WIN Looks Back At A Year Of Massive Jobs Loss As Workers And Unions Struggle For Change

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.laborradio.org/node/12661

Submitted by Doug Cunningham on December 30, 2009 - 5:14pm
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By Doug Cunningham

Immense economic pain was inflicted upon millions of U.S. workers and their families in 2009 as Wall Street banks were bailed out with hundreds of billions of dollars. The banksters quickly returned to their old greedy ways. AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka led a protest at the banker’s convention in Chicago.

: ““We’re here to make a difference, to clean up Wall Street’s reeking garbage that’s contaminating Main Street.”

: “We are facing a jobs crisis in this nation of a magnitude not seen since the Great Depression. And we’re facing the prospects of a jobless recovery that can last for years.”

USAction’s Alan Charney announcing the Jobs For America Now coalition of 60 organizations urging Congress to enact immediate bold jobs creation legislation.

2009 saw the loss of millions of jobs as the Great Recession ravaged workers. The AFL-CIO urged a second stimulus focused like a laser on job creation. The House passed a $174 billion jobs bill and the Senate is expected to act in the New Year.

Labor pushed for health care reform with a public option, no tax on health benefits and an employer coverage mandate. We got far less than that.

Earlier in the year the Sheet Metal Workers Vincent Panvini articulated the disgust workers and their unions have for politicians who cave to the corporations on health care reform and the Employee Free Choice Act labor law reform.

: ““They’re gutless and spineless, I call them. Some of these Blue Dog Democrats – they forget where they came from and, you know, they drink the Kool-Aid.”

The once-mighty U.S. auto industry collapsed in 2009, with both GM and Chrysler filing for bankruptcy. The UAW lost tens of thousands of jobs, made steep concessions for new hires and was forced to accept billions of dollars less to pay for retiree health care. United Steel Workers Vice President Tom Conway says the collapse of the U.S. auto industry is directly linked to decades of bad trade policies.

: “Two decades or so of this continual off-shoring and pandering to the Wall Street monied interests need to come to an end. It’s a system that’s broken.”

At the National Labor College in Maryland, new Labor Secretary Hilda Solis vowed to better protect workers.

: “Enforcement of our labor laws will be intensified to provide an effective deterrent to employers who put their workers' lives at risk When it comes to workplace protection, the Department of Labor is back in the enforcement business.”

In other labor news developments this year the U.S. Catholic Church reached agreement with organized labor on principles to “respect the just rights” of Catholic health care workers and U.S. Labor Against The War called for resistance to President Obama’s escalation of the Afghan war.

In The New Year workers and their unions will continue to struggle for the Employee Free Choice Act labor reform, jobs creation legislation and re-regulation of the financial industry.



Mods this story is not copyrighted, so I posted the complete story. WIN is very happy with the DU echoing their stories BTW.