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Jobs Don’t Live Here Anymore |
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The unemployment data is due tomorrow, and it’s likely to be bad, with an expected 300,000 to 320,000 jobs lost in July, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) and others. That’s a big problem. But unfortunately, when it comes to getting the nation back to work, tomorrow’s unemployment rate isn’t the biggest problem we face.
What’s really troubling is long-term unemployment.
EPI economists see the economic stimulus as alleviating the jobs crisis created under Bush. In fact, the economic recovery program already has saved or created some 750,000 jobs. Plus, says John Irons, EPI director of research and policy, the gross domestic product (GDP) report last week showing GDP shrunk far less in the second quarter of this year (-1 percent) than the first quarter (-6.4 percent). That means
we’re beginning to see the fingerprints of the economic recovery package.
Yet millions of America’s workers—the largest number of workers for the longest period out of any of the previous recessions—have been without jobs for more than six months. They are the long-term unemployed. And their prospects don’t look so good. There are now 5.7 workers looking for every one job available. By comparison, at the start of the recession, there were 1.7 unemployed workers per job opening, less than a third of the current figure.
The more than 4.7 million long-term unemployed workers, says EPI economist Heidi Shierholz, represent
enormous numbers. Job seekers are simply not able to find work in this labor market.
And worse:
We’re looking at a really long period when long-term unemployment will continue to rise.
Many of these long-term unemployed are not casualties of the decline in manufacturing jobs. On the contrary, says Shierholz:
Workers older and more educated are less likely to be unemployed but once they are unemployed they stay longer. They are a big contributing factor to the long-term unemployment.
These figures, and tomorrow’s jobs report, make it critical for Congress to extend unemployment insurance (UI). That’s a no-brainer, says Irons. By the end of September, another 500,000 workers will exhaust their unemployment insurance.
Next, we need another round of economic recovery action. At its recent meeting, the AFL-CIO Executive Council called for a second round of recovery, specifically urging Congress to:
- Extend unemployment benefits immediately, by at least seven weeks, to help the hundreds of thousands of workers who would otherwise exhaust their benefits in the near term.
- Increase food stamp spending as needed to help families cope with the downturn.
- Increase aid to state and local governments.
- Bolster the financial stability of independent government agencies such as the U.S. Postal Service.
- Increase spending for needed infrastructure and clean energy projects, even for those projects with a time horizon longer than two years.
(Full statement here.)
Ultimately, we need government policies that fuel the continued growth of jobs that pay enough to support those who work at them—and their families. One step toward this is creating a national industrial policy to guide our nation’s economic future. Industrial policy isn’t just about manufacturing jobs. Because when the United States loses manufacturing jobs, it loses the research and development that goes with it. As Dave Johnson writes, at the Campaign for America’s Future:
The phrase “industrial policy” sounds so Walter Mondale, 1970s, smokestacks and brick factory old-fashioned.
So, how do we make “industrial policy” sound sexy enough to get the attention afforded to the teabaggers—or, at least, enough attention to make it clear it matters?
I’ll be on a panel next week at Netroots Nation discussing this very issue: Bloggers and Blue-Collar Workers Unite—You Have Nothing to Lose But Wall Street Domination. So let me know your ideas and I’ll pack them up and take them with me.
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To: Tula Connell,
“So let me know your ideas and I’ll pack them up and take them with me.”
A mere comment space here is not enough for some “ideas”. The organized labor movement is almost completely impotent in the face of the collapse of the capitalist economy, and the vast devastation to working people that is taking place.
The simple trade union philosophy, of being a “business partner” to capitalism, under the current collapse of U.S. and global capitalism, has effectively allowed the destruction of the trade union movement and is rapidly turning this country into a ‘third world” as far as working people are concerned. The labor movement must re-think it’s entire organizational and political strategy if it is to survive let alone to lead working people.
The system of economics called capitalism, run-amok gangster capitalism, has collapsed. As far as working people are concerned, capitalism will never be “bailed out”, fixed, or reformed in a manner that restores the standard of living needed by working people to survive adequately. BILLIONS AND TRILLIONS of dollars are being sucked up by Wall Street, banks, the military-industrial complex without limit, oversight or even basic accounting.
At the same time public education is being destroyed, public health care is being “reformed” to further the profits of the parasitic health corporations, wars for profit are being expanded, even Social Security and Medicare are being threatened by Obama as entitlements “costing too much”. The greed of gangster capitalism is limitless and is causing the mpoverishment of tens of millions of workers in this country.
