Join us at 8am at Bryant Park to participate in one of the 99 pickets! Below is a partial list of the pickets planned for the day.

7 AM - 3 PM: Join the Laborers 79 at Savannah Partners — 1375 Broadway         

7 AM - 3 PM: Join the Laborers 79 at St. Giles Hotel — 120 East 38th St btw Park and Lexington  

8 - 9 AM: Join members of Legal Services of NYC fighting for a better contract — NYT Building, 620 8th Ave.

8 - 10 AM: Join Local 802 at Koch Brothers — Lincoln Center Plaza      

8 - 10 AM: Stop Post Office closures with Community-Labor United for Postal Jobs & Services! — James Farley Post Office, 421 8th Ave.

8:30 - 10:30 AM: Join members of the Newspaper Guild at McGraw Hill — 1221 6th Ave.  

8:30 - 9:30 AM: NYU Bobst Library — 70 Washington Square South      

9 - 11 AM: Strong Economy for All at Paulson Investment Co. — 1251 Ave of the Americas

9 - 10 AM: Join NYCC at Chase Bank — 270 Park Ave.                               

9 AM - 12 PM: Support Teamsters Local 814, locked out from Sotheby’s — 1334 York Ave at 72nd St.

10 - 11 AM: Join NYCC at Chase Branch — 401 Madison Ave.

11 AM - 1 PM: UFCW Local 1500 workers at Target — East 117th St., Harlem        

11 AM - 1 PM: Support NABET-CWA Local 16 workers at ABC — 66th and Columbus 

Immigrant Worker Justice Tour:

—- 11:30 AM: Support the Laundry Workers Center — location TBA  

—- 12:00 PM: Wells Fargo — location TBA

—- 12:30 PM: Support Coalition of Immokalee Workers! Chipotle — 9 W 42nd St.              

—- 1:30 - 2:30 PM: Support ROC-NY at Capital Grille — 155 E 42nd btw 3rd and Lexington

12 - 1:30 PM: Support members of CSEA AFSCME at Investment Banker Stephen Berger — 46th and Park Ave.

12 - 2 PM: Repeal Employer Sanctions with NMASS & IWJ — 26 Federal Plaza

1:30 - 4 PM: March with the Freelancers from Digital Media Companies — Madison Square Park (start) to Union Square (finish) 

3 - 4 PM: Support workers at Beth Israel with Workers United — 14th and Park

3 - 4 PM: Support workers at Strand Bookstore! — 828 Broadway        

7 PM: Support TWU fighting for a fair contract — MTA, 2 Broadway                      

8 - 10 PM: Support jazz musicians fighting for fair benefits — Washington Square Park (meet at the arch)

Laborers Local 79 Picket today! Workers need safe working conditions! Stop the attack on the 99% #99pkts

99 Picket lines promo video!!! Get in the streets! Which side are you on? #99pkts

Richard Trumka Prez of the AFL-CIO Joins the 99 Pickets!!!

“These writers and producers are doing what workers have always done. They’re doing a great job in the TV industry, and now they’re joining together in a union to turn these jobs into great jobs with health care. I’m proud to stand with them,” Richard Trumka said.“If you consider a workplace fraught with violations of wage and hour laws, long hours, unfair pay and zero benefits to be a sweatshop, then any number of television production companies in New York City fit that bill,” said Lowell Peterson, Executive Director, Writers Guild of America, East. “Nonfiction is almost entirely non-union, but it will change as the WGAE continues to organize and bargain on behalf of writers and producers in this part of the industry. Creative professionals understand the importance of banding together to make their work lives better.”  

http://nonfictionunited.org/

Workers at Golden Farm in Brooklyn walk the Picket Line!!!

Workers from Flex n’ Gate in front of the NFL Draft Store picketing owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars Shahid Kahn’s abuses of workers, immigrants and the environment.  #99pkts

1) SAVE OUR N.Y. TIMES!
April 25, 8:30-10:30am, The Times Center, 242 West 41st Street, NYC.

NY Newspaper Guild, CWA Local 31001 members protest at the NY Times annual shareholder’s meeting.  Frozen pensions, compensation cuts of more than 10 percent, under-fund the medical plan — these are a few of Time’s Corporate Management’s Demands. A few weeks ago, the Guild asked a number of the paper’s journalists to sit down and talk on video about the negotiations, the issues important to them, and how they feel about working at the Times.  Watch the video here.

2) Demand Dignity at Darden!

April 25, 6-7pm, Capital Grille, Chrysler Center, 155 42^nd St., between 3^rd & Lexington.

