Saturday Sept. 21, 2013
10:00am – 4:00pm
(Attend on your way home from
AFL-CIO convention in Wilmington)
Vital Link School
1214 E. Lenoir Street, Raleigh, NC**
(Corner of Rock Quarry Road)
** note updated address!
RSVP Today by emailing info@southernworker.org
The Forward Together Campaign is building a powerful social movement bringing together the many struggles for social and economic justice, human rights, and people’s democracy throughout the state of North Carolina.
The Southern Workers Assembly hosted three (3) regional Worker Speak-out Forums across North Carolina – Granville/Vance/Warren Counties on June 8, Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill on June 15 and Greenville/Wilson/Goldsboro/Rocky Mount/Kinston on June 22 – that drew in many rank-n-file worker activists to help build links and unity and speak-out against cuts planned by the General Assembly.
With the rise of the corporate financed conservative and racist movements and organizations like the Tea Party, and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) as an infrastructure for corporate domination and the political rule of state governments, it became clear, that the mere lobbying of state legislators, and developing an electoral base that only acted during election periods, was not enough to mobilize the people’s power to effectively challenge corporate rule over government.
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Goldsboro SWA Forum
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Butner Worker Speakout
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Raleigh Worker SpeakOut
The Moral Monday’s initiative has become a new form of the sit-in movement, challenging corporate dominated, anti-democratic and closed government. Civil disobedience against this form of governance must spread like the sit-in movement that began in North Carolina in 1960. While a focus must be kept on state government, it must spread to the workplaces in the public and private sectors where worker rights as a major component of people’s democracy are denied.
As North Carolina has the lowest percentage of union members of all the states within the U.S., the Forward Together Campaign must call for un-unionized workers to begin a process of forming worker organizations and unions at their workplaces.
Fighting grievances and filing lawsuits alone will not be enough to effectively challenge and stop the attacks financed by Art Pope and other multi-millionaires.
In order to change the political climate in ways that strengthens the working class identity, consciousness and confidence in the fight-back against the attacks, labor unions and worker organizations must act together to help launch a movement to bring labor forward as a conscious and active force.
As representatives of the Southern Workers Assembly in NC, we are calling on rank-and-file workers in the various unions, worker organizations and union officials and organizers who identify with rank-and-file democracy and control, to join us in building a fight-back movement that includes a statewide NC Labor Fightback Conference .
AWAKE! STAND UP FOR THE CAUSE
POLITICAL POEM FOR ALL PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE IN JUSTICE, RIGHTEOUSNESS AND PEACE TO COME TOGETHER AS ONE!!!
The poem “Awake”, written by Cherry Hospital Healthcare Technician and UE150 steward Janice Scanes and recited by her at the Goldsboro forum.
Moral Monday’s is the day
Peaceful protestors expressing their say
Equal equality for all mankind
Awake, stand up, now is the time
Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad started a movement so slaves could be free
They put their lives on the line for you and me
Medgar Evers was gunned down at his home, fighting for our rights, he died alone
All over the world, Martin Luther King was realized, earning medals of honors and a Nobel Peace Prize
It’s vital we keep his dreams alive
Freedom’s heroes carry the torch for JUSTICE, RIGHTEOUSNESS, PEACE…NOT WRONG
Let’s come together in making NORTH CAROLINA better and strong
Through our struggles, pain and tears, a breastplate of iron we wear without fear. DEMOCRATS, REPUBLICANS, INDEPENDENTS and ALL….Awake! Awake! Stand Up For The Cause
There’s something you need to know! The GOP is suppressing your vote! During the election of 2014, turn out in numbers like never before seen. We will break the bondage of a non-voting fad; keep moving forward until a change is made. We won’t be intimidated, or back down, neither will we bend. Awake, Stand Up For The Cause until the end
NC legislators making poor bills with unjust flaws, quickly Governor Pat McCrory is signing them into law. These republican led legislators want to take away our civil and human rights!
AWAKE! NOW IS THE TIME, STAND UP FOR THE CAUSE AND FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!!!
Submitted by: Janice Holloway Scanes, UE 150 Shop Steward