Skurrying around like the proverbial chickens…

Yes, our bus trip is making the ol’ WC a zippy place currently! but in a good way, I think. There’s a frisson of excitement coming through the phone these days. People seem to be hungry for the opportunity — again — to give ‘em an earful. Demand the change we voted for! Git on the bus!

I thought I’d share a story with you about a comment that was left on this blog. Took me a minute of consideration about whether or not to allow it to be seen by my readers. Free speech and all. My own personal political beliefs (which I will leave unexplained) do not usually allow me to deny people their right to expression.

However, I decided not to print it as written. Hey: get your own damn blog.

Here’s the background: an arch-conservative website quoted our blog post’s explanation of the UAW footing the bill for our bus trip. They more than implied that we were somehow ‘forcing’ people to meet at 1:15 in the morning, go on a 6+ hour bus trip south, slog to downtown DC on the Metro and tramp a mile to the Lincoln Memorial to stand for 5 hours in the (possible) rain or fog. Then, do it all again, in reverse. The free boxed lunch would somehow be an incentive for people to do this against their will.

Interesting, no? If people will put up with a 22 hour trip for a boxed lunch, things are pretty danged awful in this country, aren’t they? And even more intriguing: they somehow found this blog and quoted it. I suppose we have achieved what is the wetdream of many bloggers.

But I decided to not open up the whole can of worms of nasty comments on the blog. We don’t want tcworkerscenter.wordpress.com to become another Ithaca Journal talk-back site.

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Mark your Calendars for October 10th, 2010!

We’ll have more on this event next week when we can breathe again, but I wanted to let you know about a fundraiser for us that will be held 10.10.10 from 2 pm til late, late, late at the Haunt in Ithaca. The Bright Spark Electronic Punk Folk Festival will feature many incredible local and not-so-local bands and performers including [our space's own] Rye-n-Clover, Richie Stearns, Jennie Lowe Stearns, Johnny Dowd, Ken Hallett, Pat Burke, Elsa & the awesomeAwesomes, Keir Neuringer and the host band, Atomic Forces. Check out the link above to see the entire line up.

Come out to support local musicians and the Workers Center. We’ll be there with our tablefull of literature.

2011 Calendars are Arriving!

The Peace and Justice Gift Shop which makes its home in the Workers’ Center has begun receiving its holiday shipments. Two of our most popular items, the Syracuse Cultural Workers 2011 Peace Calendar and the 2011 Women’s Artist Datebook, have arrived. The Peace calendar costs $14; the datebook is $15. All TCWC members receive a 20% discount on their purchases.

Here by popular demand is a women’s cut tshirt which proudly proclaims ‘Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History.’ We are stocking them in an array of sizes. All our tshirts are $22. 

Besides the 20% discount for members, we accept 50% Ithaca Hours at the gift shop. Stop by to see our new holiday cards, bumper stickers, other tshirts, mugs, CDs, posters and assorted items. Don’t wait until the last minute for holiday gift buying.

PS: the Cat Lovers Against the Bomb calendar is not in yet. Check back for an announcement of that arrival.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS: Join the Tompkins County community Monday, October 18th at 6:30 pm at the Greater Ithaca Activities Center, corner of N. Albany and W. Court Streets, for the kick-off event to launch the Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Build.

In a past post, we talked about the ML King, Jr. Community Build which features community-wide discussion about Dr. King’s Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? Copies of the book will be available at various locations, including the Workers’ Center. We are also sponsoring a book club: we will read one chapter a month and meet to discuss it.

Our first bookclub meeting will be on November 9th at 6:30 when we discuss chapter one.

Just a few seats left!

I know you’ve seen the emails and heard the announcements at the Rally last week…but in case you need a little push, there are only a few seats still empty for the October 2nd One Nation Working Together rally/march. Please call or email us to reserve your seat.

Thanks to the beneficence of the UAW local 2300, the two buses will be FREE and a BOX LUNCH will be thrown in as well! It will be a grueling day, starting at 2 am on Saturday morning when we board the bus, and ending around midnight when we return to Ithaca, but I’m sure the energy, enthusiasm and inspiration we will receive from being in DC with thousands of like-minded activists and organizers will be well worth it.

