You’re invited to…

The SOUTHERN MAINE WORKERS’ CENTER’s

2019 KARAOKE FUNDRAISER

 What is it?

The Southern Maine Workers’ Center is hosting its biggest grassroots fundraising event of the year, and we need your help! On Saturday, February 9^th at 8pm, SMWC members will be gathering at the Apohadion Theater in Portland to sing their hearts out and raise money to support the core programs of SMWC, from the Workers’ Rights Legal Clinic to our organizing against Medicaid work requirements to our political education work in the community and more!

How does it work?

It’s kind of like raising money to run in a road race…except your road race is a night of karaoke! Each person will commit to raising a certain amount of money. For the month ahead of the event, you’ll use an online fundraising platform to make a personalized page to tell your community why you are raising money for SMWC. Using social media, personal emails, or in person asks, you’ll be inviting people you know to donate to SMWC. To make it fun you can promise to sing an embarrassing song at karaoke or offering to let your highest donor choose your song. Members of SMWC fundraising committee will be available to support you to set up your page or think about how to meet your goal.

To celebrate our success, we will participate in a super fun, really sweet night of karaoke singing with the broader SMWC community on Saturday, February 9^th, at the Apohadion Theater in Portland at 107 Hanover Street. There will be drinks, food, and lots of charming singing. We promise.

What’s the fundraising goal?

We have set a goal of raising $10,000 with this event. This is our biggest fundraising goal EVER!  It’s going to take a collective member effort to make sure we realize it!

What if karaoke is my worst nightmare?

You can still sign up to raise money and just attend the event. This is a consent-based model: no one has to do karaoke if they don’t want to!

How can I sign up?

Just tell one of the Fundraising Committee members you want to do it, and we’ll send you a link to the fundraising platform. You can talk to: Jo Bell, Sue Bragg, John Ochira, Jan Bindas-Tenney, Nicole Manganelli, or Drew Joy. We’re so excited!! THANK YOU!

Good afternoon! My name is Osgood and I’m the Director of Portland Outright.

As an organization by and for low-income LGBTQ+ people, Portland Outright’s work is inextricably linked to the work of organizing for the human right healthcare. Every time Outright youth leaders organize–for better access to healthy foods for incarcerated youth, for the right to live in safe housing, for trans-competent healthcare providers–this is the work of healthcare justice.

For LGBTQ+ young people, access to affordable, comprehensive, low-barrier healthcare is a lifeline. We see the work of advancing health equity for marginalized communities as integral to ending youth incarceration and youth homelessness. Lack of resources and barriers to good health perpetuate the criminalization of LGBTQ+/GNC youth. As an alternative to incarceration, LGBTQ+ youth need therapeutic, holistic, trauma-informed, community-based care and healing. Outright is an LGBTQ+ youth-led movement whose aim is to achieve this vision of health and equity for our communities.

Recently, the Trump administration announced plans to roll back the basic rights of Transgender people–hard won victories which protect trans people’s right to self-determination, to healthcare and to safe housing, to be safe at school and at work. Since that time, communities around our country have suffered brutal attacks on their safety and lives–in community spaces and in public.

We also know that acts of state violence–including the state violence which drives cuts to MaineCare, including the changes proposed in the 1115 Waiver –disproportionately impacts people of color, queer and trans folks, and low-income people in our community. That this kind of systemic violence is a tactic used to keep us divided, to stop us from building the collective power needed to transform our communities.

When the state creates scarcity–in services, in resources, in care–there have always been community networks that open their doors and pick up the slack. We draw power from and model our programs after generations of trans people living in the margins who created deep abundance and rich networks of support from very little. It is in this tradition that we understand youth organizing and anti-oppression work as an act of love.

We must continue to organize and to take care of one another, because this is the key to our survival and creates the blueprint for the world we are building together. Our healthcare system should reflect the vision and values that are present in the work we do together everyday–interdependence, healing, justice. Now, more than ever, we must organize boldly and broadly towards the world we know is possible.

On Sunday, October 28th, the Southern Maine Workers’ Center held the Rally to Protect and Expand Access to Health Care. The rally connected the dots between the well-known issue of MaineCare expansion, which, while passed by voters has still not been implemented; lesser know attacks on our health care system, including the proposed Section 1115 Waiver which would create, among other things, job requirements for Medicaid; and the growing momentum in a nationwide call  for Medicare for All. We’re sharing some of the powerful speeches from the rally so they continue to inspire the health care is a human right movement in Maine. Now is the time to hold our newly elected officials accountable to enact their promises to improve health care. Please let your representative know that you opposed the proposed changes to MaineCare in the 1115 Waiver.  Please let Governor-elect that in addition to implementing the medicaid expansion, we need  her to rescind the 1115 Waiver!

