"Justice For All" Rally Seeks to Unify Progressive Causes - WREG

"Justice For All" Rally Seeks to Unify Progressive Causes - WREG

A coalition of progressives groups representative women, labor, immigrants, and the LGBT community, organized a rally Saturday in Memphis to protest recent actions by the conservative Republican Tennessee legislature to restrict the collective bargaining rights of public employees, cut funding for Planned Parenthood, and to rollback and prohibit local laws to prohibit discrimination against gays and lesbians and LGBT people. 

In addition to anti-gay and anti-labor legislation at the state level, the Memphis City government is considering proposals to privatize sanitation services and destroy the local AFSCME labor union that Dr. MLK came to Memphis to march with to protest low wages prior to his assassination.

This Labor Day, Workers Face Weak Economy on All Fronts - Working In These Times

This Labor Day, Workers Face Weak Economy on All Fronts - Working In These Times

FDR's Labor Day Please Resonates Today

“Labor Day symbolizes our determination to achieve an economic freedom for the average man which will give his political freedom reality.”

Robert Reich: The Great Jobs Depression Worsens

Six Shocking Ways Conservatives Helped Destroy the American Economy


Obama Should Follow the Example of FDR

The Lost Decade

The past decade was a rough one for American workers. Wages have declined, and millions of jobs disappeared. We can thank George W. Bush and the Republicans for most of the misery, though the corporate wing (and breast) of the Democratic Party is also partly to blame (NAFTA, etc.)

Here's the consequence of Reagan--Bush onomics:

Aughts Were a Lost Decade for U.S. Economy, Workers

"The past decade was the worst for the U.S. economy in modern times, a sharp reversal from a long period of prosperity that is leading economists and policymakers to fundamentally rethink the underpinnings of the nation's growth.

It was, according to a wide range of data, a lost decade for American workers. The decade began in a moment of triumphalism -- there was a current of thought among economists in 1999 that recessions were a thing of the past. By the end, there were two, bookends to a debt-driven expansion that was neither robust nor sustainable.

There has been zero net job creation since December 1999. No previous decade going back to the 1940s had job growth of less than 20 percent. Economic output rose at its slowest rate of any decade since the 1930s as well."

No wonder, Americans' Job Satisfaction Falls to Record Lows

A Not So Happy Labor Day

It's a not-so-happy Labor Day

Labor Day By the Numbers

TOTAL JOBS LOST DURING THE RECESSION: 6.9 MILLION

• New jobs needed per month to keep up with population growth: 127,000
• Jobs lost in August 2009: 216,000
• Jobs needed to regain pre-recession unemployment levels: 9.4 million
• Manufacturing jobs lost since the start of the recession: 2.0 million (14.6% of sector’s jobs)
• Construction jobs lost in the recession: 1.4 million (19%, nearly one in five construction jobs)
• Mass layoffs (50 or more people by a single employer) in July 2009: 2,157; jobs lost: 206,791

UNEMPLOYMENT RATE: 9.7%

• Number unemployed: 14.9 million (up from 7.5 million in December 2007)
• Underemployment rate: 16.8%; Share of workers un- or underemployed: roughly 1 in 6
• Under- and unemployed, marginally attached and involuntary part-time workers: 26.4 million
• Unemployment rate, ages 16 to 24: 18.2%
• Male unemployment: 10.9%; female unemployment: 8.2%
• White unemployment: 8.9%; black unemployment: 15.1%; Hispanic unemployment: 13%
• Unemployment rate, young college graduates: 5.9% (2nd worst on record); Worst recorded unemployment rate for young college graduates: 6.2% (1983)
• Traditional ratio of young college grads’ unemployment to overall rate: 50%; Current ratio: 70%
• Portion of unemployed who have been jobless more than six months: one third

Workers Have Less to Celebrate This Labor Day
Robert Kuttner: Hard Labor
Robert Reich: The Real News About Jobs and Wages--An Ode to Labor Day
DSA: Talking Union

UPDATE: Obama Speaks at AFL-CIO Labor Day Picnic

Worked to Death vs. Unemployed

I haven't been able to blog much the past few days because I'm working 10-11 hour days! My company has "acquired" several other companies and with the consolidation some workers were laid off--leaving fewer workers to do more work.

