Conference

Saturday October 19th 2013, 8am to 6pm
Rutgers University - Newark
Paul Robeson Campus Center
350 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard, Newark, NJ

Petition

Sign this petition

Rally

Click here for a flyer in English and in Spanish

Protest

Click here for more information

Documents

• This proposal states the work that is needed to be done, and
• Where the money would come from.

Click here for the proposal       In Spanish

Report on the May Day Rally in Newark

One hundred activists, students, trade unionists and immigrant workers rallied in Newark’s Independence Park on Sunday to demand Jobs for All-- a Massive Public Works Program and Legalization for All. The rally, conducted in English and Spanish, was part of nationwide May Day protests including a march of 60-100,000 people in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Most of the rally participants were immigrants from the Ironbound neighborhood where the rally was held, but others came from the sponsoring organizations--NJ Immigrant and Worker Rights Coalition and Peoples Organization for Progress as well as from unions that had circulated the rally call, including the Newark Teachers Union and AFSCME.
Maria DaSilva told the rally about her initiative, supported by NJIWRC, to start a class-action lawsuit to challenge the constitutionality of the US immigration laws. Her husband faces deportation, yet the US constitution does not grant to Congress the power to exile residents without charge or trial and nowhere gives Congress the power to make it a crime to be born elsewhere. Eric Lerner spoke on the necessity for a public works program, paid for by ending the US foreign wars and taxing the rich and the corporations. To build the unity needed to win such a program, we must fight for legalization for all, he said, so that all have the right to work. POP Chairman Larry Hamm described the struggles, including the civil rights struggle that had been won through mass mobilization. He urged the organizing of a permanent, daily protest rally in Newark to win our demands, a proposal under discussion in POP and which will be discussed by NJIWRC as well. Folk singer Graciela Barreto performed at the rally. Her songs and message of liberation and struggle, drawn from a rich Latin American musical tradition, including artists like Violetta Parra, Victor Jara, and Ali Primera, were well received by the crowd. While the turnout was about the same as the May Day rally in Newark last year, several participants expressed disappointment that more trade unionists did not participate this year. Some said that mobilization by the same unions for the New York City rally could have been a factor. Further discussions will help to determine how greater union participation can be mobilized in future events.
Many participants, who had heard about the campaign for Jobs for All, Legalization for All for the first time at the rally, were eager to participate further.

The next NJIWRC meeting, announced at the rally, will be Sunday, May 15, 3:00 PM at 187 Lafayette St, Newark. Agenda topics will include the campaign to force employers to pay back stolen wages to day-laborers and possible daily rallies in Newark in alliance with POP.

Also announced at the rally was a lecture/discussion on the battle for a jobs program in the 1930’s and the sit-down strikes of 1936-37. The lecture by independent historian Jeannette Gabriel is sponsored by the International Luxemburgist Network and will take place on Sunday, May 22, 4:00 PM at 187 Lafayette St., Newark. It will be conducted in English and Spanish.

May Day Rally

Today, one in six Americans is unemployed or underemployed, and one in four is among African-Americans and Latinos. Public workers are under attack and education, health and other vital public services are being slashed. Today, there is only one way to create jobs—the government must hire workers directly at good pay to do the work that needs to be done. The public sector needs to be vastly expanded, not cut!

Read the details in English, Español Or in PDF format in English, Español

Special Meeting

Special Meeting of NJ Immigrant and Workers Rights Coalition

Sunday, April 17th 3:00 to 6:00 PM St. James Church, Newark 143 Madison St., Newark (enter through parking lot).

We invite you to this important meeting. Last fall, the coalition came into being and adopted two key demands: Jobs for All—A Massive Public Works Program and Legalization for ALL. At our state-wide conference in February and at our regular meeting, we have discussed at length what the meaning of these demands are. Now, after this thorough discussion we want to decide definitively if these are to be our demands permanently—until they are fully met. So we will vote again on these demands and give all the opportunity to propose changes.

At the same time, demands have no meaning unless they are backed up with growing action and organization. So after voting on the demands we will plan concretely how we can publicize and build for the Independence Park rally May 1, which has now been endorsed by the People’s Organization for Progress. With the public workers in action defending their rights, we have a historic opportunity to bring together the movement for immigrant rights, the movement to defend the public sector, community, peace and environmental groups who all can join in our common demands.

Please come to this important meeting to decide the next steps in the battle in NJ for immigrant and workers rights.

Protest

TAKE ACTION AND PROTEST AGAINST THE SEPARATION OF FAMILIES

WEDNESDAY APRIL 27 AT 7:30 a.m.
RODINO FEDERAL BUILDING
970 BROAD STREET
NEWARK, NEW JERSEY

Don’t let Wanderson DaSilva be the Next Victim of Injustice!

