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Obama Announces White House Jobs Summit |
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This morning, President Obama announced he will invite labor leaders, business executives, small business owners, economists and other financial experts to a special White House summit on jobs next month.
Obama says the summit will explore ways to slow the loss of jobs and quicken the pace of job creation at a time when the nation’s jobless rate is at 10.2 percent, its highest point since 1983. As Obama said,
We have an obligation to consider every additional responsible step that we can to encourage and accelerate job creation in this country.
Just this week, the AFL-CIO Executive Council met in Washington, D.C., to outline a national jobs creation strategy that AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka will announce Tuesday at a special Economic Policy Institute (EPI) jobs and economy panel and seminar. (Plan now to view the live webcast from 9-11:30 a.m., Tuesday, Nov. 17, at www.aflcio.org/createjobs.)
The summit announcement came as a new report showed there were 502,000 initial claims for unemployment benefits last week. Dire as that is, it’s lower than expected and is the smallest number of first-time claims since January. But, according to Obama:
Even though we’ve slowed the loss of jobs—and today’s report on the continued decline in unemployment claims is a hopeful sign—the economic growth that we’ve seen has not yet led to the job growth that we desperately need.
EPI President Lawrence Mishel calls the announcement of the White House jobs summit “necessary and welcome.”
President Obama is right to say that we should take “every responsible step” to help put Americans back to work. With a double-digit unemployment rate and nearly 16 million Americans looking for work, we should take decisive action as quickly as possible to create jobs. High rates of unemployment damage our economy in ways that can take years, if not generations, to fix, by casting millions of families and children into poverty and making it difficult for our nation to invest for the future. President Obama’s focus on job creation is necessary and welcome.
Currently 15.7 million workers are jobless and when the unemployment and underemployment rates are combined they soar to 17.5 percent—more than 27 million workers.
A date for the summit will be announced soon.
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For a critical socialist perspective, this current article is from the WSWS (World Socialist Web Site),
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/nov2009/pers-n12.shtml
Obama and the jobs crisis
12 November 2009
Jerry White
In the face of a record rise in joblessness, the Obama administration continues to demonstrate its callous indifference to the plight of millions of unemployed workers and their families.
The official unemployment rate shot up to 10.2 percent in October, the highest level since 1983. Nearly 16 million people are jobless, an increase of 7 million since the recession began. If workers who have given up looking for work and those forced to work part-time are added, the real unemployment rate is 17.5 percent—or more than one out of every six workers in the US—the highest rate since the Great Depression.
The White House responded to the job figures by repeating its mantra that employment is a “lagging indicator” in an otherwise recovering economy. While acknowledging 10 percent was a “sobering number,” the president said, “History tells us that job growth always lags behind economic growth.” The president added complacently, “Although it will take time and it will take patience, I am confident that we are moving in the right direction.”
The suggestion that the unemployment trend will soon reverse itself is a lie. Most economists now predict that double-digit unemployment will last for years. Nevertheless, the administration has rejected any government-funded public works program to hire the unemployed. The Washington Post recently noted that White House officials reject the idea because it “does not produce long-term value”; that is to say, it does not produce profits for big business.
The issue of employment has long been at the center of economic and political life in America. The last century saw New Deal public works projects, and “Full Employment” programs, which, while woefully inadequate, were presented as an effort to battle the scourge of mass unemployment. In the Obama administration the question has become a non-issue.
This inaction and indifference has produced a series of warnings from Obama’s liberal supporters concerned over the explosive social and political consequences of a worsening jobs crisis.
On Tuesday, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert worried that “more and more Americans are questioning [Obama’s] priorities, including millions that went to the mat for him in last year’s election.” “The lack of jobs,” he continued, “is fueling the nervousness, anxiety and full-blown anger that are becoming increasing evident in the public at large.”
In a Washington Post article, entitled, “Why won’t Obama give you a job?,” staff writer Alec MacGillis complained that the administration has “studiously avoided paying people to go to work” like the government did in the 1930s and 1970s. “Engaging in more forthright job creation could invite some political pitfalls (such as those constant accusations of socialism), but is double-digit unemployment any less a political risk?”
Such appeals fall on deaf ears. Obama’s disinterest is not a tactical mistake but the result of the social and class interests the president and both political parties defend.
