Senate  Blocks  Aid for  1.7 Million Jobless,

Ready to Enjoy a Week-Long July 4 Holiday

By Harry Kelber

Senate Republicans have blocked  a Democratic attempt to extend unemployment  assistance to the  1.7 million people whose unemployment insurance benefits have expired. The bill would have approved  an emergency unemployment compensation program through November 30.

While Democrats contended that the additional spending was justified to help the unemployed pay their bills and boost the economy, the Republicans insisted that the $33 billion price tag was too much to add to an already bloated federal deficit.

The Senate will consider the extension of unemployment insurance benefits after their week-long July 4th holiday. And it is far from certain that the bill will be approved, since the Democrats do not as yet have the 60 votes to prevent a Republican filibuster. Thus, 1.7 million families are continuing to be denied money for the bare necessities of life.

Meanwhile, the July 2 employment report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics was hardly comforting to the many millions of jobless people who had hoped to see a major pickup in the labor market.  The number of jobs declined by 125,000 in June, reflecting a decrease of 225,000 temporary employees working on Census 2010. Private sector employment edged up by 83,000, far less than the monthly new entrants into the labor market.

Business economists and corporate lobbyists tried to describe the current situation as “slow, but steady progress” toward economic recovery, and there was no need, they said, for special legislation for the jobless.  There were similar messages coming from the economic soothsayers in the Obama administration.  

AFL-CIO Richard Trumka announced his expected reaction: “The June figures should be a wakeup call to Republicans in Congress who have refused to create jobs, stop layoffs and help the jobless.”  (Do you think the Republicans will be listening? Haven’t Congress and the big banks heard Trumka’s patter many times?)

Not Words, But Urgent  Actions, Can Help the Jobless!

The countless speeches that Trumka  and other labor leaders have  made, the many conferences and seminars they have sponsored, and the five-point jobs programs they have announced, have not moved either Congress or Corporate America to create the jobs that are needed for the 14.6 million people who are officially unemployed and the additional millions who are  involuntarily without full-time jobs.

The opportunity for action on jobs is now, while congressional lawmakers are back home in their districts for a week-long holiday,  just as they were during the Memorial Day recess.

Let every State AFL-CIO and Central Labor Council quickly send delegations to  the congressional lawmakers in their district to discuss job creation. If necessary, let’s arrange sit-ins in each lawmaker’s office until he or she comes up with a practical plan to provide useful jobs for the millions of workers who need them.

Let’s see that the AFL-CIO’s top officers and each member of its Executive Council become a visible part of the action in behalf of the unemployed during the July4th recess. Let them propose a national mobilization to  command the attention of the Washington elite about the plight of the unemployed.

If you think these suggestions for action are too extreme, imagine how you and your family would feel if you didn’t have a paycheck for 27 weeks or more.

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Even in good times, it’s tough to be a worker, skilled or not. From the moment you walk into the workplace, you’re at the mercy of the boss, or his supervisor, especially if you don’t belong to a union.

One of the worst things is to be laid off, because a board of directors, whose members you have never seen, has decreed that it’s time to cut labor costs, and you become one of the innocent victims,

In a time of mass layoffs, when workers are often compelled to compete with each other for jobs, labor solidarity is one of the highest  moral virtues in the union movement  That means helping your union brothers  and sisters in a time of economic crisis.. You never know when you’ll need and want their help.—Harry Kelber