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Report
on Organizational Activities in
Behalf of Job Creation
Trudy Goldberg, Chair, NJFAC
presented at: "The Jobs Crisis and What to Do About it,"
3/26/10, Murphy Institute for Worker Education & Labor Studies,
New York, NY.
Co-sponsors: Murphy Institute for Worker Education & Labor
Studies and the National Jobs for All Coalition (NJFAC)
For decades, we’ve had a chronic shortage of jobs--let
alone living-wage jobs. Hardly anyone paid attention, including
many on the Left. But today’s seemingly intractable, mass
unemployment, nearly double digit for months, can’t be ignored.
Still it has yet to galvanize a movement to bring unemployment
down to pre-recession levels, much less address our chronic problem.
And we have a serious chronic problem. As the handout from the
National Jobs for All Coalition shows (see below), the chronic
problems of unemployment, underemployment and low wages afflicted
millions of workers-- even in the year 2000, when we were at a
30-year low of 4% unemployment.
New Dealers strove to make permanent reforms while the memory
of mass unemployment was still fresh. Those of us who favor living-wage
jobs for all are determined to strike while the iron is hot. .
We know that to secure the right to living wage jobs takes a movement
comparable to the great mobilizations that brought civil and political
rights to all our people. We know, too, that those civil and political
rights are not secure until they are bolstered by economic rights.
And we know that this is a formidable task, for it strikes at
the heart of employer hegemony that has seldom been greater.
Social Movements need two types of participants: those who benefit
directly and those moved by conscience. Both are important. And
they are not dichotomous. Direct beneficiaries of full employment
are elusive. As some of you have experienced, workers unemployed
during a downturn tend to see their plight as temporary and may
not regard themselves as beneficiaries for long. They want jobs,
but a movement for full employment can begin with direct job creation,
as Phil Harvey has just shown us. The experience of being unemployed
may increase empathy for the unemployed making those unemployed
during this Great Recession potential conscience participants.
The chronic victims may be hard to organize although who would
have thought that welfare mothers could organize and join a movement
for welfare rights. With both groups of the unemployed, there
is the problem of self-blame, shame and the likelihood that they
won’t see themselves as entitled to what should be a human
right. If beneficiaries can be broadened to include the underpaid
and underemployed—and it is important to recognize that
chronic unemployment depresses wages—then movement potential
grows. Many more could be included in a full employment movement
if we can convince them how severely unemployment bites. One of
our handouts refers you to a recent survey that revealed “the
trauma of joblessness; such findings should increase empathy and
prick consciences).* And then there are the costs in revenues
lost to the Treasury and the Social Security Trust funds. Yesterday
the New York Times (March 25, 2010) carried a front-page story
revealing that for the first time ever, social security took in
less funds than it paid out; that wasn’t supposed to happen
until 2016, but the unemployment brought that shortfall six years
earlier than anticipated. There is, as well, the loss of potential
output—that we are literally throwing away the goods and
services the unemployed could produce. James Galbraith recently
helped us to frame the policy choices in a Great Recession in
terms of useful or useless deficits: “The only choice is
what kind of deficit to run: useful deficits that rebuild the
country, as in the New Deal, or useless ones, with millions kept
unnecessarily on unemployment insurance when they could instead
be given jobs” (The Nation, March 22, 2010, p.
24).
Action Report
Not enough has happened yet, but action is accelerating. Logan
Martinez, our Outreach Coordinator in Dayton Ohio, is in touch
with groups all over the country who are advocating remedies to
this Great Recession. He identifies five major organizations/networks.
We could use a clearinghouse to get a better idea of the range
of action, to coordinate efforts and to help people to find opportunities
for taking actionn in their communities.
I don’t have time to say much about four of them:
1. The AFL-CIO: Make Wall Street Pay project which reportedly
included 200 demonstrations this week. .. The focus is on regulatory
legislation, union pension funds and making Wall Street pay for
recovery. Recently AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka was specific
about jobs; he called for a program of $900 billion to create
jobs, half of which would be financed by a tax on trading of financial
assets.
2. Jobs for America Now is DC- based and counts as membbers over
100 national organizations, including the AFL/CIO, Wider Opportunities
for Women, Coalition on Human Needs, Economic Policy Institute….
