NY Jobs With Justice

Community Voices Heard

Community Voices Heard developed some of our earliest relationships with unions through the New York Jobs with Justice Coalition. Sondra Youdelman, our Executive Director, currently sits on the Executive Committee of the Board of New York JWJ. We are currently most closely engaged with JWJ around civic engagement work (NY Pushback Network) and economic development (RED-NY).

Mission

New York Jobs with Justice is a dynamic long-term, multi-issue coalition of labor, community, student, and faith based organizations working together in New York City to transform and democratize our communities. We take action to level the playing field by building power for poor and working class people, supporting sustainable development, and demanding an end to corporate greed and economic inequality. We work to re-establish basic freedoms in the work place and promote social, racial, and economic justice for all New Yorkers.

Jobs with Justice is built around the idea of solidarity. Modeled after the Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s, Jobs with Justice brings together a diverse intersection of public sectors to work side by side, building a more powerful and cohesive movement for social change. To this end, we offer strategic support to social and economic justice projects in New York City, in addition to spearheading several long-term priority campaigns.

With 75 member organizations, the Jobs with Justice model unites labor, community, student, and faith based organizations to “be there” for one another throughout the year. Allied organizations work together to increase the effectiveness and broaden the impact of each other’s projects, as well as pioneer new coalition driven campaigns.

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Work

Throughout the year, Jobs with Justice focuses on two long-term priority campaigns; Healthcare and Accountable Development. To support these initiatives and other social and economic projects in the city, NY JwJ works to build a base of support through grassroots voters, the religious community, and high-level elected officials, philanthropists, business leaders and academics through NY VOTE, Faith in Action, and the Workers’ Rights Board.

The United States spends more money than any other country on healthcare each year. Yet, we are the only wealthy country that does not provide universal healthcare. In fact, nearly 46 million Americans lack health coverage. An estimated 16 million more have health insurance, but their co-payments and deductibles are unaffordable compared to what they earn. That’s nearly a quarter of the population that doesn’t get healthcare in the richest country in the world.

To respond to this crisis in healthcare and to stop the downward spiral in industry standards, NY Jobs with Justice launched the New York City Health Care Security Campaign in the fall of 2004. The Health Care Security campaign is a cutting-edge local policy initiative that offers a solution for New Yorkers who are uninsured and for people whose current healthcare must be protected from declining industry standards. The legal mechanism of the Health Care Security Campaign requires businesses in targeted industries that are operating below the industry norm to rise to the standard already being met in the industry by responsible union employers. This policy not only provides greater healthcare to more New Yorkers, but it also creates a model for local government action in regulating private business and ensuring positive economic development in our communities in the face of declining or disappearing national regulations.

There is an opening in the political and public environment for change in the way New York “does” economic development. In fact, the way we “do” economic development in the City is under question more and more in the news nearly every day: Should we use eminent domain to acquire land for new private developments? Does the investment of public capital in large-scale development projects result in quality jobs for local communities? Should we protect the character of our unique NYC neighborhoods with new zoning regulations?

Along with our allies we are working on answers to these questions, but in short form the answer to all of them is that we must make economic development in New York sustainable for the long-term and accountable to all of its residents—not just to the interests of wealth and business. A progressive vision and agenda for economic development is possible—one that creates and preserves good jobs for communities in need, one that builds and maintains what people want in their communities, one that expands and preserves the services people need to live well and healthy, one that generally promotes smart growth and public good in our cities and throughout the state.

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Members

AALDEF
ACORN
AFM Local 802
African Services
AFSCME District Council 1707
AFSCME District Council 37
AFSCME Local 215
AFSCME Retirees Association
APWU NY Metro Postal Union
Black Radical Congress
Brennan Center for Justice
Community Service Society of NY
Community Voices Heard
Congregation B'nai Jeshurun
CSEA
CWA - Local 1150
CWA District 1
CWA Local 1102
CWA Local 1105
CWA Local 1109
CWA Local 1180
CWA Local 1183
CWA Typo 6
Domestic Workers United
Empire State Pride Agenda
Fifth Avenue Committee
FUREE
Good Ol’ Lower East Side
Greater NY Labor-Religion Coalition
HERE Local 100
Hotel and Motel Trades Council
IATSE
IATSE Local 1
IATSE Local 600
IBT Local 1205
IBT Local 808
IUPAT District Council 9 JFREJ
Judson Memorial Church
Laborers Local 78
Lafayette Ave. Presbyterian Church/ PFN
Make the Road by Walking
Mason Tenders District Council
Metro NY Health Care for All
New York Taxi Workers Alliance
NY Civic Participation Project
NY LECET
NY State LECET
NYC AIDS Housing Network
NYPIRG
NYSNA
NYUP
PHROLES
Picture the Homeless
Pratt Institute
Professional Staff Congress/CUNY
Queens Coalition For Political Alternatives
ROC-NY
RWDSU Local 338
SEIU Local 32BJ
SEIU Local 758
SLAM
TWU Local 100
UAW 2110
UAW Region 9A
UFCW Local 1500
UFCW Region 1
UNITE
UNITE 23-25
UNITE ASAI
UNITE Local 62-32
UNITE Local 98
UNITE NY Joint Board
United Federation of Teachers
Women in Islam