Yesterday Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and Communications Workers of America (CWA) President Larry Cohen spoke to a very-well-attended "Bring Jobs Home" rally in San Francisco. The event was organized by the California Labor Federation and the CWA. There was a very large crowd at Union Square, with a brass band warming up the crowd ("Solidarity forever, our union makes us strong!), and several enthusiastic speakers.
Here are my photos and videos from the event (I guess you have to click through for videos):
The rally was one of many around the country, part of the AFL-CIO's Bring Jobs Home campaign.
In the past decade, more than 50,000 manufacturing sites closed and 6 million American manufacturing jobs were lost to offshoring. More than 500,000 call-center jobs have also been shipped out of the country! Our government actually gives tax breaks to companies that close factories here, lay off the workers, move the machines to other countries, then ship the same goods back here to sell in the same stores! That's called "trade." As a result there is pressure on wages, and people are afraid to speak up for themselves or organize unions for fear of losing their own jobs.
Last week Senate Republicans FILIBUSTERED a bill to end the tax breaks for shipping jobs out of the country.
