Fight for a Fair Economy

Election Message from SEIU 1021 President Roxanne Sanchez

Published on May 4th 2012

The 2012 elections present us with many challenges. Public employees are being scapegoated for our economic woes, while the Wall Street crashers have been getting away with grand theft.

Our retirement is the target of dishonest and misguided “pension reform” proposals. The Right is trying to silence our voice with their “Corporate Deception” measure. Contract negotiations across the local are dominated by wage concession demands and more and more expensive health care. Our communities continue to face dwindling services, school cuts and foreclosures.

It doesn’t have to be this way. We have a chance this year to begin to turn it around, to elect officials who will stand with the 99% for a change.

Single-Payer Update at Convention

Published on February 27th 2012

" How many of you have a family member or a friend who doesn't have health insurance? How many bargained a new contract last year and have seen their co-pays go up, or their benefits go down, or both?" These were opening lines spoken by Ed Kinchley, Single-Payer Health Care Campaign member, to a packed 1021 Member Convention ballroom. It was an exceptional opportunity for SEIU membership to learn about how this important Single Payer Campaign can address our looming health care needs.

We Are the 99% Too: SEIU 1021 joins Occupy Oakland for Peaceful Day of Action

Published on November 5th 2011

Hundreds of SEIU 1021 members took to the streets of Oakland on Wednesday, joining thousands more in a city-wide general strike that caught the entire world's attention after a peaceful "Occupy Oakland" encampment was brutally smashed by police in the dark hours before dawn a week earlier. Indeed, signs in support of Oakland could be seen on TV throughout the Middle East.

The day's actions were widely reported in the press and don't need much repeating here. Three major marches took off from 14th and Broadway, in front of City Hall and the epicenter of the strike, Frank Ogawa Plaza (renamed Oscar Grant Plaza after a young African American man shot by a transit cop in Oakland a few years ago).

At the first two, protesters surrounded nearby branches of Chase, Citi and Bank of America to demand an end to the rampant foreclosures that have ravaged families and communities across the nation; in the evening, thousands more marched a mile to the Port of Oakland to shut down operations.

All the while, thousands more stayed put at the plaza, site of the now-rebuilt encampment: listening to speeches and music and spoken word poets, hanging with the returned occupiers, visiting booths and memorials, and generally keeping up the buoyant attitude that made the general strike as upbeat as an outdoor music festival.

SEIU 1021 retired paramedic Jon Meade and SEIU 1021 Community RN Martha Hawthorne join the occupation.

‘We are the 99%’

Published on October 13th 2011

Chanting “We are the 99%” and calling for democracy and economic justice, Occupy Wall Street West targeted foreclosure champion Wells Fargo bank in its Oct. 12 action. It was the second big demonstration in San Francisco in two weeks, and came as the movement is gaining momentum and spontaneously combusting coast to coast, throughout the heartland and in the reddest of states.

Gathering near the foot of Market Street at the Federal Reserve Building, more than 500 “occupiers” marched noisily through the financial district. The San Francisco action reflected the recent trend in New York and around the country—the presence of union members, their colors and banners ablaze in the dim early morning light, swelling the ranks of the young, bold occupiers. SEIU 1021 members, teachers, janitors, longshoremen, telecommunications and electrical workers, and many more were welcomed as natural allies.

Click here to view photos of the action

Why Labor Backs 'Occupy Wall Street'

Published on October 11th 2011

The banks refuse to invest in the small businesses that drive job creation, and they kick us while we're down by foreclosing on millions of families.

By Mary Kay Henry

President, SEIU International

The images of row upon row of stoic airline pilots, fed-up students and thousands of Americans marching through downtown Manhattan have captivated the nation.

Seemingly overnight, the organic, scrappy protests in the financial center of the world have blossomed into a national movement from Chicago to Los Angeles, calling attention to the gross inequality in our society and the unwillingness of our politicians to correct this imbalance.

