Unions are still grappling with how to organize the unemployed, including their own ex-members, into a political force.
...Department of Labor figures for December showed 13.1 million unemployed and actively looking for work, almost half of them for more than six months. Another 8.1 million were working part-time involuntarily, and 2.5 million were too discouraged to look for work....
...Jobs with Justice chapters have been experimenting with organizing the unemployed, but at a recent conference activists expressed frustration. The model of “unemployed” as an identity group (like race or sex) hasn’t worked, many said.
“How do you organize the unemployed when people don’t want to identify themselves as unemployed?” asked Susan Hurley, executive director of JwJ in Chicago.Read it all at AlterNet
13 Million Unemployed; Why Aren't They a Political Force to be Reckoned With?
by Jenny Brown
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2 comments:
Look at the military's research into the behavioral manifestations of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) for clues to how truly defensive and lacking in confidence the unemployed can become.
resp,
I know how to do it. Use a system like IVCS, where people can interact anonymously. Then they don't have to reveal who they are until they get into meetups and perhaps not even then.
See: http://www.reinventdemocracy.net/
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