|
Right to a job
The Boston chapter of the Occupy4Jobs Network held a spirited community/labor forum focusing on the struggle to stop post office closings and the fight for jobs. ...
Posted Feb 27, 2012
|
Hundreds of poor and working people came out to see and issue demands to President Barack Obama during his Feb. 15 visit to the Masterlock company. The plant is located in a predominantly African-American neighborhood in the center of Milwaukee.
...
Posted Feb 23, 2012
|
Excerpted from a talk given by Larry Hales, WW contributing editor, at the WWP National Conference in New York City, Oct. 8-9....
Posted Oct 13, 2011
|
Although the word “recession” has faded completely from the U.S.
corporate and government media, a recent jobless report shows that the
unemployment rate has risen again to 9 percent. And the unemployment rate among African Americans went up at an even higher rate than that for the general population....
Posted May 12, 2011
|
The fact is that this crisis goes much deeper than the capitalist political
parties will ever admit. There is no light at the end of the tunnel. Look at it
this way: Permanent, full-time jobs for most of the 30 million people in the
U.S. who are either unemployed or underemployed are not coming back. Even big
business media like the Wall Street Journal are talking about that....
Posted May 12, 2011
|
The great struggle of the Wisconsin public workers has galvanized union
solidarity on a national level not seen since 1981. That was when the AFL-CIO
organized the Solidarity Day demonstration of half a million workers in
Washington, D.C., after President Ronald Reagan had fired 18,000 air traffic
controllers, members of the PATCO union, and banned them from federal
employment for life. But Solidarity Day in 1981 was a one-shot, symbolic action that came and went because the issue was quickly abandoned by the top leadership after the demonstration was over. This time it’s different....
Posted Mar 9, 2011
|
The announcement by the U.S. government that unemployment dropped from 9.4
percent to 9 percent in January is pure statistical manipulation meant to
deceive workers into thinking that things are getting better....
Posted Feb 19, 2011
|
As the cold winter chill sets in across the U.S., homelessness is at an
all-time high. Over the past few years, millions of people have been forced from their homes
by foreclosures and evictions and into overcrowded shelters and transitional
housing. The number of homeless families rose by close to 30 percent between
2007 and 2009....
Posted Dec 12, 2010
|
Two days before the huge jobs and justice rally in Washington, D.C., the House
on Sept. 29 threw a curve ball and called it a jobs bill. Republicans and Democrats finally got together and voted to expand the powers
of the Obama administration. But what for?...
Posted Oct 11, 2010
|
APWU and other
postal workers and their supporters marched to say “no way” to the
proposed five-day mail service the U.S. Postal Service management wants to
implement....
Posted Sep 6, 2010
|
The official unemployment rate, which was 9.5 percent in July, has no
credibility. It is classic “political spin” intended to fill
workers’ heads with hope that a recovery is right around the corner....
Posted Sep 6, 2010
|
Some 5,000 protesters marched and rallied in downtown Detroit on Aug. 28
demanding jobs, peace and justice. ...
Posted Sep 1, 2010
|
Chants of “We want jobs!” rang out at the
corner of Wall and Broad streets in the shadow of the Stock Exchange at noon on
Aug. 12 as the “99ers” made their first appearance in struggle in
the streets....
Posted Aug 22, 2010
|
An energetic protest demanding jobs in Harlem, N.Y., and beyond hit several
targets on Aug. 6. Community leaders and activists began their action at North
General Hospital — where workers, represented by Service Employees Local
1199, were given only four days’ notice that the entire hospital would be
shut down. Describing the closing of the hospital as an attack on the whole
community, union members declared their struggle to be not just a fight for
jobs, but also a fight to preserve affordable health care in Harlem....
Posted Aug 15, 2010
|
The latest jobs report and economic growth numbers confirm that no recovery is
in store for the working class. On the contrary, mass unemployment is likely to
get worse, not better. The short-lived “jobless recovery” is on the
decline after less than a year, following a downturn lasting 19 months....
