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indiana unemployment
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Our Newest Special Interest Group - The Unemployed
Unemployment - The Rhetoric of Disinformation
I have been staring at the US Bureau at work Statistics reports on January and February unemployment. Every month they issue a six page pr release. After spending hrs studying these releases, the only conclusion I can draw would be that the government is deliberately misleading people about US joblessness.
The very first paragraph of the March 10, 2010 release states that non-farm payroll employment was "essentially unchanged" - as only 36,000 jobs were lost (carrying out a lack of 20,000 in February. In then states that this lack of 56,000 jobs led to an internet decline in the official unemployment rate from 10.0 to 9.7 percent. This is because individuals are only counted as unemployed if they actively searched for operate in February. This means about 2.5 million individuals who haven't worked in over a year aren't counted within the official unemployment rate if they didn't locate a job recently.
The pr release concedes that the final amount of individuals unemployed for over 12 months is up 500,000 over February 2009. It also points out the number of "involuntary" part time workers (individuals unable to find full time jobs or with recent cutbacks within their hours) increased by 500,000 in February.
Things i find interesting is if you add the state number unemployed (14.9 million), to the 2.5 million permanently unemployed and the 8.8 involuntary part-timers, you come forth with a total unemployment rate closer to 20 % - a treadmill fifth from the civilian employees.
indiana unemployment
Unfortunately the mainstream media doesn't think about these figures once they set of unemployment. Instead they point to the 0.3 % improvement in unemployment since December 2009 (which actually reflects those who have stopped looking for work) as proof the united states economy is starting to recuperate. They also indicate fractional (0.2%) in the GDP over the last few months. The issue with using GDP as an indicator of economic recovery is that it's mainly according to business and corporate earnings. And the main strategy businesses used to increased profitability this past year (inside a severe recession) ended up being to downsize and lay-off workers (thus increasing unemployment).
The Unemployed like a Pressure Group
The implications of a true unemployment rate close to 20 % are staggering. With one out of every five Americans unemployed, there's enormous potential for the rebirth from the unemployed workers movement active throughout the Great Depression. Its main role would be to fight for crucial reforms the Federal government will not address. Based on a number of social historians, it was mainly America's success in organizing the unemployed that pushed President Roosevelt to enact wide reaching New Deal reforms - a substantial package of legislation that for the first time benefited ordinary workers rather than business interests.
Before the advent of giant multinational corporations, merchants and businesses have always had much more influence over the federal government than ordinary citizens. In fact close study of the united states Constitution reveals our founding fathers meant our government to be setup this way. They deliberately made a government structure that would favour business. In fact using the important exception of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin, most of them admit this within their writings about the first Constitutional Convention.
No One is Born with Rights
Many Americans mistakenly believe they are born with inherent "rights" as a condition of US citizenship. Nothing could be more wrong. People must win their rights by fighting for them. Corporations possess a vested interest in opposing reforms that might potentially affect their profitability. Consequently the US government has never granted popular reforms - in health care, education, work and food safety, environmental protection or voting rights for women and African Americans - due to the fact it was what's right to do. Without exception, every reform benefiting working people, including the 40 hour work week (in 1900 people worked 72 hour weeks), the minimum wage and also the abolition of child labor - has been won by the long hard work of grassroots organizing.
At the moment corporate interests (such as health insurance and drug companies worried about their income) seem to carry much more weight with this new president than the United states citizens. However a robust unemployed workers' union would force Obama to redirect his attention in the wars in the Middle East to critical problems that prevent millions of Americans from seeing real evidence of economic recovery in their everyday lives.
Existing Unemployed Workers Organizations
There are community-led efforts underway in Indiana, Pennsylvania and Maine to organize the unemployed. In February 2009 Tom Lewandowski, a let go electrician, founded the Unemployed and Anxiously Employed Workers Initiative (UAEWI). The group was instrumental in passing state legislation to replenish Indiana's unemployment insurance fund and appropriating $16 million for job retraining programs. At the moment they're demanding a voice in how these money is spent - via a seat on the Northeast Indiana Regional Workforce Board.
In 2002 former UNITE organizer Jack McKay organized laid-off workers in Maine to form Food AND Medicine (FAM) - largely in reaction to some mass exodus of manufacturing jobs from eastern Maine. FAM began as a health care advocacy organization for low income and unemployed workers who were instructed to make a decision between buying groceries or paying for doctors' visits and prescriptions. spending money on health care or spending money on food. It is constantly on the lobby for universal health care and workers rights legislation, including and also the Employee Free Choice Act - a federal bill that will amend the Labor Relations Act to hurry up and simplify the entire process of forming a union. FAM has also formed a cooperative with area farmers to provide affordable, locally grown food to its members.
