Sent: Tuesday, January 04, 2011 1:28 PM
Subject: provocative Piven piece
http://www.thenation.com/article/157292/mobilizing-jobless
Mobilizing the Jobless
Frances Fox Piven
TheNation:December 22, 2010
As 2011 begins, nearly 15 million people are officially unemployed in the
United States and another 11.5 million have either settled for part-time
work or simply given up the search for a job. To regain the 5 percent
unemployment level of December 2007, about 300,000 jobs would have to be
created each month for several years. There are no signs that this is likely
to happen soon. And joblessness now hits people harder because it follows in
the wake of decades of stagnating worker earnings, high consumer
indebtedness, eviscerated retirement funds and rollbacks of the social
safety net.
So where are the angry crowds, the demonstrations, sit-ins and unruly mobs?
After all, the injustice is apparent. Working people are losing their homes
and their pensions while robber-baron CEOs report renewed profits and
windfall bonuses. Shouldn't the unemployed be on the march? Why aren't they
demanding enhanced safety net protections and big initiatives to generate
jobs?
It is not that there are no policy solutions. Left academics may be
pondering the end of the American empire and even the end of neoliberal
capitalism, and—who knows—in the long run they may be right. But surely
there is time before the darkness settles to try to relieve the misery
created by the Great Recession with massive investments in public-service
programs, and also to use the authority and resources of government to spur
big new initiatives in infrastructure and green energy that might, in fact,
ward off the darkness.
Nothing like this seems to be on the agenda. Instead the next Congress is
going to be fixated on an Alice in Wonderland policy of deficit reduction by
means of tax and spending cuts. As for the jobless, right-wing commentators
and Congressional Republicans are reviving the old shibboleth that
unemployment is caused by generous unemployment benefits that indulge poor
work habits and irresponsibility. Meanwhile, in a gesture eerily reminiscent
of the blatherings of a panicked Herbert Hoover, President Obama invites
corporate executives to a meeting at Blair House to urge them to invest some
of their growing cash reserves in economic growth and job creation, in the
United States, one hopes, instead of China.
Mass protests might change the president's posture if they succeeded in
pressing him hard from his base, something that hasn't happened so far in
this administration. But there are obstructions to mobilizing the unemployed
that would have to be overcome.
First, when people lose their jobs they are dispersed, no longer much
connected to their fellow workers or their unions and not easily connected
to the unemployed from other workplaces and occupations. By contrast workers
and students have the advantage of a common institutional setting, shared
grievances and a boss or administrator who personifies those grievances. In
fact, despite some modest initiatives—the AFL-CIO's Working America, which
includes the unemployed among their ranks, or the International Association
of Machinists' Ur Union of Unemployed, known as UCubed—most unions do little
for their unemployed, who after all no longer pay dues and are likely to be
malcontents.
Because layoffs are occurring in all sectors and job grades, the unemployed
are also very diverse. This problem of bringing people of different
ethnicities or educational levels or races together is the classic
organizing problem, and it can sometimes be solved by good organizers and
smart tactics, as it repeatedly was in efforts to unionize the mass
production industries. Note also that only recently the prisoners in at
least seven different facilities in the Georgia state penitentiary system
managed to stage coordinated protests using only the cellphones they'd
bought from guards. So it remains to be seen whether websites such as
99ers
.et or layofflist.org that have recently been initiated among the
unemployed can also become the basis for collective action, as the Internet
has in the global justice movement.
The problem of how to bring people together is sometimes made easier by
government service centers, as when in the 1960s poor mothers gathered in
crowded welfare centers or when the jobless congregated in unemployment
centers. But administrators also understand that services create sites for
collective action; if they sense trouble brewing, they exert themselves to
avoid the long lines and crowded waiting areas that can facilitate
organizing, or they simply shift the service nexus to the Internet.
Organizers can try to compensate by offering help and advocacy off-site, and
at least some small groups of the unemployed have been formed on this basis.
Second, before people can mobilize for collective action, they have to
develop a proud and angry identity and a set of claims that go with that
identity. They have to go from being hurt and ashamed to being angry and
indignant. (Welfare moms in the 1960s did this by naming themselves
"mothers" instead of "recipients," although they were unlucky in doing so at
a time when motherhood was losing prestige.) Losing a job is bruising; even
when many other people are out of work, most people are still working. So, a
kind of psychological transformation has to take place; the out-of-work have
to stop blaming themselves for their hard times and turn their anger on the
bosses, the bureaucrats or the politicians who are in fact responsible.
