People Before Profit blog

Today in labor history: Stonewall sparks gay rights movement

Fri, 28 Jun 2013 17:06:00 +0000

Today is the 44^th anniversary of the Stonewall demonstrations that broke out in New York City, the actions subsequently regarded as the launching of the gay liberation movement in the United States. The demonstrations in New York inspired lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) people throughout the nation to organize in support of gay rights, and within two years LGBT rights groups began operating in every major city in the United States.

On June 28, 1969, there were few places across this nation where people could be openly gay. New York City itself, considered the bastion of "liberal" America, had laws prohibiting homosexuality in public. Private businesses that served gay people and of course gay establishments were regularly raided and shut down.

In the early hours of June 28, 1969, police entered the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in Greenwich Village, and systematically began harassing customers. Angry about the verbal and then physical harassment, the customers fought back and were soon joined by others in the neighborhood.

The police attacked the gathering crowd. When word got out gay men and women began arriving from all over the city. Hundreds joined in a street fight against the club-wielding police who beat anyone they perceived as being gay. Police reinforcements arrived and they stepped up the attack on the crowd, forcing it to retreat.

But the next night the crowd and reinforcements of gay men and women from all over the city returned again, this time numbering well over 1,000. For hours the crowds demonstrated outside the Stonewall Inn against the police violence.

The police sent in a riot-control squad to disperse the demonstration but for days afterward, bigger and bigger crowds showed up to continue the demonstrations.

After the demonstrations, LGBT people began forming advocacy and rights groups. Among the first was the Gay Liberation Front, which was the first group to use the word "gay" in its name, and a citywide newspaper called Gay.

By the time the first anniversary of Stonewall had rolled around on June 28, 1970, gay pride parades took place not just near Stonewall in New York but in Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco.

Within two years gay rights groups had sprung up all across the country.

President Obama, in his 2012 inauguration speech after his reelection, paid homage to the Stonewall demonstrators for their role in advancing civil and human rights.

Photo: Police force people back outside the Stonewall Inn as tensions escalate the morning of June 28, 1969. (Wikipedia)

Union leaders hail court dumping of DOMA

Fri, 28 Jun 2013 15:20:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) - Union leaders hailed the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to throw out the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the anti-gay law a Republican-run Congress railroaded through, and which then-President Bill Clinton signed.

By a 5-4 margin, the justices said DOMA violated the U.S. Constitution because it banned "equal protection of the laws" - in its case, more than 1,000 laws and parts of laws ranging from military death benefits to tax deductions - to same-sex couples.

The justices also let stand a lower court decision in California that tossed out the state's referendum, Proposition 8, overturning its own High Court's decision legalizing gay marriage. But by saying referendum sponsors had no standing/right to sue, the justices limited the impact of their second pro-gay ruling to California alone.

Both decisions are important to the lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender community, which has seen increasing acceptance of gay rights. Leaders' comments included:

"Yes! It is an historic day, at last DOMA is overturned. The California Prop 8 case also went down, for lack of standing," exclaimed Darren Phelps, executive director of Pride@Work, the AFL-CIO's gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender affinity group. Gay rights advocates waiting outside the court burst into cheers and tears of joy.

"Oh, my God, we're married!" one lesbian woman told her partner by cellphone as others around her cheered.

"For LGBT workers, the decision means married couples must be treated as married in accord-ance with the laws in their state," Phelps added. "Marriage equality is about treating all couples with respect, but it also has major financial and legal impacts that will allow more same-sex couples to more effectively support their families. We will continue efforts to win marriage equality in more states, but there are also vital issues remaining for the LGBT community - our lives are about more than marriage."

"We took a giant leap forward in the march for equality and justice for all," said teachers union President Randi Weingarten, one of several union presidents who is openly gay. "The Supreme Court ruled definitively that DOMA violated the equal protection clause and that loving married same-sex couples deserve the same rights and benefits as all other married couples. The court's decision on Prop 8, which leaves intact a district judge's ruling invalidating that measure, ensures that, at least for now, gay and lesbian couples have the freedom to marry in California.

"While we wish the court had acted to extend marriage equality for all Americans, make no mistake: Momentum for equality is building and there is no going back," she said.

"We are a nation built on the belief of equality for all -- that all Americans are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The court affirmed these basic values and recognized that laws such as DOMA deny gay and lesbian Americans these fundamental rights and betray our values as a nation.

"Today, the court got it right," Communications Workers Communications Director Candice Johnson said. "By striking down DOMA as unconstitutional, the court moves our nation closer to a place where the rights of all people are recognized and respected. The federal government should not support discrimination of any kind. Today's decision that same-sex couples are entitled to federal benefits opens the door to ending all discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity."

Photo: Elvert Barnes/CC

Union leaders slam Supreme Court's voting rights ruling

Fri, 28 Jun 2013 12:32:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) - Union leaders panned the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on the Voting Rights Act, saying the justices gutted its key section and stripped protections from voters.

The justices said states and parts of states that historically discriminated must get voting changes cleared in advance by the U.S. government. But the justices then said which states and jurisdictions the law covers is unconstitutionally out of date - and unions and their allies said that part of the ruling leaves millions of voters vulnerable.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka called it "a huge blow to working people."

The justices decided, 5-4, on June 25 to uphold the discrimination ban in Section 5 of the 1965 law. But the majority said Section 4, which says nine Southern states and parts of six other states with history of discrimination, must pre-clear their voting plans, is unconstitutional. So the states and other governments don't have to "pre-clear."

Texas Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott promptly declared the court set states loose from the Voting Rights Act. He said he would immediately re-impose the Texas voter ID law, the nation's strictest. That law would dump millions of Latinos and African Americans from voting rolls. Texas is one state the act's Section 4 covers.

The federal government, last year, said the Texas voter ID law flunked pre-clearance.

Union leaders and civil rights leaders said the court's ruling would yank protections from millions of minority-group voters. "We will mobilize" to restore the protections, one civil rights leader said. Another said the August 24^th 50^th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's famous March on Washington would be a focus of the effort.

Larry Hanley of the Amalgamated Transit Union was the most outspoken. He said the court's ruling could take the nation "back to Jim Crow era," when racist laws barred minorities from voting in the Old South.

The court "damages the Voting Rights Act and is a step backward for the right to vote in this country and for democracy," Communications Workers Communications Director Candice Johnson said.

"By declaring the process used to determine which state and local governments must comply to be unconstitutional, the court for now eliminated protections of the Voting Rights Act for millions," she added.