Posted Aug 11, 2010
|
Corporate profits are rising, corporate cash is piling up, business has
increased. But jobs are not coming back any time soon for the millions of
unemployed....
Posted Aug 8, 2010
|
As a consumer I have discovered that so many workers, such as clerks, food
service workers or bank tellers, have to take on a second job. It seems every
worker in these increasingly deskilled and low-paid jobs is now a salesperson,
in addition to the drudgery of the dull, unforgiving work they already have to
do....
Posted Jul 21, 2010
|
Workers historically excluded from labor organizing and protections are
challenging the mainstream trade union movement in the United States, which is
now finding itself in increasing decline with deindustrialization and massive
job loss. Domestic workers, public sector workers in the South, farmworkers,
day laborers and temporary workers have begun to organize against their
exclusion from U.S. labor laws and for rights other workers have won over years
of struggle....
Posted Jul 15, 2010
|
Solidarity House, the international headquarters of the United Auto Workers,
was the scene of a packed press conference the afternoon of July 12. Recently
elected UAW President Bob King joined with the Rev. Jesse Jackson and other
union, political and religious leaders to announce an Aug. 28 march in Detroit
that will kick off a campaign for “jobs, justice and peace.”...
Posted Jul 14, 2010
|
On June 1, an estimated 325,000 eligible unemployed workers were denied
extended unemployment benefits. By the end of June, if Congress does not pass
the latest emergency unemployment benefits extension bill, this number is
expected to mushroom to at least one and a quarter million workers, according
to government figures....
Posted Jun 28, 2010
|
On May 18 a resolution supporting a federal jobs program and opposing cuts to
federal youth programs was passed by the Raleigh City Council.
Chants of “A job is right, we gotta fight fight fight!” and
“Money for jobs and education, not for banks and incarceration!”
greeted Raleigh City Council members at recent meetings. Two well-attended
rallies at Raleigh City Council meetings on May 4 and May 18 were organized by
the Raleigh Peoples’ Assembly....
Posted Jun 10, 2010
|
On March 29 more than 500 Detroit workers, retirees and community members
filled the Detroit City Council’s auditorium to oppose the $6 billion
giveaway of city pension assets initiated by Mayor Dave Bing....
Posted Apr 7, 2010
|
Cheerleaders for capitalism are talking out of both sides of their mouths about
the latest job numbers, which showed the creation of 162,000 jobs in March. However, a few lines further down came the bad news: “The economy needs
to add more than 100,000 jobs a month just to absorb new entrants into the
labor market, let alone provide a livelihood for the 15 million Americans
already looking for work. Without constant, robust growth, the unemployment
rate won’t budge....
Posted Apr 7, 2010
|
A Gallup Poll released on Feb. 23 revealed that in January 30 million workers
in the U.S. were either on forced part-time or out of work altogether. This
number, based on a poll of over 20,000 adults over the age of 18 and conducted
from Jan. 2 to Jan. 31, amounts to 20 percent of the workforce....
Posted Mar 3, 2010
|
The jobless recovery has been declared official by the New York Times, the
newspaper of record for the U.S. ruling class. Its edition of Feb. 21 —
the Sunday paper that is read in every capital, finance ministry, embassy,
consulate, department of state, etc., in the capitalist world — carried
the following two-column banner headline in bold: “Despite Signs of
Recovery, Chronic Joblessness Rises — The Unemployed Face Years Without
Jobs, Exhausting Savings and Benefits.”...
Posted Feb 28, 2010
|
With snow on the city sidewalks the summer still seems a long way away, but for
many New York City students the anxiety over where they will find summer
employment this year is inescapable. ...
Posted Feb 15, 2010
|
On Feb. 4, hundreds of Wayne County workers protested forced weekly unpaid
furlough days that were to begin the next day. This 20-percent pay cut will
affect 700 selected workers, many making less than $30,000 per year....
Posted Feb 10, 2010
|
The news that while the economy grew at an annual rate of 5.7 percent in the
last quarter, there was simultaneously a net loss of 208,000 jobs, indicates
that U.S. capitalism has entered a new phase — the phase of the
“jobless recovery” with increasingly intractable and growing
long-term mass unemployment....
