Campaigns and Actions

Workers at Presbyterian Inspired Care Nursing Home have been trying to settle their first labor contract for a year and a half. In this report we hear from one of the workers talking about the struggle. We also hear what Occupy Philly had to say to management.

As workers uprisings grow around the world and here at home, this panel explored the innovative organizing models used by excluded workers of color to win justice at work and build a movement to challenge neoliberalism. The panel was part of the Nation al Lawyers Guild Convention held in Philadelphia.

Private security officers in Philadelphia are joining together in a civil rights campaign for fair wages, benefits and dignity on the job.

Guards are signing up with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 32BJ and anticipate upcoming employer contract negotiations.

Produced by Kistine Carolan.

Chanting "Dignity for everyone" and "Right to housing," a few dozen people block the doorway of a house so that the family inside cannot be evicted. The demonstrators, members of a Hungarian housing rights group called The City is for All, question why units of public housing are allowed to sit empty while 1100 families wait for housing, before they are arrested for civil disobedience.

The Philadelphia Joint Board has filed a complaint in court that accuses AraMark of not paying earned overtime to workers at Citizens Bank Park, home the Phillies baseball team, Lincoln Financial Field, home of the Eagles NFL football team, and the Spectrum, home of the Flyers NHL hockey team. The complaint further alledges that AraMark deducts a half hour from any worker who puts in six hours or more whether they took a break or not. The Philadelphia Joint Board says this is "wage theft" plain and simple.

In January of 2010, the Poverty Initiatve, a group based in New York that aims to reignite Dr. Martin Luther King's Poor People's Campaign, visited Philadelphia for an immersion tour. The tour highlighted the history of the struggles of poor people in this city. Willie Baptist and Liz Theoharis, of the Poverty Initiative,  shared stories about the struggle of the homeless in 1995 and 1996.

In the fight against displacement and gentrification the Harlem Anti-Displacement Task Force held it's 3rd Annual March.

Katrina Pain Index 2009 is a solidarity message from Bill Quigley to Hurricane Katrina survivors in NYC at the Katrina Remembrance Aug. 29, 2009. Bill Quigley is a human rights lawyer on leave from Loyola University to serve as legal directior for the Center for Constitutional Rights. For a pirinted version of the article "Katrina Pain Index 2009" contact Bill Quigley at quigley77@gmail.com. This video was shot by Johnnie Stevens and Dalia Grinan. mayibue2@yahoo.com

Workers at Baltimore's Inner Harbor announced today that they are demanding that developers require businesses in the development to respect worker rights to a living wage and treatment with dignity.  This is a major development in the United Workers Human Rights Zone campaign, and is also a big step in organizing workers in the new economy.