"It wasn't in 1956 that the community of Calera, Ala., attempted to restrict the vote and the voice of its African American citizens. It was just seven years ago, in 2006. This example, and too many more like it, clearly demonstrates the Voting Rights Act is needed today more than ever.

"Attempts to cut voting hours and polling places, limit early voting and restrict

registration, especially targeting students, the elderly, people of color and the poor are all too pervasive in our nation today," the union added.

CWA said it would work with civil rights groups to "protect the right to vote for all citizens. Voter suppression in any form harms our democracy."

National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel said his union is "dismayed" because the court "credence to the myth that our nation achieved racial parity. Our biggest fear is not only that we will stop achieving equality, but more importantly, that we will lose ground."

"The Supreme Court set back civil rights 50 years," Steelworkers President Leo Gerard said. "More Americans than ever are now at risk of being disenfranchised as a result of this gross injustice and our democracy is immediately weakened." USW Vice President Fred Redmond predicted states will "enact expensive, unnecessary voter identification laws and redistricting maps to marginalize minority votes."

"Today's Supreme Court decision imperils the most sacred right in our democracy -- the right to vote," Service Employees President Mary Kay Henry stated.

Her union also joined the brief before the court heard the Voting Rights Act case.

"Conditions have not changed in many parts of our country where voters suffered from a long history of racial discrimination in voting and new forms of voter suppression continue to threaten our democracy. In many states and localities, we saw efforts to disenfranchise African American and Latino voters during the 2012 election.

"Whether in the form of onerous voter ID laws or citizenship check boxes meant to confuse voters, state and local governments are already changing their election laws and procedures in ways that will disenfranchise millions of eligible voters, including the elderly, the disabled and young people.

"With this decision, state and local governments in areas with a proven history of racial discrimination in voting will have no effective check on their power to change election laws as they please, potentially opening the floodgates to even more discriminatory practices that will prevent eligible citizens from voting. Congress should move swiftly to remedy the harm the court has done," Henry added.

Hanley predicted more states will pass voter ID laws and other measures to deny voting rights. "It will directly hurt transit riders, who are vulnerable to disenfranchisement efforts," he said. The court "virtually legalizes voter suppression," he added.

Photo: Labor union leaders and members march down Highway-80 East during the Selma to Montgomery Voting Rights March re-enactment, on March 7, 2012, near White Hall, Ala. Demonstrators marched to protest Alabama's voter ID and immigration laws. Julie Bennett/AP

Obama’s acting labor secretary calls for minimum wage hike

Thu, 27 Jun 2013 14:34:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - Saying that raising the minimum wage would help lift up workers and families, Acting Labor Secretary Seth Harris reiterated the Obama administration's support for raising the minimum wage.

Harris spent much of his prepared remarks for a June 24 Senate Labor Committee hearing on the issue telling the stories of minimum wage workers he has met in 14 cities from coast to coast. They have to choose between gas for the car and food for the table, paying the bills late or seeing their heat shut off, and worse, he said.

He also dispelled one big myth about the minimum wage: That it would benefit middle-class teenagers working at after-school jobs. Only 19 percent of minimum wage workers are teenagers, and some of them work full-time, he said. But 60 percent are working women, raising families.

Unions strongly support Obama's proposal to raise the minimum wage, which has been $7.25 an hour since 2009, in three steps, to $9 hourly, and then index it for inflation.

The DOL also advocates raising the minimum wage for "tipped workers" - those, such as restaurant servers - who exist on tips, Harris said. That minimum, of $2.13 an hour, is unchanged since 1991. Some states, tired of waiting for a gridlocked Congress to act, raised the minimum on their own. Congressional Republicans oppose a raise.

"In Boston I met Pattie, a woman who earns just above the minimum wage working at a local movie theater," Harris told the senators. "She needs every penny. Like many Americans, she struggles to make ends meet, but Pattie constantly feels like she is falling even further behind.

"When I spoke with her, I made the mistake of classifying her as someone who lives paycheck-to-paycheck. She corrected me, pointing out that living paycheck to paycheck would actually mark a significant improvement in her life. Every day she wonders: 'Do I have enough money to fill my car with gas to get to work? If my car breaks down, do I skip this month's heating bill to pay for the necessary repairs?'"

The GOP claims, as usual, that raising the minimum wage will cost jobs, a stand the Labor panel's top Republican, Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., reiterated at the hearing.

When he was governor, Alexander said, his state had the third-lowest family income in the U.S., and needed to attract more jobs. It did not raise the minimum wage, he added, but became more "business friendly" by, among other things, removing usury limits and "maintaining and defending a right to work law" that bans union shop provisions in collective bargaining contracts. Raising the minimum wage, he said, would have scared businesses away.

Harris refuted the GOP's claims. He said raising the minimum wage is good for business as well as for low-income workers.

"A higher minimum wage will give low-wage workers the additional purchasing power to buy goods and services in their communities thereby stimulating local economies and helping small businesses to grow and expand. A 2011 study by economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago found a $1 (hourly) minimum wage hike increases household spending by approximately $2,800 in the year following the increase - with families purchasing necessary durable goods like automobiles that provide their communities with a real economic stimulus," he said.

"And study after study from independent economists has shown that raising the minimum wage has a small or no effect on employment...Contrary to popular belief, many minimum wage workers are adults supporting families and heading households. In 2011, minimum wage workers brought home 46 percent of their household's income. Their wages pay for utility bills, car maintenance, and rent."

Photo: Huy Richard Mach/AP

The Dream lives on, but we must fight for it

Thu, 27 Jun 2013 14:19:00 +0000

In a five-to-four decision the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the formula in Section 4 of the 1965 Civil Rights Act was unconstitutional. The striking down of section 4 means that the U.S. Justice Department no longer has the mandate for preclearance of any changes in rules that establish voter qualifications or election procedures in jurisdictions covered by the Voting Rights Act.

If Section 4 had not been in effect in the 2012 Presidential election all those Republican state laws to impose restrictive voter ID and all other Jim Crow-like voter procedures could not have been challenged. And yes, Mitt Romney potentially would have won a lot more states and may even have won the election. That's how important Section 4 is.

Unless Congress acts, this decision will allow the Republicans who suffered an historic defeat last year to get away with massive voter suppression and make big gains in 2014. They have the green light from a majority (five) of the justices on the Supreme Court.

Of course voter suppression can and will still be challenged but the challenges, without the Voting Rights Act in tact, will often go unresolved until after elections have happened and after Republicans have illegally won a bunch of seats.

