blindpig
03-23-2015, 01:16 PM
Call to the Second National Labor Fightback Conference at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ,
May 15–17, 2015
Dear Brothers and Sisters: While attacks against the labor movement have been mounting across the board over the past decades, they are escalating now as a result of the November 4 elections.
Among the right wing's top priorities in this new period are implementing the provisions of the $1.1 trillion spending bill passed during the lame-duck session which, among other things, has opened the door for sweeping additional cuts in pensions received by tens of millions of retirees; cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other progressive social programs; obliterating all consideration for establishing a national universal single-payer health care system; expanding the number of right-to-work (for less) states; stepping up the assaults against labor with more repressive legislation on the state and municipal levels; doing away with abortion rights; increasing astronomical military spending to fund expanded U.S. interventions and occupations, while funding for human needs, including education, are sharply curtailed; turning back the struggle for justice waged by the Black Freedom Movement against police violence and killings; maintaining the deportation and other anti-immigrant policies; adopting anti-labor trade pacts; and turning a deaf ear to the environmental and climate change crises.
Trade unionists and our allies in community organizations need to address these challenges, which imperil the very continued existence of the labor movement as a viable social and economic force. That is why the Labor Fightback Network is convening the Second National Labor Fightback Conference to be held May 15–17, 2015, at the Rutgers University Labor Education Center in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
The cornerstone of this conference is having participants join in hammering out an action program aimed at revitalizing the labor movement. This means building on the opportunities that have opened up on several fronts as a result of struggles waged to counteract the corporate class's many-sided attacks on working people. These struggles include:
•Approval of minimum wage increases in several states on November 4 and the campaign for $15 becoming a mass movement;
•Success of the Labor Campaign for Single Payer in winning support for its goal throughout the labor movement, crystallizing in the AFL-CIO and the National Education Association endorsing that goal;
•Fast food workers in the streets in large numbers demanding a living wage and respect on the job;
•The AFL-CIO endorsing the demand to halt all deportations;
•The AFL-CIO approving unanimously a resolution calling for a major emphasis on Organizing the South;
•Emergence of a new civil rights movement powered by Black youth demanding, among other changes, justice and the prosecution of police who kill unarmed African Americans and Latinos;
•The Moral Monday Movement, which mobilized 100,00 in the streets of Raleigh on February 8, 2014 and the birth and growth of the Southern Workers Assembly;
•The mobilization of 400,000 people in New York City on September 21, 2014, with 60 unions participating and demanding action on climate change and good union jobs;
•The Call by the Peoples' Organization for Progress (POP) for a demonstration in Newark on July 25, 2015, with the goal of galvanizing a turnout of a million people;
•The growing movement against destructive and pervasive drone bombing attacks, which have killed or severely wounded so many civilians.
One of the most notable developments was the action taken by unions in Lorain, Ohio in 2013 breaking with the Democratic Party and establishing — at least on a temporary basis — an independent labor formation, which successfully ran its own candidates for public office. At the heart of labor's crisis is the reality that we have no effective political voice, as witnessed by the fact that the $1.1 trillion dollar spending bill was passed by a bipartisan majority.
The same has happened with regard to other measures of critical importance to the working class that were approved by the Democrats and Republicans working together "across the aisle." These developments and others underscore the urgent need for trade union leaders and activists, along with representatives of progressive community organizations, to meet together and develop an independent mass action program to advance the interests of the working class and our allies.
The national conference to be held at Rutgers will provide a forum for the necessary discussion to take place. It will also continue the discussion initiated at the first National Labor Fightback Conference on promoting independent labor-community candidates for public office. The following workshops will be held at the conference: Attacks Against Labor: a Fightback Strategy, Independent Labor Political Action, Immigrant Rights, Expanded Black Freedom Movement, Single Payer Health Care, Crisis in Education, Organizing the South, the Anti-Intervention Struggle. (For details on these workshops, click here.)
These workshops are intended to be action-oriented with action proposals to be agreed to by each and then submitted to plenary sessions for consideration by the conference itself. The Rutgers conference will also feature speakers and an opportunity for attendees to caucus and network. Caucuses will be held on women's rights and climate change.
More details to follow, but please circle your calendar for May 15–17. Register for the Rutgers conference now and be there for an educational and action-oriented experience aimed at promoting desperately needed change as labor confronts the difficult challenges in the period ahead.
P.O. Box 187, Flanders, NJ 07836
conference@laborfightback.org
Tel. 973-944-8975
http://mltoday.com/two-upcoming-conferences?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ml2day-recent+%28Welcome+to+MLToday.com+%7C+Recently+Added+Content+%7C+Please+Subscribe+to+Our+Feed%29
May 15–17, 2015
Dear Brothers and Sisters: While attacks against the labor movement have been mounting across the board over the past decades, they are escalating now as a result of the November 4 elections.