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Read about our September 15 rally, sponsored by the Unemployed and Underemployed Support Group, in The Ithacan. The photo of long-time labor activist Kathy Valentino is by Matthew Biddle of The Ithacan.

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Officemate Jim Murphy of Ithaca Veterans for Peace has asked that we announce a very special visitor to Ithaca, Army Colonel (Ret.) and Diplomat Ann Wright, author of Voices of Conscience. She will be telling the story of her transition from US Army Officer to a member of the Gaza Flotilla.

The talk is Wednesday, September 22nd, at 7 pm at the First Unitarian Church of Ithaca. She will be introduced by Nate Lewis, an Iraq War Veteran, from the Veterans’ Sanctuary.

Cosponsors include Military Families Speak Out, Veterans’ Fellowship of Reconciliation, the Social Justice Council of the First Unitarian Church, Ithaca Veterans’ Peace Council and the Social Action Committee of Congregation Tikkun v’Or/Ithaca Reform Temple.

A $10 donation is suggested. For more information, contact Jim at 319-0980 or ivets@gmail.com

Local Programs to Help some Job Seekers

Recently we’ve had guests visit our Unemployed & Underemployed Support Group to describe the programs that their agencies have for certain people in the low wage earner and job seeker categories.

The Department of Social Services has a couple of programs which help with the mobility issue that plagues many people, particularly in the outlying, rural areas of the county. Gas cards and bus passes are available if you meet some criteria. Are you a recipient of food stamps or Medicaid? or does your household have an income less than 200% of the Federal Poverty Level? Are you working or actively looking for a job? Are you a US citizen or have immigration status? And do you have a child under 18 (or one who is under 19 but still in high school or BOCES?) or is anyone in your household pregnant?

Call Cynthia Kloppel, Mobility Program Specialist at DSS at 274-5022 to discuss the Mobility Program.

Another program available from Challenge Industries is the Wage Subsidy Program. The goal of this program is ‘to encourage employers to hire and retain workers who face barriers in obtaining and maintaining a job through traditional employment channels.’

Employers are reimbursed for 75% of the wages and benefits paid to individuals enrolled in the program for three to six months of their initial employment. The remaining 25% of the salary is paid to the employer after 90 days of un-subsidized employment. The employer must make a good faith commitment to retain successful WSP participants.

As a participant in the program, you will be helped by Challenge with training, employability plans, job support and referrals for other services (such as transportation and child care, for example).

Once again, you must have a child under 18 in order to qualify for this program. You must meet other requirements as well. If you would like more information about this program or other programs that Challenge conducts, call Brian Scime, Job Developer, at 272-8990, Extension 139.

Obviously, not everyone is eligible for these programs but we hope that someone who can be served by them will hear about them through our website, blog or Support Group.

One Nation Working Together October 2nd

The Workers’ Center is pleased to announce that, with the generous help of UAW Local 2300, we are sponsoring two buses to travel to Washington DC on October 2nd where we will march to ‘Demand the Change We Voted For.’ The coalition of national cosponsors of the march is called One Nation Working Together and includes enormously diverse groups such as War Resister’s League, NAACP, unions, student groups, gay and lesbian groups and many more.

We don’t know exactly when the buses will be leaving Ithaca but the march starts at noon on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial [which means that we will probably leave Ithaca around 4 am]. Bus tickets cost $20. Call the Workers’ Center at 269-0409 to reserve a space.

Governor Signs Domestic Bill of Rights

You may remember that I posted some months ago, about the Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights. The landmark legislation is the first of its kind in the nation, guaranteeing domestic workers basic rights that have long been considered the norm for all workers. Well, the Governor just signed it into law!

“Today we correct an historic injustice by granting those who care for the elderly, raise our children and clean our homes the same essential rights to which all workers should be entitled,” Governor Paterson said. “I am grateful to the sponsors for their extraordinary efforts to enact this landmark bill, and most of all to those domestic workers who dreamed, planned, organized and then fought for many years, until they were able to see an injustice undone.”

The Governor’s statement and outline of the bill can be found here.

High praise must be given to all the domestic workers who struggled to pass this bill. Thank you.