CEJ Summer 2013 Newsletter

8/22/2019 CEJ Summer 2013 Newsletter

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A publication of: The Coalition for Economic JusticeCEJ is an affiliate of Jobs With Justice& The New York State Labor-Religion Coalition

Notes from the Director

A couple of weeks ago, I had the privilege ofparticipating in this years AFL-CIO AdvancedLeadership Institute. Representatives from state laborfederations and central labor councils from across thecountry convened in San Diego, joined by organizationslike CEJ to talk about best practices for developingpowerful labor-community coalitions.

Thats not a new concept for CEJ, which has been a

home for an alliance between labor, community, faith,and student groups and activists for more than twodecades, longer than any of the other organizationsthat were at the table. But the opportunity to cometogether for real talk about the challenges we face andto share strategies for moving forward was incredibly

valuable. The conference opened with the admonitionthat the problem with being polite is that you never getto the core of the issues. Throwing manners out thewindow in favor of frankness and honesty allowed us tohave some really intense, productive conversationsabout how to build and sustain strong coalitions.

On the second day of the conference, one of thefacilitators shared the parable of the babies in the river.There are a lot of ways to tell it, but this particularversion really speaks to the importance of coalitions. Inthe story, a group of people ends up constantly

rescuing babies that they find floating downstream inthe river that passes through their village. They aresoon exhausted by the sheer amount of work it takesjust to save all the babies from drowning, yet more andmore appear every day. Eventually, they look upstreamand see a monster tossing the babies into the river.

If theres just one small group of villagers, they have to

decide whether to spend their limited resources savingeach individual baby, or they can stop the problem at itssource by attacking the monster. But if different groups

of villagers work together in coalition, they dont have

choose one over the other. Instead they can develop acomprehensive strategy based on the strengths of eacof the groups and attack both the symptom of theproblem and the root cause.

The story may be more than a little bit morbid, but ithighlights the power of what we can accomplish whenwe work together. Service providers, advocacy groups,labor unions, religious congregations we all bringsomething different to the table. In this political climatits hard for any one organization to do much more tha

simply survive on our own. But if we work together witone shared vision and draw from the assets andexperiences we each offer to build a united progressiv

movement, then theres nothing we cant do...

Just Workust Work

Summer Edition 2013Highlights:POWER for All American Work(page 3)

Making Democracy Workin an Open Buffalo(page 5)Whats the CEJ Staff Reading(page 6)

& More!

Continued on page 2


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Notes continued...

n this newsletter, youll read about some of the

collaborations weve been taking part in, from the latest

developments in our ongoing subsidy reform efforts, tothe exciting Open Buffalo planning process, to outreach toNew Americans living in Western New York.

m so excited to bring back reports of best practices in

community-labor coalitions from the interesting work

thats happening around the country, and I look forward tosharing it with all of you and putting some of it into actionhere at home in these campaigns and beyond.

n solidarity,

Thank you!For making our 2013 Annual Award Banquet a

wonderful success!We would like to once again thank our keynotespeaker, David Cay Johnston, the emcee,Terri Legierski, and this years honorees:Jim Crampton, Beverly Newkirk, John Lichtenthal,

and WNY Next UPA special thank you to our banquet sponsors: CWA WNY CounciGiroux, UFCW District Union Loc

One, Paul William Beltz PC, and CWA 1122And to our event photographer, Lukia Costello

Visit us online:cejbuffalo.orgContact us:237 Main StreetSuite 1200Buffalo, NY 14203Phone: 716.892.5877Fax: 716.852.3802

Email:[email protected]@[email protected]@[email protected]

Thank you to all of ourfoundation partners whohave generously supporteCEJ this year. In particulawe would like to thank ThUnitarian Universalist VeaProgram at Shelter Rock,Ford Foundation,Presbyterian HungerProgram, Ben and JerrysFoundation, Rev. BissoneFoundation, Open SocietyFoundations, Northstar Fuand Assemblymember SeRyan.


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Three

POWER for All American Workers

Continued on page 4..

by Saladi Shebule, CEJ Dignity at Work Organizer

As the new Dignity at Work organizer, my longer term goals include moving

policy that protects all workers, increase the diversity of workers involved in

CEJ and work in coalition with our labor and community allies to increase the

ability of all workers to change their working conditions through collective

action and organizing. As such, CEJ has joined our national affiliate, Jobs with

Justice in the campaign to win comprehensive immigration reform. Below is a

broad strokes description of some important elements of the much needed

immigration reform that we want to see.