While doing nothing to relieve working people, the administration has spared no expense and wasted no time in augmenting the wealth and power of the financial oligarchy that rules America. It has handed trillions to Wall Street, driven GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy to slash the wages of auto workers, and pushed the restructuring of the health care system to gut Medicare and reduce medical costs for big business. In foreign policy, the administration has squandered hundreds of billions and the lives of thousands of soldiers in two colonial wars to control the energy rich regions of world.
The continued high level of joblessness and economic insecurity is a deliberate aim of the administration. The threat of job losses is being used to break the resistance of American workers to a permanent reduction in their living standards and working conditions.
In the July-September quarter, productivity grew at a 9.5 percent annual rate, according to a government report. Even though working hours fell by a 5 percent annual rate, output increased at a 4 percent rate. “So people working shorter hours had to do the same amount of work as before, or more,” BusinessWeek noted. “People who kept their jobs had to pick up the work of ex-colleagues” or simply put in extra hours that weren’t counted in the statistics. As a result, unit labor costs fell 3.6 percent over the past year, the largest decrease since records were first kept in 1948.
This increase in exploitation is central to the administration’s plans to restructure American capitalism on behalf of the most powerful sections of the financial elite. The ruling class is seeking to lift itself out of the ruins of its own economic crisis by transforming the US into a cheap labor platform to increase exports, and by carrying out a policy of austerity at home to make the working class pay for the bailout of Wall Street.
If the working class is to oppose this assault it must assert it own class interests and develop a programmatic response to the economic crisis.
The Socialist Equality Party insists that employment and decent living standards must be guaranteed to all. The guiding principle of jobs policy must be to protect the working population from destitution, and provide employment for the purpose of raising the material and cultural level of the people, not profits for the capitalists.
The SEP calls for the sharing of available work among all workers with no loss of pay. Every worker should be guaranteed 30 hours of work at 40 hours of pay, with quality health and retirement benefits.
A multi-trillion public works program must be launched to hire the unemployed and put them to work to address pressing social needs. Projects must be launched to build affordable housing, guarantee high quality health care and education, expand public transportation and carry out other improvements in the physical and social infrastructure.
To secure the necessary resources, the grip of the financial aristocracy must be broken by nationalizing the banks under public ownership and confiscating the ill-gotten gains of the rich and super-rich. Capitalism is incapable of meeting the social needs produced by its own calamity. It must be replaced with a social system that does, socialism.
In place of the anarchy and socially destructive “free market” system, the economy must be reorganized on the basis of a democratic plan to meet the needs of society as a whole, not private profit. The socialist transformation of the US economy must be part of a globally planned economy, in which working people control the wealth that they produce.
The fight for this requires the building of a new political party of the working class to oppose the twin parties of big business and fight for political power. Such a party must be based on the fight for its political independence, internationalism and the socialist transformation of society. This is aim of the Socialist Equality Party.
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This article explains why there should be little to expect for working people from Obama’s “jobs summit”.
Obama announces fraudulent “jobs” summit
By Jerry White
13 November 2009
(Full article link below:)
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/nov2009/abba-n13.shtml
Under increasing criticism over his inaction to address the mounting jobs crisis, President Obama announced Thursday that he would hold a White House forum on jobs and economic growth in December.
The president made it clear, however, that the event, which will bring together corporate CEOs, economists and trade union functionaries, will be little more than a photo op, aimed at countering growing anger against his administration’s indifference towards the depression-like conditions facing millions of workers.
…
…Job losses have occurred over 22 consecutive months, the longest stretch since the government began keeping records in 1939.
In the face of this disaster, Obama has rejected any government-funded jobs programs to hire the unemployed and has offered no serious relief to those losing their incomes, homes and health care.
…
Obama alluded to the broader aims of American capitalism when he explained his plans to meet with Asian leaders to discuss a “strategy for growth that is both balanced and broadly shared.” This was a strategy, he said, “in which Asian and Pacific markets are open to our exports—and one in which prosperity around the world is no longer as dependent on American consumption and borrowing, but rather more on American innovation and products.”
In other words, American workers must accept a harsh reduction in consumption as credit is reduced, homes are lost, social programs slashed and they are forced to live on much less. At the same time, the labor cost gap with Third World countries must be closed so the US can be transformed into a cheap labor platform to send US exports around the world.
This is the administration’s plan for “economic recovery.”
The first step in my opinion would be to take a look at this article showing the gap between the imports and exports because that is where we are losing our jobs.