ROC-NY will be having a demonstration with allies and workers, to keep up the pressure and demand dignity at Darden. We will show them that New Yorkers support fairness and dignity in the workplace. Our last action was a great success and was lots of fun. Let’s make this one even better!! Also, visit to the website www.DignityatDarden.org to sign our petition in demanding that Darden sit down with the workers to find real solutions to their claims.

3) Support SEIU 1199 Healthcare Workers!

April 25,  11:30am-2:00pm, Beth Emeth Homecare Service, 1080 McDonald Ave., Brooklyn NY.

Home healthcare workers will be picketing in protest of stalled contract negotiations and the possibility of their benefits being cut! Please come out and support these tireless, unappreciated healthcare workers who deserve better labor conditions.

4) Tell NFL Owner: Stop Mistreating Workers and Our Communities!

April 25, 9:30pm-12:30am, NW corner of 48th and Sixth Avenue (Rockefeller Center Subway).

April 26, 5-8pm, NW corner of 48th and Sixth Avenue (Rockefeller Center Subway).

How did billionaire Shahid Khan—the new owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars football team—make his fortune? Workers and community members from Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan who say they’ve been harmed by his company’s use of hexavalent chromium—the chemical made famous in the movie Erin Brockovich—are coming to New York to tell their story at the NFL Draft. Join them in leafleting and other actions to make sure that, as Mr. Khan steps onto the national stage, America hears the real story. http://www.facebook.com/events/375682042473083/

5) Support SEIU 1199 Healthcare Workers!

April 26, 11:30am-2:00pm, CABS Home Attendant & Housekeeping, 44 Varet St., Brooklyn NY.

Workers will be picketing over issues of management refusing to negotiate on what workers want in their contract. Please support them in their fight for better labor conditions!

6) Support the New York Taxi Workers Alliance!

April 26, 3:30 PM, March from Queens Medallion Leasing (21-03 44th Ave in Long Island City) to SLS Jet then Midtown Garage (just blocks away)

Taxi drivers are marching to demand an end to rampant lease overcharges and calling for the first fare raise in over eight years to ensure that taxi workers can earn a livable income and create a Health and Wellness Fund.

7) Friday Morning! Join AFL-CIO President Trumka in a Race to the Top

April 27, 10-11am, Atlas Media, 242 W. 36th St. (between 7th & 8th Ave.)

Writers and producers in nonfiction basic cable TV work long hours for low pay and no benefits. Hundreds of these employees have asked the Writers Guild of America, East to represent them. AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka will join WGAE officers and activists to urge one of the production companies to provide health benefits – to abandon the race to the bottom on wages and benefits, and instead to join the race to the top. RSVP: jmolito@wgaeast.org

8) Justice for Workers at Golden Farm!

April 28, 24-Hour Boycott and Picket, 329 Church Ave., Brooklyn NY

We will have a presence outside the store all day and night, but the main gathering will be from 12-5pm. We have a set of speakers lined up, music, activities and food, so come and bring as many people as you can. Let us know if you want to sign up for an hour of picketing. We will try to have at least 20 people at all times.

ON MAY 1ST:

Come walk the picket line from 9AM-12 noon at 72nd St. and
York Avenue with Teamster Art Handlers and help them fight for
the future of their Union against Sotheby’s - a company who has
locked them out of their jobs for over 8 months to try
demoralize them into accepting wage and benefit cuts and the
gradual elimination of their Union.

MINNEAPOLIS- A federal judge has ordered Jimmy John’s to reinstate six workers fired by franchise owners Mike and Rob Mulligan over a year ago for blowing the whistle on company policies that expose customers to sandwiches made by sick workers. Jimmy John’s workers can be written up or fired if they take a day off without finding a substitute when they are sick. A union survey revealed that this policy, in conjunction with minimum-wage workers’ inability to afford to take a day off, result in an average of two workers making sandwiches while sick every day at the Minneapolis franchise of the chain. The judge’s ruling requires that Jimmy John’s reinstate the six workers with back pay within 14 days, but the employer could manipulate the appeal process to stall resolution of the case for several more years.

While the workers hail the judge’s ruling as a victory for whistleblower rights, they point out that justice delayed is justice denied. “It has already been over a year since we were illegally fired for telling the truth. For all the hard work and dedication of the NLRB’s civil servants, employers like Jimmy John’s prefer to break the law and drag cases through the courts for years rather than let workers exercise their right to win fair pay, sick days, and respect through union organization,” said Erik Forman, one of the fired workers, “The dysfunctional US labor law system gives Mike and Rob Mulligan and their cronies in the 1% carte blanche to trample on workers rights. Jimmy John’s workers, and the rest of the 99%, will only be able to win a better life by taking our fight from the courtroom back to the shopfloors and the streets.”