Among the right wing's top priorities in this new period are implementing the provisions of the $1.1 trillion spending bill passed during the lame-duck session which, among other things, has opened the door for sweeping additional cuts in pensions received by tens of millions of retirees; cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other progressive social programs; obliterating all consideration for establishing a national universal single-payer health care system; expanding the number of right-to-work (for less) states; stepping up the assaults against labor with more repressive legislation on the state and municipal levels; doing away with abortion rights; increasing astronomical military spending to fund expanded U.S. interventions and occupations, while funding for human needs, including education, are sharply curtailed; turning back the struggle for justice waged by the Black Freedom Movement against police violence and killings; maintaining the deportation and other anti-immigrant policies; adopting anti-labor trade pacts; and turning a deaf ear to the environmental and climate change crises.
Trade unionists and our allies in community organizations need to address these challenges, which imperil the very continued existence of the labor movement as a viable social and economic force. That is why the Labor Fightback Network is convening the Second National Labor Fightback Conference to be held May 15–17, 2015, at the Rutgers University Labor Education Center in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
The cornerstone of this conference is having participants join in hammering out an action program aimed at revitalizing the labor movement. This means building on the opportunities that have opened up on several fronts as a result of struggles waged to counteract the corporate class's many-sided attacks on working people. These struggles include:
•Approval of minimum wage increases in several states on November 4 and the campaign for $15 becoming a mass movement;
•Success of the Labor Campaign for Single Payer in winning support for its goal throughout the labor movement, crystallizing in the AFL-CIO and the National Education Association endorsing that goal;
•Fast food workers in the streets in large numbers demanding a living wage and respect on the job;
•The AFL-CIO endorsing the demand to halt all deportations;
•The AFL-CIO approving unanimously a resolution calling for a major emphasis on Organizing the South;
•Emergence of a new civil rights movement powered by Black youth demanding, among other changes, justice and the prosecution of police who kill unarmed African Americans and Latinos;
•The Moral Monday Movement, which mobilized 100,00 in the streets of Raleigh on February 8, 2014 and the birth and growth of the Southern Workers Assembly;
•The mobilization of 400,000 people in New York City on September 21, 2014, with 60 unions participating and demanding action on climate change and good union jobs;
•The Call by the Peoples' Organization for Progress (POP) for a demonstration in Newark on July 25, 2015, with the goal of galvanizing a turnout of a million people;
•The growing movement against destructive and pervasive drone bombing attacks, which have killed or severely wounded so many civilians.
One of the most notable developments was the action taken by unions in Lorain, Ohio in 2013 breaking with the Democratic Party and establishing — at least on a temporary basis — an independent labor formation, which successfully ran its own candidates for public office. At the heart of labor's crisis is the reality that we have no effective political voice, as witnessed by the fact that the $1.1 trillion dollar spending bill was passed by a bipartisan majority.
The same has happened with regard to other measures of critical importance to the working class that were approved by the Democrats and Republicans working together "across the aisle." These developments and others underscore the urgent need for trade union leaders and activists, along with representatives of progressive community organizations, to meet together and develop an independent mass action program to advance the interests of the working class and our allies.
The national conference to be held at Rutgers will provide a forum for the necessary discussion to take place. It will also continue the discussion initiated at the first National Labor Fightback Conference on promoting independent labor-community candidates for public office. The following workshops will be held at the conference: Attacks Against Labor: a Fightback Strategy, Independent Labor Political Action, Immigrant Rights, Expanded Black Freedom Movement, Single Payer Health Care, Crisis in Education, Organizing the South, the Anti-Intervention Struggle. (For details on these workshops, click here.)
These workshops are intended to be action-oriented with action proposals to be agreed to by each and then submitted to plenary sessions for consideration by the conference itself. The Rutgers conference will also feature speakers and an opportunity for attendees to caucus and network. Caucuses will be held on women's rights and climate change.
More details to follow, but please circle your calendar for May 15–17. Register for the Rutgers conference now and be there for an educational and action-oriented experience aimed at promoting desperately needed change as labor confronts the difficult challenges in the period ahead.
P.O. Box 187, Flanders, NJ 07836
conference@laborfightback.org
Tel. 973-944-8975
http://mltoday.com/two-upcoming-conferences?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ml2day-recent+%28Welcome+to+MLToday.com+%7C+Recently+Added+Content+%7C+Please+Subscribe+to+Our+Feed%29