Jewish Alliance for Law & Social Action

Sustainable Food and Lower Healthcare Costs

July 28th, 2011 JALSA No comments

Sustainable Food and Lower Healthcare Costs

It’s been an exciting summer at JALSA. Several meetings with former Undersecretary of Agriculture Gus Schumacher, with Kevin Concannon, Undersecretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services; Phil Edmundson, leading Boston business advocate for healthier food, Judith Kurland, former Regional Director U.S. Health and Human Services, as well as leaders at Tufts Health Plan and other health care providers have led to one conclusion: Healthy, sustainable food can prevent chronic illness like diabetes and heart disease, and health care providers need to step it up!

JALSA leaders from our Environmental Justice Task Force are teaming up with JALSA members passionate about health care to call on public and private leaders to target funding towards programs that bring down the cost of sustainable healthy food, through public funding and private rebates from insurers and employers.

JALSA Joins the Prevention Trust

Thanks to the leadership of some of our younger members, JALSA is proud to announce that we are signing onto the campaign to include Community-Based Prevention in Payment Reform. As the State Legislature considers how to lower health care costs, this campaign calls on legislators to invest in community health measures — such as bike lanes and healthy food programs – that can lower costs by preventing disease before it starts. Led by the Boston Public Health Commission, Health Care for All, Health Resources in Action, and the Massachusetts Public Health Association, this campaign asks the legislature to establish a trust that would be dedicated to community grants promoting preventative community measures.

Action Needed
We encourage other organizations and individuals to sign onto the campaign. We urge you contact leadership of other organizations concerned about health, health costs, preventive efforts.
Click here for more information.

Email annie@jalsa.org to get involved in this project.

The need for more prevention measures was recently emphasized in this Boston Globe Article.

Remember to shop at Farmers’ Markets. Good healthy fruit and vegetables available and more likely to feature food without heavy duty transportation costs. Go to www.farmfresh.org and you can find farmers’ markets close to your home or office.

Sheila Decter, Executive Director
Jewish Alliance for Law & Social Action

Categories: Health and Environmental Justice Tags:

Researchers Needed – Food and Health

July 28th, 2011 JALSA No comments

Need Researchers! Can You Help?

As JALSA approaches employers, health insurance companies and government leaders about access to sustainable food, we are looking to demonstrate that providing incentives for healthy food can lower healthcare costs.
We need research! Can you help?
We are looking for studies demonstrating that incentivizing healthy food promotes healthier habits, or studies demonstrating that incentives improve health itself. Do you know previous studies, useful databases, or can you volunteer to do some looking? Let us know! Contact annie@jalsa.org

Categories: Information Tags:

The Paid Sick Days Act

July 24th, 2011 JALSA No comments

Paid sick policy could save Mass. $22m

Click here for Hearing Update and Media Coverage3

Updated: Thursday, 14 Jul 2011, 8:54 PM EDT

Christine Lee, 22News State House Correspondent

BOSTON, Mass. (WWLP) – In the spring, state Secretary of Labor and Workforce Development Joanne Goldstein said paid sick leave is a workers’ “basic right.” Now lawmakers are responding with legislation that could make it law.

The Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development held a hearing Thursday for a pair of bills that legally require businesses in Massachusetts to provide paid sick leave to their employees.

“The workers who cannot afford to take a sick day, those are the ones who don’t have it, the ones who are working for minimum wage,” Sen. Patricia Jehlen (D-Somerville), a lead sponsor of the bill.

“It’s about healthcare for all, it’s about social justice, equitable justice,” said Rep. Cheryl Coakley-Rivera (D-Springfield), who serves as House chairwoman of the Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development.

In a research study conducted by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR), results show that the Commonwealth could save $22.7 million dollars in emergency room costs with a paid sick leave policy.

Rep. Kay Khan (D-Newton), another lead sponsor of the bill, adds that her legislation will encourage a healthier work environment.

“I know I encourage people to stay out of my office if they’re ill because we don’t want to infect the entire office,” said Rep. Khan.

But small business owners insist that financially speaking, they’re already at the end of their rope. They’re struggling with mandatory health insurance, the recession and other employee obligations they can’t afford.

“This paid sick leave bill is one more high cost and small businesses have nothing left to give to this,” said William Vernon, the Massachusetts director of the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB).

Small business advocates add that the government shouldn’t interfere with private business and “one-size” paid sick leave legislation, “doesn’t fit all”.

“A lot of small employers have part-time employees, seasonal employees,” said Jon Hurst, the president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts. “A lot of those employees are not looking for benefits. They’re looking for higher pay per hour.

Opponents of the legislation express concern that sick benefits could be abused on a nice sunny day in Cape Cod, but supporters say it’s the workers who are being abused when they must choose between working while sick or taking a pay cut.

Mandatory paid sick laws are active in San Francisco, Milwaukee, and Washington D.C.

JALSA Outreach Conversations

July 7th, 2011 Sheila Decter No comments

As JALSA celebrates its 10th anniversary, we are launching an Outreach Campaign of conversations which will help to guide our organization’s future.

As part of this process, we are asking people to reflect on what JALSA is doing now, what their hopes are for Jewish social justice in our community, and how we can change and grow to ensure there will continue to be a vibrant progressive Jewish voice in the future. We are asking these questions of our own members, allies in the community, and others who care about our mission. The main goal of these conversations is to get community input and reflection as we envision our future.

