http://wisaflcio.typepad.com/wisconsin-state-afl-cio-blog/2017/02/labor-history-conference.html

Larry Cohen, former national president of the Communications Workers of America and a key leader of Our Revolution, will keynote the 36th Annual Conference of the Wisconsin Labor History Society Saturday, April 8, at the Madison Labor Temple.

Cohen is board chair of Our Revolution, a group that includes many supporters of Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders and is committed to empowering unionists and other activists on progressive political and legislative causes.

Entitled, “Building Workers Power: When Labor’s Under Attack, How Do We Fight Back,” the conference will hear about labor’s many successes against past challenges and to discuss strategies to meet the challenges of current state and federal policies that curb the rights of working people.  Jon Shelton, historian from University of Wisconsin – Green Bay, will offer historical perspective, followed by a panel discussion on how unions are successfully responding in today’s anti-union climate.

Phil Neuenfeldt, Wisconsin State AFL-CIO president, will discuss labor’s response in an afternoon session that will also include Robert Kraig, executive director of Wisconsin Citizen Action, a state legislator and a building trades representative, both to be named later.

The conference will provide time for discussion from the audience.

Awards will be presented to winners of the high school essay contest, for scholarship in labor history and to a person for lifetime achievement.  The Society’s annual meeting will be held at the end of the program, about 3 p.m.  Regular business and election of officers will be held.  (See details and registration here.  Online registration available at http://wislabor2017.eventbrite.com)

Labor-community solidarity fighting back against right-to-work-for-less and other austerity attacks against the people Feb. 24, 2015 in the state capitol inn Madison.

Great news! The men and women who work at the Momentive plant in Waterford, NY, just reached a breakthrough agreement to end their 14-week strike, and are now back on the job.

Thanks to people like you uniting for good jobs, we’re making progress for working families. And that’s why we need your help again.

AT&T rakes in big profits, earning a record profit of $13 billion last year. Yet AT&T wants the people who make its wireless business so successful to agree to outsourcing and pay cuts. AT&T Wireless customer service agents, technicians, and sales associates are determined to stand together and fight back against corporate greed.

Will you have their backs?

More than 21,000 people who work for AT&T Wireless are standing up to powerful corporate interests to demand good jobs and a better future for us all. They are joining together to negotiate a fair contract and pushing back against AT&T’s demands to do more work for less.

They’re also prepared to do whatever it takes to stick their necks out to save family-sustaining jobs and sustain their communities, including going on strike.

Join with them and send a message to CEO Randall Stephenson that customers and the public will stand with AT&T employees for as long as it takes. Add your name to our petition to stand with the working people of AT&T.

Your support helps strengthen the power of working people – not only at AT&T but all across the country. Resist corporate power. Sign the petition to AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson to stand up for good jobs.

Thank you,
Ehmonie
Jobs With Justice

Today, tens of thousands of immigrant workers and business owners have gone on strike and closed their businesses in resistance to Trump’s immigration raids. Today’s nationwide strike follows Wisconsin’s Day without Latinos, Immigrants, and Refugees on Monday, led by Voces de la Frontera, which has inspired immigrant workers and their supporters to rise up. Following Trump’s executive orders on immigration, ICE agents have targeted some of society’s most vulnerable members. In El Paso, a transgender domestic violence survivor was arrested by ICE at a courthouse after testifying against her abuser. ICE has arrested DACA recipients and people staying at homeless shelters.

Voces de la Frontera joins the Fair Immigration Reform Movement, Movimiento Cosecha and others in calling for a national general strike on May 1st to demand Trump rescind his executive orders on immigration.

“Following Monday’s Day Without Latinos, Immigrants, and Refugees in Wisconsin, we are witnessing a spontaneous groundswell of immigrant workers, small business owners, and our supporters taking similar bold action to demand an end to Trump’s deportation raids,” said Christine Neumann-Ortiz, Executive Director of Voces de la Frontera. “We applaud the leadership of immigrant workers and business owners around the country in using their economic power, and we call on community organizations to follow their lead. We invite organizations and the public to join us in coordinated, escalated actions nationwide leading up to a mass general strike on May 1st. Monday, May 1st, 2017, must be a national Day Without Latinos, Immigrants, and Refugees to demand Trump rescind all of his executive orders on immigration.”

Photo: Sue Ruggles

http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Political-Action-Legislation/Union-Members-Defend-Working-People-Targeted-by-Trump-s-Aggressive-Immigration-Raids

Working people deserve to go to work every day without fear for their safety or being harassed. They deserve to go out the door and make a living without worrying about their lives being upended. These are sacred tenets people and their unions value.