US Immigration laws are unconstitutional! Nowhere in the Constitution is Congress given the right to condemn people to exile just for the “crime” of being born elsewhere. No law that Congress has passed makes being here without proper documents into a crime. And if it were a crime, defendants would have the right to be tried by a jury of their peers.

Instead ,today, an unconstitutional ”administrative process” condemns people without charge or trial to imprisonment or exile for 3 or 10 years, separating families and destroying lives. The basic rights of due process under law are denied both to immigrants and to their citizen families.

We are organizing a class action lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of this law. We demand that these unconstitutional laws be struck down! Due process for all! Legalization for all! Join us!

For more info visit: entrywithoutinspection.com or call (862) 234-2900
Read the press release

February 12-13, 2011 Conference

More than two years after the crash of ’08, one in six Americans is unemployed or underemployed, and one in four is among African-Americans and Latinos. Employers are slashing wages with some workers suffering pay cuts of 50%. The intensified campaign of terror against immigrants is forcing millions to work at sub-minimum wages, accelerating the employers’ race to the bottom. Across the country, state governments are taking an ax to public employment and vital public services, such as education. Around the world, the same things are happening. We face a global crisis that threatens an unending spiral of unemployment, wage cuts and austerity, the destruction of our lives and our future.

But there are solutions and we must organize ourselves to fight for them and win them. There is work that needs to be done—lots of it. The money is there—the corporations announced record profits this quarter. The NJ Immigrant and Worker Rights Coalition, joining with other organizations demands JOBS FOR ALL, A Massive Public Works Program.

Read more in English or Spanish
Conference program in English

Have Your Organization Endorse the Jobs for ALL Demands!

During the summer, the NJ May 1/Jobs for ALL Campaign is trying to get as many immigrant rights, community, student and union organizations to endorse the three demands we are organizing around: Jobs for All, Legalization for ALL, a Massive Public Works Program with direct government employment at prevailing wages. We think that, if we can get wider support for these demands, it will be possible to get the endorsing organizations involved in larger actions in the fall, such as a North-Jersey-wide rally and march. Members are now preparing a short pamphlet to explain the public works demand in greater detail.

If you want a speaker to talk to your group about this campaign and endorsing these demands, please contact us at info@njmay1.org.

NJ May 1 Coalition and Jobs for All Campaign of NJ have merged

Since the membership and goals of these two organizations complete overlap, we unanimously agreed that there is no reason to have separate names for NJ May 1 Coalition and Jobs for All Campaign. So we decided to merge them at our last meeting. We have also asked for any objection to merging these groups over the NJ May 1 email list and have received none. So for now, the merged organization will be called the NJ May1/Jobs for All Campaign. We will continue to use the www.njmay1.org website and njmay1 email list, but are changing the masthead on the website to reflect the new name. We decided on the somewhat long merged name because we want it to reflect our central campaign to get Jobs for All, Legalization for All and a Public Works program, but still retain NJ May 1, which has by now some considerable name recognition. The merged organization will continue to support the NY- NJ Rapid Response Network, which has long been the other main project of NJ May 1 Coalition.

Press Release

Statement on Anti-Immigrant Law in Arizona

We, the undersigned, denounce the Jim-Crow “SNILE” Act in Arizona. We urge the Governor of Arizona to veto it. The passage last week of this law against immigrants has made it more urgent than ever that workers unite against all attempts to divide them with racism. The new law returns Arizona to the days of segregation, making it a crime to even be in a car with an undocumented immigrant, obligating the police to arrest anyone they “suspect” of being undocumented, even victims of crime. It mandates racial profiling, making anyone with the “wrong” skin color liable to arbitrary arrest and imprisonment.

The SNILE law is a test case for those who are trying to again split workers along racial lines. They want workers to blame immigrants for mass unemployment, not those who are really responsible—the huge corporations and their allies in government.

To defeat such racist plans, we must build our own strength behind demands that unite all working people. We will not fight against ourselves for the available jobs but will unite in one movement to win JOBS FOR ALL WHO LIVE HERE, immigrant and native-born, regardless of previous convictions-- no one denied work. As a step to winning Jobs for All, we will on May Day be demanding a Massive Public Works Program. In reply to the attacks on immigrants, we will be demanding Legalization for ALL.

The answer to Arizona’s Jim Crow law must begin in massive May Day rallies all across the United States. We urge everyone to participate in May Day rallies in their communities, specifically including the Newark rally and march beginning at Military Park, 12:00 Noon May 1.

