I had not seen much here this week about the 99% Spring, so I decided to provide some information and links about it. From the AFL-CIO blog:
This is the 99% Spring and you can join with more than 100,000 activists from unions, community, faith and other progressive groups to take the economy back from the 1% and challenge corporate greed.
Starting Monday, April 9, and running through April 15, hundreds of training sessions around the country are set for activists to learn how to take back the economy. The sessions will prepare you to tell the story of what happened to our economy and who’s responsible and learn nonviolent direct action tactics. Click here to find a training session near you.
Participants in the training sessions will focus actions on Tax Day (April 17), when across the nation they’ll raise their voices to demand the 1% pay their fair share. To find local Tax Wealth not Work events, go to www.americawantstowork.org. (Tax Wealth Not Work National Day of Action, April 17)
The 99% Spring activists will focus on at least 40 companies, including Verizon and Wells Fargo. In what's been dubbed Shareholders' Spring, activists will protest at shareholder meetings—including Bank of America's annual meeting in Charlotte, N.C.
Other actions will include home occupations to prevent foreclosures and student-led protests against Sallie Mae and other entities that have profited from student loan debt.
AFL-CIO Now
More about the National Day of Action, another progressive action coming up:
TAX WEALTH NOT WORK – NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION TUESDAY, APRIL 17th
Under the Romney-Ryan budget, millionaires and huge corporations will be given even more tax breaks while essential programs and services for working families, military service personnel, students, veterans, seniors and the poor will be cut drastically and thousands of workers laid off.
On Tuesday, April 17th Tax Day, across the nation we’ll raise our voices to demand that the 1% pay their fair share and that we overhaul the tax code to reflect the needs and values of the majority of Americans. Register your event here.
You can search by zipcode or state for an event near you.
Tax Wealth Not Work National Day of Action, April 17
From the SEIU:
This week, we make history, with people at more than 900 events nationwide are coming together for an unprecedented movement-wide training.
This week, we'll learn to tell the story of our economy and what went wrong, we’ll learn the history of nonviolent direct action in America, and prepare ourselves take nonviolent direct action and stand up to corporate dominance of our economy and our democracy.
This week, we draw a line in the sand against corporate control of our economy and democracy, using our very bodies to say, as one, “No more.”
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This week, we’ll run more than 900 trainings in union halls, living rooms, places of worship, community centers and parks.
This week, everyday people will stand up and prepare to take courageous, visionary, morally compelling direct action. This week, we will continue the legacy of those who secured women's ability to freely vote, who broke down the old Jim Crow, who led strikes and formed labor unions.
This week, we will join the struggle to create that kind of change again.
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The 99% Spring is our chance to maintain and broaden that changemaking energy, and learn how we can take action to challenge corporate power, end tax giveaways to the 1%, fight the influence of money in politics, and create an economy that works for all of us.
Our movement is uniting, and this is a chance for all of us to come together to create a new future for our country. Will you join in?
(From an email I received)
Click here to find a training session near you.
Here are the organizations involved in it:
The following organizations have called for a 99% Spring: Jobs With Justice, United Auto Workers,National Peoples Action, National Domestic Workers Alliance, MoveOn.org, New Organizing Institute, Movement Strategy Center, The Other 98%, Service Employees International Union, AFL-CIO, Rebuild the Dream, Color of Change, UNITE-HERE, Greenpeace, Institute for Policy Studies, PICO National Network, New Bottom Line, Veterans of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement, SNCC Legacy Project, United Steel Workers, National Education Association, Working Families Party, Communications Workers of America, United States Student Association, Rainforest Action Network, American Federation of Teachers, Leadership Center for the Common Good, UNITY, National Guestworker Alliance, 350.org, The Ruckus Society, Citizen Engagement Lab, smartMeme Strategy & Training Project, Right to the City Alliance, Pushback Network, Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, Progressive Democrats of America, Change to Win, Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, Campaign for America's Future, Public Campaign Action Fund, Fuse Washington, Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment, Citizen Action of New York, Engage, United Electrical Workers Union, National Day Laborers Organizing Network, Alliance for a Just Society, The Partnership for Working Families, United Students Against Sweatshops, Presente.org, Get Equal, American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, Corporate Accountability International, American Federation of Government Employees, Training for Change, People Organized for Westside Renewal (POWER), Student Labor Action Project, Colorado Progressive Coalition, Green for All, DC Jobs with Justice, Midwest Academy, The Coffee Party, International Forum on Globalization, UFCW International Union, Sunflower Community Action, Illinois People's Action, Lakeview Action Coalition, Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, International Brotherhood of the Teamsters, Resource Generation, Highlander Research and Education Center, TakeAction Minnesota, Energy Action Coalition, Earthhome.us.
MoveOn.org Civic Action is hosting the online event registration process but is not responsible for the content or programming of the trainings or for the planning or organization of any specific actions. The 99% Spring is a collaborative effort between many organizations to train over 100,000 Americans in the basics of nonviolent direct action—not an electoral campaign.
A video from last week:
[Note: I should not have to write this, but based on past diaries, no doubt there will be some comments by a few who see this progressive action through the lens of a "turf war" or as "cooption," and seek to bring it down. I will add that the various Occupy movements in various cities have not taken a position on this and this movement is not part of Occupy. THIS IS NOT OCCUPY. In my view, that is irrelevent. I think Occupy is a good thing, but there are many roads to change and this also helps. People need to organize and be trained. I'm glad unions and other progressive organizations are doing so. Certainly those who differ should pour their efforts into the road they choose and avoid this action. Let a 1000 flowers grow.]