The JLC delegation included (r-l): Executive Director Martin Schwartz {holding one edge of the banner}, Adelphi University Professor Leigh Benin, Associate Director Arieh Lebowitz, Robert Schwartz, Intern Brett Goldman, and Bennett Muraskin, a union representative for New Jersey college professors. Other JLC activists, from unions including the Communications Workers, the Electrical Workers, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union and the United Federation of Teachers, marched with their respective unions. They and others joined our delegation at Union Square.

(Thursday, Dec 1, 2011) New York - JLC marched this afternoon and stayed into the evening at the “March for Jobs and Economic Fairness,” called by the New York City Central Labor Council, that according to one report transformed Broadway into “a sea of union workers.” The march began near Greeley Square and went straight down to Union Square, fifteen blocks south.

(Thursday, October 27, 2011) Philadelphia -- Philadelphia Jewish Labor Committee (PJLC) Chair Jeff Hornstein, Pennsylvania State Education State Education Association (PSEA) President Mike Crossey, State Senator Daylin Leach and Philadelphia Federation of Teachers (PFT) Communications Director Barbara Goodman spoke at PJLC's "Public School `Choice': Vouchers and the Risk to Public Education" program. Over 30 people attended the event, the first in our new Jewish Labor Series. Upcoming programs will include discussions on local, national and international issues, such as the Privatization of Liquor Licenses, Immigration reform, and Labor in Israel. For more details, write Philadelphia JLC Regional Director Michael Hersch at PhiladelphiaJLC@jewishlabor.org.

(Wednesday, October 5, 2011) New York -- The Jewish Labor Committee today issued the following statement in support of the Occupy Wall Street protestors:

The Jewish Labor Committee supports the activists in the “Occupy Wall Street” movement and their message – that it is time for our elected officials to represent the 99% of Americans who are struggling to make ends meet in this difficult economy. This message is being heard not only on Wall Street, but on Main Streets across America. Through the recent actions on and near Wall Street, and the actions of labor, religious and community organizations such as the Jewish Labor Committee, in solidarity with those who are "occupying" Wall Street, this message will increasingly be heard and felt in the halls of Congress and in state and municipal governments around the country.

[r-l]: Jewish Labor Committee Western Region's President Floyd Glen-Lambert, JLCWR Secretary Jocelyn Sherman, and JLCWR Executive Director Leslie Gersicoff march in a candlelight vigil in support of UFCW grocery workers.

(Tuesday, September 20, 2011) Los Angeles – The Jewish Labor Committee Western Region [JLCWR] welcomed the announcement made yesterday that over 60,000 members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union working at Ralphs (Kroger), Vons (Safeway) and Albertsons (Supervalu) in Southern California reached a tentative agreement with the companies. The Jewish Labor Committee Western Region has been supporting the grocery workers for many years, from participating in pickets and rallies in support of decent contracts, to “adopting” the workers at two Pavilions' stores, one in Beverly Hills, one in Sherman Oaks.

(September 11, 2011) Philadelphia - Michael Hersch [holding placard], Philadelphia JLC Director, on picket line outside Verizon Store at 17th and Market in Philadelphia. Forty-five thousand Verizon employees were on strike for nearly two weeks in August because despite earning $19,000,000,000 (that’s nineteen billion) in profits over the last four years, Verizon management wanted to take away overtime pay, benefits, pensions, and holidays including Veteran's Day and Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Strikes were held in cities around the U.S. and coordinated by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW). In the Northeast, this included CWA Districts 2-13. The strikes and comunity support resulted in a return to the negotiating table.

September 9, 2011: The Jewish Labor Committee today announced its support for the thousands of Hyatt Hotel workers who went on strike yesterday in four cities across the United States: Chicago, Honolulu, Los Angeles and San Francisco. The week-long strike was called by their union, UNITE HERE, to draw attention to the abusive treatment of the housekeeping staff. According to a recent study published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, of 50 hotel properties from five different hotel chains, Hyatt housekeepers had the highest injury rate of all housekeepers studied when compared by hotel company. The Hyatt Hotel Company has also replaced career housekeepers with subcontracted temporary workers earning minimum wage in several of its hotels.

“The Jewish Labor Committee is proud to have stood with Hyatt workers since the company fired nearly its entire housekeeping staff in three of its non-union hotels in Boston two years ago,” Stuart Appelbaum, president of the JLC stated. “Many of them had worked for decades. They were all replaced with temporary workers, who were paid poverty wages with no benefits. Our New England Region mobilized into action, organizing rabbis and Jewish organizations to support the boycott of the three Boston Hyatt-owned hotels. Since then, we have actively participated in the national campaign Justice at Hyatt which has engaged hundreds of Rabbis around the country to support the Hyatt workers."

In the last few weeks, the Jewish Labor Committee has been reaching out to nearly a thousand rabbis across the United States. As we've done for quite some time, we are asking them to join a growing number of rabbis incorporating a message about the importance of workers rights in some meaningful way during Sabbath services between Labor Day weekend and Rosh Hashanah, which will begin the evening of September 28th.

The Sabbath Torah reading preceding Labor Day this year is known as Shoftim, Deuteronomy 16:18-21:9. While the word shoftim means judges, it has been interpreted to refer to the importance of justice. This reading contains the oft-quoted commandment, “Justice, justice shall you pursue …,” considered by many to be the bedrock of Jewish ethical teachings.

During this extended period of economic difficulties for many in our communities, we are focusing on the pursuit of a more just economy. The widening gap between rich and poor, deepening unemployment and the struggle of workers for a fairer, more just and more decent society must be a “Call to Action” as stated in Shoftim.

We’ve compiled some articles by rabbis that may be of interest in this regard: Click here to download this publication

August 22, 2011: A new grassroots movement is on the streets and boulevards of Israel. Tent communities have sprung up, and massive demonstrations are taking place not only in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, but also in over a dozen smaller cities and communities across the State of Israel. The protests are against the high cost of housing, medical care and childcare, and against the increasing financial pressures on middle-class and working-class Israelis at a time when the Israeli economy is doing very well indeed.

The Jewish Labor Committee welcomes this new movement for social justice within Israel. We support the calls for “changing the rules of the game” in a country that is seeing the basic expenses of living going up and up, and the disparities between the very rich and everyone else increasing day by day. The calls of this new movement must be heard by the Netanyahu Government.

Impressive in a country with a multiplicity of political parties, ethnicities, and a range of social cleavages, this movement encompasses wide sectors of Israeli society rarely marching side-by-side in shared protest: secular and religious Jews, college students and retirees, political activists and those new to participating in a demonstration, parents with baby-strollers and municipal clerks.

But although this new Israeli movement has for the most part not done so, we at the Jewish Labor Committee cannot help but connect the issues it is raising with the expensive burden of the settlements in the West Bank, and the unresolved occupation of that territory. The political as well as financial necessity to end the Israeli occupation of the West Bank has been clear to us for some time. Yet, in a cynical attempt to appease the unrest over the shortage of affordable housing and simultaneously satisfy the parties opposed to ending the occupation, the Israeli Government has authorized the construction of 277 new housing units in the West Bank community of Ariel, and 1,600 apartments in Ramat Shlomo, 930 housing units in Har Homa – the latter two being communities in disputed areas in East Jerusalem.

August 16, 2011: Last week, we wrote to Verizon President & CEO Lloyd McAdam urging him to return to the bargaining table and negotiate in good faith for a fair settlement for the 45,000 brave Verizon workers who are on strike.

Many of you have asked us what you can do to help support the Verizon workers. In consultation with the Communications Workers of America, one of the two unions representing the Verizon workers, here are a few simple ways you can help: