Big National Student Teach-In for Jobs and Economic Justice planned for October 12th!

[Better Believe It]

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

7–8:30 P.M. EDT, Teach-in Streamed Live from the University of California, Washington Center

Read the preliminary teach-in program at:

http://www.aflcio.org/issues/jobseconomy/jobs/upload/teachin_program.pdf



About the National Teach-In:
Students Rising for Jobs and Economic Justice

The United States continues to suffer from a raging jobs crisis. The national economy is stagnating. Some 25 million people in America who want to work cannot find full-time jobs. Governors in many states are punishing public employees and undermining their collective bargaining rights while enacting measures to suppress youth voter turnout and limiting access to higher education. Students leaving college are saddled with crushing debt.

America wants to work, and a new movement of students and young people is growing to demand that our leaders get to work creating good jobs. As part of that movement, we are organizing a National Teach-In at the University of California Washington Center on Oct. 12 that will be webcast live across the country. Frances Fox Piven, other featured speakers and student activists will discuss the roots of the jobs crisis and how unions, students and community groups are fighting back to defend the core values of our country. You can join by organizing a teach-in on your campus that tunes into the live webcast and then continues to discuss local and state issues and campaigns. The National Teach-In is part of a nationwide campaign that week to impress upon our political leaders and corporate power-brokers: Now is the time for big, bold action to put America back to work, retain good jobs and rebuild the U.S. economy.

The teach-in will examine the disaster caused by corporate control of our economic and political system. Americans are working harder than ever today while earning less – as corporate profits soar. The big banks are stripping away the wealth of consumers, homeowners, students and young workers. Meanwhile, our infrastructure erodes and corporations offshore millions of jobs overseas – while hoarding more than $1.3 trillion in cash that could be used to create jobs. Schools, day care centers, senior citizen facilities, health clinics, parks and firehouses are starved for funds so corporations and the wealthy can get billions of dollars in tax breaks.

The corporate-funded assault on working people has been carried out with manufacturing policies that impose fiscal austerity on all levels of government. We are told that there is no more money for critical human services, the care of children, better public schools or to help lower the cost of a college education. The reality is that big banks and large corporations are shielding much of their profits from taxation and using tax loopholes to bankrupt our communities.

Unions, student organizations and community groups are fighting back against these abuses of corporate power and the efforts of the right wing to reduce wages, maintain tax breaks for the wealthy and eliminate social safety net programs. In Wisconsin, students and workers joined together to protect the rights of public-sector workers to bargain collectively. In August 2011, more than 700 corporate accountability events – rallies, town hall meetings and demonstrations at congressional offices – were held in 48 states to tell political leaders to stop protecting tax breaks for the wealthy and focus on putting America back to work. In California and Maryland, students and their coalition partners won passage of Dream Act laws that allow undocumented young people to receive college financial aid. On many campuses, students have waged solidarity campaigns to help college hourly workers organize unions and improve their working conditions. At Rutgers and other universities, students have rallied to limit tuition increases. Student organizations have hundreds of ongoing campaigns to support workers’ rights, make corporations pay their fair share and resist state budget cuts.

We are on the cusp of a new social movement to resist and roll back the corporate domination of political and economic systems by the banks, big corporations and Wall Street profiteers. Please join the National Teach-In: Students Rising for Jobs and Economic Justice to be part of this movement.

http://www.aflcio.org/issues/jobseconomy/jobs/teachin_more.cfm