HUNDREDS TO BEGIN AN OCCUPATION FOR JOBS - JANUARY 16 - UNION SQUARE NYC - 1 P.M.

Occupy 4 Jobs

ON THE DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. HOLIDAY

http://www.facebook.com/events/270176639697343/

Occupation demands include:

   ·   A massive national jobs program, and 

  ·  Emergency measures for the unemployed in NYC

 

In the spirit of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., on Monday, Jan. 16, at 1 p.m., hundreds of people -- including those who have exhausted unemployment benefits, as well as students, labor and community activists -- will gather in Union Square NYC to commence an Occupation for Jobs.

 

Participants in the Occupation, which is being organized by the “Occupy 4 Jobs Network”, are demanding a massive public jobs program modeled after the Work Projects Administration of the 1930s, large enough to provide decent paying jobs to the 30 million unemployed and underemployed.

 

The Occupation for Jobs will also demand that immediate emergency measures be taken to aid the exploding numbers of unemployed people in New York City, including a moratorium on evictions and utility shutoffs, the expansion of food stamps and free public transportation for unemployed people.

 

Kian Fredericks, an organizer for Occupy 4 Jobs and one of the founders of the movement of jobless people who have exhausted unemployment benefits known as the “99ers” said, "The same banks that got bailed out while the unemployed got thrown out, should be made to pay for the emergency measures that unemployed New Yorkers need."

 

Fredericks continued, “We will occupy for jobs and emergency measures in Union Square on the King Holiday because we refuse to stand by while unemployed people and their families are made homeless, hungry, and cold."

Monday’s occupation for jobs is inspired by Dr. King who in the last years of his life, had come to the conclusion that the next civil rights battle was for the right of all to a decent paying job or an income.  When King was assassinated in the spring of 1968, he was planning of a mass occupation of Washington DC for a jobs program.

 

Last year, the Occupy Wall Street movement started a revolution for social and economic justice for the 99% who suffer because of the greed of the 1%.  On Dr. King’s birthday holiday next Monday that revolution will continue as the jobless refuse to be silent and start occupying for their rights.

 

Other groups participating in the January 16 Occupation for Jobs include the OWS Jobless Working Group, Picture the Homeless, People's Organization for Progress, Occupy Harlem, the May 1st Coalition for Worker and Immigrant Rights, Transit Workers Union Local 100, amongst many others.

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