In the coming weeks, with the economy slowing and in many places halting, we will need to support one another in greater ways than we have in a long time. Here are some of the resources becoming available for working people to access. Help us spread the word so that people get what they need! We will work to keep you all up-to-date as additional information comes out!

Front-line healthcare workers are doing everything they can to keep patients, communities and themselves alive during this crisis. But too many don’t have the personal protective equipment (PPE), the medical equipment, or the tests they need. The Trump administration must immediately invoke the Defense Production Act to manufacture much needed equipment, and release PPE from the Strategic Defense Stockpile. Essential workers lives’ are on the line! #GetMePPE

Sign the petition now in support of front-line health care workers!

Did you see Nafisah’s note last week? Jobs With Justice and our partners have joined together and demanded big banks and landlords put people over profits. We’ve sent letters to the biggest names in the rental and housing markets and if we don’t hear from them or they refuse our basic demands, we’re calling on everyone who can to STRIKE on May 1st.

Will you sign the pledge and join our rent strike if the banks and landlords don’t meet our demands?

We’re also planning to hold a call on Monday, April 27th to address next steps. If you sign the pledge, we will send along all the information on how you can join that call and hear the latest from Jobs With Justice leaders.

Thank you for everything you do—especially in times of crisis.

In Solidarity,

Joel
Jobs With Justice

Dear Friends,

Thank you for signing our petition to pressure Nike and Under Armour to do right by garment workers. Nike has committed to pay in full for the garment orders they placed that have been completed or are still in production according to the Worker Rights Consortium’s Covid-19 Tracker.

However, Under Armour has yet to commit and this is unacceptable! It’s time for us to let them know they must put #WorkersOverUnderArmour and publicly commit to paying for their orders.

There is no excuse for a brand making billions to fail to pay for the orders they’ve already placed which impacts workers and their family’s livelihoods over the coming months during this trying time. Under Armour must pay workers what they are rightfully owed! #WorkersOverUnderArmour

Take Action to support garment workers on Tuesday April 21, 2020 by tweeting Under Armour:

Supporter tweet: I support garment workers! It’s time for @UnderArmour to join major brands like @Nike & @adidas in committing to pay in full for orders completed and in production. #WorkersOverUnderArmour usas.org/paygarmentworkers @USAS

Student tweet: Students like me are in solidarity with garment workers! If @Nike could #JustPayIt why can’t @UnderArmour pay for orders completed/in production. #WorkersOverUnderArmour usas.org/paygarmentworkers @USAS

If your university licenses with Under Armour (University of Maryland, University of California system, University of Wisconsin–Madison, etc) tweet the following:

As a student of (university) which licenses with @UnderArmour I demand you stop putting the livelihoods of garment workers at risk! Commit to pay for completed/orders in production in full! @Nike did it why can’t you? #WorkersOverUnderArmour usas.org/paygarmentworkers @USAS

Please donate to USAS and help us win more victories!

In solidarity,

USAS

“As long as people use tactics to oppress or restrict other people from being free, there is work to be done.” — Mrs. Rosa Parks

By the Wisconsin Bail Out The People Movement

The right-wing anti-worker racists attempting to organize white supremacist shock troop recruitment rallies in Wisconsin (and across the United States) are now trying to use the heroes of the Civil Rights movement (Mrs. Rosa Parks et. al) to justify their cause and consolidate their forces.

Those organizing the “re-open” recruitment “rallies” include leaders and members of the capitalist “think tanks” the Americans For Prosperity, the Heritage Foundation and the Wisconsin Institute For Law and Liberty all funded in part by the $900 million extreme right-wing Milwaukee-based Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation [https://www.bradleyfdn.org/]. These right-wing organizations and others funded by Bradley have attacked poor and working people worldwide every day for decades. / [https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Lynde_and_Harry_Bradley_Foundation]

In the past decade in Wisconsin, the majority of the gains poor and working people have made in the past 80 years in the state have been eviscerated. The Bradley Foundation along with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and others wrote the blueprints for implementing “charter schools,” “welfare reform,” and “union reforms,” – all with a eugenics/Jim Crow base (Bradley funded “The Bell Curve…,” a fundamental right-wing movement text although it’s been debunked worldwide as unscientific.) Bradley’s Board of Director’s is a who’s who of personnel from Wall Street, the Pentagon and union busting law firms [https://www.bradleyfdn.org/people]

Bradley personnel has also spent decades directly or indirectly grooming, training and funding their servant politicians – both Democrat and Republican – such as Robin Vos, Scott Fitzgerald, Scott Walker et. al. and right-wing initiatives such as the “tea party movement.”

