AFL-CIO Jobs Program Needs Mass Demonstration to Back It Up. Democrats Must Be Forced to Pass Jobs Program Right Now!

The AFL-CIO put forward a public 5-point legislative program to create jobs.

While this was a step forward, they left out the most important ingredient of any real campaign to achieve this or any other jobs program – a mass mobilization of the millions of union members, community groups, progressives, unemployed workers to march in the streets of the cities and in Washington, D.C. to fight for the program.

AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka announced a 5-point plan to create jobs It is a welcome sign that the official labor movement is finally addressing the catastrophic crisis of unemployment with a legislative initiative.

Even though it took over a year and 8 million lost jobs for AFL-CIO officialdom to speak out, the widely publicized announcement should help put the unemployment crisis up front politically in the labor movement and give encouragement to all those groups and organizations that want to carry the fight for jobs forward.

Trumka was joined by NAACP President Benjamin Jealous; National Council of La Raza (NCLR) President Janet Murguia; Leadership Conference on Civil Rights President (LCCR) Wade Henderson; and Deepak Bhargava, executive director of the Center for Community Change. EPI President Larry Mishel moderated the conversation, which Jealous called the beginning of a national human rights movement for economic opportunity.

The AFL-CIO figures show that it would take the creation of 533,000 jobs per month for two years just to get the employment level back to where it was before the downturn. These figures assume no more job loss, a dubious assumption. The numbers do not account for the millions of workers who have either dropped out of the work force because they are discouraged or who are being force to work part-time even though they need full time work. The real number of unemployed, under-employed and discouraged workers is well above 25 million.

Any legislative program that does not have a massive campaign of militant, forceful demonstrations – a campaign of struggle – will inevitably be mired down in the Democratic Party caucus. The Democratic Party leadership has already sold out 95 percent of the health care program; has let the Employee Free Choice Act sit on the back burner; helped turn over trillions of dollars to the banks and to GM and Chrysler; and is getting ready to vote for more troops to Afghanistan.

The AFL-CIO said that if Congress does not pass jobs legislation, then they will target the enemies of that legislation in the elections. It is worth while recalling what Senator Dick Durban blurted out in frustration about the power of the banks in Congress after he was defeated in a Senate subcommittee fight over bankruptcy reform where the Democrats were the majority: “Frankly, they own the place” he said.

Unemployed workers and their families cannot wait for the corrupt legislature to deliberate and compromise and water down a jobs program, if they ever really take it up.

There is nothing wrong with lobbying these sell outs and vacillators. But the only effective form of lobbying is to disrupt the daily routines of these lawmakers in the halls of Congress and confront them with the organized wrath of the people.

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Nov 18, 2009