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United for a Fair Economy and Class Action want our friends, financial supporters, and allied organizations to know about our relationship. Our two sister organizations have complementary, but different, missions.
United for a Fair Economy was founded in 1995 to “raise awareness that concentrated wealth and power undermines the economy, corrupts democracy, deepens the racial divide, and tears communities apart. UFE supports and helps build social movements for greater equality.”
UFE’s galvanizing framework is around “economic inequality.” A variety of strategies are utilized to affect public opinion and inspire activism to change the policies that exacerbate the divide. UFE’s main tools include popular education, creative action, media communications, and issue and educational campaigns around issues such as fair taxation, asset-building policies, and socially-responsible corporate practices The movement we contribute to building is multiethnic and multi-class. One of UFE’s unique programs is Responsible Wealth, in which those in the top 5% are organized to speak out for greater equality. UFE intentionally seeks partnerships in communities of color; materials in Spanish are developed to meet the unique concerns of Latinos, and UFE specifically addresses the racial dimension of the economic divide. UFE demystifies the economy, broadens support for the common good, and brings new actors into the policy-making arena.
Class Action was founded in 2004 to “raise consciousness about the issues of classism, class, and money, and their powerful impact on our individual lives, our relationships, organizations, institutions, and culture. We aim to heal the wounds of classism, support the development of cross-class alliances, and work with others to catalyze the movement of resources to where they are most needed to create justice, equity, and sustainability for all.
Class Action is working to broaden the societal discussion utilizing the language of class and classism. Class Action engages people at a deeply personal level about the experience of class oppression and privilege, with the understanding that this shapes social and political consciousness and action. Class Action conducts workshops, coordinates a network of trainers, consults with cross-class coalitions, provides educational resources, and engages the media about how the ideologies and practices of class and classism intersect with racism and other forms of oppression to create inequality and injustice.
Both organizations bring a long-term perspective about how attitudes, mainstream culture, power relationships, and policy change are interconnected; this informs our views on how social change will occur in the United States.
There are useful interlocking relationships between the two organizations, which facilitates communication and coordination. Felice Yeskel and Chuck Collins were the co-founders and initial co-directors of United for a Fair Economy. Felice co-founded Class Action with Jennifer Ladd, who was one of the co-founders of UFE’s Responsible Wealth project. Chuck serves as a Senior Fellow with both organizations. Betsy Leondar-Wright is the Communications Director at UFE and a board member of Class Action.
Earlier in the summer, both organizations co-sponsored a talk radio campaign on class and inequality, tied to The New York Times’ series on “Class in America.” This fall, both organizations will celebrate the publication of the jointly authored book, Economic Apartheid in America: A Primer on Economic Inequality and Insecurity.
We urge you to support the work of both of these important organizations.
Meizhu Lui, Executive Director, United for a Fair Economy
Jennifer Ladd and Felice Yeskel, Co-Directors, Class Action
Chuck Collins, Senior Fellow, UFE and Class Action
Fall 2005
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