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Jobs With Justice A campaign for workers' rights. | |
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KY JWJ History ~The following account of KY JwJ history was taken from the 2003 Economic Justice Journal~ Ten Years Of Building A Culture of Solidarity 1993-2003 The History Behind the History It was a significant day for workers at Louisville Manufacturing when they voted to have a union. For eight years they had sewn caps and t-shirts for the Kentucky Derby without a raise. The owner, however, was adamant. He would not sign the contract. "Without enough support to strike," says Joe Buonadonna of UNITE, "we were left to figure the next step in moving the owner to sign." The owner was an active member in the community on several respected boards including Actors Theatre and Jewish Hospital. Buonadonna was a former Eastern Airlines pilot. Based on relationships he had built with community people during their support for Eastern Airlines strikers, the idea formed to gather a broad base to put pressure on the owner beyond union organizers and workers. Representatives from labor, religious and community groups came together to plan events to bring public attention and support to the situation for Louisville Manufacturing workers. They called it the Campaign for Justice. Campaign for Justice actions included a major protest at the Breeders Cup at Churchill Downs, leafleting at Jewish hospital, and a candlelight vigil at Actors Theatre during Christmas, comparing the owner with the central character in the seasonal play, "Scrooge." Workers got their contract. High from the victory, the group spoke of staying together to see what they could do next. Enjoying new friendships and connections, they also knew they were onto a much needed model to support efforts to stop the hits workers were taking from twelve years of unbridled corporate greed under Ronald Reagan and George Bush. The Early Days Chris Sanders, a Louisville attorney representing labor unions, had contacts with a national group called Jobs with Justice and suggested inviting Bob Nichols from JwJ to come meet with the local group. Gathering at UNITE's union hall, the group included representatives from the Campaign for Justice as well as new people. Seeing the power of the combination of diverse people and hearing about the local work, Nichols said, "You've already done what we're trying to do. This is what we're looking for. Don't lose momentum. Keep this going." Putting the new banner of Kentucky Jobs with Justice on their work, the group initially operated informally out of the UNITE hall and responded to calls as needed. Over the next year, led particularly by Sanders and Amy Turner, an attorney for Legal Aid, the group transitioned to a more formal structure, looking to initiate more opportunities for the coalition to be active in support of workers. The 1993 Fischer Packing strike was a first such effort. JwJ helped build a r eligious network that worked behind the scenes as well as joining workers at the gates when Fischer moved in scabs. JwJ also organized a guerilla theatre, trying a case of the city of Louisville against Fischer Packing. The jury wore Jobs with Justice buttons. JwJ’s role in the Fischer strike deepened the relationship with the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 227 and demonstrated again the power of labor, community and religious groups in coalition. In the mid 90s, JwJ started employing staff, beginning with an intern and building over time to two full time organizers. Full time staff provided a crucial link in building Jobs with Justice visibility, and sustaining and expanding the work. The campaign at Cagle-Keystone, a poultry plant in Albany, Kentucky near the Tennessee state line, is an example of the way JwJ creatively contributes support. In 1999 Cagle won the JwJ Grinch of the Year Award. Pay, treatment, and bathroom breaks were key issues. Over half the workers were Spanish speakers and the company hassled them with threats of INS raids. They fired 37 workers who had tried to organize. KY JwJ organized a press conference in Frankfort with Cagle-Keystone workers, took workers to meet with the Labor Cabinet, and organized hand billing at McDonald's Restaurants, asking customers how much they knew about the hands that made their McChicken sandwich. In addition to the supportive organizing work, JwJ staff member Dawn Jenkins organized a coat drive and took 400 coats to the workers in December just a week before the union election. There with people in a cold warehouse, as mostly Latino workers and families and children danced and celebrated the upcoming election, the unity and excitement was tangible. Workers voted overwhelmingly for representation with UFCW 227, securing bargaining rights for 1,500 poultry workers. A Watershed Event: The National JwJ Gathering In Louisville In February, 1999, KY JwJ hosted the national gathering of Jobs with Justice in Louisville. "It was a watershed event for JwJ," said Field Director MB Maxwell. "It was the biggest ever by far of our national gatherings, the most diverse, most