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May Day Rally

Jobs for all!

Today, one in six Americans is unemployed or underemployed, and one in four is among African-Americans and Latinos. For the Black and Latino communities, the Depression is already here! Despite trillions of dollars in subsidies, the private sector is destroying jobs, not making them. Yet everywhere there is work that needs to be done—schools and hospitals are overcrowded and understaffed, housing and infrastructure is crumbling. Enough of this insanity! Today, there is only one way to create jobs—the government must hire workers directly at good pay to do the work that needs to be done, the way the CWA and WPA programs hired millions in the last Great Depression.

We Demand: A MASSIVE PUBLIC WORKS PROGRAM.

May Day Rally, May 1st at Noon, in Military Park, Newark.

Read the full flyer



Community Forum

COMMUNITY FORUM

JOBS FOR ALL!

One year after the stimulus law passed, one in six Americans is unemployed or underemployed, and one in four is among African-Americans and Latinos. For the Black and Latino communities, the Depression is already here! Despite trillions of dollars in subsidies, the private sector is destroying jobs, not making them. Yet everywhere there is work that needs to be done—schools and hospitals are overcrowded and understaffed, housing and infrastructure is crumbling. Enough of this insanity! Today, there is only one way to create jobs—the government must hire workers directly at good pay to do the work that needs to be done, the way the CWA and WPA programs hired millions in the last Great Depression.

We Demand: A Massive Public Works Program,

Come to a Community Forum, where we will hear how a Public Works Program will provide jobs at prevailing wages to:--Cut class size in half in our schools--Provide low cost housing for all--Provide mass transit for all--Research, develop and build cheap, clean safe energy. This program is to be paid for by ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and by taxing the rich and the corporations who created the crisis.

We will not be divided!

We will not fight against ourselves for the available jobs but will unite in one movement to win JOBS FOR ALL WHO LIVE HERE, immigrant and native-born, regardless of previous convictions-- no one denied work. So to get Jobs For All,

We Demand: Legalization for ALL

Come to the Forum and discuss how we will build, here in Northern NJ, and throughout the country a mass movement to win these demands.

Saturday, March 27 2:00 PM

St. James Church Cafeteria

143 Madison St., Newark

(do not enter rectory, enter through parking lot)

Jobs for All Campaign of NJ, NJ May 1 Coalition, Peoples Organization for Progress

Info: Jay 505-520-9521 info@njmay1.org


Flyer in English
Flyer in Spanish
Flyer in Portuguese


Summary of Jan. 24 Jobs for All Planning meeting

Seventeen activists from a half-dozen community organizations participated in a successful meeting January 24 in Newark to plan events and actions behind the demand of Jobs for All. The meeting was held at the office of the American Friends Service committee and also included members of the NJ May1 Coalition, Peoples Organization for Progress, New Labor, GANE, NJ-ACLU and Ecuadoran Alliance.

The meeting reached unanimous agreement to endorse and organize behind the three demands raised by the Dec. 19th Newark rally:

  1. Jobs for ALL

  2. A Massive Public Works Program, with direct government employment at prevailing wages to be paid for by ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and by taxing the rich and the corporations who created the crisis.

  3. Legalization for ALL, which means both legalization of undocumented immigrants, and no one denied work on account of previous convictions.

While there was general support for a campaign of rallies behind these demands, linking up with similar groups elsewhere in the country, it was agreed that larger forces must first be mobilized. As a first step toward that goal, we agreed to start planning for Jobs for All Community Forum on March 6 to discuss and explain these demands and build for future actions. We will seek organizational endorsements for this forum.

The next planning meeting will be held Saturday Feb.4 at 2:00 PM at AFSC offices, 89 Market Street, Newark. We agreed that we would each try to bring two or three more people to this meeting, which will be devoted to planning the Community Forum.



JOBS FOR ALL! Rally

Jobs for all, Legalization for all!

Sunday, Jan.24th, 4:00 PM, AFSC office, 89 Market St. Newark NJ. Come to a planning meeting to launch organizing for a major coalition demonstration in the spring in Newark to demand Jobs for All, Legalization for All, and a Massive Public Works Program. Organizations sending representatives include People Organization for Progress, GANE, American Friends Service Committee, NJ May1 Coalition, International Luxemburgist Network and others. This is a follow-up to an initial rally held Dec. 19th in Newark.

A year after the stimulus law passed, one in six Americans is unemployed or underemployed. Despite trillions of dollars in subsidies, the private sector is destroying jobs, not making them. Yet everywhere there is work that needs to be done—schools and hospitals are overcrowded and understaffed, housing and infrastructure is crumbling.

