I work at Dunkin Donuts – and our bosses steal from us. Not at gunpoint. They skip overtime payments – or simply erase hours from our checks. If I took $20 from the till, they'd fire me – or even call the police. When they take it straight off of our paychecks? Nothing. It's illegal, but it happens every day to thousands of workers across the country. Right now, we have a huge opportunity to end these illegal pay practices. Congress JUST introduced a bill cracking down on employers that steal from workers like me, and they need to hear from us that this is an urgent problem.

Inflation keeps going up and wages keep going down.

Mayor Bowser backed a $15 minimum wage in her State of the District address. This is huge news! Big business tried to tangle up our $15 ballot initiative in the courts and keep DC residents from having a say on our city's minimum wage. But now, thanks to our organizing efforts, the Mayor has come out strong for $15 and the real fight begins. The Mayor is sending legislation to the DC Council in April. We need to make sure they do the right thing and stand up to big business by giving DC a raise. SIGN THE PETITION: I support a $15 minimum wage for DC!

The Maryland General Assembly wanted to strengthen our state's Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which helps working people who struggle to make ends meet. But then, some legislators introduced language that would give a tax break to the wealthiest 1% of Marylanders while giving the rest of us almost nothing. We need to stop this corrupted version of the EITC before it passes the House of Delegates and pass one that helps those who are truly in need.

In 1946, U.S. coal miners faced the prospect of a long strike that could have hampered our nation’s post-war economic recovery. The government took action, signing the historic Krug-Lewis agreement, which created a welfare and retirement fund in cases of sickness, permanent disability, death or retirement. Knowing the dangers of the industry, Krug-Lewis also created a separate medical and hospital fund. Over the past century, nearly 105,000 miners were killed on the job and another 100,000-plus have died from black lung disease. These workers accepted less in wage increases and pensions so that more money could be dedicated to their health care in retirement. But as America’s coalfields face depression, companies are filing for bankruptcy and receiving approval to shed their retiree obligations. The United Mine Workers of America Pension Fund lost a significant portion of its value in the Great Recession. With approximately 13 retirees for every active union worker in the coal industry, the fund can’t rely on employee contributions to close its shortfall. To address the financial pain of the situation, Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) have introduced legislation—S1714, the Miners Protection Act of 2015—that would amend the Coal Act once again to allow retirees from recently bankrupt companies to get health care from the UMWA Health and Retirement Funds. The bill also would repurpose the balance of an existing appropriation to provide funding to shore up the pension plan. Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.) has introduced companion legislation in the House.

We stand with Charlotte, NC city workers who are fighting to raise wages to at least $15/hour , expand union rights, and to demand a city workers bill of rights that builds power and addresses the many issues facing city workers in Charlotte.

Before streaming obliterated CD sales, musicians could work hard and potentially sell CDs to maintain a modest career using CD Baby or Itunes. Now, Spotify and the major labels, as well as Apple Music, have destroyed the impetus to compensate musicians and the respect for the musician as the creator of works of art is eroding. Many accept that Music creation should be seen as a hobby. As professional musicians-We cannot accept this view of Music and Art creation. We want to be compensated fairly for our music! .10 per play adds up to $15 if each song on a CD is streamed 10x. Valuation of music at this rate encourages people to purchase a CD. This gives sustenance to the actual creator of the music! Streaming tends to devalue an entire industry by stripping musicians of profits and creating tech savvy billionaires by passing unfair copyright and usage laws. #wealththroughmusic seeks to keep musicians in the middle class! Streaming creates corporate piracy of our entire life source.

There is a solution to Illinois’ budget impasse, but the solution requires unity and a willingness to act. You see, a budget that calls for funding requires sufficient capital. Illinois simply has insufficient revenue to support the necessary funding, but Illinois can quickly generate upwards of ten billion dollars a year without raising any existing taxes. Rather, House Bill 106 assesses transactions not yet being taxed. Each of you pays a 6.25% tax for general merchandise transactions, 1% for qualifying food, drugs, and medical appliances, and wagering starts at 15%. Yet those financially able to gamble at the Chicago Board Options Exchange and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, while utilizing a wide variety of Illinois services, pay no tax at all to Illinois on their transactions. Nothing. The vast majority of trading is done by large banks, hedge funds, large businesses, and very wealthy individuals. There is an average $900 trillion traded per year on those exchanges, more than five billion contracts traded per year. Illinois Representative Mary Flowers proposed House Bill 106, for traders to pay a single dollar contract fee on agricultural futures and futures options traded, and a $2/contract fee on non-agricultural contracts. That averages 0.001 of 1 percent of average contract value. The bill is currently active in committee and subcommittee chaired by Representative John Bradley, and it absolutely needs a huge push by the public. Transactions involving securities held in retirement accounts or mutual funds are exempt. The tax would generate an estimated $10 billion in revenue annually, enough to avoid the currently projected cutbacks for everyone. Fast-track passage of House Bill 106 should be our single greatest imminent priority. The alternative is an ever increasing financial burden placed squarely on the financially weak, on public employees, retirees, students, educators, the disabled and infirm, the homeless, and the rest of us who desire, or depend upon, a state government capable of serving its core functions. People will tell you there is no point to making the effort. There is. Many people’s lives and livelihoods depend on it. People will say these exchanges will move out of Illinois. That is a particularly annoying deception. The exchanges’ owners and operators, the CME and CBOE Groups, are not the ones paying the transaction tax, so they have no incentive to move. The buyers and sellers will pay. Also, many products traded, like the S&P 500 index futures, are exclusively licensed to these exchanges so cannot be traded elsewhere. Critically, millions of dollars are sunk into the computer-based infrastructures in Illinois. The expense of relocating the hard-wired infrastructure would not be economically feasible. The Aurora facility alone spans 7.5 football fields in size. The setup of co-locators to matching engines along straight-line and fiber-optic and microwave transmission is such that major traders position their offices physically in close proximity to these exchanges; whereby, the transmission of information is described by them as almost at the speed of light. Traders would have little incentive to upset that setup as a result of HB 106 because that speed due to proximity substantially increases their profits. Please understand, taxes of this type are successfully implemented in more than 25 countries without causing any exchanges, or a significant volume of traders, to trade elsewhere. When thought through, arguments against passage of H.B. 106 are frivolous when compared to the benefits to every person in Illinois. Again, we all must take the initiative to instruct our legislators. Write a letter and mail it. Make contact with your legislators and the Governor demanding immediate passage of House Bill 106. It is the duty of those who have retained a moral compass and been made aware of this opportunity to solve the budget impasse.

