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In our lifetimes, we have seen the rapid deterioration of once robust union protections.\u00a0 Even as social conditions have improved for many, economic disparities grow.\u00a0 Despite artificially low criteria for poverty, the threadbare American social safety net creaks and groans.\u00a0 We watch in anxious horror as a new cast of hard-right chaos agents infiltrate Washington\u2019s highest offices, wondering if democracy is on the brink of collapse.\u00a0 What can we do \u2015 besides shop<\/em> \u2015 to hop off this doom spiral?\u00a0 Even if we feel driven to create a better future, where do we begin?<\/p>\nIn 2021, with these deep concerns in mind, Southern Connecticut State University social work professor Dr. Stephen Monroe Tomczak and I organized a Town Hall Meeting in New Haven, Connecticut.\u00a0 We did this under the aegis of the National Jobs for All Network, which for 30 years has been advocating for federal enactment of Full Employment via a large-scale, direct government job creation program. President Franklin D. Roosevelt referred to this guarantee of \u201cremunerative work\u201d as the \u201cfirst and most fundamental\u201d economic right in his landmark Economic or Second Bill of Rights.<\/p>\n
The New Haven Town Hall explored the economic and social justice work of many different representatives from the New Haven community \u2015 including educators, students, activists, and people with lived experience of the economic and social inequities we seek to reduce.\u00a0 We hold that Full Employment \u2015 meaningful, living wage work for all \u2015 would make addressing the myriad problems created by intersectional oppression significantly more manageable.\u00a0 Despite necessarily limited sets of personal resources and priorities, all who attended this event were engaged in a single, shared project: namely, the construction of a more just and equitable world.<\/p>\n
Out of this event, the Connecticut Jobs and Human Rights Task Force was formed.\u00a0 The group is staffed by macro social work practitioners Jennifer Perez and myself; and is advised by Logan Martinez, Outreach Coordinator for the National Jobs For All Network, and Dr. Stephen Monroe Tomczak.\u00a0 The group works to advance the right of people across the state of Connecticut to living wage work, by means of state government creation of human services and sustainable physical infrastructure.\u00a0 We are committed to doing what we can to pave the way for NJFAN\u2019s full employment plan; so that when the time comes, jobs will be created where they are actually needed \u2015 and not merely to serve the interests of wealthy individuals and corporations.\u00a0 As a group built on the supposition that economic justice is the bedrock on which social justice rests, we are committed to interjecting people-oriented priorities into economic policy.<\/p>\n
If you are interested in joining the Task Force, please email either Jennifer Perez (jennymperez [at] gmail.com or Sarianna Sabbarese (ssabbarese [at] gmail.com).<\/p>\n
Sarianna Sabbarese is an employee of the National Jobs For All Network and co-organizer of the Connecticut Jobs and Human Rights Task Force, working to lay local groundwork for Full Employment.\u00a0 Sarianna holds master’s degrees in social work and women’s and gender studies from Southern Connecticut State University.\u00a0 In addition to her work with NJFAN, she is an advocate and counselor for survivors of sexual assault and intimate partner violence at The Center for Education and Empowerment (formerly the Women’s Center of Greater Danbury).\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Sarianna Sabbarese November 21, 2023 In our lifetimes, we have seen the rapid deterioration of once robust union protections.\u00a0 Even as social conditions have improved for many, economic disparities grow.\u00a0 Despite artificially low criteria for poverty, the threadbare American social safety net creaks and groans.\u00a0 We watch in anxious horror as a new cast… Read More Good Jobs Are A Human Right!<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[47,48,6,170,140,25,169],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community-leaders","category-concerned-citizens","category-constituents","category-labor","category-legislation-actions-events","category-policy-makers","category-unions"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/njfac.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/njfac.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/njfac.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/njfac.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/njfac.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13774"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/njfac.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13775,"href":"https:\/\/njfac.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13774\/revisions\/13775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/njfac.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/njfac.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/njfac.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}