Tell Congress to pass Pres. Obama’s American Jobs Act and KEEP GOING

Wow! What a week!

First, a victory in our campaign to end hiring discrimination against the unemployed! This week, Indeed.com, the largest job listing website in the U.S., announced it will stop posting job ads that refuse applications from unemployed candidates.

Then, last night, President Obama laid out an aggressive agenda to put millions of Americans back to work by investing in programs that USAction/TrueMajority members have been demanding — investing in infrastructure, rebuilding schools, extending unemployment benefits and prohibiting discrimination against unemployed workers.

President Obama’s American Jobs Act is a ray of hope for millions of struggling Americans, especially in opposition to the job-killing, cuts-only approach of the right wing.

Congress should quickly pass these provisions and then it should keep going and pass a robust public job creation plan.

NOW is the time for Congress to act. Please tell Congress to put America back to work.

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Ross Wallen, September 9th 2011 | Posted in Action, Economy, Jobs, Progressive Policy, Workers' Rights

Stop hiring discrimination against the unemployed? “Indeed” we can!

By David Elliot

Indeed.com, reportedly the largest job listing website in the U.S., has announced it will stop posting job ads that refuse applications from unemployed candidates.

Earlier this summer, USAction launched an online petition drive to outlaw hiring discrimination against the unemployed. Although we were the first to launch an online drive, we weren’t the first to document this egregious practice. That distinction goes to our friends over at the National Employment Law Project, which released a report showing that employers of all sizes and staffing agencies are using recruitment and hiring policies that expressly deny employment to the unemployed – simply because they are not working.

The NELP study reviewed job postings that appeared on four of the nation’s most prominent online job listing websites: CareerBuilder.com, Monster.com, Indeed.com and Craigslist. NELP identified more than 150 ads that openly discriminated based on employment status. The overwhelming majority of the discriminatory ads required that applicants “must be currently employed.”

After the NELP study was released and widely distributed, USAction’s petition drive targeted companies like Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com and asked them to stop posting ads that discriminate against the unemployed. Later, Change.org, CREDO Action and ColorofChange.org launched their own petition drives, and together we’ve gathered more than 243,000 signatures!

At first, we didn’t get the answer we wanted, although Monster.com did help generate some publicity by sending us a “cease and desist” letter.

But now, momentum is growing against hiring discrimination. Legislation is pending in both chambers of Congress and has been introduced in several states. Late last month, President Obama endorsed the legislation during an appearance on the Tom Joyner Show.

And with Indeed.com’s announcement this week, the good news continues. The company’s announcement was first reported by Change.org:

“Indeed.com strives to provide the best job search experience for job seekers,” said Indeed.com Communications Director Sophie Beaupere. “Our policy is to exclude job listings that do not comply with federal or local laws related to discriminatory hiring practices as well as job listings that discriminate against the unemployed.”

So what’s next? USAction realizes that even if the practice of employment discrimination ended today, we still would not have enough jobs in our country for the almost 14 million unemployed and 25 million un- or under-employed Americans who want them. That’s why USAction is ratcheting up its “Good Jobs for Everyone in America” campaign, which calls for ending hiring discrimination, extending federal unemployment insurance beyond 2011 and passing robust jobs legislation like Rep. Jan Schakowsky’s Emergency Jobs to Restore the American Dream Act, which would create two million public-sector jobs over the next two years.

David Elliot is the Communications Director USAction / USAction Education Fund.

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Ross Wallen, September 8th 2011 | Posted in Action, Corporate Accountability, Economy, In the News, Jobs, Progressive Policy, Workers' Rights

Why won’t Rep. Todd Akin meet with his constituents?

On Wednesday, August 24th, Missouri ProVote and their partners and allies held a community town hall that Rep. Akin was invited to, but declined through a post on his website the day of the event.
While the temperature rose to 100 degrees, 200 people met and then marched over to Rep. Akin’s office to tell him – Stop balancing the budget on the backs of the middle class, voting for budget cuts that would cost Missouri jobs and playing politics with America’s future.

Check out the photos below and more from Missouri and across the country: USAction August Recess album.

And for even more photos from Missouri check out Missouri Pro-Vote photos from the ‘Where’s Rep. Akin?’ community town hall in St. Louis here: http://j.mp/q3nHTE. 

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Ross Wallen, August 25th 2011 | Posted in Action, Affiliates/Partners, budget, Economy, Health Care, Jobs, Medicaid, Medicare, Photos, Social Security, Taxes, Video

Make Congress listen! Good Jobs NOW.

