THE JOBS CRISIS: AN AGENDA FOR 2008
September 2008
The modern world economy is based on jobs and income. Human beings spend the better part of their lives struggling to earn a wage to produce and reproduce life. When jobs and income are threatened, life is threatened.
We are experiencing a jobs crisis in the United States. Official unemployment rates exceed five percent and growth sectors of the economy such as construction are stagnating. Recently, both manufacturing and service employment levels have declined at the same time. For most workers, real wages which had short growth bubbles in the late 1990s have been declining since the 1970s. With global, national, and personal debt at all time highs, traditional economic stimulus policies are not likely to help working people recover from the burgeoning recession. The crisis is driven by government policies that have rewarded corporate piracy and greed and exacerbated the normal boom and bust cycle of “free market” capitalism.
Only a real jobs program can stem the tide of the job crisis at home.
The Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS) proposes a job creation plan to generate 5 million new jobs a year for the next ten years. This would double the number of jobs required by normal population growth and thus draw into the formal labor force 25 million of those now unemployed or underemployed. The ultimate goal of this program is full employment at a living wage. Jobs would be provided by a massive, federally organized and publicly-funded restructuring of our social and physical infrastructure: schools; health care facilities; mass transit; housing; child and elder care facilities; cultural and recreational facilities; parks and sports centers. In short – we call for the rebuilding of our communities along with the construction of new “green” industries.
- The jobs provided would be permanent with an inflation-indexed minimum starting pay of $18 an hour, providing at least an annual after-tax pay of $30,000 free of discrimination in wage scales. Workers would be guaranteed the right to form trade unions and worker associations of their choosing without management interference. Working conditions and wage increases would be determined through collective bargaining.
- This program would be organized through a mixture of publicly-run enterprises, private businesses and non-profit organizations, and worker cooperatives whichever was most practical and efficient in a given industry.
- This program would include vigorous affirmative action to guarantee job opportunities to African Americans, Latinos, Asian-Pacific Islanders, American Indians and youth, particularly in the urban centers that have been devastated by job losses and unemployment.
- The rights of immigrant workers are integral to the rights of all at the workplace. This jobs program calls for “legalization” for all who work, an end to raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and a halt to firings on the basis of Social Security “no match” letters.
- This program would be financed in the following ways: transfer half of the annual U.S. trillion dollar military expenses to the jobs program; substantially increase the tax on both the income and wealth of the top 1 percent; levy a significant tax on the profits of major corporations with tax rebates going to those who participate in the job creation program; and close the tax loopholes and shelters that allow corporations and the wealthy to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.
- Steps would be taken to reverse our unsustainable current account deficit that is accelerated by capital flight to avoid tax and wage burdens. This means entrance to the U.S. domestic market must be denied to those corporations and financial institutions based here or abroad who sabotage our job creation and maintenance program through tax havens and low wage job exploitation abroad.
- Legislation that can provide a model for more expansive programs is the Gulf Coast Civic Works Act (HR 4048), a program that would put 100,000 Gulf Coast residents and evacuees to work with job training to rebuild their homes and communities destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and government inaction. We call for immediate passage of this important legislation introduced in the House of Representatives in November 2007.
We welcome responses and discussion of this proposal and challenge candidates to adopt this program as part of their platform
Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism
National Office
545 Eighth Avenue Room 1420
New York, NY 10018
(212) 868-3733 national@cc-ds.org www.cc-ds.org
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