posted on September 1, 2003 09:27:36 AM new
Hoping everyone is enjoying the holiday and think we will begin to see the economy get better... actually if you take off the blinders you can see it.
And, Twelvepole, since you copied my thread, it's only fair that I may reproduce my messege here too.
U.S. Workers Struggle in Worst Job Slump Since Great Depression
In terms of employment growth, the current recovery is the [b]worst on record since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking employment in 1939. Employment is down over one million since the recovery began. Adding in the job losses from the actual recession, payrolls are down by 2.7 million overall—3.2 million in the private sector—making this the worst hiring slump since the Great Depression.
And, since George took office, the current recovery has been the worst for job growth on record since the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) began tracking unemployment in 1939, the report finds.
AFL-CIO chief lashes Bush's record on labor Workers undermined to benefit wealthy, corporations, Sweeney says
By KATHERINE M. SKIBA
[email protected]
Last Updated: Aug. 28, 2003
Washington - On the eve of Labor Day weekend, the head of the AFL-CIO flailed President Bush on Thursday, saying he had "pulled the rug out from under America's working people and rolled out a red carpet for the wealthy and giant corporations."
John J. Sweeney and other officials of the 13.5 million-member labor federation, the country's largest, said a net loss of 3 million jobs, including 2.7 million in industrial sectors, gave Bush the worst track record of any president since Herbert Hoover. Hoover served one term beginning in 1929, just as the Great Depression put millions out of work.
"I travel this country constantly, (and) people are very dissatisfied with the way the country is going," said Sweeney, who joined Richard L. Trumka, the federation's secretary-treasurer, in addressing reporters
Trumka characterized working people as angry. He noted that the 11 million jobless Americans equal the entire work force in Texas.
Unions represent 13% of the U.S. work force, down from a mid-1960s peak of 35%, according to Christine Owens, the federation's public policy director.
Owens blamed the decline on the growth of service-sector positions at the expense of manufacturing jobs, increased employer opposition to unions, and "lukewarm federal enforcement" of labor protection laws.
Sweeney and other federation officials were preparing to fan out to several states, including Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota and California, to launch what he called "a major campaign to build nationwide support for workers' freedom to choose a union."
'Millionaire tax breaks'
White House spokesman Jim Morrell responded to the labor officials' presentation by saying: "The president is committed to making sure that our economy is growing and that jobs are being created. That's why he led the way on passing an economic growth package in 2001 and again this year."
Bush's Council of Economic Advisers estimates that the jobs-and-growth plan enacted this year will create 1.4 million jobs by 2004, Morrell said.
"We're already seeing some positive economic developments," he added, pointing to Commerce Department reports that new orders for durable goods climbed in July for the second successive month. "That's a good sign that business spending is increasing, which is in turn a good sign for the economy."
But Sweeney derided Bush's economic policies as "disastrous" and cited what he called a "disturbing pattern," including the Bush tax cuts, a bid to exclude millions of Americans from overtime benefits and the refusal to let Homeland Security Department workers and airport federal screeners form unions.
Sweeney quoted Nobel Prize-winning economist George Akerlofof the University of California at Los Angeles as saying that the Bush fiscal policies were the "worst in over 200 years" and estimating the Bush tax cuts would mean a 10-year deficit of almost $6 trillion.
"For the same money that Bush spent on millionaire tax breaks, he could have stimulated the economy and created jobs by building roads and schools, helped provide much-needed health care, sent urgently needed aid to the states and given tax breaks to the low- and middle-income earners who need it and will spend it to get the economy moving," Sweeney said.
Trumka attacked Bush's trade policy as "catastrophic." He said the $500 billion yearly trade deficit showed that a variety of jobs are flooding overseas, including positions in the automotive, aviation, computer, data-processing and software-programming sectors.
He characterized China, which accounts for $100 billion of the trade imbalance, as a place that "suppresses worker rights, protects its markets and manipulates and controls its currency."
The administration, Trumka said, is forging ahead on negotiations toward a Free Trade Area of the Americas, which he characterized as "NAFTA on steroids." NAFTA is the North American Free Trade Agreement.
The free-trade area "will sweep NAFTA's devastation to the entire Western Hemisphere, leaving lost jobs, a harmed environment and a host of worker abuses in its wake," Trumka said.
Major organizing expected
According to Sweeney, 40 million Americans say they would form a union tomorrow, but "too few" will have a chance. He cited Cornell University research indicating that 95% of private-sector employers fight union organizing, some using illegal tactics such as threatening to shut down if workers choose a union or firing union supporters.
Sweeney noted that although the AFL-CIO tended to work more closely with Democratic administrations, it always has had a relationship with GOP administrations until now. He said Bush was asked to speak to the federation's executive council anytime this summer, and the federation was turned down.
Sweeney said Bush was the first president who has never met with the AFL-CIO's president since the merger of the AFL and the CIO in 1955. "I personally think that is a travesty," Sweeney said.
Calling Bush's the most "anti-worker administration in decades," he said a half-million workers nonetheless formed a union last year with one of the AFL-CIO's 64 affiliates, putting at 3 million the number of people to form unions since 1995.
"Although the pace of organizing is still not where we want it to be, it is far greater than many people realize and greater than it has been in decades," Sweeney said.
The AFL-CIO expects major organizing efforts this year among auto workers, health care workers, roofers in Arizona, farm workers in California and state workers in Illinois, New Mexico and New Jersey, he said.
Sweeney also noted that workers for Cintas, the nation's largest industrial laundry service, are organizing in dozens of cities across the United States.
posted on September 1, 2003 11:05:16 AM new
Here you go Dad
Forecast for Coastal San Diego....
Labor Day...Mostly cloudy with patchy fog in the morning then partly cloudy. Highs 74 to 84.
Night...Partly cloudy. Patchy fog. Lows in the 60s.
Tuesday...Partly cloudy. Patchy fog in the morning. Highs 75 to 85.
Night...Partly cloudy. Patchy fog. Lows in the 60s.
Wednesday...Partly cloudy. Patchy fog in the morning. Highs 75 to 85.
Thursday...Mostly clear except patchy clouds and fog in the night and morning.
Lows in the 60s. Highs 75 to 85.
Friday...Areas of clouds and fog in the night and morning...Otherwise mostly clear.
Lows 58 to 68. Highs 73 to 83.
Saturday...Mostly cloudy with patchy fog in the nights and mornings...Otherwise mostly clear.
Lows 58 to 68. Highs in the 70s.
Sunday...Mostly cloudy with patchy fog in the nights and mornings...Otherwise mostly clear.
Lows 58 to 68. Highs in the 70s.
~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~
Men Are Like Grapes. If You Stomp on Them and Keep Them in the Dark Long Enough, They Might Turn Into Something That You Would Take to Dinner
[ edited by Fenix03 on Sep 1, 2003 11:06 AM ]
posted on September 1, 2003 12:36:22 PM new
Happy Labor Day to all you beautiful Republicans (got my blinders off )
What the heck, to all you wayward Democrats too...political opinions aside, you're beautiful too
"Be kind. Remember everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." - Harry Thompson
"I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it." - A Few Good Men
posted on September 1, 2003 06:54:30 PM new
It's been raining here all day (and last night, too). Spent the day mopping the water out of the basement. It hasn't been dry too much this year. It was too wet and COLD here to do anything else. We didn't even break 70. We still enjoyed some ribs and chicken cooked on the grill and the also enjoyed the family being all in one place at the same time. Other than the blackout, we only see that during major holidays!
Hope everyone had a pleasant summer! Here's to an equally pleasant fall!
Cheryl
The next time you think you're so perfect, try walking on water.
)