….

If you’ve participated in one of these conversations, here is aLINK TO THE RESPONSE FORM

If you are interested in taking part in one of these conversations, please email: annie@jalsa.org

Categories: Information Tags:

Healthy Food Availability – Join our efforts

June 4th, 2011 JALSA No comments

After an exciting series of First Friday speakers through the winter addressing the issue of food access as a health and environmental justice issue, JALSA leaders and staff have had a busy spring meeting with key leaders on this topic. Gus Schumacher, former Undersecretary of Agriculture, has been working with us to explore the role that Doctors and Health-Insurers can play in promoting greater access to healthy resources and lifestyles for poorer communities struggling with lack of access to fresh food and places to exercise.
–Access to fresh healthy food is an important issue of equity. Join us in our efforts in this preventative health measure to help increase such healthy food availability. Call Annie Fox at JALSA: 617-227-3000 or email annie@jalsa.org

Categories: Health and Environmental Justice Tags:

Sign-On Letter in Support of Deferred Enforced Departure Extension for Liberians

May 22nd, 2011 JALSA No comments

As many of you know, Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) for Liberians is set to expire on September 30, 2011. Since 1991, the United States has provided temporary legal status to Liberian nationals who fled and have been unable to return to Liberia due to unstable conditions resulting from the civil war. On March 18, 2010, President Obama signed a memo extending DED for Liberian nationals through September 30, 2011. The extension provided these Liberians with temporary work authorization, but it expires in six months and does not provide them with a new pathway to obtain lawful permanent residency.

We are collecting organizational signatures for a sign-on letter in support of an extension of DED for this population – for more information and to sign on, please visit
http://www.energyofanation.org/liberian_ded_letter.html/
Organizational signatures will be accepted through May 27, 2011.

Liza Lieberman
Grassroots Policy Associate and
DC Young Leaders Coordinator
Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society
1775 K Street NW, Suite 320
Washington, DC 20006

Categories: Protecting Civil Liberties Tags:

About JALSA

May 10th, 2011 JALSA No comments

When you join JALSA as a member for 2011, you become an essential part of a progressive public policy organization, inspired by Jewish traditions and teachings, leading the way in protecting civil rights and constitutional liberties, and fighting for social and economic justice.

As a member of JALSA, you can be proud of your organization for:

* Fighting for environmental and food justice;

* Defending the rights of all workers, including immigrant workers, to organize;

* Leading the effort to pass sick days legislation;

* Submitting amicus briefs in key discrimination, religious accommodation, and free speech cases;

* Standing up for progressive taxation;

* Opposing discrimination against the LGBT community;

* Protecting public school funding, and oppposing privatization and high-stakes testing; and

* Creating the “First Friday” speaker series to engage with top level policymakers each month.

For more information on JALSA’s ongoing work, click here.

How can JALSA remain such a reliable voice, even in tough economic times, representing progressive views at key moments in the legislative and judicial process?

It’s because we have a strong membership base -including you – behind everything we do.

Please send in your 2011 dues today so that JALSA can

continue to work with you to realize our shared vision for

a more just world.

Sincerely,

Andrew Fischer, Esq Sheila Decter

President Executive Director

JALSA is a special interest group. Our special interest is promoting the general welfare; safeguarding access to equal opportunity; and eliminating the legal, societal and economic barriers that stand between too many and the promise of the American dream.

We are a membership-based non-profit organization based in Boston. We are dedicated to being a strong, progressive, inter-generational voice, inspired by Jewish teachings and values, for social and economic justice, civil rights, and civil liberties for all peoples.

Recent efforts include:

Strengthening the state’s commitment to quality public education by working with legislators and educators to ensure adequate funds, reduce dropout rates and close achievement gaps;
Working on cutting edge issues, like green jobs, to ensure that low-income and minority communities have access to job training and green employment opportunities.
Addressing health as a civil right, supporting the improvement of and access to health care for people of all incomes;
Continuing legislative and judicial activities to prevent discrimination against members of gay, lesbian, and transgender communities; and
Providing advice to tenants and homeowners facing foreclosure, and working on statewide legislation to remedy the effects of the mortgage market collapse;

Major victories and Accomplishments:

Coordinating an ongoing effort to focus on civil rights through counsel with the state’s senior level civil rights officer, a position created in response to our coalition’s advocacy;
Bringing together scientists, academics, and advocates in support of the state’s stem cell law;
Founding Community Servings, the hot meals program for people with AIDS and other life-threatening diseases, and their caregivers.
Successfully protecting the constitutional right of religious freedom by coordinating two amici briefs in two important cases on religious accommodation before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

Categories: *ABOUT JALSA*, Information Tags:

IMMIGRATION POLICY REFORM

April 10th, 2011 JALSA No comments

IMMIGRATION POLICY REFORM
*** JALSA urges members to continue to write the Patrick Administration indicating our concern over potential Massachusetts participation in the so-called “ICE Secure Communities” program. JALSA believes this program will not make us more secure, but will create an atmosphere of distrust and discrimination.
*** Interested in working on Immigration issues? Contact Sheila Decter if you would like to help participate in national conference calls and help to prepare local educational programming on immigration. 617-227-3000 or email JALSAoffice@gmail.com

Categories: Protecting Civil Liberties Tags: