The elephant in the room – is it the bad economy, or the party of elephants who are trying to keep it that way? There is a lot of evidence that the GOP is doing all it can to undermine job creation and economic recovery to make Obama a one-term president. In this week’s newsletter we’ll show you how they’re doing it and some ways to help turn things around.
Problems & Solutions
There is a lot of bad news for working people these days: only 69,000 jobs were added in May, while the unemployment rate inched higher to 8.2%; US median net worth is down by nearly 40 percent; the number of long-term unemployed swelled last month from 5.1 million to 5.4 million… the list goes on and on.
Why is the Great Recession lasting longer than any other crisis since the Great Depression? Many are starting to believe the Republicans deliberately crashed the US economy – a poll by Public Policy Polling shows 49% believe Republicans are deliberately hamstringing efforts to resuscitate the economy in order to bolster their chances of defeating President Barack Obama. And starting last year in Wisconsin, and continuing last week with Romney, Republicans are attacking public workers and rejecting the economic answer to the recession – public sector jobs.
So, where do we go from here? Obviously, we need to create jobs here and stop offshoring them. Another measure that would help is to raise the minimum wage, and stop preventing workers from getting unemployment benefits. Take action to help on all of these fronts:
Raise the Minimum Wage, Create Jobs, Stop Offshoring, and Protect Unemployment
Raise the minimum wage with H.R. 5901, which would raise the Federal minimum wage to $10/hour and index future increases to such wage to increases in the consumer price index. (More info.)
Sign our petition for the Rebuild American Act to create jobs and fund retraining.
Tell Congress to support the US Call Center Worker and Consumer Protection Bill.
Stop the removal of unemployment benefits for contracted school workers across Georgia.
Working together, we can make win these fights!
More News of Interest for Working People
Native Americans left out of economic recovery, as always – from the People’s World
HS Graduates Employment Status ‘Bleak’ – In a rough economy, what happens to the youth?
DOL app contest to improve employment for people with disabilities – $10,000 in cash prizes to help build innovative tools to improve employment opportunities and outcomes for people with disabilities.
Please make sure to visit the People’s World online for the best in worker’s news!
Other resources to check out:
WeNeedJobsNotCuts.com – UnemployedWorkers.org – Unemployed Nation – JobsNotCuts.org
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Author
Scott Marshall is a vice chair of the Communist Party and chair of its Labor Commission. Scott grew up in Virginia where he first became active in the civil rights movement in high school, working on voter registration and anti-Klan projects in rural Southern Virginia and Tennessee. He was also active against the war in Vietnam.
Scott has been a life long trade unionist and was active in rank and file reform movements in the Teamsters, Machinists and Steelworkers unions in the 1970s and '80s. He was co-chair of the Save Our Jobs committee of USWA local 1834 at Pullman Standard in Chicago and active in nationwide organizing against plant shutdowns and layoffs. He was a founder of the unemployed organization Jobs or Income Now (Join), in Chicago, and the National Congress of Unemployed Organizations in the 1980s.
Scott has worked for the Communist Party since 1987 when he became the district organizer for the party in Illinois, a post he held until he was elected chair of the National Labor Commission in 1997. Scott remains active in SOAR (Steelworkers Active Organized Retirees). He lives in Chicago.
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