They have a. 5-point program: that would create 4.6 million jobs
in the first year, over half of which would be the result of a
tax credit to employers in return for job creation.
3. Jobs with Justice, They are organizing around the country in
support of a major piece of legislation for jobs. In Chicago they
are said to be very accepting of a tax on financial assets to
fund the programs, an approach advocated by our affiliate, the
Chicago Political Economy Group. The Jobs with Justice Website
says “Join us at the U.S. Social Forum this June.”
This will be held in Detroit. The impressive Poor People’s
Economic Human Rights Campaign will soon begin a march from New
Orleans to the Social Forum. Probably there should be another
type of organization supporting jobs: anti-poverty groups like
PPEHRC. Jobs with Justice is also working with students, sponsoring
a Student Labor Week of Action March 28-April 4th. The student
group will undertake a series of escalating mobilizations through
the spring semester, including rallies and student walkouts.
4. Union of the Unemployed. Organized by the International Association
of Machinists and Aerospace Workers: This union which was formed
last summer includes 4-5,000 unemployed workers. You lost your
job. You’re not alone. Thirty-one million Americans face
the same challenges. You want your job back. You want your life
back. The idea is that if millions of jobless join together and
act as an organization, they are more likely to get Congress and
the White House to provide the jobs that are urgently needed.
Whether this will resemble the organizations of unemployed workers
during the Great Depression remains to be seen. But it is a promising
initiative.
5.Living-Wage Jobs for All Campaign, an outcome of a conference
initiated by NJFAC and co-sponsored by diverse organizations—religious,
labor, academic, anti-poverty and welfare rights. The Campaign’s
unique emphasis is on a much larger program than anything currently
proposed. Our letter to the Nation, April 5, 2010 (also a handout)
congratulates economist Bob Pollin for raising the ante to 18
million jobs by 2012, but we consider that an interim target.
If we stop there, we fail to deal with the chronic high unemployment
and low wages that persist even in “better” times.
Nor does it raise the fundamental issue of the right to a job
at a living wage. We will support efforts to increase jobs, even
if they fall short of the mark and work with the other networks
we’ve identified—and more. But we are determined to
keep our eye on the prize, and we will try to convince other groups
to the same. Won’t your join us. in some actions here in
the metropolitan area.
As a concrete proposal to advance our strategic thinking and advocacy
for full employment, the National Jobs for All Coalition proposes
that we convene a follow-up meeting for New York-area people to
discuss:
Ways we could collaborate in this area to advance this agenda
by engaging in
• :Public education programs, such as additional events
and conferences
• Legislative action
• Coalition-building and networking to mobilize a broad
range of
• labor, community, religious and human needs organizations
• Public actions such as press conferences, demonstrations
or other types of broad-based mobilizations. One such model for
this is the “First Friday” actions to call attention
to the monthly release of unemployment statistics by the Department
of Labor. One First Friday in the New York metropolitan area is
scheduled for Elizabeth NJ, Friday, May 7th.**
• And last but not least—we should also discuss funding
and resource mobilization—because know it will take money
and a paid organizing staff to achieve our bold agenda.
We’ve requested the use of a classroom here at the Murphy
Institute two weeks from today. We propose to hold an initial
meeting of all who would like to pursue a serious jobs creation
agenda on Friday, April 9 at 9:15 AM, right here in this building.
We are circulating a sign-up list, and if you are interested in
being involved in the network, we’ll provide you with follow-up
information by email or phone. We very much hope to see you then.
*See M. Luo & M. Thee-Brenan. (2009). "Poll reveals trauma
of joblessness in U. S.", New York Times, December
15, A1. Available on line at http://www.transitioning.org/2010/02/03/poll-reveals-trauma-of-joblessness-in-u-s-new-york-times/http://www.transitioning.org/2010/02/03/poll-reveals-trauma-of-joblessness-in-u-s-new-york-times/
**New Jersey’s One-Stop Career Center (formerly the unemployment
office), 921 Elizabeth Ave., Elizabeth, NJ, from 10 a.m. till
1:00 p.m. Elizabeth is just across the river from Manhattan, immediately
south of Newark. For information, be in touch with the organizer,
Rev. Dr. Douglas Grote, dfgrote@yahoo.com
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