for working families in Ohio may, at times, feel like a tough slog, especially as the pro-SB 5 side ramps up their campaign. But, as Working America member Sylvia Bly said of her experience volunteering this weekend, “The atmosphere was so upbeat and positive…What I loved even more than the camaraderie was the realization that there are so many wonderful people who strive to make sure workers in America have a strong and resilient voice.”
This weekend was a great example of how Working America facilitates the creation of a cohesive labor movement by bringing together union and non-union workers. It is clear from conversations with people at these two events and elsewhere that plenty of Ohioans believe SB 5 has to go. By continuing to raise our voices in support of working families, we can and will make sure the bill is defeated. This weekend, surely, was evidence of our fighting spirit.
Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin has been having a tough time with his constituents. Back in April the home town folks were expressing their displeasure with his plan to cut Medicare.
During the August recess, he dodged constituents by only speaking in venues where people had to pay to get in. From Mother Jones:
Over the past week, hundreds of people, a mix of constituents and other angry Wisconsinites, have marched outside Ryan’s Kenosha and Racine offices, angry over what they see as Ryan’s inaccessibility and refusal to face his constituents in a free, public, in-person town hall. For four days, they also held sit-ins inside Ryan’s Kenosha office—until police kicked them out. The only in-person event on Ryan’s recess calendar is an appearance at a Rotary hall outside his district with a $15 entrance fee; by contrast, Ryan held more than a dozen town halls in 2009. “This is a jobs crisis in his congressional district, an emergency,” says Scott Page, 37, an unemployed Kenosha resident. “Yet he’s not even listening to his own constituents.”
Ryans’s constituents are increasingly annoyed at being deliberately ignored by their Congressman. From the Group Wisconsin Jobs Now:
Unemployed constituents, spurned by Paul Ryan on multiple occasions, were galvanized into action the Tuesday following Labor Day. After being unable to convince their representative to schedule a FREE public meeting following a week long sit-in, the members of his district converged on a one time only pay-per-view event far away from the majority of his constituents.
It doesn’t cast Ryan in a very good light. As the police force an elderly man to the ground to put handcuffs on him, Ryan “jokes” that he hopes the man has taken his blood pressure medication. That’s ugly. It’s a perfect illustration of the kind of “concern” Ryan has for the working people in his district, and around the country.
Wisconsin Jobs Now! is a coalition of community groups, neighborhood associations, faith based organizations and organized labor, all working together to bring good jobs to the state. Bravo to them for not letting Paul Ryan hide behind pay-per-view events, and for showing all of us what kind of a Congressman (and person) Paul Ryan is.
We’ll all be entering voting booths on November 6, 2012 – and we won’t forget.
Back in June, I wrote about New Hampshire Governor Lynch vetoing a Voter ID bill.
Yesterday the New Hampshire State Senate voted on whether to override or sustain the governor’s veto. From the Union Leader:
The Senate sided with Gov. John Lynch Wednesday in supporting his veto of a bill that would have required voters to show a photo ID before voting.
The Senate voted 17-7 to sustain Lynch in his stance against Senate Bill 129. Senate President Peter Bragdon, R-Milford, and Senate Majority Leader Jeb Bradley, R-Wolfeboro, were among those voting to sustain the veto.
Both Bragdon and Bradley voted for the bill, the first time around. Since then, they’ve undoubtedly been getting an earful from town clerks, who are opposed to the measure.
Town clerks said the provisional ballots would force extra work on their offices, with longer hours, additional staff, late counting and less ballot secrecy for voters.
The issue of how this was all going to be paid for was another complication, though one not mentioned by the Union Leader. So, for now, the state legislature must still find a way to solve the non-existent problem of voter fraud.
An internal memo from a top Department of Transportation official instructs workers at Division of Motor Vehicles service centers not to tell members of the public that they can obtain voter identification cards free of charge — unless they know to ask for it.
The memo, recently obtained by The Capital Times, was written by Steve Krieser and sent to all state Department of Transportation and Department of Motor Vehicles employees on July 1, the same day employees were to begin issuing photo IDs in accordance with a controversial new voter photo ID law adopted earlier in the year.
and
“While you should certainly help customers who come in asking for a free ID to check the appropriate box, you should refrain from offering the free version to customers who do not ask for it,” Krieser writes to employees.
This sure doesn’t sound like a state that is concerned about preventing voter fraud. It sounds more like the actions of a state determined to prevent voting:
In the meantime, Krieser says the Department of Transportation is planning to place signs at each of the DMV service offices that say people need to check the box on the form in order to receive an ID for free. He says the signs are “in the design phase” and could not give a date when they would be placed in DMV offices.
The other night I was calling our members in Deming. An older gentleman answered the phone and he expressed right away that no one ever calls him and that he was pleased to talk to me. He is 75 years old and has run out of his retirement savings.
He said his Social Security is his only source of income. He told me that he has been looking for work in order to pay all of his bills and have some money left for groceries, but there isn’t a lot of work available in Deming. He told me, “I can’t go back into the fields, my body can’t handle it and the only other thing that is here is Wal-Mart. I have tried applying, but I never heard back from them. I don’t know how much longer I can continue to live like this.”
It was a heart-breaking story, but as we neared the end of the conversation he told me he would really appreciate if I stayed in touch with him and that he would be willing to help out with organizing his community around our message. It made me feel good to be able to reach out to someone and show them that Working America wants to hear from them – that we care about their story and that we are finding ways to get them involved.