Today, there is only one way to create jobs—the government must hire workers directly at good pay to do the work that needs to be done, the way the CWA and WPA programs hired millions in the last Great Depression. We will not fight against ourselves for the available jobs but will unite in one movement to win JOBS FOR ALL WHO LIVE HERE, immigrant and native-born, NO ONE denied work. So to get Jobs for All, We Demand: Legalization for ALL.

The Administration’s callous decision to bar from the US Haitians who are fleeing their devastated country dramatizes the need to end vicious US immigration system. All who live here must have the right to work here.

Join with us to plan and build a major rally for March-April.



Mobilize for Workers' Rights

Defend Workers’ Right to Fight Back

Legalization for all! No limits on the right to strike and organize. Workers can’t fight layoffs, cutbacks and wage cuts if they fear deportation and detention and if laws block their rights to form unions and to strike.

Make the Rich Pay: Decent Jobs For ALL

Tax the rich and corporations to pay for a massive direct government jobs program—expanding housing, education, health services. Budget cuts, concessions by workers, layoffs all deepen the crisis by cutting demand for goods and services. No budget cuts! Instead we need to create jobs and expand demand by taking money from the rich, who created the crisis.

Democratic Control of Finance

Permanent government ownership and control of all banks and other financial institutions-- run by democratically-elected boards. Trillions for bank bailouts just gives money to the same bankers whose policies are gutting the economy. WE need to control the financial system, not leave it in the hands of a pack of billionaires. The people must vote on where we put our own tax dollars.

How can we win these demands?

The same way people in the last Great Depression won Social Security, unemployment compensation, huge government jobs programs like WPA—by mass demonstrations, by General Strikes like those in San Francisco, Minneapolis and Toledo, by sit-down strikes (plant occupations) and by organizing everyone—fellow workers, neighbors, and friends.

If you want to help organize to win these demands, to help organize local meetings, to build a movement big enough to win, please

sign-up here

and we will let you know of others in your area and of local meetings and protests.

NJ May 1 Coalition

NY-NJ Rapid Response Network



GROUPS REQUEST SPECIAL PROSECUTOR FOR BUSH, CHENEY, et al for Torture and War Crimes

More than 200 US organizations so far have signed a petition urging the appointment of a Special Prosecutor to persecute Bush, Cheney and others for authorizing torture and violations of the Geneva conventions (war crimes). The NJ May1 coalition and NY-NJ Rapid Response Network, after discussion on our email lists, have added our names to this petition. The basic human rights of all can only be projected if those who have violated them are brought to justice. The petition is available here and its text follow.

Statement on Prosecution of Former High Officials

We urge Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a non-partisan independent Special Counsel to immediately commence a prosecutorial investigation into the most serious alleged crimes of former President George W. Bush, former Vice President Richard B. Cheney, the attorneys formerly employed by the Department of Justice whose memos sought to justify torture, and other former top officials of the Bush Administration.

Our laws, and treaties that under Article VI of our Constitution are the supreme law of the land, require the prosecution of crimes that strong evidence suggests these individuals have committed. Both the former president and the former vice president have confessed to authorizing a torture procedure that is illegal under our law and treaty obligations. The former president has confessed to violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

We see no need for these prosecutions to be extraordinarily lengthy or costly, and no need to wait for the recommendations of a panel or “truth” commission when substantial evidence of the crimes is already in the public domain. We believe the most effective investigation can be conducted by a prosecutor, and we believe such an investigation should begin immediately.



Telemudo reports on Rapid Response Network

Telemundo, a major Spanish language TV station in New York, covered the Rapid Response Network as its lead story on the 11 PM newscast, March 24.

Here is the link to Telemundo’s story and video.



Rapid Response Network Foils Princeton Raid.     March 21, 2009

The Rapid Response Network has foiled another raid, this time in Princeton, New Jersey. ICE (immigration agents) came to the door on Thursday afternoon, and when it was opened, they stuck a foot in the door and refused to leave until people showed their papers. But the residents called our hotline, and our volunteer told them their rights and helped to keep them calm, even though the agents were threatening them. After a long confrontation, the agents left and no detentions occurred. This shows that even though we are not getting as many calls as we should, word is filtering out to those who need to know about us.

La Red de Respuesta Rápida previno una redada mas, esta vez en Princeton, New Jersey. ICE (“La Migra”) llegó a la puerta del llamante el jueves en la tarde, y cuando abrió la puerta, unos de los agentes se metió el pie por el umbral y los agentes insistieron en quedarse hasta que los residentes les mostrara sus papeles. Los residentes llamaron al HOTLINE de la Red de Respuesta Rápida y nuestra voluntaria les ayudó a mantener la calma, aunque los agentes estaban amenazándolos. Después de una confrontación larga, los agentes se fueron sin detener a nadie. Este caso muestra que, aunque no estamos recibiendo tantas llamadas como quisiéremos, conocimiento del HOTLINE de la Red de Respuesta Rápida se está difundiendo por las comunidades más vulnerables a las redadas.

