DC Hits Road for Justice
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)
Last Thursday night 15 DC Jobs with Justice members and leaders piled into
two vans and embarked on an overnight road trip to Providence, Rhode Island
where more than a thousand labor, community, student, and religious activists
from across the United States and around the world gathered for the annual Jobs
with Justice conference. The May 2-4 conference combined plenary sessions with skills-building workshops
which provided a space to share skills such as grassroots fundraising and media
outreach, and to strategize around specific campaigns such as the future of
telecom industry, equitable economic development in our cities. Plenaries
focused on student-labor strategies, low-wage worker organizing, the upcoming
healthcare week of action, the Employee Free
Choice Act and how to beat the global race to the bottom. "The passage of
the Employee Free Choice Act is key and will be integrated into everything we
do," said Mike Harris, Vice-President of CWA Local 2336 who attended the
conference. "This right here could be our salvation and you can rest assured we
will be collecting signatures from everyone at Comcast, Verizon Business and
Verizon wireless." The Jobs with Justice activists also staged an exciting march
through the streets of Providence to the Rhode Island State House where they
demanded tax and budget reform, immigrant justice and funding for programs and
staffing that make RI work for workers. Click here for
footage of the march.
- report/photo by Ruth
Castel-Branco