VERMONT Senator Bernie Sanders secured the 200,000-member American Postal Workers Union endorsement to be the Democratic Party presidential candidate on Thursday.
The union’s decision gives Sanders a big boost heading into the second Democratic debate in Iowa on Saturday and comes as the Vermont senator has sought to halt a string of labour endorsements to Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.
The postal workers’ union said Sanders has a long history of supporting its workers and pointed to his efforts to keep open post offices and mail-sorting plants in rural communities, oppose slower delivery standards and fight attempts to privatise the mail service.
‘Senator Bernie Sanders stands above all others as a true champion of postal workers and other workers throughout the country,’ APWU President Mark Dimondstein said in a statement. ‘He doesn’t just talk the talk. He walks the walk.’
Clinton has won the support of the National Education Association and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Now, Sanders has received his second national labour endorsement. The first came from the 185,000-member National Nurses Union.
Postal worker union officials said they were particularly swayed by his address to 2,000 activists in Las Vegas in October. From his Senate perch, Sanders has also blocked two nominees to the postal Board of Governors who are opposed by postal unions. The union said Sanders’ support was overwhelming among its executive board, which also heard a labour appeal from Clinton’s campaign.
• This November 21st, farmworkers in Florida are calling on consumer allies across the country to join them in demanding justice – not charity – from the major food retailers who purchase the food farmworkers harvest.
On the Saturday before Thanksgiving, farmworkers will be ‘Uniting for Fair Food’ in a National Day of Action to call on Wendy’s and Publix to move beyond charity and to make a real, enduring commitment to the human rights of farmworkers and their families.
Even as the famous Publix Thanksgiving commercials start to flood the airwaves in homes across the Southeast, the harsh reality beneath the supermarket’s family-friendly message remains in stark contrast to the image the company promotes so vigorously.
And until that underlying reality changes, until Publix stops turning its back on the workers whose poverty fuels Publix’s profits, farmworkers and their allies will press their campaign to bring the $30 billion grocer into the Fair Food fold.
Meanwhile, for over two years, Wendy’s has continued to be the fast-food holdout of the industry, in spite of the calls of their customers – especially students, who have launched a national boycott of the chain – to join the Fair Food Program alongside all its major competitors.
What’s worse, rather than step up to human rights, Wendy’s appears to have run from responsibility, shifting its tomato purchases away from Florida so that now, in the words of one company representative, the Fair Food Program ‘does not apply’ to Wendy’s.
At the same time, while making every effort to avoid supporting basic justice for farmworkers, both Publix and Wendy’s take great pride in the charity work they do. And while those charity efforts may be laudable, when it comes to the needs of workers toiling in poverty in their own supply chains, Publix and Wendy’s have their priorities backwards.
Because it is justice, not charity, that has allowed farmworkers in the Fair Food Programme to finally see an increase in their wages after decades of stagnant wages, an increase that might just allow them to purchase their own Thanksgiving turkey this year instead of standing in line for a free Thanksgiving dinner at the park.
And it is justice, not charity, that has brought an end to forced labour, physical violence and sexual harassment in Florida’s tomato fields, instead of an endless future of daily humiliations at the hands of their bosses in the fields.
And it will be justice, and not charity, that will drive the expansion of the Fair Food Program and these unprecedented, worker-driven protections into new states and new crops in the coming years. So join CIW and the Alliance for Fair Food in showing Wendy’s and Publix how justice is truly created. Planning is already well underway: Fair Food groups – from Miami to Nashville and everyone in between – and students at Barry University, St. Thomas University, and University of Michigan (to name just a few!) are gearing up to show Publix and Wendy’s that they must recognise their responsibility to the farmworkers who make their profits possible and ensure that the food they provide to consumers is harvested in just conditions.
Pickets, marches, manager letter delegations, and community celebrations will be happening all across the country, and CIW hope you will join them in making this day of action an even stronger call for justice.
• Fast-food workers rallied in New York and other cities on Tuesday, demanding job protections and above all higher pay. It was the first step in a year-long campaign to mobilise low-wage workers in next year’s presidential election.
Hundreds of activists blocked traffic on 125th Street for a few minutes on Tuesday morning, demanding higher wages and union protections for fast food workers. The mother of Eric Garner was among them. He was the Staten Island man who died two summers ago while being arrested.
‘It’s all combined,’ said Gwen Carr.
Members of the Black Lives Matter movement joined the labour union known as 32BJ SEIU and advocacy groups rallying in front of a McDonald’s. ‘We are the ones who need the $15 more than some others,’ Carr said. ‘We’ll need at least $15.’
Governor Cuomo’s administration already has mandated pay of $15 an hour for fast-food workers – which will be phased in over three years in the city, and six years across the rest of the state. The protest in New York is part of a national day of action pushing for federal action on fast-food workers’ pay.
‘I remember how many people said $15 an hour was out of reach that you were just dreamers,’ Mayor Bill de Blasio said. ‘You were trying to do something that couldn’t be done. But you know what you did – you changed things.’
‘Right now we got political clout,’ said one striking worker. ‘And we are fighting for equal rights and justice. They should be getting the raise,’ said one supporter. ‘Nobody can survive on $8.25 an hour anymore. Times have changed.’
This is not just about fast-food workers. Activists want to raise the national minimum wage of $7.25 an hour for everyone to $15 an hour. ends