We urgently need volunteers to act as Rapid Response Teams, to go to the site of raids, to act as witnesses, and to inform immigrants of their rights. We have set up one team in New York City, but need many more in New Jersey. To volunteer, you need to be either a US citizen or permanent resident, as you will be interacting with ICE agents. Spanish language skills are not necessary (although always helpful). We also need more volunteers for answering the hotline, where Spanish is essential, but people with any immigration status can volunteer.

To volunteer please contact us at info@njmay1.org.



Rapid Response Network
RRN poster

In response to widespread immigration raids, a coalition of immigrant rights activists has announced the launching of a Rapid Response Network Hotline that will give help to those confronted with the raids. The RRN Hotline, sponsored by the NJ May 1 Coalition and the New Jersey Civil Rights Defense Committee is a 24-hour toll free number covering New York and New Jersey that will provide immediate, contact with Spanish-speaking volunteers. In the event of a raid, the volunteers will calmly inform callers of their basic rights, especially the right not to admit the ICE agents to their homes without a warrant signed by a judge and the right to remain silent. The hotline number, for emergencies only, is 1-800-308-0878.

March 14, 2008 Press Release announcing the RRN.

RRN posters in English: White and black text on red background,   Red and black text on white background,   Black text on white background

RRN posters in Español: White and black text on red background,   Red and black text on white background,   Black text on white background

Rapid Response Hotline operational, needs volunteers!

On March 10, the Rapid Response Network hotline became operational in the New York-New Jersey region. Immigrants faced with ICE raids now have a 24/7 toll free number that they can call in an emergency, and get a Spanish-speaking volunteer who will be able to calmly tell them their rights and how they can avoid detention. Such Rapid Response hotlines, now being set up in other cites, have helped immigrants to fight back against the raids and break the terror that ICE is imposing on the immigrant community.

The Rapid Response Network has already had its first successful response to a raid. A woman called the hotline from her home in Elizabeth, saying that ICE agents were outside, demanding to be let in. The RRN phone volunteer reassured the woman that she had a right not to let the ICE agents in without a search warrant. Although the agents were waving various papers around through the window, they did not show any such warrant.. After some 20 minutes, the ICE agents gave up. No was detained and the Hotline worked as intended.

But we need YOUR help to make the hotline work and be more effective. You can help in three ways:

1) If you are fluent in Spanish, we need more phone volunteers to cut down on the shifts. Volunteers will receive training. During an 8-hour per week shift, calls to the hotline will be directed to your cell-phone and you will be able to help immigrants involved in raids to avoid detention and deportation. Volunteers are confidential and status does not matter.

2) We need a lot of help in getting the word out to the Spanish-speaking immigrant community. We have eye-catching posters in Spanish and English which we need to get to organizations and individuals that can put them up in immigrant neighborhoods. We need help in printing lots of the posters.

3) You can join Rapid Response Teams who, when called by hotline volunteers, rapidly go as teams to the site of an ICE raid and act as witnesses. RRT witnesses will also receive training. As experience in LA and other cities has shown, the presence of such witnesses can deter ICE agents from rights violations (like breaking down immigrants’ doors). Rapid Response Team members do not need Spanish, but since they will be dealing with ICE agents, they must be citizens, permanent residents or on a valid visa. Observing and commenting on the actions of ICE agents or any other law-enforcement authorities is lawful activity protected by the Bill of Rights and by Supreme Court decisions.

To volunteer, please contact us at info@njmay1.org

Documents for Volunteers and for Immigrants

Know Your Rights (English),   Know Your Rights (Spanish).

Categories of Callers (English),   Categories of Callers (Spanish).

Description of the RRN (English),   Description of the RRN (Spanish).

Guidelines for RRN phone volunteers (English),   Guidelines for RRN phone volunteers (Spanish).

Recruitment letter (English).

Guidelines of Rapid Response Team (witness) (English).

Right to oppose or challenge (English). Referral numbers for social services.



Incarceration Rate Lower for Immigrants

A study has found that in California, U.S.-born men have an institutionalization rate that is 10 times higher than that of foreign-born men (4.2% vs, 0.42%).

See the study and press release in English or Spanish. Also see the news article of February 26th in the San Francisco Chronicle in the column at the right.


 
In the News:


March 25, 2009
New report blasts U.S. on immigrant detainees
San Francisco Chronicle

March 25, 2009
Línea de ayuda en caso de redadas
telemundo47.com

February 26, 2008
Study: Incarceration rate lower for immigrants
San Francisco Chronicle

April 10, 2007
Immigration activists call for May 1 boycott
AP

March 22, 2007
Movement announces May 1 actions for immigrant rights
Workers World

May 1, 2006
Thousands march for immigrant rights
CNN