A recent article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette by Ann Belser noted that, after processing July’s job stats, we are now at 9.1% unemployment. The article goes on to explain: “[July’s] jobs report would have been better if governments had not cut so many workers.” Unfortunately, states across the country, including Pennsylvania, have lost a painful amount of jobs at the hands of their own elected officials.
Under the new state budget here in Pennsylvania – a budget that doesn’t even include all the cuts to education that Governor Corbett wanted – we lost or will lose a total of 10,000 jobs in education alone.
Think about that: because of decisions made by our elected officials ten thousand jobs will be gone within the field of education in the state of Pennsylvania. Wow.
As painful or shocking as these statistics are, the on-the-ground impacts of this continuing jobs crisis (exacerbated by anti-government politicians) are more staggering than any unemployment statistic could be.
One Working America member here in Western Pennsylvania went from making a solid professional wage as a computer information services technician to being unable to support himself after he was laid-off. He is a single dad, and he and his daughter recently moved back in with his parents. This member can no longer access the sort of medical care he could when he was employed. Even though this member is exceptionally brilliant and hard working, he still can’t find work. The jobs simply aren’t there.
Another member is desperate for her and her housemate to find employment. Their lives may depend on it, because she has health issues that demand a diet she can’t afford, and because her housemate has no access to healthcare and consequently relies on her to be his “medical personnel.”
Our governor may have run on a “jobs campaign,” but he has put jobs – and consequently us – last. The new state budget will put thousands more families in situations like the ones such as those just described.
Governor Corbett and job-killing elected officials across the country need to know what their constituents main priority is – getting back to work – and that we are holding them accountable for upholding their campaign pledges of focusing on job creation.
Working America members know that elected officials who claim to be promoting job growth by adding corporate tax loopholes are not really focusing on reducing unemployment. We all see that those extra corporate profits are going to the top, instead of being used for investments that put Americans back to work.
Despite the obstacles that unemployed Pennsylvanians face while officials like Governor Corbett fail to get it right, workers have done anything but give up. The computer technician mentioned above is organizing his friends and neighbors to take action. He also spoke at a jobs town hall and interviewed with the employment reporter from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The second member mentioned wrote a letter to the editor published in the Post-Gazette, sharing her unemployment situation and calling on Governor Corbett to “balance the budget responsibly.” Working America members are attending events, signing petitions, writing letters to elected officials and to the papers, and getting their friends and family members involved. Actions like these are some of the things that we need to do to hold our elected officials accountable for promoting job growth.
With more and more folks doing their part to hold our politicians accountable, we’ll be less and less likely to open the newspaper and read that “the jobs report would have been better if governments had not cut so many workers.”
Voters will go to the polls today in Wisconsin’s 22nd and 12th Senate District to show their approval of Bob Wirch standing up for their rights, and to show their disapproval for a pair of candidates that could supply a late night comedian with jokes for a year. Meanwhile, two pro-worker legislators prepare to take office after last week’s victories, and all eyes are on a guy named Schultz (not Ed).
This is your Wisconsin Roundup:
• Vote for Bob! It’s election day again in Wisconsin, as voters in the Northwoods 12th District and the Kenosha-area 22nd District cast their ballots in the final round of recalls. Democrat Bob Wirch is defending their seats against Republican challengers Jonathan Steitz. His colleague Jim Holperin is running against Tea Party activist Kim Simac. Steitz is a corporate lawyer from Chicago who may have a noncompliant sexual offender living on his property, while Simac compared public schools to Nazi Germany and, when asked, cannot think of a piece of legislation in Madison that she would support – or oppose. In fact, Simac has made so many verbal gaffes and outrageous statements, there’s a blog singularly devoted to her quotations.
But even with the outrageous track records of Steitz and Simac, these races are still close. We’ll be watching the results and covering them live on Twitter.
• Jen and Jess are on the case. Working families in Wisconsin got two steps closer to taking back the State Senate last week, as Jennifer Schilling and Jessica King succeeded in their recalls against Dan Kapanke and Randy Hopper respectively. Schilling is an Assembly member who has been involved in her community since she was a student at UW-LaCrosse. King overcame a hardscrabble upbringing to become a professor, city council member, and finally Deputy Mayor of Oshkosh. Congrats to Jen and Jess on their victories – we’re looking forward to seeing them get to work for Wisconsin’s working people.
• Dale – Rescue Ranger for Wisconsin? Now that the margin in the State Senate 17 Republicans and 16 Democrats, anyone can be the “deciding vote” one way or another. That’s why a lot more attention is being paid to Dale Schultz, a moderate Republican from the 17th District. Schultz was the sole GOP senator to vote against Governor Walker’s union-busting bill, and has been fairly critical of Walker since February.
Assuming Holperin and Wirch win tonight, Sen. Schultz will be the “swing vote” in Madison. One blogger said of the election results “Congratulations, Wisconsin Governor Dale Schultz,” while another called him the “new de facto Majority leader.” In any event, it’s a big deal that Schultz voted against his own party’s attacks on workers, because if his displeasure with Walker’s anti-working families agenda continues, it might be enough for him to form a new coalition with Democrats, or switch parties.
Just another example of how Walker and his allies’ extremism is forcing out moderates and independents that might otherwise support them.
