Saturday, August 25, 2012

Women's Employment Report Video






about the jobs crisis and the need for a national jobs program.  


Produced by the National Organization For Women of New York State (NOW-NYS) and Manhattan Neighborhood Network. 


More info: 

National Jobs for All Coalition: www.JobsCampaign.org, www.NJFAC.org 

National Organizaiton for Women: www.NOWNYS.org 

Workers Defense League: (212) 627-1931 

NY State Department of Labor: www.Labor.ny.gov


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Friday, August 24, 2012

Robert Pollin: Back To Full Employment


More at The Real News




More at The Real News


Cross-posted from The Real News

Robert Pollin is interviewed by Paul Jay on the Real News about the jobs crisis and the opportunity to pursue economic policies that would create full employment, where everyone who wants to work could have a job.

For more information, see Bob's new book, Back to Full Employment, on MIT Press.  Here's more info from the publisher's web site.







Full employment used to be an explicit goal of economic policy in most of the industrialized world. Some countries even achieved it. In Back to Full Employment, economist Robert Pollin argues that the United States--today faced with its highest level of unemployment since the Great Depression--should put full employment back on the agenda.


There are good reasons to seek full employment, Pollin writes. Full employment will help individuals, families, and the economy as a whole, while promoting equality and social stability. Equally important, creating a full-employment economy can be joined effectively with two other fundamental policy aims: ending our dependence on fossil fuels and creating an economy powered by clean energy.


Explaining views on full employment in macroeconomic theory from Marx to Keynes to Friedman, Pollin argues that the policy was abandoned in the United States in the 1970s for the wrong reasons, and he shows how it can be achieved today despite the serious challenges of inflation and globalization.
Pollin believes the biggest obstacle to creating a full-employment economy is politics. Putting an end to the prevailing neoliberal opposition to full employment will require nothing less than an epoch-defining reallocation of political power away from the interests of big business and Wall Street and toward the middle class, working people, and the poor, while mounting a strong defense of the environment. In the end, achieving full employment will be a matter of political will: Can the United States make having a decent job a fundamental right?


About the Author


Robert Pollin is Professor of Economics and Codirector of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is the author of Contours of Descent: U.S. Economic Fractures and the Landscape of Austerity and coauthor of A Measure of Fairness: The Economics of Living Wages and Minimum Wages in the United States.

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Friday, August 10, 2012

Workers Stand for America -- Join us in Philly!!

From:  WorkersStandForAmerica.com



Join Us in Philly!

11 a.m. Saturday, August 11, 2012

Eakins Oval
26th Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway
Philadelphia, PA 19130


America's Second Bill of Rights

We the People want to strengthen our nation, as a beacon of equality, economic opportunity and freedom for all. We hold these rights to be essential to our vision of America and believe that the principles contained therein should guide our government, business leaders, organizations and individuals in our common goal of a just and fair society.
The Right to Full Employment and a Living Wage:
All Americans willing and able to work have the right to safe, gainful employment at a fair and livable wage. We call on the public and private sectors to invest in America’s infrastructure and promote industrial development, maintaining job creation as a top policy priority.
The Right to Full Participation in the Electoral Process:
Recent initiatives to disenfranchise citizens seek to reduce the rolls of eligible voters and empower money instead of people. We believe these actions constitute an assault on our nation’s democracy and history of heroic struggle against voting restrictions based upon property ownership, religion, race and gender and call for reinforcing our fundamental right to vote.
The Right to a Voice at Work:
All workers have the right of freedom of association in the workplace, including the right to collectively bargain with their employer to improve wages, benefits and working conditions.
The Right to a Quality Education:
Education is a fundamental bedrock of our democracy, vital to America’s competitive position in the world and the principal means by which citizens empower themselves to participate in our nation's economic and political systems. Quality, affordable education should be universally available from pre-kindergarten to college level, including an expanded use of apprenticeships and specialty skills training to prepare Americans for the workplace.
The Right to a Secure, Healthy Future:
Americans have the right to a baseline level of health care, unemployment insurance and retirement security, all of which have been badly eroded by the disruption of the social compact that served the nation well for decades. We call on government and private industry together to confront the issues of declining access to health care especially for children, weakening of unemployment coverage, and inadequate pension plans that undermine the ability of working men and women to retire in dignity, even as Social Security and Medicare are under strain and threatened with cutbacks.

Endorse the Second Bill of Rights at WorkersStandForAmerica.com
pdf icon
Click to Download the "Bill of Rights"in Printable PDF format
Click to Download the "Sign-up Sheet" in Printable PDF format

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WPA Posters


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