(to add your signature, please send message to info@njmay1.org)

Initiating Signatures:
Jobs for All Campaign of NJ
Peoples Organization for Progress
Jay Arena
Lilliana Gomez
Eric Lerner
Eric Horn
Silvana Heil

Mobilize for Workers' Rights

Legalization for all! No limits on the right to strike and organize. Workers can’t fight layoffs, cutbacks and wage cuts if they fear deportation and detention and if laws block their rights to form unions and to strike.

Tax the rich and corporations to pay for a massive direct government jobs program—expanding housing, education, health services. Budget cuts, concessions by workers, layoffs all deepen the crisis by cutting demand for goods and services. No budget cuts! Instead we need to create jobs and expand demand by taking money from the rich, who created the crisis.

Permanent government ownership and control of all banks and other financial institutions-- run by democratically-elected boards. Trillions for bank bailouts just gives money to the same bankers whose policies are gutting the economy. WE need to control the financial system, not leave it in the hands of a pack of billionaires. The people must vote on where we put our own tax dollars.

How can we win these demands?

The same way people in the last Great Depression won Social Security, unemployment compensation, huge government jobs programs like WPA—by mass demonstrations, by General Strikes like those in San Francisco, Minneapolis and Toledo, by sit-down strikes (plant occupations) and by organizing everyone—fellow workers, neighbors, and friends.

If you want to help organize to win these demands, to help organize local meetings, to build a movement big enough to win, please

sign-up here

and we will let you know of others in your area and of local meetings and protests.

Rapid Response Network

In response to widespread immigration raids, a coalition of immigrant rights activists has announced the launching of a Rapid Response Network Hotline that will give help to those confronted with the raids. The RRN Hotline, sponsored by the NJ May 1 Coalition and the New Jersey Civil Rights Defense Committee is a 24-hour toll free number covering New York and New Jersey that will provide immediate, contact with Spanish-speaking volunteers. In the event of a raid, the volunteers will calmly inform callers of their basic rights, especially the right not to admit the ICE agents to their homes without a warrant signed by a judge and the right to remain silent. The hotline number, for emergencies only, is 1-800-308-0878. March 14, 2008 Press Release announcing the RRN. RRN posters in English: White and black text on red background,   Red and black text on white background,   Black text on white background RRN posters in Español: White and black text on red background,   Red and black text on white background,   Black text on white background

On March 10, the Rapid Response Network hotline became operational in the New York-New Jersey region. Immigrants faced with ICE raids now have a 24/7 toll free number that they can call in an emergency, and get a Spanish-speaking volunteer who will be able to calmly tell them their rights and how they can avoid detention. Such Rapid Response hotlines, now being set up in other cites, have helped immigrants to fight back against the raids and break the terror that ICE is imposing on the immigrant community.

The Rapid Response Network has already had its first successful response to a raid. A woman called the hotline from her home in Elizabeth, saying that ICE agents were outside, demanding to be let in. The RRN phone volunteer reassured the woman that she had a right not to let the ICE agents in without a search warrant. Although the agents were waving various papers around through the window, they did not show any such warrant.. After some 20 minutes, the ICE agents gave up. No was detained and the Hotline worked as intended.

But we need YOUR help to make the hotline work and be more effective. You can help in three ways:

1) If you are fluent in Spanish, we need more phone volunteers to cut down on the shifts. Volunteers will receive training. During an 8-hour per week shift, calls to the hotline will be directed to your cell-phone and you will be able to help immigrants involved in raids to avoid detention and deportation. Volunteers are confidential and status does not matter.

2) We need a lot of help in getting the word out to the Spanish-speaking immigrant community. We have eye-catching posters in Spanish and English which we need to get to organizations and individuals that can put them up in immigrant neighborhoods. We need help in printing lots of the posters.

3) You can join Rapid Response Teams who, when called by hotline volunteers, rapidly go as teams to the site of an ICE raid and act as witnesses. RRT witnesses will also receive training. As experience in LA and other cities has shown, the presence of such witnesses can deter ICE agents from rights violations (like breaking down immigrants’ doors). Rapid Response Team members do not need Spanish, but since they will be dealing with ICE agents, they must be citizens, permanent residents or on a valid visa. Observing and commenting on the actions of ICE agents or any other law-enforcement authorities is lawful activity protected by the Bill of Rights and by Supreme Court decisions.

To volunteer, please contact us at info@njmay1.org

Know Your Rights (English),   Know Your Rights (Spanish).

Categories of Callers (English),   Categories of Callers (Spanish).

Description of the RRN (English),   Description of the RRN (Spanish).

Guidelines for RRN phone volunteers (English),   Guidelines for RRN phone volunteers (Spanish).

Recruitment letter (English).

Guidelines of Rapid Response Team (witness) (English).

Right to oppose or challenge (English). Referral numbers for social services.

May 1, 2006
Thousands march for immigrant rights
CNN