Working America Mobilizing Unemployed Voters
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Who better to keep candidates focused on the real issue in this election—jobs—than the very people who are out of work? Working America, the AFL-CIO’s community affiliate, is organizing and mobilizing unemployed workers to go to the polls in November to make sure that candidates who favor outsourcing or don’t support workers join them in the unemployment lines.
Starting with its own unemployed members who are registered voters, Working America is reaching out to everyday voters on the streets. Field organizers in 12 cities are talking with unemployed workers at unemployment offices and job training facilities. Workers at these facilities will have the chance to fill out “Help Wanted” petitions to send to Congress asking them what they’ve done to create jobs and help unemployed workers.
Working America Director Karen Nussbaum says although millions of people are unemployed and underemployed, and millions more are worried about the future:
Some politicians are willing to play politics with the survival of unemployed workers and their families. We’ll make sure that unemployed workers get out and vote, and that they know the records of the candidates on issues like extending unemployment insurance, investing in jobs and preventing outsourcing.
Millionaires Killing Jobs
Today, 1.2 million jobless workers lose their extended unemployment insurance (UI) because some Senate millionaires think a $300 a week unemployment check will make people too lazy to look for a job. This group also is pushing to reduce the nation’s budget deficit rather than use short-term spending to create desperately needed jobs for the nation’s 26 million unemployed or underemployed workers.
Three things:
* The Senate yesterday failed for the FOURTH time to extend UI because Senate Republicans are blockading the bill. Economists say extending UI is fiscally prudent and essential to improve the faltering economy. Several hundred thousand more unemployed workers will lose their UI each week in addition to the 1.2 million jobless workers who already have.
* While more than 15 million U.S. workers can’t find work because there’s five workers for every one job opening, the rich are getting massively richer. The ranks of the nation’s millionaires rose 16.5 percent, to 2.87 million, last year. Their total wealth in North America rose 17.8 percent, to $10.7 trillion.
* A new poll shows the majority of the U.S. public wants government to take a larger and stronger role in making the economy work for America’s workers. Nine out of 10 agree that government and corporations should join with individuals to place the common good above greed. Another poll, by the Alliance for American Manufacturing, shows nearly three of five respondents (58 percent) say the United States no longer has the world’s strongest economy, compared with 36 percent who believe otherwise.
Bleeding Jobs: U.S. Loses 533,000 Jobs in November
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The United States is bleeding jobs: Today’s unemployment figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) show a mind-numbing 533,000 jobs lost in November, the largest monthly jobs loss in 34 years. The already bad 6.5 percent unemployment rate worsened to 6.7 percent, and some 1.9 million workers have lost their jobs this year.
The number of workers who have lost their jobs in November is far larger than the 300,000 predicted by many economists, and doesn’t reflect drastic layoff plans announced by major corporations in recent days.
Yesterday, AT&T Inc., DuPont Co., Viacom Inc., Credit Suisse Group and Avis Budget Group announced job cuts that total 22,850, and earlier this week, financial firms such as The Carlyle Group said they’d cut a total of 3,000 jobs.
As bad as the November job loss numbers are, the unemployment situation is far worse than the latest figures show. First, many of the jobs lost aren’t coming back. According to the BLS:
Among the unemployed, the number of persons who lost their jobs and did not expect to be recalled to work increased by 298,000 to 4.7 million in November.
