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Republicans ‘Scrooge’ Workers, Kill Long-Term Jobless Help |
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Republican partisan politics won—and working families lost—again last night when Senate Republicans for the fourth time this year blocked a bill that would revive the extended unemployment insurance (UI) benefits program that is the last lifeline for millions of jobless workers.
The 57-41 vote (with Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson from Nebraska joining all Republicans) fell three votes short of the 60 needed to end the filibuster against the bill. The bill also included aid for states facing huge budget shortfalls to keep 900,000 people on the job.
The extended UI program expired May 31 after the Senate left town for the Memorial Day recess without acting on a House-passed jobs bill that would have kept the long-term unemployment benefits program alive. Since then, 1.2 million jobless workers have lost their benefits.
The Republican blockade means about 250,000 unemployed workers a week lose their benefits, which averages around $300 a week, while Republican lawmakers take in a nifty $3,346.16 a week of taxpayers’ money.
Maybe if they spent a few months out of work in an economy where the unemployment rate is near 10 percent, at least 15 million people are out of work and 6.8 million people have been out of work for 27 weeks or more, they wouldn’t be so cavalier in calling for “tough love” for the unemployed and telling them they’re just not looking hard for work.
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So, when are we going to hear about plans for mass sit-ins by unemployed people and their supporters in the offices of the jerks who voted NO? Or are we just going to wring our hands and pontificate about how bad it all is? My god! Is the right-wing the only side with the guts to stand up and fight back?
People today don’t have the guts especially those in the Southern Right to Work states. Republicans have been selling this country out since Taft-Hartley in 1948. They have continued to pound the message that unions are no good and people bought into it. Now we are facing a situation like no other since the great depression and yet those that back the facist agenda set forth by the Republican Party continue the sellout of America. Only when these same people lose their jobs will they start to cry and its not far away from happening. What a joke this country has become!!!!!
Your solution is practical, logical and it would work. The problem is that organizing the unemployed has not been done for 60 or 70 years, because in the 1950’s, radicals were driven out of the Labor Movement, and it was dropped altogether as a radical idea. You know – radical- like integration, civil rights, women’s rights, peace – all of that had to be driven out of the Labor movement along with the radicals who had fought the hardest to win Labor’s big battles of the 30s.
What was left were the opportunists, bureaucrats hacks and government stooges who have driven the unions into the ground ever since.
If we build it they will come. Organize the Unemployed! Organize the Unorganized!
William Rayson,
You are so right. I find myself torn between defending the IDEA of unions, which I so believe in, and criticizing the jerks who run so many of them. It is just pathetic seeing the Jobs With Justice, COSH groups, and other progressive organizations trying to get some cooperation from these clowns. Many of these “union leaders” won’t even return phone calls. They’re too busy going to dinners with the big boys and trying to stifle dissent within the ranks.
I hear you sister. I have worked a total of 2 days this year in the building trades, when I see a water (public works job) being done by workers that cannot speak english. I call my Union Hall and it is such an inconvenience for them to get a business agent to check cards!
Union members voting Republican, take note! Who’s blocking jobs bills? Who’s fighting health care? Who’s apologizing to BP for their oil spill in the gulf? Who will fight tooth and nail against the Employee Free Choice Act when the issue arises? You should realize by now, where your bread is buttered.
The wars in Afganistan and Iraq have cost us over one trillion dollars, but extending unemployment (per mostly repubilcans)would add to the deficit. Any politician who opposes helping our own, deserves to be voted out of office. I thought charity began at home!
This a cynical attack on workers. Plenty of money for banks. Plenty for tax cuts. But money for unemployed workers? The republicans want the economic crisis to continue. They will try to blame others. We need to hold them accountable.
We should all know by now that the Republican Part has no intention of helping middle class America! We have to play some real hard ball with them! Keep pounding away at them. No Democratic whimps allowed!
The unemployed need to go to the polls in November and the republican party and Ben Nelson out of office and let them know how they let the unemployed down. LET GO TO THE POLLS IN NOVEMBER AND VOTE THE REPUBLICAN AND BEN NELSON OUT OF OFFICE.
i agree with you totally. We need to do the same in the house where we even have some dems who think they are above reproach when it come to helping the working women and men of this country
No one should be shocked by this. Republicans have been attacking working people for almost a century. Middle class and working people that vote for these guys are the ones that have to wake up and realize the repubilicans have been blowing smoke up there butts for years.
