Word on the Street: “Without a Job, I Don’t Have a Purpose”
Chase Brandau — Twin Cities, Minnesota
That is what Working America member Gretchen of Hopkins, MN told me this week. She was describing how her life has changed since she had lost her job almost two years ago. Gretchen used to work as a cook at a public school, but was laid-off due to budget cutbacks. Now she is forced to rent out rooms in her house and survive on a $119/week unemployment check, which is set to expire in three months. What she has been through this last two years, echoes what millions of Americans are also suffering through and Gretchen knows this.
What is amazing about Gretchen, is that she has decided to take action by sharing her story with the rest of Minnesota today. She had the courage to take center stage at the Minnesota AFL-CIO’s Legislative Agenda press conference and tell her story to a room full of strangers, cameras and reporters.
She had never done anything like this before today. Wouldn’t even consider herself an activist. But today, she decided to become one, because she understood how many others out there do not have a voice right now and she doesn’t want to sit on the sidelines any longer.
This is what Working America is achieving. By reaching the people who feel they do not have a voice and giving them the opportunities to be heard. That is what allows people like Gretchen to take that step from being a victim to being an activist.
“I’m just the common person that needs to be heard,” she said. “I’m not the only one that is going through this. All I need is a job to get back on my feet.”
Tags: unemployment
Yes…I can totally relate. I have been w/o work for almost two years. I cleaned my house today…thinking this would help. Took down my memories of “the better days”.
Wondering if I could sell this house for practically nothing and leave this country.
I am at my wits end.
Not working, is the worst feeling in the world.
You must sign in or register to post a comment. Registration is free.
How many people have been pushed out of the UI system entirely, and have no means of survival? They become part of America’s poor, a demographic that we utterly disregard. While our govt was busy “getting tough” on the poor, tearing our the entitlement to basic humanitarian aid (with the public’s approval), tax dollars have been handed to corporations (“tax relief”) to cover the costs of exporting our jobs. We’ve been paying to have our jobs shut down for many years already, and we now have a fraction of the jobs needed for very basic survival. Today, we have an increased pool of people desperate for jobs, a shrinking job market, and a govt that has worked to increase the size of the minimum/sub-minimum wage workfare replacement workforce to serve the role of suppressing wages, crushing unions, etc.
As long as Americans do nothing to stop it, nothing will change.
You must sign in or register to post a comment. Registration is free.
I do not understand why the labor unions have not fought for a New Deal jobs program and have not fought against the deficit hawk mentality. It is clear that employers’ hiring practices are driving a segment of the population out of the workforce: older workers, anyone with gaps on their resume, anyone with bad credit, minorities, women in science, the disabled. It is an aristocratic system designed to assure jobs for the children of the rich because only independently wealthy people can avoid credit and avoid jobs where they could have a bad experience, or get the right internships to look good on paper.
It is a vicious cycle. Once you have a mark against you, you become labeled as damaged goods by a hiring process designed to find fault with people and place them on the defensive. We have to recognize that the culture of work has become dominated by anti-labor employment lawyers who earn their livelihood by treating employees and job applicants as adversaries about whom they have to dig for dirt and intimidate.
As long as platitudes like “job creation” are the basis for public policy, nothing is going to change. This is a political problem and not just an economic problem.
You must sign in or register to post a comment. Registration is free.
Every time anyone mentioned India, cries of xenophobia arise. When is the US going to accept the fact that there are not enough jobs for the entire population of India and the entire population of the US. India is throwing its overpopulation problem onto the US at the expense of US workers and the US is acting like an abused woman, opening the door and letting them walk all over us.
The middle class economy has been captured by Indian recruiting firms who can supply a limitless supply of young, able-bodied male workers from a hierarchical culture, who are so desperate for a visa that they will tolerate anything and not complain. The Indian recruiters do not proivide their real names and engage in unethical price fixing by pressuring candidates to lower their wages and colluding with employers to lower the wages to professional in the IT and high tech sectors. The people from India teach other the exam questions and now that many of the managers are from India it has become impossible for an American to get a job at certain companies.
We do not need any new laws on immigration: it is a matter of enforcing the existing laws prohibiting the hiring of H1-B workers when Americans are qualified and available. Employers have to stop playing games with the use of the word “qualified.” A Master’s degree from a major state university and three years of work experience in the general field of technology should be good enough to render a person qualified without arcane requirements lists whose only purpose is to provide defenses for hiring H1-Bs or discriminating against older workers, the disabled, women and minorities.
The Indian search firms are violating contractor vs. employee law all over the country, convincing green card holders to take jobs on a 1099 basis, shifting all the taxes for them and making them ineligible for benefits and unemployment, when the worker is at the employer’s site, under supervision of a manager and using the employer’s equipment, i.e. the individual is really an employee. Again, it is a matter of enforcement of existing law.
Why is it that we are giving India a free pass and allowing them to violate the law left anf right and take over our economy?
We have to understand that there is a side of the Indian culture that is very beautiful, with wonderful music and dance and the Gandhi tradition of peace, as well as yoga and vegetarian cooking. But there is also another culture in India that is the culture of exploitation of workers and of a rigid caste system. We do not want the exploiters taking over the culture of work in America and we are allowing the US to do that.
You must sign in or register to post a comment. Registration is free.
We do not need more story collection. We need some action.
-New Deal jobs that anyone who wants to work can sign up for
-oppose the deficit hawks and listen to Paul Krugman on economics
-Tier V and longer for 99ers
-Enforce the H1-B laws
-Enforce the employee vs. contractor laws
-Defend affirmative action and stop calling it reverse discrimination
-Medicare at 50
You must sign in or register to post a comment. Registration is free.
The recovery in employment has been slowed not only by the moderate growth in output in the past year and a half but also by structural changes in the labor market, such as a mismatch between the requirements of available jobs and the skills of job seekers, that have hindered the reemployment of workers who have lost their job.
Co-Owner
Express Funding Group
You must sign in or register to post a comment. Registration is free.
The blog is truly fantastic! Lots of great inspiration, which we all need!b Keep ‘em coming… you’ve done such a great job very appreciating… can’t tell you how much I’m pleased from your work.
Business Loan
You must sign in or register to post a comment. Registration is free.