The higher court of public opinion and public pressure needs to act to make Congress Act. Unless the people make the Congress act to pass a bill to designate the states and counties that should have to seek pre- clearance under Section 4, the Republican strangle- hold in the Congress could be extended and strengthened as we head toward 2016.

On that new list of counties and states we will need all the ones (mostly in the South) that were already there plus many more in other areas of the country where there have been brazen attempts to suppress the vote.

There is a need for mass actions all over the country in response to this racist, unconstitutional ruling.

The big message from 2012 was, "We are not going back." The message rang loud and clear because it was brought about through unity - a multi-racial unity of the labor and peoples' movements aimed at advancing democracy.

This year marks the 50^th Anniversary of the massive "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom." A broad coalition of civil rights and labor organizations have issued a call for a march on Saturday, Aug. 24.

What a powerful way to show in massive numbers the people's outrage against the Supreme Court decision! That march could send an irresistible signal to Congress to pass, as its number one priority returning from Summer Recess, a bill that would activate a new, expanded criterion for Section 4 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Detroit has given the nation the example. Last Saturday 100,000 marched and rallied in Detroit to commemorate the "I Have a Dream" March held in their city in 1965 before the march on Washington. It was the first place that Dr. King introduced the "I Have a Dream" theme.

Rev. Dr. Wendell Anthony, the president of the Detroit NAACP, said, "The Dream Lives on. We're going to do whatever we can to make a better world for our children."

That march embraced a broad agenda included opposition to the Republican governor's imposition of an Emergency Manager to dictate the city's finances. It also was against political repression, voter suppression, the defunding of public education, and attacks on labor, women's rights, and immigrant rights.

The Washington March will no doubt focus on the Supreme Court's efforts to deny democracy and the right to vote to people of color and the effects this has on all working people.

The issues of poverty and joblessness must be emphasized as well as marriage equality, LGBT and youth rights and student loan relief. Money for jobs, not for war, must be a theme. It's time go back to the nation's capital now.

The 50^th Anniversary March on Washington, Saturday Aug. 24^th 2013, can be a turning point. Talk to your church, your union, your peace and justice group, your family and friends.

The Dream lives on!

Photo: Capturing the historic moment of the 1963 march on Washington. Edweek.org

Sanders, citing her anti-worker stand, is sole senator vs. Pritzker

Thu, 27 Jun 2013 13:06:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) - Citing her Hyatt Hotel chain's illegal firings of hotel workers who are unionized with Unite Here, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Ind.-Vt., was the sole senator to oppose President Obama's nomination of multimillionaire executive Penny Pritzker to be U.S. Commerce Secretary. Pritzker won, 97-1.

Of the June 25 confirmation vote, Sanders said:

"We need a secretary of commerce who will represent the interests of working Americans and their families, not simply the interests of CEOs and large corporations. Ms. Pritzker served on the board of one of the most anti-worker hotel chains in this country. Workers at Hyatt have been unjustly fired for trying to form a union to collectively bargain for better wages and benefits. Unfortunately, Ms. Pritzker chose not to defend those employees."

Pritzker, a wealthy Chicago businesswoman, was national finance chair of the Obama campaign in 2008 and a national co-chair of the 2012 campaign.

Forbes Magazine lists Pritzker as the 263rd richest person in the U.S., with a net worth of $1.85 billion. The Pritzker family boasts assets of over $20 billion amassed mainly from ownership of the Hyatt Hotel chain.

Hyatt Hurts website says, "OSHA recently issued a companywide letter to Hyatt warning it of the hazards its housekeepers face on the job. This is a first for the hotel industry."

Hyatt fired housekeepers in its hotels in Boston and elsewhere, replacing them with out-of-state minimum-wage temps. Unite Here has called a boycott of Hyatt.

John Bachtell and Barbara Russum contributed to this story.

Photo: Hyatt Hurts Facebook page.

Supreme Court to rule on legality of NLRB

Thu, 27 Jun 2013 12:40:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) - The U.S. Supreme Court will try to sort out the political war over the legality of "recess appointments" to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), an issue important to both the Obama administration and U.S. workers.

The justices said on June 24 they would hear arguments on the dispute during their session that starts in October. The case pits the Noel Canning Company of Washington state against the labor board and the NLRB's recess appointees. Business groups have already joined the firm's stand, as has the GOP. The court set no date.

Solving the dispute is important to workers because the NLRB's decisions govern most private-sector labor-management relations in the U.S. If the NLRB can't rule because its appointees are illegal, it can't enforce the law - at least at the board level.

And it's important to President Obama and anyone who will sit in the Oval Office because the court will say when a president can use recess appointments to fill any administration vacancies when the Senate refuses.

Noel Canning won in lower courts, overturning an NLRB ruling in a dispute with Teamsters Local 760. The company argued that President Obama's "recess appointments" of NLRB members Sharon Block and Richard Griffin were illegal, and thus the ruling against it was illegal. The two recess appointments in January, 2012 gave the NLRB three members, the minimum it needs to operate.

The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, itself a GOP-dominated body because of vacancies the Senate has also refused to fill, agreed with the company.

The D.C. judges, all GOP-named, said Obama's appointments were illegal because the Senate, which is supposed to vote on NLRB nominees, wasn't in recess then. The Senate had been convening every three days for pro forma one-minute-or-less sessions, and the justices asked the attorneys on both sides to answer the question of whether such pro forma sessions mean there are recesses or not. The Obama administration held that the minute-or-less sessions were not true sessions but rather were schemes to prevent the president from performing his constitutional duty to fill vacancies.

The D.C. court said the Senate wasn't in recess, so Obama could not appoint Griffin and Block and the Noel Canning ruling they voted on along with 918 others, are illegal. One other circuit court sided with the D.C. judges, but other courts side with presidents. The Supreme Court has decided it must now straighten out the mess.

Left unsaid in all the legal wrangling is that the Obama administration made the recess appointments in the first place because, without a functioning board, the nation's workers have lost the option of seeking relief from the NLRB, a body created in the 1930's to ensure that workers' rights are protected.

In the meantime, Obama re-nominated Griffin and Block and the one NLRB member the Senate actually confirmed, chairman Mark Gaston Pearce, plus two management-side lawyers for minority-party NLRB seats. The Senate Labor Committee approved all of them, but at least one Republican, Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., threatens to filibuster all five. Pearce's term ends Aug. 27.

