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Unemployed Workers Hold National Meeting

By VVAW

On July 5th, the day following the July 1-4 demonstrations in Philadelphia, over 70 representatives from more than 30 Unemployed Workers Organizing Committee chapters from Massachusetts to Hawaii, met in Philly for their first national meeting. UWOC began on the West Coast over five years ago and has since grown to a national organization, but the Philly demonstration marked the first time members from across the country had joined together in one place at one time that elected representatives from across the country met to make plans for building UWOC and its campaigns.

The meeting on the 5th concentrated on the campaign for jobs which has been the main focus of UWOC. With 10 million Americans unemployed, with millions more looking for jobs where they can at least make a living wage, with the rich using this giant pool of unemployed workers to threaten and hold down the living standard and struggle of employed workers, the fight for jobs is a major issue facing the whole working class. This was plenty clear April of last year when 40,000 workers, mostly employed, showed up at an AFL-CIO jobs rally in Washington, DC, and with UWOC playing a leading role, thousands booed down the parade of jive politicians like Hubert Humphrey and the top union hacks who turned out to speak.

UWOC brought its petition to the July 4th demonstration demanding jobs at union wages or enough income to cover the cost of living until there are jobs. The quarter of a million signatures collected by July 4th were carried in the front of the march in a pickup truck.

At their meeting, UWOC decided that chapters should continue to collect signatures on the Jobs or Income petition as a part of organizing to win jobs. The overall approach UWOC should be taking to the campaign for jobs was summed up in a slogan put forward by people from New York and Northern New Jersey, "Dig in and Break out," meaning fan the demand and spread it into a powerful fighting movement involving not only those without jobs, but their employed class brothers and sisters, too.

The meeting discussed the battles to defeat the wide range of government attacks launched on the unemployed in recent months. One of the spearheads of this attack is the Hoffman Bill in New Jersey which would force unemployed workers to take any job even if it meant a paycut of up to 35%--enough to drive many workers down to minimum wage. This is even more than an attack on the right to unemployment insurance won by the working class in its mighty upsurge of struggle during the Depression. It is an open attempt to force down the wages of all workers in that state. One NJ official showed what the capitalists are planning by describing the bill as "ten yards along the mile we have to go."

A similar law went into effect in Rhode Island on July 4th, another Bicentennial treat. Governor Rhodes of Ohio is talking about how using this kind of gimmick will "attract more jobs" to his state. New Jersey UWOC has organized demonstrations against the Hoffman Bill and other chapters are ready to take up the battle against such schemes intended to provide the owners of industry with a constant supply of beaten-down workers who are hungry enough to accept any job thereby force down wages and increase the profits of the rich.

The real kicker though is the Humphrey-Hawkins Bill, a chunk of federal legislation proposed by Hubert Humphrey and one of his congressional sidekicks. When the Bill first came to public attention in the early months of 1976, it added fuel to the flames of anger and rage of the unemployed nationwide. Originally the Bill called for $21 billion for 3 million jobs, roughly $3,000 a year, $250.00 a month or $1.56 an hour, 1/3 of what the Department of Labor says is required to keep a family alive and in good health.

Confronted at Congressional hearings by angry groups of the unemployed led by UWOC, congressional stooges backed down from their original facts and figures by saying that the jobs would be at "prevailing wages." What prevailing wages meant wasn't immediately clear but the congressmen let the cat out of the bag by saying that the jobs would be "public service jobs" meaning not as high paying as industry jobs because they didn't want to attract workers from important industries. In short, it would be minimum wages or below. Presidential hopeful Carter, the darling of the Democrats, took it one step further when he stated, "Why pay someone $80 a week unemployment when we could pay them $100 a week to a repair the railroads?"

This is an all-out attack on employed workers as well as the unemployed. Not only would the Bill force unemployed workers to take jobs at starvation wages at the same time losing their unemployment benefits, but the people on this program would be scabbing on union workers at lower wages and being used to drive down wages of workers everywhere.

All these battles will be taken up in the fighting spirit of "We Won't Scab and We Won't Starve!" UWOC is not some social service agency claiming to provide jobs that don't exist; it is a fighting organization of the whole working class, pointing the resistance of the unemployed at the handful of parasites, whose very system has unemployment built in.

The end of the meeting in Philadelphia reflected its accomplishments in laying out plans for building and uniting the struggles of the unemployed. It also laid the basis for even greater advances--the representatives took home to their chapters a proposal that UWOC hold its first national convention sometime next spring!

As veterans, we in VVAW are no strangers to unemployment, understanding how vets are hard hit by unemployment along with millions of others in this country. We join with UWOC in struggle and raise as a major demand of our program the demand of "Jobs or Income Now." We congratulate UWOC on the tremendous advances they have made towards a national organization of the unemployed and look forward to working shoulder to shoulder with them in the struggle ahead.