|
Most
Americans believe that there is a law that protects them from
being fired for 'no cause.'But they're wrong. When entering
the workplace, citizens are transformed into employees who leave
their rights at the door."
Elaine
Bernard, "Why Unions Matter; Why Full
Employment Matters to Unions," Uncommon Sense 20, NJFAC,
adapted from New Party Paper 4:
"A job should keep you out of poverty,
not keep you in it. Full-time minimum wage workers earn $10,700
a year, which is about $5,000 below the poverty line for a family
of three. This is a moral outrage."
Rev. Dr. Bob Edgar, National
Council of Churches News Service, Dec. 2005
"Most
conservative economists do not really care about the deficit.
They advocate balanced budgets because their real desire is to
cut government spending, particularly on the "social programs"
they abhor. And that shows up the worst effects of deficit paranoia.
It is used to justify depriving the American people of their health
care, their education and all of the public investment on which
their future depends."
Robert
Eisner, "Why the Debt Isn't All Bad: Balancing Our Deficit
Thinking," Uncommon Sense 9,NJFAC. Reprinted with
permission from The Nation magazine. (c)1995, The Nation
Company, Inc
"Social
Security is not "underfunded." It is not, in fact, possible
to pre-fund Social Security. Tomorrow's Social Security will be
paid by tomorrow's workers, out of tomorrow's national product,
according to benefit schedules set by law at that time.
Those trust funds are just an accounting device, wipe them
out and nothing would happen; today's surpluses are just
as irrelevant, in economic terms, as tomorrow's deficits. Regressive
payroll taxes today buy jet fighters and aircraft carriers.
It would not be a bad thing if, twenty years from now, some progressive
income taxes were used to pay for pensions."
James
K. Galbraith, "I Don't Want to Talk About It," Texas Observer,
April 15, 1998
"Let's
begin with capitalism, a word that has gone largely out of fashion.
The approved reference now is to the market system. This shift
minimizes--indeed, deletes--the role of wealth in the economic
and social system. And it sheds the adverse connotation going
back to Marx. Instead of the owners of capital or their attendants
in control, we have the admirably impersonal role of market forces.
It would be hard to think of a change in terminology more in the
interest of those to whom money accords power."
John
Kenneth Galbraith, "Free
Market Fraud," The Progressive, January1999
"In
making their case, advocates should emphasize that full employment
policies are mandated by the US Constitution and the United Nations
Charter, which the United States is committed to uphold. They
should also make clear that actions by the US Government and by
the Federal Reserve Bank to create involuntary unemployment to
fight inflation are violations of international and human rights
law."
David
Gil, "Full Employment: The 'Supreme Law
of the Land,' " Uncommon Sense 6, NJFAC
"Job
creation is expensive, but so is joblessness. The true cost of
creating jobs for everyone who wants to work is the difference
between the cost of creating the jobs and the costs of unemployment
that governments already bear. Creating jobs for all might end
up saving taxpayers more money than it costs them."
Philip
Harvey, "Paying for Full Employment," Uncommon Sense 14
, NJFAC
"I would hope that eventually one
of these days we will commit ourselves to a 'full employment'
economy in which we give the private sector the opportunity to
provide the jobs, but if it doesn't, that we, through government,
will develop projects—and there are plenty of them to be
developed—that will employ people rather than provide the
welfare. Our infrastructure is being depreciated so badly. Half
the bridges in this country are unsafe, we have a very bad transportation
system, our roads need repairing, and all of this work needs to
be done, and yet we have unemployed people. Eventually we have
to recognize this problem and do something about it."
Hon. Augustus F. Hawkins, Tape
Number: III, Side Two, pp.112-3, November 18, 1992
"That's kind of the beauty of the whole
thing, that by doing something for people outside of organized
labor, we've given ourselves a chance to provide a wage floor,
a bsement level, so to speak. That's the self-serving side of
it. Working the fight for a minimum wage was a good thing."
Denis M. Hughes, "A Voice
for Labor, Deftly Applied," NY Times, Dec.21, 2004,
Metro, p.2
Instead of proving to be "labor
saving devices," our machines create more work for more of
us to do! Instead of the "problem" of leisure, we face
an array of problems caused by overwork; families that erode because
we have less time to be at home, troubled and troubling young
people who share little or no time with adults, anemic communities
bled dry of the people's time, their life's blood, and institutions
that focus solely on teaching people how to work rather than how
to live together freely.
