Jobs with Justice UNITY PRINCIPLES
The current crisis within the labor movement creates the necessity to reaffirm some of the core principles of Jobs with Justice. For over 18 years, Jobs with Justice has been building local community, labor, religious and student coalitions that are building power for workers and communities. Through innovative projects like Jobs with Justice Workers’ Rights Boards and our Student Labor Action Project, we continue to engage community leaders and activists in the long-term struggle for workers rights and economic justice. In the last four years Jobs with Justice Local Coalitions have worked on more than 700 workplace justice campaigns (organizing, first contract and bargaining) involving over one million workers. We have also worked on more than 600 community/social/global justice campaigns. Jobs with Justice continues to be a movement that works for working families and our communities.
The enemies of working families and our communities have tremendous power in our society, and our shared goal is to shift the terms of struggle more towards workers’ rights, social and economic justice.We will continue to commit ourselves to building power for workers and communities. We will continue to work with any and all organizations that support these principles.
We welcome as members of our coalitions groups which are themselves membership organizations, which agree to support the mission of JwJ, and which will contribute to building JwJ by signing members as pledgers, publicizing JwJ activity, and contributing resources to building Jobs with Justice.
Our local coalitions make decisions about which campaigns to support based on criteria which typically include worker involvement, a strategy to win, opportunity to build JwJ for the long haul, opportunities for leadership development, a role for creative militant direct action, etc. Jobs with Justice stands against oppression in all its forms.
The following principles are informed by the years of work building a movement for workers’ rights and economic justice.
We Believe In:
Coalition building - Building locally accountable, autonomous and nationally networked local coalitions of labor community, student and religious organizations that combine their power is key to winning concrete improvements for workers and their communities.
Reciprocity – Labor and community groups need each other to win and build power. Relationships between and amongst these organizations must be built on principles of reciprocity, mutual respect and solidarity.
Action – Member organizations putting their members into action to support one another’s struggles is a key to building power. We organize rank and file members of our partner organizations to sign pledge cards committing to come out five times a year to support worker and community campaigns. We believe that workers and communities united and in motion are the driving force for social and economic justice.
Relationships – Building long-term relationships between organizations and individuals is a key to building power.
Workers’ Rights and Economic Justice - We are committed to a vision of a United States and a world where workers have collective bargaining rights, employment security, a decent standard of living, and freedom from discrimination of all kinds.
* * *
We do not have a money problem in America. We have a values and priorities problem. ~ Marian Wright Edelman
No comments:
Post a Comment