And unions, led by the Communications Workers, are carrying on a mass campaign - www.giveme5nlrb.org - to get the Senate to vote on all five nominees, especially before Pearce's term ends.

Photo: The CWA has been building a campaign to pressure the Senate into approving all five of President Obama's nominees to the NLRB. CWA/Flickr

What they didn’t tell you about the Twinkies comeback!

Thu, 27 Jun 2013 11:12:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) - The Associated Press recently ran a story, picked up by newspapers and TV stations nationwide, about the planned comeback of Twinkies to the nation's grocery shelves. Hostess, Twinkies' bankrupt maker, was sold. A reorganized - and smaller - company plans to send the iconic treat back to grocers in July.

But there were a few holes in AP's story, as was pointed out by Media Matters. One big one: The new Hostess will be non-union, unlike the prior Hostess, whose workers were represented by the Bakery Confectionery and Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers, the Teamsters, and several other unions. Here's their analysis:

"The Associated Press ignored significant context about the role of organized labor in its report on the comeback of Hostess brands and the iconic Twinkie snack. The article highlighted attacks from executives claiming unions were to blame for the company's demise while ignoring a history of union concessions, executive pay raises, and financial mismanagement that paint a different picture about the Twinkie's temporary expiration.

"The AP reported that Hostess Brands LLC, a trimmed-down version of the defunct Hostess Brands Inc., aims to have Twinkies and other well-known Hostess brand products back on store shelves by July 15. The story noted Hostess went bankrupt "after an acrimonious fight with its unionized workers" and described in he-said-she-said fashion how the company ultimately failed:

"'Hostess Brands Inc. was struggling for years before it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in early 2012. Workers blamed the troubles on years of mismanagement, as well as a failure of executives to invest in brands to keep up with changing tastes. The company said it was weighed down by higher pension and medical costs than its competitors, whose employees weren't unionized.

"'To steer it through its bankruptcy reorganization, Hostess hired restructuring expert Greg Rayburn as its CEO. Rayburn ultimately failed to reach a contract agreement with its second largest union. In November, he blamed striking workers for crippling the company's ability to maintain normal production and announced Hostess would liquidate.'

"'The trimmed-down Hostess Brands LLC has a far less costly operating structure than the predecessor company. Some of the previous workers were hired back, but they're no longer unionized.'"

The article's depiction of the company's fall omits crucial context and leaves readers with the impression that the act of discarding union workers allowed the 'trimmed-down' company to re-emerge.

The AP did not tell readers that, just three years prior to Rayburn's negotiations with labor, union workers made "substantial concessions" to aid the company's financial health, or that Hostess stopped contributing to workers' pensions and cut wages and benefits "by 27 to 32 percent."

Nor did AP mention dramatic pay raises that Hostess provided for its executives during its financial struggles. For example, Brian Driscoll, Hostess CEO in March 2011, saw his salary triple, to $2.25 million, compared to 2010, the Wall Street Journal reported.

And while the AP story claims "workers" blame the company's woes on mismanagement and a failure to adapt to evolving consumer tastes, this has actually been the opinion of informed and objective third parties.

AP itself noted in 2012 "Hostess snacks don't neatly fit into the U.S. trend toward a healthier lifestyle." The Washington Post wrote, Hostess was "rife" with problems beyond labor issues, including "management's failure to freshen up a stale product line." The New York Times discovered the company did not "have much of a finance department."

The Twinkie's return to the U.S. diet may ultimately be perceived as a comeback story. But with myths about Hostess' demise rampant in 2012 media reports, today's media should be careful not to rewrite history.

Photo: Certain aspects of Twinkies' "comeback" have been called anything but "sweet." Hostess Brands LLC/AP

Today in labor history: “Wobblies” founded in 1905

Thu, 27 Jun 2013 10:50:00 +0000

The Industrial Workers of the World, also known as the "Wobblies," was founded at a 12-day convention in Chicago, June 27, 1905.

The "Continental Congress of the Working Class" established the industrial Workers of the World with cooperation of sections of the Socialist Labor Party/Socialist Trades & Labor Alliance, Socialist Party of America, Western Federation of Miners, and survivors of the International Working People's Association.

Participants included the legendary William "Big Bill" Haywood, head of the Western Federation of Miners. Other prominent early IWW organizers included Lucy Parsons, Eugene Debs, "Mother" Mary Jones, Frank Little, and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn - whom Joe Hill dubbed the "Rebel Girl." Flynn later became a leader of the Communist Party USA.

The IWW was a pioneer in labor and socialist organizing. It advocated industrial unionism and called for "one big union" that would overthrow capitalism through general strike action. However, it opposed political action, believing that transformation of society would stem from strikes and street protests.

The Wobblies advocated for equality. Its famous motto was, "An injury to one is an injury to all."

At its peak, the IWW membership was about 40,000, with especial strength in the west. Its numbers declined in the 1920s and beyond due to a number of factors. These included splits in the organization, government suppression of "reds" and "agitators" in general, emergence of the Communist Party which championed political as well as labor organizing, and changes in the industries and labor force where it had its greatest strength.

The IWW had a major impact on the organization of America's major mass production industries, on other later social struggles, and on American culture. The Wobbly movement produced famous songs still sung today, with the most famous being the union anthem "Solidarity Forever."

Photo: An IWW demonstration in New York, April 11, 1914. Wikimedia Commons

North Carolina “Moral Monday” protests battle right-wing agenda

Thu, 27 Jun 2013 10:12:00 +0000

RALEIGH, N.C. - A multi-racial crowd of over 2,500 people rallied outside the North Carolina State Legislature Building on Monday, June 24. 120 activists were arrested in an act of civil disobedience. The focus of this eighth "Moral Monday" was women and the labor movement.

The protests have been organized by the state NAACP along with other civil rights, labor and immigration rights groups, in response to the sharp rightward shift in the state's politics that occurred in 2010. That is when, for the first time in more than 100 years, Republicans took control of both the House and the Senate. With redistricting, the Republicans increased their majority in 2012, and Republican Pat McCrory, the former mayor of Charlotte, was elected governor.

Addressing the crowd, the Rev. William J. Barber, president of the state's NAACP and leader of the Moral Monday campaign, said, "This isn't a Democratic or Republican Party thing, this is a people movement, led by workers, black, white, brown, old and young, straight, LGBT, religious, atheists, and everything in between." One of the highlights of the rally was when Rev. Barber hushed the crowd and then turned to the media and politicians being interviewed at the back of the stage. He asked them to stop, saying, "This isn't a party. This is serious and this is about the workers and people in trouble." His statement was greeted with applause and cheers.