Posted Feb 3, 2010
|
The latest job reports for December should convince workers that all the talk
about economic recovery coming from the media pundits is just hot air. The only
recovery is the bankers’ bonuses and the corporations’ profits. And
the time to fight back against layoffs, foreclosures and cutbacks is now....
Posted Jan 13, 2010
|
Protesters converged on the White House on Dec. 3—the day President
Barack Obama was holding his “jobs summit”—to demand a
comprehensive jobs program, not more war....
Posted Dec 13, 2009
|
Excerpts from a talk by Sharon Black at the WWP National Conference,
Nov. 14....
Posted Nov 24, 2009
|
In the crisis now unfolding, a revitalized workers’ movement, in order to
be effective, will have to draw in all the sectors that have either been left
out or marginalized....
Posted Nov 13, 2009
|
Over 1,000 unionized and laid-off workers came from across New England for a
massive march for jobs here on Oct. 1. With unemployment at record levels and
no end in sight, organized labor in Massachusetts stirred the local movement
for economic justice to a new height....
Posted Oct 12, 2009
|
The grim numbers are in. In September, 263,000 more jobs were lost. Official
unemployment edged closer to 10 percent, going from 9.7 to 9.8. This was larger
than predicted by capitalist economists and is the result of 21 consecutive
months of economic downturn, the longest streak in 70 years....
Posted Oct 7, 2009
|
The leaders of the big imperialist powers met in Pittsburgh in September to
argue over how to protect capital. They didn’t put forward one credible
proposal to solve the crisis of the hundreds of millions of unemployed and
underemployed workers around the world....
Posted Oct 1, 2009
|
Protesters marched through the streets of Pittsburgh on Sept. 20
demanding a real jobs program, like the public works program the Roosevelt
administration enacted during the Great Depression of the 1930s.
It was the first demonstration related to the G-20 summit....
Posted Sep 23, 2009
|
The recent mass mobilization of racists and right-wingers of all stripes in
Washington, D.C., and in cities around the country requires the attention of
the working class, white workers especially. In the face of mounting racism and
efforts to divide the workers during an economic crisis, the struggle for class
unity is more pressing than ever. While these right-wing demonstrations are numerically small, and may eventually
die down, they are politically significant because they represent a de facto
bloc between important sections of big business and the racist ultra-right,
based upon an immediate common objective: to push back the program of the Obama
administration....
Posted Sep 23, 2009
|
WORKERS WORLD PARTYand newspaper endorse and are actively
helping to build the Jobs March to take place in Pittsburgh on Sept. 20, as
well as the Tent City that follows.
Why is this march, which begins in the historically African-American section of
a city that once was the steel center of the United States, so important?...
Posted Sep 16, 2009
|
With the Sept. 4 announcement that unemployment in the U.S. has hit an official
high of 9.7 percent, organizing for the National March for Jobs on Sept. 20 in
Pittsburgh and the Tent City in Solidarity with the Unemployed has reached a
critical stage. Unemployed workers and their allies will be in Pittsburgh at
the same time the G-20 Group of major capitalist countries will be holding
their summit in that city....
Posted Sep 13, 2009
|
Guess what? There is a slight rise in some corporate profits. The corporations
and biggest banks are doing a bit better. So the experts see a
“recovery.” No big surprise, however. If the government spent $10 or $12 trillion to buy up the workers’
unpayable debts and guaranteed their loans, the way they have done for Wall
Street, workers would still be exploited and underpaid, but things would not be
quite so bad. Instead there are 30 million workers either unemployed or underemployed, with
depression-level rates of joblessness in the African-American and Latino/a
communities, and things are getting worse for them and their families, not
better....
Posted Sep 3, 2009
|
At a time when millions are laid off and unemployed throughout the country
during the worst economic crisis since the depression of the 1930s, the Boston
School Bus Union—Steelworkers Local 8751—has succeeded in round one
of a long fight to protect jobs and vital services to the communities the union
serves....