Under existing capitalism, employers and investors forever need to maximize profits. Thus manufactures moved labor intensive jobs to China, where workers earn “slave” wages with no benefits, where there are 130 million unemployed in China to keep wages forever low. Employers don’t want to pay the “living wages” needed by workers living in the U.S. Capitalist globalization will forever diminish the living standards of U.S. working people.
Most important, employers don’t want to pay for health care, retirement, or any fringe benefits which further eat up profits.Simple trade unionism wants to get good wages and good benefits that occurred after World War II. The conditions of global capitalism have changed this forever. There is no return to the “good old days” where unionized workers became home owners, owned a car, went on vacations every year. Under existing capitalism this kind of capitalism is no longer a “dream” for working people, but has become a nightmare of impoverishment.
Some ideas:
1. To survive with sufficient food, potable water, clothing shelter, health care, education, for working people, we need to end barbaric capitalism and transition to a democratic socialist economy.
2. The essential “benefits” that working people need today are secured through political struggle, not simple trade union struggle. National health care, Social Security, OSHA standards, public education, disability and retirement insurance, etc. are all secured by political struggle at the federal level. Local employers won’t and can’t afford private health insurance costs or other benefits that we now. THUS ORGANIZED LABOR MUST GREATLY EXPAND IT’S VISION AND PURPOSE TO GO BEYOND SIMPLE TRADE UNION CONTRACT EFFORTS.
2. DUMP THE DEMOCRATS: The greatest impact to improve the power and leverage of organized labor at this conference, would be to break with the Democratic Party and issue a call for the formation of a new socialist political party that represents the economic interests of all working people.
3. MEDIA FOR WORKING PEOPLE! A new national mass media initiative should create new radio and television programs to inform, educate and organize working people into the new party. The anti-labor Rush Limbaughs in the mass media must be challenged. PBS needs a voice of the people to challenge the Wall Street Journal, etc. that control the time and content of a supposedly public media.
4. END THE WARS FOR PROFIT! To bring about this new economy and a new society, vast changes must be made to end the vast waste and corruption that is destroying us all. The unending wars of Bush and Cheney are now being expanded by Obama, promoting all the same crooks to head the key posts of his administration. THE VAST SUMS WASTED ON WAR PROFITEERING ARE VITALLY NEEDED TO RESTORE THE ECONOMY TO SERVE THE NEEDS OF THE PEOPLE.
There is so much that needs to be done! But the first step must be taken by organized labor movement, with people and money resources, to make a start. Is the labor movement leadership too conservative to see the need for change?
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Here is a critical article link worth reading from WSWS:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/aug2009/pers-a06.shtml
Stocks, profits up—Jobs, income down
Whose recovery?
6 August 2009
Patrick Martin
As the Obama administration and the corporate-controlled media tout the supposed signs of an economic recovery, American workers confront a worsening job market, declining real incomes, and the spread of poverty and social deprivation on a scale not seen since the 1930s.
The New York Stock Exchange cracked the 9,000 mark on the Dow-Jones Industrial Average in late July for the first time since January 2, profits for banks and other financial institutions are up, and Wall Street has begun a new round of seven-, eight- and even nine-figure bonuses, with $100 million set aside by Citigroup to reward a single trader in energy futures.
The moneyed elite suffered a severe scare, particularly in the period between September 15, 2008, when Lehman Brothers collapsed, and March 6, 2009, when the Dow hit a low of 6,547. The all-out mobilization of US government financial resources behind Wall Street, with a total potential liability of $23.7 trillion, has at least temporarily restored confidence in the financial markets and pushed stocks up 40 percent. But there has been no bailout for working people.
…
When Obama & Co. boast of a recovery, they are speaking not about the vast majority of the American population. They are talking about a recovery of profitability for Wall Street and the corporate elite, who are their real masters.
…
Every aspect of government policy, from the bank bailout to the restructuring of the health care system, serves the same class purpose: to boost the wealth and profits of the ruling elite at the expense of the vast majority of the American people. The “recovery” hailed by the spokesmen for big business is a permanent reduction in the living standards of the working class and the destruction of what little remains of a social safety net. This is the deliberate and conscious aim of the Obama administration.
