Middle Atlantic Region

AFSC - Charleston, West Virginia

West Virginia Economic Justice Project

Rick Wilson’s Economic Justice Blog Goat Rope

The blog name is The Goat Rope (visit the site to find out why) and the address is www.goatrope.blogspot.com.

Please forward and link it if you can stand it. I’ll try to behave on it although I’m still getting the hang of it and am kind of like a kid with a new toy.

Established in 1989, the West Virginia Economic Justice Project (WVEJ) works statewide on issues affecting low income and working families. Specifically, the project:

· Helps people get the best possible deal from the current system.

Through publications, trainings, and outreach, WVEJ spreads information about benefits and programs for low income families, labor law, civil rights, education, buying a home, tax credits for working people, and other useful information.

Partnering with the West Virginia Welfare Reform Coalition and Legal Aid of West Virginia, WVEJ helped develop the Making Connections program, which trains families and advocates statewide on issues such as welfare, supports for employment, health care, accessing higher education, and advocacy skills. Making Connections trainings have been held statewide and have reached over 1000 people.

WVEJ published and periodically updates A Guide for Working Families with similar information. Since the first printing in 2003, around 10,000 copies have been distributed to individuals, organizations, state agencies, and public libraries. The project has also offered family literacy and GED programs.

· Engages in campaigns to gain or defend economic rights for workers and low income families.

Rick Wilson of AFSC's West Virginia Economic Justice Program reads a liturgy at a vigil to protest federal budget cuts that would adversely affect the poor.

WVEJ has joined with community allies to improve and restore cuts in the social safety net. Past campaigns restored welfare benefits for families in which a member received Supplemental Security Income (SSI); allowed welfare recipients to count education from the literacy to college level as work activities; improved due process rights for families seeking an extension of benefits; helped secure the guarantee of welfare assistance for battered women and children; and restored cuts in other social programs.

Always engaged with the labor movement, the project supported striking coal miners in the Pittston and Eastern strikes in the late 1980s and early 199s; union families impacted by the Ravenswood

lockout; retail workers in the 2003 Kroger strike; and several smaller labor disputes. The project works closely with unions on public policy issues and communication.

The project played an active part in coalitions protecting Social Security from privatization and challenging unjust and immoral federal budget priorities.

Balloons were released following a memorial service at West Virginia Wesleyan College for twelve miners killed in the Sago Mine disaster in January 2006.

Current campaigns include efforts to raise the minimum wage at the state and federal level; restore workers compensation benefits for widows and widowers of workers killed on the job; expand access to health care; and protect the state Medicaid program from cuts which would harm children, the elderly, low income adults, and people with disabilities.

· Build effective coalitions in support of economic justice for all people.

WVEJ works in partnership with a host of organizations and individuals, including the WV Council of Churches, the state AFL-CIO and member unions, Service Employees International Union, the WV Welfare Reform Coalition, WV Coalition Against Domestic Violence, WV Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers; the Legislative Action Team for Children and Families, Direct Action Welfare Group, WV Interfaith Center on Public Policy, West Virginians United, WV Citizen Action Group, the media, policy makers, public agencies, educational institutions, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; the Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign, and many others.

“There is nothing but a lack of vision to prevent us from paying an adequate wage to every American, whether he is a hospital worker, laundry worker, maid or day laborer.”

– Martin Luther King, Jr.

The West Virginia Economic Justice Program won a huge victory when the West Virginia Legislature voted to raise the state minimum wage in three steps by June 2008. The campaign to raise the wage was kicked off in January at a Martin Luther King Jr. Living Wage event co-sponsored by the WV Council of Churches and AFSC. The bad news is, due to quirks in state law and WV Supreme Court decisions, the bill will cover only 2500-200 workers in the private sector and some low wage state employees. Still, it helps some people and will give more momentum to ongoing campaigns under the Let Justice Roll banner, of which AFSC is a member.

It's Time to Raise the Minimum Wage (PDF, 1.26 MB)