The view from the front lines of the Great Recession is grim: One in ten are out of work. One in four aren’t working as much as they want or earning what they need to get by. And yet the rich keep getting richer — Warren Buffet pays a lower tax rate than his cleaning lady, and Wall Street CEOs are making record bonuses, just like they were before.

Amidst all this suffering an injustice, conservatives in Congress are spending August hiding from their constituents.

The American middle class is shrinking, and we need leaders who understand how to rebuild it. We’ve gathered over 500 stories from the front lines of the Great Recession.

And starting now, we’re going to MAKE Congress listen to them and create jobs.

Click here to read a sample of the stories on our new website – http://www.goodjobsforamerica.org/.

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Ross Wallen, August 24th 2011 | Posted in Action, Economy, Jobs, Workers' Rights

August Recess Photos: “Where are the jobs?”

Millions out of work. 16.1 percent of America un- or under-employed. And Congress is talking about attacks on America’s safety net!?!?

Across the country, USAction affiliates and partners are rallying for jobs, hosting roundtable discussions on economic security, challenging “tea party” members of Congress, protesting attacks on Medicare and Medicaid and asking a question that is simple yet fundamental to the future of our country:Where are the jobs?

Check out the whole photo album here: http://j.mp/qvb8i9

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Ross Wallen, August 19th 2011 | Posted in Action, Affiliates/Partners, budget, Corporate Accountability, Economy, Health Care, In the News, Jobs, Medicaid, Medicare, Photos, Social Security, Workers' Rights

PHOTOS: Funeral for the Middle Class

At Rep. Fitzpatrick’s office in Newtown PA, SEIU, AFL-CIO, Penn Action, MoveOn and others held a funeral for the middle class with more than 100 of Rep. Fitzpatrick’s constituents.

Unemployed workers spoke and Pennsylvanians shared their stories of the recession and how the lack of jobs is affecting them. After the rally Penn Action went up to the Congressman’s office for the fifth time with letters from constituents requesting a series of town halls dedicated to his vote to defund Medicaid and privatize Medicare.

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Ross Wallen, August 18th 2011 | Posted in Action, Affiliates/Partners, Economy, Health Care, Jobs, Medicaid, Medicare, Photos, Social Security, Taxes

USAction stands with 45,000 CWA/IBEW workers on strike against Verizon’s greed

USAction affiliates and partners Citizen Action of New York, New Jersey Citizen Action, Progressive Maryland, Virginia Organizing and West Virginia Citizen Action Group are rallying and supporting Verizon strikes across the country.

Thousands more USAction online members have sent letters to Verizon’s CEO, Lowell McAdam, telling they stand in solidarity with the 45,000 striking workers.

Photo of Western New York CANY via @NMJowsey on Twitter.

TAKE ACTION

Over the last four years, Verizon has made more than $19.5 billion in profits – enough to pay its top five executives $258 million, but apparently not enough to fairly compensate its employees.

Yes, that’s right, despite those profits, Verizon is pushing to outsource more jobs, slash sick days, eliminate benefits for workers who get hurt on the job, and cut health care benefits they’ve already promised to retirees.

That’s why 45,000 Verizon workers went on strike yesterday. They’re sick of being pushed around. They’re sick of the attack on America’s working families. They’re sick of the greed. And we are too.

Send a message to Verizon’s CEO, Lowell McAdam.

Tell him that you stand in solidarity with the 45,000 workers who are on strike. Click here to send your message now!

This assault on working families is yet another example of a disastrous trend – huge corporate profits coming before people – and we have to stop it.

Tens of thousands will be joining CWA and IBEW members on picket lines at Verizon sites across New England. Can you join? Click here to see a map of all of the picket lines happening today.

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Ross Wallen, August 18th 2011 | Posted in Action, Affiliates/Partners, Photos, Workers' Rights

HuffPost Politics Reports on Monster.com “Cease and Desist” Letter to USAction

Huffington Post’s Jordan Howard reports: http://j.mp/oklPsI

Monster.com Says It Won’t Ban Third-Party Ads That Discourage Job Applications From The Unemployed

WASHINGTON — The parent company for the employment website Monster.com, Monster Worldwide Inc., is taking action to get the progressive advocacy group USAction to stop its online campaign aimed at companies whose job postings discourage the unemployed from applying.

In July, USAction began circulating an online petition imploring employment websites such as Monster.com and Careerbuilder.com to reject ads from third-party employers that require applicants to be “currently employed.” As employment websites, Monster and Careerbuilder don’t actually post the ads, but do allow them to be up on the site.

