National Jobs for All Coalition sponsors Ohio Town Hall Meetings on Jobs and Economic Inequality

  Full Video of 12/5/15 Dayton Town Hall Meeting

1 Hour Video of 12/5/15 Dayton Town Hall Meeting

by Logan Martinez, Outreach Coordinator, National Jobs for All Coalition

 The Town Hall Meetings in Dayton and Columbus featuring Rep. John Conyers went extremely well with good turnouts in both cities.  The speeches were informative and the dialogue during questions and answers was positive and highlighted the economic hardship and inequality facing the American people both locally and nationally.  The Town Hall meetings succeeded in raising the prominence of the need for jobs, health care, raising the minimum wage, and other key issues. 

Rep. Conyers has initiated two pieces of legislation that would go a long way toward reducing these problems: HR 1000, the “Humphrey Hawkins Full Employment and Training Act” and HR 676, The Expanded And Improved Medicare For All Act.  
Prof. Philip Harvey spoke at both Town Meetings, explaining how this legislation would work and what it would do for the unemployed and the nation. Two great teams worked independently on the Town Meetings but with shared agendas.

As principal organizer of these events, NJFAC Outreach Coordinator Logan Martinez  thanks everyone involved in both Town Hall meetings; the volunteers who put many hours of time in organizing and publicizing, the great co-sponsors in Dayton and Columbus, the financial supporters who made it possible, and the great speakers and panelists. And thanks to Rep. John Conyers for his continuing leadership in the fight for jobs, health care, and  a better America. NJFAC looks forward to building an ongoing network for jobs, health care and social justice in Ohio and to mounting comparable Town Meetings around the nation.

For more information, visit the National Jobs for All Coalition web site, www.NJFAC.org or contact Logan Martinez, Outreach Coordinator, loganmartinez2u [at] yahoo.com

Dayton Program

• Welcome and Opening Remarks, Rev. Robert E. Jones
• Jeff Mims, Dayton City Commissioner
• Mayor Nan Whaley and the Dayton City Commission have declared Saturday December 5, 2015 John Conyers Day in Dayton.
• Moderator, Debbie Silverstein, SPAN Ohio State Director
• Keynote, U.S. Congressman John Conyers Jr.

Panel:

• Charles Morton, Executive Secretary, Dayton-Miami Valley AFL-CIO
• Phillip Harvey, Professor of Law and Economics, Rutgers School of Law
• Morris Brown, MD, Family Practitioner, Single Payer Health Care
• Acknowledgements, Derrick Forward, President NAACP
• Closing Remarks, John T. Donnellan, President &CEO Community Action Partnership
• Adjournment, Rev. Robert E. Jones

Dayton Sponsors: Community Action Partnership of the Greater Dayton Area;  Dayton-Miami Valley AFL-CIO; Dr. P. E. Henderson Jr., Corinthian Baptist Church;  Greater Dayton Move to Amend;  Miami Valley Full Employment Council; Edgemont Neighborhood Association; SPAN Ohio (Single Payer Action Network of Ohio);  Rev. Robert E. Jones, United Theological Seminary; Dayton Unit NAACP; Organize!Ohio; Pastor Jerome McCorry;  National Jobs for All Coalition

Columbus Program

• Moderator, Melissa Cropper, President of the Ohio Federation of Teachers
• Keynote, U.S. Congressman John Conyers Jr.

Panel:

• Tim Burga, President Ohio AFL-CIO
• Debbie Silverstein, State Director SPAN Ohio Kevin Kee, President Local 4501 Communication Workers of America
• Phillip Harvey, Professor of Law and Economics Rutgers School of Law
• Rubén Castilla Herrera, Central Ohio Worker Center

Columbus Sponsors: SPAN Ohio (Single Payer Action Network of Ohio); Communication Workers of America District 4; Dr. Victor M Davis, Trinity Baptist Church;  Columbus Effective Resistance; Elder Dale Snyder, President Columbus Interdenominational Ministerial,  Pastor Bethal AME Church;  Community Organizing Center;   Jobs for Columbus;  Central Ohio Worker Center;  Democratic Socialists of Central Ohio;  Columbus Free Press;  Rev. Joel L. King Jr.;  Bounce 23 TV;  Organize!Ohio;  National Jobs for All Coalition

 Thanks to Trudy Goldberg, Chair  and to the other members of the Board of the National Jobs for All Coalition and to the Jobs for All Network for their support in this effort; and to Erik Sperling, Legislative Assistant to Rep. John Conyers Jr., and Maria D.Reddick, Scheduler for to Rep. John Conyers Jr.

