Unite NOW to fight for jobs

Fourteen and a half million workers, or 9.4 percent of the workforce, are now officially unemployed, with only half receiving any unemployment benefits. These numbers translate into 60 million lives affected when you consider families and others dependent upon the unemployed. If you add in discouraged or involuntary part-time workers, the rate is 16.4 percent, or 25 million workers, according to writer Frank Bass. (AP, June 5) Yet the big-business media are proclaiming the recovery is growing.

Fred Goldstein wrote in a recent Workers World article entitled “Stocks Up, Economy Down” that this is a capitalist era of deliberately shrinking the economy while speaking of a recovery. Goldstein states, “A new discussion [among the capitalists] is taking place on the so-called ‘natural’ rate of unemployment based on the permanent destruction of jobs.” (workers.org, May 10) Goldstein exposes that the capitalist class is happy with unemployment permanently at 10 percent or higher. In fact stocks rise upon the news of plant closings. Profits are all that matter.

Of course there is nothing natural about any of it, and any rate of unemployment is unacceptable and unnecessary. Goldstein goes on to say, “even in the event of a stabilization of the economy or some sort of capitalist recovery, the crisis for the working class will remain.” These are fighting words. Only the struggle of the workers, employed and unemployed, will bring any change.

Just how bad is it?

There are about 1 million unemployed in the New York City area. There are more people unemployed than employed in Detroit itself. Youth, seniors and the Black community, in general, are hit the hardest--never even regaining jobs during the last “recovery.” There are millions more who can’t get enough hours of work. Need a raise? Fat chance. The bosses love high unemployment because the competition between workers is high and pay goes down. Real wages have dropped while prices for many basic commodities have risen.

It’s not just in the major metropolises. In Oregon there are 81,000 people officially unemployed, and they all registered for the same 700 jobs at minimum wage. This past May 15 Oregon Governor Ted Gulongoski introduced a bill for 12,000 jobs lasting four to six months working at food banks and restoring wetlands and parks. He invoked the Civilian Conservation Corps of the 1930s: “We need to take the same kind of immediate action in Oregon. ... We have a jobs emergency.” (The Oregonian, May 15)

National Public Radio reported that the Port St. Lucie County government in Florida is considering declaring itself a disaster area to make money available for jobs. “The impact [of the housing bust] far exceeded the cumulative impact of three hurricanes that hit us in 13 months. ... So I believe the economy has risen to the level of a man-made disaster,” stated St. Lucie County Commissioner Doug Coward. (May 24)

So some states or local areas are attempting to take some action. But as a whole, the capitalist government is promoting the trickle-down lie of “bail out the banks” and this will help workers. There are no federal proposals for creating real jobs, just more baloney about job training for jobs that aren’t there. No federal law has been proposed making it a crime to shut down a perfectly good factory.

According to the International Labour Organization and World Bank, bailouts to banks are five times larger than any “fiscal stimulus to the real economy.” (ilocarib.org, March 24) The U.S bailout is “$8 trillion in capital infusions, low interest loans and federal guarantees.” (fiscalpolicy.org, December 2008)

This doesn’t include, of course, the trillions that routinely go to military war profiteers and debt payments to banks. Not only is the money there, but it came from the labor of the international working class in the first place.

Unite & organize or compete & lose; what makes more sense?

A. Philip Randolph, a great union and civil rights leader, met Franklin D. Roosevelt and told him he had the power to take action against racism. Roosevelt told Randolph, “Make me do it.” And it is said that Roosevelt told CIO head John L. Lewis, “Make me,” when Lewis demanded jobs for the unemployed. During a 2008 presidential campaign speech in New Jersey, Barack Obama repeated that story. Was he sending us a message?

The crisis created by capitalism is worldwide. According to a February 2007 Department of Economic and Social Affairs report, an estimated 1.6 billion people—currently about one-third of the world’s workforce—are unemployed or underemployed. (un.org)

Workers are scouring the globe to find ways to feed their families. We can compete against each other, blame each other falsely, and reap a crop of endless falling wages and unemployment. But your job is not safe if you don’t fight for the unemployed. Or we can reject the bankers’ arguments and unite in a great struggle for jobs.

Danger of inaction on unemployment

If a progressive, class-consciousness movement of workers and activists does not try to intervene to fight for real jobs, then the right wing will take advantage of unemployment. Whether liberal, militarist or fascist, all are different forms of capitalist government committed to maximizing profits before people. The right wing will whip up racism against Black workers and immigrants and blame women, lesbian, gay, bi and trans people, China, Eastern European workers, Martians and whoever else takes the heat off the bosses—the big capitalist banks and industries who create unemployment and underemployment.

The need for jobs is a huge challenge. Everything is falling apart. It’s time to organize!

Are you unemployed or underemployed and want to join a movement to fight for jobs? Workers World newspaper wants to hear from you. Send e-mails to [email protected].