Bradley’s program in short is a capitalism with the gloves off approach: Reducing or shredding social safety nets and regulations and attacking unions at every turn all of which has led to what we’re now facing during this COVID-19 pandemic. / [https://projects.jsonline.com/news/2017/5/5/hacked-records-show-bradley-foundation-taking-wisconsin-model-national.html

A short list of the right-wing/Wall Street/Pentagon full court press austerity in Wisconsin since 2011:

• Act 10;
• Right-To-Work (for less);
• Elimination of residency rules;
• Increasing funding for the prison-industrial complex;
• The gutting of environmental regulations;
• Attacks on women’s reproductive freedom;
• Bigoted attacks on the LGBTQ community;
• Reduction of Civil Service and Tenure protections;
• Attacked migrants/the undocumented by removing opportunities to obtain drivers licenses, to access worker protections and more;
• Supporting the Pentagon budget and bank bailouts and giving more debt service to finance capital;
• Numerous attacks on Unemployment Insurance, Medicare, Medicaid;
• Wage cuts for public sector workers whereby workers have to pay more of their take home pay for pensions and healthcare;
• Relaxed or eviscerated hundreds of regulatory laws, statutes and codes for corporations and banks in Wisconsin;
• Eviscerated or reduced the Department of Natural Resources and other environmental resource protections;
• De-funding Planned Parenthood and other health care services for women and LGBTQ people;
• Eliminating or de-funding social safety net programs;
• De-funding and attacking the world renowned University of Wisconsin System and the Wisconsin Technical System;
• Eliminating numerous supports including resource centers for K-12 and higher education students within public education;
• Increasing funding for the police and not for living wage jobs and other direly needed services;
• Massive wage cuts for public sector workers annually as per Act 10 even if a union is “re-certified” that union can only bargain over wages up to the rate of inflation;
• Deepening austerity by de-funding public education and other public services;
• Destroying regulations in the health care industry and elsewhere;
• Billions more to the banks in “debt service” and other austerity mechanisms;
• And much more ….
• Now these right-wingers – in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic no less – claim they care about us the workers and our communities and our small businesses. We know the racist rich only care about one thing: profit! Through these “re-open” recruitment rallies, the Wall Street vultures – with the open assistance of the Trump administration – are attempting to consolidate an even deeper right-wing white supremacist base by activating their networks, alliances and politicians such as Scott Walker – and to try and divide white workers from their real class allies. 

The right-wingers actions in attempting to use the Civil Rights movement in their opportunistic and debased way also shows their great fear – and their understanding of the potential power of the internationalist Black Freedom Struggle and the uniting of this with other people’s movements, migrants struggles, unions, progressive student orgs. etc. Thus the reason Bradley ensures their servants such as Vos, Fitzgerald, Scott Walker et. al are trained on the “divide and conquer” tactics and strategies. 

The people’s movement must oppose with all its strength through direct action this right-wing “re-open” right-wing movement. The need: Building a serious people’s united front with an independent internationalist program and self-defense mechanisms such as worker’s and community defense guards now during the COVID-19 pandemic and moving forward.  

We the real people’s movements will not be divided and conquered! Union Yes!, Jim Crow, NO! All power to the people! Stop the war on Black and Brown America! Money for free healthcare and other people’s needs – not bank bailouts, wars and racist laws/policies! Smash the racist and fascist minded servant politicians and their Wall Street masters! Make the banks pay! People’s Needs Not Racist Anti-Worker Austerity! No Pasaran! 

