AMERICAN LABOUR:

ONLINE DAY OF SOLIDARITY WITH THE JOBLESS:



Tomorrow there will an "online day of solidarity" with the unemployed in the USA. Here's the story and appeal from the AFL-CIO Blog.
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Join Online Day of Solidarity with the Jobless Dec. 7
by Mike Hall, Dec 3, 2010

Republican lawmakers continue to hold hostage vital unemployment insurance survival help for millions of jobless workers, vowing to keep the Senate gridlocked until the nation’s wealthy are guaranteed continued tax breaks.

More than 900,000 workers already have lost their unemployment insurance since Republicans pulled the plug Nov. 30. Every day another 38,000 job-seekers lose their unemployment insurance.

So please join us Tuesday, Dec. 7 for an online day of solidarity with the jobless via Facebook and Twitter. It’s simple.

•Update your status on Facebook and Twitter to say you’re “in solidarity with jobless workers.”
•Sign our petition urging Congress to extend emergency unemployment aid here.
•Change your Facebook and Twitter profile pictures with images here.
Click here for complete instructions.

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THE PETITION:

Please go to this link to add your name to the following petition.

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"Letting emergency unemployment benefits expire will hurt our fragile economy just as we're struggling to recover. With five job hunters for every one opening, long-term unemployed workers need uninterrupted help to keep food on the table. I urge you to renew the federal unemployment insurance programs immediately!"

HUMOUR;

THINGS TO DO AS THE EMPIRE FALLS APART:

CANADIAN LABOUR NORTHWEST TERRITORY:

NO APPEALS FOR NORTHERN WORKERS:

Workers in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut are operating at a disadvantage compared to other Canadian workers as if they are turned down for EI because there is no territorial appeals board. This despite the fact that they pay EI premiums at the same rate as southerners. The Northern Territories Federation of Labour wants to see that changed. Here's the story from the Northern News Service.

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UNION WANTS EI APPEAL BOARD IN YELLOWKNIFE

Terrence McEachern
Northern News Services
Published Friday, September 24, 2010
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - The Northern Territories Federation of Labour says Northerners are being discriminated against because they are being denied a Northern-based Employment Insurance appeal board.
"Based on our place of residence, we're being discriminated against by not having our own EI board of referees," said Mary Lou Cherwaty, president of the federation of labour.

"And that being said, there's lots of money there to do it. Northern workers and employers both jointly pay into the EI fund at a federal level, (so) why aren't we getting the same services?"

Under the present system, residents in either Nunavut or the Northwest Territories wanting to appeal an EI decision must have their case heard via teleconference by an EI appeal board in Edmonton. Cherwaty said the main reason why the current system is flawed is the board of referees in Edmonton doesn't understand the "geographical, cultural and language" differences that exist in the North compared to the rest of Canada.

"For instance, an employee that's working for an employer who ends up having to 'go out on the land.' It's part of their culture. The employer lays him off because he's taken up too much time or he fires him and the person tries to get EI because he's been let go. Someone in Edmonton doesn't understand what 'going out on the land' means," she said.

"So they think he abandoned his job, of course he doesn't get EI, whereas here, somebody would reasonably know that was to provide food and sustenance for his family."

Cherwaty's goal is to establish an appeal board in Yellowknife comprised of members that understand Northern issues. Similar to the 83 other appeal boards across Canada, establishing one in the city would require six board members - two employer representatives, two employee representatives and two chair persons.

She estimates the cost of establishing an appeals board would be $63,256. This figure doesn't include board members' salaries, but does include travel and training costs for the board members at one of the other EI boards in Canada, as well as the costs associated with the Yellowknife office set-up.

Cherwaty has been trying to establish an appeal board in Yellowknife since 2008. Over this time, she's contacted several politicians and government officials about the issue, including Western Arctic MP Dennis Bevington. Bevington said he's limited in what he can do because the proposal has a financial obligation and a private member's bill cannot impose any financial obligations on the government.

He also said raising the issue in the House of Commons is difficult because the NDP is limited to four questions during question period, and national issues tend to take precedence.

But Bevington did write a letter to Diane Finley, minister of Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, about the need for an EI appeal board in Yellowknife. In a written response to Bevington dated June 2, 2009, Finley wrote the department hasn't received "any negative feedback" with the current system of conducting hearings via teleconference with Edmonton. The letter also states that neither the NWT nor Nunavut meet the criteria for having an EI appeal board because the number of appeals in these areas falls below the six per month average that is needed.

