It's time for full employment in the U.S.

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By: Scott Marshall
January 31 2011

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Full employment? Sure why not!

The Republicans campaigned heavily on job creation last fall, but to no one's surprise they are focusing on repealing health care and limiting abortion.  Let's remind them that jobs are still the priority and millions are still unemployed. Also, some news about what's happening on the state level in Connecticut and Ohio are below.  

21st Century Full Employment & Training Act

Last year Rep. Conyers, D-Mich., introduced legislation with the goal of bringing the national unemployment rate down to 4 percent. He plans on re-introducing this deficit-neutral bill again in this Congress. Please encourage your representative to co-sponsor this legislation.

Another bill, to be introduced soon by Rep. Berkely, D-Nev., will extend unemployment  benefits - including for the 99ers (unemployed workers who have exhausted all their benefits). We will give you updates (including the bill numbers) as this information becomes available.  

Connecticut

In New Haven, Conn., the newly-formed Jobs and Unemployed Committee of the New Haven Peoples Center will hold a press conference Friday, Feb 3, at the state job center (unemployment office). The press conference will use the U.S. Dept. of Labor's employment report, issued the first Friday of every month, to highlight the wave of 99-ers and the effect this is having on families, communities, and state and local government budgets. A petition calling for extending benefits and immediate action to create jobs will be presented to a Congressional representative.  

Ohio

Labor and allies in Ohio including the NAACP, MoveOn and many community groups have formed the Good Jobs, Strong Communities coalition to mobilize opposition to proposals by the new Republican Governor John Kasich for drastic cuts in services, privatization, massive layoffs and crippling of public employee union rights.

The coalition plans to hold three statewide actions before July 1, the date by which the Republican-controlled State Legislature must adopt a new biennial budget. The first is set for March 15, the date by which Kasich must submit his budget proposal, and will involve demonstrations in cities throughout the state.

Kasich, a former managing director of Lehman Brothers, the Wall Street bank, whose collapse brought on the world economic crisis, believes that corporate policies should control state government. He seeks to use a projected $8-10 billion deficit as justification to carry out his anti-labor, anti-people program. One Ohio Now, another labor-community coalition, has shown that the deficit can be closed without cuts and layoffs by closing tax loopholes, restoring previous taxes on profit-swollen corporations and reforming the state income tax in favor of working people.

Please make sure to visit the People's World online for the best in worker's news!      

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  • Full employment is not only possible but is necessary for a happly and stable country.

    Posted by Momcilo, 02/25/2011 5:24pm (2 years ago)

  • Let's break it down to simple statements.

    1. Socialism/Communism/Marxism advocates state control of businesses.
    2. State owned businesses employ public employees.
    3. Public employees are paid by tax receipts.
    4. If all employees are public employees, then all employees are paid by tax receipts.
    5. If all employees are paid by tax receipts rather than private funds, how do you fund the government.
    5a. Print money.

    The inherent flaw is that if all employees are public emplyees, even if they pay taxes, the government would be in a constantly expanding deficit spiral, like what we see all over western Europe and the US today. Not rocket science...just logic.

    Posted by Radical Traditionalist, 02/23/2011 8:28pm (2 years ago)

  • Oh, is it wrong to say that the products of society should cost the value of said products? We should be happy that the wage Labourers work to obtain enough for mere subsistence? while the people at the top get billion dollar bonuses?! We should be all right with the way things were before and even now? It's insane to even think it!
    Dramatic changes must occur and NOW! Accountability on all levels would be a good start; but far be it that people in this system would ever pay their dues!
    As for Widgets and Entrepreneurial businesses, how many failing businesses fail because they create an necessary product? A roller blade factory goes under, my heart goes out to the workers but the fact is, toys are not necessary social products. An auto manufacturer goes under, again do we the consumers need a new model sports car, station wagon, van every single year! The trend in Bourgeois Countries to create unnecessary products is the cause of most of this, our western consumerism has dug this hole! The Wake of our irresponsibility is just catching up with us.
    Marx provides us with good tools to see what is going on, it's up to you to use them correctly.

    Posted by Eman Paper tiger chaser, 02/21/2011 1:52am (2 years ago)

  • Canary Revolutionary,

    Marx's theory on surplus value or surplus labor has been criticized by economists to the point where I'm quite surprised that it's still quoted as text worthy of exploration.

    Marx fundamentally misunderstands the basics of supply-chain marketing and efficiencies of business management. The value of the good or service exists beyond the mere creative value. Let's make a easy example.

    I own a widget making factory. I have 10 employees; 5 employees each create one of the 5 pieces of a widget, and the 5 remaining employee put the 5 pieces together.

    I sell each widget for 10 dollars. Are you advocating that I give each employee a $1 on each widget sale?

    But while loosely talking about paying "company expenses," you attempt to easily explain a complicated process. What about the risks of the "capitalist" in starting a widget-selling venture(most start-up business fail)? Marketing? Initial factory investment?

    Entrepreneurs do extremely important work that is not valuated by communism, specifically Karl Marx. This is because, in my belief, Marx thought that because businesses would always be public, entrepreneurs would have no reason to exist. Rather than argue about the stagnation effects that a closed economy has, I'm only pointing out a major flaw in Marx's understanding in economics.

    The surplus labor is in fact an extremely important incentive for entrepreneurs to enter into markets. Without that incentive, the idea that providing goods and services that people want will provide a benefit to yourself, how will our society better themselves?

    Posted by Jacob, 02/13/2011 7:10pm (2 years ago)

  • That people who replyied have the wrong idea that privates companies create jobs... HAHAHAHA

    The example of a slave:
    "Thereafter, the labor of the producers can be divided into two parts. A part of this labor continues to be used for the subsistence of the producers themselves and we call this part necessary labor; the other part is used to maintain the ruling class and we give it the name surplus labor. [...] The work week, which in this case is seven days, can be divided into two parts: the work of one day, Sunday, constitutes necessary labor, that labor which provides the products for the subsistence of the slave and his family; the work of the other six days is surplus labor and all of its products go to the master, are used for his sustenance and his enrichment as well."

    Then, when your company pay you $2000 at the end of the month, do you think that you generated $2000 to your company? You surely generated 10 times more and is that capital that you created as worker, and it is used for pay company expenses, create new jobs and get more rich the capitalist.

    Posted by Canary Revolutionary, 02/09/2011 11:06am (2 years ago)

  • How do you suppose we go about to make new jobs? Waste the tax payers money and make every single thing in USA public property. Per say Take over the Airline industry next? So we can waste more taxpayer money and "socialize" these corporations like we did with GM? As someone who funded the GM bailout I belive I should get few vehicles! Wake up socialists, this never works. We're gonna starve if this continues

    Posted by NIck Judge, 02/08/2011 11:08pm (2 years ago)

  • The bottom line is....well, the bottom line. Public sector employment cannot exist without private sector employment to pay the bills. Simply adding more public sector employees when the private sector cannot afford the public employees already on the payroll is simply not a tenable solution.

    Posted by Walter, 02/03/2011 11:08am (2 years ago)

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