February 25, 2011
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Rally in All 50 States to Save the American Dream (2/26)
Saturday at 12noon in Raleigh, Asheville
In Wisconsin and around the country the American Dream is under fierce attack. Instead of creating jobs, Republicans are giving tax breaks to corporations and the very rich, and then cutting funding for education, police, emergency response and vital human services. The right to organize is on the chopping block. We need to demand and end to the attacks on worker’s rights and public services across the country and demand investment to create decent jobs for the millions of people who desperately want to work. We also want the rich and powerful to pay their fair share.
Rally in Asheville – CLICK HERE TO RSVP
Solidarity Rally – Save the American Dream
Pack Square Park
60 Court Square
Asheville, NC 28801
Share this event on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=104995996245979
Rally in Raleigh – CLICK HERE TO RSVP
Save the American Dream
Capital Building – South Side
Intersection of Morgan and Fayetteville Streets
Raleigh, NC 27601
Share this event on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=136874919713229
Rally Against Corporate Tax Dodgers in Charlotte (2/26)
We pay our taxes. Why don’t they?
U.S. Uncut is a new progressive, people-powered advocacy organization whose aims include ensuring corporations pay their fair share of income tax on the revenue they make instead of hiding it offshore.
On February 26, demonstrations across the United States and the United Kingdom are taking place to bring awareness to the practices of these huge companies, including demonstrations at Bank of America, Target, Amazon, and Comcast:
Enjoying record profits and taxpayer-funded bailouts as the economy slowly recovers from a financial crisis, nearly two-thirds of US corporations don’t pay any income taxes, instead opting to abuse tax loopholes and offshore tax havens. According to this study from the non-partisan Government Accountability Office, 83 of the top 100 publicly traded corporations that operate in the US exploit corporate tax havens. Since 2009, America’s most profitable companies such as ExxonMobil, General Electric, Bank of America and Citigroup all paid a grand total of $0 in federal income taxes to Uncle Sam. Tax havens alone account for up to $1 trillion in tax revenue lost every decade, money that could be invested in K-12 education, colleges, public health, job creation and hundreds of other worthy public programs.
You read that right. Charlotte-based Bank of America has paid ZERO, ZIP, ZILCH in federal income taxes since 2009, despite having received $45 billion in tax-payer supported income. Instead of paying taxes, BofA funneled its income to 115 separate offshore bank accounts while it lavished bank executives with bonuses.
Answer the call to Action in Charlotte on Saturday (2/26)
We pay taxes on the money we make in our state and in our nation. That money pays for our common defense, paves our streets and highways, affords police, fire, and other emergency responders, protects our air and water from pollution, and pays our teachers and builds our schools to educate our children. Ask yourself:
- Why are these corporate tax dodgers not also paying their fair share?
- How many more public sector workers will lose their jobs because of our state and federal budget deficits?
- How much more should you have to pay so the rich can get richer?
What: Peaceful Protest of Corporate Tax Evader Bank of America
When: Saturday, February 26, 2011 from 8:30 AM to 1:30 PM
Where: Bank of America branch, 8551 US Highway 29 North, Charlotte, NC 28262
Click here to RSVP for this event on Facebook.
Wisconsin Power Play
Union busting is always a power grab
Nobel laureate and economist Paul Krugman has a new column in the NY Times this week about the battle in Wisconsin. There, the newly-elected Republican governor, Scott Walker, has set out to destroy public worker unions by eliminating collective bargaining. But this effort is not about helping Wisconsin close a budget gap – a gap already made worse by the governor’s own doing in lowering taxes on the wealthy.
No, what is going on in Wisconsin is about power, says Krugman:
Why bust the unions? As I said, it has nothing to do with helping Wisconsin deal with its current fiscal crisis. Nor is it likely to help the state’s budget prospects even in the long run: contrary to what you may have heard, public-sector workers in Wisconsin and elsewhere are paid somewhat less than private-sector workers with comparable qualifications, so there’s not much room for further pay squeezes.
So it’s not about the budget; it’s about the power.
So what if unions disappear? Why should anyone but public workers in Wisconsin (and Ohio, and Indiana, and Michigan, and elsewhere) care about union busting there?
In principle, every American citizen has an equal say in our political process. In practice, of course, some of us are more equal than others. Billionaires can field armies of lobbyists; they can finance think tanks that put the desired spin on policy issues; they can funnel cash to politicians with sympathetic views (as the Koch brothers did in the case of Mr. Walker). On paper, we’re a one-person-one-vote nation; in reality, we’re more than a bit of an oligarchy, in which a handful of wealthy people dominate.
Given this reality, it’s important to have institutions that can act as counterweights to the power of big money. And unions are among the most important of these institutions.
The “bitter irony” as Krugman describes it is that the oligarchy who oppose unions are the ones whose actions crashed our economy and devastated state and local budgets:
There’s a bitter irony here. The fiscal crisis in Wisconsin, as in other states, was largely caused by the increasing power of America’s oligarchy. After all, it was superwealthy players, not the general public, who pushed for financial deregulation and thereby set the stage for the economic crisis of 2008-9, a crisis whose aftermath is the main reason for the current budget crunch. And now the political right is trying to exploit that very crisis, using it to remove one of the few remaining checks on oligarchic influence.
