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State Legislatures Attack Jobless Workers Rather than Create Jobs
Andy Richards on our Field Communications staff sends us this.
Many state legislatures have gone back into session this week and some state lawmakers aren’t looking to create badly needed jobs. Instead, the first item on their agenda is to attack jobless workers and their families.
The legislature in South Carolina is among them. This week, a senate panel approved legislation that would require unemployed workers to pass drug tests to get their unemployment insurance (UI), volunteer a minimum of 16 hours a week and look for only full-time employment opportunities after a certain period. The legislation will now go before the full Senate Labor, Commerce and Industry Committee for review and could be approved as early as Thursday.
At the same time, the executive director of the South Carolina Department of Employment and Workforce, Abraham Turner, announced new changes to agency policies that would go into effect Thursday, including forcing jobless workers to take a job at minimum wage after receiving 20 weeks of unemployment insurance.
Gov. Nikki Haley—who has used much of 2011 attacking the National Labor Relation Board (NLRB) and President Obama while she watched her approval rating hit bottom—said in October that she “so wants” drug testing for unemployed workers. Unfortunately for Haley, the claims she used to back up her arguments were debunked as exaggerations.
Extremist South Carolina politicians aren’t the only ones pushing these absurd attacks on working families. The New York Times reported 12 states proposed bills in 2011 and House Republicans also passed drug testing requirements for the jobless in December as part of their failed payroll tax cut bill.
As Senior Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute and former editor of The American Prospect Mark Schmitt noted, this is part of a larger effort to “break down public support for extending UI benefits” and “shift the blame for joblessness to the jobless” like lawmakers did with welfare in the 1990s.
In Florida, a similar measure requiring welfare recipients to be drug tested was ruled unconstitutional—but that hasn’t stopped 35 other states from considering the idea.
Not surprisingly, the corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council invited Tarren Bragdon, CEO of the right-wing think tank Foundation for Government Accountability, to present on the Florida welfare drug testing initiative at its November conference in Arizona.
So, watch out. Drug testing of unemployed workers and others still reeling from the Wall Street-created recession and policies that have only benefited the 1 percent may be moving through the legislature in your state soon.
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6 Comments
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the state of chaos is coming!!!
The forces of the Evil, right-wing bullies are once again conspiring against the poor and the jobless. It did not work in FL; there is an attempt to recall the Evil gov. Rick Scott and yet they continue to try and find ways to hurt the middle class: like kicking a horse when it’s down. Americans forget quickly and are so forgiving, but we must never forget the horrendous treatment by these right-wing bullies, attempting to take away all our rights. If we allow them to continue on this destructive path, we will become powerless, and all will be lost. Remember it all: how they bullied their way into governership; how they picked on teachers; drove Occupy Wall St. away, thus taking away their basic right to assemble by their violent attacks on them, all the while meeting in back rooms to make phony new laws to destroy the unions, the only means left to protect our workers. Remember it well my friends when the next election takes place. Power to the people.
We the people need to inforce that every legislature be not only drug tested but pass psychological testing as well before they can hold any office anywhere. It is obvious that many of these clowns have a mental illness of some sort. Read the scandalous action that they commit and they are trying to impose sanctions on the people who voted for them. You folks in SC better be very careful for who you vote for. Romney reminds me of tricky dick even looks like him.
I have read magazine articles stating our politians have personal physicians who give them amphetamines to make them stand up and talk along time. Then they give them a medicine to make them sleep good. This has been done through out history. They want the drugs for themselves, but they do not want the masses of the population to have them.
This government is trying to turn us into a 3rd World Country. I got a real eye opener when I went on a mission’s trip to Panama. It was sickening, in my opinion, showing one extreme to the other; the very rich and the very poor.
I was also told there is NO WELFARE there, that everyone works or they don’t eat. I couldn’t find true evidence of that though, but I can say this, I saw more clothes “Made in USA” than here.
This government is so corrupt and they don’t have the guts or stamina to stand up to the Bilderbergs or the Koch Brothers–now that is what evil looks like.
I agree with givemeajob, we, the people do need to enforce that every legislator be drug tested, but who would you trust to do that when they are all in cahoots.
I tell everyone I talk to to not vote these individuals back into office even though they may be their next door neighbor or friend. They are not working for the people as they should.
God help us all for I fear something big is about to happen and it’s not for the good.
God Bless all the people of the United States.
What the politicians PROBABLY would do would be to write the legislators’ drug-testing to be to TEST THAT THEY ARE USING THE PROPER DRUGS… and then that would be considered okay! (smirk)