Posted Sep 2, 2009
|
Hundreds of city employees and community residents gathered Aug. 19 outside
City Hall in Detroit to protest budget cuts. Newly elected interim Mayor Dave Bing
has already placed over 300 workers on indefinite layoff and is preparing the
public for the idling of another 1,000 employees....
Posted Aug 26, 2009
|
Capitalist economists, experts and stock market gamblers cannot make up their
minds as to whether or not there is a “recovery.”
For workers who are losing their jobs, their homes, their health care, their
wages and are deeply in debt, there is no ambiguity. There is no recovery.
However, at the slightest hint of less-bad news—news that is not as bad
as the news from the period before—the well-paid experts are quick to
declare that a recovery is in sight....
Posted Aug 19, 2009
|
What do the July unemployment statistics mean for the working class? Most
bourgeois economists expressed undue optimism. They’re optimistic mostly
because the rising stock market and jump in banking profits has brought
optimism back to the capitalists, who pay the economists’ salaries....
Posted Aug 13, 2009
|
On July 9 workers and many community supporters staged a militant street rally
in Rock Island, Ill., in front of a Wells Fargo bank to protest the closing of
the Quad City Die Casting plant in Moline, Ill.
Putting their bodies on the line to challenge the bank’s business as
usual, the rally moved into the street to blockade traffic. Nearly a dozen QCDC
workers and other workers refused to leave and were arrested in defiance. When
asked by local FOX 18 News why she took such bold action and got arrested, QCDC
worker Deb Johann stated, “Because I wanna save my job!”...
Posted Aug 12, 2009
|
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics published a report on July 2 confirming the
growing economic disaster facing the working class. In June 14.7 million people
were unemployed and the unemployment rate was 9.5 percent. Since the start of
the recession in December 2007, the number of unemployed workers has increased
by 7.2 million and the unemployment rate has risen by 4.6 percentage points....
Posted Jul 22, 2009
|
Advocates for a moratorium on foreclosures, evictions and utility shutoffs
joined environmentalists and supporters of single-payer health care on July 14
when President Barack Obama visited metro Detroit. ...
Posted Jul 22, 2009
|
When the U.S. scientific-military establishment,
through NASA, put a person on the moon, it was a very big deal. It generated
such excitement and optimism; somehow this technological breakthrough would
usher in a better, more enlightened period in human history
Well, that was four decades ago, when the United States military was involved
in another horrible war that brought nothing but suffering and misery to the
peoples of Southeast Asia and the U.S. In fact, the Apollo moonwalk may have
prolonged that catastrophe, because it bolstered the sagging prestige of the
U.S. at a time when rejection of imperialist war and plunder was growing around
the world....
Posted Jul 22, 2009
|
More than 20 million workers find themselves stranded without
the paychecks needed to pay for daily expenses in addition to debts: medical
bills, credit card debt, mortgages and car payments. The media are right about one thing. This IS capitalism. This IS how it works.
It’s a hellish system, especially in a period of economic
crisis....
Posted Jul 8, 2009
|
Bob Herbert, who is an op-ed columnist for the New York Times and also an
African American, wrote in a recent piece: “There are now five unemployed
workers for every job opening in the United States. The ranks of the poor are
growing, welfare rolls are rising” and young male workers over a broad
front “are falling into an abyss of joblessness.”...
Posted Jul 3, 2009
|
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. 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....
Posted Jun 13, 2009
|
More than a million and a half workers in the United States have lost their
jobs since last December. Some 345,000 lost their jobs in May. Unemployment is
at 9.4 percent and headed up to more than 10 percent.
Well over 25 million workers are out of work or underemployed. Long-term
unemployment is at a record.
Nevertheless, Washington has given General Motors and Chrysler $17 billion as a
reward for shutting down 22 plants, tearing up union contracts and closing
3,000 dealerships. And the government has promised billions more to the auto
barons.
These cruel measures will sharply aggravate the unemployment crisis across the
country and bring further hardship to those still working.
They must be stopped....
