25 Years of Building Working Class Power
1987
July 29, 1987 More than 11,000 attend the first Jobs with Justice (JwJ) rally in Miami, Florida. The ralliers rock the Miami Convention Center with chants of "JUSTICE!" and together recite the JwJ Pledge: "During the next year, 'I'll Be There' at least five times for someone else's fight, as well as my own."
1988
April 1998 - JwJ joins the Southern Christian Leadership Coalition for a journey from Memphis to Atlanta commemorating the 20th Anniversary of the assasination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
1990
October 3, 1990 - JwJ coordinates a Health Care Day of Action. Tens of thousands of workers in 40 states participate in worksite activities and group demonstrations. This single day focus with multiple events aimed at locally selected targets becomes a model for coordinated JwJ action.
1991
June 1991 - JwJ coordinates a Health Care Week of Action targeting insurance company bureaucracy. Protestors in 120 cities in all 50 states literally wrapped insurance company buildings in 6" wide red plastic tape. Jobs with Justice also helps to coordinate the Emergency Drive for Health Care, delivering thousands of 'votes' for healthcare reform to lawmakers via a cross-country ambulance trek.
1993
June 1993 - JwJ organizes actions in National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) offices nationwide to demand that the Board uphold the right to organize unions. Out of this day of action comes the idea for the JwJ Workers' Rights Board.
1995
June 1995 - JwJ organizes a nationwide week of action against the corporate and Congressional supporters of the 'Contract on America' and to demand a 'Bill of Rights for Working People'.
1996
September 25, 1996 - JwJ coordinates a Corporate Greed Day of Action to oppose excessive executive compensation, layoffs,downsizing, and the abuse of workers. Local JwJ activists choose local corporate targets in over 40 cities.
1997
June 12, 1997 - JwJ holds a second day of action to Fight Corporate Greed, focusing specifically on the anti-worker practices of Gannett and General Electric. July 14, 1997 - JwJ coalitions across the country take action to demand justice for Sprint workers. Sprint had fired 177 Latina workers eight days prior to a union vote and replaced them with workfare workers. December 10, 1997 - JwJ coordinates a day of action for Welfare/Workfare Justice to refocus the debate about welfare on good jobs and social justice.
1998
August 1998 - Local JwJ coalitions take action to support workers striking against unlimited hours of mandatory overtime at US West. Coalitions leaflet and rally at US West locations, visit US West Board Members, gather letters to the company from community and religious leaders, and mobilize people to visit an 'electronic picketline'. December 8, 1998 - Building on the Welfare/Workfare Justice Day of Action, JwJ collaborates with the National Priorities Project to release the report 'Working Hard, Earning Less: The Story of Job Growth in America', showing the economy's failure to create quality livable wage jobs and to guarantee employee protections.
1999
September 1999 - JwJ collects signatures from 350 Workers' Rights Board members urging customers of Overnite Trucking to advocate that they treat their workers with dignity and to bargain for a fair contract in good faith. When the strike begins, JwJ coalitions join picket lines in cities nationwide. December 1999 - JwJ and the United States Students Association begin collaboration on the Student Labor Action Project (SLAP) to support student organizing.
2000
April 4, 2000 - SLAP organizes the first annual Student Labor Day of Action to commemorate the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and to celebrate the too-often untold legacy of his support for striking sanitation workers in Memphis. Students on 59 campuses take action to demand living wages for campus workers, an end to sweatshop clothing on campus, and more. April 16, 2000 - Jobs with Justice is instrumental in organizing the protests in Washington, DC against the IMF-World Bank Meetings.
September 26, 2000 - JwJ organizes actions nationwide to 'Localize the Movement for Global Justice'. Planned to coincide with the with the Prague IMF-World Bank Meetings, local actions linked local struggles to the global fight for social and economic justice. October, 2000 - JwJ sends a delegation of workers displaced by NAFTA and community activists from Kentucky to the border town of Nogales in Sonora, Mexico to witness firsthand the devastating impacts of NAFTA on Mexican workers and their communities.
2001
April 16, 2001 - JwJ protests the Free Trade Area of the Americas at the Summit of the Americas in Quebec and locally in over 50 cities and towns across the U.S. In conjunction with the Day of Action, JwJ coalitions released state-by-state NAFTA job loss reports compiled by the Economic Policy Institute: "NAFTA's Impact on the States: The Industries and States that Suffered the Most in the Agreement's First Seven Years".
October 2001 - JwJ coalitions in New York City & Washington, DC hold the first in an ongoing series of JwJ Workers' Rights Board hearings on the impact of September 11th & the recession on working people nationwide.
2002
January 2002 JwJ protests the World Economic Forum in New York City and sends a delegation of activists to the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil to share strategies and visions for a just and sustainable world.
May 2002 JwJ completes the Kentucky-Sonora Worker Exchange, bringing Mexican workers and community organizers to Kentucky. They met with workers who lost their jobs due to NAFTA, talked with immigrant workers about their lives in the U.S., and learned about the hard-won health and safety standards in U.S factories.
August 2002 JwJ activists leaflet Payless Shoe Source, the GAP, and Home Depot stores to demand that they stop using their influence via the 'West Coast Waterfront Coalition' to encourage the Bush administration to threaten West Coast Dockworkers. Payless agrees to send letters to the WCWC and Bush urging that the government not intervene.
2003
September 2003 JwJ coalitions throughout the country support the Immigrant Worker Freedom Ride. In early October, hundreds of immigrant workers converge in Washington DC and then New York City to demand a path to legalization.
November 2003 JwJ is one of the lead organizers for protests against the Free Trade Area of the Americas summit meeting in Miami, FL. Leading up to the protests, JwJ coalitions collect tens of thousands of ballots against the FTAA.
December 10, 2003 JwJ coalitions throughout the country celebrate International Human Rights Day with events with the theme "Workers' Rights Are Human Rights"
2004
March 4 JwJ coalitions and allies throughout the country participate in Health Care Action Day. In addition to local rallies and educational events, hundreds of thousands of workers wore "Health Care for All" stickers to work that day.
June 2 JwJ launches the National Workers' Rights Board with a Hearing on the Right to Organize
December JwJ launches their outsourcing / New Trade Union Initiative (NTUI) Project with a tour of Indian leaders to several local coalitions
2005
April 7 JwJ Board of Directors passes the Unity Principles
2006
June 2 day of action to Quarantine Wal-Mart
