DC Hits Road for Justice

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)
Last Thursday night 15 DC Jobs with Justice members and leaders piled into two vans and embarked on an overnight road trip to Providence, Rhode Island where more than a thousand labor, community, student, and religious activists from across the United States and around the world gathered for the annual Jobs with Justice conference. The May 2-4 conference combined plenary sessions with skills-building workshops which provided a space to share skills such as grassroots fundraising and media outreach, and to strategize around specific campaigns such as the future of telecom industry, equitable economic development in our cities. Plenaries focused on student-labor strategies, low-wage worker organizing, the upcoming healthcare week of action, the Employee Free Choice Act and how to beat the global race to the bottom. "The passage of the Employee Free Choice Act is key and will be integrated into everything we do," said Mike Harris, Vice-President of CWA Local 2336 who attended the conference. "This right here could be our salvation and you can rest assured we will be collecting signatures from everyone at Comcast, Verizon Business and Verizon wireless." The Jobs with Justice activists also staged an exciting march through the streets of Providence to the Rhode Island State House where they demanded tax and budget reform, immigrant justice and funding for programs and staffing that make RI work for workers. Click here for footage of the march.
- report/photo by Ruth Castel-Branco