Benjamin Kline Hunnicutt,
Sr,"The Historical
Origins of the Time Famine," Abstract of a paper presented
at the APA/NIOH Interdisciplinary Conference on Work, Stress and
Health in Baltimore, March 11-13, 1999.
"It's a kind of paradoxical thing: on
average, people with more education are better paid, and for any
individual, it may make sense. And so every parent wants that
for their kid, but if you look at the country as a whole, the
total percentage of American jobs that require a college degree
is between 25 and 30 percent, and no economist thinks it's going
to be more than that any time in our lifetimes. So the idea that
if everybody got professional training, everybody would be earning
professional wages is totally false."
Gordon Lafer,
The Job Training Charade, Cornell Univ Press, 2002
"Unless
the total number of decent jobs is significantly increased for
everybody, millions of white male workers will tend to see affirmative
action as the enemy. Progressive political initiatives like affirmative
action are always more acceptable when economic opportunities
are expanding."
Manning
Marable, "Full Employment and Affirmative Action," Uncommon
Sense 7, NJFAC
"I find that the working poor share
values and goals with many middle class Americans: they want their
children to succeed where they have faltered; they want to live
in safe, secure neighborhoods; they look to the work world as
a place in which to find meaning, even in menial jobs. Yet the
commonalities with the middle class end at the point where we
consider the barriers they face. In periods of high growth, labor
market opportunities open up and make it possible for the working
poor to become upwardly mobile. But in bad times, the resistance
of employers, the consequences of erratic ties to the labor market
generated by family demands, and the difficulty of piling up more
educational credentials come home to roost."
Katherine Newman, http://sociology.princeton.edu/Faculty/Newman/
"... employment is very
much a part of being a citizen....The case is not that wage labour
is so good, or that the meaning of citizenship should be reduced
to membership in the workforce. Far from these limitations, the
issue is rather that exclusion from the mainstream of economic
life cannot even allow for the possibility of developing an inclusive,
active citizenry."
Jocelyn Pixley, Citizenship
and Employment, Cambridge University Press, 1993.
"...beyond the amount
of money you earn, your job is also crucial for establishing your
sense of security and self-worth, your health and safety, your
ability to raise a family, and your chances to participate in
the life of your community.
In broader economic and social terms, when an economy operates
at a high employment level—i.e. at something approaching
full employment—this creates as a matter of course a high
level of overall purchasing power in the economy, since people
will have more money in their pockets to spend. This means more
buoyant markets, greater business opportunities for both small
and large firms, and strong incentives for private businesses
to increase their level of investment. An economy with an abundance
of decent jobs will also promote both individual opportunity and
equality, because this kind of economy offers everyone the chance
to provide for themselves and their families."
Robert Pollin, "Is
Full Employment Possible Under Globalization?" The Sumner
Rosen Memorial Lecture, Columbia University, November 16, 2006
"Expecting only the unguided market
to steadily create good jobs at good wages is like expecting your
car to watch your kids. It cannot happen. The common good is irrelevant
to the market. Looking after the common good is the job of civil
society and democratic government."
"... the right to a job without a right to a living wage
is just as weak as the right to a living wage without a job. Both
rights must remain intact and linked together."
William P. Quigley,
Ending Poverty as We Know It: Guaranteeing a Right to a Job
at a Living Wage. Philadelphia: Temple University Press,
2003
"It
is not enough that someone be ready and willing to work. There
should be a job. That monetary policy is now engineered to lift
short-term interest rates when the official rate of unemployment
sinks much lower than 5.5 percent presents a logical inconsistency
with this principle„. Democrats should use welfare reform as a
way to revive the debate over the best means of assuring "full
employment."
Robert
Reich , "Up from Bipartisanship,"The American Prospect,
M/J 1997
"Although
government job creation programs have at times been considered
'un-American,' nothing could be further from the truth. They have
a long history in the US and have been enacted periodically, especially
when rising unemployment has caused protest. For example, during
the Embargo of 1807, a mass meeting of unemployed seamen led New
York City to put them to work on projects such as building the
new city hall and cleaning and repairing streets. Public works
projects were set up by cities during recessions and depressions
from the early 1800s through the first few years of the Great
Depression of the 1930s. They were primarily developed for white,
male heads-of-households, although some sewing projects were set
up for women and for men unable to work outdoors."
Nancy
Rose, "Workfare vs. Fair Work: Public
Job Creation," Uncommon Sense 16, NJFAC
"The central principle is 'Decent Work';
it is clear, practical, difficult but achievable. It lays the
groundwork for a global economy that will deserve to be called
one of the great historic achievements, a renaissance worthy of
the highest praise that history and humanity can provide."
