Jobless Facing UI Cut Off Ask Lawmakers ‘Walk a Mile in My Shoes’
Starting tomorrow and continuing next week, jobless workers in 15 states who face cut off of their unemployment insurance (UI) Feb. 29 will ask members of Congress to “Walk a Mile in My Shoes.”
The mobilization is aimed at lawmakers who are back in their districts for the President’s Day Recess that begins tomorrow, and it’s a partnership between USAction, the AFL-CIO, the National Employment Law Project (NELP), community and other groups.
If the Feb. 29 deadline passes without Congress taking action to extend UI coverage, 1.2 million jobless workers will lose their benefits by the end of March and 3.3 million by the June. (Click here tell your congressional representatives to act now.)
In a telephone press conference today, Gary Polvinale, an Ohio IT manager who has been out of work nearly a year said,
Congress is doing something corporations do, exploiting and bullying the helpless. We need them to act now So we can survive until till can find something. Read the rest of this entry »
Unemployment Insurance on the Chopping Block
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Unemployment insurance as we know it is on the chopping block.
So-called tea party legislators are trying to punish and humiliate people who are out of work—they’re even threatening to take away unemployment insurance from some people completely.
If you believe Congress should be focusing on jobs instead of punishing and even humiliating people who are out of work through no fault of their own, take action now.
These “tea party” politicians are pushing plans to:
- Slash federal unemployment funding by more than half in the states with the highest unemployment.
- Let states whose governments have been taken over by the tea party divert premium money away from unemployment as we know it—and use it to experiment with right-wing social engineering programs (like “workfare,” where people are forced to work for free to get unemployment benefits).
- Mandate drug testing requirements. Politicians are ready to humiliate people who are out of work—by making them urinate in a cup to get benefits they paid for and are entitled to.
- Make jobless workers pay for their re-employment services. People who are out of work through no fault of their own and have paid into the system aren’t asking for a handout—but a helping hand. Now, the radical lawmakers want to make them to pay for the privilege.
- Deny benefits to people who never got their high school diploma lose their right to benefits—they’d have unemployment insurance taken out of their paycheck—but will get nothing should they lose their job. Shame!
- Cut federal employee pensions—or freezing wages for yet another year. Federal workers have already done more than their fair share to balance the budget—while the richest 1% of Americans have been asked to do absolutely nothing.
Tell Congress to focus on jobs rather than punishing jobless workers who have already suffered enough.
House Republicans Renew Attack on Jobless Workers, UI Benefits
In December, after being battered in the arena of public opinion, House Republicans reluctantly agreed to a short extension of unemployment insurance (UI) for the nation’s jobless workers. That reprieve runs out Feb. 29 and House Republicans are set to relaunch their attack on UI.
A conference is now underway between the Senate and House over two very different one-year extensions of the UI program passed late last year and the Republican bill would “slash federal benefits, impose harsh new restrictions and move to dismantle the essential lifeline of unemployment insurance,” writes Mitchell Hirsch of the National Employment Law Project (NELP).
Among other things the Republican UI bill would: Read the rest of this entry »
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.
Unemployed Workers Win Jobless Aid Extension
Congress this morning extended for two months unemployment insurance (UI) for America’s jobless workers. Republicans in the House earlier this week had blocked the UI extenstion, but after suffering badly in opinion polling, they announced they’d join with 89 out of 100 senators from both political parties who’d already voted to renew unemployment aid for two months—with no cuts and no strings attached.
Media headlines throughout the week–including the conservative Wall Street Journal–and Republican stalwarts such as Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), had decried House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) refusal to move the UI bill, which gives a lifeline to 2.8 million jobless Americans who otherwise would lose UI after Dec. 31.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka described the victory for jobless Americans as “not a hnndout or a free ride” but “a lifeline.”
In the fight to extend aid for the jobless, the 99 percent went on the offense against 1 percent politicians. And we won. And if working people keep it up, we’ll score more victories and build a better future. Not every time—two steps forward, one step back. But look around. People all across the country are saying our economy and our democracy are out of balance. And they’re winning the public debate.
Wisconsin Workers Urge Lawmakers to Restore Jobless Aid
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Here’s the video from the event we reported earlier today by Wisconsin union members, jobless workers and their allies who called on Republican members of the U.S. House to get back to work and pass the bipartisan Senate compromise that extends unemployment insurance (UI) for long- term jobless workers.
They visited the offices of Reps. Paul Ryan, Sean Duffy and Reid Ribble with some carefully wrapped lumps of coal, and offered up some slightly modified holiday carols.
