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Workers’ Stories Put Face on Victims of Wall Street Greed
One worker says she lost four jobs during the past seven years. Another saw his unemployment insurance (UI) benefits evaporate due to Sen. Jim Bunning’s (R-Ky.) callous filibuster of an UI extension last month.
Those are just two of the personal stories jobless workers and others have shared at the AFL-CIO’s Good Jobs Now site. Our interactive site is part of the AFL-CIO’s fight for good jobs that today kicked off two weeks of action across the country with rallies and demonstrations at branches of the Big Six Wall Street banks—Bank of America, Citibank, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Wachovia-Wells Fargo. (Find out about events in your area here.)
The Big Six’s reckless greed played the major role in wrecking the U.S. economy and killing American jobs. The workers sharing their stories have seen firsthand the damage left behind.
Mary from Illinois writes that the nation’s jobs crisis has battered her life and ruined her future.
I have suffered through four terminations of various kinds in a seven year timeframe. It is so hard to get a job these days and so easy for employers to let us go. In addition to the obvious destruction of a person’s finances, I have struggled with a lot of anxiety after the last two terminations. My future is ruined as well as the present because I have not been in a pension plan or 401(k) for the last 7 years and have not earned enough to save in my own IRA.
In December, Eddy, an Ohio UAW member, saw his job of 17 years shipped overseas.
There are those at the top making the decisions that know nothing of what it takes to make the product, or the people that make the product. We are just a number, but not the number that they are interested in. Corporate America knows only one number, the number that drives their greed! When corporations know that they can move a company’s operations to a third world country and make more for less, they have dollars signs in there eyes and it does not matter who they go through to get there or what they leave in the wake of their decisions.
Terry in Florida says he and his wife face a grim future after both were laid off from the same firm.
I worked for a large corporation in senior health care. They laid me off a week before Christmas….My wife was laid off by the same company six months before. The company is making more money than they ever have but wants more. I know, I see the financials. What’s up with that? At this rate we will be homeless by summer, no house and no car unless God helps us out. Please pray for us.
Like far too many construction workers, Mike, a member of the Operating Engineers (IUOE) in Ohio, has been forced to depend on unemployment benefits as construction projects have faltered in during the nation’s economic upheaval. But he never thought a Kentucky senator would tell him “Tough sh*t.”
I’m 51 years old and unemployed. I’ve worked 15 weeks in the last two years. They just cut off my unemployment benefits because some high and mighty senator decided he doesn’t like what’s being done with the extension on unemployment benefits to Americas unemployed. HE STILL HAS A JOB, HEALTH CARE AND A PRETTY GOOD RETIREMENT. What about the rest of America? How do we pay our bills? What do we eat? How do we pay for our medications that we need? Guess it’s not his problem, is it?
Click here to read more stories or submit your own.
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6 Comments
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It hurts to read about these economic hardships for hardworking Americans. Unfortunately all these taxes/fees on the Big Six won’t stop them from destroying the economy again through their reckless speculation. Would you believe the top executives of the Big Six actually influence the selection of board members and panels at the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank! That is where the corruption starts- its a conflict of interest!
We need to AUDIT the Federal Reserve Bank with H.R. 1207- Audit the Fed. Help our congressman and senators bring transparency to the Fed’s secretive transactions with foreign central banks. Call them and tell them that to correct the economy they need to fully AUDIT the entity that manages it- The Federal Reserve Bank!
Rally at the banks with signs saying “Audit the FED.” Only we, the American people, can lead the way back to real American values not these global bankers in endless pursuit of paper profits in whatever country they can. Google “Audit the Fed.” 75% of the American people support this audit.
Stories aren’t going to make things better.
Americans are going to have to give up their profiting off
cheap labor, goods, and their over-consumptive life style.
Don’t depend on anyone heading up Labor or Government to tell you this…it will have to come from within each of us.
Why should I, a CA state employee be profiting off an insurance company that is going to raise rates 39% on private subscribers? My public pension fund owns $67 Million in Wellpoint shares and their subsidiary is Anthem/Blue Cross.
Many jobs gone will not return and we will have to decide what we have in the service sectors get “living” wages and yes, that might mean you pay more for your fast food and hopefully eat less of it!
I’m a union member and wouldn’t want a job without this representation.
Sea Star RN
CSUEU
The greed of these CEO’s has wrecked havoc on many of us at varying degrees. They launched a two prong attack on Labor while they lobbied against tariffs since the dawn of the eighties. since then we have seen a decline in Labor unions and US Manufacturing. I worked in a once thriving animation industry, union by the way, since the eighties, I’ve seen more and more of my industry’s jobs shipped to countries with national health care and governments that put up production $ to get our jobs. The deregulated business climate has allowed our jobs to be taken by these unfair tactics from other WTO countries making these CEO’s wealthy beyond their wildest dreams, all the while pushing the American worker out in the cold,with no visible means of support, and still they continue shipping more and more jobs out of the US to this very day. I draw a left of center political cartoon for very few outlets now, ( the left gets very little media play these days, I was once offered a national syndication slot, “IF” I would draw Conservative cartoons, I said no way!) My latest cartoon is about these CEO’s that are destroying our livelihoods. It’s called “The State of Labor in today’s Job Market, Cartoon” on my web site
http://www.whatnowtoons.com
It’s time for all of us to speak out, before it’s too late.
AIG bought out my original insurance company. Why did this occur if AIG has to accept bail out money? Something is rotten in Wall Street.
The only way to rein in these robber barrons of the new age is to strip them of their money and power . Hold them accountable for the crimes they have committed against the working class and our economic security. Nationalize the bank, re-allocate the money to help the working class by creating jobs…real jobs that put money in the pockets of the american working class. This will stimulate the economy and create more jobs.
We really need to find out what is going on here. We need an audit. Last fall the unions went to bat for us supporting an extensive audit. We need this to continue. Check out what they sent to Congress on an audit.
http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/FedAuditLetter.pdf
Call your senator and representative and tell them you want them to support an audit of the federal reserve and to include it in any financial reform package.