Third, protesters need targets, preferably local and accessible ones capable
of making some kind of response to angry demands. This is, I think, the most
difficult of the strategy problems that have to be resolved if a movement of
the unemployed is to arise. Protests among the unemployed will inevitably be
local, just because that's where people are and where they construct
solidarities. But local and state governments are strapped for funds and are
laying off workers. The initiatives that would be responsive to the needs of
the unemployed will require federal action. Local protests have to
accumulate and spread—and become more disruptive—to create serious pressures
on national politicians. An effective movement of the unemployed will have
to look something like the strikes and riots that have spread across Greece
in response to the austerity measures forced on the Greek government by the
European Union, or like the student protests that recently spread with
lightning speed across England in response to the prospect of greatly
increased school fees.
A loose and spontaneous movement of this sort could emerge. It is made more
likely because unemployment rates are especially high among younger workers.
Protests by the unemployed led by young workers and by students, who face a
future of joblessness, just might become large enough and disruptive enough
to have an impact in Washington. There is no science that predicts eruption
of protest movements. Who expected the angry street mobs in Athens or the
protests by British students? Who indeed predicted the strike movement that
began in the United States in 1934, or the civil rights demonstrations that
spread across the South in the early 1960s? We should hope for another
American social movement from the bottom—and then join it
***
----- Original Message -----
From: "Genise Schnitman" <immensefrogs@mac.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 04, 2011 4:42 PM
Subject: Important opportunity to boost progressive strength in CA
Democratic Party this Sunday
Hi Ed!
Progressive Democrats of America, Progressiveslate.org, Progressive Caucus
of the CA Democratic Party, California Nurses Association, and other
progressive organizations have joined forces to run progressive slates for
CDP delegate positions.
Members of the progressive slate have come together on the belief that the
power to change our party comes from a cohesive group of individuals
dedicated to making change happen.
Everyone who is registered as a Democrat as of October 18, 2010, is eligible
to vote in the elections conducted in each assembly district to select
delegates to the California Democratic Party and representatives to the
state party's executive board, which are being held this weekend at various
locations, one per assembly district (details at links below).
Slates of progressive candidates are being fielded up and down the state,
and I am running as part of the slate in the 41st Assembly District, which
meets Sunday at the Topanga Canyon Community Center at noon (registration
opens at 10 a.m.) -- full info at:
http://www.cadem.org/resources/assembly_district_meetings?id=0041
As your list includes readers in multiple assembly districts, each with its
own location and starting time, perhaps the best way to disseminate info is
with the call from PDA below, which has links for specific assembly
districts, and explains what these elections are and how important they are
in building the capacity for progressive change.
Wishing you a happy, healthy, and -- let's hope -- progressive new year!
G
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We're on a countdown to launch a major transformation of the California
Democratic Party!
Just days from now -- on the weekend of January 8 and 9 -- progressives will
converge at local caucuses to elect delegates to the party's state central
committee.
This is a very big chance to mobilize and push the California party in a
progressive direction. These caucuses happen only once every two years.
So, please mark your calendar -- and mobilize to get out the vote! Every
progressive who's a registered Democrat can simply show up and cast a ballot
for up to 12 candidates.
You can find the exact date, time, and meeting location of the caucus in
your Assembly District here:
> http://www.cadem.org/resources/assembly_district_meetings
And the final list of candidates in your district is posted here:
> http://www.kintera.org/site/c.jrLZK2PyHmF/b.6390527/k.3FC/2011_ADEM_Candidates.htm
Progressive slates for many Assembly Districts -- put together by PDA, the
state party's Progressive Caucus and allies -- are posted at
www.progressiveslate.org. (Other names will be added in the days ahead.)
> http://www.progressiveslate.citymax.com/page/page/4118756.htm
When you arrive at the caucus site, look for the "Healthcare Not Warfare"
signs, where you'll find a PDA organizer with printed material on
recommended progressive candidates.
This is a huge step to build a vigorous, powerful and transformational
progressive coalition here in California. We're counting on each other to
make it happen in a big way!=
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