The story of the unionization effort at Jimmy John’s reads like a cautionary tale about the inefficacy of labor law in the United States. A majority of Jimmy John’s workers demanded union recognition in September 2010, primarily seeking a pay increase above minimum wage. In response, the company spent over $85,000 on a vicious anti-union campaign with the help of outside union-busting consultants. In spite of rampant illegal intimidation, the workers came within a hairs-breadth of victory in an 85-87 vote that the NLRB later threw out due to over 30 employer violations of federal labor law in the election period.

Ostensibly protected by an NLRB settlement agreement that required the employer to abide by the law, workers at Jimmy John’s then began campaigning for the right to call in sick and paid sick days in January 2011. Despite the clear risk to public health of workers making sandwiches while ill, franchise owners Mike and Rob Mulligan stonewalled employee requests for sick day policy reform for more than two months, prompting union supporters to take their message to the public by posting 3000 copies of a poster explaining that workers are forced to make sandwiches while sick. Mike and Rob Mulligan lashed out in retaliation, firing six workers and disciplining others. On the witness stand, Mike Mulligan admitted under oath that he had fired the six workers because he perceived them as the “leaders and developers” of a unionization effort. Mulligan’s credibility was further eroded when he testified to intentionally lying to the press about the franchise’s food safety record.

While Jimmy John’s has been able to exploit the weakness of US labor law to stomp on employee’s right to organize, workers vow to press forward with their campaign for fair pay, guaranteed hours, sick days, and respect and dignity in fast food.

The Jimmy Johns Workers Union, open to employees at the company nationwide, is affiliated with the Industrial Workers of the World labor union. Gaining prominence in recent years for organizing Starbucks workers, the IWW is a global union founded over a century ago for all working people.

The 1% crashed our economy, foreclosing on millions of homes, destroying jobs, and wrecking our city budget. Enough is enough. Another city is possibe, but we must build it.

As we approach May 1st, we will be setting up 99 picket lines to expose, disrupt, and shut down the 1% who rule our city. The 99 pickets will be an effective way for people to plug into the morning activities on May Day. A few other pickets will happen in coming days to build for the May 1st, but the focus of this project is May 1st. This is an opportunity to fight back against austerity, union busting, the attacks on immigrant rights, and the entire system of the 1% rule with a tactic and framework that is in solidarity with the May Day call to action. The recent General Strikes in Spain and Greece show us that when we all fight back together, against austerity we are stronger. The picket line is a tactic with a rich history. It can be diverse and does not have to be symbolic.

How will we get to 99 picket lines?

Good question. We are off to a great start. Right now, unions, worker centers, community groups, and affinity groups are selecting and bottom lining targets. We are already over halfway to our goal of 99 locations. We have an outreach plan to encourage many more organizations to participate.

But in order to get to 99, we need more unions, community groups, OWS working groups, affinity groups, and workers to step up and pick a target.

Ready?

Pick a target you want to picket, ideally at 8 am on May 1, in midtown. Can you get at least 20 people to join you in picketing? Great! (We can help by publicizing your target, if you want. There will also be some upcoming trainings on picketing and mobile tactics.) If you do not have 20 people, no problem! Come to an OWS action spokes council to plug into existing pickets or just come at 8AM to Bryant Park on May 1st and recruit folks to join you. Either way, you are also strongly encouraged to participate in the affinity group spokes councils and existing May Day planning. The final council will happen on Wednesday at 6PM at 33 West 14th St. This tactic and project is in solidarity with the all of the exciting plans for May 1st. This action will be distinct but also compliment the amazing mass march from Union Square at 4pm.

If you would like to register a picket line and or have any questions or need support email: 99picketlines@gmail.com.

Let’s make May Day in NYC a day to remember!

WHAT: Workers across the city plan 99 picket lines leading up to and on May Day.
WHO: Unions, Occupy Wall Street – Immigrant Justice Working Group, Community Based Organizations, Workers’ Centers
WHEN: From now through May 1st
WHERE: City-wide
WHY: To highlight the connection between workers struggles across the city. To build unity for May Day.
HOW: For more on the 99 picket lines, see:

• Tumblr: http://99picketlines.tumblr.com/
• Twitter: @99picketlines
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/99PicketLines
• Email: 99picketlines@gmail.com

KEY PICKETS THIS WEEK:

• TUESDAY APRIL 24, 4-6pm - Gotham Garage 33rd Ave and Miller St, Flushing with New York Taxi Workers Alliance
• WEDNESDAY APRIL 25, 6-7pm – The Capital Grille 155 42nd Street, b/w 3rd Ave and Lexington, with Restaurant Opportunities Center