dynamic, most energetic." Over 600 activists and workers from around the country gathered in Louisville. Two significant events were happening in Louisville at the time of the national gathering. Tyson workers had gone on strike on January 3. Through the organizing work of staff member Paul Whiteley, JwJ had provided handbillers at grocery stores, helped with media, gotten the word out to organizational newsletters, written denominational specific information sheets, and through the Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, set up a meeting with the person supplying temps to cross the picket line. On February 27, 600 people from the national gathering descended on the headquarters of Kentucky Fried Chicken, the major buyer of Tyson chicken, asking the CEO to sign a poultry retailer code of conduct and to pressure Tyson to bargain in good faith. While most of the group rallied in the parking lot, 70 people took over the lobby including Tyson workers and ministers, who tied up the lobby with long prayers for economic justice. A vice president met the following week with Whiteley and Bruce Finley, UFWC, but would not sign the code of conduct and said they wouldn't call Tyson. A week after the action, however, Tyson came back to the table. The 99 gathering in Louisville also happened in a community which had just passed Fairness legislation, workers’ rights protection for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered people. Spearheaded by Fairness Campaign organizers who do their work through building alliances and mobilizing their own base for a racial and economic justice issues, the win in Louisville was seen as a win for everybody. Gary Best of UFCW stood at the micophone during the national gathering victory awards celebration and said, “I was told to say we support Fairness because Fairness supported us on the poultry campaign. I’m here to say we support Fairness because it’s the right thing to do.” "The national gathering in Lousville signaled a turning point for our organization," said Maxwell, "and was a moment so full of possibility and the promise of what we were trying to build." Solidarity Across Borders - Kentucky Mexico Worker Exchange One of the biggest accomplishments of KY JwJ is putting a face to globalization and helping build solidarity with workers across borders. In 1999, a factory owned by Moen and Fortune Brands closed down its quite profitable Hoov-R-Line operation in Providence, Kentucky and moved to Sonora, Mexico. "After 19 years of working at Moen and at age 50," said Sherry Benton, "I am starting all over again." That same year, Fortune Brands Chairman and CEO Thomas Hays received $ 4 million in salary, bonuses and other compensation. Working with Southern Arizona Alliance for Economic Justice in Tucson, Arizona, KY JwJ and the Steelworkers began planning a Sonora-Kentucky worker exchange reflecting the JwJ model of building alliances between labor, community, religious and student groups. In October, 1999, eleven people went to Sonora to meet the people who "had taken our jobs," including three former Moen steelworkers and the USWA staff representative. Kentucky workers learned that hard-fought health and safety precautions they had won in the U.S. were callously disregarded in the maquiladoras to make the machines go faster. They saw full time workers living in poverty, some paid as little as $ 3.50 a day. They noted the contradiction of a border policy which uses barbed wire and automatic weapons to block some workers while shuttling others to serve as ‘guest workers’. In July, 2002, five people from Sonora, Mexico traveled to four Kentucky towns in community and labor events organized by JwJ staff Marica Price. In Providence, maquiladora workers were reunited with the steelworkers who had come to Sonora. The reunion included a poignant visit to the old Moen plant, contrasting the empty building sitting in the Providence community where workers were left without jobs to the five times larger, shiny new plant in Sonora where inside workers are maliciously mistreated. In Henderson, delegates addressed a Workers Rights Hearing Board. The audience included workers from Operating Engineers, USWA, UFCW and Carpenters unions as well as non-union workers who had just lost their jobs when Sights Denim unexpectedly closed and moved to Mexico with no severance to the workers. Damage from NAFTA to workers on both sides of the border was made ever clear. A Speak Out in Louisville brought delegates together with a diverse group of labor and community people, including workers from Louisville Ladder, another company moved to Mexico. Local workers spoke of seeing things differently now and the need work across borders to defeat corpo rate greed. With the Kentucky-Sonora worker exchange, once again, the Kentucky JwJ work was inspiring to JwJ coalitions all over the country, becoming a story of hope and refusal of workers to be pitted against each other. Living Wage Passing a living wage ordinance in November, 2002, is one of the single biggest accomplishments of Ky JwJ’s ten year history. Springboarding off the AFL-CIO America Needs A Raise rallies all