The picture for working families in North Carolina is grim. The state has the fifth highest unemployment rate in the country. This week the General Assembly (House and Senate) voted not to extend unemployment compensation, which will cut benefits for 17,000 people.

Currently 25 percent of children live in poverty and 23 percent of women have no health insurance. Gov. McCrory has rejected the call, under the Affordable Care Act, to expand Medicaid, which means that 500,000 people will be denied access to medical care. There are bills pending to tax Social Security benefits, and the legislature has done away with union dues check off (direct deductions from workers' paychecks), weakening the state employees' and teachers' unions.

None of this is surprising given that the governor's budget director is Art Pope, a member of the John Birch Society and a founding board member of the far-right billionaire Koch brothers' Americans for Prosperity. In 2010, Pope's organizations spent $2.2 million on 22 state legislature races, and won 18.

North Carolina has also announced that it will go full speed ahead to implement new restrictive voting rules in light of the recent Supreme Court ruling on the Voting Rights Act.

Photo: N.C. NAACP President the Rev. William Barber speaks at the podium during the eight Moral Monday protest in Raleigh (PW/Harvey Smith).

Education advocates tell Pa. governor: fund public schools!

Wed, 26 Jun 2013 11:18:00 +0000

HARRISBURG, Pa. - They came from every corner of Pennsylvania yesterday, and some from New Jersey and New York. They were students, parents, education workers, and interested citizens. As organizer Ron Whitehorne told the crowd on the Capitol steps, they represented places "from the Mon Valley to the Delaware Valley, Eagles fans and Steelers fans and everywhere in between. We need a statewide movement to win this fight!"

The fight is to stop looming cuts to public education in a majority of Pennsylvania's school districts. These cuts would come on the heels of reductions made previously as Republican Gov. Tom Corbett has sliced some one billion dollars from the state's education budget over the past three years.

The most serious cuts would occur in Philadelphia, the state's largest school district with close to 200,000 students in public schools. The "doomsday budget" passed by the city's School Reform Commission would leave schools with no counselor, librarians, or secretaries, and only minimal cafeteria and food service staff. School superintendent Robert Hite has admitted that the proposed budget does not provide for any kind of decent educational program.

The activists spent the morning urging legislators to increase funding for public education, and in the case of Philadelphia, offering concrete solutions to stave off the debilitating program and staff reductions threatened for this September.

The solutions offered by the citizen lobbyists included increases in local Philadelphia taxes such as the business Use and Occupancy Tax (U and O) with exemptions for small businesses. They also urged increased state funding with the money to be raised by taxing natural gas drilling in the Marcellus shale regions and moving funds from the state's ambitious prison construction program to public education.

Before exiting the building they had a chance to greet the hunger strikers from Philadelphia who traveled to the Capitol and set up their table in the main Rotunda. Today marked day nine of their "Fast for Safe Schools."

In the afternoon, they gathered on the steps of the Capitol to hear an array of speakers call for increased support for public schools.

Kia Hinton, an activist with Action United and a parent of four children in Philadelphia schools told the crowd, "Corbett's war on education hurts students all across Pennsylvania; it's not just a Philadelphia problem. This crisis is not an accident but a result of the governor's willful neglect of public education." She also criticized the Corbett's failure, until now, to accept the federal Medicaid funds, "even when the federal government is knocking on our door to offer money for health care."

Some state legislators who addressed the gathering blasted Corbett's attempt to privatize the state's liquor sales as a giveaway to special interests. Pennsylvania's publicly owned liquor stores ("wine and spirit shoppes") consistently make money for the state, but the governor claims that selling them off would reap a one-time windfall, some of which might go to the schools. Rep. Ed Gainey of Allegheny County blasted this as a "booze for books" scheme and urged every one to "get to the polls and vote for education, transportation, and the people."

Anissa Weinraub, a Philadelphia teachers' union member and activist with the rank-and-file Teacher's Action Group, said that when she got her layoff notice she was sad, then "I got angry. Is this crisis the best our leader can do for us? This crisis was created by our so-called leaders. Today is the day we start to wrestle back control of our schools from politicians who have made CEOs richer and packed more young people into jail!"

Speakers also included Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers (PFT), Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, Rick Bloomingdale, president of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, state Sen.Vincent Hughes, Noah Ahmed of the Phildelphia Student Union, and Ted Kirsch, president of the Pennsylvania AFT.

At the rally's end, the demonstrators formed a human chain completely surrounding the Capitol building and joined hands as chants of "Whose Schools? Our Schools!" and "No Education? No Life!" resonated around the building.

Photo: Ben Sears/PW

Today in labor history: Eugene Debs initiates boycott against Pullman railroad

Wed, 26 Jun 2013 10:54:00 +0000

On this day in 1894, the American Railway Union (ARU), led by Eugene Debs, initiated a boycott against the Pullman Palace Car Company. The boycott involved worker's refusing to run trains carrying Pullman cars and supported an ongoing strike of railway workers in response to company wage cuts.

Over 225,000 workers joined the boycott as it gained in strength prompting President Grover Cleveland to use federal troops to support an injunction barring union leaders from aiding the strike. Debs was jailed for refusing to adhere to the court order and served a six-month term. While in prison, the union leader read Karl Marx and became a socialist.

Photo: Wikimedia (CC)

New York teachers back Thompson for mayor

Mon, 24 Jun 2013 16:24:00 +0000

NEW YORK - This city's huge teachers' union has selected the candidate it prefers in the mayoral race now underway here.

United Federation of Teachers president, Michael Mulgrew, announced Wednesday his union's prestigious endorsement of Bill Thompson, the only African American candidate in the race. Thompson is the former president of New York City's Board of Education.

"Mayor Bloomberg has damaged the school system in this city and we need to repair it and we need a real partner to make that happen," Mulgrew declared. "The UFT is saying we need to create a city that gives the opportunity for all and not a few: a city with a school system that is supported, not attacked, a city that provides real education - not just test prep."

The UFT endorsement translates for the Thompson campaign into over 150,000 robo calls, tens of thousands of mailers and 3,000 rank and file volunteers ready to hit the streets.

Mayor Bloomberg has been quick to show his contempt for the teachers as well as much of the voting public.

"Almost the kiss of death," is how the billionaire mayor characterized the anticipated endorsement of William 'Bill' Thompson by the United Federation of Teachers in an interview before the union's official announcement on Wednesday. "I don't know what goes through voters minds, but maybe they understand that if the UFT wants it, it ain't good for you and you don't want that person."

