Download PDF of this full issue: v7n6.pdf (8.5 MB)From Vietnam Veterans Against the War, http://www.vvaw.org/veteran/article/?id=2289&hilite=
| Download PDF of this full issue: v7n6.pdf (8.5 MB) |
The January 21st March on Washington, to confront Carter's State of the Union with our knowledge of the "State of Things" is being organized by the National United Workers organization and by the Unemployed Workers Organizing Committee. Seeing that vets are especially hard hit by the crisis in unemployment, VVAW is joining in these actions and building to take as many veterans as possible to Washington, DC and San Francisco. The following article is taken from the Unemployed Organizer, national paper of the Unemployed Workers Organizing Committee.
If you are tired of pounding the streets looking for work that isn't there, if you're not satisfied with the choice between no work and work with no pay--march with us in Washington. If you are fed up with slave-wage jobs that don't even keep food in your stomach, clothes on your back and a roof overhead--march with us in Washington. If you refuse to be used against the fight of those left on the job and want to unite and fight the real enemy--march with us in Washington. If you are through listening to lies that blame everyone and everything for the crisis we face except the government and profit-starved corporations who are the real cause of our problems--MARCH WITH US IN WASHINGTON ON JANUARY 21ST!
We never got out of the last recession and already it's clear that another one's starting. Shutdowns of steel plants in Johnstown and Youngstown. Threats of more in Chicago. Zenith moving 5600 jobs to Taiwan. Tractor plants like John Deere, Allis-Chalmers, and International Harvester laying off around the country and many look permanent.
JOBS. What about President Carter, elected on the promise that jobs "is our #1 priority." What is his "priority?" It hasn't been finding jobs. What's his solution?
Cut unemployment benefits and force people into minimum wage jobs. That's what Carter and Congress have been dishing out and that's what they're planning more of. Many while standing in the unemployment lines bitterly reflect how they voted for Carter thinking things would get better-instead they got worse. Sure, the smiles are still in place, and nothing's gotten better, but it's been nothing's gotten better, but it's been nothing but cutthroat attacks since the day Carter took over. Here's the record:
Carter, Congress and all levels of government are hellbent on carrying this out, a 1-2 punch of ripping away our unemployment insurance and driving us into slave labor jobs. With no benefits they hope to make sure that the unemployed will have to offer themselves up to starvation wages if we are going to find any work at all. And for those who can't find work, they can die for all these guys care.
We have not forgotten the sharp recession in 1974 when unemployment skyrocketed to 11%. As the corporate giants slowly clawed their way back up, they attempted to do it on our backs--through increased productivity, cutting social services right and left, and using every method possible to use the unemployed as a lever against those left working. Our unemployment insurance was a big thing standing in their way, since it gave us more time to look for a job paying close to the job we were thrown out of, instead of being forced to take the first thing that came along.
Since then unemployment has dropped, but only to 7%. And the whole thing is blowing wide open again. This time around they want to make sure the unemployed are sufficiently desperate to scab, to take a job at any wage, to go for anything that promises the means to keep body and soul together. To those left on the job they want to be able to use the threat, "there are plenty of guys out there who would love to have your job if you don't like it here."
Carter's attacks are intended to put us all, employed and unemployed, in a position where we are less able to resist their attempts to increase their profits through productivity drives, forced overtime, job eliminations, and a lowering of our living standards generally. Half our class condemned to overwork, the other half to starvation.
These attacks are going on all across the country. A bill in the Washington State legislature calls for all unemployed to be put to work after 15 weeks--for their unemployment checks. In Milwaukee, the County Board is eliminating general relief and forcing recipients to work for $2 an hour or to join a $46 a week school where you "learn to fill out applications."
In the face of Carter's attacks, unemployed and employed workers, veterans, men and women of all nationalities, have started to organize powerful resistance. What we're saying is:
WE DEMAND JOBS UNION JOBS AT UNION WAGES!
STOP ALL ATTACKS ON OUR UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE!
FIGHT CARTER'S UNEMPLOYMENT OFFENSIVE!
SMASH THE WORKFARE PLAN!
As much as Carter has tried to keep his plans under wraps, they have been slammed in actions across the country in recent months. There have been tent cities of the unemployed in several states. The federal hearing on the workfare proposal have seen demonstrations in 5 cities. Regional actions on September 29th in all sections of the country brought together hundreds. A number of union locals have passed resolutions condemning Carter's attack.
ON TO WASHINGTON
Make no mistake. The situation is getting worse, and our only way out is to fight them--do all we can to beat back every attack, and prepare ourselves, in our understanding and organized strength, for bigger battles ahead, If we fail to fight now, we'll be that much less prepared for the future.
Now is the time to take the fight to the seat of the government's power--to Washington DC. In January, Carter will be making his State of the Union address. This is the speech every year when the President officially sums up his work in the previous year and his plans for the future. We can already hear Carter's 1978 speech: "Well, this year wasn't quite as good as I had hoped, but things could be worse, you know, after all, and if we all just stick together and have faith in me, next year will surely be better. In 4 or 5 years, we might be able to get it together."
While Carter is smiling in our face and stabbing us in the back, employed and unemployed workers from the Midwest, South and East will be marching in the streets of Washington. Workers from the West coast will march in San Francisco at the same time. We'll pit our unity and strength directly against the lies and against Carter's attacks on the occasion of his State of the Union speech which will not go unanswered!