You can view it by clicking on the following link
http://keepamericaatwork.com/?p=4897
Regards,
Virgil
http://www.KeepAmericaAtWork.com
No one talks about the somewhat conspiracy like action that strips American companies of the older-higher paid workers and whether those jobs are replaced overseas.
Of course jobs won’t return if they have been filled overseas in India or China or Mexico for cheap, near-slave prices. Americans can’t work for those salaries, because of what it cost to live here in America. American companies don’t care! All they want to do is sell their product and keep the rich in power.
Another reason they want the older higher paid workers out is that they know the power of the Union!
If Obama creates new jobs and their non-
Union who cares. The best day at a non-Union job is worse than the worst day at Union job. We don’t need more jobs where we’re disrespected because we’re workers we need the Employee Free Choice Act so we can feel good about ourselves and the work we do.
OMG,the more complicated you make it the more complicated it will be. We don’t need any jobs summit where a bunch of blowhards,
‘including our labor leaders”slap each other on the back,make nice and indulge in hundreds of dollar catered lunches, while close to 30 million are un or under employed.
All we need is the President to grow a sack and stand up and say,” the best thing we can do to grow jobs in this country is to buy American”. You know its not any more complicated then that. If your neighbor manufacturs some thing and you buy it he has a job. then he has the dough to buy some thing that another neighbor makes. Where is the AFL-CIO that used to talk about this, Where is the guy we all supported for President that said he wanted to do something about all those bad trade deals we are involved in.
Their all shining us on,this summit isn’t gonna produce anything but hot air and we gotta stop letting them get away with it!
We have to start letting them know that we no longer have belief or confidence in them.
Keep it simple,buy and hire American!
A “jobs stimulus” and government sponsored projects make sense in the short term. We must also demand a reduction of working hours as we did in the heyday of the CIO under the demand of “30 for 40 with no cut in pay.”
Unemployment today rivals that of the Great Depression. The 1938 Fair Labor Standards law forced employers to pay overtime for over 40 hours weekly work, and it helped.
Since 1938, productivity (output per worker-hour) has skyrocketed while working people have received almost nothing. Automation and productivity have, instead, reduced the number of good jobs, and the number of union members.
Rises in productivity must be pegged to cuts in necessary working hours without reducing overall paychecks.
Gene Lantz http://www.labordallas.org
Meanwhile our trade policy is killing us..so much for promises of change.
CORRECTION ON LINK:
This article explains why there should be little to expect for working people from Obama’s “jobs summit”.
Obama announces fraudulent “jobs” summit
By Jerry White
13 November 2009
(Full article link below CORRECTED:)
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/nov2009/jobs-n13.shtml
(The excerpts from the article, posted above are correct. The entire
article is worth reading. Sorry for error. Jerry Wells)
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Buy what we make and make what we buy! Start with the “Adventures of Winky and Blinky.” Go to to our Web site, http://www.winkyandblinky.com. We have recently formulated a Business Proposal to turn around this joblessness situation and have Faxed it to the Union. We believe it will work and we all have nothing to lose.
Obama and Congress need to put an end to NAFTA and other so-called free trade giveaways! EFCA (Employee Free Choice Act must be passed in it’s original form!Our tax dollars must no longer subsidize corporations to move to Third World nations!
A public works project must be seriously considered as was done during the FDR administration.
On the books, unemployment is over 10%. Those who have lost UI benefits and no longer counted in the statistic makes the figure much higher. And yet, Obama wants to grant amnesty to 20+ million illegal immigrants. Surely that and the millions of other illegal immigrants it will attract, will bring down the unemployment rate. Right?
And if that doesn’t quite work well enough, more of our taxpayer bailout dollars can be used for shuttering US facilities and shipping jobs overseas or more or our taxpayer stimulus dollars can be used to subsidize foreign companies’ green economies. Both have to be great for the US worker, right?
And for those US SOBs who still have jobs. . .??? Raise the work visa threshold. Increase guestworkers; Weaken the H-1B, H-2A and H-2B Visa requirements. Let employers attest that a year from now they won’t be able to find workers and get a blank check for any number of workers, — no name, etc (tracking info) required.
Trumka touts Jobs, Jobs, Jobs then partners with La Raza whose purpose is to benefit the illegal immigrants.
US govt, AFL-CIO doesn’t matter. Neither have the welfare of LEGAL US citizens at top priority.