Special Thanks to the Dayton Team: Mary Sue Gmeiner, Deborah Ferguson, Renee Shephard, Tim Bruce, Rev. Robert E. Jones, and Chuck Morton. And Carla Pitsinger, Carole Grimes, Adbullah Shakir, Tiki Kai-Krismano, Gwen Woodall Given and Michelle Jone, and John Bennett, Director of Communications and Public Relations Community Action Partnership of the Greater Dayton Area.

Special Thanks to the Columbus Team: Marilyn Webster, Connie Hammond, Elicia Finnell, Debbie Silverstein, Rev. Joel King, Rev. Thomas Toney, Ruben Castilla Herrera, Mark Stansberry, Kurt Bateman and Terrence Gilchrist.   Thanks to:  Dr. Victor M. Davis, Pastor, Trinity Baptist Church, Brian Coston, Media Ministry, Trinity Baptist Church, Stan Cartwright, Facilities Administrator, Trinity Baptist Church, Hostess Ministry, Trinity Baptist Church, Gabrielle P. Moore and Ron McGuire with Representative U.S. Congresswoman Joyce Beatty, Diane Bailey, Communication Workers of America, Bob Fitrakis and Suzanne Patzer of the Columbus Free Press.

Dec 4-5 >> Jobs for All National Tour Comes to Ohio

U.S. Congressman John Conyers is coming to Ohio in conjunction with the Jobs for All National 2015/16 Tour.  The Town Hall meetings will feature testimony on the impact of long-term unemployment and poverty on the Dayton community.  There will be presentations on job creation, health care, raising the minimum wage, and other important issues. The primary goal is to elevate the jobs issue to national prominence.

Rep. Conyers is the Dean of the U.S. Congress, and the first African American to serve in this capacity.  He represents the Detroit, Michigan area and has been a strong voice for progressive ideas including job creation with his introduction of HR 1000 and healthcare with HR 676. He is also co-chair of the Full Employment Caucus of the U.S. House of Representatives.

 There are currently two meetings planned in Ohio:

Columbus, OH  -- Friday, December 4, 2015 at 6:00 PM 

Gathering at 6 pm, Program at 6:45 pm 
Trinity Baptist Church 
461 Saint Clair Avenue Columbus, Ohio 43203 

Dayton, OH -- Saturday, December 5, 2015 at 10 am

UTS Center for Urban Ministry 
1516 Salem Ave. 
Dayton, OH 45406

 Flyers are posted below.

 For more information, contact:  Logan Martinez, Outreach Coordinator, The National Jobs for All Coalition / Jobs for All Network,  www.njfac.org  / www.PutAmericaToWork.net , (937) 260-2591, loganmartinez2u [at] yahoo [dot] com

 

Clergy group in Ohio pushing federal jobs bill

Cross posted from:  http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2015/11/19/coalition-bringing-in-congressman-to-raise-awareness-discuss-jobs-bill.html

By JoAnne VivianoThe Columbus Dispatch  •  Thursday November 19, 2015 7:50 AM

A new local coalition of jobs advocates, unions and clergy members will host a congressman from Detroit who is the sponsor of bills to create jobs and provide universal health care.

The group will hold a town-hall meeting with U.S. Rep John Conyers on Dec. 4 at Trinity Baptist Church on the Near East Side as part of a National Jobs for All Coalition tour. The event will include testimony on long-term unemployment and a discussion panel.

Among the group’s goals is raising awareness about unemployment and under-employment among African-Americans, Hispanics and youth in Columbus, said the Rev. Joel King, vice president of the Ohio Interdenominational Ministers Alliance, which represents about 60 clergy members.

Beyond that, he said, he hopes residents will be encouraged to get involved in the issue, by asking elected officials to support Conyers’ bills.

“We feel like millions of people are being left behind in the American dream,” said Logan Martinez, Jobs for All outreach coordinator.