Hotel workers, farm workers, teachers, taxi drivers, airport, construction and retail workers have been making their voices heard in Los Angeles; Phoenix; Austin, Texas; New York City; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and many points in between over the past week. Why?  We are defending our neighbors, co-workers and friends who are being swept up in a series of immigration raids. Working people understand in our bones that when the government terrorizes people who are simple living their lives and going to work each day, we all lose. When we allow ourselves to be divided, we are weak, when we are weak, standards erode for all of us.

The early weeks of the Trump administration have sent alarming signals that its law enforcement priorities will target and punish working people, rather than those who steal their wages, harass them on the job and expose them to dangerous working conditions. Such strategies make people afraid to go to work and take their children to school, let alone take action to demand better working conditions or speak up when they encounter abuse. Moreover, they drive down the pay and protections for all working people—immigrant and non-immigrant alike.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, sometimes in collaboration with local law enforcement, has arrested hundreds of immigrants, regardless of how long they have lived in the United States or how strong their ties to the community. These highly visible enforcement actions make working people far less likely to exercise their rights at work or to cooperate with law enforcement in their communities. Worse, we hear accounts that racial profiling tactics are leading to collateral arrests and that detainees are being denied due process and access to counsel—further chilling the exercise of fundamental rights.

The labor movement calls on the administration to rein in the tactics that terrorize immigrant workers and fail to make our communities safer or our jobs better. Cities and states around the country have shown a better way forward by committing to ensure basic rights and protections to all members of their communities. The labor movement will stand proudly and firmly with all local leaders who support workers’ rights and prevent exploitation. We know these communities are defending our right to organize to lift standards and cracking down on abusive employers who retaliate against working people. These are core values of the labor movement.

Blacksburg, VA

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

To view in your browser, click here: WWP Forum: The Detroit Rebellion of 1967 and Its Global Significance

Facebook event: African American History Month 2017 Public Forum

Facebook page: Workers World Party – Michigan, Workers World Party

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• Debbie Johnson, Chair–Workers World Party Detroit on “The Need for a Revolutionary Party Today”
• Comrade Mond Toussaint Louverture–Workers World Party Youth Organizer and Spoken Word Artist on “The Role of National Culture in the Revolutionary Struggle”: Perspectives on Frantz Fanon’s “The Wretched of the Earth”
• Abayomi Azikiwe–Editor of the Pan-African News Wire, Contributing Editor to Workers World Newspaper on “The Lessons of the 1967 Rebellions for the 21st Century”

On July 23, 1967, the largest urban rebellion in United States history began in the city of Detroit at the corner of Clairmount and 12th (now Rosa Parks Blvd). This year represents the 50th anniversary of this historic event which transformed the character of the African American liberation struggle in the U.S.

During 1967, urban rebellions took place in over 160 cities throughout the country. These events coincided with the rise of the antiwar movement in the U.S. and the advances of national liberation struggles around the world from Vietnam to Southern Africa.

Our African American History Month program this year will initiate a series of discussions not only commemorating these developments of 1967 but their significance in the reemerging peoples’ movements in 2017. Today we are facing the rise of neo-fascism and renewed institutional racism designed to force the African American people, other oppressed nations and the working class as a whole back into extreme economic exploitation and state repression.

We need to assess the gains which emerged from the movements of the 1960s through the conclusion of the 20th century and the need to refurbish our analysis, fighting spirit and organizational capacity. In the city of Detroit we have been at the cutting edge of the mass and ideological struggles that have impacted both the U.S. and the world in the recent period.

Also registration information, palm cards and posters for the March 25-26 Midwest Conference on Socialism and National Liberation will be available at this forum. This conference is being sponsored by the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) at Wayne State University with the co-sponsorship of Workers World Party Detroit branch. Midwest WWP Fight For National Liberation and Socialism Conference

Please join us at this important political meeting. In addition to these talks there will be substantial time for audience participation.

Meeting will be streamed on Facebook at Workers World Party – Michigan

https://womenstrikeus.org/

The International Women’s Strike on March 8th, 2017 is an international day of action, planned and organized by women in over 30 different countries.

In the spirit of solidarity and internationalism, in the United States March 8th will be a day of action organized by and for women who have been marginalized and silenced by decades of neoliberalism directed towards working women, women of color, Native women, disabled women, immigrant women, Muslim women, lesbian, queer and trans women.

March 8th will be the beginning of a new international feminist movement that organizes resistance not just against Trump and his misogynist policies, but also against the conditions that produced Trump, namely the decades long economic inequality, racial and sexual violence, and imperial wars abroad.

We celebrate the diversity of the many social groups that have come together for the International Women’s Strike. We come from many political traditions but are united around the following common principles… https://womenstrikeus.org/our-platform/

Blacksburg, VA