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Jobs or Income Now

By VVAW

JOBS OR INCOME NOW! For vets this is more than a slogan--it's a critical reality. Piercing the cloud of government statistics, we find as many as 13% of Vietnam-era veterans are unemployed. Younger vets and minority vets face much higher figures. And there are no figures whatever about the vets who got the only jobs they could--as security guards or whatever at the minimum wage. This is what is known as underemployment and, while it beats nothing, isn't a hell of a lot better.

The big move by the government to solve the unemployment problem among vets was the law which says that, after 48 months out of the service, veterans are no longer listed as Vietnam-era veterans. in the State of Texas, when that law was passed, the number of unemployed vets dropped by 2/3's--overnight!

Vets preference is under consistent attack, sometimes in strange ways. When Sears Roebuck & Co challenged the government's anti-discrimination laws, veterans were labelled as the source of the problems of minorities who want to secure jobs. In fact, of course, the problem is the large corporations for whom it's cheaper to speed-up the workers and even pay overtime for 12 hours a day than it is to hire new workers. Millions of people, vets and non-vets, need decent jobs at union wages. We don't need to be dropped from the lists so that the government figures look better--we need action. VVAW says JOBS OR INCOME NOW!