SEIU

It's a story that has been told time and time again.  It has been written in poems.  It has been captured in photos.  It has been screened in videos. 

If you're on the Internet and you haven't heard of the DREAM Act, you're not doing it right.  Seriously, just throw your computer out the window right now.  Keeping your computer is not worth your money or your time...

If you're still here, I'll let you get away with watching this video:

A Dream Deferred. from Jeesoo Park on Vimeo.

Today, in one of the most impressive youth-led campaigns of the contemporary migrant rights movement, hundreds of youth from over 15 states will converge on Washington D.C. to demonstrate for the DREAM Act.  For those who cannot make it solidarity actions will be planned in a dozen states.  The National DREAM Act Graduation Day on June 23, 2009  "will underscore the importance of advancing the 'DREAM Act'
and the 'American Dream Act' to give these youth a chance to attend
college and pursue their goals."

If you won't be in D.C. or you can't be at one of the solidarity actions, make sure you take 10 actions in favor the the DREAM Act.

The United We Dream Coalition, of which Citizen Orange is a member (or better said, a supporter), has led the charge in pressuring for the passage of the DREAM Act.  The way people converge around the DREAM Act is unlike anything I've ever seen.  There's real movement here.  The organizing going into passing the DREAM Act will last long beyond the passage of a piece of legislation. 

The biggest victory, so far, of the National DREAM Act Graduation Day has been a powerful endorsement of the DREAM Act by the Service Employees International Union:

Remember what it was like when you had a dream? For many immigrant students their dreams of pursuing higher education can't be realized because of their immigration status -- even though they may have lived here most of their lives. Unlike their U.S. born classmates, they can't work legally or qualify for a driver's license or federal financial aid for college, and they are forced to live in constant fear of deportation to a land they barely remember.

On Tuesday, over 500 immigrant students from all over the country are coming to Washington, DC in pursuit of making their dreams come true.

While they are here, they'll be lobbying their Senators and Congressmen to pass the Dream Act, which would allow immigrant students who've grown up here to hope for a better future and a chance at higher education. And to dramatize the contribution they could make -- if only given the chance -- they will hold a graduation ceremony outside of the U.S. Capitol .

Help make their dreams come true by signing their diploma in support of the Dream Act and at the graduation - with your help - I'll unfurl the diploma at the ceremony for the graduates to see our support.

http://action.seiu.org/page/s/dreamactseiu

A disproportionate number of these DREAMers are valedictorians, honor students, class presidents or student leaders, and they include SEIU members and the children of our members.

Their DREAM - passage of the Dream Act -- is a part of the battle for comprehensive reform that our union strongly supports. It will be included in any comprehensive immigration reform that makes it through congress. It also could be enacted on its own, and if that happens, it would be a hopeful signal that comprehensive immigration reform is on its way. (emphasis mine)

Josh Bernstein - SEIU (19 June 2009)

Pay special attention to the passage that I bolded.  This is extremely strong language in favor of the DREAM Act.  This strong language is in no doubt due to the influence of Josh Bernstein, the new Director of Immigration for SEIU, and one of the nation's greatest legislative champion's for the DREAM Act.  When (not if) the DREAM Act is passed unauthorized youth will owe a great debt to the efforts of Josh Bernstein.

Bernstein is taking an extremely aggressive stance in favor of the DREAM Act, one that is favored by myself.  I believe strongly that we need a victory on migration policy as quickly as possible.  Migrants have suffered too long under a horrific policy of attrition through enforcement.  I'm willing to wait until the fall to see if the push for comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) is going to happen, but as soon as CIR looks like it's going to get pushed back to 2011, I will push hard to get the DREAM Act passed on it's own.  The U.S. migration movement needs a victory, and I believe the DREAM Act is the best chance at victory.

In considering these broader legislative strategies, it is important that I acknowledge the work that has put the DREAM Act in such a good position.  It is the work of the United We Dream Coalition, and the online work of dreamactivist.org that has brought us to this day.  If you do nothing else after reading this entire post, sign the petition in favor of the DREAM Act at dreamact2009.com.   

Bumped.

Over the past several months, Harvard's Student Labor Action Movement has been fighting layoffs in solidarity with Harvard workers with support of many members of the student body, alumni, faculty, staff, parents and more. Through protests, a petition, vigils, letters, and more, SLAM has brought the message that workers are valuable members of the Harvard community to the forefront of campus and even Cambridge politics.

Recently SLAM worked with the Harvard College Democrats to produce a video about the human cost of layoffs:

In an open letter to Harvard University President Drew Faust, co-signed my many organizations including Harvard's Undergraduate Council SLAM writes:

We write to you as members of the Harvard community because we are concerned with our University’s response to the economic crisis. We recognize that Harvard confronts a difficult challenge with a significant drop in the endowment announced in November 2008. However, Harvard remains the wealthiest university and one of the wealthiest non-profit organizations in the world. In this difficult moment, Harvard faces a choice: we can choose either to use our wealth in order to strengthen our community—students, faculty, and workers together—or to allow greed and fear to divide us and erode our institution of higher learning.

