Working Partnerships joined with People Acting in Community Together (PACT), a faith-based group, to access tobacco funds to provide health insurance for local children. Other similar groups have worked with environmentalists and building trades to renovate low-income housing using green principles. And still others are deeply involved in state and local Living Wage initiatives.
In 1987, the leadership
of the Communications Workers of America initiated an ambitious labor-community
organization, Jobs with Justice, to build a new constituency
for united action. Today, Jobs with Justice has coalitions in more than
40 cities in 29
states, including unions, worker centers, community groups and individuals,
all dedicated to
strengthening the rights of workers on the job within a broad context of
social justice.
Coalitions
came to be essential, because American unions, like those elsewhere, were
fighting what has come to be called globalization. Attacks on labor here
are part of a
worldwide move to enhance corporate development and profit making, regardless
of the
costs to workers and communities...
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Labor Primer:
Laboring for Health: Unions Leadership Role in Health Policy
Taking Health Care to the States and the Streets
Best Practices for the Long Haul
Worker Centers: Another Resource
The Soul of Labor History is the Story of Democracy
Appendices:
Article: Unions are from Mars, Community Groups are from Venus: Does that Mean We are All Aliens?