Bail Out Working People - NOT the Banks!
Join us on May 9 in San Francisco for a
TEACH-IN & MASS MOBILIZATION PLANNING MEETING

Learn about what is happening in the labor movement and in our communities to fight for the interests of working people.
Help organize a mass mobilization around our demands, including:

• Massive job-creation program.
• Single-payer healthcare for all.
• Moratorium on home foreclosures and evictions.
• Pass the Employee Free Choice Act.
• Tax the rich - don't bail out the banks.
• Money for jobs and social services, not for war

Speakers to be announced.

The bankers have organized themselves and vigorously lobbied for bailouts. We, working people, need to organize ourselves to demand policies in the interest of working people as whole.

The government should defend our interests, not the interests of the rich. After all, we are the majority, and we had no part in creating this crisis.

Date & Time: May 9, 2009 - 1-5 p.m.
Place: Plumbers Hall, 1621 Market St @ Gough St. San Francisco

Initiated by the San Francisco Labor Council, South Bay Labor Council, and Workers Emergency Recovery Campaign (www.wercampaign.org).

List of co-sponsors in formation (a planning meeting with Bay Area Labor and Community organizations will be held in early April)

(* this event was initially scheduled for April 25, but it has been moved to May 9 to allow for broader participation by Bay Area trade unions and their community allies. If you would like to participate in this meeting, please call 415-641-8616.)

Backgrounder:

WERC Forms National Steering Committee
To Promote Workers' Recovery Plan

By ALAN BENJAMIN

The deepening U.S. financial crisis has spread to all sectors of the economy, triggering a worldwide recession that is fast becoming a Depression.

For working people this has meant the loss of millions of jobs, the foreclosure of homes, and the decimation of public education, healthcare and social services. The situation for millions is catastrophic.

This is why more than 500 labor and community activists, including trade union and political leaders, sent an Open Letter to President Barack Obama on Jan. 20, Inauguration Day, calling on him to support and promote the 10-point platform of demands of the Workers Emergency Recovery Campaign (WERC).

These 10 demands express the immediate needs and aspirations of working people and all the oppressed, particularly Black and Latinos, who have been the hardest hit by the crisis. The demands call for, among other things, the launching of a massive job-creation program, single-payer healthcare, the enactment of the Employee Free Choice Act, a moratorium on home foreclosures, an end to the U.S. wars and war spending, an end to the ICE raids, and a progressive tax on the rich as a way to pay for all the programs and public services that need funding.

The Workers Emergency Recovery Campaign is moving ahead with the formation of local WERC committees in many cities across the country. The campaign is also promoting broadly based teach-ins to get out widely its 10-point platform, and, most important, to organize people to take action in defense of their interests and demands.

On Feb. 23, the San Francisco Labor Council agreed to co-sponsor a teach-in/organizing meeting jointly with the WERC and the South Bay Labor Council. This teach-in/organizing meeting for a united mass action will be held in San Francisco on Saturday, May 9. [See "Hold the Date" leaflet below.]

In recent weeks, a National Steering Committee for WERC has been formed to promote the campaign. Following is the current list of unionists and activists who have agreed to serve on this committee:

• Kali Akuno, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Gulf Coast Reconstruction activist
• Alan Benjamin, Editor, The Organizer; Exec. Bd., San Francisco Labor Council
• Mike Carano, Progressive Democrats of America
• Colia Clark, Veteran, Civil Rights Movement
• Donna Dewitt*, President, South Carolina AFL-CIO
• Pat Gowens, National organizer, Welfare Warriors
• Bill Leumer, Workers Action; IBT Local 853 (ret.)
• Luis Magaña, Coordinator, Organization of Farmworkers of California (OTAC)
• Cynthia McKinney, Former Member of Congress, 2009 Green Party presidential candidate
• Jack Rasmus, Economist, Professor at St. Mary's College
• Al Rojas, Coordinator, Frente de Mexicanos en el Exterior
• Marc Rich, Representative on WERC, United Teachers of Los Angeles
• Cindy Sheehan, Gold Star mother, antiwar activist
• Mark Vorpahl*, SEIU Local 49, Portland, OR
• Nancy Wohlforth*, Co-Pres., Pride at Work/AFL-CIO, Vice Pres., California Federation of Labor

(* titles and organizations for id. purposes only; this is still a list in formation)

For more information, please visit the WERC website at www.wercampaign.org. A PayPal link for donations will be up on our website shortly. We will need your contributions to promote this ambitious campaign nationwide.