Mark James, Member of SMWC’s Health Care is a Human Right Committee

Hello, my name is Mark James. I’m a grateful MaineCare recipient. I’m grateful because without it I would be dead. I wasn’t working when I was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma the first time. I knew if I hadn’t had MaineCare I would probably have died. It all happened so fast. I was living in Aroostook county, in rural northern Maine, where there are not a lot of jobs. The MaineCare 1115 waiver and proposed work requirements do not consider geography, or the fact that many people go without work because there is none to be had. Health care shouldn’t be equated with how many good paying jobs there are in your region of the state.

These waiver requirements are set up to discriminate against the working poor, and find ways to kick people off MaineCare. These punitive work requirements don’t take into account people who work hard taking care of loved ones, which is generally unpaid. I know, because I was a full-time caretaker for both my mother, and my partner of 27 years. When you are caring full time for a loved one, you don’t have time to constantly fill out paperwork.

The paperwork associated with these work requirements is costly bureaucracy, and will lead to many people who should be exempt still losing their coverage because of new barriers they have to overcome. Not to mention, if you miss a premium, fee or co-payment, they could kick you off your MaineCare after just 90 days! So, if you’re working poor and you get sick and can’t pay the premium, you’re screwed either way.

They say this is to incentivize work. I say these requirements are set up to kick working poor people off MaineCare. These policies are setting people up for failure. This does nothing to move us towards our goal of universal health care. It’s another war on the poor to discriminate and humiliate people. That is why I am glad to be part of a movement that sees people’s humanity. We need universal healthcare now, because Health Care is a Human Right!

On Sunday, October 28th, the Southern Maine Workers’ Center held the Rally to Protect and Expand Access to Health Care. The rally connected the dots between the well-known issue of MaineCare expansion, which, while passed by voters has still not been implemented; lesser know attacks on our health care system, including the proposed Section 1115 Waiver which would create, among other things, job requirements for Medicaid; and the growing momentum in a nationwide call  for Medicare for All. We’re sharing some of the powerful speeches from the rally so they continue to inspire the health care is a human right movement in Maine.  

Kathy Kilrain del Rio, Policy Analyst, Maine Equal Justice

Mainers know that access to affordable health care is a basic human need, no matter our race, gender, background, or how much money we have. That’s why we came together to expand Medicaid at the ballot box last November. Voters across Maine understood that expanding Medicaid, also know as MaineCare, is a commonsense fix to get health care coverage for 70,000 more people in our state. It’s also why we’ve stood up to protect the Affordable Care Act time and time again.

Governor LePage has actively fought against Mainers’ access to this life-saving health care for years and continues to do so today. Despite 59 percent of voters casting a vote for expansion, he has used his power to try to block the will of Maine people by delaying over and over again the implementation of  this new law. He will not succeed.  We haven’t stood idly by. Together with partner organizations and the support of people who need this coverage, we have taken to the courts to force the LePage administration to follow the law, we worked to pass the funding he claims to need in the legislature – funding he then vetoed. Our family, friends, and neighbors need to be able to get health care and we won’t stop fighting until they do get it.

At the federal level, we continue to face attacks on the Affordable Care Act. And, the Trump administration is eager to add barriers to state Medicaid programs through the 1115 waiver process – even though a federal judge already found that barriers like job requirements are in opposition to the statutory purpose of the Medicaid program which is to serve the health and wellness needs of our nation’s families and individuals with limited incomes. Should Maine’s 1115 waiver be approved, we will fight that as well.

Those politicians who want to reduce access to health care have shown time and again that they will use hateful rhetoric to divide us—often blaming poor people, immigrants, and people of color for the problems with our health care system. The reality is that our economic system and our health care system do not work for people with low incomes without programs like Medicaid. Low-wage jobs without health benefits, the gig economy, discrimination, and our broken immigration system make it difficult if not impossible for many people to gain financial security and get the medical care they need and deserve.

It doesn’t have to be this way. When we join together across our social, economic, and racial differences, we win. Every person in our state deserves access to high quality, affordable, and comprehensive health care. Every one of us. We can make a difference by sharing our stories with our personal networks as well with the media and policymakers. We can make a difference by electing champions for health care who share our values. We can make absolutely make a difference by voting on Nov. 6^th just like we voted to expand Medicaid last year. We’re asking Mainers to pledge to be a health care voter and we launched a website to make sure voters have the information they need before they go to the polls or vote early by absentee ballot. You can make the pledge and get more information at healthcarevoter.me.

Together we will create a future where everyone has the health care they need and deserve.

Southern Maine Workers’ Center
Administrative Coordinator

JOB DESCRIPTION

This is an hourly, part-time position for 16 hours a week. Compensation is $15/hr. The position will be focused on administrative work and volunteer coordination and will be based at SMWC’s office in Portland.