“They’re working extremely hard and unable to make ends meet or working hard and there are holes in the safety net.

“There’s great disparity in what we pretend to say people can do here and what people can actually do.”

Conyers’ jobs bill, introduced by the Democrat in February, would create a tax on certain financial transactions, to fund workforce-investment programs and to make job-creation grants to states, local governments, schools, nonprofit organizations and Indian tribes. It is referred to as the Humphrey-Hawkins 21st Century Full Employment and Training Act.

The health-care bill, referred to as the Expanded & Improved Medicare for All Act, also was introduced in February and would establish a single-payer health-care system to provide free necessary health care to everyone living in the United States.

Both bills had died in previous congressional sessions before being reintroduced this year.

The U.S. unemployment level of 5 percent represents nearly 8 million Americans. On top of that, millions more work only part time or have given up looking for jobs, Martinez said.

In Columbus, pockets of the city suffer significantly higher unemployment. According to 2009-2013 Census Bureau data analyzed by the nonprofit Community Research Partners, that was true in 17 of the city’s 28 ZIP codes, with Franklinton at the top with a 29 percent unemployment rate. The poverty rate is at least 26 percent in 15 of the city’s ZIP codes, with Weinland Park at the top with a poverty rate of nearly 60 percent.

About a dozen groups have signed on to support the town-hall event, Martinez said.

Among them is Jobs for Columbus, an initiative aimed at increasing the city income tax to provide local transitional jobs.

The proposal would increase the city income tax by half a percentage point, in an attempt to raise $120 million annually dedicated to job training and creation, said Elicia Finnell, founder of the initiative.

She said the money would pay minimum wage for thousands of Columbus residents hired by participating businesses and other locations. In return, employers would provide job experience and training in marketable skills.

“It would be sort of a job safety net, that anyone who needed immediate employment could get one of these jobs — sort of a survival job,” Finnell said.

The program, she said, could help the homeless, the chronically unemployed, people with criminal records, unemployed youth and unemployed men with child-support obligations.

A goal is to place the initiative before voters in November 2016, Finnell said, but efforts are in the early stages. The campaign is creating a petition that it hopes to circulate to gain the signatures needed to get a shot at the ballot.

jviviano@dispatch.com

@JoAnneViviano

Social Security at 80: Expanded But Still Missing the Keystone

cross-posted from Huffington Post >>  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gertrude-schaffner-goldberg/social-security-at-eighty_b_7980418.html

Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg Become a fan 

Scholar/author/activist; Professor emeritae, Adelphi University; Chair, National Jobs for All Coalition

Eighty years ago, on August 14, 1935, President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act, famously declaring: "If the Senate and House of Representatives had done nothing more... than pass this Bill, the session would be regarded as historic for all time." Nonetheless, Roosevelt acknowledged that this groundbreaking Act was "a cornerstone in a structure... by no means complete."

Initially, the Social Security structure was indeed incomplete. Only a portion of the workforce was covered by the retirement and unemployment insurance programs. Left out were employees in very small establishments and the public sector as well as self-employed workers. Also excluded were domestic workers -- largely women, and agricultural laborers, an occupation employing the vast majority of African Americans.

Since FDR laid the cornerstone, Old Age Insurance has expanded almost beyond recognition. Within four years it began covering widows and orphans, transforming Social Security into a family program. In 1950, Congress added coverage for domestic and agricultural laborers. An additional, grave risk -- disability -- was added later in the fifties, and Medicare, in the mid-1960s. In 1972, automatic cost-of-living increases began protecting retirement benefits against the risk of inflation.

Retirement benefits have increased in adequacy but are often too low, particularly for one-third of seniors whose principal income is social security -- a proportion increasing with the decline in private pensions.

Unemployment Insurance has been less expandable, but excluded groups were covered in 1970 when Congress also enacted automatic extension of weeks of coverage during recessions. While Old Age and Survivors' Insurance is almost universal, most jobless workers are still not eligible for Unemployment Insurance in ordinary times, although the proportion increases during recessions when so many more people are laid off.

But what is social security without a job?