Immigrants and guest workers are a significant part of the U.S. workforce and economy, but confront enormous

challenges in the workplace. These workers face exploitative working conditions and vulnerabilities, and are

denied basic rights on the job as a result of our nations broken immigration system and corporate greed. Far too

often, businesses exploit immigrant workers to drive up corporate profits and drive down the wages and working

conditions for all U.S. workers in a race to the bottom.

Our broken immigration laws and labor policies often deter immigrant workers from speaking out about violation

of workplace rights or low-wages because greedy employers use the current immigration policy to silence these

workers. When immigrant workers try to organize, these employers retaliate against them and threaten

deportation to stop their organizing efforts. Basically, under existing immigration law, employers have the power t

threaten workers who attempt to exercise their labor and civil rights. As a result, employers pay immigrant

workers severely low-wages and even steal their wages, and force them to work in unsafe, brutal conditions for

long hours under the threat of deportation. Immigrant workers cannot report these workplace violations without

fear of retaliation from their employer. These practices hurt immigrant workers, erode working conditions and

wages for U.S. born workers, and weaken our economy.

Clearly, the current immigration system is broken and in need of comprehensive reform. After avoiding the issue

for many years, lawmakers are now engaged in a serious discussion on fixing the immigration system to provide

workplace protections for immigrant workers, which will strengthen rights for all workers in the U.S.

The Senate recently passed an immigration bill that provides a path to citizenship for

millions of immigrants and strengthens workers rights protections across the nation.

Provisions from the POWER ACT (Protecting Workers from Exploitation and

Retaliation) were included in this bill, which will allow immigrant workers to speak out

about exploitative employers and workplace violations without fear of deportation.

However, the bill is currently being blocked in the House of Representative. It currently

looks like the House of Representatives will only pass pieces of the bill, rather than the

comprehensive bill that is necessary to provide a pathway to citizenship and safe

conditions for all workers. New Americans and all workers cannot afford a piecemeal

approach. CEJ and its allies throughout the country are gearing up for a fight come

September to ensure comprehensive immigration reform.
http://cejbuffalo.org/posts/campaign/2013/06/statement-on-senate-passage-of-s-744/http://thepoweract.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/POWER-Act-fact-sheet-revised.pdfhttp://thepoweract.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/POWER-Act-fact-sheet-revised.pdfhttp://abcnews.go.com/ABC_Univision/Politics/taking-temperature-immigration-reform-house/story?id=19544319http://abcnews.go.com/ABC_Univision/Politics/taking-temperature-immigration-reform-house/story?id=19544319http://thepoweract.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/POWER-Act-fact-sheet-revised.pdfhttp://thepoweract.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/POWER-Act-fact-sheet-revised.pdfhttp://cejbuffalo.org/posts/campaign/2013/06/statement-on-senate-passage-of-s-744/


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POWER for All American Workers continued

The POWER Act will help secure job opportunities, wages, andworking conditions for all American workers. Theact ensures protection for both low-skilled and high-skilled

workers, which will help rebuild the middle class and

boost the economy.

The act will have a significant impact on local communities, particularly here in Western New York, where we have a

large number of immigrant and refugee workers who may be vulnerable to employers looking to exploit them for profit.

What can you do to ensure all workers have dignity at work? Learn more about this issue at thepoweract.com,

read stories of immigrant workers dealing with our nations broken immigration system, and contact your congressiona

representative to urge them to support the Senate bill. In addition, you can write a letter to the editor on immigration

reform and workers' rights. Feel free to contact Saladi for more information on how to take [email protected]

s you know, CEJ is working with our statewide partners in the Getting Our Moneys Worth coalition

fix NYSs broken economic development system. We are making progress in our campaign to reinthe out-of-control spending of these corporate subsidy programs to ensure that public dollars

qual a public good.

st in the past few months, the Erie County and Amherst Industrial Development Agencies (IDAs) passed local labor policabor and community leaders. Now, instead of seeing construction pro to out-of-state contractors that bring in workers from outside our region, these policies will help guarantee local constrorkers are hired by companies that receive ECIDA and AIDA tax breaks. This will put more local workers to work, keep mo

ow can we build on this momentum to win even more important victories for workers and our communities? By workingand win big.community leaders are stepping up to build a powerful new committee to stand up to I

This committee took action to help ensure the ECnd AIDA passed local labor policies and is focused on policies based on community standards to guarantee companiesceiving public subsidies create good jobs and shared community benefits.

ur committee on IDAs is focused on bringing together residents throughout Erie County to discuss and develop communased strategies for reforming IDAs in WNY to ensure publicly subsidized projects are benefitting the community. Stay tuneetails on the next event and how you get involved. For more information, contact Andy at [email protected] or 892-58

