UAW and Rainbow Push Coalition announce Jobs, Justice and Peace Campaign

DETROIT – On Monday, July 12, at 2:30 p.m., UAW President Bob King and the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., the founder and president of the Rainbow Push Coalition, and other community, religious and labor allies will announce a new campaign to refocus our national priorities on jobs, justice and peace.

Who:

• Bob King, UAW president and members of the UAW International Executive Board.
• Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr., founder and president, Rainbow Push Coalition.
• U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich.
• Mayor Virg Bernero, Lansing, Mich.

What: Event to announce campaign for jobs, justice and peace.
When: Monday, July 12, 2010, 2:30 p.m.
Where: UAW Solidarity House, 8000 E. Jefferson Ave., Detroit.
Contact: Michele Martin, (313) 926-5292.

This campaign will call on our national leaders to:

1. Rebuild America by enacting industrial and trade policies that will create jobs, encourage manufacturing in America and put workers first.
2. Enforce the law regarding workers’ rights, civil rights, industrial regulation and creation of fair and just educational, economic, and health policies.
3. End the ongoing wars in the Middle East and redirect the war budget to rebuilding America.

Additionally, the campaign will focus on home foreclosures and will call for a moratorium on the practice that forces hardworking Americans from their homes while at the same time bailing out Wall Street executives and paying them million-dollar bonuses.

"The No. 1 focus of our national leaders should be putting Americans back to work. No group has suffered more from America's economic meltdown than working men and women. We need industrial and trade policies that work to keep jobs and manufacturing in the U.S., " the UAW's King said.
 
"George Bush came into office with a $127 billion surplus. He proceeded to give billions of dollars in tax cuts to the richest Americans and wasted trillions of dollars on useless wars while funding for schools and other basic services was gutted. Bush and the Republicans left the American public with a trillion-dollar deficit, a crumbling infrastructure, and the worst economic recession since the Great Depression."

The campaign will begin with a march in Detroit on Aug. 28, 2010, to commemorate the "Freedom Walk," the march of 125,000 in Detroit in 1963 led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech in Detroit for the first time, just prior to leading the largest civil rights demonstration in history at the March on Washington on Aug. 28, 1963.

"Our cities are in financial crisis and teachers, transportation workers, and all who do the hands-on work that make our cities run are the first to feel the effects of budget cuts. In Appalachia and the Gulf, years of unenforced regulation driven by corporate greed and government complicity have led to needless deaths and destruction in the coal and oil fields. Our national infrastructure is crumbling –- industry, education, transportation, environment -– while millions of talented workers stand by, ready to stem the tide," said the Reverend Jackson.

UAW and Rainbow Push leaders will be joined by other labor, community and religious leaders and religious including John Conyers, Virg Bernero, Bishop David Maxwell, the Rev. D. Alexander Bullock and others.