JOBS POSITION PAPER, 2/26/10

The US government’s insistence of reliance on the “private sector” to create jobs must be admitted by all to be a colossal failure and nothing more than a fraudulent prescription sold to the workers of our nation.

Even most conservative business columnists and economists admit that the “recovery” will be long in coming and will likely result in much long-term unemployment for millions of workers.

Further, the often repeated claim that small business growth will create enough jobs to put even a small dent in unemployment is absurd. As of Feb, 2010, we have 15-20 million unemployed workers, many of whom are facing possible expiration of already extended unemployment benefits soon. There could not be enough be enough small businesses created nor expanded, even with taxpayer provided subsidies, to put those millions to work at jobs that allow them to become productive consumers capable of supporting families and paying rent or mortgages. And in a society based on consumerism, recovery is not possible without wages high enough to allow those wage earners to purchase big ticket items.

The promise of “massive numbers of Green jobs” ‘is simply that, a promise hoped for but not likely achievable as China is already significantly ahead of the US in mass production of “green technology”.

It is time we admitted that the present policies have not only failed but continue to destroy our communities and our collective economic security as most recently demonstrated by the Whirlpool closing an 1100 worker plant in Evansville, IN and taking all of those jobs to Mexico, a move made possible and perhaps even encouraged by the passage of the US sponsored North American Free Trade Act.

We must begin to use our tax dollars, which we can increase by massive military/defense budget cuts AND increasing taxes on those corporations that have been looting our nation’s treasury for the past decades. Those available funds should be used to create public sector jobs, jobs that would provide an alternative income, jobs that would support families, jobs that would re-build mass transit, jobs that would increase teachers in public schools, jobs that would unleash the now pent-up and frustrated energy and labor of unemployed workers who wish for nothing more than the right to work with decent wages, jobs security, and dignity.

We don’t have to be rocket scientists to recognize failure, and this economy has failed not only the unemployed, but many of those still employed but uncertain about their futures.

But as working people, we recognize and understand the potential in each of us individually and collectively to achieve what is certainly possible, but that requires a radical restructuring of our economy in order to begin living without fear for ourselves and the futures of our families and communities.