Through CEJ's membership in the WNYEnvironmental Alliance and in partnership withWNY Worker Center project, we have a new tooyou can use to confidentially report a workplacconcern, request assistance with a problem, fiinformation on various workers' rights laws, digat work campaigns, and more.Text the word WORKER to 877877 or go onlineto http://grow716.org/worker to get started.(Standard messaging and data rates apply.)
http://thepoweract.com/http://grow716.org/workerhttp://grow716.org/workerhttp://grow716.org/workerhttp://thepoweract.com/


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If you follow us on Facebook orTwitter, youve probably have heard

the name Open Buffalo used a lotover the past several months. Youmay have attended an event,shared some food for thought, or

even joined a focus group. Still, youmay be asking, what is OpenBuffalo?

We believe an Open Buffalo is anequal, just, and free city driven by aunited and empowered community,open to full and democraticparticipation by all its residents,open to innovative ideas andpolicies, open to new leaders from

diverse communities, and open tomeaningful economic opportunityand sustainable wealth creation forall.

So where does all that come from?The story starts back in December,when CEJ, PUSH Buffalo, VOICE-Buffalo, and the Partnership for thePublic Good received invitationsfrom the Open Society Foundations(OSF) to convene our localprogressive community to take partin their new Open Places initiative.The idea behind Open Places is toimprove the quality of democracyhere at home by expanding accessand participation to low-income,minority, and other historicallyunderrepresented groups. Buffalowas one of sixteen cities initiallyinvited to participate in a multi-

stage, competitive process, inwhich OSF is offering grants to newprograms that build enduring civiccapacity for their regions.

In April, we learned that ourcollaborative Open Buffalo proposalwon as one of eight available

planning grants in the first phase ofOSFs selection process. We have

until September to design our planaround strategies and themes thatwe believe will make Buffalo amore open place to live and work.In the fall, OSF will review proposalsfrom each of the eight remainingcities and award three to fiveimplementation grants of up to $1million per year for a minimum of

three years, and potentially a fulldecade.

Needless to say, we have beenhard at work with our partners tobuild a process that includes asmuch input from as broad acommunity audience as possible.

CEJ has taken on the role ofcoordinating the Economy for theCommon Good working group, oneof three such groups tasked withidentifying issue priorities that aremost important to improving thequality of civic participation in ourregion. In parallel to thosediscussions, the Open BuffaloPlanning Council has beendeveloping structures andstrategies that will help build a casefor those issue priorities through

policy research, create a publicface to communicate the need forreform, and mobilize a large baseof engaged citizens to bring aboutthe changes our city needs.

Later this month, a group of OpenBuffalo representatives includingme will be traveling to Denver,Colorado to meet with other OpenPlaces competitors. There, we willparticipate in workshops and workwith consultants to refine ourproposal, while keeping true to thekinds of projects we think are trueto what Buffalos community

members have identified as most

important.

Though the summer seems to beflying by, there are still plenty ofopportunities to get involved withOpen Buffalo. You can find outabout upcoming events and keeptrack of our progress at http://openbuffalo.org, follow@Open_Buffalo on Twitter, or findus on Facebook at http://facebook.com/OpenBuffalo.

(Photos in this article courtesy of

Open Buffalo; view more at http://www.flickr.com/photos/open_buffalo/)

By Jenn Diagostino,

Five
http://openbuffalo.org/http://openbuffalo.org/http://openbuffalo.org/http://facebook.com/OpenBuffalohttp://facebook.com/OpenBuffalohttp://facebook.com/OpenBuffalohttp://www.flickr.com/photos/open_buffalo/http://www.flickr.com/photos/open_buffalo/http://www.flickr.com/photos/open_buffalo/http://www.flickr.com/photos/open_buffalo/http://www.flickr.com/photos/open_buffalo/http://www.flickr.com/photos/open_buffalo/http://www.flickr.com/photos/open_buffalo/http://facebook.com/OpenBuffalohttp://facebook.com/OpenBuffalohttp://openbuffalo.org/http://openbuffalo.org/


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Transactions, Transformations, Translations: Metrics that Matter for Building, Scaling and Fundinsocial movements. In a time of such great uncertainty and urgency, social justice organizations mbe able to effect and articulate social change in a common language that draws people in, ensurenecessary resources, and sustainability so that we may continue to win progressive change. This isightful report lays out challenging questions about evaluating the real impact and success of socmovements. The report covers how to measure the day to day or short term activities of an organition (i.e doors knocked, phone calls made, list serv's sent, etc) as well as the transformational (i.emembership's ownership of the work the organization does, members ability to speak about the is

sues and solutions set forth by the organization,) work of an organization. This resource proved incredibly useful in our most recent staff retreat and the CEJ staff is excited to continue to use metrthat matter to improve our impact in WNY and NY State.

