JwJ Vigils Continue to Raise Alarm About Jobs Crisis
When Brother Herb Keener of CWA 6215 arrived, he doubled our participation at the monthly jobs crisis vigil in front of the Bureau of Labor Statistics office. Until then, I was by myself, except for Channels 4, 11, 23 & 39. The TV crews were nice enough to video us handing out leaflets and making a public statement on the need to get active to demand an end to this ongoing jobs crisis. A lot of national and local news broadcasts, for a change, covered the jobs crisis because it has gotten so much worse. Only 18,000 jobs were created in June, 2011. Just to stay where we are, we need about 200,000 jobs/month. The Bureau also lowered their figures for May, which were devastating even before!
Here is the text of the leaflet Herb and I handed out:
Unemployment:
"No News" Is Bad News!
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports "no news." All jobless figures are "essentially unchanged" for June, 2011. The official rate of unemployment worsened only slightly, they say, to 9.2%.
In other words, the level of workers' suffering across the nation grinds on. There are STILL 14.1 (9.2%) million officially looking for work, STILL 8.6 million involuntary part-time workers, and STILL 2.7 million "marginally attached" unemployed who don't count at all because they haven't even looked for work in the last 4 weeks! A quick calculation of total unemployment and total workforce shows 16.6% STILL in unemployment and misery.
Unemployment STILL shows a racist bias with the official rate for Blacks at 16.2% and Hispanics 11.6%. Teenagers STILL suffer an official rate of 24.5%!
Employers are STILL squeezing more work out of their smaller workforces with productivity increases since the recession began larger than today's unemployment rate. Corporate cash reserves, estimated in the trillions, STILL shows no employer intention to address the jobs crisis. Politicians, actually deadlocked over making more cuts and more layoffs, STILL show no intention (beyond lip service) to alleviate unemployment suffering.
The "prosperity" phase of the normal business cycle STILL thunders on with stocks up 10% for the year. The next crisis of the normal business cyele STILL impends.
North Texas Jobs with Justice calls on the only force in America that can set things right -- the people themselves. Just as in the last great crisis, the people can create a jobs sharing program. The people can cause government to create great job-producing institutions like the Works Progress Administration. The people can shorten working hours and end unemployment.
--Gene Lantz, Organizer, North Texas Jobs with Justice
www.labordallas.org labordallas@sbcglobal.net
Most activists missed the fun, but they'll get another chance on August 4th when new statistics are released!
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