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Californians for Justice is waging a statewide campaign for livable wage public job creation. In 1997, CFJ launched a Campaign for Economic Justice to reframe the welfare reform debate as a debate on jobs and economic justice. Our first outreach activity focused on targeting welfare offices, check-cashing centers and unemployment offices to have individuals sign a "Reality Check" to CA Governor Pete Wilson. Using a mock check as a tool, the concept was that as Wilson cut people's welfare checks, we needed to send him a "reality check." In the memo section of the check, people wrote their concerns about welfare reform and demands for changes. We collected over 5,000 reality checks and discovered that the majority of the concerns focused on the lack of jobs and the lack of good-paying jobs. That's when we decided on a campaign for public job creation. CFJ then designed a Jobs Survey to use at these same locations to determine what people thought were wages needed to support a person with two children, what kinds of benefits and support families needed to survive, and what kinds of jobs people wanted to see in their communities. We gathered over 2,500 surveys and produced a report with our findings, which was published in the Wall Street Journal. Our volunteer leaders then came together to develop a proposal for what kind of public jobs program we'd like to see in California, with the intention of using this as an organizing tool to build our capacity among poor and working class communities of color to reframe the welfare reform debate. The result was a program we called "Communities First!," which proposed that the state create 100,000 jobs that paid $10/hr and provided health care and child care, targeting communities hit hardest by unemployment. Californians for Justice introduced "Communities First!" into the state legislature earlier this year through Assembly member Dion Aroner. In the period of 3 months, we secured 12 legislative co-authors, including the Assembly Speaker, the Assembly Speaker Pro Tem, and the Assembly Appropriations Chair. We actively involved over 100 organizations, including the California Federation of Labor AFL-CIO, SEE State Council, California Council of Churches, the California Immigrant Welfare Collaborative, Housing California Fair Share Housing Network, and numerous other labor, religious, advocacy and community-based institutions. We also involved 5,000 individuals from poor and working class communities of color who targeted their legislators to support livable wage public job creation. Communities First! passed through the Assembly Health and Human Services Committee and went into suspense in the Appropriations Committee. Californians for Justice's plans are to reintroduce Communities First! in the 1999 legislative cycle and to build momentum by raising the visibility of the need for livable wage public job creation in this next year. Some important lessons learned from all this I'd like to share with you: - - Involve members, leaders and those directly impacted in the grassroots policy development, campaign direction, and in all levels of the campaign. Leadership development is a necessary component if we're to expand the numbers of people involved and if we want to sustain this work. - - Develop outreach tools and methods that can involve mass numbers of people in the campaign. Using reality checks, surveys, postcards, phone calls, etc., provides a relatively easy point of entry for people to become involved in the campaign. - - Design a political education program that allows your constituents to deepen their understanding of the issue and the institutional players involved, as well as to build leadership and organizing skills. This could include a power analysis of the state legislature or a session on the history of job creation programs in the U.S. - - Include action research as a part of your research component. In addition to exploring such issues as funding mechanisms and policy developments, develop research methods that can involve and recruit your constituencies. - - Understand the importance of reframing and setting the terms of the debate. Part of CFJ's success has been our ability to articulate our political principles through our jobs proposal -- that communities have the right to livable wages, health care, child care, and to jobs that address our communities' needs. Reframing the debate allows us the space not only to move our issues, but also to bring in others who may not have necessarily become involved with our work. I hope people find this useful. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us. Joselito Laudencia, Executive Director |