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1000 Unemployed Hit Carter 'Jobs' Scheme

By VVAW

1,000 angry workers shattered the quiet of Jimmy Carter's honeymoon on Saturday, March 5th. While Carter was playing Dial-a-President, unemployed workers were marching, rallying and picketing--delivering a person to person message loud and clear right in front of the White House.

They came from chapters of the unemployed Workers Organizing Committee (UWOC) all over the East Coast, from as far away as St Louis and Louisville. Workers with 20 years on the job, thrown out cold as their plants shut down. Youth from Newark and Cincinnati, hit by 50% unemployment and no jobs in sight for years. Vets fro East Coast cities, also hit by above average unemployment. An employed workers from the shops of New York, Philadelphia and Milwaukee. The fight against these cuts and for Jobs or Income was taken right to the federal government's doorstep.

NO CUTS--NO WAY

From the first time UWOC heard about the bill to wipe out 26 weeks of Emergency Unemployment Benefits, the fight was on. As a brother from Chicago UWOC said, "we're going to make sure Carter and his rich friends don't forget--they don't have their boots on our backs. They're going to know us unemployed ain't sitting down with our face in our hands, drowning in our own tears. We're getting ourselves organized and we ain't talking no kind of cuts--No Way--No time!"

Unemployed workers have been fighting this attack since January. The rulers who live like kings off our labor wanted the extensions cut to slip through quietly. UWOC made sure this wouldn't happen. They dragged the covers off, exposing to thousands what was coming down, and why.

And just like the government feared, everywhere the news sent out it was met with disbelief and outrage that, having poured life's sweat and blood into one plant or another across the country, workers were to be thrown out like so many broken down machines, with no benefits.

Since the opening of Congress, this outrage has been turned into organized action--at the offices of Congressmen and newspaper editors, at unemployment centers and into the hallowed halls of the US Senate. With the issue being discussed on unemployment lines and in factories and mills in every major city, the government had been forced to deal with the anger their position on the cuts has stirred up among the people. But because of the growing economic crisis in this country, the only answer the owning class has for us is to sacrifice our interests to those of big business one way or another.

CARTER'S BILL HALVES WAGES

At Carter's request, Congress has begun to unite around a solution--one that conceals its attack by looking good on the outside. House resolution 3723 grants a one-year extension of the benefits, with new rules for when they apply. But the heart of the bill is a change in what they can say is "suitable work" that workers must accept or be thrown off benefits. Under this bill, any worker on extended benefits must take any job offered in any line of work paying more than the minimum wage if that is more than unemployment benefits would provide.

This bill would pave the way for thousands of workers who have been thrown out of work to be forced into slave jobs at half the wages they were making before. All the talk about how much Carter is "giving the worker" is just wrapping paper for this attack. Carter is giving the employing class a club to use on the working class. He is giving them a better chance to use the unemployed to keep wages down for everyone. And he is giving the unemployed the choice of slave jobs at slave wages, or no more benefits.

WE WANT JOBS

1,000 answers to this gift rang out in front of the White House. No Way! A delegation of unemployed called on Carter demanding that he come out before the people and explain this attack. We Demand jobs--Decent Jobs at Decent Wages! Speakers after speaker hammered the point home. "Our first demand is for decent jobs. But as long as there are no decent jobs, we demand enough income to live on for as long as we are unemployed. We won't sit by and let our benefits be cut, and we won't be used to push down the whole working class."

UNEMPLOYED/EMPLOYED SAME-CRISIS--SAME FIGHT

Employed workers around the country have taken up this fight, and marched through the street of DC shoulder to shoulder with their unemployed brothers and sisters.

"If this attack was just aimed at the employed, we would fight it. It is crime enough to force thousands of working people into poverty. But it is more than that. It is the employing class trying to drive our working class into the dirt. They lay us off, then speed the rest of us to death. And they try to use the laid off guys to get us to work even harder for less money. How often are we told, if you don't toe the line, there are 1000 guys out there waiting for your job. Well, we have an answer--it's like this banner on the stage says, It's the Same Crisis and the Same Fight! And it's the same employing class against us, employed or unemployed." (A speaker from the united Workers Organization of Milwaukee.)

On the way to the White House, the march passed the marble palace of the top AFL-CIOL leaders. The workers recognized it at once from all the chauffeured limousines out front. And a chant went up--George Meany, You Ain't Here, Our Demands are Very Clear--No Cuts, No Way Make the Bosses Pay. The top AFL-CIO brass has signed on the dotted line to support the Carter Bill--straight against the interests of the working class. And when a member of the Executive Board of a New Jersey Steel-workers Local spoke at the rally, he emphasized that the guys in the shop are not behind the AFL-CIO's position on this, that an attack on one is an attack on all, that we all have to get together to stop this.

KILL CARTER'S BILL

Jimmy Carter never came out to face the music. The word was that he way busy playing tennis in the White House backyard. But the tune is not going to get softer.

As a UWOC speaker said, "We'll go back from here more united and more determined to fight this thing through--to go back and when the high and mighty are trying to write this thing into law, we'll hit them with actions in every corner of the country. These guys will shake in their boots at the sight of the marching army of the unemployed. We will take our protest to the leaders of the AFL-CIO, who say we should take this cut and be happy. And we have to plan now for coordinated actions across this country--employed and unemployed with armbands and rallies. We will fight this thing and we will win!"

Just like the bosses try to pit the employed against the unemployed, Carter and his political hack friends are trying to split vets off from the other unemployed workers. That's the design behind various "Jobs for Vets" plans which have been floating out of Carter' office. The economic wizards in government hope that, if they can promise 200,000 jobs for vets, then they can get vets to fight against the other unemployed workers for the crumbs. No Way! Vets who were part of the march, and vets around the country want no part of plans which attempt to pit vets against their unemployed brothers and sisters.

One unemployed woman from the Midwest spoke with the anger and determination of the whole demonstration, saying " I never did this king of thing before. But when they laid me off, that was the biggest mistake they ever made. I'm fighting now."

The battle against the cuts and Carter's Bill is growing fast. It has to become a dividing line between the working class and the employing class. If we close ranks, build this fight as one united class, we can defeat these cuts and strengthen our class.

As one unemployed steel worker, thrown out after 10 years on the job put it--"We raised hell before we came. We're going to do some ground shaking before we leave DC, and they are going to see a lot more than this in the future!"