The Philadelphia Unemployment Project (PUP) is even older, formed throughout the mid-1970s OPEC recession. Aside from working on employment related issues, PUP also represents homeowners facing foreclosure. Their efforts led the Philadelphia courts to determine a course in April 2008 requiring lenders to participate in mediation with homeowners trying to renegotiate their mortgage payments. An initial survey shows they prevented foreclosure among 80 percent of house owners who participated.
indiana unemployment
Where is the AFL-CIO?
The support offered by the AFL-CIO to those fledgling jobless organizations - a resource website and wiki - is token support at best. The website "Working America" premiered in April 2009 to assist struggling families track down local resources, for example benefit entitlements, retraining, child care and food banks.
While an excellent resource, it really is disappointing to see the AFL-CIO take on a social work role and neglect a vital organizing opportunity. Their current efforts fall far short of the offer the unemployed movement received from organized labor in the 1930s. During the Great Depression it had been local union activists - the efforts of the United states and the Congress of commercial Organizations (CIO) are the most useful described - who organized the unemployed. It's obviously in the self-interest of unions to arrange the jobless. With an immense pool of potential scab labor desperate enough to cross union picket lines, ale workers to strike for higher wages and working conditions evaporates. Employers know this, of course, which makes significant gains (in wages or working conditions) impossible in a period of high unemployment. In fact many employers make the most of a recession to demand substantial "claw-backs" (reduced wages and benefits, more and more, less favorable working conditions).
Organized labor is already significantly weakened because of an aggressive union bashing strategy pursued under Taxation and both Bush administrations. The "claw-backs" resulting from a long period of unemployment could cause organized labor to get rid of any voice in america political process.
Exactly what the AFL-CIO Could (and really should) Do
Precisely what it takes from the AFL-CIO pays organizers exercising of union locals to reach out to laid off union members along with other unemployed workers - and training them how you can organize and lobby collectively for jobs creation legislation, universal healthcare and protections against foreclosure and eviction when they fall behind within their mortgage payments.
There is already a strong tendency for Americans responsible themselves once they lose a job. Thus an extremely important component from the outreach process is helping them realize that their situation comes from major flaws in the present US political and economic system - as opposed to some personal failing. Unfortunately the significant America website conveys a somewhat paternal, condescending attitude in the way it dispenses advice. Instead of empowering the jobless to arrange for major changes in an economic system that rewards recklessness, irresponsible speculation and greed, this type of paternalism is commonly quite disempowering - mainly because it reinforces a jobless worker's underlying feeling of personal failure.
Unemployment - The Rhetoric of Disinformation
I have been staring at the US Bureau at work Statistics reports on January and February unemployment. Every month they issue a six page pr release. After spending hrs studying these releases, the only conclusion I can draw would be that the government is deliberately misleading people about US joblessness.
The very first paragraph of the March 10, 2010 release states that non-farm payroll employment was "essentially unchanged" - as only 36,000 jobs were lost (carrying out a lack of 20,000 in February. In then states that this lack of 56,000 jobs led to an internet decline in the official unemployment rate from 10.0 to 9.7 percent. This is because individuals are only counted as unemployed if they actively searched for operate in February. This means about 2.5 million individuals who haven't worked in over a year aren't counted within the official unemployment rate if they didn't locate a job recently.
The pr release concedes that the final amount of individuals unemployed for over 12 months is up 500,000 over February 2009. It also points out the number of "involuntary" part time workers (individuals unable to find full time jobs or with recent cutbacks within their hours) increased by 500,000 in February.
Things i find interesting is if you add the state number unemployed (14.9 million), to the 2.5 million permanently unemployed and the 8.8 involuntary part-timers, you come forth with a total unemployment rate closer to 20 % - a treadmill fifth from the civilian employees.
indiana unemployment
Unfortunately the mainstream media doesn't think about these figures once they set of unemployment. Instead they point to the 0.3 % improvement in unemployment since December 2009 (which actually reflects those who have stopped looking for work) as proof the united states economy is starting to recuperate. They also indicate fractional (0.2%) in the GDP over the last few months. The issue with using GDP as an indicator of economic recovery is that it's mainly according to business and corporate earnings. And the main strategy businesses used to increased profitability this past year (inside a severe recession) ended up being to downsize and lay-off workers (thus increasing unemployment).
The Unemployed like a Pressure Group
The implications of a true unemployment rate close to 20 % are staggering. With one out of every five Americans unemployed, there's enormous potential for the rebirth from the unemployed workers movement active throughout the Great Depression. Its main role would be to fight for crucial reforms the Federal government will not address. Based on a number of social historians, it was mainly America's success in organizing the unemployed that pushed President Roosevelt to enact wide reaching New Deal reforms - a substantial package of legislation that for the first time benefited ordinary workers rather than business interests.