That was the keystone, according to the report of the Cabinet-level Committee on Economic Security that planned the Social Security Act: "Since most people must live by work, the first objective in a program of economic security must be maximum employment." Headed by the first female Cabinet member, Labor Secretary Frances Perkins, the Committee proposed "employment assurance" -- "that the federal government should stimulate private employment and provide employment for those able-bodied workers whom industry cannot employ." They observed that public-work programs are most necessary in periods of severe depression, but may also be needed in normal times.

Except for short-term unemployment, both Roosevelt and Federal Relief Administrator Harry Hopkins, preferred work to cash benefits. They considered a permanent government employment program for those still jobless after receiving short-term unemployment compensation, but the two elements were split into permanent but short Unemployment Insurance (only 16 weeks originally), and a temporary employment program, the famous Works Progress Administration (WPA). The WPA literally changed the face of this nation, vastly enriching our physical, social, and cultural resources, but it was terminated during World War II when full employment made such job creation temporarily unnecessary.

Thus, as Perkins wrote in the mid-1940s, "Unemployment Insurance stands alone as the only protection for people out of work."

What would Roosevelt, Hopkins, and Perkins have said when, during the Great Recession, many jobless workers collected extended unemployment benefits instead of being paid for work that would have benefitted not only them but all of us -- by repairing our decaying infrastructure, making our economy and the planet more sustainable, and providing sorely needed services.

Unemployment continues to undermine economic security and is neither short-term nor confined to deep economic downturns. Today, six years after the official end of the Great Recession, 20 million people are either jobless or forced to work part-time. The labor-force participation rate or proportion of working-age people either working or actively looking for work is the lowest since 1976. If it were the same as before the recession, the unemployment rate would be 7.3 percent, instead of 5.3 percent. Periods of unemployment, moreover, reduce workers' retirement benefits and rob the Social Security Trust Funds of revenues.

Enactment of pending legislation would come close to completing the Social Security edifice.

The Humphrey-Hawkins 21st Century Full Employment & Training Act, introduced by Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) commits the U.S. to full employment, the assurance of useful work at a living wage for all.  Paid for by a small tax on financial transactions, HR 1000 would create millions of new jobs in construction, infrastructure repair, energy and conservation, education, health care, human services, and neighborhood renovation. Such jobs could be targeted to neighborhoods like West Baltimore, where most adults are jobless.

Other pending legislation like Rep. Marcy Kaptur's (D-OH) 21st Century Civilian Conservation Corps would create jobs and give the public a taste of how government job creation could preserve the nation's resources.

Let's observe Social Security's 80th birthday by taking steps toward employment assurance -- what its planners considered the keystone of economic security. Let's make their support of employment assurance a test of whether candidates for federal office in 2016 deserve our votes.

December 10 is International Human Rights Day. We demand our right to a Living Wage Job!!

Fast food workers, healthcare workers and their supporters shout slogans
at a rally and march to demand an increase of the minimum wage
in Los Angeles, Calif. on Dec. 4, 2014.  Photo by Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/fast-food-workers-strike-again

"…Where, after all, do universal rights begin? In small places, close to home -- so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he or she lives in; the school or college he or she attends; the factory, the farm or office where he or she works.

Such are the places where every man, woman and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, and equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world…"

--Eleanor Roosevelt (1968) commenting on the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)

:"...It is the purpose of the Humphrey Hawkins 21st Century Full Employment and Training Act (HR 1000) to expedite progress to fulfill the right to useful work at living wages for all persons seeking employment, as promptly as possible and at the earliest practicable date by establishing a Full Employment Trust Fund to fund  and operate a national program of public service employment and to provide additional labor market opportunities to complement those offered by the existing private, public, and nonprofit sectors."   -- HR 1000 (Full Text), introduced by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) with 57 co-sponsors

December 10 is International Human Rights Day and the anniversary of the day that the Universal Declaration was adopted in 1948.  This year’s slogan, Human Rights 365, encompasses the idea that every day is Human Rights Day. It celebrates the fundamental proposition in the Universal Declaration that each one of us, everywhere, at all times is entitled to the full range of human rights, that human rights belong equally to each of us and bind us together as a global community with the same ideals and values.

