Jobs with Justice

Description

The world today has no shortage of economic crises—or politicians and pundits who claim to have the vision that will get us out of the Great Recession. For 25 years, the labor-community coalition Jobs with Justice (JwJ) has endured the brutal vagaries of the global economy with a single alternative economic vision. By putting its ideas into practice, it has won powerful victories with working-class communities.

Through a series of interviews and essays, this book allows the community, labor, immigrant, student, and faith activists that have built Jobs with Justice to show us why their economic vision matters. They tell us why the organization’s core principle—the power of solidarity between unions, community groups, and immigrant, student, and faith organizations—continues to drive its victories at the local, national, and international levels. They tell us how the belief in solidarity leads not only to short-term alliances, but also to transformed relationships and permanent coalitions. They tell us how it has led—and will lead—to concrete victories for social and economic justice.

Though the book reflects on the last 25 years of the Jobs with Justice coalition, it’s very much directed at the next 25. It includes the perspectives of longtime national leaders like founder Larry Cohen, newcomers like Ai-Jen Poo of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, and the locally-based, working-class men and women who have built JwJ from the ground up.

Sujets

• Unión
• Rank and File
• Labor relations
• Grassroots
• Social justice
• Trade union
• Blue Collar
• Prolétariat

Informations

• Publié par: PM Press
• Date de parution: 01 septembre 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781604868838
• Langue: English

