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News :: Labor |
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9.4 Million Workers Are Without Jobs, But Does Anyone Really Care? |
Current rating: 0 |
by Harry Kelber
(No verified email address) |
21 Jul 2003
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It is time to resurrect a basic principle that was popular in the labor movement in the 1930s: if industry can't provide workers with jobs, then the government must be the employer of last resort. |
There are at least 9.4 million men and women in cities and towns across America who can’t find a job, and more than 2 million of them have been looking in vain for work for 27 weeks or longer. Who, in the richest country in the world, gives a damn about their plight?
Not the media. After they reported the latest 6.4 unemployment rate — the largest in nine years — they quickly abandoned the subject because it is dull and complicated and has little interest for employed people. Television talk shows rely on economists to discuss unemployment, rarely calling on the people who are experiencing it. They never question the role of the job market and simply assume that it’s inevitable for millions of workers to remain jobless in order for our free market economy to prosper.
Not the Republicans. They still insist that the latest $350 billion tax cut will boost employment, even though President Bush’s $1.3 trillion tax cuts resulted in a loss of more than 2 million jobs. There’s not a ghost of a chance that the White House will call for government-subsidized public works jobs, even if the economy worsens.
Not the Democrats. They’re elated with the rise in unemployment, because it gives them a powerful talking point with which to attack President Bush in the 2004 election. It hasn’t occurred to any of the nine Democratic Presidential candidates to call for public works jobs for the unemployed.
Not the AFL-CIO. Like the Democrats, the AFL-CIO leadership is content to use the unemployment figures to attack President Bush. But union leaders, who are not doing well in helping employed workers, long ago abandoned the idea of pressing for public works jobs or shortening the workweek.
And not the unemployed themselves. You can’t see them or hear them complain about their predicament. They’re virtually invisible. Men at a bar get into fist fights in an argument over baseball players or a spot in a parking lot.
But when they’re laid off after maybe 10 or 20 years of service, they leave meekly, because they’ve been convinced that their employer had no other choice.
The fact is that workers who become unemployed feel friendless and powerless, like outcasts in our society. After a couple of months without a job, they lose their self-esteem and many may take to drink or drugs.
There is something immoral in the notion that the only way workers can get a job is if an employer can make a profit from their labor, and if they are laid off, they have to wait patiently until he is good and ready to call them back.
It is time to resurrect a basic principle that was popular in the labor movement in the 1930s: if industry can’t provide workers with jobs, then the government must be the employer of last resort.
That principle was applied during the Great Depression, when millions of unemployed workers were given socially useful public works jobs that utilized their occupational skills. It was a period when the jobless had organizations like the Workers Alliance and Unemployment Councils to speak up in their behalf.
In support of the principle of full employment, Congress in 1946 passed a law to provide “useful employment opportunities, including self-employment, for those able, willing and seeking work…”
The Rank and File AFL-CIO Reform Movement www.rankandfileaflcio.org is now exploring several ways to help the unemployed organize themselves. We are eager to find out if there are any union members who are willing to come to the aid of their less fortunate brothers and sisters.
If you are ready to join in this important struggle, sign in at this e-mail address: driveforjobs (at) rankandfileaflcio.org
“LaborTalk” appears on www.laboreducator.org every Wednesday. Our weekly “Labor and the War” column can be viewed on Fridays at this same Web site.
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http://www.laboreducator.org
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