across the country, a living wage ordinance was on the radar of JwJ since 1995. Armed with research from a living wage study conducted by Kentucky Youth Advocates, JwJ was able to expose the reality of people working for the city of Louisville at poverty wages. The proposal fixed the wage floor at $10.20 per hour for a single wage earner with two children. Living wage was criticzed as too expensive, but Alderman Bill Allison, co-sponsor of the legislation, pointed out that a city giving out corporate welfare to downtown companies ought to be able to raise workers to a level where they can support families. Building a movement to pass a living wage included public education, trainings for community activists, creative public actions, building community support through organizational endorsements, building religious support, raising the voices of affected workers, and lobbying. For the last two years, Labor in the Pulpits focused on living wage. The living wage ordinance passed with 9 votes from teh Board of Aldermen. The mayor vetoed it two weeks later. In a demonstration of conviction, eight Aldermen held the line to override the mayor's veto in their last meeting as a Board before new merged government, closing a chapter for what had been a more progressive body fro the city of Louisville giving way to the new Metro Council. Under the new merged government, it will be an ongoing struggle to retain, implement and protect an authentic living wage. The Next Ten Years Workers and JwJ will continue to face serious challenges in the coming decade as impacted by war, recession and rampant corporate greed. Tax cuts to benefit the wealthiest Americans further erode safety nets for the most vulnerable working families. Workers rights are being further assailed under the guise of national security. Immigrants are under escalated attack, and used to divide workers and their organizing efforts. In this climate, the JwJ vision of connecting the struggles for workers' rights to the larger movement for economic and social justice is critically needed more than ever. Only by standing shoulder to shoulder across our community and across borders can we rebuild power for economic justice. JwJ Staff Lee Lewis Paul Whiteley Dawn Jenkins Amanda LeDuke Maria Price Laura McSpedon JWJ Interns Jennifer Jewell Cyd Iyun Nikisha Sanders Other History and Activities History of National JwJ History In the late 80s, CWA was organizing at a Bellsouth call in center in Detroit working with a majority of workers who wanted to join the union. The company asked everyone to report to work in a special meeting, then told workers they were all getting laid off. Shaken by this union busting behavior in a union town like Detroit, people in CWA said, "We have to build something to take this kind of brutality on." They met with Michigan Representative John Conyers, sympathetic to the issues, who spoke of the need to get people jobs. Larry Cohen, now CWA Executive Vice-President, "With all due respect Representative Conyers, we need more than jobs. We need jobs with justice." It would become the name of a national organization spawned by leaders of major industrial and service sector unions forwarding a vision that the struggles for workers' rights must be connected to the larger movement for economic and social justice. Ever clear that unions could not win alone in the growing right wing climate of the 80s, a new culture of solidarity had to be developed. To build this culture of solidarity, organizing principles include forming alliances of diverse peoples fighting for their rights where they live and work, creative, militant direct actions and the stories of workers' themselves being the front line message. For the first five years, JwJ was mostly involved in periodic actions around some particular campaign led by people in DC. It has grown to a grassroots driven organization of 43 chapters and 36 full or part time organizers. Crafting the message of "I'll Be There," Jobs with Justice asks people to be there five times a year for someone else's fight as well as their own, and local JwJ coalitions have mobilized tens of thousands pledge card signers to Be There. Kentucky-Sonora Worker Exchange Members of the Kentucky delegation to Mexico included Rose McNary, Sherry Benton and Viola Melton, members of USWA 13953 and former workers at Moen; USWA staff representative Joe Villines; Rev. Ben Guess, then minister of Mount Zion United Church of Christ, Henderson, KY and now a Minister for Labor Relations for the UCC, Cleveland, OH; Jesse Harris, then a worker for Fischer Packing and now Civil Rights Director for UFCW Local 227; Hannah Halbert, United Students Against Sweatshops, (USAS) Transylvania University, Lexington, KY; Alicia Weber, now working with Tucson AFSC; Paula Arnquist of SAAEJ; Dawn Jenkins, KY JwJ staff; and, Mary Beth Maxwell, Jobs with Justice Field Director. Members of the Mexico Delegation to Kentucky included Elisa Ortega, union organizer; Ivone Pazos, Alliance of Border Workers; Lorenzo Hernandez, maquiladora worker; Francisca Tenorio, and Irma Pineda. |
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