From 2007 to 2009, the department calculated the number of appeals per month averages 1.8 for Nunavut and 4.2 for the NWT.

Whitehorse has an EI appeal board, and during this same period received 6.1 appeals per month. Cherwaty said if EI applicants considering an appeal weren't discouraged and deterred from doing so under the current system, the numbers of appeals in the NWT and Nunavut would be higher.

Finley was not available for comment.

CANADIAN POLITICS-TORONTO:

A SOUP LINE FOR FLAHERTY:

A soup line for Finance Minister Jim Flaherty ? Well it's a dream, but the Good Jobs For All Coalition recently took the message of just how serious the recession is to the doorstep of the 'honourable' Minister. Here's the report of their demonstration from the online news service Rabble.Ca.

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Coalition sets up soup line outside Federal Finance Minister's office:
By John Bonnar October 5, 2009
On a cool September morning, a server lifts the lid on a steaming container and carefully ladles soup into plastic bowls while standing on the northwest corner of Bay and University in the heart of Canada’s financial district. She hands a bowl to John Andras, a portfolio manager at a nearby investment company and chair of the Recession Relief Coalition, a broad-based group of organizations and individuals concerned about the impact of the recession on Canada’s most vulnerable and marginalized residents.

Andras and his colleagues have assembled outside 150 King Street West, where the Federal Finance Minister has a regional office, to send Jim Flaherty a message: Things are getting worse for the unemployed, students and people of colour and something must be done about it now.

“For the agencies that are trying to help people, it’s absolutely brutal,” says Andras. “Demand is way up and donation levels are down.” One agency told him that they’re serving forty four per cent more people in their food program than they were a year ago. “People are desperate. They’re relying on agencies for their basic needs.”

At the same time, government and foundation grants, private sector sponsorships and individual donations are down; fundraising events aren’t pulling in the same kinds of revenues they did in the past. “So a lot of the agencies are hanging on by their fingernails, praying and hoping for better times,” he says. “And I don’t think those better times are going to come for a while.”

Andras anticipates that over the next six months, some agencies are going to have to close their doors because they’ve gone bankrupt or they’ll be forced to cut back on a lot of their programs. To prevent that from happening, the Recession Relief Coalition wants additional EI reforms. While they admit the $1 billion already pledged is going to be very valuable, they’re waiting to see when and if that actually happens.

In addition, the Coalition wants widespread reform to social assistance. “For a single person to try to survive on $572 a month is absolutely ludicrous,” says Andras. “It can’t be done.” To even qualify for welfare, people have to be destitute. That means selling all their liquid assets. “So you’re being maintained in poverty with very little hope.”

But according to the headlines the recession is over, so it appears the government has little interest in helping those in need. Mainstream media is full of reports about how stimulus funding has fueled unprecedented growth in the North American economy.

So if the economy has rebounded, why has the Recession Relief Coalition and its supporters gathered at King and University on Wednesday?

“You scratch the surface of the headlines,” says Andras, “and the story isn’t so great.”

In July, with stimulus spending at full tilt, there was no growth. The decrease in the numbers receiving EI benefits may be the result of people having run out of EI without finding employment. Experts predict that even if the recession is over, unemployment will continue to rise for several years; most of the unemployed aren’t even eligible for EI.

What happens to them? Their stories appear to be of little interest to the Harper government.

But Jenny Ahn of the Good Jobs for All Coalition (GJFAC) says she’s fighting to improve living and working conditions for all people, regardless of employment status. She knows that the so-called economic recovery is, in fact, a jobless recovery. In the last two recessions, the unemployment insurance system was the most powerful economic stabilizer. But now, less than half of all workers qualify for a benefit that insures them for less than a year.

“We need serious EI reforms,” says Ahn. “Not just some hokey, pokey change because of a possible election.”

Last week the GJFAC met with unionized workers, students, non-unionized workers and members of the community at Ryerson University in Toronto and promised to challenge the Harper government and Jim Flaherty to make the much needed changes to the EI system. Besides signing petitions and lobbying the government, the GJFAC wants a standard 360 work hours in every region of the country to qualify for EI.

