Please Join Us!
This is going to be a long hard fight. If you're ready to sign on and start taking action, please click here.
Our Billboard Against Austerity started flashing on December 27, 2012. It will run until the money runs out
Austerity takes many forms such as:
- Raising the retirement age
- Raising taxes on the poor and middle income people
- Lowering taxes on the rich
- Cutting Social Security and other retirement benefits
- Cutting unemployment pay and the number of weeks it can be drawn
- Cutting food stamps programs
- Taking away pensions
- Moving jobs overseas
- Layoffs and speedup
- Changing jobs to part time or "contract labor" to avoid paying decently or allowing job benefits
- Privatizing government worker
- Contracting jobs out
- etc
Jobs with Justice will enroll you in the fight and get you started with first and easiest thing -- contacting your Congressperson. If you're ready to sign on and fight any one or all of these, please click here.
Who's responsible?
If you clawed your way through all the layers, you'd find the wealthiest men in America behind the entire austerity plot. Even though their policies caused the recession of 2007-8, they expect us to pay for it. At their behest, others carry out austerity programs,such as:
- National politicians
- State and local politicians
- Corporate executives
- Bank executives
If you're ready to fight back against them, please click here.
How can we fight back?
The most important task is to inform and organize the American people. Union organizing drives, especially the Walmart drive, give Americans a chance they wouldn't otherwise have. Civil rights and community organizations bring individuals together to increase their power.
Join serious rallies, vigils, and marches when possible.
Spread the word at every opportunity
Donate money when possible.
Contacting political figures is an obvious, easy, thing that people can do right away.
If you're ready to participate in some of these actions, please click here.
Austerity Plagues the World!
American politicians pretend that their cutback proposals aren't the exact same thing as "austerity programs" in Europe. But they are.
Each new concessionary demand represents another effort to continue transferring wealth from the poorest to the richest. In Europe and in America, it's nothing new. It's been their clear program since at least 1980, when it became apparent that the United States' domination of all world markets and financial systems had been ended by competitor nations who had finally recovered from the devastation of World War II. Since then, working people have been continuously sacrificing while the world's wealth piles up among those who need it least. They may hide it behind confusing ideological terms like "neoconservatism" or "neoliberalism," but it is better known among workers as the "race to the bottom."
What Does the Future Hold?
Every concession that working people make is followed, almost immediately, by demands for more concessions.
The good news is that we are not helpless. Progressive organizations are fighting back in battleground after battleground. Chief among those resisting austerity are America's unions. Unfortunately, most individual unions only resist austerity demands that apply immediately to their own members. However, the national AFL-CIO has emerged as a true champion of working people during these fights. Smaller organizations, like MoveOn and Jobs with Justice, add their militancy to the struggle. To the extent that they get behind the AFL-CIO, they are much more effective.
What Can You Do Now?
You can join Jobs with Justice. The national website is http://www.jwj.org. Here in North Texas go to http://www.labordallas.org/join.htm
You can join the AFL-CIO. If you have no union and cannot organize one, join Working America at http://www.workingamerica.org
At present (December, 2012) both organizations are primarily concerned with U.S. budget negotiations (the immediate problem) and the Walmart organizing drive (part of the solution).
A war is being conducted against you. Sign up to serve on our side, please!