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Workers to Senate Republicans: Stop Political Games with Jobless, State Aid
Four times this year, Republican senators have blocked bills to keep alive extended unemployment insurance benefits for long-term jobless workers—most recently last week, when they blocked a bill that also contained desperately needed aid for states facing huge budget shortfalls.
Some 1.2 million workers who have been without jobs for six months or more have lost their unemployment benefits since the program expired May 31. Tomorrow, most states will enter a new fiscal year without the emergency financial help that would prevent some 900,000 layoffs.
Today, union activists in more than a dozen cities will tell the obstructionist Republican lawmakers their actions are outrageous and shortsighted. Not only are they cutting an economic lifeline for millions of jobless workers, but as the economy struggles to return to life, more teachers, police officers, firefighters and others will lose their jobs.
AFSCME President Gerald McEntee told delegates to the union’s convention in Boston on Monday that when Senate Republicans blocked the UI and state aid bill last week:
They again decided to play politics with our lives and our jobs.
Today, the more than 5,000 delegates and other workers will rally in Boston Commons to demand Congress extend the benefits before the July 4 recess. AFL-CIO union members in 17 states with Republican senators who have blocked the legislation will demonstrate outside their district offices. The states include Arizona, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, New Hampshire, Nevada, North Carolina, Kentucky and Tennessee.
In Atlanta, some 50 demonstrators rallied outside Sen. Johnny Isakson’s downtown office. A delegation of 10 union members, including Georgia State AFL-CIO and Atlanta/North Georgia Labor Council leaders, met with Isakson staffers.
Also, a jobless worker who had just run out of benefits happened by and asked to join the demonstration.
There are reports that the House and Senate will try again before they leave for the July 4 recess to pass an extension of the long-term jobless aid, but it is not clear if help for the states will be included. We’ll keep you updated.
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6 Comments
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I would be right with you in Missouri demonstrating! Thank you AFL-CIO for standing up for us!
JOBLESS UNION MEMBER to the International IBEW—–stop raising our dues in a time of Depression!!
Dues raised again from 80 to 83 dollars a quarter in 2011! WTF!
Seems like their trying to get us to drop our tickets!
You unions out there would be able to recruit new members if only you would charge FAIR union dues and used the money for the purpose of fighting for fair contracts!!!As for November elections VOTE DEMOCRAT!!!!!!!
For crying out loud. Just pass a bill that just has the extension of unemployment benefits and put the state aid into a separate bill.
I think that the Republicans make Scrooge look like a nice guy. My wife lost her job back in November 2009. She is an accountant and as of July 1, no job. Employment agencies are a joke! I admit that I used to be a Republican. However, this is now the party of NO! I did not vote for my governor from New Jersey nor for my congressman. Yet, my congressman will easily win again. I hope that when the districts are redrawn, that I get into a district with a Democratic Congressman.
I am perplexed by these political delays..we need jobs to continue living. Those quitting looking for work are being taken off the unemployment numbers therefore skewing the numbers. The shortest explanation for why it looks like we have less unemployed than last month is because when individuals stop trying to find work they’re taken off the unemployment list, and most individuals are merely waiting for the job market to pick up. This is such a bad way to report numbers because it gives people false hope and security, especially when 10′s of thousands of census workers just ended their temporary jobs and are now needing payday cash advances just to survive.