Click here to read the full column, “Wisconsin Power Play”, by Paul Krugman.
Fox Flips Poll Results to Falsely Claim Americans Oppose Union Bargaining
More lies and the lying liars who tell them
Results from a recent USA Today/Gallup poll show a clear majority of Americans favor protecting collective bargaining. How did Fox News choose to report the results of the poll? It chose to lie about them, of course:
On Fox & Friends, co-host Brian Kilmeade claimed, along with an on-screen graphic, that a recent USA Today/Gallup poll found that “61 percent” of Americans are in favor of taking away collective bargaining rights from public unions. In fact, Fox aired the results of the poll completely backward: the Gallup poll found that 61 percent of Americans are opposed to taking away collective bargaining rights.
Click here to read the full report by MediaMatters, including the transcript of the conversation discussing the results, video from the live broadcast, and the on-screen graphic with the reversed poll numbers Fox & Friends showed during the piece.
Celebrate Int’l Women’s Day with Union Maids Film (3/9)
Special screening in Greensboro
The Triad North Carolina chapter of Jobs with Justice will host a special screening of the fantastic film, Union Maids, on Wednesday, March 9, 2011 to mark the 100th Anniversary of International Women’s Day.
Union Maids is a documentary on the lives and times of three working-class women, Sylvia, Kate, and Stella, who vividly recount what it was like stand up for their rights as workers in the 1930s. From the film distributor:
Sitdowns, scabs, goon squads, unemployment, hunger marches, red baiting and finally the energetic birth of the CIO–the 1930s were a landmark period for the American labor movement. Union Maids is the story of three women who lived the history and make it come alive today.
What: Free screening of documentary film Union Maids (50min)
When: Wednesday, March 9, 2011 at 7:00pm
Where: Benjamin Branch Library, 1530 Benjamin Parkway, Greensboro, NC
Click here to download the flyer for this event. For more information, contact Melissa or Mark Dimondstein at 336 299-6810.
Wall St. Pay Reached Obscene New High in 2010
WSJ: Executives pocketed $135bn in bonuses
If you are reading this, chances are good you are not among the elite executives on Wall Street who collected $135 billion in bonus money last year. More likely is that you are among the vast majority of American workers who are being asked to sacrifice their jobs, their pensions, their health care, their public services – sacrifices that make such obscene payouts possible.
For example, from the Wall Street Journal:
Bank of America Chief Executive Brian Moynihan got a 67% bump in his total compensation for 2010, the company said Monday. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. tripled the salary of Chairman and CEO Lloyd C. Blankfein and increased his stock-based bonus 40% to $12.6 million.
Instead of being a land of opportunity, the United States is becoming a land of sacrifices. But clearly that’s not the case for everyone, says AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka:
Today’s Wall Street bonuses are just one more example of how shared sacrifice only applies to the middle class, not corporate CEOs. While executives on Wall Street fret over the size of their bonuses, the rest of the country is worried about how they will put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads. As 14 million unemployed Americans desperately search for work, the Wall Street Journal estimates that banks and securities firms paid out a record $135 billion in total compensation for 2010. And in state after state, public employees are being asked to pay for deficits that the Wall Street financial crisis created.
What’s just as shameful is that those at the very top are getting tax breaks at a time of such vast need for everyday Americans. And what are these billionaires doing with that money? Using their political muscle to destroy workers’ freedom to bargain collectively for a middle class life. They are attacking public service employees based on the falsehood that firefighters, teachers and nurses are overpaid.
Rebuilding our economy requires addressing the growing income gap so clearly illustrated by Wall Street’s bonuses. America cannot retain its greatness with two different worlds – one for working people and another for those at the top. These bonuses show why Wall Street must be regulated. Yet members of Congress are trying to repeal the types of protections put in place to ensure Wall Street can’t cause another economic crisis, including targeting the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. We have to hold fast to these Wall Street reforms and demand that the billionaires pay their fair share.
Dropkick Murphys Release Song in Solidarity w/WI Workers
Listen to "Take ‘Em Down"
Rock band the Dropkick Murphys has released a new song in solidarity with Wisconsin workers who are currently fighting to protect collective bargaining from an all-out assault by titans of industry and their bought politicians. In a statement announcing the song’s release on their blog, the band said:
Hey Everyone, the Dropkick Murphys would like to take a moment to acknowledge the struggles of the working people of Wisconsin and to pledge our support and solidarity by releasing the song “Take Em Down” from our upcoming album. We think it’s appropriate at the moment and hope you like it.
We have also created a limited edition “Take ‘Em Down” t-shirt which will be available for sale shortly at www.dropkickmurphys.com/merch. Proceeds from the “Take ‘Em Down” t-shirt sales will benefit Workers’ Rights Emergency Response Fund (https://afl.salsalabs.com/o/4002/wi-response).
We’ll see you in Wisconsin in a few days,
The Dropkick Murphys Stand With Wisconsin !!!!!
Listen to the song, “Take ‘Em Down” then share it with your fellow union members, friends, family, and social networks. It’s a great protest song that’s sure to get you fired up.
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