The events were part of a series of a nationwide actions aimed the 229 Republican House members who voted to kill the UI program the tax cut.
House Republicans Getting Holiday Jeers—not Cheer—Working Families
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The 229 Republican House members who voted to kill unemployment insurance UI benefits for the long-term jobless and a payroll tax cut for working families are home for the holidays. But they will be getting some visitors who likely aren’t on their holiday parties guest lists.
Union members, jobless workers, faith and community activists are telling the lawmakers they should get back to work and pass the bipartisan Senate compromise that keeps the UI lifeline and payroll tax cut alive. If they don’t, 2 million unemployed workers will lose their benefits next month and another 4 million as the year goes on.
This afternoon, a group of protestors will be outside House Speaker John Boehner’s (R) in West Chester, Ohio. Dozens of other actions are also on tap.
Yesterday in Wisconsin, working families demonstrated outside the offices of Republican Reps. Paul Ryan, Sean Duffy and Reid Ribble. At Duffy’s Wausau office, activists offered a new take on Deck the Halls that included this verse: Read the rest of this entry »
House Republicans Take Off for the Holidays, Shaft Jobless Workers
Fearing they didn’t have the votes to defeat a bipartisan Senate compromise that would extend unemployment insurance (UI) for long-term jobless workers and a payroll tax cut for workers, Republican House leaders scuttled a vote on the bill today. Then they left town for the holidays. Both the UI program and the tax cut expire Dec. 31.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) previously indicated he supported the compromise that passed the Senate 89-10 with 39 Republican votes. However, when the Republican tea party wing vociferously objected, he changed his tune and opposed the bill. Republican leaders then blocked an up or down vote and 229 Republicans voted to kill Senate bill through parliamentary trickery.
Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project (NELP), says that the compromise was negotiated “with the involvement and blessing of the Speaker of the House.” She also says that Senate bill rebuffed attempts in an earlier House bill that scapegoated unemployed workers and “enacted dangerous changes to the basic UI program which undermined its very purpose and effectiveness.”
While a two-month deal is not ideal, time is running out to protect the unemployed from being victims of the worst partisan games Congress has ever seen. Congress is preparing to recess for five weeks. By the time members return to D.C. to begin negotiations anew, close to 1.8 million long-term unemployed will lose their only life-line. As Speaker Boehner well knows, this stalling tactic virtually guarantees that benefits for the long-term unemployed, those already hit hardest by the recession and slow recovery, will lapse for a dangerously long period of time.
Act Now: Tell House Republicans to Stop Holding Jobless Hostage
UPDATE: The Republican-controlled House Rules Committee early Tuesday morning voted to block a full House vote on the bipartisan Senate compromise that extends unemployment insurance (UI) benefits for the long-term jobless. The current program expires Dec. 31.
House Republicans tonight are expected to reject a bipartisan Senate compromise that extends unemployment insurance (UI) benefits for the long-term jobless and also extends the payroll tax cut for workers and employers. Without House approval, the UI benefits and tax cut expire Dec. 31.
Call House Speaker John Boehner at 202-225-0600. Tell him to stop playing politics with the lives of working familes–pass the Senate’s bipartisan bill to extend unemployment aid and middle-class tax cuts now.
Says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka:
While the bipartisan compromise negotiated by Senate Republican and Democrat leadership and approved overwhelmingly by 89 senators is not ideal, it would give millions of working families some assurance as they head into the holidays that their unemployment benefits will not be cut off in January. Read the rest of this entry »
Hard Enough to Live With Unemployment Insurance, Let Alone None
Terry Miale, a communications systems engineer, lost nearly everything when she lost her job.
My whole life is gone. My retirement is gone. My house is gone. For a period of time, I lost my mental health because I went into a deep depression.
Even though she worked 30 years in her field, it took Miale four years to get re-employed. So Miale can’t understand why Republican leaders in Congress just won’t extend unemployment insurance (UI) to long-term unemployed workers who can’t find jobs in an economy in which there are more than four workers for every one job.
When I needed unemployment benefits, they were there. I really think that it isn’t fair to pull a lifeline out from under people that are just now having to collect unemployment benefits. It’s hard enough to live on unemployment benefits, let alone live with none.
Unless UI is extended this month, 2 million jobless people will lose their lifeline. Those in Congress blocking the UI extension should be made to feel what it’s like to be unemployed.
Sign a petition to Congress demanding it act now to extend the emergency UI benefits program.