Extrait

Jobs with Justice: 25 Years, 25 Voices
Edited by Eric Larson
© PM Press 2013 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be transmitted by any means without permission in writing from the publisher.
PO Box 23912 Oakland, CA 94623 www.pmpress.org
Cover design by John Yates Front cover photo © Ted Polumbaum Layout by Jonathan Rowland
ISBN: 978-1-60486-746-6 LCCN: 2012954997
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the USA by the Employee Owners of Thomson-Shore in Dexter, Michigan. www.thomsonshore.com
Contents
Acknowledgments
Editor’s Preface: Capturing the Stories of the "Permanent Coalition" Eric Larson
Introduction: Stand Up! Fight Back! Larry Cohen
Part I: Jobs with Justice Means … Victory
Mattie Stegall (Nacogdoches, TX)
Stewart Acuff (Atlanta, GA)
Steve Valencia (Tucson, AZ)
Margaret Butler (Portland, OR)
Maria Whyte (Buffalo, NY)
Lara Granich (St. Louis, MO)
Ai-Jen Poo (New York City)
Part II: Jobs with Justice Means … Transforming Relationships, Bridging Differences
Carl Rosen (Chicago, IL)
Rand Wilson (Boston, MA)
Barbara Ingalls (Detroit, MI)
John Ryan (Cleveland, OH)
Fred Azcarate (National JwJ Office)
Mary Beth Maxwell ; (National JwJ Office)
Russ Davis (Boston, MA)
Simon Greer (National JwJ Office/New York City)
Treston Davis-Faulkner (Philadelphia/National JwJ Office)
Part III: Jobs with Justice Means … Fighting for the Future
Michael Leon Guerrero (National JwJ Board of Directors)
Marielena Hincapié (National JwJ Board of Directors)
Denise Diaz (Central Florida)
Israel Alvaran (San Francisco, CA)
Isaiah Toney (Student Labor Action Project/National JwJ Office)
Saket Soni (New Orleans, LA)
Conclusion: Jobs with Justice The Next Chapter
Sarita Gupta (Executive director, Jobs with Justice)
Closing Meditation
Rev. Calvin Morris, Ph.D. (Former national JwJ board member)
A CKNOWLEDGMENTS
T HE IDEA FOR THIS BOOK EMERGED IN 2011 AS J OBS WITH J USTICE leaders discussed the organization’s upcoming 25th anniversary. Since then, hundreds of people have helped make it possible from the dozens who shared their stories to the many dozens who helped us turn ideas, aspirations, and interviews into what you’re holding now.
First, I’d like to recognize the volunteers who donated their time, energy, and patience to transcribe interviews: Joanna Stewart, Samuel Nelson, Ben Bull, Elena Korn, Ana Carolina Vasconcelos, Silke Martin, Joyce Larson, Eileen Carney, Victoria Ruiz, Julie Pittman, Chelsea Miller, Rani Gupta, and Andre Martins. Anne Lewis, Russ Davis, Rae Axner, Greta Aiken, and Becca Rast helped make the interviews and transcriptions possible, and Rand Wilson generously shared materials. Naomi Demsas from the national JwJ office was involved in all steps of the book’s production, and deserves many thanks.
Others in the national JwJ office had a hand in this as well. Jonathan Williams played a crucial role in sorting, finding, and selecting photographs, which are arranged chronologically. Carlos Jimenez, Scarlet Jimenez, and Mackenize Baris helped make sure interviews and photos got into my hands. Huy Ong, Erica Smiley, and others helped make the JwJ Story Center, and the 2011 national meeting more generally, a smashing success. The same goes for the videographers who helped create an invaluable video archive: Barni Qaasim (IftiinProductions.com) and Jason Michael Aragón (PanLeft.net).
Finally, thanks so much to Bill Fletcher for his comments and to Steve Early for his help in connecting us with the folks at PM Press. They have been generous, dedicated, and patient. Sarita Gupta had the vision to make this project happen, and backed it up with action and ideas.
I’d like to dedicate this to the family and friends of Mattie Stegall, who passed away a few months after I interviewed her for this project. Her courage helped make Jobs with Justice possible.
Eric Larson, editor
E DITOR’S P REFACE: C APTURING THE S TORIES OF THE "P ERMANENT C OALITION"
T HIS BOOK REFLECTS ON THE J OBS WITH J USTICE COALITION’S last 25 years but it’s very much directed at the next 25. Though the final section, "JwJ Means … Fighting for the Future," indeed recounts some of the struggles that will carry JwJ into the next quarter century, the book revolves not around time periods but around two principal themes: winning concrete victories and transforming relationships through coalition work. Any organization undergoes dramatic changes in 25 years, and especially 25 years of relentless attacks by the One Percent. But these two themes have consistently driven local coalitions and national and international organizing alike. Concrete victories have inspired the Labor and community activists of the coalition since the successful struggles in places like eastern Texas and western New York in the late 1980s, and coalition work has, as several JwJ organizers have told me, led everyday activists "out of their comfort zones" and into the struggles of other unions, neighborhoods, communities, and regions. 1
There’s something for everyone here. Longtime JwJ activists likely recall the Emergency Drive for Health Care, the early Workers’ Rights Boards, the many battles with Verizon, or success stories everywhere from St. Louis to Portland to Buffalo. (See contributions from Granich, Butler, and Whyte, for example.) Those who got involved during JwJ’s rapid growth in the late 1990s may seek out perspectives on the coalition’s role in global justice campaigns (Azcarate, Guerrero, Greer), or on the importance of SLAP the Student Labor Action Project (Davis-Faulkner, Toney). 2 In the last decade, battles for the rights of immigrant workers have gained a more prominent place in the coalition (Poo, Soni, Hincapié). Readers interested in why Jobs with Justice will be a crucial component of struggles for social and economic justice in the future should turn to the Introduction, by JwJ founder Larry Cohen, and the Conclusion, by its current executive director, Sarita Gupta. I’d also like to call readers’ attention to Rev. Dr. Calvin Morris’s "Closing Meditation." In tracing a parallel between his work in the civil rights movement and the Jobs with Justice movement he first encountered more than a decade ago, Morris stresses the value of bringing people together both in struggle and in faith.
That the two principal themes of this book have their own corresponding sections shouldn’t suggest that they are unrelated. In the JwJ Story Center or elsewhere, JwJ activists’ accounts of victories almost always involved transformed relationships. 3 At the same time, activists’ descriptions of transformed relationships which often took the form of highly personal, even emotional, testimonies often concluded with stories of victory marches or community celebrations. Though the transformed relationships I refer to here are those between different working-class communities and organizations, JwJ victories also transform other kinds of relationships like those between workers and bosses. Though it’s unlikely that Walmart would admit it publicly, JwJ-supported victories like a recent one at a Walmart supplier fundamentally alter the worksite relationships upon which even the biggest global retailers rely. The immigrant workers who led that struggle through the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice are transforming all kinds of relationships as they chip away at the structural power of the One Percent. 4
The fact that JwJ leaders and members so often discussed both concrete victories and coalitional relationship-building is precisely why we’ve highlighted them in the structure of this volume. Many interviewees speak of a vast range of experiences they’ve had as part of the JwJ network, and the diversity of those experiences is no accident. It reflects the central element of the JwJ solidarity model. Because of how JwJ leads members "out of their comfort zones," some coalitions have battled for workers’ rights one month, housing justice the next, and health care access the next or have done all three at the same time. Unfortunately, because of space limitations, not all of the many interviews we carried out appear here, and they are all heavily edited for length and theme. Deciding how to condense such rich and multi-faceted material into an accessible and affordable book was the most difficult part of this project. Fortunately, the rich reserve of video interviews that resulted from the process will be available for coalitions to use for educational and mobilization purposes.
A careful reader will notice that other threads connect the interviews and essays as well as the two we’ve emphasized. Strategically deployed direct action is one of them. From Atlanta to Texas to Portland, Jobs with Justice local coalitions have specialized in knowing when and how to confront the powerful. Another thread is perseverance. Although much has changed in the last 25 years, the struggle for health care justice and for the right to organize have been constants and JwJ has maintained its focus on those issues since it was founded in 1987. Those who spoke to me for this project often recounted the challenges and stumbles as well as the successes. Despite the best efforts of unions and coalitions like Jobs with Justice, the unionization rate in the United States has continued to fall. Many social justice struggles in the post-civil rights era have been less about gaining ground and more about s