Patrick Martin
wow - I wish the commenter above would visit South Korea or Cuba and enjoy the wealth that socialism has created in those countries. I hope this is not the union mainstream view.
I will offer two real world issues I am facing this week as an employer:
I interviewed someone for a job in our house last week who was very qualified but wanted us to pay her off the books so she could continue to get her unemployment benefits. (with those ethics I was disgusted and refused to hire her). Is this common or an aberration?
I have a tiny company almost ready to make an innovative product and will be putting a lot of my life savings into it. (I already have spent a lot with a Michigan design firm to get to this stage). If I make it in the US I will feel patriotic, have good workers and be close to production. If I make it abroad it will be so much cheaper to make, and I will not be burdened with thousands of government rules and red tape. I am more likely to have my company survive and even prosper. More, if I make it in the US and start hiring what do I do if EFCA passes and my employees form a union without me knowing it, demand unreasonable and unaffordable benefits and conditions and then bring the government in who tells me how to run my shop?
My head tells me to make the product abroad - my heart tells me to make it here.
These are both real situations I face now and am discussing actively. I have decided on the first situation - but not the second.
Gary: Exactly what country on earth do you think you are going to build anything where some government is not going to get involved with “how to run your shop?” Build whatever widget you want anywhere on earth, but don’t expect the U.S. government to open our market for it, if you are unwilling to make a reasonable contribution of some form of taxes to further the greater good of its public, in addition to the widget itself. Don’t expect the U.S taxpayers to fund our military to provide security for the delivery of your product to our shores, nor our soldiers to put themselves in harms way to provide personal security for you and your foreign workers while abroad, without you reciprocating in a significant way. If you want to leave America to go build some widget, then go, build it; but don’t come back here looking to sell it without a tribute in hand. It insults the domestic manufacturers that are willing to earn 10% on their investment vs attempting to bilk America in order to extort 110%. The contract document that provides you with the right to pursue happiness (or any of the other rights you take for granted) is VOID outside of our U.S. border. Foreign governments are particularly funny about having America telling them how to run their shops. Good luck with that, though.
I’d suggest embracing an American labor union that would partner itself with your company for the mutual greater good of your employees (them) and their employer (you). Should they wish to form a union, why not honor their request and negotiate, in good faith, a Labor Agreement, domestically? Did your contractor build your house without first negotiating a construction contact, or did you have it manufactured abroad and shipped in duty free?
Tula: I’m not sure that “industrial policy” will ever be sexy enough to play bumper sticker politics with anybody. However; greater emphasis needs to be placed on Education, specifically in the areas of foreign and international banking. How banking interests relate to the trade deficit and just what role they serve toward improving the average U.S. taxpayer’s interests. One need only look no further than the international banking cartel AIG for an example of; if it is too big to fail, then it is too big to exist. Nothing short of good old fashioned trust-busting is what we need. De-centralized banking and breaking the monopoly that the Federal Reserve has enjoyed since 1913 would be a great start. It worked for Andrew Jackson. He sexed-up his re-election campaign with the slogan “Jackson, and no Bank” if you call that sexy. After he vetoed renewing the charter of the Bank of the United States (predecessor of the Federal Reserve), he PAID OFF the national debt for the only brief time in our history. I’ve been informed, although not verified, that currently, 31 cents of every tax dollar collected goes toward paying just the interest on the debt, without ever touching the principle. That’s more than we budget for Defense. Nothing less than the very solvency of our Nation is at stake. Instead of jazzing up “industrial policy” why not get the teabagging, birther, socialized medicine ilk to find common ground with us by pointing all this out.
I would never attempt to waste your time; so, should you ever find some to spare, check out and share this 45 min. clip:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2550156453790090544&ei=ymR-Sor5LpPolQeyxKCuDw&q=Money+as+debt
I know, it’s a little boring at first, but stick with it through to the end. The links to it are constantly changing. Just do a google or youtube search for “Money as Debt” if you have any trouble. The format is simple enough for a fifth grader, so even Gary will be able to comprehend.
If there would be a huge tariff on imports to cause more goods produced in the USA and stop importing foreign labor, more jobs would be here.
When you fight layoffs with contracts that agree to cut pay instead of a sit-down or other labor action you can expect the capitalists to stick it to you further up the butt so he can improve his bottom line.
That is the only “ethical” choice for capitalism - more profit as the the petty capitalist above so desperatly wants.