For more info, visit >> http://www.un.org/en/events/humanrightsday/
www.PutAmericaToWork.net

60 Minutes Highlights Infrastructure Investment Crisis

Falling apart: America's neglected infrastructure

7/9, WED >> Jobs for All: Building the Movement for Full Employment

 
Live Webcast >> July 9 from 10:00 - 12:30 PM 
Jobs for All: Building the Movement for Full Employment

National Jobs For All Coalition

Join us for a strategy briefing to help build a national movement for full employment.

REACHING

FULL

EMPLOYMENT

In Conjunction With:

The Congressional Full Employment Caucus

Wednesday, July 9, 2014

10:00am-12:30pm*

2226 Rayburn HOB

*This meeting will kick off two days of dialogue among national and grassroots jobs creation advocates, for the purpose of developing a coordinated national strategy. An afternoon session, the same day, will address activity moving the coalition forward---participation would be welcomed and appreciated!

www.njfac.org

The National Jobs for All Coalition is dedicated to the propositions that meaningful employment is a precondition for a fulfilling life and that every person capable of working should have the right to a job. The Coalition not only fights to make these propositions facts of life, but it publishes invaluable research by noted scholars to support them.

Jobs for All Strategy Briefing

Representative John Conyers, Jr. (MI)

Representative Frederica Wilson (FL)

Representative Marcy Kaptur (OH)  

Representative Barbara Lee (CA)

 

Rev. Rodney S. Sadler, Jr., Ph.D.

Moral Monday

Associate Professor of Bible

Union Presbyterian Seminary

Debby Szeredy

Executive Vice President, American Postal Workers Union

 

Kevin Bradshaw 


President, Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco, Workers

& Grain Millers Union Local 252G

Kellogg's Workers in Memphis, TN have been off the job since October 2013.

 

George H. Lambert, Jr.

President and CEO of the Greater Washington Urban League,

 

Philip Harvey

Professor of Law & Economics

Rutgers School of Law

Executive Committee, National Jobs for All Coalition

Josh Nassar

Legislative Director, United Auto Workers

Chris Horton

Worcester Unemployment Action Group (MA)

Voices of Unemployed Workers

   

Deborah Weinstein

Executive Director, Coalition on Human Needs

 

Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg  

Chair, National Jobs for All Coalition

Professor Emerita of Social Policy, Adelphi University

Jessica Schieder

Policy Associate, Center for Effective Government

 

Lunch with Witness Wednesdays , the critical effort to renew extended unemployment benefits, will be at the Triangle on the Capitol Hill lawn.

 

Witness Wednesdays for July 9 will be hosted by Representative Barbara Lee (CA) and will feature the stories of unemployed African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans and Native Americans.

 

 

Strategy Session A, July 9,  2014

2226 Rayburn House Office Building

2:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.

 

Chuck Bell , Facilitator

National Jobs for All Coalition

Robert Creamer

Democracy Partners

 

Miriam Pemberton

Institute for Policy Studies

Bill Barclay

Chicago Political Economy Group

 

Andrea Miller

Progressive Democrats of America

 

Local Reports

 

Kae Halonen

South East Michigan Jobs with Justice

 

Sheena Foster

Worker's Interfaith Network, Memphis, TN

 

Rev. Glencie Rhedrick 

Mecklenburg Ministries, NC 

Clinton Smith

Gray Panthers, Austin, TX

Joel Segal

Progressive Democrats of America, VA

Former Senior Legislative Assistant, Representative John Conyers, Jr.

 

Leonard Mell

National Jobs for All Coalition, VA

 

Larry Bresler

Organize Ohio

 

More, TBA

__________________________________________________________________ 

 

Thursday Morning  Panel, July 10, 2014

10:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

2226 Rayburn House Office Building

 

Logan Martinez ,   Facilitator

Miami Valley Full Employment Council and National Jobs for All Coalition

 

Frank Peterson

Unemployed Veteran

Other panelists, TBA 

Thursday afternoon we will be meeting members of the US Congress  regarding  job creation legislation

 

Conference Host

National Jobs for All Coalition

 

Co-sponsors

Gray Panthers

Social Democrats

Progressive Democrats of America

People's Empowerment Coalition of Ohio

Jobs For All Campaign 

Worcester Unemployment Action Group

Questions? Contact trudygoldberg@njfac.org or (203) 856-3877