The Poverty State University Campus-Community Fight for $15 is working to unite and coordinate union workers, non-union, and student workers to fight for a $15 minimum wage on the Portland State University campus! Workers at PSU are struggling with food and housing insecurity now. Workers need a raise now, not in six years! We are demanding the following from PSU President Wim Wiewel and the PSU Board of Trustees: 1. We demand a $15 minimum wage for all campus workers, including contract workers. According to the MIT Living Wage Calculator, the current living wage in Portland is $23.11 for one adult with a child. Due to rising housing costs and low vacancy rates, many of our community members are fighting to have basic necessities like food and shelter on low wages. 2. We demand a transparent and accountable public process to ensure economic equity on campus. In the U.S., for every dollar a White man makes, a Black man makes 75 cents, and a Latina makes 53 cents. We demand that the Portland State Office of Equity and Compliance release a statement in support of equal pay, and creates policies and procedures to document, reduce, and then eliminate inequitable pay gaps due to race or gender on campus. 3. We demand that the PSU Administration stop threatening student activists. Students do not lose their rights to free speech when they enroll in college. The right to join with fellow Portlanders in protest or peaceful assembly is critical to a functioning democracy and is at the core of the First Amendment. PSU does not have the right to threaten student activists and must stop these threats immediately. Join us in our fight for a living wage at Poverty State University!

The lucrative cannabis industry is a simple solution to our failing Public School System. End the war on weed. Teach our kids to read.

Working Pennsylvanians know what bad trade deals have done to our economy. Senator Toomey should know too. By supporting the Trans-Pacific Partnership, he is once again helping corporate CEOs instead of working people. This secret agreement is a sham for Keystone State communities and will send even more good-paying jobs offshore and threaten our economic livelihoods. We deserve a senator who stands up for opportunities in our state, not corporate interests that drive them away. Send a message to Senator Toomey now—TPP is wrong for Pennsylvania! Sign on now!

We are the West Hollywood Action Committee (WHAC), and we are here to inform you of an up and coming action by the West Hollywood City Council to discuss raising the minimum wage to $15 during the next meeting on Monday the 21st at 6:30 P.M. Like you, we believe current starvation wages are unacceptable in our prosperous, progressive city and pledge to ensure that our business community affords its workers a livable wage in an expedient time frame as unsustainable income inequality is increasing. As you know, a growing movement to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour has found victories in communities throughout the United States, and the results have been positive. It is long overdue for West Hollywood to join this movement. Our own Mayor Lindsey Horvath, along with Councilmember John Heilman, were elected after successfully campaigning for a liveable wage. While it’s clear our community is supportive, we’re left with three other council members as undecided voters. We need your help to convince them to join cities across the country in adopting a living wage before the Council meeting this Monday, the 21st. West Hollywood prides itself on being a location where ‘we can live, work, and play’. In the attempt to deny a livable wage, our community makes the “live” part of that slogan an unobtainable goal. Your support of low-wage workers will directly impact us all. The irony of this discussions’ timing in Women’s History Month should not be overlooked. Women have been the most exploited and hit hardest by the failure of the business community to care for their workers. March 25th marks the 105th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, where a majority of female factory workers lost their lives from a horrendous accident caused by dangerous working conditions. International Women’s Day, March 8th, was originally a call to action by women workers to demand progress in the workplace. Almost 150 years later, we stand on the shoulders of giants and continue working towards this reality. If you agree that West Hollywood deserves to be a city that provides a livable wage to all our workers and encourages economic diversity, then we need you to get active as City Council will soon be making their own decision. Public statements will directly impact this issue -- your participation in the conversation as a supporter is critical. Join us at the West Hollywood City Council meeting on Monday, March 21st, at 6:30 PM and please write or call the City Council members directly through their contact information. We are available to assist in letter writing or crafting a public statement of support. If you would like to sign on as an organization or business, please let us know! Thank you for your support and action on this issue. For a diverse and inclusive West Hollywood, West Hollywood Action Committee [email protected] Keep up-to-date with this and other issues in West Hollywood on Facebook.