Standing up for Workers Rights: The People Hold their House

More than 100,000 union members and their supporters rallied in Madison, Wis., on Saturday to tell Gov. Scott Walker to stop the attacks on public employees’ right to bargain for middle-class jobs. Tens of thousands more rallied in solidarity with Wisconsin workers in cities across the nation. On Sunday, when Gov. Walker ordered the Capitol building cleared, workers held their ground and maintained a presence throughout the night at what is now becoming known as The People’s Cathedral. 

READ MORE: CLICK HERE

Related Articles:

Majority in Poll Back Employees in Public Sector Unions
By MICHAEL COOPER and MEGAN THEE-BRENAN
Respondents said they opposed efforts to weaken collective bargaining rights and were against reducing state deficits via cutbacks for public workers.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's standing is eroding, opponents say, citing poll

Spreading Anti-Union Agenda (NYT)

More from Saturday’s Nationwide Rallies (AFL-CIO)

Worried by Wisconsin fight, labor rallies in NY (Buffalo)

Yes, America Still Needs Unions By Joe Conason (truthdig)



And....

Join us Wednesday on March 2nd at 4:30 at City Hall in Rochester to stand in support of working people and our right to have a voice on the Job!!!

Sign Our Petition: We Are Standing Up for Public Service!

The radical proposals by the governors in Wisconsin and Ohio would not just gut public services and jobs, they would take away the rights of workers to collectively bargain and the basic freedom to join a union — effectively eliminating public employee unions. (CLICK HERE)

Rally - WE ARE ONE

The recent assault on all working people in Wisconsin is but the tip of the iceberg. If we allow people to lose the right to collectively bargain, we are saying it is okay for all people to lose this right. It is imperative that we stand together in solidarity to protect the middle class and stop our race to the bottom. Join us Wednesday on March 2nd at 4:30 at City Hall in Rochester to stand in support of working people and our right to have a voice on the job.

 Please link to the CSEA Local 828 facebook events page to confirm that you will be there. 

Don’t Let Quality Health Services at Monroe Community Hospital Fall Into the Wrong Hands

Health Care Workers and advocates for the elderly are continuing the struggle to keep top notch quality of care for the residents of Monroe County.

Activists brave the weather 2/19/11 to get the word 

out about saving important services at MCH.

Since 1826 Monroe Community Hospital has had a long history of providing high quality health care to the residents of the county. We know you’ll agree that there are many components to achieving and maintaining good health. We also know that you’ll agree that good nutrition and sanitary conditions have as much a significant impact on health as medical and motivational care when it comes to the men, women and children who are frail, sick, elderly or in need of rehabilitation. Unfortunately, if the county goes through with their plans to privatize some departments at Monroe Community Hospital to a profit driven company, he patients and residents may be put at risk.

As a member of the Monroe Community Hospital family, you need to know that county officials are trying to contract out the dietary and laundry services at MCH. To do so would be misguided, it would not save money and it would threaten the full, complete circle of health care at the facility. Along with doctors, nurses, counselors and support staff, the nutrition and cleanliness programs play very significant roles in recovery and maintenance of residents’ health and quality of life.

The public owned Monroe Community Hospital provides high quality care for all residents of Monroe County. Privatizing current services at Monroe Community Hospital is not a way to save. Instead, privatization would come with a cost. Privatization would threaten quality care and cheapen valuable and important services.

YOU CAN HELP:

All Monroe County residents deserve complete and quality care. Don't let the circle of health care be broken. Call Monroe Community Hospital Executive Director Todd Spring today and tell him: "Keep MCH at the top of quality health services. Don’t outsource any hospital departments.”  

Call Mr. Spring at 760-6304.

Here is a link to a leaflet you can download and distribute on the importance of keeping Quality Health Services at Monroe Community Hospital (CLICK HERE)

Mobilization at MCH

For more information on the county’s misguided plan to outsource MCH dietary and laundry, call 328-5250.

Stand with the workers in Wisconsin in their struggle to be heard!!!!!!

CEOs and their corporations spent more than $1 billion nationally last fall to elect politicians who would work for them. Now those politicians are saying "thank you" by trying to enact an all-out assault on middle-class families. But this week, Wisconsin has shown us how powerful it is when working people fight back.



Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker thought he could cut the pay and trample the rights of more than 150,000 state workers and not face any consequences. Well, he was wrong. Tuesday, 13,000 people went to the state capitol to protest Gov. Walker's plan, and to tell their state legislators to oppose it. Dozens spent the night in sleeping bags in the Capitol Rotunda and over 50,000 arrived to protest on Wednesday.

Stand with the workers in Wisconsin in their struggle to be heard over the CEOs.

Then, get ready to put up the same fight in your state, because Gov. Walker isn't the only one who owes payback to the CEOs who got him elected. Governors and state legislatures around the country are threatening to pass similar laws that would drive down wages, weaken workplace protections and cut services middle-class families depend on.


Wisconsin has shown us that when working people join together and fight back, we can make headlines and influence politicians-even without billions in corporate money. Stand with Wisconsin's workers.


In solidarity,


Working America, AFL-CIO
 
 
Tens of thousands of Wisconsin workers showed us this week how powerful our voices can be. Click here to say "I stand with Wisconsin's working people.

Stop the Lies: Public Service Workers Under Attack

Public employees under siege……

States Aim Ax at Health Cost of Retirement
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

Published: February 13, 2011

Governors and mayors facing large deficits have set their sights on a relatively new target — the soaring expense of health benefits for millions of retired state and local workers.


As they contend with growing budget deficits and higher pension costs, some mayors are complaining that their outlays for retiree health benefits are rising by 20 percent a year — a result of the wave of retirements of baby boomers and longer life expectancies on top of the double-digit rate of health care inflation. MORE

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE (CLICK HERE)

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Public-Sector Squeeze: Nationwide effort to blame public employees for economic crisis (TruthOut)

By: Max Fraad-Wolff and Richard D. Wolff
A national campaign is now fully launched to make local, public-sector employees pick up a major share of the costs of the economic crisis. Years of rising spending and falling revenue have carved a path of destruction through federal, state and local budgets. Deficits and debts have mounted, eroding taxpayer support for government spending in general and for public employees particularly. In response to deep economic pains in middle-class communities, major efforts are under way, from California to Maine, to balance budgets through major cuts in services, wages, benefits and employment.

Read more at TruthOut.com >>

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The Shameful Attack on Public Employees

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

In 1968, 1,300 sanitation workers in Memphis went on strike. The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. came to support them. That was where he lost his life. Eventually Memphis heard the grievances of its sanitation workers. And in subsequent years millions of public employees across the nation have benefited from the job protections they’ve earned. (TO READ THE WHOLE OPINION ARTICLE - CLICK HERE)

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Champions of the Middle Class

Can organized labor lead a movement to restore broad economic security? It's hard to imagine who else will.

Robert Kuttner (The American Prospect)

The labor movement has long been a potent force for promoting a broad economic middle. Though no longer centered in auto and steel factories, unions continue to offer lower-income Americans a path into the middle class--just ask a newly organized janitor, hotel worker, security guard, hospital paraprofessional, home-care worker, or warehouse, call-center, or food-service employee. In 2003, the Economic Policy Institute found that the wage premium for unionized jobs relative to comparable jobs is about 20 percent, and union workers are far more likely to have decent health and pension benefits as well as a voice at work. Unions are also the single most powerful lobby for good social legislation such as Social Security, Medicare, and college aid, helping anchor the middle class generally.  READ MORE (CLICK HERE)