Before the advent of giant multinational corporations, merchants and businesses have always had much more influence over the federal government than ordinary citizens. In fact close study of the united states Constitution reveals our founding fathers meant our government to be setup this way. They deliberately made a government structure that would favour business. In fact using the important exception of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin, most of them admit this within their writings about the first Constitutional Convention.
No One is Born with Rights
Many Americans mistakenly believe they are born with inherent "rights" as a condition of US citizenship. Nothing could be more wrong. People must win their rights by fighting for them. Corporations possess a vested interest in opposing reforms that might potentially affect their profitability. Consequently the US government has never granted popular reforms - in health care, education, work and food safety, environmental protection or voting rights for women and African Americans - due to the fact it was what's right to do. Without exception, every reform benefiting working people, including the 40 hour work week (in 1900 people worked 72 hour weeks), the minimum wage and also the abolition of child labor - has been won by the long hard work of grassroots organizing.
At the moment corporate interests (such as health insurance and drug companies worried about their income) seem to carry much more weight with this new president than the United states citizens. However a robust unemployed workers' union would force Obama to redirect his attention in the wars in the Middle East to critical problems that prevent millions of Americans from seeing real evidence of economic recovery in their everyday lives.
Existing Unemployed Workers Organizations
There are community-led efforts underway in Indiana, Pennsylvania and Maine to organize the unemployed. In February 2009 Tom Lewandowski, a let go electrician, founded the Unemployed and Anxiously Employed Workers Initiative (UAEWI). The group was instrumental in passing state legislation to replenish Indiana's unemployment insurance fund and appropriating $16 million for job retraining programs. At the moment they're demanding a voice in how these money is spent - via a seat on the Northeast Indiana Regional Workforce Board.
In 2002 former UNITE organizer Jack McKay organized laid-off workers in Maine to form Food AND Medicine (FAM) - largely in reaction to some mass exodus of manufacturing jobs from eastern Maine. FAM began as a health care advocacy organization for low income and unemployed workers who were instructed to make a decision between buying groceries or paying for doctors' visits and prescriptions. spending money on health care or spending money on food. It is constantly on the lobby for universal health care and workers rights legislation, including and also the Employee Free Choice Act - a federal bill that will amend the Labor Relations Act to hurry up and simplify the entire process of forming a union. FAM has also formed a cooperative with area farmers to provide affordable, locally grown food to its members.
The Philadelphia Unemployment Project (PUP) is even older, formed throughout the mid-1970s OPEC recession. Aside from working on employment related issues, PUP also represents homeowners facing foreclosure. Their efforts led the Philadelphia courts to determine a course in April 2008 requiring lenders to participate in mediation with homeowners trying to renegotiate their mortgage payments. An initial survey shows they prevented foreclosure among 80 percent of house owners who participated.
indiana unemployment
Where is the AFL-CIO?
The support offered by the AFL-CIO to those fledgling jobless organizations - a resource website and wiki - is token support at best. The website "Working America" premiered in April 2009 to assist struggling families track down local resources, for example benefit entitlements, retraining, child care and food banks.
While an excellent resource, it really is disappointing to see the AFL-CIO take on a social work role and neglect a vital organizing opportunity. Their current efforts fall far short of the offer the unemployed movement received from organized labor in the 1930s. During the Great Depression it had been local union activists - the efforts of the United states and the Congress of commercial Organizations (CIO) are the most useful described - who organized the unemployed. It's obviously in the self-interest of unions to arrange the jobless. With an immense pool of potential scab labor desperate enough to cross union picket lines, ale workers to strike for higher wages and working conditions evaporates. Employers know this, of course, which makes significant gains (in wages or working conditions) impossible in a period of high unemployment. In fact many employers make the most of a recession to demand substantial "claw-backs" (reduced wages and benefits, more and more, less favorable working conditions).
Organized labor is already significantly weakened because of an aggressive union bashing strategy pursued under Taxation and both Bush administrations. The "claw-backs" resulting from a long period of unemployment could cause organized labor to get rid of any voice in america political process.
Exactly what the AFL-CIO Could (and really should) Do
Precisely what it takes from the AFL-CIO pays organizers exercising of union locals to reach out to laid off union members along with other unemployed workers - and training them how you can organize and lobby collectively for jobs creation legislation, universal healthcare and protections against foreclosure and eviction when they fall behind within their mortgage payments.
There is already a strong tendency for Americans responsible themselves once they lose a job. Thus an extremely important component from the outreach process is helping them realize that their situation comes from major flaws in the present US political and economic system - as opposed to some personal failing. Unfortunately the significant America website conveys a somewhat paternal, condescending attitude in the way it dispenses advice. Instead of empowering the jobless to arrange for major changes in an economic system that rewards recklessness, irresponsible speculation and greed, this type of paternalism is commonly quite disempowering - mainly because it reinforces a jobless worker's underlying feeling of personal failure.
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