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Greetings,
Join us at two upcoming events:
This week, come out on Thursday,
October 15th at 7pm at Providence City Hall to show
solidarity with convention center district hotel workers and
Brown Dinning Service workers! Your presence will make a
difference when the Providence City Council votes on two
critical items:
1. The second vote to pass an ordinance that protects
jobs and maintains wage and benefit standards in the case of
hotel subcontracting or sale. This ordinance passed once
already, 14-0! Please take a minute to send
a message to Mayor Cicilline right now to urge him to sign the
Ordinance into law when it comes to his desk and please
be there on Thursday for this groundbreaking Ordinance.
2. Many of you marched for Health Care for All with us
on October 1. Now Brown Dining Service Workers voted to
say that they are READY TO STRIKE if necessary. They are
fighting to ensure affordable health care for all dining service
workers in their contract fight. The Providence City Council
will consider a resolution on their behalf on Thursday.
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Then- Be There on
Thursday, November 5. Celebrate with us!
RI Jobs with Justice Anniversary and Awards
Night
Providence Firefighters' Memorial Hall
90 Printery
Street
6:00- 9:00 pm
Join us to celebrate a powerful year organizing
to fight for economic justice for all and honoring outstanding
individuals who have helped build the movement for jobs with
justice:
Scott Duhamel, Gladys Gould, Marc Gursky and the
Colibri Workers for Rights and Justice.
Read on for more
information about our honorees.
Food & Music! Tickets
are $25.00 but no one will be turned away
Purchase an ad in our 2009 adbook! Adbook
Purchase forms are attached and must be returned by October 23.
Our adbook is used throughout the year as promotional literature
for RI Jobs with Justice. By purchasing an ad your business or
organization will have exposure to hundreds of Rhode Islanders
who care about economic justice.
RSVP for the Annual Awards Dinner
today. Tickets are $25.00.
E-mail: rijobswithjustice@gmail.com
with your name, address, phone and how many tickets you'd like
to buy.
This year we are pleased to honor:
Scott Duhamel, Business Representative, International Union
of Painters and Allied Trades District Council 11 Local
195 Secretary Treasurer, Rhode Island Building Trades
Council
Scott brings his considerable network of labor
leaders, organizers and community to bear in his efforts to
build the power of RI JwJ. Scott has worked tirelessly to:
connect the organizing efforts of nontraditional allies in Rhode
Island and to strengthen RI JwJ's capacity to win strong
victories for working people. All this in addition to the work
he does every day to fight for his members rights on the job and
to organize to ensure that more people can turn a one time job
into a lifetime career in building trades unions.
Gladys Gould, AFSCME Council 94, Community Organizer
It's
difficult to capture the varied roles Gladys plays in organizing
efforts in both the labor movement and community economic and
racial justice organizing. Beginning with her work at
Direct Action for Rights and Equality, Gladys has devoted
decades to community organizing, base building and fighting for
immigrant rights in Providence and through her church,
Providence Presbyterian. Today she continues to connect the dots
between these constituencies and spend endless volunteer hours
in a variety of community organizations while organizing new
members to join AFSCME Council 94 and working with members to
build the fight against privatization and for retirement
security.
Marc Gursky, Gursky Law
For years Marc has represented RI
Jobs with Justice and our allies on a pro-bono basis, memorably
winning a favorable ruling in a lawsuit brought forth by DARE
and RI Jobs with Justice against the City of Providence. The
ruling helped to ensure that the City upheld its own law
requiring that publicly funded projects seek to hire unemployed
Providence residents. Since January, Marc has collaborated with
RI JwJ and Fuerza Laboral to support the Colibri Workers,
volunteering his time in late night meetings and representing
the workers in court every step of the way: from filing state
receivership papers, to working to ensure that the Colibri
workers and allies arrested during their civil disobedience
action were cleared of charges, to most recently filing a
federal WARN ACT suit against Founders Equity, the New York
based Private Equity Firm responsible for closing Colibri's
doors in January. Upholding the best tradition of his
mentor Raul Lovett, Marc works on the principle that every
worker deserves representation, regardless of their ability to
pay.
The Colibri Workers for Rights and Justice
When the
Colibri Workers arrived at work at their jewelry manufacturing
jobs on a day in January, they found the doors locked. Overnight
Founders Equity placed them into state receivership and sold out
their jobs. Colibri workers didn't have a union,
they hadn't ever collaborated together as coworkers to take
collective action. But something told them that what
happened to them wasn't right. A Colibri worker was
referred to Fuerza Laboral and Fuerza confirmed that intuition:
under federal law they had a right to 60 days notice in their
plant closing, notice they did not receive. Soon
they were having nightly meetings packed into a worker leader's
living room. Fuerza reached out to RI Jobs with Justice to
partner in the campaign. Together we traveled to New York City,
to the State House, to Providence City Hall, planned marches,
actions and rallies, acted in civil disobedience, and will
continue the fight to ensure that they get their WARN Act Pay,
and that no worker in Rhode Island goes through what they went
though.
None of this would be possible had the Colibri workers
themselves not stood up, taken leadership, put an enormous
number of hours into planning, organizing among their co-workers
and fighting back.
See you on November 5th!
Rhode Island Jobs with
Justice
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