Posted Jun 10, 2009
|
When North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue announced that all state workers would
be mandated to take 10 unpaid hours off to help balance the budget, many
workers began discussing how they could collectively withhold their labor by
organizing to take the same time periods off.
Then the state legislature began discussing furloughs of up to 20 days for all
state workers. But that plan was soon taken off the table after seeing the mass
outrage it caused....
Posted May 31, 2009
|
The crisis in the auto industry is spreading like wildfire. Beside the 25,000 workers laid off because of the latest wave of plant closings
at General Motors and Chrysler, many others are impacted. Notices have gone out
to 800 Chrysler and 1,100 GM dealers that their franchise agreements will not
be renewed. A total of 103,000 mechanics, salespeople and other workers could lose their
jobs....
Posted May 20, 2009
|
There are so many people eager, desperate, to find work. And we’ve all
heard about the trillions of dollars given to Wall Street to pep up the
economy—which hasn’t worked. Trillions! Who ever heard of such huge
numbers before this crisis!...
Posted May 3, 2009
|
Workers on the shop floor know what is in store when they hear “lean,
mean and competitive.” It was the bosses, now crying poverty, who paid
auto workers to attend compulsory classes on “lean manufacturing.”
What they call lean—which is supposed to mean less fat—in reality
means tearing out the heart of shop floor operations: the hourly worker....
Posted Apr 12, 2009
|
While talk about signs of a possible economic recovery drove the stock market
up for four weeks in a row, beginning March 10, it is clear that the recovery
being talked about was a recovery of the bosses and bankers, not the
workers. Three quarters of a million workers lost their jobs during those four weeks....
Posted Apr 9, 2009
|
The loss of 651,000 more jobs in February and the jump in the official
unemployment rate to 8.1 percent have produced important admissions in the
capitalist press that every worker should pay close attention to....
Posted Mar 12, 2009
|
The global financial crisis is forcing emerging and underdeveloped economies
throughout Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia to take a double whammy.
Economic instability and corresponding job losses at home are compounded by a
severe decline in remittances from the migrant workers who serve as a
super-exploited segment of the working class in the industrialized capitalist
economies of the United States, Western Europe and Japan....
Posted Feb 12, 2009
|
The record wave of layoffs that seemed to peak in December is continuing into
2009.
At the same time, hundreds of billions of dollars in aid are flowing from
Washington to the banks and corporations, not to the unemployed. Reviving
corporate profits has taken precedence over providing desperately needed jobs
or calling for an immediate end to foreclosures and evictions....
Posted Jan 25, 2009
|
In the first week of January, as the number of workers filing new claims
reached a 26-year high and the U.S. unemployment rate climbed to 7.2 percent,
the job center computer systems in New York, North Carolina and Ohio
crashed....
Posted Jan 18, 2009
|
The intensifying capitalist crisis, which is bringing greater and greater
suffering daily, is leaving the workers and the oppressed with no alternative
but to organize a fightback. The deadly waves of unemployment, foreclosures,
homelessness, hunger and repression are spreading while the ruling-class
politicians and experts debate over the terms of the so-called “stimulus
package.”...
Posted Jan 15, 2009
|
Three-quarters of a million workers have already been laid off this year,
bringing the official total of unemployed to over 9 million. Trillions of
dollars in retirement funds have been wiped out in the stock market in the last
few months. Over 10,000 households a day are being foreclosed, and evictions
are rampant. Money for student loans has dried up. Credit card debt is at a
record high. Unemployment is rising along with food, utility and gas prices.
Production and sales are falling relentlessly. The forecast is for things to
get worse—a lot worse....
Posted Oct 26, 2008
|
You need a job to keep a roof over your head, feed yourself and your family,
and pay the bills. Everyone needs a job or other source of income to
survive.
Having a job is a basic necessity. It's a simple human right....
Posted Apr 12, 2008
|
Articles copyright 1995-2009 Workers World.
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: [email protected]
Subscribe [email protected]
Support independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php
|
Sign up to get EMAIL UPDATES
Follow workers.org on TWITTER
and on FACEBOOK
|
Email
Save & share