"Don't mourn -- organize!"
Member & Friends,Holidays can be both wonderful and bittersweet. While festive messages abound, these are deeply challenging times. On November 30, 800,000 workers looking for jobs for more than six months will lose unemployment insurance—2 million by December 31st. With five job hunters for every one opening, long-term jobless workers have nowhere else to turn. This is going to be a hard Thanksgiving for many folks.
Adding to the current economy, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender workers can still be legally fired or discriminated against in a majority of states (unless they have a union contract.) LGBTQ seniors are at higher risk for isolation, poverty, and homelessness. Transgender people of color are four times as likely to live in poverty. One in five transgender people have experienced homelessness. Transgender people have double the rate of unemployment as the general population and experience near universal harassment on the job. Lesbian couples and their families are significantly more likely to live in poverty than straight couples. African-Americans in same-sex relationships have dramatically higher rates of poverty than all heterosexual couples, and three times higher poverty rates than white people in same-sex relationships.
In spite of that painful reality, what I am so grateful for in these times is that we have each other. We have the labor movement, the progressive movement. We have the spirit and passion of activists fighting for social and economic justice for all people. We have solidarity across our shared struggles.
I am grateful for the spirit of the labor movement, that simply asks us each to stand "one day longer", united under the motto that "An Injury to One is an Injury to All." Your fight is our fight. Our fight is your fight. Whether you will spend Thanksgiving with your biological family, your "chosen family", or simply a friend, please know that you are not alone. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender labor and our allies are standing with you in spirit.
Thank you, thank you, thank you to our brothers and sisters across the labor movement, whether LGBT union members or our straight allies, standing up for all working families -- including the far-too-many who are currently jobless. Thank you to our LGBT community allies of labor.
You all are the salt of the earth. We have hard work in front of us as a movement - and together, we will find a way to meet the challenges ahead. Solidarity, and wishing you a safe and peaceful Thanksgiving.
"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience,
but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." ~ Martin Luther King Jr.
but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." ~ Martin Luther King Jr.
Pride At Work, AFL-CIO, 815 16th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20006.
Phone: 202.637.5014. Fax: 202-639-6264 E:Mail: info@prideatwork.org
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