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By exposing his anti-worker, toxic, and community-unfriendly track record, we helped persuade Tacoma Metro Parks to withdraw from developer Mike Cohen’s ultimatum to let him control and profit from a premium piece of waterfront public park. Cohen had tried to convert Point Defiance Park’s waterfront into his privately operated event center for the next 20 years, enhancing the value of his billion dollar Point Ruston development.

Cohen gave Tacoma Metro Parks a deadline of a few weeks to sign on or drop it. Cohen is legally required to clean up the toxic contamination from this Point Defiance park site as part of his land purchase from the owners of the Federal declared environmental disaster Asarco smelter site. He is operating in the guise of Point Ruston LLC in which Cohen has staked millions of dollars to leverage a 1000 luxury home and 200K square feet commercial space development, including a possible hotel and marina.

The problem with Mike Cohen’s plan is that he has a past practice of rejecting community-friendly jobs, housing, and environmental standards despite multiple invitations to discuss reforming his ways. Jobs with Justice very much supports development when it is socially responsible.

A majority of the Metro Parks board was not fooled, despite a Cohen media blitz that included a Tacoma News Tribune editorial for his park project, unsubstantiated Tribune editorials and articles that refer to him as “a responsible developer” and “The hero”, and hiring public relations executive and former Ray Corpuz city official JJ McCament to falsely claim that Cohen operates union-friendly.

Pierce County Building Trades Council leader Mark Martinez testified to the Parks Board backed by a packed room of Jobs with Justice member organizations, unions, and community groups sharing a mutual goal. Jobs with Justice also sent a letter to the Metro Parks Board revealing Mike Cohen’s history and offering more details.

In the last year, JwJ delegations have politely written, placed multiple phone messages, and visited Cohen’s office when he was in. Cohen has yet to have or even schedule a dialogue with us. JwJ then began to expose Cohen’s track record at various public presentations leading up to the Metro Parks showdown.

JwJ’s goal is to form partnerships with socially responsible developers and policy-makers to link governments’ developer subsidies with policies that create living wage jobs and affordable housing. Currently, this link between subsidies and responsible practice does not exist in Greater Tacoma’s booming property development in any functional way. We have defined social responsibility as meeting a minimum standard that helps end local poverty:

• 15% of all new residential units are affordable to the bottom quarter of area income and government funds dedicated to affordable housing are not raided by for-profit schemes.
• All building jobs and all service jobs in developing properties’ commercial establishments will be compensated with living wages including family medical and fair retirement, and the voice of workers in these jobs will be respected.
• Local hiring of at least 40% and job apprenticeship of at least 15% of the construction workforce. See our July 2007 email for more background information.
  

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Jobs with Justice Picket Sends Cargo and a Message back to Chehalis Company

Over a hundred Jobs with Justice activists and members of the community shut down a major terminal at the Port of Seattle on September 10th to protest National Frozen Foods Corporation’s (NFFC) treatment of workers at their Chehalis warehouse. Over the past three years, NFFC has:

• Cut pay by 16%
• Stripped seasonal workers AND retirees of health care benefits
• Increased the number of hours it takes to qualify for health care, pension benefits and pay increases

Hundreds gathered to send NFFC a message. Click here to hear a radio report about the action from Shift Break with Tom Herriman heard weekly on 91.3 KBCS FM.

Armed with fliers and noisemakers, the peaceful picketers blocked the main entrance to the 88-acre terminal, chanting slogans in support of workers' rights and demanding that longshore workers not load the cargo, while distributing fliers calling on NFFC to return to the bargaining table.

In response, longshore workers and marine clerks from the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU) stood by in accordance with their collective bargaining agreement until the issue was resolved. The terminal operator agreed to isolate the NFFC cargo, put it on wheels and have NFFC remove the cargo from the terminal. The protest took place at the Hanjin Shipping Terminal 46. NFFC uses the terminal to ship frozen vegetables to customers in Asia. The Hanjin Boston, chartered by Hanjin from German shipper NSB, was set to transport NFFC products from Seattle.

The cuts in pay and benefits have hit hardest at those least able to afford them, particularly Latino workers and new hires. A majority of the peak work force is Latino. NFFC has attempted to strip workers of their voice at work twice since 2004. Workers beat back these efforts, voting to keep their union (Teamsters Local 252) on both occasions. On July 14, 2007, NFFC illegally declared bargaining to be at an impasse, and ended their contract with the workers' Union. The Teamsters have filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board. Since then, NFFC has denied access to any pension plan for workers aged 18-21, eliminated entry into the defined benefit plan for new hires, stopped the Union grievance process, and put into effect minimal pay increases that come nowhere near making up for recent concessions.

