Bar the 5 weeks of work I got in July, next week will officially mark 6-months unemployment for me this year. The last year I drew unemployment benefits was 1994.
So I’m still getting unemployment benefits. I still have health benefits and I still have a roof over my head. That’s my critical checklist. Hopefully, I’m still a good dad and husband and a reasonable person to live with, although that’s not for me to say.
One guy who just got re-hired is Ben Bernanke, who Bush hired in 2005 and whom Obama has just nominated for another 4-years. Yet he oversaw the worst financial meltdown in US history. It’s a bit like a carpenter who was put in charge of the construction of a house, which all but fell down and then getting re-hired to prove to the owners that things are now stable. Mmmm.
One unemployment stat that came out in the Financial Times this week which has been a measure of “job confidence” since 1982. The poll asks, “do you think jobs are plentiful?” Those questioned that replied in the affirmative (yes), in July, was the lowest ever. Some 3.6% of Americans think jobs are plentiful. My question is Who are these People? The 96.4% want to know.
At my Local of the Carpenters union some 400 of us are unemployed, including about 75 apprentices. I’m practically at the bottom of the list since I worked in July and am #299. The positive thing is that we’re starting to concretely organize. This Thursday will be our first meeting of 713 Unemployed Carpenters. I had a guy approach me and thank me for speaking at the union meeting last Thursday where I spoke about how big Healthcare Insurance is utterly dominating the shaping of the upcoming healthcare bill and also about the needs of our unemployed carpenters. This worker that approached me had been out of work since last year and has run out of unemployment benefits. He will be eligible for the Federal extension but that won’t kick in until December. He is unlikely to get a job out of the hall because there is hardly a single job coming in. When I asked if his family still had health benefits, he laughed in my face. It reminded me of another carpenter who told me he couldn’t get new health insurance because he had polyps. What a f******* world we live in.
Last night I spoke with a dude who’s in Speak Out, a socialist group that LMV works with – we had a joint meeting last night in Berkeley with about 40 people at – and his brother is a union carpenter in Sacramento. The union up there has 900 unemployed members! And their Local is smaller than our Local. He is keen to help them organize and we are keen to help.
Organizing the unemployed is always hard because people get jobs and move on. The difference between now and the past is that moving on is becoming harder and organizing for is getting easier. Let them have their “jobless recovery”. We’re not going to sit on our hands any longer.
If you want to join our fight give us a bell! Rob 510 220-3047
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