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"Jobs Or Income Now!": UWOC Builds Struggle of Unemployed

By VVAW

Everybody knows that though few people have gone back to work, long-term unemployment is getting higher every day. As the employment rate goes up, so does the anger and determination of the people to fight back. All across the country, employed and unemployed workers are uniting to build a campaign demanding "Jobs or Income, Now!" The major force behind this campaign is the Unemployed Workers Organizing Committee (UWOC), an organization of employed and unemployed workers who are fed up with hearing that "things are getting better." In Cincinnati, people held a rally at the unemployment office demanding more jobs. When it started to rain, they went inside and took over the building. As one unemployed worker said, "Hell, we build the damn place." Forty people in Cincinnati also attended a forum on "How to fight the Layoffs" and took what they learned back to the workplace. There were speakers from UWOC, the Time to Unite Group from the Detroit Rouge plant (auto workers), and a rank-and-file group form the GHR Foundry in Dayton, Ohio.

The UWOC recently held demonstrations in Seattle and Tacoma, Washington, to protest the increased harassment of the unemployed and demanded (1) "Union Jobs at Union Pay," (2) "Unemployment Compensation is Our Right... Not a Privilege! No check Delays," (3) "Stop Harassment and Speed up of State Workers... Hire More State Workers!" These demands drew enthusiastic support from both the unemployed and from state workers. After the protesters left the unemployment office, they converged on the Food Stamp Office in Seattle. The effect of the rallies in both cities was summed up best by two Seattle workers--one came out and told the UWOC picketers how the unemployment interviewer had been hassling him and tried to take away his benefits. He told the interviewer, speaking about the rally, "That's why they are out there now... To stop this kind of stuff." Another unemployed worker who joined the picket line pointed out, "This just shows the Boss who's really strong."

Other activities in Seattle have seen members of UWOC leafleting at JC Penney's in support of striking workers and asking unemployed workers not to take scab jobs at Penney's and to boycott the store. Penney's management had been calling back former workers in an attempt to break the strike. One worker who spoke to UWOC members stated that he was having a hard time of it but he wouldn't stoop that low to cross the picket lines no matter how much Penney's was offering.

The struggle for Jobs or Income Now has really intensified in Milwaukee around the Meatcutters strike. The same bosses who are trying to but the meatcutters' wages are trying to get unemployed workers to scab on the strike. But the bonds between the strikers and the unemployed have been forged and the director of the unemployment office has been forced to quit sending scabs to cross the picket lines. Also in Milwaukee, UWOC has been involved in fighting evictions. When the sheriff and movers came to evict a member of UWOC, he called on his friends and neighbors and UWOC who arrived promptly and stood between the evictors and the unemployed worker's furniture. The sheriff was forced to back down from his plans to confiscate the furniture to pay back the rent.

In Dayton, Ohio the fight against layoffs continues. Workers at McCall Printing Company and at the GM Inland Plant are building a fight demanding No Layoffs and Jobs or Income Now! At McCall's, the workers on layoff hadn't been getting their subpay, a partial payment of wages for laid-off workers, and the workers on the job responded by a wildcat. Though the entire company wasn't shut down, they did win support and the laid-off workers got their subpay.

In Detroit, UWOC is fighting a bill recently passed by the Michigan legislature that increased the penalty period for workers who quit or were fired to 13 weeks, meaning they won't get any compensation for that period. Fighting against the legislation, the Detroit UWOC makes it clear that they won't accept the 13 week period and that they believe the bosses' final objective is to cut off people who quit or were fired entirely. Recent picket lines on jobs and at the unemployment offices have raised the demands of "NO Penalties," and "Jobs or Income Now!"

With the economy sagging, the people who control the wealth in this country are trying to break the backs of working people in the US with massive cutbacks and layoffs. But working people have consistently refused to take these attacks lying down as is evidenced by the recent wave of strikes such as the miners strike in West Virginia and teachers around the country. Particularly hard hit by this crisis are Vietnam-era vets who suffer from 15%-40% unemployment nationally. Used in the war of aggression in Indochina, they now face the "use once and throw away" attitude of US employers.

Like millions of workers across the country, veterans too are resisting the attacks on decent living standards and are uniting to fight, uniting with UWOC and other workers groups across the land. Unity and Action is Strength and Power. Everywhere, from New York to San Francisco, from Atlanta to Seattle, the campaign for Jobs or Income Now is growing stronger every day. We're fighting for what we need to live, the only way working people ever get anything. And we're fighting to win!