Jobs with Justice: 25 Years, 25 Voices book cover

Jobs with Justice: 25 Years, 25 Voices

Author(s): Eric Larson (Editor), Larry Cohen (Contributor), Rev. Calvin Morris PhD (Contributor), Sarita Gupta (Contributor)

Publisher: PM Press
Publication Date: 1 Sept. 2013
Edition: Illustrated
Language: English
Print length: 182 pages
ISBN-10: 1604867469
ISBN-13: 9781604867466

Book Description

The world today has no shortage of economic crises—or politicians and pundits who claim to have the vision that will get us out of the Great Recession. For 25 years, the labor-community coalition Jobs with Justice (JwJ) has endured the brutal vagaries of the global economy with a single alternative economic vision. By putting its ideas into practice, it has won powerful victories with working-class communities.

Through a series of interviews and essays, this book allows the community, labor, immigrant, student, and faith activists that have built Jobs with Justice to show us why their economic vision matters. They tell us why the organization’s core principle—the power of solidarity between unions, community groups, and immigrant, student, and faith organizations—continues to drive its victories at the local, national, and international levels. They tell us how the belief in solidarity leads not only to short-term alliances, but also to transformed relationships and permanent coalitions. They tell us how it has led—and will lead—to concrete victories for social and economic justice.

Though the book reflects on the last 25 years of the Jobs with Justice coalition, it’s very much directed at the next 25. It includes the perspectives of longtime national leaders like founder Larry Cohen, newcomers like Ai-Jen Poo of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, and the locally-based, working-class men and women who have built JwJ from the ground up.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Jobs with Justice . . . is a moving and insightful tribute to a project and movement that has represented the soul of organized labor in the U.S.A. The stories contained in this volume reach beyond traditional organized labor and touch upon all those concerned with building a true movement for economic and social justice of which organized labor must be part. The determination that comes through in the stories, often in the face of significant challenges imposed on working people and their organizations, leads one to wish to shout: Yes, it can be done! Si se puede!" —Bill Fletcher, Jr., author, "They're Bankrupting Us!": And 20 Other Myths about Unions

"Jobs With Justice: 25 Years, 25 Voices uses oral history to trace JwJ’s development as a singularly effective vehicle for uniting workers, their unions, and non-labor allies." —Steve Early, Popular Resistance

"The book describes campaigns ranging from strikes and union organizing drives to health care, living wage, and anti-discrimination efforts, where JwJ has played a pivotal role in winning." —Mark Vorpahl, Labor Notes

"This is a wonderful beginning on preparing any reader for the story of labor in the 21st century." —Paul Buhle, LAWCHA

"Jobs with Justice is an inspiring reminder of where we’ve been and a look ahead to where we need to go." —Debra Kidney, Labor Studies Journal

"Jobs with Justice: 25 Years, 25 Voices is an inspiring reminder of where we’ve been and a look ahead to where we need to go." —Debra W. Kidney, Labor Studies Journal

About the Author

Eric Larson is a lecturer of history and literature at Harvard University. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Larry Cohen is the president of the Communications Workers of America and the Jobs with Justice founder. He lives in Washington, DC. Rev. Calvin Morris, PhD, is a member of the Jobs with Justice National Board of Directors and the former executive director of the Community Renewal Society in Chicago. He lives in Chicago. Sarita Gupta is the executive director of Jobs with Justice. She lives in Washington, DC.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Jobs with Justice

Name: Jobs with Justice: 25 Years, 25 Voices
Author: Eric Larson (Editor), Larry Cohen (Contributor), Rev. Calvin Morris PhD (Contributor), Sarita Gupta (Contributor)
ISBN: 9781604867466

25 Years, 25 Voices

By Eric Larson

PM Press

Acknowledgments,
Editor's Preface: Capturing the Stories of the "Permanent Coalition" — Eric Larson,
Introduction: Stand Up! Fight Back! — Larry Cohen,
Part I: Jobs with Justice Means ... Victory,
Mattie Stegall (Nacogdoches, TX),
Stewart Acuff (Atlanta, GA),
Steve Valencia (Tucson, AZ),
Margaret Butler (Portland, OR),
Maria Whyte (Buffalo, NY),
Lara Granich (St. Louis, MO),
Ai-Jen Poo (New York City),
Part II: Jobs with Justice Means ... Transforming Relationships, Bridging Differences,
Carl Rosen (Chicago, IL),
Rand Wilson (Boston, MA),
Barbara Ingalls (Detroit, MI),
John Ryan (Cleveland, OH),
Fred Azcarate (National JwJ Office),
Mary Beth Maxwell; (National JwJ Office),
Russ Davis (Boston, MA),
Simon Greer (National JwJ Office/New York City),
Treston Davis-Faulkner (Philadelphia/National JwJ Office),
Part III: Jobs with Justice Means ... Fighting for the Future,
Michael Leon Guerrero (National JwJ Board of Directors),
Marielena Hincapié (National JwJ Board of Directors),
Denise Diaz (Central Florida),
Israel Alvaran (San Francisco, CA),
Isaiah Toney (Student Labor Action Project/National JwJ Office),
Saket Soni (New Orleans, LA),
Conclusion: Jobs with Justice — The Next Chapter,
Sarita Gupta (Executive director, Jobs with Justice),
Closing Meditation,
Rev. Calvin Morris, Ph.D. (Former national JwJ board member),

CHAPTER 1

Mattie Stegall (B. 1947 - D. 2012) Former Texas State Employees Union-CWA leader and JwJ activist

I'd like to hear about some of your thoughts and stories about Nacogdoches and the union campaign at Stephen F. Austin State University (in the 1980s). How did you start working at Stephen F. Austin?

