ACROSS THE COUNTRY, AMERICANS FROM ALL WALKS OF LIFE ARE DEMANDING GOOD JOBS NOW
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Americans all across the country this week are demanding that members of Congress stop dallying and pass meaningful legislation to address the nation’s jobs crisis.
USAction affiliates are taking action across the country, creating Great Depression-style soup kitchens, forming picket lines, greeting an African American motorcycle club and even selling 26,340 hot dogs at a nickel apiece to help reduce the national debt.
The events are all part of USAction’s Good Jobs for Everyone in America national campaign. The three-pronged campaign calls for an end to hiring discrimination against the unemployed, extension of federal unemployment assistance and passage of robust jobs legislation, such as Rep. Jan Schakowsky’s Emergency Jobs to Restore the American Dream Act, which would create two million jobs in two years.
“The question we are asking members of Congress across the country is, where are the jobs?” said Alan Charney, USAction director of strategy and planning. “The best way to cut the deficit is to get everyone back to work, not to pick the pockets of the middle class and low-income families. If millionaires and billionaires paid their fair share, we’d have plenty of money to get millions of people back to work and to make big cuts in the deficit.”
In Parkersburg, West Virginia today, activists marked the 90th anniversary of the Battle on Blair Mountain, which pitted coal miners against coal barons. USAction affiliate West Virginia Citizen Action Group, working with labor allies and advocates for retired Americans, will donate a check for $1,317 dollars to the Parkersburg Bureau of the Public Debt to help pay for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The $1,317 came from the sale of 26,340 hot dogs at nearly a dozen community events in recent weeks at a nickel each – the price of a hot dog during the Great Depression. House Speaker John Boehner has been invited to attend the event.
In Irondequoit, New York this Saturday, USAction affiliate Citizen Action of New York is teaming up with the “Most Wanted Motorcycle Club” as members bike from Irondequoit to Syracuse to protest the lack of jobs as well as attacks on America’s safety net. The African American motorcycle club will depart Rochester at 11 a.m. and arrive in Syracuse at 1:30 p.m. A press conference is planned outside the district office of Republican Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle.
And in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, USAction affiliate Tennessee Citizen Action earlier this week formed a picket line outside of Rep. Diane Black’s district office, demanding “good jobs, not cuts,” and reminding the Republican congresswoman that unemployment is the nation’s top issue.
Meanwhile, more than 200,000 people have signed online petitions demanding that companies stop discriminating against jobless workers. A study released last month by the National Employment Law Project found that employers of all sizes in every geographic region of America are using recruitment and hiring policies that expressly deny employment to the unemployed – simply because they are not working.
USAction also this week launched a new website, www.goodjobsforamerica.org and has collected thousands of stories from unemployed Americans all across the country. These stories will be shared with members of Congress.
USAction is a federation of 22 state affiliates that organize for a more just America. With our state partners, we build broad coalitions to win progressive campaigns that enrich people’s lives.
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