Sources for Bradley Foundation grants:

https://www.bradleyfdn.org/grants/archived-grants

2019 Year in Review (6.56 MB PDF)

2018 Year in Review (1.1 MB PDF)

2017 Annual Report (1.03 MB PDF)

2016 Annual Report (1.02 MB PDF)

2016 Report to Wisconsin (1.82 MB PDF)

2015 Annual Report (1.6 MB PDF)

2015 Report to Wisconsin (1.5 MB PDF)

2014 Annual Report (1.05 MB PDF)

2014 Report to Wisconsin (1.34 MB PDF)

2013 Annual Report (1.35 MB PDF)

2013 Report to Wisconsin (1.46 MB PDF)

Organizations That Are Or Have Researched the Bradley Foundation:

A Job Is A Right Campaign. Produced the report, “The Feeding Trough….”

https://rethinkingschools.org/

https://powerbase.info/index.php/Lynde_and_Harry_Bradley_Foundation

_________

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) Founding

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was founded in April 1960, by young people who had emerged as leaders of the sit-in protest movement initiated on February 1 of that year. Here are a few key lesson, articles, books, and films on the history, philosophy, and legacy of SNCC.

Resources for the Civil Rights Movement at the Zinn Education Project: https://bit.ly/2XLLIbR

https://www.zinnedproject.org/

https://www.powells.com/

SNCC workers prepare to go to Belzoni, Miss., in the Fall of 1963 to organize for the Freedom Vote.  Ida Mae Holland is sitting in the center and the woman to the right in the white sweater is Mary Lane. They were both from Greenwood. / Photo courtesy of Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement.

https://bit.ly/2VCl4j3

https://www.rankandfile.ca/

LETTER FROM A GROCERY STORE WORKER

By Achilles*

Ever since it broke out, the COVID-19 pandemic took over the world. It disrupted and pushed lives of many into a state of uncertainty. But for essential workers, the show must go on.

I work at one of the grocery stores in Kingston, Ontario, owned by a big corporate chain. We have been working hard to keep the store well stocked amidst all the panic. We kept ordering stocks in large quantities which we usually only do during Christmas. The only protective equipment we get are disposable gloves. We have a safety tutorial pasted on the wall showing how to properly wear a mask, but we don’t have any masks. Customers keep running into us and we are exposed all the time.

Apart from the risky environment where workers keep getting exposed, the workload itself has been overwhelming. We got a $2 raise for a month for all the increased workload and risk, but the pay still falls short of Kingston’s living wage. At the time of this crisis where most of you are worried about your own safety, many of my co-workers are grateful that they are making a little extra money.

So much for getting labelled as essential workers, right?

I am an immigrant working part time at this moment with no healthcare plan. Ontario’s provincial health insurance doesn’t take immigrants into consideration [they must work 6 months before qualifying for OHIP, and have no insurance with their employer]. If I were to catch the virus and fall sick, I will certainly go bankrupt to access basic healthcare.

I get paid minimum wage and most of my earnings go towards paying rent. Should I really worry about getting exposed or should I feel grateful that I am going make a couple of hundred dollars extra on top of my monthly pay?

We don’t need appreciation from you for working during these times. We don’t want to be labelled as “heroes”. All we need is a better pay – during all times. We need some protection from getting exposed at work and essential workers deserve a better life too. Every single time I glance down the sheet that outlines profit margins per item in my department, I keep questioning if minimum wage is what we deserve. At the end of the day, some of us go searching for cheap grocery deals on flyers of various stores to get our own groceries, because we simply cannot afford them at the very store we work for.

The next time you think about customer service, keep these people in mind. They get paid minimum wage even after working for years and are exploited by the corporate chains for their greed and remember, it took a pandemic to bring these issues to limelight! Give them some space when you walk in to get groceries on your next visit.

*Achilles is a pseudonym. We have protected the worker’s identity to prevent employer retaliation.

Our return guest is Gonzaga University prof Joan Braune, a former Milwaukeean and expert on the far right. We talk about how the COVID pandemic has shifted the terms of alt-right recruitment and created opportunities and dangers for both left and right. Check out her blog at joanbraune.com/blog-feed/.