"It is Bloomberg's last 12 years that have been the real kiss of death," said Zakiyah Ansari, a Brooklyn mother of eight public school children and leader of New Yorkers for Great Public Schools (NYGPS).

"That was smoke in mirrors because he is trying to deflect and distract NYC from real solutions," Ansari continued. "Groups like NYGPS are doing research and studies finding solutions to the crisis facing our schools They are organizing parents and community members to demand results."

NYGPS, which says "the Bloomberg education agenda is not working for our kids, notes that "only one in four of all students and only 13 percent of African American and Latino students graduate high school ready for college. Despite some increases in student performance, the racial achievement gap at all grade levels is as wide as ever and in the last decade. New York City has lost ground to other cities on the national assessments called the NAEP."

The group also notes that the 13 percent college readiness recorded for the city is a serious problem and it is starting to call Mayor Boomberg Mayor 13 percent.

"The mayor," says NYGPS, should use the remainder of his term to "make as graceful of an exit as possible."

The group admits, however, that the election battle is an uphill one. NYGPS has warned that "a coalition of hedge fund managers and billionaires has pledged to raise $50 million to preserve and expand these same policies under the next Mayor."

In contrast to the current mayor's remarks regarding teachers and their union Bill Thompson, also the son of a NYC Public School teacher, began his acceptance of the UFT endorsement saying, "This is one of the proudest moments of my life... I know she (Mom) is looking down right now with a huge smile on her face and is telling me that I had better make sure and not let the teachers down."

Thompson declared, "You can't care about education and demonize teachers... You cant care about our schools and then shut them down. That's a dangerous game I will never play in this city ever!"

"We need to involve parents in the schools," Thompson said. "We must make sure to give them a voice and together create great schools in every community."

He went on to pledge to reduce the number of mayoral appointees on the Panel for Educational Policy. In recent years the board has come to be know as a rubber stamp for the mayor's policy of school closures and colocation.

In response to the demand of the cities unionized workforce for "fair contracts now!' Thompson said, "Teachers deserve a raise and the fact that they have gone without one for four years is disrespectful."

The UFT was a main organizer of the recent Rally for Fair Contracts at City Hall, where thousands of union and community members joined city employees in their demand. Elizabeth Christian, a teacher who was at the demonstration, said afterward, "That rally gave us all such a strong feeling of what is possible when the working people of this city unite. But it can't just be protesting. We need to be united on the street and at the voting booth to turn this our schools and our city in a better direction."

Photo: AP

Today in labor history: Activist Agnes Nestor born

Mon, 24 Jun 2013 15:41:00 +0000

On June 24, 1880, labor and women's rights activist Agnes Nestor was born in Grand Rapids, Mich. She moved to Chicago in 1897 and started working at the age of 14 in the glove industry In 1901 Nestor was the leader of the successful Chicago glovemakers strike over the constant harassment and injustices the women workers experienced; that would lead to formation of the International Glove Workers Union of America (IGWU). Thus she became the first female president elected to head an international labor union -

The leadership role Nestor played in the women's trade union movement lead her to spend time in Springfield, Ill., lobbying the state government to establish a "maximum work hours for women" law. After some years of lobbying, a law was established in 1909 that limited the work hours of women in factories to ten hours a day. In 1911 Nestor's work was able to get the law extended to all women workers.

In 1913 Agnes Nestor became the president of the Chicago branch of the Women's Trade Union League (WTUL). Through her work in the WTUL, Nestor created educational courses for workers. Nestor believed that workers needed education to counteract the mind numbing work they did.

At the same time Agnes Nestor was fighting for better working conditions for women workers, she was also an articulate supporter of the establishment of a minimum wage and women's suffrage.

The lobbying and educational work that Nestor did as a leader of the WTUL eventually lead to an expanded political role. In the late 1920's prior to the great depression she ran for the Illinois state legislature on the Democratic Party ticket. The campaign was unsuccessful, but it was an example of the amount of political support she had gained over the years.

During the depression years of 1932-34 when Franklin D. Roosevelt was president, Agnes Nestor was a member of the Illinois Commission on Unemployment and Relief.

Nestor continued to play a leadership role with in the labor movement throughout her life, even while experiencing serious health problems. She remained president of the Chicago branch of the WTUL until her death in December of 1948, at the age of 68.

Photo: Agnes Nestor, Wikimedia Commons

Netroots grassroots: Progressive Caucus launches “Raise Up America” drive

Mon, 24 Jun 2013 11:33:00 +0000

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Rasheen Aldridge, a young worker from St. Louis, presented the face of America's low wage economy on June 21 at the Netroots Nation premiere of the Congressional Progressive Caucus campaign to "Raise Up America." At the Parque de los Pobladores event here, Aldridge opened by saying you "can't survive on $7.35," eliciting a call-and-response from the crowd. Rasheen was there with another worker, Darius Chambers, both supported by Reps. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., Mark Takano, D-Calif., and Mark Pocan, D-Wis., to announce the new three-point campaign to help low-wage workers proposed by the Progressive Caucus.

Aldridge and Chambers related their experiences trying to function in major U.S. cities while receiving low pay, short hours, and a lack of respect. Aldridge works at Jimmy John's, a popular sandwich chain, in St. Louis, while Chambers works at Tim Horton's in Detroit. A horrified ripple moved through the crowd at the event when Aldridge related humiliating disciplinary actions at Jimmy John's for minor infractions, such he and another worker being required to hold up signs in the restaurant detailing their errors.

Darius Chambers is a young father who can scarcely cover basic expenses on his wage of $7.40 an hour. He struggles to spread his earnings to support himself and try to obtain necessities for his baby daughter. Detroit Mayor David Bing recently said that $14.85 is the amount needed to survive on a daily basis in the city, at the least. However, many service economy workers make about half that. "It's becoming a big problem in our city," said Chambers.

Many low wage workers are forced to apply for food stamps and other public assistance when corporations pay only the bare minimum wage in places where a person needs twice that to cover basic survival costs. In addition, managers short employees on hours, making a double crisis of low wages while also making workers ineligible for health benefits.

Aldridge and Chambers have been risking their jobs in spite of their tenuous circumstances by striking for better work conditions and by speaking out on the conditions of life in low-wage America. Aldridge concluded his address by saying, "These are big million-dollar companies that are going to try to pick us off slowly."