TO APPLY

Send your resume and a cover letter to smwcemployment@gmail.com. Applications are due by November 1st.

SUMMARY OF RESPONSIBILITIES

The Administrative  Coordinator will provide ongoing support in the areas of office administration and volunteer management that are essential to the smooth operation of the Southern Maine Workers’ Center as a community-based organization powered largely by volunteer members.

The Administrative  Coordinator will be responsible for the day-to-day administrative tasks required to run the Southern Maine Workers’ Center, coordinating the administrative needs of SMWC’s member-led committees, and recruiting and supporting administrative volunteers.

Office Administration

• Managing the info@maineworkers.org email account and fielding general inquiries about SMWC or forwarding to relevant staff or member-leaders.
• Managing upkeep of contact database and membership rolls, including tracking dues
• Basic bookkeeping and fiscal management
• Maintaining the public and internal calendars
• Maintaining and updating SMWC’s website and social media accounts
• Facilitating printing jobs for board of directors meetings and larger programming events
• Organizing SMWC’s office space and materials; sorting and filing paperwork
• Coordinating payroll
• Creating administrative policies and implementing improvements data security

Volunteer Coordinating

• Recruiting volunteers and interns for admin tasks and programing
• Coordinating volunteers for administrative tasks, including data entry for SMWC programs
• Coordinating volunteers for fundraising, including events, data entry, and thank you notes
  

WORK SCHEDULE

• This position is for 16 hours a week.
• Most work would be during the day, though occasional nights and weekends will be required
• Weekly staff meetings will be required
• This position will be supervised by the Executive Director

SKILLS NEEDED:

• Ability to work with Microsoft Suite of programs (Word, Excel, Publisher, etc.) and Google Docs
• Familiarity with Quickbooks and spreadsheets
• Familiarity with basic website development, especially in WordPress
• Strong verbal and writing skills

QUALIFICATIONS:

• Aligned with the SMWC’s political orientation, community agreements, and goals as outlined in the SMWC Membership Agreements
• Comfortable working collectively (including group decision-making, collaborative writing, and meeting/event co-facilitation)
• Women, People of Color, LBGTQ people, poor and working class people encouraged to apply

The Southern Maine Workers Center believes that all people are entitled to basic human rights that meet basic human needs. Our work is to secure these rights: to ensure that all people have work with dignity and access to the health care they need. We make progress every day, but we know that our rights are at stake with the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. We know that Kavanaugh will use his position to undermine basic human rights through ideological misinterpretations of the law. We unequivocally oppose his confirmation on several fronts.

First, we believe survivors and we believe Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. We know that as perpetrator of gender-based violence, Kavanaugh is not fit to serve on the Supreme Court. Additionally, this confirmation process is demonstrating that some of our elected officials don’t care about the experiences of survivors of sexual assault, which impacts the well-being of women, and survivors of all genders, in our membership and beyond. And while Kavanaugh’s conduct alone is enough to deem him unworthy of a seat on the most important judicial body in the United States, we also know that Kavanaugh’s positions on numerous issues are a direct attack on the lives of our members.

Second, we know from his D.C. Circuit court record that Judge Kavanaugh will actively work to revoke the already limited protections workers currently have. We’ve seen from his rulings that he sides with big business over workers. We know that he is hostile to unions, hostile to the the rights of workers to sue their employers, and even hostile to the idea that workers should have safe working conditions. We can anticipate less ability for workers to address other injustices in the workplace—whether that’s discrimination, sexual harassment, unsafe conditions, or better wages. Maine’s working people, who Senator Collins claims to respect and represent, would be deeply harmed by her vote to confirm Judge Kavanaugh.

Third, we know from his record that Judge Kavanaugh has no respect for the human right to health care and could cast the deciding vote in cases that would undermine access to life-saving care. We’ve seen from his rulings that he will work to undermine the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the right to comprehensive reproductive health care, including abortion. As governors across the country, including in Maine, attempt to block Medicaid expansion in their states by passing punitive job requirements and premiums on very low-income people, we can expect Kavanaugh to align himself with right wing ideology, rather than the mission of the Medicaid program. Senator Collins has played an important role in protecting the ACA, but confirming Kavanaugh would undermine the stance that she took on that issue: betraying her constituents, in addition to being reckless with human lives.

Finally, we know that the conservative agenda cannot be separated from systemic racism and misogyny.  Kavanaugh’s record makes clear that he will make decisions that further institutionalize and legitimize xenophobia and racism and attempt to undermine the humanity of immigrants and people of color. We believe in the worth and dignity of all people.

We know that the justice and court systems do not currently serve all or protect all people. We know that we can not allow further degradation of our human rights by allowing Judge Kavanaugh access to the Supreme Court. We believe that Senator Collins has a conscience. It remains to be seen if she will follow it.