:: rawblogXport ::

:: Thursday, January 01, 2004 ::

It Was a Grim Year for Workers and Unions; What Has to Be Done to Make 2004 Better
LaborTalk By Harry Kelber
• A March for Jobs in Washington with a demand that Congress spend $18.3 billion (the same as in Iraq) for public works jobs for the unemployed.

There’s plenty of work to be done to make America a better place to live in. Many of our roads, bridges, dams, public buildings, schools and hospitals are in need of repairs. We can use more construction workers, teachers, nurses, police officers, firefighters child care workers, laboratory technicians security agents, and a host of other workers to perform jobs that are essential to a well-ordered society. Such a march could attract huge numbers of unemployed representing a cross-section of the U.S. population. It would enhance labor’s public image. It would serve as an excellent organizing effort. It would be a dramatic event that the media, the White House and politicians everywhere would have to pay attention to.

• Let’s mobilize 25,000 unemployed workers in front of the White House to ask President Bush for those promised jobs. Bush has repeatedly said that he won’t be satisfied until “every American who wants a job can have a job.” Let him hear directly from the unemployed, who want to know when and how he plans to fulfill that promise.

If it were done right, with imagination, it could be an event that the media would have to feature and it would put the Bush administration on the defensive. It could provide fuel for a sustained national campaign for jobs.

posted 10:12 AM :: reference link :: 0 comments ::

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