Additionally, NFFC is under investigation by the State of Washington for alleged child labor law violations, including having children work into the night, denying minors legally mandated meal breaks, using minors to operate machinery, and forcing minors to work at legally inappropriate work stations.

Stay tuned for upcoming actions as we continue to send the message to NFFC and shipping lines that we will not tolerate employers that continually disrespect the rights of their workers. We will work with Jobs with Justice coalitions and their allies in other areas to confront shipping lines that carry NFFC products, and there will be problems throughout the logistics chain whenever and wherever NFFC cargo is involved.
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Wal-Mart capitulated to the Fircrest community this summer following a 2 year JwJ campaign and no thanks to Fircrest Mayor Viafore.

Since the property is stilled zoned Big Box and Wal-Mart released a statement that it continues to look for sites in the Fircrest area, we must continue to be vigilant. But let us pause to celebrate what a tremendous victory this is for our allies Fircrest Against Wal-Mart (FAW) and to please join us at our 2007 Honoree Dinner where we will feature FAW and United Food & Commercial Workers and other groups bringing justice to Wal-Mart.

Despite…

• A Fircrest Mayor and City Council that rezoned the site into Big Box but then locked ranks and refused to answer questions from residents that elected them
• The largest and wealthiest corporation in the world recruiting local residents and sprinkling donations to help their ‘astroturf’ propaganda campaign
• A Mayor promoting to the press his Wal-Mart excitement while other Council members express hostility to residents who campaign against Wal-Mart.
• The South Sound being the most Wal-Mart saturated region in our state.
• The Mayor and City Council rejecting a nationally-renowned constitutional lawyer explaining in great detail that it is their democratic duty to engage in free speech about constituents’ top issues
• An all volunteer effort of West End residents juggling full-time jobs and with very little funding
• Many local government and civic venues interfering with free speech activities and making access to local public gathering space complicated

WE WON!

Victory Transforms Movement?
Jobs with Justice is looking to link Wal-Mart struggles across the South Sound into a movement to raise standards on responsible development. As the News Tribune, a frequent Wal-Mart promoter, admitted, “it is rare for the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer to pull out of a planted store. Locally, it happened in Gig Harbor in 1996.” Community groups have battled Wal-Mart executives from Fircrest to Lakewood, from Gig Harbor to Federal Way, from Lacey to Tumwater to Yelm to Aberdeen, from South Hill to Bonney Lake. Borrowing from JwJ victories in Whatcom County and many other groups as far away as the state of Maine, there is a wide range of precedent now for neutral evaluations of community impacts all the way to Big Box moratoriums.

On the horizon is also the concern that Wal-Mart might try to expand the Lakewood store into a SuperCenter. The Lakewood City Council approved Wal-Mart’s plan to build the huge store but was forced to scale back to a non-food store by the organizing and legal efforts led by the local group City Limits-BWA. While empty parking lots and low sales currently mar Wal-Mart’s Lakewood invasion, will Wal-Mart executives go back to the Council to lower the quality of life standards that the community fought hard to establish?

In the South Sound, our goals are to encourage local governments to raise the jobs standards of both taxpayer-subsidized Big Box and luxury condo developers. For more background, see the next section below.

What happened at the Lakewood store in February?
A large Wal-Mart Sweatshop Worker and Community Leader contingent entered the store, shopped, learned about Wal-Mart products made under sweatshop conditions, and met with Wal-Mart management.

The contingent shopped for products on a special list but were horrified to learn about the conditions under which they were made. We then filed through the store with our huge Wal-Mart carts to the manager’s office. The sweatshop workers shared their personal stories with the store manager who committed to “take the messages up the corporate line.” The Wal-Mart worker fired after filing a sexual harassment complaint also got the manager to commit not to permit sexual harassment in his store, but only after asking the question 3 different times in different ways. We then picketed and leafleted shoppers in front of the store doors for 20 minutes.

The Wal-Mart Sweatshop Workers were a cut-flower worker from Colombia, a retail worker from Florida fired after making a sexual harassment complaint, and a garment union organizer from India. All three have experienced first hand the unacceptable conditions on farms and in factories because of the purchasing practices of big box retailers such as Wal-Mart. This group is part of a speaking tour organized by the International Labor Rights Fund. Walking with the Wal-Mart sweatshop workers, were religious leaders from St. Leo’s Church and First United Methodist Church, the head of the Pierce County Labor Council, and leaders from Bridgeport Way Association and South Sound Clean Clothes and Jobs with Justice, local community groups organizing to hold Wal-Mart and other sweatshop companies accountable to socially responsible standards
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Jobs with Justice, as an advocate for economic justice, recognizes affordable and accessible housing as a component to sustaining healthy strong communities.

We are proud to have worked in solidarity with the Tenants Union on their STOP campaign (Section 8 Organizing Project).