A special shout out to Erin Heaney over at the Clean Air Coalition for introducing us to this report!

am a big fan of dystopian fiction, and I'm currently rereading one of my old favorites. "Jennifer Government,"by Max Barry, paints a picture of a world where corporations run rampant, government is impotent to stopthem, indoctrination begins with corporate schools run by the likes of McDonald's and Mattel, and peoplehave so little control over their own lives that their last name is actually the name of company they work for.t's a world that imagines not George Orwell's Big Brother, but Big Business that is just as scary. I won't spoil

the ending for you, but the book is a fun and fast -paced summer read that still makes you think.

Andy Reynolds, Communications OrganizerI am readingWhat Then Must We Do: Straight Talk About the Next Generation, by Gar Alperovitz. Thanks Eric Gallion for recommending the book and dropping off a copy in our office, I am enjoying this book whichfocuses on strategies for systemic and social change. Alperovitz, writing in an accessible style, proposes comon-sense solutions to the systemic challenges that face us, including ways to make our economy more dmocratic through the establishment of worker-owned cooperatives.

Development/Administrative Assistantam currently reading"Lean In," by Sheryl Sandberg. This controversial book looks at the societal and personal

barriers preventing women from taking leadership roles in the workplace. Sandberg proposes that women needto break down these barriers by striving for and achieving leadership roles. The ultimate goal is to encouragewomen to lean in to positions of leadership because she asserts that by having more female voices in positions

of power, there will be more equitable opportunities created for everyone.

Work Organizerjust completed reading an article entitled, Who stands to lose more if immigration reform fails? by Sandra Hernandez from

the Los Angeles Times. The article discusses whether comprehensive immigration reform is a priority in Baracks second termagenda outline, given the need to address the budget and gun violence in the nation. This article seems to pose a legitimatequestion as I believe the time to reform the nations immigration system is now. Just because politician act on agenda as a prty, it does not mean its a priority.

Micaela Shapiro-Shellaby, Organizing DirectorNelson Mandela-Long Walk to Freedom. Nelson Mandela's autobiography beautifully and provocativelychronicles his life as an anti-apartheid revolutionary in South Africa. His strength, strategic mind, honesty

passion and devotion to justice continues to inspire. The recent celebration of his 95th birthday prompte

me to pick the book up again. It's length is daunting, but I am captivated.

Six

Reading?


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I WANT TO JOIN THE COALITION FOR ECONOMIC JUSTICE/JOBS WITH JUSTIC

You will help our fundraising efforts tremendously by becoming a Solidarity Sustainer with a pledge of $5 or more per month paid directly to Cfrom your Debit Account or Credit Card.

YES, I would like to become a Monthly Sustainer for the Coalition for Economic Justice (circle one) :$50/month $25/month $10/month $5/month Other_____

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Thank You! Checks made payable to the Coalition for Economic Justice are tax deductible.Full financial information is available from CEJ or the office of the Attorney General, Charities Bureau, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271

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For over 26 years, the Coalition for Economic Justice has united faith, labor,community organizations and activists to win dynamic campaigns that promoteeconomic justice for all. Our members commitment to building strong, sustainable

communities remains as strong as ever. True to our roots, CEJ is sustained bycompassionate individuals who are dedicated to advancing social and economicjustice.

NOW is the time to support the Coalition for Economic Justice.Support from members and donors has allowed us to keep moving forward. Just thpast year weve added new staff and grown our coalition; weve built new

relationships and formed powerful alliances. We are advancing an agenda to createquality jobs for workers, and provide long-term solutions to the economic challenge

we face in NYS and Western New York.

But - its a lot of work with limited resources. We rely heavily on support from individuals like you who believe our work. We need your help to keep going strong!

Please become a 2013-14 member TODAY!Just fill out the form below, return it to us or pledge online through

our secure server at cejbuffalo.org.
http://www.cejbuffalo.org/http://www.cejbuffalo.org/


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Coalition for Economic Justice

237 Main St., Suite 1200Buffalo, NY 14203

Phone (716) 892.5877

Fax (716) 852.3802

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To sign-up, email or [email protected] 716-892-5877(To see the list of our event

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CEJ Summer 2013 Newsletter

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