Tag Archives: transit

Video: Getting Back on Track: The New York Transit Crisis – Part 1

This morning, the Murphy Institute hosted a forum exploring the nature and causes of the current mass transit crisis, and focusing on solutions that could enable New York to sustain itself as a world-class city.

Panel 1:

  • Kafui Attoh, Assistant Professor of Urban Studies, Murphy Institute
  • Robert Paaswell, Distinguished Professor of Civil Engineering, City College of New York and Director Emeritus, University Transportation Research Center (UTRC)
  • Pierina Ana Sanchez, Directer, New York, Regional Planning Association

Panel 2:

  • Andrew Bata, Regional Manager North America, International Association of Public Transport (UITP)
  • City Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez, Chair of the Committee on Transportation
  • John Samuelsen, President, TWU International

Missed the event or want to catch it again? Part 1 is below:

Illinois Organizer – Jobs to Move America

Jobs to Move America is a national project to make our transit dollars go the distance – to build better, cleaner public transit systems, to create and retain good manufacturing jobs, and to generate opportunities for unemployed Americans like veterans, single parents, and residents of low-income neighborhoods.

We seek a talented and motivated organizer to join the team as the Illinois Organizer of the national Jobs to Move America campaign. Jobs to Move America is a national project dedicated to ensuring that the billions of public dollars spent on public transit systems create better results for our communities. Jobs to Move America has a plan make our transit dollars go the distance — to build cleaner public transit systems, create and retain good American jobs, and generate opportunities for unemployed Americans like veterans, single parents, and residents of low-income neighborhoods.

Position Description & Responsibilities:
We seek a dedicated person to join our team as the Jobs to Move America campaign organizer in Illinois, working in partnership with the Chicago Federation of Labor. This person will engage in community organizing, coalition building, and event coordination, and will provide some research support. In working across Illinois, the person will be expected to travel regularly across the region and work intensely to advance a complex project.

With access to office space in Chicago, the Organizer will report to the Jobs to Move America national outreach director and is responsible for:

Campaign Coordination: Helping drive the development of the Illinois campaign which will involve extensive campaign visioning, planning, some research support and strategy development done in conjunction with labor, community, and environmental allies. With a strong strategic plan, the organizer will work with the national outreach director to lead the labor, environmental, community coalition to implement the plan effectively.

Coalition-Building: Building a powerful coalition with a diverse set of local partners, including labor unions, environmental organizations, community groups, elected officials, etc., and coordinating with local and national coalition partners through regular weekly, monthly and quarterly meetings; building leadership and mobilization capacity of community and labor allies, deepening city community-labor-environmental network.

Qualifications:
· A demonstrated commitment to social and economic justice and the labor movement
· A minimum of 1-2 years of community organizing
· 2 years proven lead-level organizing experience is strongly preferred
· Strong coalition building and facilitation skills across a diverse set organizations and constituents
· Ability to independently manage projects from conception to completion
· Excellent organizational, writing, communication and research skills
· Ability to multi-task, collaborate as part of a team, and work in a deadline-driven environment
· Strategic judgment, flexibility, creativity, and innovative
· Willingness to work some long hours, evenings and weekends when necessary
· Access to a reliable car

Terms of Employment: This is a full-time position with generous fully family health, retirement, vacation, and other benefits. The salary range is between $45,000 to $50,000, dependent upon experience.

Application Process: Please send applications to info<at>jobstomoveamerica<dot>org with “IL Jobs to Move America Organizer” in the subject line of the email. Applications must include a cover letter, resume, short writing sample and three references in one PDF document. Applicants who do not meet the minimum requirements will not receive a response.

LAANE is an Equal Opportunity Employer. People of color, women, and LGBTQ persons are strongly encouraged to apply.

Dead Labor on a Dead Planet: The Inconvenient Truth of Workers’ Bladders

This article was originally featured in Monthly Review Zine.

By Kafui Attoh

“Once labor has been embodied in instruments of production and enters the further process of labor to play its role there, it may be called, following Marx, dead labor [. . .]. The ideal toward which capitalism strives is the domination of dead labor over living labor.” — Harry Braverman
“[T]here are no jobs on a dead planet.” — Bill McKibben

In a recent essay in New Labor Forum, authors Jeremy Brecher, Ron Blackwell, and Joe Uehlein urge the labor movement to take a more active role in the fight against climate change. Many unions, they lament, have been reluctant to engage the issue, and indeed others have actively taken positions at odds with the climate movement’s most basic tenets. Where unions have been asked to choose between job security and the environment, many have understandably chosen the former. In this fraught context, the authors argue that unions must not only work to reveal the “jobs versus environment” choice as a false one, but that they must do so by developing a climate protection strategy of their own. Continue reading Dead Labor on a Dead Planet: The Inconvenient Truth of Workers’ Bladders