Attacks on Working Families Spark a Fire for a Fair Economy

Scenes from the July 23, 2011 “Lighting a Fire” Membership meeting in Los Angeles
Member leaders and staff from Riverside to Lompoc gathered on July 23, 2011 in Los Angeles to add kindling to the Fight for a Fair Economy. More than 150 members united to prepare for the challenges as forces bent on destroying the middle class move into California.
“Wisconsin is coming to California.  The enemy is at the gate,” warned Bob Schoonover, SEIU Local 721 President.

Schoonover is referring to anti-labor legislation that has been instituted in Wisconsin and Ohio and is now moving into California in the form of new propositions that are expected to be on the ballot in June 2012. These new propositions pose a fundamental threat to collective bargaining.
Lighting a Fire
The Lighting a Fire event brought members from all regions together to hear the latest on the crisis that we all face including the attacks in California, redirecting our energy to those who are to blame and coming up with a fight strategy.
California is in crisis, how do we respond? “Stop Wall Street greed,” says Jono Shaffer, a 20-year union organizer and the lead organizer in the “Justice for Janitors” campaign in Los Angeles. “There’s a broader problem in America between haves and have-nots.  And our job is to make them pay, not us.”
Members brainstormed and developed strategies to educate, motivate and mobilize members and the community to take action and restore economic fairness and justice for workers across the nation. But first, members addressed key issues such as:

• Answering the question “How is this economy working for you?”
• How has the crisis impacted public services and workers?
• News on the latest attacks
• Who’s to blame for breaking the economy?
• Strategies to light a fire
• Planning our next steps
• Gathering commitments
  

So tell us, how’s the economy working for you? Are you ready to light the fire?
>> Download a PDF version of Jono Shaffer’s presentation from the “Lighting a Fire” event.