“Not in some regions but in every region,” says Ahn. “Why should one area differ from another area in Canada?” Right now, the hours (420 to 700 hours) are based on where you live and the unemployment rate in your economic region at the time of filing your claim for benefits. But with a $57 billion dollar surplus, Ahn sees no reason why the qualifying hours can’t be reduced and standardized with the payout and benefit periods increased.

Unemployment amongst students (rarely discussed by governments) reached 19.2 per cent over the summer months, the second highest rate since comparable data became available in 1977. In addition to a high unemployment rate, the average number of hours worked during the summer by students was the lowest since 1977, at 23.4 hours per week.

“Students can’t access EI,” says Nora Loreto of the Canadian Federation of Students. “So they drop out of school because they can’t afford to attend.” Others can’t access the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) because they’re attending school part time or their parents’ employment earnings are too high. Students say they’re at the end of their rope and need help.
“Flaherty, where is our bailout money?” yells Loreto as she addresses the crowd outside Finance Minister Flaherty’s regional office. “Where is the bailout money for the workers and the students and for low income Canadians and for people who are down on their luck?”

Bob Rose sees where the money is.

“It’s up behind those closed doors,” he says, pointing at the building where Flaherty has his regional office. “And it’s in those banks and that’s got to end because the dough is not going where it needs to go – into the hands of people, into the hands of children, and the lonely and the elderly and the traumatized.”

While Rose admits life can get complicated and people can get down, he says they should never be left out. But that’s exactly what’s happened. People have been forgotten because the recession has focused solely on economic recovery, economic formulas and projections of the week.

“But that kind of talk is the kind of talk that sacrifices lives,” says Rose, who wants to talk about the recovery of people. “That means talking concretely about specific steps to provide funding that can be used to save lives that this recession is taking and preparing to take in very large numbers.”

Rose and his colleagues, who work with the homeless and those at risk of becoming homeless, need money to sustain their programs that ease poverty. They spend most of their time and energy trying to prevent soup lines, like the one set up outside Bay and University last Wednesday. But in spite of their efforts, thousands of people line up outside drop-ins every day in Toronto waiting for a spot at a table to get a meal.

Rose works in a drop-in in the west end of the city that will serve 89,000 meals this year to the 1,000+ people who come through their doors every day. “We are the biggest food support program in the west end and we are grossly under funded,” says Rose.

His drop-in receives no money from the Ministry of Health and only a small sum from the city of Toronto. It survives on donations from Daily Bread Food Bank and Second Harvest. He says they never planned to have a food program nor did they plan to grow as they have.

“It was forced on us in the last recession and it grew in response to the rising cost of housing, the end of social housing construction and income assistance that got slashed to the point that people couldn’t live on it. That’s when our attendance numbers doubled. So we invented a food program.”

Now that the recession has returned, all food programs are in financial trouble.

In unison they ask the same question: Will we have enough to serve every one? Community meal programs need help to meet the current demand and deal with the onslaught when things don’t get noticeably better for several years.

“We know the drill,” says Rose. “First the loss of job, then the personal trauma, the disappearance of home, families splintering, drifting to the street, then finally arrival at the drop-in.”

CANADIAN LABOUR:
UNEMPLOYMENT RISING IN CANADA:
Whatever the Pollyanna pronouncements of our federal Conservative government the worldwide recession/depression continues to strike here in Canada. Recent statistics show a massive rise in unemployment last February. Here's the story about job losses from the CEP News.
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Canadian Job Losses Mount, Unemployment Rate Soars to Five-Year High:
(CEP News) - The Canadian economy continued to shed jobs at a fast pace in February, while the unemployment rate rose to its highest rate since mid-2003, Statistics Canada reported.




The economy shed 82,600 jobs and saw its unemployment rate climb 0.5 percentage points to 7.7%, its highest rate in more than five years.




Economists had expected a loss of 55,000 jobs, and a rise in the unemployment rate to 7.4% from 7.2% in January.




January's decline of 129,000 jobs was unrevised. Since October, Canada has lost 295,000 jobs, or 1.7% of the workforce, StatsCan noted.




Statistics Canada's Labour Force Survey released Friday showed the decline in employment came as 111k full-time jobs were lost, while part-time employment edged up.




The construction sector saw a decline of 43k jobs, while 31k jobs were lost in professional, scientific and technical services. Another 15,000 were lost in educational services, bringing the total declines since October to 44,000 jobs.