USAction began collecting signatures online — it now has about 26,000 — and put a petition letter on the progressive website Dailykos.com. The group also launched an ad campaign on Facebook.

Then late last Friday, USAction received a “cease and desist” letter from Monster.com claiming the information in the campaign is false, misleading and defamatory. “Monster.com does not engage in any discrimination in hiring,” the letter said. “Monster.com is the media for third-party employers that post their jobs directly onto the monster.com website without input or editorial contribution from Monster.”

USAction spokesman David Elliot said USAction would not cease nor desist.

“Saying they don’t discriminate against the unemployed in hiring is kind of a technicality without a moral distinction,” he told The Huffington Post. “They may not, themselves, discriminate in terms of the people they hire at Monster.com, but they’re still running these ads. So we’re going to keep continuing, we’re not going to cease and desist when it comes to telling the world about this unfair and outrageous practice, a practice that should in fact be illegal.”

Continue…

ACTION: Join those 26,000 Americans and tell Monster.com and all employment sites to “cease and desist” accepting ads that exclude unemployed job-seekers! 

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Ross Wallen, August 12th 2011 | Posted in Action, Corporate Accountability, Economy, In the News, Jobs

No, we will not “cease and desist” telling people about hiring discrimination against the unemployed.

Two weeks ago, we launched a campaign to end hiring discrimination against unemployed Americans.

Specifically, our online petition campaign aimed at companies that refuse to consider hiring unemployed workers, a perverse form of discrimination in today’s economy.

So far, more than 26,000 Americans have signed our petition.

But someone – or perhaps in this era of “corporatehood vs. personhood” I should say some thing – wants us to go away.

That would be monster.com.

You see, when we launched our campaign, one of the steps we took was to ask the executives at monster.com and careerbuilder.com to stop posting help-wanted ads that expressly deny employment to the unemployed – simply because they are not working.

A recent study by the National Employment Law Project found that employers of all sizes as well as staffing agencies are using recruitment and hiring policies that expressly deny employment to the unemployed. The NELP study identified more than 150 ads that openly discriminate based on employment status. NELP examined ads posted on careerbuilder.com, monster.com and two other online job posting firms. It found that the overwhelming majority of the discriminatory ads required that applicants “must be currently employed.”

We complained.

Along with our petition drive, we launched a modest Facebook ad campaign, asking careerbuilder.com and monster.com to stop the discrimination.

Monster.com complained back.

They sent us a “cease and desist” letter, demanding that we stop mentioning them in our campaign. The point they were trying to make, I think, is that although they may, from time to time, post ads that are discriminatory, they don’t themselves discriminate in their hiring practices, and they counsel employers against discrimination.

Their first point strikes me as a claim without a moral distinction. If they don’t discriminate in their hiring practices, good for them. But they do accept money to post ads from other companies that discriminate.

Their second point – that they counsel employers against discrimination – came to light after they were called out in an investigative piece in The New York Times. Their response.

USAction will not “cease and desist” telling the world about hiring discrimination against the unemployed, about companies that engage in this practice, and about online job posting firms that enable it.

And that includes Monster.com

David Elliot
Communications Director
USAction 

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Ross Wallen, August 12th 2011 | Posted in Action, Corporate Accountability, Economy, Jobs

Unemployed? Help Not Wanted!?!?

When we heard that major job sites like Monster.com and CareerBuilder were running want-ads that discriminated against the unemployed, we were outraged.

So were 25,000 USAction/TrueMajority members who signed on and the New York Times, who ran stories and printed editorials demanding an end to discrimination against the unemployed.

But apparently, Monster and CareerBuilder weren’t outraged – in fact, so far they’ve basically ignored our calls to stop running these discriminatory ads. I guess they’re just more interested in taking advertising dollars from the companies that discriminate than they are in answering public outrage.

If we want to change that, we need to hit these online ad sites in the place that it hurts – namely with online job seekers and employers. So we’re launching a major ad campaign today that will target Monster and CareerBuilder. Can you chip in $10, $35 or $100 to help us run these ads?

It’s outrageous enough that 14 million Americans are out of work. But discriminating against jobless people who just want to feed their families and stay in their homes?

Employers should not penalize applicants for a job status that they cannot control, especially when prohibiting the unemployed from applying only compounds the issue.

Help us send a message they can’t afford to ignore. We can’t do it without you: Click here to donate $10, $35 or $100 to run these ads.

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Ross Wallen, August 3rd 2011 | Posted in Action, Economy, Jobs
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