Stories like this are becoming more common and have spurred the Congressional Progressive Caucus to push for three reforms to help prevent the outsized dominance of the one percent over low-wage workers. Rep. Ellison gave a rousing address at the Netroots event outlining the new "Raise Up America" plan:

* Raise the national minimum wage

* Make it easier for low wage workers to unionize

* Require living wages for workers hired by federal contractors.

Rep. Pocan related his recent experience participating in the Food Stamp Challenge, feeling keenly the lack of food and resources that the small allotment provides to a family. Pocan underscored the experience of low wage workers with an observation on the rising wealth disparity in the United States: "One inch of increase to the 99 pecent" is equivalent to "five miles of increase to the one percent." Pocan concluded. "The growing income inequality gap is bad for job growth, it's bad for our deficits, it's bad for the most vulnerable in our society."

Rep. Takano underscored his heartfelt support for this new initiative: "We stand in Congress on the side of the 99 percent against the one percent. So we need this campaign, we need to raise the minimum wage, we need to raise up the 99 percent of America."

The "Raise Up America" campaign will move out on a multi-city tour this summer. Rep. Ellison asked the audience to support the campaign and spread the word: "Tweet it out, Facebook it, Instagram it out, whatever you got, do it."

The June 21 event was one highlight of Netroot Nation's eighth annual gathering, June 20-23, here in San Jose. Netroots Nation describes its mission as aiming to "amplify progressive voices by providing an online and in-person campus for exchanging ideas and learning how to be more effective in using technology to influence the public debate."

Photo: Rasheen Aldridge, a low-wage Jimmy John's worker in St. Louis, speaks at the "Raise Up America" event at Netroots Nation, June 21, San Jose, Calif. At left is Darius Chambers, who works at Tim Horton's in Detroit. At right is Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Michelle Kern/PW

Concession staff protest working for peanuts

Fri, 21 Jun 2013 12:57:00 +0000

The San Francisco Giants' 2010 and 2012 World Series victories have had many effects, including showcasing elite Venezuelan baseball talent. The championships caused the team's value to skyrocket and allowed its ownership to rake in millions in increased ticket and concession prices at AT&T Park. But for the workers employed at the park over those same three years, pay raises have been a giant zero.

The nearly 800 stadium employees are represented by Unite Here Local 2, and have been in a bitter contract dispute with the Giants' subcontractor, Centerplate. According to union officials, the workers make an average of $11,000 per year. Such low pay makes it very difficult for working families to survive in an area like San Francisco. And with no raises since 2010, and taking into account inflation, they have actually had a wage cut.

So on June 18 during a Giants game, the union and supporters held a protest picket and sit-in in front of the garlic fries vendor behind home plate. Ten protesters were arrested. This follows a May 25 strike; union members authorized up to five days of strikes in an overwhelming vote.

The union is also resisting attacks on employees' health care benefits. In a recent interview, a union spokesperson explained that workers only gain the subsequent month of health care coverage by working 10 games or events. That threshold is already a challenge - especially in months with fewer home games - and now Centerplate wants to raise it to 12.

While Centerplate is directly responsible for the demands for cutbacks and refusal to pay a living wage, the San Francisco Giants are also culpable. AT&T Park has approximately forty concession stands and each one brings in up to $30,000 per game. However, 55 percent of that goes to the Giants, leaving very little after Centerplate pays its operational costs. The Giants claim that Centerplate is the sole party involved in the labor dispute, but it is clear that if the team took a smaller percentage of concessions revenue - especially at a time when the team is having record-breaking success - these workers could be guaranteed good pay and benefits.

The workers only have one ask of fans attending: Enjoy the game but don't buy any food. This continues to be the request for sports fans to show their solidarity with the concessions stand workers on days that they are on strike at AT&T Park.

It is only fitting to close with the baseball classic, "Take me out to the ball game, take me out with the crowd," only this time, the crowd is standing for social justice, dignity on the job, a living wage and good benefits for the concessions stand workers of Unite Here Local 2.

A petition campaign to support the AT&T Park workers can be found at: http://www.thegiantzero.org

On Twitter, use the hashtag #GiantZero to learn more.

Photo:Protesters sit-in in front of a garlic fry stand urging Giants fans not to buy any food ( via SF Appeal.)

Today in labor history: Arthur Miller refuses to name communists

Fri, 21 Jun 2013 12:11:00 +0000

In the height of the Cold War anticommunist witchhunts on June 21, 1956, playwright and a giant of American theater, Arthur Miller, defied the House Committee on Un-American Activities and refused to name any suspected communist.

Miller's courage and defiance of McCarthyism won him a conviction for contempt of court, which was later reversed by the Supreme Court. His passport had already been denied when he tried to go to Brussels to attend the premiere of his play The Crucible, about the Salem witch trials.

Thousands of others suffered under one of the most undemocratic political attacks in U.S. history, indicted, hounded out of jobs by the FBI, imprisoned for thinking, deported and attacked by government-instigated mobs, like in the case of artist Paul Robeson at Peekskill. Robeson also had his passport taken away.

Miller was born in 1915 to a well-off German-Jewish family with a prosperous clothing store. However, the store went bankrupt after the stock market crash in 1929, and the family moved to Brooklyn. Miller finished high school at 16 and decided to become a writer after reading Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov.

Miller worked for two years in an automobile-parts warehouse before he attended the University of Michigan, where he studied journalism and playwriting. His student plays, largely studies of Jewish families, won awards. His first literary success was a novel called Focus (1945), about anti-Semitism. His first hit Broadway play, All My Sons, was produced in 1947. In 1949, Death of a Salesman was produced and won a Pulitzer Prize.

In 1956, Miller divorced his first wife and married movie star Marilyn Monroe. The couple remained married until 1961, the same year she starred in the movie he wrote for her, The Misfits. In 1962, he married his third wife, photographer Ingeborg Morath, and continued to write hit plays. Miller died on February 10, 2005 at age 89 of congestive heart failure. Arthur Miller, the man who wrote "Death of a Salesman," died Feb. 10.

To Miller's work and courage in the face of political attack, as Linda Loman told the sons of Willy Loman that sad and epic American dreamer in "Death of a Salesman": "Attention must be paid."

Three other major events happened today in history. In 1997, an estimated 100,000 unionists and other supporters marched in solidarity with striking Detroit News and Detroit Free Press newspaper workers.

