Solidarity. Empowerment. Mobilization. SEM Jobs with Justice, a coalition of over 30 labor and community organizations.
Every day, around the world, 6,000 people die from workplace illnesses or injuries. Every one of those deaths is preventable. Every workplace injury or illness is preventable. On April 28, unions and working people in over 120 countries remember the lives lost to work and recommit to the centuries-long struggle to make workplaces safe.
Join us at 2 pm on Saturday afternoon, April 28th, at the UAW-Ford National Program Center, 151 W. Jefferson for speeches and music. At 3 pm we will walk to Hart Plaza. Our brothers and sisters in Windsor will walk from their meeting site at Charles Clark Square to Dieppe Park on the Detroit River. We will conduct memorial ceremonies on both sides of the river.
Speakers include:
Chris Michalakis, President, Metropolitan Detroit AFL-CIO
Hon. Rashida Tlaib, Michigan House of Representatives
Rev. D. Alexander Bullock, Rainbow PUSH
Frank Woods Jr., UAW Region 1A
Marisela Garcia, South East Michigan Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health
John Philo, Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice
Music by Tony Paris with Blue Pontiac Flowers donated by George’s Flowers
Sponsors include: Metropolitan Detroit AFL-CIO, United Auto Workers, Southeast Michigan Jobs With Justice, Sugar Law Center for Economic & Social Justice, UNITE-HERE Local 24, Rainbow PUSH Detroit, Solidarity, Highland Park NAACP, Washtenaw County Action Team, National Association of Letter Carriers Branches 3126 & 4374, Greater St. Matthew Baptist Church, National Postal Mailhandlers Union Local 307, State Representative Rashida Tlaib, Laborers Local 1191, SEMCOSH
Once known as “The City That Put the World on Wheels,” Detroit can now become “The City That Turned the World Green.” Just like the intercontinental railroad, interstate highway and the Internet ignited economic growth in the past, Clean Energy can revive our nation’s economy and create millions of new jobs.
Long-time residents, recent arrivals, urban farmers, artists and young entrepreneurs have shown us the winning formula for Detroit’s comeback.
Where once we were a center of good-paying, blue-collar jobs based on fossil-fuels. Now Detroit can become the center of good-paying, green-collar jobs based on Clean Energy. Former autoworkers and unemployed youth can now be manufacturing solar panels, wind turbines, fast trains as well as more electric vehicles, batteries and charging stations. In addition, Green Collar jobs also include weatherizing homes and public buildings, recycling trash for reuse of natural resources, and many more jobs that don’t exist today. Let’s take the next step to putting Detroit Back to Work.
From the OD media committee:
Occupy Detroit began Friday at 4p.m. with a rally of over 1000 in front of the Spirit of Detroit statue downtown. The group marched at 5pm to its base camp in Grand Circus Park. People poured into the park over the next two hours, swelling the ranks of the gathering.
By the time the General Assembly, the decision-making body of the movement, began at 7p.m., over 1500 people had gathered. Many experienced the thrill of direct democracy for the first time and were ecstatic to make their own decisions about the movement’s direction. They were inspired by their process, modelling the society they wish to create.
During the assembly, participants clarified the role of facilitators, learned consensus decision making, introduced committees and working groups, and scheduled the next General Assembly for noon on Sunday, October 16 in Grand Circus Park. They used the people’s mic, a call-and-response method of amplifying a single person’s voice that strengthens feelings of solidarity and cooperation.
The Assembly broke into committees to organize different aspects of the movment, including outreach, direct action, media, legal, arts and culture, education, and comfort.
Memb ers of the movement invite all to participate. They have set up locations to meet people’s basic needs and are erecting tents on the west side of the park, preparing to stay indefinitely.
Occupy Detroit General Assembly
Date: Sunday, October 16, 2011, 12pm
Location: Grand Cirucs Park, Detroit
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Occupy Detroit begins this Friday, 4pm at the Spirit of Detroit downtown, with a march to Grand Circus Park at 6pm. The 1% had its shot to run things. Now it’s our turn. The 99% will decide what we want our world to look like, to shape the society in which we want our children to live.
The occupation will remain indefinitely, as long as there are activists willing to maintain it.
March in Royal Oak on the 10th Anniversary of the U.S. War in Afghanistan.
Thursday, Oct. 6, 2011, gather @ 5:00 pm
Royal Oak First United Methodist Church
320 W. Seventh – use Lafayette St. entrance
(use parking deck also on Lafayette)
5:30 pm – Walk to City Hall
Signs provided or bring your own
Sponsored by Detroit Area Peace with Justice Network
Gov. Snyder and the Republican Michigan Legislature voted to impose a lifetime limit of four years of benefits to families who depend on public assistance for survival. This heartless decision punishes the jobless and their children, who are victims of corporate greed. It follows the reduction of state unemployment benefits to 20 weeks, tightening of food stamp eligibility rules, and 70 percent reduction of the earned income credit for the working poor. No wonder poverty in Michigan is sky-high and rising.
These cutoffs—backed by so-called-“pro-family, pro-life Christians” and Tea Party Republicans—will destroy families. Without even a meager income, kids will do without clothing and shoes, utilities will be cut off, and homelessness will rise. Next, Child Protective Services will declare mothers unfit and take the children. That’s what happened in Ohio when time limits on welfare were imposed.
Meanwhile the rich are getting tax breaks. Taking money from those who need it most and giving it to those who need it the least is not only immoral, it is bad economic policy. Even the pro-business Moody’s Analytics explains that “Cuts in corporate tax rates” is one of the worst ways to stimulate economic activity. Such tax cuts generate a mere 32 cents of bang for every buck of taxpayer dollars. The reason? Ask Allen Sinai, chief global economist for the research firm Decision Economics, who says: “American business is about maximizing shareholder value. You basically don’t want workers.”
In contrast, welfare has one of the highest Fiscal Policy Multipliers, a measurement of taxpayer’s Bang for the Buck. For example, an increase in food stamps generates $1.71, directly and indirectly, for every $1 of tax money because poor people spend that money mostly on food and household items. Until there is full employment, people will need public assistance to survive. We need jobs or income—or as they said in the thirties, “work or wages.”
This country is not broke. There is plenty of money to create jobs. A country that spends trillions of dollars bailing out Wall Street and trillions more on wars in Africa, Asia and the Middle East can afford to spend money instead on a massive public works program that helps the whole nation. Schools and hospitals would not face privatization or closing, new homes could be built for the victims of foreclosure, seniors homes could be weatherized, there could be reliable and accessible mass transit, and arts and culture could thrive. Global warming and joblessness could both be confronted by reopening closed plants for making solar panels, wind turbines and fast trains.
The Postal Service is critical to our economy – delivering mail, medicine, and packages on time and for a good price. Yet plans are underway to close thousands of post offices, eliminate Saturday delivery, close mail processing facilities, cut service, and lay off 120,000 postal employees!
Join SEM JwJ Tuesday, Sept. 27 at 4pm to support our sisters and brothers in the Postal Service as working people come together across the country to demand a mail system that provides good jobs and service. Stay tuned for details…
Join us at the Re-Tool for Peace Rally on Friday August 5, 2011 at the old Ford Highland Park Plant on Woodward and Manchester.
Download printable flyer in pdf format.