Section 8 housing residents are some of the most vulnerable workers (single moms, immigrants, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered families, elderly and low-income workers) in our communities. Unfortunately, too many residents have become homeless because of an unfair hearing process instituted by the Seattle Housing Authority. The STOP campaign has been fighting for a fair and accessible hearing process and a voice for tenants at Seattle Housing Authority (SHA).

On July 27th, thanks to the Tenants Union, Section 8 tenants and community organizations like Jobs with Justice the SHA Board of Commissioners Chair David Bley, and Executive Director Tom Tierney agreed to:

• Hire a panel of three hearing officers with backgrounds as mediators or arbitrators
• Subject all hearing decisions to independent review, available to the public;
• Create a committee of tenants, community organizations
• SHA board and staff to annually review all hearing decisions and see that they meet established legal standards
• Good faith participation in a series of four negotiating meetings with STOP tenants and community experts to discuss and hopefully reach agreement regarding changes in four areas that deeply impact Section 8 tenants in an out of informal hearings: domestic violence; disability and reasonable accommodation; race, immigration and language, and fraud investigations and evidence.
• Continue discussion around the creation of a Resident Advisory Board composed of Section 8 tenants.

The larger goals of the campaign are to increase community accountability for SHA and a voice in decision making for Section 8 tenants. STOP will continue to closely monitor all SHA hearing decisions and will report back to the Board of Commissioners and the community about the progress made in our negotiating meetings.

This STOP Campaign victory is a testimony to the success of solidarity work that Jobs with Justice strives to achieve for all working families.
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Affordable Health care and living wages for all Washington residents are two of the strongest ingredients for healthy thriving communities. Recently, Jobs with Justice worked in solidarity with 20,000 UFCW Local 21 grocery workers from Albertson’s, Fred Meyers, QFC, and Safeway to achieve better health care and fair wages.

This is significant and important to our communities on many different levels. UFCW 21 grocery workers have a large percentage of women workers; many who are single moms.

“Over 300,000 working age (18 to 64) women lack health insurance in Washington State.” – A Closer Look: A Landmark Study of Women and Girls in four Counties I the Puget Sound Region 2007. By Women’s Funding Alliance

“Women and girls who….. do not have access to employer-sponsored programs face significant challenges in accessing medical care, dental care, and other health services.” - A Closer Look

In our fight towards health care for all Jobs with Justice knows the importance of supporting strong union contracts.

The members approved their contract on August 29th, 2007. It not only increased wages and secured pension plans; it added preventative health care and Domestic Partnership benefits! It’s good to know that through a strong labor movement LGBT folks as well as all workers are insured.

Emily Reilly, Jobs with Justice Organizing Committee MLK Co-chair and rank and file member of the UFCW 21 contract negotiating team said, “This is truly a historic victory; not only is this the best grocery contract in the country, but its also the first time we the workers were at the table with management.”

Jobs with Justice is proud to have devoted countless hours to the livelihood and betterment of 20,000 UFCW 21 grocery workers.
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(from the report summary) Nearly two years ago, Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott announced a bold initiative to turn the world’s largest company green. A long-anticipated first progress report on these sustainability goals is expected to be released soon. In advance of the company’s report, 23 environmental, farm, labor, and other civil society groups have offered their own critiques of Wal-Mart’s approach to sustainability.

Some of these critiques focus on specific Wal-Mart commitments and offer recommendations for change. Others argue that even if Wal-Mart achieved all of its stated goals, the company’s business model makes it inherently unsustainable. All of them remind us of what’s at stake by demonstrating Wal-Mart’s huge and often devastating impacts on real people and places in the United States and around the world

Read the entire report online here.
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WA State JwJ is proud to welcome Ligaya Domingo as our Honoree Dinner Coordinator. Ligaya is a former Jobs with Justice Executive Board member. She is currently a Doctoral Candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, where she is working on her dissertation entitled "Power Trajectories: Approaches to Organizing within The Filipino American Community in Seattle". Ligaya is a former union organizer and Elementary school teacher. Ligaya is a member of the Seattle Education Association and past Vice President of the Asian Pacific American Labor Association Seattle Chapter.

We’d like to recognize Lisa Lance, the Pierce County Organizing Representative to the Statewide Executive Board, who is stepping down from the executive board though she’ll remain active in Jobs with Justice at the Pierce County Organizing Committee, the Immigrant Workers Rights Workgroup in Pierce County, and as a Steering Committee Representative for the Peace Action Coalition of Tacoma (PACT). We’d also like to thank Juan Jose Bocanegra, who as of September 14th left his job as JwJ Staff Organizer to take a job at the Evergreen State College Labor Education & Research Center. We're so grateful for the time and hard work these committed individuals have put in to make JwJ stronger and more effective.
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