The bulk of job losses were once again in Ontario, which lost 35,000 jobs, primarily in construction and finance, insurance, real estate and leasing, StatsCan said. Alberta saw its employment drop by 24,000 jobs, while 18,000 positions were lost in Quebec.
By Stephen Huebl, mailto:shuebl@economicnews.ca;,
edited by Sarah Sussman, mailto:ssussman@economicnews.ca;
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Beyond the cold hard statistics here's how Canadian labour sees this situation. From the Canadian Labour Congress, via the Canadian Union of Public Employees(CUPE).

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Lost: 83,000 jobs:
They can't have gone far. They were here a month ago. CLC President Ken Georgetti warns the recession will get worse if the government doesn't fix EI.





Today's news is all about new unemployment statistics which show that the unemployment rate has gone up half a per cent in two months.

According to the CLC's analysis of the announcement:

*The unemployment rate is up, now at 7.7% (it was 7.2% in January).
*The unemployment rate is back to where it was in July 2003, more than five years
ago.
*The number of Canadians who lost their job last month: 83,000.
*The number of full-time jobs lost last month: 110,000.
*The number of full-time jobs lost so far this year: 225,000.
*Canadian workers who have lost their jobs since October 2008: 295,000.
*Canada now has over 1.4 million unemployed men and women. This represents an increase of 23% since last October.
*The construction sector was hardest hit in February, as were men aged 25 to 54. Young workers also took a hit last month, pushing their unemployment rate to 14.2%, the highest since 2001.

The Congress is organizing rallies March 21 to protest job loss and government inaction on EI.

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Finally, here's yet another view, this time that of Larry Gambone of the Porkupine Blog. This is a libertarian socialist view of our crisis and it points the way to other solutions to the crisis rather than what has been proposed by our political elites.
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Two Thoughts On Unemployment:
1. Mass unemployment is caused by governmental and corporate policies and actions. It is social in origin and is never the fault of its victims, the now-jobless workers. Yet, that is precisely how the unemployed are treated by the authorities. They are forced to search for work and to engage in job-finding classes if they wish to collect unemployment insurance – for the minority fortunate enough to qualify. People who refuse are punished by having their meager benefits cut off. They did not cause the problem, but, in practice, they get the blame. Examine the logic behind it by this analogy. I assault you, yet the police don't arrest me, they arrest you. What happens to the unemployed in our system is a form of sociopathic inversion, where the perpetrator of a heinous crime blames his victim for what he did. Meanwhile, the guilty parties – the CEO's and politicians – still get their high salaries and perks. Those who caused the problem ought to be the ones to rectify it. They should be the ones finding you a job, and if they can't find one, pay you an income until they do.




Thing is, every unemployed person grumbles about their situation, yet no one seems ready to pin the blame where it ought to go. During our previous big economic crisis in the 1980's, groups organized unemployed workers. But they concentrated on helping the unemployed combat the Unemployment Insurance bureaucracy, certainly a worthy act, but shied away from directly confronting the system. Hopefully the situation will be different this time around.
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2. It has always angered me that whenever an industry closes in a small town the locals are expected to pull up stakes and move elsewhere to find work. How about the work coming to them instead? Now many people will regard this as a ludicrous question, and the fact that they do, shows the great extent to which people are expected to serve the economy rather than the economy serving them. What is an economy really for anyway, but to provide people with necessary goods and services? An economy is a means to fulfill needs, not a end in itself, or rather it ought to be so, if a society is supposed to exist for human beings.




Uprooting masses of people and forcing them to follow the dollar destroys community. It is natural to live among people you know, it is natural to have roots. This is the way we lived for thousands of years, and only under capitalism have we been forced to scurry from place to place like lemmings. Peasants and First Nations peoples would rather die than give up the places where their ancestors lived. In small towns across the "developed" world some of this sentiment still lingers in the sadness of leaving.




The destruction of community brings with it a host of costly social problems not factored into the economic calculations of the MBA and state bureaucrat. And when the migrants flood into the new boom towns, they bring their problems with them, as well as putting stress on housing, public services and infrastructure. All totaled, it probably is not that more expensive to leave people where they are and start new industries to employ them. Of course, we would need a new kind of economy – one based upon need and solidarity rather than the greed and lust for domination of a handful of narcissists and sociopaths.