Anyone who works for a living and whose income is below $350,000 per year commits an act of “self-injurious” behavior ANYTIME they vote Republican. We Democrats may not be perfect but we have the background and the agenda which truly works for 99.999999% of the United States’ population. It has been so since the day Franklin Delano Roosevelt became President of The United States and it continues to this very day. Senator Bernie Sanders though an Independent, caucuses and votes with Democrats. I shall let him speak for me:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zX72bm_5254
Of course the Republican want to destroy workers’ very ability to organize ourselves into unions, to press our demands. Of course, all politicians who have repeatedly voted to cut off unemployment compensation should be scandalized. However, it is time for us to realize being tied behind the Democratic Party’s bandwagon all of these lost decades since the 40s is what has brought us to the edge of this cliff. Our only hope is to break away from Lieberman and Nelson and yes, Obama and the rest of the DemocraticRepublicans and form our own Labor party, which we alone control, which tells the truth about all of the criminals in Corporate America, and fights for workers day-in-day-out, win or lose. Maybe some of the better ones like Bernie Sanders would join us, after the initial heart attack.
Regardless, working people everywhere will flock toward a party that told the truth and stuck up for them all of the time. Perhaps it is not considered because the officers are afraid of unleashing a force too powerful for them to control. It is a common sense thing that can’t be talked about, like atheism, or Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories.
William Rayson,
Right on again! I am continually mystified at how the unions can give so much cash and manpower to the Democrats, while the issues facing workers almost never appear in public debate. What has Obama done to attempt to reverse the vicious class war that has been going on for the last 30 years?
Scrooge was a nice guy compared to the Republicans. Just the other day, I got an e-mail from my Republican Congressman Scott Garrett, who I didn’t vote for, telling me how wonderful he is & his party is doing for us. I said to sum it up BS! I’m waiting to see what his reply will be.
I think we all agree that unemployment benefits need to be reinstated. Yes, the republicans are doing it again to the working class and those that are in those states need to stand up for themselves and drive the message home to those who toil with their livlihoods as it is not their fault that they are out of work. The republicans are to blame for this incident but remeber that both the dems and repubs are to blame for everything leading up to this disaster. If we vote all dems then we will face the onslaught of 38 million illegals being given amnesty and when you go to have a job action who do you think will take your job when your walking the picket line…..many of the 38 million people that are out there looking for work. We the union members need to find a candidate that looks for our intrests and not,dems,repubs, and so forth.This also includes union leadership. Stand up and rise against those that are going against a majority of us union memebers and remove them from office. We need candidates that are not part of either party, but individuals who will look out for our intrests and are not bought out by special intrests. A tough thing to do, but it can be done with alot of work.
People are useless, you can’t organize anyone anymore. I got laid off from my job, I was one of only a couple that would stand up for our rights and not let our company walk all over the contract under the guise of “it’s the economy”. When I got laid off, there was plenty of work, and now guys are working overtime, a MANDATORY 2 hours a day, enough to provide work for six people, and they laid four off. Not one of my fellow workers has stood up and said “No, I am not working overtime whilst my fellow workers are laid off”. Yet one guy calls me to bitch about having to work it, and wants to know what he can do about it”.
And can I just ask, Is there a point to UCubed besides forming little six member cliques ???
Sorry, what has your union rep had to say about it?
I find even Union Brothers will take another mans job as long as he has some work. Very few will think of the other guy.
If you are a union member and are voting Republican,you are a nincompoop!Republicans are pro big business antiworker jacka$$e$ who are against progress and should not be allowed to continue to hold public office,NOT EVEN THE LOCAL DOGWARDEN!If one republican is re-elected or elected this Nov we will continue to have the same dog(bleep)!!!
If this bill had “made it” to the House the “Blue Dog Dems” would have ambushed it, and voted NO, no doubt. As long as Organized labor slavishly “goes along” with the Dem agenda, WE will continue to have the “screws put to us.” Time to wake up and smell the coffee See link below.
http://the hill.com/blogs/on-the-money/domestic-taxes/100235-blue-dog-leader-extenders-should-stall-before-break
U.S. LABOR PARTY
what are you talking about? The bill was sent from the house to the senate… Our blue dog democrats are smarter than that! well Except Nelson that is!
My previous comment was not posted, I guess I was too angry…
I believe it is past time to return to making a filibusturer actually stand there and blow his hot air for hours at a time. I doubt the fat cat republicans could stand that long.
I guess Nebraska does not have the unemployment problems the rest of the nation has.
It is so easy for everyone to sit and make comments to a news blog, especially when most readers share your core beliefs.
We need people that will DO something MORE than Complain and Moan. But, I see nothing different happening. The working man has been effectively castrated. We prefer to sit on our cans watch TV buy our cheap Chinese Junk at WALMART and point fingers at us few that shop our politics to call us radicals.
Spend a lil interest in something other than American Idol or who the next Top Model will be…
Personally, when I have a few dollars to spend I look at labels, if it is NOT made in USA (preferably with a UNION Label) I will NOT buy it.