Unions.Org Blog

One worker says she lost four jobs during the past seven years. Another saw his unemployment insurance (UI) benefits evaporate due to Sen. Jim Bunning’s (R-Ky.) callous filibuster of an UI extension last month.

Those are just two of the personal stories jobless workers and others have shared at the AFL-CIO’s Good Jobs Now site. Our interactive site is part of the AFL-CIO’s fight for good jobs that today kicked off two weeks of action across the country with rallies and demonstrations at branches of the Big Six Wall Street banks—Bank of America, Chase, Citigroup, Wachovia-Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. (Find out about events in your area here.)

The Big Six’s reckless greed played the major role in wrecking the U.S. economy and killing American jobs.  The workers sharing their stories have seen firsthand the damage left behind.

Mary from Illinois writes that the nation’s jobs crisis has batttered her life and ruined her future.

I have suffered through four terminations of various kinds in a seven year timeframe. It is so hard to get a job these days and so easy for employers to let us go. In addition to the obvious destruction of a person’s finances, I have struggled with a lot of anxiety after the last two terminations. My future is ruined as well as the present because I have not been in a pension plan or 401(k) for the last 7 years and have not earned enough to save in my own IRA.

In December, Eddy, an Ohio UAW member, saw his job of 17 years shipped overseas.

There are those at the top making the decisions that know nothing of what it takes to make the product, or the people that make the product. We are just a number, but not the number that they are interested in. Corporate America knows only one number, the number that drives their greed! When corporations know that they can move a company’s operations to a third world country and make more for less, they have dollars signs in there eyes and it does not matter who they go through to get there or what they leave in the wake of their decisions.

Terry in Florida says he and his wife face a grim future after both were laid off from the same firm.

I worked for a large corporation in senior health care. They laid me off a week before Christmas….My wife was laid off by the same company six months before. The company is making more money than they ever have but wants more. I know, I see the financials. What’s up with that? At this rate we will be homeless by summer, no house and no car unless God helps us out. Please pray for us.

Like far too many construction workers, Mike, a member of the Operating Engineers (IUOE) in Ohio, has been forced to depend on unemployment benefits as construction projects have faltered in during the nation’s economic upheaval. But he never thought a Kentucky senator would tell him “Tough sh*t.”

I’m 51 years old and unemployed. I’ve worked 15 weeks in the last two years. They just cut off my unemployment benefits because some high and mighty senator decided he doesn’t like what’s being done with the extension on unemployment benefits to Americas unemployed. HE STILL HAS A JOB, HEALTH CARE AND A PRETTY GOOD RETIREMENT. What about the rest of America? How do we pay our bills? What do we eat? How do we pay for our medications that we need? Guess it’s not his problem, is it?

Click here to read more stories or submit your [...]

The UAW today announced it has reached a tentative agreement on the planned closing of Toyota’s New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. (NUMMI) plant in Fremont, Calif. The agreement covers some 4,500 members of UAW Local 2244.

The tentative agreement will be presented to members of the local in the coming days. Details are being withheld pending a ratification vote by the membership. Voting dates have not yet been scheduled. 

Established as a joint venture between General Motors Corp. (GM) and Toyota Motor Corp. in 1984, the NUMMI facility most recently built the Pontiac Vibe, Toyota Corolla and Tacoma pickup. As part of a structured bankruptcy, GM eliminated its Pontiac brand in 2009. Shortly after, Toyota announced its intention to close the NUMMI facility on April 1, 2010.

The plant’s closure also would put out of work another 1,500 Teamsters who transport the cars from the NUMMI plant to the dealerships. Additionally, as many as 50,000 workers at hundreds of businesses in California depend on NUMMI to stay afloat, from the suppliers that manufacture car parts to the restaurants where NUMMI workers go for lunch and even the shoe stores where the plant workers buy their specialized work [...]

The momentum is building for the United States to take strong action to counteract manipulation of its currency by China’s government.

More than 130 members of Congress signed on to a letter from Reps. Mike Michaud (D-Maine) and Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) delivered today that urges Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke to take strong action up to and including countervailing duties (CVD) or tariffs because of currency manipulation.  

Michaud and Ryan’s letter is the latest in growing calls by Congress and by top economists for the United States to act on the manipulation of currency by China’s government. If Geithner does act, the administration could impose remedies, such as tariffs, to create a fairer trade balance with China.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, who co-chairs the Fair Currency Coalition, thanked Michaud and Ryan for their letter:

The working families of this country need jobs now. If we want a recovery that will invest in manufacturing, boost exports, balance trade, and create jobs we must stop China and other countries from illegally manipulating their currency. China’s prolonged undervaluation…is an illegal export subsidy. That is why the U.S. government must allow CVD cases to proceed. American workers expect their government to stand up for them. 

The AFL-CIO, U.S. manufacturers and many economic experts maintain that China deliberately undervalues its currency to keep the value artificially low so it can boost exports and discourage imports—running up the U.S. trade deficit and costing U.S. jobs.

An AFL-CIO report shows China’s fixed currency rate artificially lowers the price of its goods by 40 percent, effectively subsidizing China’s exports, putting U.S. companies at a competitive disadvantage and creating a record trade deficit.   

Several experts, including Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman and United Steelworkers USW President Leo Gerard, on Friday told a forum on “Currency Manipulation: How Should the U.S Respond?” trade remedies are what we need. The forum was co-sponsored by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) with the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM).

China’s currency manipulation has cost between 1.5 million and 3 million good American manufacturing jobs. C. Fred Bergsten, director of the conservative Peterson Institute for International Economics, told the forum:

If there is going to be a serious jobs program, the exchange rate of the dollar must be at the center of the debate.    

The Fair Currency Coalition also called this week for Congress and the Obama administration to take a strong stand against currency misalignment because it threatens our national security. The coalition, which includes business and labor groups, said in a statement:

The results of Beijing’s policy…have created a serious and growing threat to national security. The capital and technology transferred to China and the production capacity built and sustained in China by Beijing’s export surplus have been used to expand the size and capabilities of the People’s Liberation Army. Over the past decade, annual military expenditures have risen by more than 400 [...]