The Occupy Wall Street actions are a potent example of what is happening across our country as the anger and frustration of ordinary Americans builds. While the media and pundits obsess over what the Occupy Wall Street protester's want, the protesters have already succeeded in shaking our conscience as a nation and forcing a national conversation about everything that is wrong with our economy.

SEIU to Americans Occupying Wall Street

Published on October 5th 2011

Service Employees International Union (SEIU) International President Mary Kay Henry on the Wall Street Occupation

"We've Got Your Back, We Will Join You in the Streets, and We Will Not Let Up Until We Bring Good Jobs Back to Our Communities."

The brave students, workers, and unemployed Americans occupying Wall Street have shaken the conscience of our nation. The crowds and demonstrations will only grow larger and louder as more Americans find the courage inside themselves to stand up and demand Wall Street CEOs and millionaires pay their fair share to create good jobs now.

SEIU 1021 member Cynthia Landry (Alameda Co.) reports back on "following the money" at our Fight for a Fair Economy training in Oakland.

SEIU 1021 launches local-wide “Fight for a Fair Economy” campaign

Published on August 12th 2011

For years, the city of Stockton has had one of the highest foreclosure and unemployment rates in the nation. In June 2011 alone, one in 210 housing units received a foreclosure filing. With unemployment expected to stay flat in most of the nation this year, in Stockton it’s expected to rise from 17.2 to 18.1 percent. Six months ago, California took eight of the top 20 spots on Forbes’ annual America’s Most Miserable Cities list, “with Stockton ranking first for the second time in three years.”

If anything, last week’s debt ceiling deal has only made matters worse for Stockton and all of California. In an odd way, the bad deal has actually united the nation: Both Wall Street and Main Street agree it sucks. Congress and the White House let everyone down for (fill in your petty, partisan, ideological and/or pathological reason of choice).

As usual, SEIU 1021 members aren’t taking things lying down. Let the “fight for a fair economy” begin ...

Must-Watch Video: "The Story of Citizens United v. FEC (2011)"

Freedom From Speech: A petition you don't want to sign

Published on July 27th 2011

There is a deceptive ballot measure in paid circulation right now that would effectively eliminate the voice of working people in the halls of government.

Its backers? Billionaires and corporations who want to silence the voices of librarians, nurses, bus drivers, social workers, and other people like us. This initiative isn't about "getting special interests out of politics." It's about gaming the system so that CEOs, Wall Street bankers, tobacco companies, oil companies, and drug companies can control our state without any opposition.

[Download a flier in the Current Downloads box to the right.]

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The Toll of the Great Recession

Published on July 26th 2011

Hispanic Household Wealth Fell by 66% from 2005 to 2009

Median household wealth among Hispanics fell from $18,359 in 2005 to $6,325 in 2009. The percentage drop---- 66%---- was the largest for any racial or ethnic group, according to a new report by the Pew Research Center's Social & Demographic Trends project. During the same period median household wealth declined 53% among black households and 16% among white households.

Plutocracy And The Debt Ceiling Debate

Published on July 26th 2011

Published on California Progress Report (http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/site)

Posted on 26 July 2011

By Sam Pizzigati

Looking for a lesson in the goings-on in D.C. these days? Here’s one: The more our nation's wealth concentrates, the more our democratic give-and-take becomes all take — by the rich.

Once upon a time in America, back a century ago, our nation's rich paid virtually nothing in taxes to the federal government. And that same federal government did virtually nothing to better the lives of average Americans. But those average Americans would do battle, over the next half century, to rein in the rich and the corporations that made them ever richer. And that struggle would prove remarkably successful. By the 1950s, America's rich and the corporations they ran were paying significant chunks of their annual incomes in taxes — and the federal projects and programs these taxes helped finance were actually improving average American lives.

America's wealthy, predictably, counterattacked — and, by the 1980s, they were scoring successes of their own.

Today, the rich and their corporations no longer bear anything close to their rightful share of the nation's tax burden. The federal government, given this revenue shortfall, is having a harder and harder time funding initiatives that help average working families. The result: a “debt crisis.”