I worked in the kitchen, and I worked there 23 years. When we first started working, they paid us $99 a month. ... It went pretty good for a while until they decided to contract out. We didn't understand why they wanted to contract out a million-dollar job. We were making a million of dollars a year in food service, and they were going to contract out the business. That's when we decided to form the union, and that's when I met {TSEU-CWA 6186 organizers} Johnny Ware and Danny Fetonte, and there were several others. Through Mr. Arthur Weaver {head of the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People}, we met them and we decided to go for it. I think I was the first one to sign up for the union, my husband signed, and then we kept talking and pretty soon we had a lot of people pointing in that same direction, and that's how it started. We just went from there, trying to make things better, and it actually helped a little for a while.

That day when we had the Jobs with Justice rally, we did the little march from the park to the campus. That was a sight to see. As far as you could see, if you stood down on Power Street, you could see people coming off the hill from the park, and we had a lot of help from a lot of people. Some of them we didn't even know were supporting us. That was something else. I can just see it now, all the people walking from the building until up on the campus. And when we got {to the rally}, they took turns speaking, different people. That was one heck of a thing.

I think things kind of changed for Nacogdoches then. Because they used to have like washeterias here, and on one side it said "White," and one said "Colored." {One time} there was an attendant there and I put my colored clothes over on this side, and then I walked around to the White side where it says "White," and put my white clothes in. And it was {the manager} and another lady in there, and they just kept looking at me, and in fact he said, "What are you doing?" I said, "Well, that sign up there says "White" and "Colored," and I put my colored clothes here and I thought I was supposed to wash my white clothes over there." It was a couple of weeks and they took the sign down.

I mean, it was kind of stupid to me anyway, with the signs like that. I grew up in west Texas and we all grew up together {with Whites}. There was no big separation. Of course, when I first went up there and went to school, {Blacks and Whites} had different schools, but that changed before the rules came in where you had to change schools. But down here {in East Texas} it was really different. Certain places you couldn't go in the front. If you wanted to eat at Shepard's restaurant you had to go to the back and be served in the kitchen. {My husband} used to work in Shepard's restaurant, and when he was coming home he would tell me about people eating in the back. There were a lot of places like that around here. Like even the doctor's office. It was stupid. We was all seeing the same doctor and we was all spending the same money, so what difference did it make? ... Things have changed some. Not very much. But they have changed.

One of the things I went through here in Nacogdoches ... {was} the way they never promoted us on the job, and never put us in managerial positions or anything. They always brought in somebody and we had to teach them what to do and how to do it, but then they would get the job and get the credit for it. Like I trained two or three of them, but they never offered me the position. But I worked 23 years up there in the kitchen. I enjoyed my time most of the time until they contracted out to the ARA company, and lot of people got frustrated and quit, and they would fire a lot of people. ... I wouldn't work up there today if I had to.

But we had a lot of good times up there working together. I can remember the night that we were counting the vote to see if we would get {a union}. Mr. Goade was one of the managers there, and he would be sitting there and tapping his pencil, and every time they would get a "no" vote, he would tap a little louder. You know, like, "I got this." It got down and all them votes kept coming in "yes," and "yes," and I knew we would get {it}. And he snapped his pencil and got red as a beet, and I said, "Is there a problem?" And he got up and left the room {laughs}. Oh, it was something else. You actually had to be there to see it, some of the stuff that happened. But we had lot of problems — still have problems, but not quite as bad. I think we made it a little better for the ones that came after us.

CHAPTER 2

STewart Acuff

Cofounder, Atlanta Jobs with Justice Former president, Atlanta AFL-CIO, and former national JwJ board member

You've been president of a central labor council and you've been organizing director at the AFL-CIO. What do you think the role of JwJ is within the Labor movement? What was it and what is it?

JwJ is probably the most effective national community-Labor coalition over a long period of time in the history of the Labor movement. JwJ was born during a period of severe assaults in the form of forced strikes and concession demands in 1987, and JwJ did two really important things. One was that it rediscovered a culture relevant to the Labor movement, and it sort of woke up Labor leaders who wanted to hold onto the social contract that American corporations and Labor had in the '50s and at least part of the '60s and part of the '70s. JwJ said, "Look, this social contract has been destroyed by government and by American business and the financial...

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Jobs with Justice: 25 Years, 25 Voices