Let’s take the fight for worker’s rights to the next level!

REGISTER NOW for the third session of the Worker Justice Action Academy

In the third session of the Worker Justice Action Academy we will focus on developing and deepening our core organizing skills, putting people in motion, and building strong organizations. Build up your one-on-one organizing skills, develop leaders in your organization—or become a leader in your organization, learn tools to facilitate energetic and productive meetings.

Click here to see a preliminary agenda

We’ll also be joined by organizers from Ferguson, Missouri who are working on the front lines of the fighting against racism and police violence and for justice for Mike Brown.

In this session we’ll explore different organizing models and traditions and deepen our skills for taking on the serious work of organizing our base, developing leaders, building coalitions and winning power for workers and communities.

Who Should Come?

You! If you’re committed to the struggle for workers’ rights and economic justice and you want to take the fight to the next level, you don’t want to miss this event.

If you’re new to the struggle, this is a great chance to build some skills and get plugged into the exciting work that’s happening in our movement. If you’re a seasoned activist, this is a great opportunity to learn some new skills and to join the conversation about how to take our movement to the next level.

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Meeting Thursday!

Revised meeting schedule: Due to the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday next week, our monthly Local 3657 meeting for November will be held one week earlier than usual.

We will meet this Thursday, November 20, at 12:30 in the first-floor conference room. If you can’t make it to the meeting in person, you may follow along at the members’ section of our local website by clicking here.

Please note that because the Christmas holiday also falls on a Thursday, our December meeting likewise will be held a week early, on Thursday, December 18.

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We Are Students–Not Customers!

Rally Against Student Debt

Wednesday, October 19th
4:20pm
Schenley Plaza

4100 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15219

Student debt in the United States totals over $1.2 trillion, and each year the number grows. Universities in Pittsburgh are among the most expensive in the country – and the world!

The “International Student Movement” has called for a global week of action…

Against the growing trends of debilitating student debt, budget cuts, and stagnating wages

In support of a growing global movement of students, faculty, adjunct and tenured professors, and community members that are demanding free education, living wages, green jobs, and a radical democratization of the organizational structures and decision-making processes that control our society.

Join the Pittsburgh Student Solidarity Coalition – PSSC and students from the University of Pittsburgh, Point Park, Chatham, Carnegie Mellon, CCAC, CAPA and more in Schenley Plaza on Wednesday, November 19th, to rally and declare that we are students, not customers!

http://studentsnotcustomers.wordpress.com/
#EducationNot4Sale
#1world1struggle

Fun Facts:

• 9% of the money the United States government spends each year on “defense” could cover every student’s tuition. ($62.6 billion for education / $682.478 billion for war)
• In 1979, a student working a minimum wage job 182 hours a year would be able to pay tuition. Today, a student would have to work 991 hours to accomplish the same.
• Have a “fun” fact to share? Let us know!

Help Inspire Pittsburgh’s Kids

USW Local 3657 has been a long-time supporter of the United Way and its “Be a Middle School Mentor” program, with many of our members acting as mentors for sixth-graders in the Pittsburgh Public School system. In recent years, they’ve learned that 40 to 60 percent of students who drop out of school in high school decide that they are going to do that when they are in middle school.

To help counteract this trend, they are not only working with students to strive to do better in middle school, but also to get students excited about their options for higher education – whether it is going to college, community college, a trade school or getting an associate’s degree.

We aren’t all middle school mentors, but we can still encourage students in our city to explore their options after high school and pursue a future that that allows them to provide for themselves and their families and help our communities continue to grow.

Donate a new or gently used sweatshirt from your favorite college, university, trade school, etc., to be given to sixth grade students who participate in the United Way’s “Be a Middle School Mentor” program. Don’t have a hoodie handy? Make a donation of $25 and the United Way will purchase one for you.

You can drop your sweatshirt or donation off in Mollie Relihan’s office on the 7th floor in the New Media department by next Thursday, November 20th. If you have questions, email mrelihan or call 412-562-4345.

The sweatshirts will be wrapped and delivered by United Way volunteers to the students in time for the winter/holiday season so they can rock their new duds while staying warm. If you’d like to volunteer to wrap or deliver, click here.

Thanks to all of you for continuing to make our local union one that constantly gives back and supports our communities!

Mollie

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Help Us Stop Another Bad Trade Deal!

Tell Congress to Stop the TPP: With Tuesday’s election results, the next two years could be a time of unprecedented attacks on workers. We will need to stand up for good-paying jobs and a stronger economy like never before.

Often we see attacks on workers come in the form of bad trade deals. The Trans-Pacific Partnership is one such deal – one that threatens good-paying jobs, American manufacturing, our global environment and a lot more.

We are asking Local 3657 members to write to their representatives in Congress to voice their opposition to the TPP. Please use the form letter below to create a letter to your representative and then sign and return your letter (either a scanned copy via e-mail, or in person) to our Local 3657 Rapid Response coordinator Andy Zanaglio at azanaglio (Accounting Department on the 11th floor) by November 14.

Thank you!

SAMPLE LETTER:

Dear Member of Congress,

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The Crisis Isn’t Over…Let’s Help Struggling People in Our Community Weather the Storm

People all over Pittsburgh are struggling. The politicians and pundits may tell us that the financial crisis is over but for the dozens of people lining up for food and clothing assistance across the street from our office every day, the crisis is far from over. Across our community we are seeing homelessness, food insecurity, parents struggling in poverty with young children, families facing foreclosure, workers experiencing long-term unemployment, and people struggling with addiction and mental health issues.

We all know that the situation isn’t going to improve until we transform our broken capitalist economic system and begin to put people before profits and ensure that everyone in our community is ensured access to food security, decent housing, meaningful work, quality education, and healthcare. But right now people in our community need help.

While we continue to fight for transformative economic change, every year members of USW Local 3657 come together through the United Way to fund critical private agencies in our community that are providing essential services to people struggling in our community.

This year, I urge you all to once again consider pledging to the United Way of Allegheny County. You can pledge online at https://doyouliveunited.org.

Your user ID is USW + the first initial of your first name + your last name (so my user ID is USWPyoung).

Your password is usw-united (you will be asked to change your password once you login.

Please remember that pledges do not automatically renew so you if you have donated in the past you need to make sure to sign up to contribute again.

If you would prefer to use the paper form just e-mail Norma (nstephens-pierce) and she’ll make sure you get a paper copy.

For thousands of families in Pittsburgh and around the country, the crisis isn’t over. We all know that we are only going to be able to permanently address the systematic economic inequalities that we’re seeing through transformative political and economic change, but in the mean time people in our community need help. Please give generously to help our neighbors weather the storm.

In solidarity,

Patrick Young
President, USW Local 3657