UCubed  activists will select their own leaders in each cube, neighborhood, block and higher group as well. The  UCubed website is: www.unionofunemployed.com.

UCubed now has 1,649 members in over 1,400 zip codes—up from 321 only 30 days ago. Its job activists can be found in every state of the union except  Alaska and Nebraska. Three hundred and fifty-nine (359) cubes are actively functioning--a five-fold increase from the 72 a month ago.

Last week, the cube-to-cube linking function went live, says Rick Sloan, Acting Executive Director of Ur Union of  Unemployed. One jobs activist, Alexandra Aldrich, has grown her original cube into seven cubes. With two more cubes, she will  have created the first UCubed Neighborhood, near Boston, Mass.

Sloan, who is also the Communications Director of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, reports that 42,000 people visited the I.A.M. website and viewed over 265,000 pages of content, almost double the prior month’s traffic.

The ‘Union of Unemployed’ Is Reaching a Wider Audience

Much of the union’s growth this past month was driven by bloggers at Alternet, Daily Kos, Common Dreams, Democratic Underground, Iowa Blog and LaborTalk.  UCubed was profiled on RT and in Congressional Quarterly, Chattahbox, In These Times, Axis of Logic and Digital Journal and Huffington Post, that carried a Sloan blog.

“Ur Union of the Unemployed” is an outgrowth of  a “JOBS Now “ campaign, launched by  I.A.M. president, Tom Buffenbarger several months ago.

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If unemployment remains as high as it is today, it is more than likely that at least ten million workers will still be without a job by the time of the November mid-term elections. The subject of jobs is almost certainly to be a major issue, with Democratic and Republican candidates forced to state what they would do for the unemployed if elected.

This gives Ur Union of the Unemployed seven months in which to multiply its arsenal of UCubes and force the politicians in Washington to pay attention. This is the first time since the Great Depression that millions of unemployed workers have a union to speak up for them.

We hope they make the most  of it.--Harry Kelber