We call upon Harvard in these times to act, not out of a logic of fear, but out of a logic of courage and creativity. In recent months, it appears that Harvard is taking the former path by laying off workers and generating an atmosphere of divisiveness. We reject this approach. Accordingly, we demand that the University suspends layoffs and recalls all workers, full-time and part-time, who have been fired since October 2008.

***

First, Harvard has not demonstrated—through transparent, full disclosure of financial information—why job cuts “cannot be averted now.” Second, even if the need for further budgetary cuts were to be transparently demonstrated, the moral logic that should animate a non-profit institution whose motto is “Truth” can never justify forcing its lowest paid workers to pay for a crisis that confronts us all.

Because this is a crisis that involves the entire Harvard community, we must be involved in formulating a comprehensive response. This response must be grounded in an ethos of shared sacrifice and democratic participation. We insist that this process be opened to the community, and thus request a meeting with the President, the Corporation, University administrators, members of the Student Labor Action Movement (SLAM), and other relevant groups in order to begin working together on creative and alternative solutions.

After over a week, the Harvard administration has still not responded to the letter.

Harvard has justified their actions by the recent decline in its endowment, but it refuses to disclose its full budget to the public and executive salaries remain as high as ever.

As Harvard students, we know that we must use our voice to support the workers in our community through this economic crisis. We ask Harvard to fulfill both its mission of education and public service by supporting its workers when it matters most.

We all expect to make sacrifices during these uncertain times, but by targeting its lowest-paid and often immigrant workers, Harvard sends a clear message that some members of our community are more expendable than others.

Join us in fighting for Harvard to protect its workers. Help us show them that people all over the Country are watching their actions by signing our petition and telling others about our campaign.

Together we have already gotten Harvard to rehire Bedardo Sola, the custodial worker in the video, we need everyones help to make Harvard rehire all the workers who have been laid off and to pledge that the richest University in the world will not add to unemployment during this time of economic crisis, but work towards creative solutions that value all members of the Harvard community including students, workers to faculty, administrators, money managers,a residents of the Cambridge and Allston-Brighton communities and more.

We can only rise together.

Update: It should also be noted that Jane Fleming Kleeb, one of the leaders in our fight to increase youth engagement in the Democratic Party, has also left Young Voter PAC to take a job with SEIU. It hurts to lose both she and Tony at the same time, but kudos to SEIU for picking up such great talent, and a big thank you to both of them for all of their work. We wouldn't be here without them, and Future Majority owes a great debt to Jane. Without her support, I probably wouldn't be working full time on Future Majority.
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Over the holidays, Tony Cani, the Political Director of the Young Democrats, announced that he is leaving YDA and taking a position with SEIU. I won't say he's moving on up, because we all know that youth organizing is just as important as any other piece of the progressive movement. Instead, I'll congratulate him on an excellent lateral move to another outstanding organization in progressive politics. He will be missed, and whoever takes his place on the YDA staff has big shoes to fill.

I met Tony sometime in 2006 when I was working on my book. Since his days as a Deaniac, Tony has been a relentless advocate for youth outreach and peer to peer organizing, and I'm not exaggerating to say that he's one of the best organizers we've had these past years. I hope that he brings all that he learned at YDA to SEIU, and impresses upon his new colleagues the importance of bringing young people into the labor movement.

As part of his farewell letter, Tony had a few parting words of wisdom about where YDA - and all youth organizations - still need to improve. These are valuable questions to consider as we enter what will be a distinctly different era for those of us who have only organized against President Bush:

• How do we take advantage of this moment and expand our organization by providing a landing place for former Obama activists who want to work to expand our recent victories and serve as the catalyst for the governmental change we all voted for.
• How do we continue to evolve the culture of our organization, nationally and locally, to be focused on results and activism rather than ONLY networking or socializing or being the first steps on someone’s ladder to “power”?
• How do we develop our members and reward success, so those who “do” are able to rise to the top and those who “pose” will work to become doers?
• How do we ensure that members who take on leadership roles at all levels actually perform their responsibilities, do so well, and are held accountable if they don’t?
• And finally – how can we find ways to connect our organizations even closer to maximize efficiency and impact while retaining the power of our uniqueness?

Got to report on what the old crew is up to. MFA and SEIU Local in Seattle have teamed up on a video project to ask young folks and musicians about their health care status and opinions on the system:

David Bazan (of Pedro the Lion)

There's a good idea in here somewhere, but I don't see an endgame. What are the videos being collected for? Most young people know we have shitty to no health care. Telling their stories (or allowing them to tell their own stories) is cool, but what next? This is an SEIU partnership . . . so what is SEIU and how might they help me? (That's a rhetorical question - I know what SEIU is, but a lot of younger folks probably don't). Is there a way to build this into part of a statewide movement to reform Washington's health care system like Massachussets and other states have done?

Cool shit in and of itself doesn't help us. Cool shit that gets other shit done is what we need to be aiming for.

So what comes next? What are we looking to get done, and how does this get us there?