More than 100 years earlier, ten miners accused of being militant "Molly Maguires" were hanged in Pennsylvania in 1887. A private corporation initiated the investigation of the 10 through a private detective agency. A private police force arrested them, and private attorneys for the coal companies prosecuted them. "The state provided only the courtroom and the gallows," a judge said many years later.

And in 1964, three civil rights field workers were kidnapped and killed by the Ku Klux Klan after investigating the burning of an African American church. Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, both white New Yorkers, had traveled to heavily segregated Mississippi in 1964 to help organize civil rights efforts on behalf of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). The third man, James Chaney, was a local African American man who had joined CORE in 1963. The disappearance of the three young men garnered national attention and led to a massive FBI investigation that was code-named MIBURN, for "Mississippi Burning."

Photo: Arthur Miller (WikiMedia/CC)

Today in labor history: American Railway Union founded

Thu, 20 Jun 2013 13:50:00 +0000

On this day in 1893, the American Railway Union - one of the first industrial unions in the United States - was founded by Chicago railway workers under the leadership of Eugene V. Debs.

Later, in August of that year, the ARU organized workers in an 18-day strike action against the Great Northern Railway, which had imposed wage cuts on its workers. The strike was a victory, as the company proceeded to roll back those cuts.

Prior to the founding of the American Railway Union, Debs worked with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen. He later became one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World.

Photo: One of the Great Northern Railway's trains, the "Empire Builder." Rail History

Service Employees plan massive response to GOP’s immigrant bashing

Thu, 20 Jun 2013 11:32:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - Talk about not getting the message. Though Republicans got clobbered 71 to 27 percent among Latino voters last fall, the GOP-run House Judiciary Committee - and House Republicans as a whole - seem determined to lose the Latino vote by even bigger margins in the future. There has been no let-up in House Republican attempts to weaken comprehensive immigration reform, a key concern for Latino voters.

The continued anti-immigrant push by the GOP has prompted the Service Employees to plan an all-out campaign against GOP anti-immigrant legislation, and to remind Latinos, unionists, and other voters in 2014 and 2016 of the party's intolerance, Secretary-Treasurer Eliseo Medina says.

The campaign of door-knocking, demonstrations, leafleting, voter registration and more will target congressional districts of key lawmakers, he told Press Associates Union News Service. "You name it, we'll do it," he said.

Last week, the Judiciary panel, along party lines, shoved a bill through the House to prevent implementation of President Obama's order telling federal agencies not to arrest and deport "DREAMers" - young people now in college or the military who came to the U.S. as undocumented children. The Senate will kill the bill.

And on June 18, the Judiciary Committee, again along party lines, approved yet another anti-Latino, anti-immigrant measure: The so-called "Safe Act," the federal equivalent of Arizona's notorious SB1070. Both the Arizona law and the Safe Act let local law enforcement stop, detain and deport people who don't "look" as if they're legal. Medina called the Safe Act "ideological and divisive."

Labor supports comprehensive reform, including legalization and eventual citizenship - after at least 13 years - for the nation's 7.5 million undocumented workers and 3.5 million undocumented kids. As the House panel worked, labor, lawmakers, and Latino organizations called the GOP law an open invitation to racism and racial profiling.

"This extremist and radical legislation contradicts what Americans want to see from Congress," namely comprehensive reform with an eventual path to legalization and citizenship for the undocumented, plus secure borders, Medina told a rain-soaked crowd on the Capitol grounds as the panel - indoors - shoved the Safe Act through.

Led by immigration reform negotiator Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., Judiciary Committee Democrats ducked out of the work session to support the undocumented people, Dreamers, and others gathered outside. "You cannot start by saying 11 million people are rapists, murderers, drug dealers, and gangbangers," Gutierrez said of the GOP's attitude.

"This is what they think of our community," added Medina, the son of immigrants.

"We are listening and will respond accordingly. If they thought 2012 was bad" in terms of the tide of Latino votes against the GOP, "wait 'till 2014 and 2016. There are 50 million reasons that the adults in the Republican Party should step in and stop this."

Photo: SEIU has rolled out a plan to fight the GOP's attacks on immigration. Progress Ohio/Flickr (CC)

Neighbors turn out for fired Domino’s worker

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 15:56:00 +0000

BROOKLYN, N.Y. - The Bushwick community here came out in force to support Gregory Reynoso, a worker at Domino's Pizza who has been fired in retaliation for organizing his fellow workers to secure a $15-an-hour wage and to have union representation. The demonstration of support was organized by the Fast Food Organizing committee.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 113,000 New Yorkers were paid minimum wage in 2012. The campaign for $15 an hour or $12 with benefits has been going on for several months now.

These low wage ($7.25 hr.) workers are fighting for a living wage, so they can raise a family or pay tuition. A quick calculation is quite telling: even at $12 an hour, a forty hour week grosses $480, that's $24,960 a year.

Truvon Shim, a neighborhood resident backing Reynoso, said, "I'm here because Domino's illegally fired one of their workers. I'm here to help him get his job back. We are getting people to sign petitions because as you know the workers in the neighborhood is what makes the business go round.

"We want to let Domino's know that it is unfair to do this to your workers, especially when they are killing themselves to make you richer. The community is buying it; the workers are working; you're just sitting back and getting rich. They're just trying to do something better for themselves. Just support the cause."

A living wage in New York City for a single person, according to the Living Wage Calculator, doesn't constitute a living wage for any type of New Yorker. A single parent with one child, working full time would need to make $23.58 an hour to get by.

A Study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research found that the minimum wage should have reached $21.72 per hour in 2012 if it had kept up with what a dollar could purchase back in the 1960's.

Reverend Cheri Kroon, Associate Minister of the Flatbush Reformed Church, said, "I'm really concerned about my neighborhood. What I see in my neighborhood and all over New York City is that many of the people who live in my neighborhood work in fast food restaurants and the majority of them are not making a living. For me the real tipping point in this campaign, came when I was talking to a fast food worker at a rally and he told me how often his check bounces. And if you go to check cashing places in the city, especially in the poorest neighborhoods, the check cashing places actually have a list on the wall that says, 'We do not take take checks,' and they will list the fast food restaurants that they won't take checks from. So here are people who have worked an honest week's work, right, in a difficult job for very little money and now they can't even cash their check. For me, that was really my tipping point."

The Communications Workers of America and several New York City Council members joined the demonstration. Four workers who were fired from Cablevision in January also joined in support.

During a "mic check," the Reverend Cheri Kroon paraphrased the profit Jeremiah "Administer justice every morning, not every other day, not when we feel like it, but every day."

Photo: Fight for 15 Facebook page