Question: Is this a good thing or a bad thing? It is good that I still have a job and am not unemployed like millions of people. But what about the "eight hour" work day workers fought and died for a century ago? What about leisure and family time?

Over the past few decades, worker productivity has INCREASED, along with corporate profits, while wages have remained steady or declined.

In the current recession, companies are laying off workers, but trying to increase the "productivity" of the workers left.

So should we just be lucky we have a job? What can workers, especially those who do not have a union to represent them do?

Jobs With Justice
Labor Net
Worker's Independent News
DSA: Talking Union
Employee Free Choice Act

Workers Unite!

Angry Laid-Off Workers Occupy Chicago Factory

WORKERS OCCUPYING the Republic Windows & Doors factoryslated for closure are vowing to remain in the Chicago plant until they win the $1.5 million in severance and vacation pay owed them by management. In a tactic rarely used in the U.S. since the labor struggles of the 1930s, the workers, members of United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) Local 1110, refused to leave the plant on December 5, its last scheduled day of operation.

Barack Obama and other Democratic leaders have spoken out in support of the workers (what a change from 1981 when Ronald Reagan launched a war PATCO's striking workers!)

Chicago Factory Layoffs A "Wake-Up Call to America"

The Republic workers have become the focus of a a rejuvenated labor movement under attack by the Republican policies of Bush and the current crisis of American capitalism. While Wall Street and banks (like Bank of America) got a massive bailout, Republicans are trying to block a bailout for the U.S. auto industry. The Republic workers struggle highlights the current class struggle in the U.S.

See Socialist Worker:
Workers Occupy Chicago Factory
A Rallying Point for Labor

Jobs With Justice

The $70 hour UAW Myth

Well, how was your Thanksgiving? Any arguments with Republican relatives? You probably had one about the Union Auto Workers making $70. Here's you some return firepower;

Debunking the Myth of the $70 per hour Auto Worker

Happy "Labor Day": Workers Worse Off!

Happy "Labor Day"!

Report Card: U.S. Workers Worse Off

NEW YORK (AP) -- This Labor Day finds workers in worse shape than they've been in years, according to a scorecard released Monday by Rutgers University.

In its first national labor scorecard, the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations said more than 10 percent of Americans are unemployed, discouraged from seeking work or underemployed. That is a nearly 25-percent increase from one year earlier.

Professor Douglas Kruse, a labor economist who created the scorecard, said a sharp decline in the number of Americans able to find full-time jobs, along with growing consumer debt and health care costs, were causes for concern.

"But there are some bright spots long term," Kruse said, including improvements in workplace safety, a small but growing percentage of employers offering support for childcare and employee wellness programs, and more Americans who are completely satisfied with their jobs.

Meanwhile, the Labor Department last week said the number of people signing up for jobless benefits declined for the third straight period but remained above 400,000 -- an indicator of a slowing economy.

The Rutgers labor scorecard offered other sobering findings:

About 530,000 were subject to mass layoffs in the last year, growth of nearly 5 percent, but a lower rate than five and 10 years ago.
The median weekly earnings for American workers have not grown in real terms over the last eight years.
At $6.55, the federal minimum wage is worth 40 cents less per hour, in inflation-adjusted dollars, than it was a decade ago.
While employer-assisted childcare and employee wellness programs have grown quickly over the last decade, they still cover less than one quarter of American workers.
Roughly 4 percent of the workforce wants to work full-time, but is working part time because they can't find full-time work.
The scorecard, which doesn't assign grades but charts whether indicators are improving or getting worse, is based primarily on data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Recession? We're Already Living in One!

Barbara Ehrenreich, Experts Warn of Recession--Duh, We're Living in One Already, shows that traditional economic measurements like economic growth and unemployment have become decoupled from the real lives of working class people. Wages have been declining despite increases in economic productivity and even low unemployment rates do not reflect the extent of workers without full time jobs. And the only candidate who would do something about it, John Edwards is on the ropes, ignored by the media and Democratic voters!