The Jobs Crisis Will Not Be Cured with the Same
Policies that Created the Crisis; Experts and National
Leaders Agree, Explore Job-Creating Solutions

AFL-CIO July 11, 21011

http://www.aflcio.org/mediacenter/prsptm/pr07112011.cfm

WASHINGTON

On the heels of two months of dismal job growth, a
panel of workers, economists and national leaders
detailed solutions on how to deal with the jobs crisis
at a forum on Monday at the AFL-CIO.  Titled "The Jobs
Crisis - Moving to Action: A Dialogue Between Workers
and Policymakers," the forum, moderated by Bob Herbert,
drew a sharp contrast between the policies that got our
country in this economic crisis and are currently being
advocated to get it out, and what is needed in order to
spark a real economic recovery.

"The most grievous of all of America's wounds is its
chronic, insidious unemployment," stated Bob Herbert,
Distinguished Fellow at Demos and moderator of today's
panel.   "America as we've come to know it - a vibrant,
prosperous nation with a vast and growing middle class
- cannot survive if the current, tragic levels of
joblessness and underemployment become the norm."

"I want to see decent, safe jobs for all Americans. I
don't want a handout. I just want a fighting chance,"
said unemployed Working America member Shonda Sheen,
from Yellow Springs, Ohio.

The June job numbers released by the U.S. Department of
Labor paint an alarming picture:  only 18,000 jobs were
added to the nation's economy in June, indicating that
the recovery is essentially stalled.

"We cannot get our fiscal house in order until we get
America back to work," said Heather Boushey, Senior
Economist for Center for American Progress.   "Yet the
debt-ceiling conversation is happening even as the June
jobs numbers show that the labor market is moving in
the wrong direction. This should be a sobering wake-up
call to policy makers that addressing the jobs crisis
should be priority number one."

The forum noted that many in Washington continue to
tout deregulation and tax cuts as the way out of the
economic hole the country is in, without acknowledging
the role that those policies played in creating the
current economic conditions. The strategy to encourage
corporations to spend their billions of dollars in
profits is doomed when politicians don't first
acknowledge the truth that working people drive the
economy as consumers. Without good jobs or shared
prosperity, corporations won't spend and our economy
can't prosper.

"We have a jobs crisis of epic proportions and in order
to solve it - we must create a movement of enormous
proportions," said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.
"This summer working people will be out holding
politicians accountable.  But that is just the
beginning of what we must do.  Workers and communities
must work together for an economy built on good jobs."

"One of the keys to continuing our economic recovery is
growth," said Sen. Al Franken. "By creating high-wage,
high-skill jobs, we can grow our middle class and our
economy, improve people's lives, and expand our tax
base at the same time. My partners in the labor
community know that job creation is the smartest
investment we can make as a nation."

Rep. Sander Levin said, "Blaming the unemployed for the
persistent high jobless rate isn't a prescription for
the economy. We need to renew proven measures, such as
the advanced energy manufacturing credit and the Build
America Bonds program, which helped finance $181
billion in infrastructure projects in the last two
years. And we must rein in China's manipulation of its
currency, which costs American workers hundreds of
thousands of jobs."

Participants also demanded that politicians stop
playing politics and instead focus on the health of our
middle class and our economy.

"I was set to lose unemployment as of the 2nd or 3rd
week of December, and [politicians] were fighting back
and forth and it was predicated on the Bush tax cuts. I
was caught right in the middle of that," said Bob
Stein, a Working America member from Columbus, Ohio.
"The thing that was so upsetting is when you heard
about the number of people about to lose their
unemployment check. I thought, 'Ok, I understand that
you're adamant about this Bush tax cut thing, but
you're holding us all hostage. You're playing politics
with people lives. People use their unemployment. This
will stimulate and help the economy." ____________

The American Federation of Labor and Congress of
Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) is a voluntary
federation of 56 national and international labor
unions. The AFL-CIO union movement represents 10.5
million members, including 2 million members in Working
America, its new community affiliate. We are teachers
and truck drivers, musicians and miners, firefighters
and farm workers, bakers and bottlers, engineers and
editors, pilots and public employees, doctors and
nurses, painters and laborers-and more.

___________________________________________

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