I am the voice of just one of the 1.5 million unemployed Americans. We all need a voice!

KOTO members believe that, in direct violation of the By-Law provisions, the SMEF board and KOTO’s executive director Dina Coates-Koebler, in meetings not properly noticed and improperly designated as executive sessions, voted to rewrite the job description of Janice Zink, a long-time and invaluable KOTO employee, to falsely classify her job as part time; to dramatically reduce Janice Zink’s compensation by approximately half; and to make this new job description and compensation reduction a “take it or leave it” offer. In the opinion of KOTO members, these actions were improper and secretive, and the result has been the forced resignation of Janice Zink, causing incalculable and irreparable harm to KOTO. KOTO members believe that, as the board president and the board secretary, respectively, Ray Farnsworth and Robert Allen are responsible for ensuring compliance with the SMEF By-Laws. In the opinion of KOTO members, their failure to ensure such compliance, and the making of these decisions in improper, secretive, so-called executive sessions, resulted in substantial harm to KOTO and its members, requiring their removal as directors.

This petition is being used to organize an Activist Alliance to GET THIS DONE. Together we CAN do this. Each week I post a blog with the latest news and tools for coordinated actions to build support in Congress for an extension of long-term unemployment benefits. The blog is here: https://aa4u.squarespace.com/news/ Sign the petition now and JOIN US! (I will never ask you for money-only action!)

To announce a contract vote on the Saturday after the majority of your work force has already left for Winter vacation and many are not expected to be back until Jan 6 in unethical and shows a lack of integrity and respect for the collective bargaining process. This vote was held in bad faith with the intent of receiving a specific and the desired result by the company and the international union leadership. Not Allowing the vote to occur the week following the holiday as requested by the district local shows that both the company and the union did not want to allow members the ability to communicate with each other and their local prior to voting thus interfering with our ability to organize. For our international to put us in such a position is a misrepresentation of our membership and an act of bad faith!

We at MoveOn Seattle would like to share this letter that we received from a local Seattle fast food worker. “I am a Seattle fast food worker, but I can’t support myself on my current wage of $9.32 an hour. I have to pay rent, electricity, phone and all the rest on minimum wage pay, $9.32 an hour - less than $20,000 a year even if I was scheduled for 40 hours a week. I had to move out of the city after I got my job because the pay was too low. I commute two hours a day on the bus to get to my fast food job and I still can’t even afford to live in the city. It’s time that changed! Lots of elected officials have said that they are supportive of a $15 an hour minimum wage. In fact, Mayor Murray formed an income inequality committee here in the city to address raising the minimum wage, and even signed an executive order raising the wage to $15 an hour for all city employees. We need to hold them to their promises. We can keep the pressure on and make sure they know that we aren’t going away. We will keep fighting for $15! These fast food and other big corporations are making billions in profits - they can afford to pay us better. We can’t just sit around and hope that they do the right thing out of the goodness of their hearts, though. We have to make them. If I get a pay raise to $15 an hour it would literally change my life. I would be able to rent my own place. I’d be able to start planning for my future and maybe, just maybe I’d buy some stuff I’ve needed for a long time but couldn’t afford. It wouldn’t just be good for workers like me, but it would be good for everybody. We all would put that money right back into the local stores and business around us. We’re not going to store it away in some out of state corporate headquarters. We are going to spend right here in the city. They are doing it in SeaTac and we can do it in Seattle. Who knows where it will go next. Together, let’s help the Mayor and the Seattle City Council do the right thing for all employees and pass a $15 minimum wage in Seattle.” Thanks! –MoveOn Seattle

My name is Kevin Brown and I've been working at Snarf's sandwich shop for two and a half years. My co-workers and I were all fired three days before Christmas via email, without any notice. Many of us had requested to take some time off during the holidays to be with our families, but were told we could not because we were scheduled to work. In the end we were not able to spend time with our families and left without a job! We worked hard every single day to make Snarf's a thriving business and yet we were unjustly fired in the most unprofessional manner. The CEO promised an additional week of wages for the way things were handled, but he has now broken that promise. Stand with me and my co-workers as we protest this unfair termination and demand that Snarf's immediately reinstates its employees with furlough payment!

Tired of the double standard that Congress enjoys. They are so quick to put conditions on people receiving assistance so let's hold them to the same standard. Congress receives government money in the way of a paycheck. Rep Radel had 1/8 of a gram of cocaine when he was arrested and had no consequences to speak of and kept his job. If this happened to a regular person on the street it would not have such a happy ending.

Systemic bullying problem affecting the United States of America.

I am tired of using my taxes to pay for costs that rich corporations have shifted to the American taxpayer. If the House is so concerned about reducing the debt, start with the companies who are contributing to that debt.

Unemployment assistance isn’t a handout. It's a lifeline for people in tough economic times. We've been hearing a lot recently about how Congress allowed extended unemployment insurance to expire in the middle of the Holiday season, which cut off 60,000 people here in Massachusetts and 1.3 million around the country. While Congress (especially the House) might be callous to those struggling in our slowly recovering economy, you'd think that Massachusetts state lawmakers would be more sympathetic. But over the last few weeks, corporate lobbyists have been pressuring Massachusetts state lawmakers to cut state unemployment benefits, sneaking it into a bill to raise the minimum wage. The scary thing is that it might be working. We've got to get the message to legislators: Now is not the time to cut unemployment benefits. There is no need to make concessions to these lobbyists -- raising the minimum wage is already on ballot for the fall.

Need Emergency Unemployment Benefits!

After a two-year-long knock-down drag-out fight, Congress is on the verge of holding their final votes on the Farm Bill. Unfortunately, it looks like the final bill will still include billions of dollars in farm subsidies, most of which will go to Big Ag. Since 1995, 75% of agricultural subsidies have gone to just 4% of farmers, with over 60% not getting a dime. Even worse, $19 billion of those taxpayer subsidies have gone to pay for junk food ingredients like high-fructose corn syrup. Given the nation’s obesity epidemic, it’s hard to imagine a worse way to spend our tax dollars. Some are claiming this new Farm Bill is real reform, but the truth is that most of the improvements are cosmetic. For example, in one creative sleight of hand, the bill eliminates one wasteful subsidy program only to replace it with another subsidy program with a new name that does the same thing. As our nation faces significant cuts to critical programs, it seems impossible to justify handing out billions of dollars to support profitable agribusinesses that don’t need our money and produce crops that get processed into junk food additives.