Sumner Rosen, co-founder of the
National Jobs for All Coalition, internal paper, 2005.
"The average American now finds it harder
to achieve a satisfying standard of living than 25 years ago.
Work requires longer hours, jobs are less secure, and pressures
to spend more intense. Consumption-induced environmental damage
remains pervasive, and we are in the midst of widespread failures
of public provision. While the current economic boom has allayed
consumers' fears for the moment, many Americans have long-term
worries about their ability to meet basic needs, ensure a decent
standard of living for their children, and keep up with an ever-escalating
consumption norm."
Juliet Schor,
"The New Politics of Consumption: Why Americans want so much
more than they need," Boston Review, Summer 1999
"...government
generosity does not lead to higher rates of poverty, as conservatives
in the United States claim. On the contrary, countries with far
more generous government programs have significantly lower poverty
rates than does the United States, which has both the lowest level
of benefits and the highest rates of poverty.......What are the
policies that succeed in reducing poverty among families with
children? First, all the European countries cited provide a childrenôs
or family allowance.... A second element of the family policy
in place in all European countries--and virtually all other industrialized
countries as well--is some form of national health insurance or
national health service which assures all families and individuals
access to health care. Third, some of these countries provide
universal, low-cost or free preschool care to all or almost all
children from the age of two or three. Fourth, many industrialized
countries provide special benefits for divorced families, guaranteeing
a minimum amount of child support if the non-custodial parent
fails to pay.
Ruth
Sidel, "Needed:
A National Commitment to Families," Uncommon Sense 17,
NJFAC, adapted from Keeping Women and Children Last: America's
War on the Poor, Penguin.
"They
[a Queens public housing project] used to have a higher mortality
rate over there. I'd like to think we had something to do with
lowering it by offering the young people employment."
Mark
di Suvero, quoted in New York Times, May 14, 1995 about
his firm, Space-Time CC, Inc. and the adjoining Socrates Sculpture
Park
"It's way past time for
Americans to take whatever actions are necessary to make the needs
of workers and their jobs central priorities for our economy."
Richard Trumka, America@Work,
April/May 2002
"...in the 50's and 60's
the working class through collective bargaining achieved middle
class--with one bread winner. The strikes in the 50's won pensions
and health care benefits. That's history, but there was a time
when working class was middle class, but still working class.
"
Joe Uehlein, Working Class
Studies List, 3/05
"I
define genuine full employment as a situation where there are
at least as many job openings as there are persons seeking employment,
probably calling for a rate of unemployment, as currently measured,
of between 1 and 2 percent."
William
Vickrey, Presidential Address, American Economic Association,
January 6, 1993. Adapted for Challenge, M/A 1993
"The
sheer power of corporate capital . . . makes it difficult to even
imagine what a free and democratic society would look like (or
how it would operate) if there were publicly accountable mechanisms
that alleviated the vast disparities in resources, wealth,
and income owing in part to the vast influence of big business
on the U.S. government and its legal institutions."
Cornel
West, "The Role of Law in Progressive Politics," Politics
of Law, David Kairys (Ed.), 1990
"Public
policies are needed to encourage firms to compete on the basis
of innovation, product quality and the development of new markets
rather than by downsizing, outsourcing, moving operations overseas,
and reducing worker wages and benefits. We must devise incentives
for employee participation in business decisions and for compensation
systems that share a firm's prosperity with workers. „. We must
find ways of making corporate management more accountable to the
communities and workers that depend on their firms. International
regulation of corporate conduct should supplement national system
of corporate regulation. "
Charles
J. Whalen, "High Anxiety: Economic
Insecurity and Jobs for All," Uncommon Sense 11, NJFAC
"Neighborhoods
plagued by high levels of joblessness are more likely to experience
low levels of social organization: the two go hand in hand. High
rates of joblessness trigger other neighborhood problems that
undermine social organization, ranging from crime, gang violence,
and drug trafficking to family breakups and problems in the organization
of family life."
William
Julius Wilson, When Work Disappears: The World of the New
Urban Poor, p. 21, Knopf, 1996
"We need to organize together for jobs
for all, a living wage for all, and social and economic justice
for all. We need to redirect resources from war and the military
and instead promote peace and economic sustainability."
Kent Wong, Good Jobs for
All Newsletter, Summer, 2004 |
