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:: Wednesday, December 24, 2003 ::

Why Do the Unemployed Remain Invisible? By Harry Kelber
LaborTalk for December 24, 2003
Why Do the Unemployed Remain Invisible?
How Can the Labor Movement Help Them?

Even though the federal government admits that there are some nine million workers who are unemployed, that has caused very little public indignation. Nor has the fact that more than two million have been unable to find a job for more than 27 months evoked a national outcry that Congress and the Bush administration do something about their plight.

It is easy to forget that those statistics represent human beings, because the unemployed remain almost completely invisible. We don't see them or hear them. They don't act mad at their former employers for depriving them of a livelihood. They don't demonstrate against Congress or the White House that have denied them even temporary assistance.

The docility of the nation's unemployed is strange, because American workers are known for sticking up for their rights. Apparently, they don't blame their employers for the layoffs. It's the free enterprise system that's at fault, they're told, and how is a jobless worker to fight the system?

In many countries around the world, especially in Europe, even threats of layoffs are greeted with mass protests, work stoppages and sit-ins. Americans, who will get into a fist-fight over a parking spot or a bar argument over a baseball score, don't raise hell when they are told they're terminated from a job they may have held ten, twenty or even thirty years.

The jobless are rarely in the news, and the AFL-CIO, who should be their biggest defenders, use their plight only as talking points to attack the Bush administration. Maybe if we knew more about how unemployed workers feel, we'd be more sensitive to their needs.

posted 7:13 PM :: reference link :: 0 comments ::

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