"This could be the kind of social justice moment that many of us have been waiting for," says Bill Fletcher, Jr. of the Center for Labor Renewal. He points out that the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia are not just spreading to Libya, locked in a deadly struggle with its own dictator, but in Ohio, Wisconsin, and around the US. "People are picking up on the energy and the audacity of the democratic revolt," he notes.

 

Stand up to the GOP assault on workers' rights.

Mar 15 2011

 

Click HERE to download  Standing With the Unemployed: A Congregational Toolkit (PDF)  We are all in this TOGETHER!

The budget that the U.S. House of Representatives has passed contains such deep cuts that as many as 700,000 workers could lose their jobs this year if it is enacted. Among the cuts, federally funded job training programs would be eliminated, at a time when 13.9 million people are already unemployed.

This is a cruel, immoral attack on working families, the middle class and the poor. Government should help create jobs, not eliminate them. Join Faith Advocates for Jobs in standing up for a just budget that creates jobs and protects rather than abandons people in need.

Please call your Senators and Representative now. Call (202) 224-3121 and you'll be transfered to your congressperson's office. Convey that the budget passed by the House will destroy jobs. Explain that as a person of faith from their state/district, you expect them to stand up for a fair budget.

Faith Advocates for Jobs has now produced a toolkit for congregations that want to get involved with the campaign. Standing With the Unemployed: A Congregational Toolkit can be downloaded here (it's a PDF). In the toolkit you'll find:

• Worship Resources
• What Can Your Congregation Do?
• Coming Together in a Time of Crisis
• Getting Immediate Help to Unemployed Workers
• The Spiritual Meaning of the Economic Crisis

Please download the toolkit and let others know about it -- by forwarding this e-mail, posting word of the toolkit on Facebook, Twitter, listservs, or however you share information.

For the campaign's big-picture vision, you can watch this video of me speaking last week at the Summit on Jobs & America's Future at the National Press Club in Washington.

To learn more about Faith Advocates for Jobs or to get your congregation or group involved, get in touch with me via e-mail or give me a ring at 202-525-3055.

In peace & justice,

 

 

Rev. Paul Sherry
Campaign Coordinator
Faith Advocates for Jobs 

 

Kinetics mission is to develop new ideas that work to strengthen social movements within the African-American community; bridging the gap between church and community and providing them with the tools and skills to pursue justice and better address the needs of those whom they serve.

... You will raise up the age-old foundations; And you will be called the repairer of the breach, The restorer of the streets in which to dwell. (Isaiah. 58:12)

  

by Daniel Schultz

religiondispatches.org

 

This post has been updated.

 

 

Things are falling apart in my home state of Wisconsin. Newly-elected Gov. Scott Walker's approach to governing seems to be slash everything, to the point of cutting off the state's nose to spite its face. That includes state worker's wages and pensions. Remarkably, they seem okay with that, but Walker's threat to call out the National Guard to bust the unions has sparked a backlash unlike anything seen here in years. Hundreds packed a legislative hearing on the bill, keeping it rolling at least thirteen hours after it was scheduled to conclude. Meanwhile, thousands more demonstrated outside the Capitol, including Madison schoolteachers, whose absence forced the closure of the school system. Even some members of the Green Bay Packers got in on the act, siding with the unions opposing the governor's plan.

 

When you've pissed off the Packers, nobody's happy. Nobody.

 

To my knowledge, Wisconsin churches have stayed out of this mess so far. I haven't seen any press releases from the Wisconsin Council of Churches, nor from its member communions. That seems reasonable. The story is playing out like a consummate partisan dispute, in which tax-exempt bodies are understandably reluctant to intervene. Instead, they prefer to work across party lines on things like "Creation Care" or hunger or homelessness.

 

Read More

 

By William Lucy, President

 

Coalition of Black Trade Unionist

 

The struggles taking place across the country is a struggle between the rich and powerful right-wing ideologues and every day hardworking people. The struggle gives every American an opportunity to see how the rich and wealthy view our nation.

 

The struggles in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and Tennessee, for starters, are not about a few dollars more out of the pockets of working families, or single heads of households or single moms to pay a portion of their health insurance or their retirement, or any of the hard earned benefits workers have gained. This is much deeper; this is an assault on fairness and democracy in the workplace. This is about silencing the voice of public employees first and all workers second.

 

 

These struggles and others that will follow are about the right-wing's effort to turn back the hands of time when workers had no voice in their relationship with their employer. Workers are fighting back and the general public is supporting them in larger numbers day by day. The public believes workers should have a process that gives them a voice in the decisions that affect their work life. These are not complicated concepts and that is why American workers will win this struggle. That is what local and national polls are beginning to show daily.

 

In a nation where the top one percent (1%) of the people own thirty three percent (33%) of the wealth, and the remaining ninety nine percent (99%) of us must struggle for a share of what's left. It is not surprising that all over the nation, hard working American families are waking up to what's happening and joining with working men and women in their fight for fairness and democracy in the workplace.

 

Forty three years ago at this time, in the streets of Memphis, Tennessee, this same struggle took place as thirteen hundred sanitation men fought for justice, fairness and workplace democracy. They fought for a process that would give them a voice on the job and an opportunity for a better life for themselves and their families. For them, that process was collective bargaining - the process the governors of Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana seek to strip from their workers. In Memphis, Tennessee, the workers won their struggle for fairness, but not without great sacrifice - the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.We must do everything possible to support these workers in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee and wherever their rights are threatened. We must fight with them because they are fighting for all of us.

 

President Lucy suggest the following.

 

Things You Can Do:

Jesus Hates Taxes: Biblical Capitalism Created Fertile Anti-Union Soil

  

  

While the assault on unions by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and other GOP governors and legislators seems driven mostly by the billionaire Koch brothers and corporate-funded groups, religious right leaders and activists have spent decades creating fertile soil for anti-union campaigns through the promotion of "biblical capitalism," which researcher Rachel Tabachnick describes as "the belief that unregulated capitalism is biblically mandated." 

 

Pseudo-historian David Barton, a frequent guest of broadcaster Glenn Beck, is using his newly enlarged audience to promote American exceptionalism (America was created by its divinely-inspired founders as a country of, by, and for Christians) and Tea Party-on-steroids economics (Jesus and the Bible oppose progressive taxes, capital gains taxes, estate taxes, and minimum wage laws). The religious right has a long practice of claiming divine mandate for its policy agenda as it makes for an exceptionally potent political argument: if God supports radically limited government, then progressive policies are not only wrong but evil, and supporters of liberal policies are not only political opponents but enemies of God.  

 

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