Subscribe to Dollars & Sense magazine. Recent articles related to the financial crisis. Tell CVS To Unlock Their CondomsFrom Mazher Ali, who works with our next door neighbors United for a Fair Economy (UFE), reporting back from a protest at CVS.Groups including Jobs with Justice, Change to Win, and my own, United for a Fair Economy, gathered on CVS' doorstep in downtown Boston for an expression of outrage. With the help of a mass of supporters off the street, we delivered our collective demands for the pharmacy big dog to end its discriminatory practices in communities of color. CVS has already been charged with violation of customer privacy. Now, they're being faced with communities' demands to stop selling expired meds and other goods, stop over-charging customers, and to provide customers with equal access to products in all locations. With regard to the latter, CVS has historically put in place more stringent anti-theft measures in minority communities—the most recent battle is over locked-up condoms. Even CVS' less-than-perfect national competitors, Rite Aid and Walgreens, have agreed to do the right thing and unlock their condoms. So...what's the deal? CVS seems hell-bent on sending a message—one that says "We don't care if HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, or unintended pregnancy become an epidemic in communities of color, so long as our profit margin is secure." This is another sad instance of big corporations placing the value of capital over that of human life. Corporate delinquency won't end without your help. See curecvsnow.org to get involved. Mazher Ali United for a Fair Economy Labels: Change To Win, CVS, Jobs with Justice, United for a Fair Economy Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!). Support the Chicago Sit-InAdd this to the list of ways the 1930s are making a comeback.Over the weekend hundreds of workers at Republic Windows & Doors in Chicago occupied their factory to demand the owner keep it open or, if not, that they receive the 75 days' notice of the shutdown required by state law (or the equivalent in severance pay) as well as accrued vacation pay. As the company's primary source of business credit, Bank of America is implicated as well. Common Dreams has the AP story on the sit-in; and check out Jobs with Justice's campaign to force bailout-recipient Bank of America to lend so the factory can stay open. If you want to go right to the top, you can call BoA CEO Kenneth Lewis at 704-386-5687. Labels: Bank of America, closures and layoffs, Jobs with Justice, labor, labor organizing Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!). Jobs with Justice Letter CampaignThis is from Jobs with Justice; hat-tip, again, to John Miller.What's At Stake? Tell Congress: No Wall Street Bail-out! We need you to STEP UP! Tell Congress: Stop the Bail-out; Pass a recovery plan, instead. Now that they’ve made so much money, they say that the huge Wall Street firms, paying grotesque salaries, are "too big to fail," so a quick-fix blank check is making its way through Congress. Apparently, conservatives think our health care crisis isn't big enough to fix (and it would certainly take less than $700 billion). Apparently, the loss of millions of good jobs due to so-called 'free trade' is not a big enough crisis to fix. The disaster from Hurricane Katrina was not big enough to fix, and New Orleans could be left to fail. The looming pension crisis and the affordable housing crisis -- none of these, apparently, deserves a bail-out. For conservatives and financial elites, when working class people face a crisis, plants close or health care costs triple, the system is working. They take all the private profits, but when the bubble bursts, and they can no longer sustain their profiteering rampage... well, they're too big to fail. And who pays the bill? The CEOs are telling Congress to send the bill to working people – the very people who have been forced out of their housing, out of their jobs, out of their healthcare and out of their pensions by Wall Street’s greed. Call and write. Time is short. The site helps generate letters to members of congress: Dear [decision-maker]: Labels: bailout, financial crisis, Jobs with Justice, Step Up Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!). |
