The Community, Faith and Labor Coalition , an affiliate of Interfaith Worker Justice, is a Marion county advocate group formed in 2000 to become a voice advocating for economic and social justice in Indiana.
Our goal is to create a common committment to identify, pursue, and bring about real suggestions and actions for making possible jobs tha t offer a living wage with benefits that provide individual and family self-sufficiency and hope.
Please join us in our call by subscribing to our email distribution list:
From our national office
Dear Friend,The elections are over and the nation has elected Barack Obama. Regardless of whom you voted for, the willingness of the American public to elect its first African American president is an historic breakthrough in a nation still struggling with racism and the remnants of slavery. We also saw unprecedented engagement of Americans in the electoral process, demonstrating the vitality of our democracy. These are signs of such hope in the society.
Nonetheless, the challenges facing our new president and his team are enormous. Employment figures that came out last week show that employers cut 240,000 jobs in October. More than ten million Americans are looking for jobs and can't find them, giving us an unemployment rate of 6.5 percent, the highest in 14 years. Working families are scared knowing they have few reserves and supports in times of economic crisis.
But given the working families platform outlined by the president-elect and Interfaith Worker Justice's mission to involve the religious community in these critical issues, the election offers opportunities for Interfaith Worker Justice to move forward an agenda that can help workers now and put in place structures that can support workers in coming decades.
With your help, we will:
1) Pass the Employee Free Choice Act. We have an opportunity early in the new Congress to pass the Employee Free Choice Act. This important, although strikingly simple, bill would make it easier for workers to join unions and get first contracts. We will be asking you to contact your Senators in the New Year. To learn more, click here.
2) Stop Wage Theft. Interfaith Worker Justice is putting the issue of wage theft on the national agenda, both through the incredible work done by workers centers, the policy work in Washington, D.C. and my new book, Wage Theft in America. We'll send order information about the book next week, but you can begin talking with your congregation about a Spring congregational study using the book. A congregational study guide is included with the book and available on line here. It is critical that we support a reinvigorated Department of Labor that will aggressively enforce labor laws and deter wage theft.
3) Stop the Workplace Raids. We are calling upon the Bush administration to stop the workplace immigration raids - immediately. Send a letter to Michael Chertoff, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, and cc Nicolas J. Smith, Chief of Staff of Immigration and Customs Enforcement: 245 Murray Lane Building, Washington DC 20528; Fax # 202-282-8401. When President-elect Obama has chosen his team, we will ask you to contact them as well. Click here to read the Interfaith Worker Justice Board of Director's statement condemning workplace immigration raids.
4) Create and support Living Wage Jobs. It has been so long since the federal government played a visible role in helping create and support living wage jobs that we've almost forgotten that this is an appropriate role for the federal government - to support, encourage and enable job creation and a raising of standards throughout the society.
We need your financial support for moving all these issues. Give now and watch your contribution help us move important justice work forward.
It feels like the best of times and the worst of times. It is an exciting time in terms of new opportunities and new leadership. It is also a scary time in terms of overall conditions for working families. Our work is more important than ever.
Let us pray for our nation's new (and old) leadership and do our share to lift up the concerns of working families.
Praying for the future,
Kim Bobo
Executive Director
Interfaith Worker JusticeP.S. Please consider giving to help strengthen our work. If you can contribute $250 or more we will send you a copy of my new book. Thanks.
Information and Ways to Get Involved:
- Elwood Black Sr. Scholarship Fund
- Learn about the Teamsters Efforts for FedEx Workers
- Look at Kids Count Data on Indiana Children Living in Poverty
- Join this year's Labor Day Parade in Indianapolis
- Learn about The Mapleton Fall Creek Association's grassroots effort to improve their neighborhood
- Read about AFSCME's Efforts Against Privitization
- Join Working America
- Campaigns and Education Efforts
More Evidence Shows Economic Rules are Rigged The next time someone tells you they think our economy is fair, here's new proof that it's not. |  |
In fact, just between 2005 and 2006, average income adjusted for inflation of the top 1 percent grew by $73,000 (or 7 percent), while the average income of the bottom 90 percent grew by just $20 (or 0.1 percent). (In 2006, the top 1 percent were those with incomes above $375,000, and the bottom 90 percent were those with incomes below $105,000.)
So, what does it tell us that incomes are growing faster for those at the top? Clearly the rules that govern income growth in our economy are rigged in favor of the already rich.
But it doesn't have to be this way. The same data show that in the three decades after World War II, things were reversed: incomes for the top 1 percent grew only 25 percent, while for the bottom 90 percent they grew 92 percent.
Among the rules that changed between then and now are union-busting, trade liberalization, deregulation, and tilted tax policies. Time to change them back?
A recent Gallup poll reports that a record percentage of Americans see themselves as worse off financially in 2008 than they were in 2007.
A survey conducted in May and June 2008 by Working America reveals that what working women need most is a pay raise.
